Unattended Baggage

Kevin Mutch Interview

2011-12-22T14:14:00.003-05:00

I have an in-depth interview with the cartoonist (Fantastic Life) and publisher (Blurred Books) Kevin Mutch up at Graphic Eye. Please check it out.

Why I Didn't Contribute to the Hooded Utilitarian's Best Comics Poll

2011-09-15T08:55:00.002-05:00

I'm sure everyone knows this by now, but just in case, the Hooded Utilitarian recently conducted an international survey of comics critics and creators regarding "the best comics." Each contributor was invited to submit a list of the 10 best comics in their opinion. Although I have been an active (more or less) blogger and writer in the industry for the last eight years, I did not participate.

Why, you ask?

1. Laziness. I did intend to, but just kept putting it off, mainly due to my...

2. Other responsibilities. For the past several months, I was immersed in the home stretch with Shelf Life (not to mention work, parenting, etc.), and had virtually no extra time to focus on reading or blogging.

3. I also struggle with these sorts of exercises. It's not so much that I have a distaste for lists like this, but it's more that I simply have not read enough classic comic strips to feel like I have a valid perspective on the entire medium (not that that stopped any of the other 100+ contributors). If they had asked for best comics since the '80s, I could easily have come up with a list. Ok, maybe not easily.

Despite my efforts to read as many of the classics as I can, I still have some serious gaps in my reading that I hope to eventually address. For example, I have never read much Krazy Kat, Popeye or Terry and the Pirates (though I did recently read Buz Sawyer and Captain Easy thanks to Fantagraphics' beautiful reprints). Even my exposure to Peanuts is sporadic, though the series and characters are so ubiquitous I've certainly read a fair amount. I have also never read much Gary Panter and only recently started getting into Jim Woodring. And, much to my shame, I have never read any of Kirby's Fourth World saga or Dave Sim's Cerebus.

4. The exercise also seemed flawed to me. The editors claimed to want to flesh out the consensus "best" comics but really succeeded in capturing the most popular comics. This means their list is as much a function of marketing and reputation as it is about the underlying quality of the works (although I cannot argue that the final list are all deserving selections). I don't know if that distinction really matters though; I realize it's splitting hairs, but it kind of undermines the basic premise of a "best comics" list.

5. I also feel like this was more or less a duplication of the Comics Journal's prior effort. Sure, the results are different, as are the contributors, but I'm pretty sure all of the final selections were also on that list, though in a different order. Of course, the Journal's list came out in 1999, so one could make the case that a new list was needed, but in comparing the two, I think the Journal's list seems more broadly considered and academic in nature.

6. Rightly or wrongly, I still have a general distaste for the Hooded Utilitarian, despite the many friends and writers I respect who have contributed there. It's certainly a prolific site, which generates a lot of interesting discussion, but my experiences, which are admittedly limited, have been that the writers are sometimes ill-informed, provocative and argumentative. I apologize if that seems overly judgmental on my part, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor in my decision.

However, I freely admit that the resulting list and write-ups were far better than I expected, and in that sense, I wish I had participated. Robert Stanley Martin and Noah Berlatsky deserve credit for their efforts.

But in hindsight, these are all lame excuses and I should have just sent in a list. For what it's worth, if I had participated, this would have been my list:

1. Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez

2. Locas by Jaime Hernandez

3. Acme Novelty Library/Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware

4. Amazing Spider-Man #1-38 by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

5. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

6. The Far Side by Gary Larson,

7. Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay

8. Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

9. American Splendor by Harvey Pekar, etc.

10. Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

Of course, this excludes other worthwhile choices such as:

11. Fantastic Four by Lee & Kirby,

12. Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary by Justin Green

13. Swamp Thing by Moore, Bissette, Totleben, Veitch, Alcala and others,

14. Palestine by Joe Sacco,

15. Eightball by Daniel Clowes

16. Buddha by Osamu Tezuka

17. Peanuts by Charles Schulz

18. Animal Man #1-26 by Grant Morrison, etc.

19. Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Waterson

20. Hate by Peter Bagge

21. Mr. Natural/Zap Comix by R. Crumb, etc.

22. Palookaville by Seth,

23. From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell,

24. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry,

25. Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

26. Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner

27. You'll Never Know v1 & 2 by Carol Tyler

28. Batman: Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

29. Hey, Wait! by Jason

30. EC stories by Feldstein, Krigstein, Kurtzman, Wood, Williamson, Craig and Davis.

The honorable mentions could go on forever, but you get the idea.

REPOST: My 9/11 Story

2011-09-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

Memorial in Union Square, 9/14/01

"It is hoped that an 'optimism' for our future
may flow from the lesson learned from our 'tragic' past."

-- Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

For several reasons, I’ve never been able to sit down and write about my own experiences on 9/11 - partly because it was such a painful day, but moreso because I just felt that it wasn’t necessary. Everyone has written about 9/11. I just reviewed four volumes of 9/11-inspired comics and not a day goes by where some television channel or newspaper doesn't mention 9/11. Still five years later, terrorism dominates the political discussion in this country. So when I decided to finally sit down and write about my own experiences, I kept asking myself: do I really have anything new to offer? I didn’t lose anyone close to me, nor had I suffered other than the shock of simply being so close to the actual events.

I also felt like anything I would have written back then would have come off as an angry rant, rather than a coherent and thoughtful piece. For a long time, perhaps several years, I was furious. Furious at the utter senselessness of the act itself, and the terrorists who believed so strongly they were making a difference that they sacrificed their own lives for it. Furious at the hopelessness (not to mention cluelessness) of our government and it’s ill-conceived retaliations against Afghanistan and Iraq. Furious at the bloodthirsty bigots in this country who ignorantly targeted anybody they labeled as a foreigner, as if all immigrants were radical Muslim extremists. Furious at the mindless, knee-jerk patriotism that ran rampant throughout this country. Furious at the sensationalistic, opportunistic media who recycled footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing about every five minutes, ensuring that we remain in a permanent state of shock and horror. And I was furious because I knew that, on some level, the terrorists had succeeded in scaring us, and “filling our country with fear.”

But now, five years later, it feels like the right time to finally chronicle not only what happened to Rachel and I that day, and the week that followed, but also to try to make sense of it all, to understand what it all meant. I don’t know that I’ll be able to offer any new and astounding revelations that haven’t already been written by far better writers than me, but I will, at the very least, preserve the memories of my experiences.

The morning of 9/11, Rachel and I were on our way to meet a real estate agent about an apartment in the Lower East Side. We had only arrived in New York City two days before (from London, where we had lived for the last three years), and recently engaged, we were excited to start a new chapter in our lives together.

When the first plane hit, we were on the downtown 6 train, between Union Square and Astor Place. The subway trains stopped for a long time, and having only been in New York City for two days, I grew very impatient, cursing under my breath. The only announcement that was made was “due to an incident at the World Trade Center all trains are being held momentarily. We apologize for the unavoidable delay.” Finally, after about 10 minutes, the train pulled out of the tunnel and into the Astor Place station. The conductor announced that all train service was suspended, and we figured, since it was a nice day, we would just walk the rest of the way.

The second we got up to street level, we could sense something was wrong. Even without any knowledge of the City (I had only been in NYC one other time) there was an uneasy feeling, a strange sort of quiet that you never see in NY. The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be a lot of people walking uptown, and literally nobody, except us, walking downtown. the city was also eerily quiet. I remember even commenting to Rachel that there were no cars or taxis on the road. The usual chorus of car horns, sirens and motors was silenced. There were several city buses and taxis pulled over on the side of the road. Still, we didn’t really think much of it until I looked up and saw the huge plume of smoke streaked across the morning skyline.

For a second we stopped. Frozen and silent, we just stared at the charcoal cloud streaked across the blue canvas. Because of the other buildings, we couldn't tell which building was on fire.

At this point, we were about 3-4 blocks from our appointment, though it was already a half hour past the time we were supposed to meet. As we rounded the corner on 1st Street, near the Bowery, I noticed a pay phone with a line of about 15-20 people queued up to use it. Again I thought to myself how unusual that was in the age of cell phones, but had not yet processed the events that were literally happening right before my eyes.

Finally, as we came to the intersection of Great Jones St. and Broadway, we got our first glimpse of the Towers, at this point still standing. Being unfamiliar with New York, we still didn't immediately realize this was the World Trade Center, though it was clear that the building we could see (which turned out to be the South Tower), was on fire. For the first time we both became aware of the sirens swirling all around us from all directions.

Finally, anxious, but still relatively calm, I stopped a woman on the street. She was perhaps in her late thirties, white, carrying a pair of high-heeled shoes in her hand and walking barefoot uptown. She was frantically punching at her cell phone keypad, trying to get it to work. “What’s going on?” I asked, and her panicked, hurried voice was unnerving. “Planes crashed into the World Trade Center.”

I looked at Rachel, and didn’t say anything. I honestly didn't believe her, but I was too stunned to know how to respond. There was, and still is, a Tower Records on the corner and so we decided to try to find a TV and see what was really going on, but before we could move, the tower collapsed.

I will never forget the collective gasp of horror, uttered in unison by the thousands of terrified New Yorkers who shared that particular intersection with us. It was a sound like the first breath after being punched in the stomach, amplified through stadium speakers. It was as deafening and terrifying a sound as I’ve ever heard. Stunned disbelief and silence followed as we watched the famous antenna on the roof tilt to the left, and, as we have all seen thousands of time in the now infamous footage, the tower disappeared behind the skyline.

I felt numb, tiny, insignificant, scared, angry, confused and disgusted all at once. I was overwhelmed with emotions I couldn’t even put into words. Rachel was visibly upset, on the verge of tears, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Holding hands, we went into the Tower Records and watched the television screen in the entrance, huddled with dozens of other frightened New Yorkers.

Several images linger from that store. I remember a woman, an employee I think, was so overcome with grief she was shrieking on the second floor balcony looking down at us, and might have fallen over if not for her co-worker who pulled her back. The footage, even as we watched it, seemed unbelievable. Had we really just witnessed, with our own eyes, the deaths of thousands of people? How do you even begin to process something like that? I shivered, and pulled Rachel close to me. I wanted to cry but, as always, tears seemed trapped behind my eyes. I whispered "I love you" and we hugged for what seemed like ten minutes, scared, but grateful to be together. I remember Rachel saying “this is going to change everything.” We stayed in the store until we could no longer take it, overcome with a emotions that ranged from anger to shock to grief to confusion to disbelief to nausea. Finally, we realized we had to get home. We were about 70 blocks (3.5 miles) from our hotel, and there was no way to get back but to walk, so we joined the miserable parade uptown.

The walk was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Everywhere, people were crying, or staring in disbelief. Every time we passed a payphone, we overheard snippets of panicked conversations. Rachel had brought with her one of those cheap, disposable cameras (we had planned to see a site, perhaps even the WTC later that day) and was taking pictures as we went.
We walked up Broadway, and at one point, we stopped in a Radio Shack to see if we could catch a news update. The three employees were huddled in the corner near a tiny, handheld black and white TV. Nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention to the store. As I stood there, still in shock, I saw a man, black, about 30, possibly homeless, dressed in a long black trenchcoat, walk in and steal several packs of batteries. I remember feeling an overwhelming and very physical disgust at the complete lack of sensitivity for the magnitude of what was going on, but I was too shocked to mention it to the employees. What’s worse is that the man knew I saw him, and as he walked out, he made eye contact almost daring me to do anything about it.

We walked a little further until we got Macy’s on 34th Street and decided to stop and use the bathrooms. This was also a surreal experience. I was horrified to see that people (albeit very few) were still shopping, as if nothing had happened. Didn’t they know? How could they go about their mundane consuming in the face of such shocking tragedy? After ten or fifteen very frustrating minutes of trying to find the bathrooms in that maze of departments, we finally found them in the basement and, of course, there was a long line. While we were standing there, a young, black teenager, with a handheld radio, came running out of the bathroom and announced that not only had another plane crashed into the White House, but that there were 3 more planes missing. Whether he had actually received this information from somewhere, or just made it up, I’ll never know, but he set off a whole new panic among the people waiting in line. It wasn’t until several hours later that we learned that this wasn’t true, and that such rumors were rampant all over the city, but it still freaked us out. I was grateful to finally get out of there and back on the street.

Walking through Times Square was also a surreal experience. Thousands of people stood in the streets mesmerized by the ceaseless news wires wrapping around the buildings with the latest updates. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before, but until that moment, I hadn’t thought to try to call my family. I had only purchased my cell phone the day before, so no one had my number and I didn’t have any phone numbers programmed in yet, but I figured if I could get in touch with my parents, they would tell everyone we were OK. Of course, I tried about thirty or forty times with no luck. There was a signal, but the calls just weren’t going through. We kept walking and after about an hour of trying continually, I got through to my mom just long enough to have this conversation:

“Hello.”

“Hi mom, it’s me.”

“Are you ok?”

“We’re fine, we just…” and then the line dropped. But it was enough for her. She called Rachel’s parents and let them know we were ok.

We finally made it back to the hotel around 2:00, and when we walked into the lobby, there were hotel security guards everywhere. Apparently as soon as the attacks happened, there was a rush on the hotel and people stranded in the city bought up all the rooms. The hotel lobby was completely overrun and the guards were only letting people in with a room key. Thankfully we had the room reserved for three more nights, or I’m not sure where we would have stayed. We went up to the room and like the rest of the world, watched the news. We didn’t know what else to do.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have doubts about staying in New York after that. I started thinking about moving to other, safer cities, but in the end, we knew that this kind of thing could happen anywhere (remember Oklahoma City?) and that we couldn’t let the terrorists scare us into living our lives in fear. Besides, I had a job I was excited about.

That night, we walked up to visit one of my best friends who lives on the Upper West Side. He worked in the building literally right across the street from the World Trade Center and we were really worried about him. When we got there, his roommate was there, and let us in, but he was not back yet. We decided to hang out and wait and finally, he showed up, as visibly shaken and upset as I've ever seen him. He had arrived at work just after the planes hit, only to discover that his building was being evacuated, and he had to turn right around and walk home. He showed us a scorched business card of a woman who worked at American Express – 99th Floor of the North Tower, which had literally fallen from the sky onto his head. Though we all felt strange about it, we decided we had to eat, so we went out to dinner at a local restaurant, which strangely was packed. Of course, everyone was talking about the attacks, and there was a large screen TV which was playing the news. There was a lot of emotion in that restaurant and I remember feeling very uncomfortable there, though after such a long walk, we were all starving.

The rest of the week was a whirlwind. I remember the stench of smoke and decay that enveloped the island for days. I remember thinking what a great leader Mayor Guiliani was. I remember attending a very moving candlelight vigil in Union Square that was literally packed with thousands of people, many screaming for retaliation, other praying and singing for peace. I remember the thousands upon thousands of missing person flyers that blanketed the city for weeks, and how painful it was to see them and think of the poor people waiting on the other end of the phone for a call that would never come. I remember Rachel and I going to the Red Cross blood center the following morning only to find a crowd of thousands waiting in line. Most were turned away as the Red Cross simply couldn’t process that many people. I remember getting e-mails of concern from people I had not spoken to since high school, asking if I was ok, and wondering how they even knew we were in New York.

It’s incredible to me that it’s been five years already since all of this happened. These memories are still so powerfully vivid. I still have dreams about that antenna falling over and still to this day, I wake up wondering where such hatred comes from.

I wonder a lot of other things, too. I wonder if there will be another terrorist attack in New York, and if the City could recover from a major attack in its subway system. I wonder if the Towers will, or should, ever be rebuilt. I wonder if the terrorists who organized the 9/11 attacks feel like they accomplished anything. I wonder if the world is a better, safer place now, or if we’re simply more scared and isolated than ever. I wonder if our government could have done something to prevent this, or if the cost of freedom is that we’ll always be vulnerable. I wonder if all our heightened security measures and amber alerts really do any good, or if they just remind people that our lives could end at any second. I wonder if people outside New York really get what happened, and how it transformed this city, or if it was just some really good TV show to them. I wonder if the families who lost loved ones have been able to come to terms at all, or if grief like that never heals.

Still today, five years later, I have no answers.

I wonder if I ever will.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones

2011-05-19T21:17:00.009-05:00

I'm sure by now you've heard that the artist Jeffrey Jones passed away today. I have always been fascinated by Jones' art ever since discovering his one-shot, Ravens and Rainbows, from Pacific Comics back in my junior high school days. I confess I barely kept up with Jones' work outside of comics, and am hardly the most knowledgeable or devoted fan, but I felt genuinely sad to hear of her death, as if I'd just heard that an old childhood friend I hadn't seen in two decades had died.

At any rate, I thought this page from a longer interview with Jones that ran in the February 1981 issue of Heavy Metal was worth sharing. The quote in particular strikes me as a fitting memory of the artist's daring individuality, and the page gives a great contrast of her versatility and willingness to challenge herself. And in the off chance you haven't seen it, Tom Spurgeon's detailed obituary of Jones is definitely worth checking out.

Tokyo, A Homecoming

2011-04-26T08:59:00.008-05:00

If you haven't seen Tokyo, A Homecoming, a four-page story about one man's return to Japan after the recent earthquake and tsunami, you should definitely check it out.

A couple things struck me about this mini-graphic novel (it's more of a graphic article, really), which was written by Joe McCunney and illustrated by The Fates Crew. First was the timeliness of it. The tsunami occurred on March 11 and this feature was printed in the April 25 issue of New York Magazine, less than two months after the incident. While first person reportage like this is nothing new in comics (Joe Sacco and Josh Neufeld come immediately to mind), the timeliness of this comic is something new (at least to me). The subject is still fresh enough in people's minds to make this more relevant and emotionally engaging than a full graphic novel several years removed from the tragedy. The trade-off, of course, is length, but in this case, the shortness also works to its advantage. The article doesn't attempt to explore the incident from all angles, or put it in a broader historical context. It's simply a first person account of the situation as it stands today.

The other thing that struck me was the artwork's combination of Eastern and Western styles. Again this is nothing particularly new, but the seamless blending of manga figures and effects with more American-influenced settings and digital coloring, enhanced the outsider's perspective of the story, which focuses on a Japanese-American returning home for the first time since the tragedy.

Anyway, I personally would love to see more examples of the comics medium used in this kind of reportage capacity, and hope that more magazines embrace this format.

Music Review The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?

2011-04-22T13:04:00.005-05:00

A few months ago, I started participating in a private CD of the month club with a group of friends. Basically, the idea is that we each write a review of the CD to each other on an email list. These are pretty informal, but I thought, in the interest of keeping my blogging momentum up, I'd share a few here on Unattended Baggage. It's worth noting that of the six guys who participate in this group, I'm the only one who doesn't live in the UK. Thus, a lot of the music is British, although it's pretty much anything goes. This was my review of The Vaccines' What Did You Expect from the Vaccines:

This was my first exposure to the Vaccines and my first impression was they sound just like Coldplay. This was based on about 15 seconds of “All in White,” but still. Of course, this is only one of their many influences once you get into the album. On second and third listens, the album reminds me a lot of the high energy ‘80s punk albums like the Ramones, or even the more recent Strokes album. Lots of short, punchy songs to get you amped up and dancing, without dragging things out.

Wreckin Bar – Good opener, although it’s a blatant swipe of early punk songs. Still, these guys do justice to the old bands they’re imitating. The song is a rollicking sing-along, mosh pit power pop. Nothing original, but well-crafted and fun.

If You Wanna – Very catchy song, good guitar hook with what sounds like a synthesizer/keyboard? Definitely a highlight.

A Lack of Understanding – decent song, not a standout. This song also really sounds like a Coldplay track to me.

Blow It Up – another solid song, with great energy and a good hook.

Wetsuit – I really like the crashing cymbals in the chorus of this song, which is also probably the best showcase for the singer’s voice on the album. He sounds pretty good, although his voice doesn’t blow me out of the water.

Norgaard – This is another old school punk song, with its speedy, looping guitar chords, fast-paced drums and high energy. Interesting how the background singers bring in a ‘60s doo-wop beach sound. A weird touch, but it works. Great song!

Post-Break Up Sex – Anther song reminiscent of the Ramones. I can hear shades of "The KKK Took My Baby Away" in the opening minute or so. I love this song, another standout and the best lyrics (and title!) on the album.

Under Your Thumb – Would have preferred a Stones cover of "Under MY Thumb," but this song’s not bad, although a little too whiny and bland compared to other tracks.

All in White – This was the song that immediately made me think of Coldplay, and it’s not just that the singer sounds like Chris Martin; the whole song has a Coldplay vibe. That said, it’s still a pretty good song. I can imagine this being the big breakout radio hit from the album, although it’s not my personal favorite. It has that mass appeal style, though. Very consumer-friendly.

Wolf Pack – Not much to say about this one. OK song, but not my favorite.

Family Friend – I also get a Coldplay vibe from this song. Maybe it’s the slow, drawn out reverberating guitar chords and casual drumbeat. The song definitely builds toward a dramatic climax and I can imagine this as a good concert finale, with the band jamming for several minutes (a la MC5’s "Kick Out the Jams") before leaving the stage to cheering crowds. It would have been a solid closer for a solid album, except for the...

Hidden Track – I personally find hidden tracks kind of tired by this point. Just add the song to the album or don’t, you know? The quiet piano ballad, which sounds almost like a done-in-one studio demo, is kind of an outlier from the rest of the album, which I guess is why it was buried. It’s not bad but I definitely don’t think it adds anything to the album and probably should have been cut.

So, I guess my feeling about this album is that it’s well above average, with some truly excellent rock songs, but there’s nothing particularly original or interesting that distinguishes The Vaccines from several other bands. The best part of this album is that the songs are short. I like these guys, but their lack of originality keeps me from calling the album a classic. Still, I’d rate it 8/10.

Saturday Morning Comics Ramble

2011-04-15T15:20:00.033-05:00

I haven't done one of these in a while but in the interest of blogging more, here goes nothing...

* I had lots of fun at MoCCA last Saturday, although I have this nagging feeling that I missed out on a lot. I was only able to be there for 5 hours, which seems like a lot, but I missed some good books and a few people I had hoped to catch up with. Also, I wasn't able to get to any panels, although this is nothing new. It's always a little disconcerting seeing so many cartoonists huddled together under one roof, a reminder of how the alternative side of comics is no longer an exclusive club of insiders. I love all the creativity surrounding the medium, and certainly there is a wealth of interesting new voices and artists every year, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the old days a little.

* On the plus side, I had a great time chatting with fellow writers Derik Badman, Matthias Wivel, Tim Callahan and especially Gary Groth. I also picked up a few interesting books, including Liar's Kiss (the slick new crime noir from Top Shelf), Vietnamerica by GB Tran (family memoir which looks outstanding!), Fart Party vol. 1 by Julia Wertz (I know this is not new, but after reading and loving Drinking at the Movies, several people I trust encouraged me to check this out), Crickets #3, Reich #8, Pood #3, Gabrielle Bell's new Diary mini, Lisa Hanawalt's I Want You #2, and a few other books that I can't recall off the top of my head. I also took a chance on an over-sized art book called Carrier Pigeon which labelled itself as a book of "illustrated fiction." There's no sequential art per se, but the graphic design and production values are incredible, and the eclectic illustrations are definitely striking.

* I did attend the Comics Journal panel discussion at the Strand on Friday night, which was actually really fascinating. I especially enjoyed hearing Gary Groth's reflections on interviewing Gil Kane and Burne Hogarth, two giant figures in the early Comics Journal years. Kim Dietch was also there to offer an artist's perspective on the Journal over the years, which I thought was a very nice touch. It was also exciting to hear that Fantagraphics is working on archiving the entire run of Comics Journals for free on the website. What a resource that will be!

* I was also excited to see the new Comics Journal book (issue #301) which I am proud to say I have an essay in ("The Decade in Comics"). It's a massive brick of a book with an impressive lineup of writers. The design of the book (by Criterion DVD's Eric Skillman) is beautiful.

* I'm eager to read Gary Groth's massive R. Crumb interview and see if he can convince me of the merit of his Genesis adaptation. My impression of it at this point is that it's beautifully illustrated (quite likely the best work in Crumb's illustrious career from a strictly aesthetic point of view), but that the project itself is not only flawed, but frustratingly devoid of purpose or critical thought. That being said, I am very open and curious to other points of view on the subject.

* As much fun as MoCCA was, I have to admit that I may have enjoyed Jim Hanley's Universe's incredible back issue sale even more (this was on the same Sunday). They apparently do this periodically, although this was my first time, but essentially, to clear out back stock, they allow you to fill up a box for $20 (the boxes typically hold about 150-200 floppies). They basically set up a room in the basement with dozens of long boxes which are completely unsorted and let people go at it. For the first hour it was like a feeding frenzy as people practically climbed over each other to scour for treasures. Everyone was pretty nice though, and eventually the crowd thinned out until only us die-hards remained. I was there for almost 5 hours! In the end, I walked with almost 200 back issues for a measly $30, including all kinds of great stuff, mostly obscure alternatives from the '80s and '90s. Some highlights include six issues of Graphic Story Monthly, Jim Blanchard's Cruel World #1, lots of Eclipse books, several Harrier Comics by Phil Elliott (a very underrated artist), three issues of Star Reach's Quack!, some random issues of Andrew Vacchs' Hard Looks and Ms. Tree, etc. Despite my wife's faint protests, I'm very much looking forward to the next sale.

* I've read a ton of good comics lately, although my time to devote to reviewing/blogging has been severely limited. I do still plan to post a Best of 2010 list (hopefully before 2012!).

* I've been particularly interested in older comics after reading Dan Nadel's Art in Time. I actually have a number of thoughts on that book, although I mostly enjoyed it. I did wish Nadel had chosen a better Glanzman story than Kona, which I thought was far inferior work to his war stories in Combat and also happened to be one of the worst comics scripts I have ever seen. The Harry Lucey crime stories that led off the book were incredible, a very different side of Lucey than most of us Archie fans are used to. Great stuff!

* Anyway, this interest in older comics prompted me to buy the three issue Buried Treasure series from Pure Imagination off eBay. In some ways, this was a similar project to Nadel's Art in Time. The magazine-sized series was compiled by Greg Theakston in the late 80s (apparently a follow-up series was published by Caliber Comics, although I have yet to see it). Theakston's selections were mostly excellent, focusing on classic, hard-to-find Frank Frazetta, Bob Powell, Mort Meskin and Alex Toth stories, among others. The Toth selections are particularly impressive, reproduced in over-sized black and white. In fact, the final issue consists solely of seven vintage Toth stories. Given the new attention Toth is about to get with the two upcoming biographies, this third issue is definitely worth tracking down.

* I also read the first trade of Buffy Season 8 from the library and I don't know, even though it was Joss Whedon I wasn't crazy about it. Maybe Buffy just works better as a TV show, or maybe Georges Jeanty just isn't that great an artist, but I was pretty disappointed. I might still read another volume to see if it gets better, but I'm not excited about it anymore.

* On the other hand, is it just me or has the Walking Dead's recent "No Way Out" storyline been awesome? This is literally the only new monthly series I still buy anymore. I've completely lost touch with the Marvel and DC universes.

OK, I guess that's enough for today. Take care out there, folks!

Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness

2011-03-15T13:59:00.003-05:00

Since it's being re-released this week, I thought I'd repost a link to my review of Reinhard Kleist's Johnny Cash that originally ran on the old Comics Journal website. It's not perfect, but still a pretty solid book, definitely worth a good flipping-through.

Secrets of a Mind-Gamer

2011-02-21T10:29:00.014-05:00

If you have a spare 15-20 minutes, I thought this NY Times Magazine article, Secrets of a Mind-Gamer by Joshua Feder, about enhancing memory capacity was fascinating.

Of particular interest to comic fans, was this quote from the article:

"In his essay “First Steps Toward a History of Reading,” Robert Darnton describes a switch from “intensive” to “extensive” reading that occurred as printed books began to proliferate. Until relatively recently, people read “intensively,” Darnton says. “They had only a few books — the Bible, an almanac, a devotional work or two — and they read them over and over again, usually aloud and in groups, so that a narrow range of traditional literature became deeply impressed on their consciousness.” Today we read books “extensively,” often without sustained focus, and with rare exceptions we read each book only once. We value quantity of reading over quality of reading. We have no choice, if we want to keep up with the broader culture."

This, to me, is a perfect description of the conundrum facing the modern comic book geek, particularly those of us motivated to share our thoughts online. What resonated with me in particular is the "extensive" vs. "intensive" comparison. For years, I struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of new releases, rushing review after review to the web in order to be among the first opinion-leaders about which books were worth reading.

However, over the last few years, I have shifted to what Feder would describe as an "intensive" reading of the first volume of Love & Rockets. I have read the series probably a dozen times, and done considerable research as well. It's been a profoundly satisfying endeavor, but very time-consuming as well. I feel like I've gained a much deeper appreciation of the series than almost anyone I've come across (with the exception, perhaps, of Todd Hignite and Charles Hatfield), but as a result, I've also fallen way behind in the treadmill of new releases and online discourse.

But I wonder if the overwhelming amount of "extensive" reading is at the heart of what's underlying the periodic outcry that there's very little quality writing about comics anymore. As Feder implies, by trying rush through new works in order to hit the critical window, much of the quality of criticism has suffered. What we have now are loads of opinion-based criticism, where people with strong narrative voices simply blog about their reactions to whatever they happen to read. This is fine for a certain cursory level of analysis, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of more scholarly, academic, informed readings (of course, I'm thinking of the works which merit such reading, like Theo Ellsworth's Capacity, to cite just one example; obviously the latest issue of Blackest Night would not qualify).

I guess it's just the old trade-off of quantity vs. quality, and of course, it's important to remember that blogging is ultimately more an act of self-definition than a scholarly endeavor, but I think the people who often complain that there is not enough good writing about comics are ultimately reacting to this inevitable shift from "intensive" to "extensive" as the industry has expanded. It's food for thought, anyway.

Barefoot Gen

2011-02-14T21:27:00.028-05:00

In a strange coincidence, both Derik Badman and I happened to have recently read the first four volumes of Keiji Nakazawa's classic '70s manga, Barefoot Gen. While I have tremendous respect for Derik as a writer and friend (he's one of the few fellow comics bloggers I've met in person), I found myself at odds with his assessment of the series, and initially commented on his Facebook status to that effect (he wrote that Gen was "too didactic, too preachy, to the detriment of the story. Also, everyone is a jerk").

More recently, as part of the Manga Moveable Feast, Badman posted a longer article in which he described the reasons for his dislike of Gen. Although I initially resisted, this prompted me to draft a response. Since I had read library copies of Gen, my comments below are drawn from memory; however, this is not significant, as Gen, unlike just about any comic series I've ever read, including Maus, left an indelible impression.

Still, wanting to have more of a rounded perspective before responding, I went back to read Nakazawa's Comics Journal interview (from issue #256 in October 2003). As an unexpected bonus, the same issue also included a detailed think piece on Gen by Japanese comics scholar, Bill Randall.

With that perspective, here are some of my thoughts in response to Derik's criticisms of the series.

1) Badman's biggest complaint is about the series' melodrama. Specifically, he writes:

"This is melodrama. Damn it is melodrama.
And it suffers for it. It’s too much; it’s over the top; it’s ridiculous. Even before the bomb it’s too much with the Japanese berating Gen and his family for being “traitors” because their father speaks out against the war. Apparently he is the only one, as he seems to have no sympathizers. He is the lone protester, victim exceptionalism. By the time the bomb hits it’s already too much. Over said, over shown, and over played. Get me out of here."

Now, I don't disagree that the story is melodramatic, but unlike Badman, it didn't bother me at all. Nor did it detract from the story's overall effectiveness. Rather, I agree with Randall, who wrote:

"(Gen) never shies from melodrama and never elicits effects so self-consciously 'powerful' as to spoil the internal consistency of the work. The melodrama emerges naturally from Gen and his life, the deaths of his loved ones and his struggle to survive."

In other words, the story's melodrama was an artistic choice on Nakazawa's part, but that doesn't mean it undermines the story's message at all. In fact, I think the fact that Nakazawa recounts his memory of the events with some degree of melodrama makes the story more universal; it engages the reader and seers itself into their memory. It's hard to imagine anyone who reads these first four volumes forgetting the character of Gen. His sheer tenacity, positivity in the face of despair and spirit to survive is unforgettable, even if it's hammered home.

Regarding the fact that Gen's father was the only outspoken opponent of the war, Nakazawa recalled in the interview how speaking out of against the Japanese empire was dangerous. Unlike the United States, freedom of speech was not a right enjoyed by the Japanese citizens, particularly at the height of the war. In fact, Nakazawa's father was arrested and imprisoned for his political beliefs when Keiji was in first grade. "They took my father away and put him in jail for a year and a half. When I asked where he'd gone, my mother lied and said he'd been drafted into the Army. They held him in the Hiroshima Prefectural Prison. Apparently, they tortured him."

Not only was his father the only person brave (or stupid) enough to speak out against the war, he was also likely the only adult that would speak of politics at all around a seven-year-old, so I don't think the portrayal is false. Rather, as I mentioned in my original comment on Badman's Facebook status, Nakazawa is being faithful to his memory, and telling the story from his childish perspective. Of course there were others against the war, but it's very unlikely a seven-year-old would have encountered them. This portrayal may still feel unbalanced, but I hope I have made clear the mitigating factors for this.

2. Derik's other issue with the series is that it seems overly fictionalized and the secondary characters seem one-dimensional. Again, he writes:

"The only decent person is the Korean neighbor. Korean’s were conquered and enslaved by the Japanese. The Korean neighbor is the one nice guy, despite how horrible he has been treated, he’s nice to Gen and his family. But not any of the Japanese. No one else is nice. God, was Nakazawa this pessimistic about his countrymen? Could it really have been that horrible? I don’t know, but it doesn’t work as fiction. This isn’t reportage or autobiography. It is fictionalized. And as fiction it doesn’t work. It overburdens. It paints with so broad a brush."

I think Badman's assessment is overly harsh here. The TCJ interview was particularly enlightening in understanding what specific aspects of Barefoot Gen are actually fictionalized, and after reading it, it's clear that, while some parts are indeed embellished, the vast majority of the story, and particularly all of the events related to Gen and his mother, are based directly on Nakazawa's own experiences.

After a lengthy passage in the interview in which Nakazawa describes his own memories of August 6, 1945, it's clear that Gen's story of the immediate aftermath is nearly identical to the artist's. Nakazawa even confirms that "I definitely based it on my own experiences growing up."

However, Badman's chief issue seems to be with some of the secondary characters outside of Gen's immediate family. For example, after the bomb, Gen and his mother, with their newborn baby girl, travel to Eba to stay with friends. While they were there, they were treated horribly, subjected to little sympathy and much scorn by their unwelcoming hosts. Interviewer Alex Gleason pressed Nakazawa to commit to what extent his experiences were identical to those in the book. They were "exactly as I wrote about it Gen," he replied. "They let us stay in a storeroom they had, but they were really nasty to us." Of course, nobody can know definitively how much embellishing took place (certainly some), but we have to take Nakazawa at his word that this plotline was based on his own experiences.

Badman is correct that other aspects of the story are more fictionalized, and perhaps these are somewhat flawed in their portrayal (it's more debatable, at any rate). For example Gleason asked Nakazawa about the subplot regarding Seiji, the young painter who lost the use of his hands in the bombing, and was ostracized by his family, only to be inspired to learn to paint using his teeth after meeting Gen.

"It didn't happen to me, but it was a combination of true stories I heard and things that happened in my neighborhood. For example, there really was a young A-bomb victim who taught herself to paint with her teeth. And Seiji's household, which was treated like a pariah by the neighbors, is modeled after a house we kids called the haunted house because a badly injured victim lived there."

Thus, Nakazawa admits that he took liberties in his portrayal of Seiji, yet although the execution may have been somewhat heavy-handed, his intentions were nonetheless pure:

"I wanted to tell the story of the artist to show how people can overcome the greatest adversity. If you can't use your hands, use your teeth. As I wrote at the beginning of Gen, the real theme of the story is symbolized by wheat, which springs back no matter how many times it's trampled."

Finally, one last point is worth considering. In order to get this series published, Nakazawa had to make concessions. In the manga market of the '50s and '60s, there was little to no support for an adult-targeted series about the A-bomb. Not only had Japan, as a society, yet to fully come to terms with the bombing (Nakazawa described how people never spoke of the incident publicly in Tokyo in those days), but, in order to get published, he had to use the manga anthologies geared toward children. Even Tezuka had yet to publish his more mature works at this point. Thus, it's important to see this work in its historical perspective when judging it. Barefoot Gen may not be the fully mature work that we're used to seeing in the alternative comics industry of 2011, but it was virtually unprecedented in its day.

Ultimately, as I conveyed to Derik initially, I don't think his complaints about the series are all that important when compared to the real power of the work - its seering depictions of the horrors of the bomb. After reading these volumes, what will undoubtedly linger forever in my memory are the images of victims covered in glass, or with sheets of melted skin hanging from their bodies; the shocking depictions of starving orphans scavenging for food, or digging in the rubble for their loved one's bones. These meticulously rendered images are what makes Barefoot Gen a masterpiece worth reading. As Spiegelman pointed out in his Introduction, "this vivid and harrowing story will burn a radioactive crater in your memory that will never let you forget it."

Love & Rockets Postcards

2011-02-13T22:44:00.013-05:00

I recently acquired this awesome set of 10 L&R postcards off Ebay, and thought they might be of interest to the adoring masses. The set is from 1990, and to my knowledge, most of these have never been reprinted (though the one of Jaime's with Maggie and Ray was released as a limited edition color print back in the early 90s). Anyway, enjoy...

Music Review: The Streets: A Grand Don't Come For Free

2011-02-04T11:40:00.014-05:00

I feel like it takes three or four focused listens for me to get my head around each of these albums, which means 3-4 hours a week, which is not easy to find. That being said, I think it’s important because, with this album, my impression changed drastically from first to third listens. Initially, I was turned off by the relatively atonal talking instead of singing style, and found the lyrics a little contrived and pretentious. It felt like lame hipster storytelling with minimal musical accompaniment, rather than a cohesive album. To be honest, I didn’t care for it that much, and wasn’t in a hurry to go back to it. But, by the third listen, my view of the album had completely changed. It’s actually quite a good CD.

The lyrics are what makes the album. Each song is a well-written little vignette – maybe they all fit together into a larger story (one Amazon reviewer said it was “a day in the life of Mike Skinner”), but I confess, right now, I don’t see that level of cohesiveness. But there’s definitely some interesting lyrics here, especially when compared to the relatively generic love/relationship/breakup songs that most songwriters tend to churn out.

The music is also much better than I first realized. Yes, there’s talking, but it’s rhythmic, and more importantly, it’s always complemented in some clever way, either with hooks sung by background singers, a drumbeat, a string accompaniment, etc. It’s a style that I thought really worked well.

It Was Supposed to Be So Easy – Love the horns in the background. Lyrics are kinda funny, too.

Could Well Be In – Piano/drums is a good background current, but I really love the chorus singers.

Not Addicted – Decent song, not much else to say.

Blinded By the Lights – I love this song’s lyrics, a great recreation of the experience of clubbing on ecstasy, or some other drug. Really captures the manic paranoia of being stranded in the crowd.

Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way – Just when I said there were no cheesy love songs, this one proves me wrong. But it’s a little more personal, a little different perspective than the typical love song, focusing more on the isolation and yearning when lovers are apart.

Get Out of My House – This is a cool song, a fight between lovers from both sides of the argument. It could almost be converted into a one-act stage scene. This is a great showcase for Skinner as a writer, but the song lacks some of the musical flourishes that highlight other songs. Still, it’s fun to listen to, even if not to sing along with.

Fit But You Know It – This is a hilarious song about conceited women, and the men they reject. One of the album’s highlights.

Such a Twat – Self-deprecating lyrics are ok, but the song kind of drones on.

What Is He Thinking? – This has a menacing musical tone, low, percussive horns and chanted lyrics, it almost feels like a spooky horror song. The multiple singers are a good touch.

Dry Your Eyes – Hey, Skinner has a sensitive side as well. His ability to control mood from song to song makes me think he should do movie soundtracks. This is probably my favorite song on the album, a confessional with a beautiful refrain.

Empty Cans – Feel the same way about this song as ‘Such a Twat.’ Ok, but not my favorite.

This one is definitely going to stay in my rotation for a while.

I’m giving it a 9/10.

True Story

2011-02-02T09:24:00.011-05:00

So, I'm on a packed F train coming into the city this morning, and a woman, maybe 60 years old, who is unfortunately smashed right up against me, sees me reading Fantastic Four #20 on my Android phone. Specifically, I'm zoomed right in on the panel above.

She looks at it over my shoulder, and says to me, "Is that Cubist?"

I smiled at her politely and said "no," slightly embarrassed, and hoping not to have to admit that it's actually just a kid's comic from the '60s.

But, like the old-school New Yorker that she is, she's persistent, and asks to see the image again. So I hold it up for her and she stares at it for a good 15 seconds.

Finally, she concludes, "Well, it looks like Picasso to me."

To which I replied, "No, it's Jack Kirby. He's far better."

Youth Reclamation Project - Part 2

2011-01-29T18:51:00.018-05:00

OK, here we go. Another self-indulgent trip down memory lane.

This issue, from June 1981, was apparently the train issue, as is obvious by the excellent scratchboard steam engine on the front cover by Leonard Everett Fisher.

This beautiful two-page spread is actually a standalone feature, condensing the entire fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears into a single, stunning image. The idea, apparently, was to have kids tell their own stories by "reading the picture," a clever idea to both engage the young imagination and also get kids to fully immerse themselves in the detailed drawing. The illustration is by Hilary Knight (creator of the Eloise books). Unfortunately, the far right-hand side was slightly truncated by my scanner, but you get the idea.

Gail Owens provided these tight pencil drawings as spot illustrations for Eve Bunting's tale, "The Robot Birthday." From the robot design, to the careful staging of the seven children, this is a great composition.

Here's another great scratchboard drawing by Leonard Everett Fisher from the feature article on the history of railroads in the United States.

This rendering of the "Twentieth Century Limited" is one of many photo-researched train reproductions by Joe Servello, from an article on the history of various train models over the years.

This beautiful collage drawing of a train is by the husband and wife team of Leo and Diane Dillon. Having won every major children's book award, this duo was also featured in a 1981 high-end art book by occasional comics publisher, Byron Priess.

Here's another fine illustration by George Armstrong, who did the alien drawing in my last post. There's something about the texture of Armstrong's work that I find appealing.

This heavily cross-hatched portrait of the neighborhood baseball legend, posed with his trusty mop handle bat, is by Mike Eagle.

Glen Rounds provided a series of loose sketches, mostly of farm animals, for Jim Aylesworth's story, "Hush Up!" Rounds, who died in 2002, was best known for the series of "Whitey" books back in the 1940s, though personally I never read any of them.

Finally, this one-page comic strip by Quentin Blake and John Yeoman was typical of the kind of gag comics featured in Cricket. As a kid, I didn't particularly care for Blake's minimalist, jittery style, with the rushed hand lettering, but as an adult, I can appreciate the technique and rendering skill more fully.

58 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

2011-01-27T18:16:00.042-05:00

OK, I know I should be working on my Best of 2010 list, which is forthcoming (I still have 5 or so books left to read), but this was a lot more fun...

Supposedly "the definitive" book about Alan Moore, by Strangehaven's Gary Spencer Millidge.
The first volume of this series was a well above average horror book, so I'm likely to check this one out. Though it seems like Stephen King is no longer involved, so we'll see what happens.

New stuff (or just new in English?) from the great Lewis Trondheim.

First of two new Tardi translations from Fantagraphics.

New David B. book.

Bat Boy is fun, but not my favorite work from Peter Bagge. Still, I'll probably check this out (assuming its not all reprints from the Hate Annuals).

I held off buying the singles in anticipation of this collection. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the overwhelming favorite for book of the year in 2011.

This should be great. Marti's an underrated artist, I think. I've read some of these stories in the old '80s Catalan Communications collection, and also liked Marti's Ignatz book.
New Dave McKean GN! Or art book! Or some sort of mixed-media hybrid.

I have an article in this one.

I read the first issue of this series and liked it a lot, but decided to do the whole wait-for-the-trade thing.

I own all the original issues, but still will probably get this collected version. I wonder if Fantagraphics is planning on collecting all of Gilbert's solo stuff in this format, too? I hope so.

The first of two Toth retrospectives. Will be interesting to see which one gets the higher praise.

I know nothing about this book, but what a striking cover!

I never miss a new Jason book.

My son will go nuts when I bring this home.

The other new Tardi translation.

I haven't read any of this latest series yet, but I'm sure I will. I loved the first two LOEG series, but was underwhelmed by the Black Dossier.

This is called Louis Sullivan's Idea. It's by Tim Samuelson and is a biography about Sullivan who was a famous architect. The book apparently has some new work by Chris Ware. Not sure if it's a graphic novel, or just some spot illustrations. Probably the latter. Either way, I'm in.

Gilbert's latest Fritz B-Movie book.

Oliver Schrauwen's first GN should be great.

I should be able to relate to this one.
Collecting and hopefully expanding on the awesome NY Times Funny Pages story.

This one has a new short story by Xaime.

I don't know anything about this, but it sounds like it may be Harvey Pekar's final book. Not sure if it's illustrated or straight prose, but definitely worth picking up either way.

This might be my most anticipated book of the year.

I'm very curious about this book.

The other Toth book.

This one supposedly will have some new work by Paul Pope.

This one is going to surprise a lot of people, I have a feeling.

This series was just ok, but I thought Gilbert's art looked outstanding in color.

*Most of these were culled from hours of searching around Amazon.com (and sorry if it took way too long to load the page; I got a little carried away). I'm sure I missed a bunch of worthy books, but still, this is a formidable list. And it shows how far the medium has come in terms of consistent high quality (yes, I know that's an assumption, but I feel confident it's a safe one).

**I'm also highly anticipating the second installment of Charles Burns' X'ed Out and the final book in Carol Tyler's awesome You'll Never Know trilogy, but couldn't find cover images for either one yet.

***If that weren't enough, my favorite prose writer, Steven Millhauser, has a new collection of short stories due out in the summer called We Others.

****And finally...Meta Maus!!! This site is reporting that some kind of major docu-retro-whatever on Maus is coming: "In fall 2011, Pantheon will publish Meta Maus, a companion toThe Complete Maus – it is the story of why he wrote Maus, why he chose mice, cats, frogs, and pigs, and how he got his father to open up (the new book will come with a DVD of the transcripts of Art’s interviews with his father; it is not a graphic novel, but it is populated with illustrations, photos and other images)." Should be VERY interesting...

The Future of Comics?

2011-01-26T12:59:00.010-05:00

Watch the full episode. See more POV.

This is a fascinating, thought-provoking video, if you have a few minutes to spare.

This man has amassed over the course of his life (he's 69) the world's largest record collection. He estimates he has an archive of over 1 million records worth more than $50 million.

And yet, it seems, no one cares.

Records have become so obsolete that even at the modest asking price of only $3 million, he has no serious offers.

This is even more astonishing when you realize that only 13% of the music in his collection is commercially available on CD.

It makes me wonder about the future of the comic book industry. While far from obsolete at this point in time, one has to wonder when and if the rise of digital reading devices like the iPad and tablet computers will eventually lead to the decline and disappearance of print comics. I know people said this about books when the Kindle first came out, and so far, the apocalypse has not arrived, but the fact that chain bookstores are being forced to close all over the country is surely a sign of the times (though this probably has more to do with the overall economy).

What I also found interesting about this video was the idea that technology alters the original music in such a way that it ruins the essence of the song. In regards to comics, this is something Frank Santoro has been (sort of) blogging about recently, and after watching this piece, Frank's essay really resonated. The fact that digital technology exists to scan, reduce and compress a print comic book into a digital file forever alters the artist's intended experience. Of course, as I noted in my Android comics essay, there are definite benefits to having access to digital comics, but the merits and side effects of this alteration process are certainly debatable.

The end of print comics as we know it hardly feels like it's on the horizon, but then again, record collectors never thought they'd see the day where no one cared anymore, either.

A Subway for New York

2011-01-23T12:35:00.008-05:00

With a three-year-old in the house, I read a ton of children's books. We make a trip to the library at least twice a month, and usually return with at least 10-15 new books.

As a lifelong comics fan, I'm often attracted to books by either creators I know who have done crossover work (i.e. James Kochalka, Jon Muth, Berkely Breathed, Art Spiegelman, etc.) or books that have exceptional drawing styles. A Subway For New York by David Weitzman is one of the best I've come across in a long time.

As the title obviously implies, the book is a meticulously researched story about the building of the New York subway system (or the IRT, as it was originally called). It's at a level of detail well beyond a three-year-old's level of comprehension (more like 8-10 year-olds), but the surgically rendered black-and-white drawings are stunning, reminiscent of classic turn-of-the-century drawings often seen in high-end literary magazines like Scribners or Harper's.

Weitzman's double-page, widescreen images, clearly based on archival photos, give a stunningly clear depiction of the incredible amount of engineering and manual labor that went into the subway's construction. It's a relatively quick read, but you definitely come away with a good understanding of what a monumental accomplishment the subway system was, and just how ingenious and difficult the methods used to dig the tunnels and build the stations and rail system were.

It's amazing that the subway not only still runs 110 years later, but that it transports several million passengers a day; it's literally the heart of the city's circulatory system. As someone who commutes on the subway regularly, it also gave me a whole new appreciation for the system which I so often take for granted.

Anyway, Weitzman's fine book is highly recommended, both for its incredibly detailed and historically accurate line art and its research.

Youth Reclamation Project

2011-01-19T19:42:00.032-05:00

Last summer, my parents finally sold their house, the house I spent my entire childhood in, which they had owned for nearly 40 years. In the process of moving, my dad uncovered a forgotten box of old knick knacks from my childhood buried in some dark, musty corner of the basement. Not bothering to even sort through it, he promptly shipped the entire box to me.

Though I was excited at first, it mostly contained a random mix of unwanted mementos, worthless trinkets and other items that I promptly discarded (I mean, it's interesting to see my old Cub Scouts shirt again, but do I need to save it?)

But at the bottom of the box, I discovered nine issues of Cricket - The Magazine for Children, which is apparently still going strong. My memory of this magazine is fuzzy, but I do remember reading them with my dad. All of these issues were from 1981, which means I was only seven years old, but what astonished me, looking back at them as an adult, was the quality of the illustration work.

I don't have any interest in re-reading all of the old articles and stories (though maybe when my son is older, I might), but I thought it would be fun to share some of the best illustrations from each issue.

Unlike most of the issues, in this one, the front and back cover combine with spot drawings in the book to tell a quasi-narrative. The charming drawings were done in pen and ink and colored with crayon by Lydia Dabcovich.

Most of the issues also featured either spot illustrations or short comic strips by the inimitable Quentin Blake. I remember loving Blake's loose, sketched ink drawings even as a kid, though what I remember from back then was his illustration work for a variety of Roald Dahl's children's' books.

Arnold Lobel, of Frog and Toad fame, did a series of spot illustrations for Jean Van Leeuwen's story, "Snowsuits." He's still little, but my son already loves Frog and Toad.

Reminiscent of T. Ott's work, Leonard Everett Fisher contributed this excellent scratchboard drawing to accompany William Graves' story, "The Greatest Snowball Fight in History." According to his Wikipedia entry, Fisher has illustrated 260 children books and even designed eight postage stamps! Also, notice the two insects with short captions in the upper right corner - this is a trademark of Cricket magazine. These bugs appear throughout the magazines, sharing quick facts or vocabulary help.

Marcus Hamilton's stunning graphite pencil drawings accompanied "A Gathering of Days" by Joan W. Blos. Hamilton is best known to comics fans for his work on Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace newspaper strip in the '90s and early '00s.

This one-page scene by British artist, Glenys Ambrus, epitomizes the kind of picture-based activities that each issue had. I loved these as a kid, too.

Dick Gackenbach is an excellent illustrator I've only come to know recently through his children's books, like the Hattie Rabbit series and Harry and the Terrible Whatzit. I picked up a copy of both books at a neighborhood book fair and my son loves them. Here, he provides some spot nice illustrations for Marjorie Allen's "One, Two, Three Ah-choo!" about a boy and his pet snail.

Finally, George Armstrong (not to be confused with Gen. George Armstrong Custer of "Custer's Last Stand") did this EC-inspired alien drawing for the story, "The New Hampshire Kidnapping." It may not be too clear in the scan, but Armstrong offsets the central figure (with his head in his hands) by using a faded wash technique, dropping the black outlines, while the aliens appear to be drawn in traditional ink. I couldn't find much information about Armstrong online.

There's a whole bunch of other good stuff, too, but this gives you an idea of the caliber of artists Cricket attracted.

Androids and Comics

2011-01-17T10:07:00.003-05:00

I have a short piece up at The Comics Journal today about reading comics on your Android phone, including a review of four apps.

What $38 Gets You...

2011-01-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

Sunday Jan. 2 was my 38th birthday (which I'm proud to share with Lynda Barry) and every year I treat myself to some random back issues. There are only three rules I try to follow:

1) The comics have to be total impulse buys (not something off my want list, or stuff that I had been planning on getting anyway),

2) Comics only, no trade paperbacks or graphic novels, and

3) The total cost has to be under $38 (basically, my age).

Here's what I got this year at Roger's Time Machine (which is, for my money, the best place to buy older comics in New York City):

Thick Black Kiss TP - I violated rule #2 with this choice, but it was only $3.00 and I've always been curious to read Chaykin's adult series, so I couldn't pass it up.

Howard Cruse's Barefootz #1 - I read this one first and really enjoyed it. Cruse is a real talented artist, and this collection features some of his underground work from the '70s. Makes me want to go back and re-read Stuck Rubber Baby, but there's so many other things in the queue.

Grit Bath #1 - I love Renee French!

Stray Toasters #1-4 - Each issue of Stray Toasters for a buck each was too good to pass up. I love Bill Sienkewicz but for some reason never got around to this Epic series.

Street Comix #1 - This is a 1973 b&w reprint comic of Alex Raymond's lesser known work, Rip Kirby. Looks beautiful!

Echo of Futurepast #1 - An '80s sci-fi anthology from Neal Adam's Continuity Comics. I got this for the Neal Adams stuff, but it looks like some other good stuff is there, too. The Teule story looks interesting, though I haven't read it yet.

Alien Worlds 3D - This will be cheesy, no doubt, but I love Bruce Jones EC-inspired '80s work, and this is one of the few issues I didn't already have. Plus...3D!

California Girls #3 - The was the only issue I was missing from this Eclipse series by Trina Robbins.

Peanut Butter & Jeremy - An early James Kochalka comic. Hope it's half as good as his more recent stuff for Top Shelf.

Zap Comix #14 - This may have been a mistake. The S. Clay Wilson pieces, on initial scan, hurt my brain, and there's only a two-page Crumb story. Still, I will try to read with an open mind.

Buzzard #12 - I got this one for the Mario Hernandez story (it's only one page, but hey, I'm a completist!), but there's some other interesting looking pieces, too. Could go either way.

Voyages - I hadn't seen Jog's post about this book until today, but the "Bravo for Adventure" piece by Toth made this purchase a no-brainer. The copy's a little beat-up, but fine for reading.

So that's it. Not a bad haul at all for $38.

Happy 2011!

2011-01-03T10:09:00.020-05:00

Happy new year, everyone!

As you probably didn’t notice, I decided to take the rest of 2010 off from blogging. There were several reasons for this, including the generally negative tone of the comics internet discourse over the last few months of the year (this is supposed to be fun, right?), but really, it boils down to one main reason.

In the last week of July, my wife got the call that her brother Danny had gone missing. My wife is the oldest of four kids, and has three younger brothers. Danny, her oldest brother, had suffered for nearly two decades with severe bipolar disorder. There is an entire book that could be written about Danny’s struggles, but after 18 years, there was something different about this time. First of all, although Danny had spent most of his life in Kansas City, where my in-laws still live, he had in the last three years, settled in Rutland, Vermont, a very small town in the Northeast, which is home to the Spring Lake Ranch, a facility designed to help people with severe mental illness rehabilitate themselves.

Without going into all of the personal details, Danny, who was 34, had gone off his meds once again, and gotten into drugs again, a potent combination that never ends well. However, unlike all of his previous episodes, there was no one there to help him as he cycled downward, or to even recognize the warning signs, so when we got the word that Danny had gone missing, we didn’t realize at first how bad things had gotten.

Over the next month, our family literally went through hell trying to locate Danny. We did everything we could think of to find him, including offering a reward, coordinating a multi-state manhunt, constant media coverage, frequent trips to Vermont, and a whole bunch of other incredibly stressful stuff. This, all while trying to raise our three-year-old son, hold down our jobs and care for my in-laws, who had basically taken up residence in New York for the duration.

In early September, a body was found by a dog search team not two miles from Danny’s house. Since it was over Labor Day weekend, we had to endure an excruciating wait while the state coroner performed their autopsy to determine whether or not this body was in fact Danny’s.

Unfortunately, it was.

While processing this incredible tragedy, we also had to pull together funeral arrangements in a small town, and get the word out to everyone who knew Danny. The outpouring of support and love that Danny received was a wonderful tribute to the kind of loving person he was, and the memorial service was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced, and I can only imagine how much harder it was for his parents and my wife.

The real tragedy is that Danny was such a wonderful guy, although he was so sick he rarely believed it. He was one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever personally known, and were he able to get himself consistently stable, may have been able to work as a professional musician. He had the rare ability to hear a song once and play it on the guitar, note perfect. He was also an incredibly talented poet and visual artist. This is a YouTube recording he made with some friends at the Ranch that shows his incredible talent:

All of this completely transformed my life. One day we were on vacation, happily enjoying life, the next we were plunged into a darkness that still hasn’t fully passed.

I won’t pretend that the grief I feel is anywhere near what my wife and her family are going through, it’s not. I knew Danny and loved him like a brother, but we rarely saw each other. Still, I miss him, and it saddens me that my son will never get to see his Uncle again.

At any rate, my will to write, blog or even read comics, disappeared over night and I’m still not totally sure I’m ready to jump back in. Of course, I still love comics, and always will, but suddenly all of my stacks and longboxes and shelves full of graphic novels felt like silly distractions from the important things in life. Not that silly distractions aren’t important, but there are times when they feel that way.

With the new year, I am starting to feel the itch to blog again, but I think I’ll just post stuff here, in this relatively quiet corner of the internet for awhile. I have a bunch of ideas for various posts and other comics-type stuff that I'm excited about, so please check back from time to time.

Anyway, best wishes to all of you for a healthy and safe 2011. And make sure to hug your loved ones. You just never know.

Brian Allen McCall Interview

2010-07-28T14:13:00.004-05:00

As a boy, I dreamed of two things - being a comic book artist and being a major league baseball player. Brian Allen McCall is the only man alive to have done both (he played for the Chicago White Sox and also published a story in an early '80s issue of Heavy Metal), and I recently interviewed him for the Comics Journal. It was a fascinating discussion and McCall is a vastly under-appreciated artist.

I'm Not Dead, In Case You Were Wondering...

2010-07-09T09:20:00.009-05:00

Fellow blogger and online pal Johnny Bacardi recently posted an interesting musical meme to motivate himself to update his blog more, and since I have also neglected Unattended Baggage for so long it’s practically on life-support, it seemed like a great idea. These were the rules:

Rules: Create a non objective list of your favorite albums of the last 20 years (anything released between 1990 and now), remember, this is your FAVORITES so, if Maroon 5's songs about Jane was your favorite album, that should be number 1, even if you feel Nevermind was a more influential album.

So here are my choices:

1. Jeff Buckley – Grace

2. Massive Attack – Mezzanine

3. Patty Griffin – Living with Ghosts

4. Tom Waits – Mule Variations

5. Citizen Cope – Clarence Greenwood Recordings

6. Johnny Cash – American III

7. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

8. White Stripes – De Stijl

9. Radiohead – In Rainbows

10. Ben Harper – Live On Mars

11. Tood Snider – East Nashville Skyline

12. Eels – Daisies of the Galaxy

13. Lucinda Williams – Essence

14. PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love

15. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand

16. Jack Johnson – Brushfire Fairytales

17. Townes Van Zandt – Live at the Old Quarter

18. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds – Live in Las Vegas

19. Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions

20. Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall

21. Ray – Motion Picture Soundtrack

22. Gillian Welch – Soul Journey

23. Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose

24. Morcheeba – Big Calm

25. Warren Zevon – The Wind

And while I’m at it, here are 25 of my all-time favorite songs, not restricted to post-1990. If I sat down another day and did the same thing, I bet at least half of them would be different. The top 10 would probably be the same, though.

1. Hurricane by Bob Dylan – Dylan's best lyrics (closely followed by Visions of Johanna, Simple Twist of Fate and Tangled Up In Blue).

2. Kid’s Prayer by Dan Bern – starts out as a meditation on the Columbine slaying and ends with a great philosophy on parenting

3. Heart Attack and Vine – Tom Waits (also considered Warm Beer and Cold Women, Gun Street Girls, Eggs and Sausage, etc.)

4. The Way Young Lovers Do – Jeff Buckley (this is a cover of a Van Morrison song from Live at Sin-e. I also considered Mojo Pin, Grace and Forget Her)

5. One – the U2 and Mary J. Blige version

6. Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Condition Was In – Kenny Rogers (from the classic dream scene in The Big Lebowski)

7. I Write the Book – Patty Griffin (this is an unreleased bootleg, but it's better than any of her album songs, and that's saying something!)

8. Paradise City – G'N'R - my "Wigwam Bam."

9. Fat Bottomed Girls – Queen - no matter how bad a mood I’m in, this song cheers me up.

10. Love Song – Tesla (acoustic live version) - I'm a sucker for good acoustic guitar solos.

11. Spirit in the Sky – Norman Greenbaum – cheesy classic rock at its best.

12. Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John’s best song, great intro piano.

13. First Day of My Life – Bright Eyes – beautiful song, can’t listen to it without thinking of my son.

14. Wish You Were Here – One of the only songs I can still play on guitar

15. Terry’s Song – Bruce Springsteen (could also have gone with the theme song from the Wrestler, Glory Days or Tenth Avenue Freezeout)

16. Steal My Kisses – Ben Harper

17. Cocaine Blues – Johnny Cash - there's at least 100 great Cash songs, like Folsom Prison Blues, Nobody, The Man Who Couldn't Cry, etc., but this one edges out the others.

18. Working Class Hero – John Lennon - ditto #17.

19. Untouchable Face – Ani Difranco – also tough to pick just one Ani song, everything on Living in Clip is awesome (Fuel, Gravel, Napoleon, etc.)

20. Psycho Killer – Talking Heads (live version from Stop Making Sense)

21. Uncle John's Band – Grateful Dead

22. Angel – Massive Attack

23. Are You Down – Lucinda Williams

24. The Distance – Cake

25. New York State of Mind – Billy Joel

Market Day Review

2010-05-11T18:38:00.003-05:00

I have a new review of James Sturm's graphic novel, Market Day, up at the Comics Journal's website. Gavin Lees also reviewed the book at the site, and had a very different reaction. Take a look at both and decide for yourself.

Gilbert Interview

2010-04-07T16:39:00.003-05:00

Scion Magazine 15: Gilbert Hernandez from Scion ART on Vimeo.

Here's a good video interview with Gilbert Hernandez from Scion Magazine #15.

Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers Review

2010-03-22T16:14:00.008-05:00

I have a couple new posts up today. First is my review of Matt Kindt's Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers at the Comics Journal's website. Also, over at the Trouble With Comics blog, I look at three books that should've been on my Best of 2009 list.

The Art of GILBERT Hernandez

2010-02-28T12:41:00.004-05:00

This beautiful image comes from the inside front cover of Love & Rockets #43, and was posted as part of a brief essay about the virtues of the single issues as opposed to the much more widely-read collections. You can check the whole thing out at Trouble With Comics.

Johnny Cash Review

2010-02-17T13:27:00.002-05:00

I recently reviewed Reinhard Kleist's Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness for the Comics Journal. You can read it here.

So long, Mr. Salinger...and Thanks!

2010-01-29T09:47:00.006-05:00

Over at Trouble with Comics I just reposted a review of Batman #663 that I wrote a couple years ago, which focuses on the similarities between the infamous Joker prose issue by Grant Morrison and J.D. Salinger's last published story. Salinger was one of my favorite writers, and "Hapworth 16, 1924" remains one of the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned stories in the history of American letters. Anyway, the review is more about the comic than Salinger's story, but I hope you'll check it out.

Avatar

2010-01-19T19:28:00.008-05:00

Jeet Heer has an excellent and insightful essay up at his Sans Everything blog about Avatar, James Cameron's special effects spectacular, that's a must read if you've seen the movie.

Without re-wording Jeet's main arguments, I agree wholeheartedly with everything he writes. In fact, I think he doesn't go far enough.

The idea that humans have lost our connection with nature due to our fascination with technology is the ultimate irony of the movie, and is something that one of my favorite writers, Viktor Frankl, talked about in his writing after WWII.

I remember a particularly moving passage in Man's Search for Meaning where Frankl, recalling his imprisonment in Auschwitz, was momentarily transported by the beauty of a sunrise, even as he was standing exposed, nearly naked, in the frigid winter. That moment made him realize how isolated from nature he had become living in a modern city (Vienna). In his former life, he never saw a sunrise like that, partly because he was living in an urban area, primarily spending his time indoors, and partly because he simply didn't make time for such things in his busy life.

But it's not just nature, it's religion, too.

In The Will to Meaning, another of Frankl's books devoted to the study of logotherapy, he had a remarkable quote which I think sums up the transformation society has undergone since the industrial revolution, which Jeet is hinting at in his analysis of the movie.

"I deem it to be a remarkable fact that man, as long as he regarded himself as a creature, interpreted his existence in the image of God, his creator; but as soon as he started considering himself as a creator, began to interpret his existence merely in the image of his own creation, the machine."

Two New Posts

2010-01-13T11:26:00.005-05:00

I have a couple new pieces over at Trouble With Comics that I hope you'll consider checking out.

The first is an admittedly geeky list of the 15 best back issues I read in 2009. Personally, I find reading and collecting back issues in some ways more satisfying than reading new comics.

The other has nothing to do with comics. It's my heartfelt reaction, as a lifelong Cardinals baseball fan, to Mark McGwire's recent admission that he took steroids.

As always, thanks for reading!

Best of 2009

2010-01-01T11:34:00.004-05:00

I've posted my annual best of the year list over at the Trouble With Comics blog this year. You can check it out here. Happy new year and thanks so much for reading.

Studs Terkel's Working and Syncopated Reviews

2009-12-24T23:14:00.008-05:00

I'm just returning from a little vacation to Philadelphia with my wife and son and, as always when I go away, I go completely offline, so it's only now that I see that the Comics Journal has posted two more of my reviews on their website.

The first is a short bullet review of the fourth (and best) volume of Syncopated, Brendan Burford's curated anthology of picto-essays, which I picked up at MoCCA.

The second is a much longer review of another anthology - Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation - a vastly under-appreciated book which was adapted by Harvey Pekar and edited by Paul Buhle.

Please check them both out and let me know what you think.

Trotsky: A Graphic Biography Review

2009-12-16T14:17:00.002-05:00

I have a new review up at the Comics Journal's website. This one focuses on Rick Geary's latest book, Trotsky: A Graphic Biography. Please check it out!

Mijeong Review

2009-12-11T14:03:00.004-05:00

My review of Mijeong, the manwha short story collection by Korean artist Byun Byung-Jun is up at the Comics Journal's website.

Birdland and Low Moon Links

2009-12-09T19:02:00.011-05:00

For convenience sake, here are all five links to my Birdland essay on the Comics Journal's new website:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

When I get some free time over the holidays I'll try to post it all as one large essay on the Shelf Life blog, including all the images TCJ didn't include for obvious reasons.

Also, here is my review of Jason's new book, Low Moon, which also ran at TCJ.com.

Baggage Check

2009-12-01T11:57:00.007-05:00

I know I've been mostly silent on this blog, but today's kind of a big day for me!

First, I am thrilled and honored to be a part of the first day launch of the Comics Journal's new website. The first part of my five-part essay, "Birdland Reconsidered" (which itself is part of my larger ongoing Shelf Life project analyzing the works of Los Bros Hernandez) is now online. Please let me know what you think! This essay represents literally months of writing and research, and I would love to hear any and all feedback on it.

Also, coincidentally, today also sees the final post in my six-part look at Alan Moore's "Lost Treasures" at Trouble With Comics. The final piece discusses Moore's classic "The Bowing Machine," a truly inspired story that first appeared in Raw vol. 2 #3.

For the sake of convenience, here are the permanent links to all six posts:

Part 1 - "The Hasty Smear of My Smile"

Part 2 - "Pictopia"

Part 3 - "I Keep Coming Back"

Part 4 - "Come On Down"

Part 5 - "Madame October"

Part 6 - "The Bowing Machine"

GIANT SIZE Hernandez Bros!

2009-09-24T19:32:00.008-05:00

The cartoonist Michel Fiffe has amassed a second master posts-worth of great Hernandez Brothers rarities that are definitely worth glancing at regardless of whether you're a fan or not (although you really, really should be!). Check it out, and tell me you wouldn't love to see Jaime go back finish "Aliso Road" someday. You can also see his first master post here.

A Quick Update

2009-09-18T15:46:00.004-05:00

1) I've joined up with a few other bloggers in one of those popular group blog things that are all the rage these days. It's called Trouble with Comics and you can follow my antics, plus those of a handful of much better writers as we wax poetic about all things comics.

2) Somebody recently said to me that they were sorry to hear that I'd given up on Shelf Life, my column about the first volume of Love & Rockets. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth; however, while I have stopped posting updates online for the time being (until I find a better host than blogger and get a little more organized), I am plowing ahead. In fact, I'm actually nearing the finish line, at which point I plan to start editing the whole thing for publication.

3) I also have a few reviews which will be appearing in print form very, very soon. Stay tuned.

4) Have I mentioned that you can read my comic, The Red Stiletto for free? That's right! Every day is Free Comic Book Day here at Unattended Baggage. The link's here (and on the sidebar), so please check it out and let me know what you think.

5) And finally, in addition to everything else, I am currently collaborating on a little sci-fi web comic with an artist which I hope will be debuting in early 2010. I don't want to say too much more at this point, but stay tuned for more info soon. I'm very excited to share this project with the world.

Another Jaime Interview

2009-08-19T13:10:00.003-05:00

Here's another interesting interview with Jaime Hernandez that aired on Holamun2 on July 17, 2008.

This One's Been Sitting in My Draft Posts for Months...

2009-08-14T12:30:00.005-05:00

These days, I'm spending a lot of time reading and re-reading old comics from the 80s and 90s. First of all, they're a hell of a lot cheaper than new comics. For example, I just got a complete run of Eclipse Magazine off Ebay for 99 cents plus shipping. On top of that, many of these comics are as good as, if not better than, the vast majority of what's being published today. I'm especially enjoying comics published by Eclipse, Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, Caliber and Pacific Comics.

One of my favorite series was Vanguard Illustrated, a short-lived sci-fi heavy anthology from the equally short-lived Pacific Comics, published from 1983 to 1984. Vanguard only lasted seven issues, but it gave many talented artists a showcase relatively free of editorial shackles, with some of the highest production values available at the time, and the results were often impressive. I recently re-read this series to see how well the whole thing stood the test of time, and while many of the stories don't seem quite as innovative as I remembered them, the artwork is still exceptional.

First of all, Vanguard, like so many of the anthology comics of the period, featured some incredibly beautiful, cheesecake "damsels in space" covers. The three below are my favorites, but they're all good. The first is by Dave Stevens, whose classic Rocketeer debuted in Pacific's other anthology, Pacific Presents (which is also excellent, and includes the "Missing Man" stories by Steve Ditko), the second is by Al Williamson, and the third is by Michael Kaluta.

The highlight of the series was the three part "Freakwave" story by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy which appeared in the first three issues. The futuristic tale is set in an ecologically devastated ocean-world where survivors live on man-made islands and boats. The story focuses on the Drifter, a loner seeking revenge against a pirate who wronged him. Milligan's prose is suitably gritty and note perfect in its descriptions of this ravaged and savage world, but the real attraction is McCarthy's astoundingly imaginative artwork.

McCarthy's use of color was revolutionary at the time, as was his ability to distort and exaggerate perspectives. This psychedelic panel above is just one incredible example.

The sheer imagination that McCarthy put into world-building was like a firehose to the eyeballs. Each panel is rich with technicolor details and beautifully imagined dystopias (Kevin Costner's Waterworld was accused of stealing designs).

In certain places, McCarthy also used rune-like symbols and oddly misshapen panels to enhance the futuristic and "freaky" tone of the story.

McCarthy's character designs are like manic eye candy, dense with bizarre, esoteric details. Check out the ridiculously over-the-top "Mickey Death" panel above. In the future world of "Freakwave," brutes wear artificial horns with hanging pez dispensers, and huge road signs on their chests.

The only disappointment in this story was the cop-out ending, which was controversial with fans as evidenced in the letters pages of later issues, but Milligan and McCarthy would rectify this situation by returning to the world of "Freakwave" again in Strange Days, which was published by Eclipse Comics (who assumed publishing duties for many of Pacific's comics after the company folded).

Vanguard Illustrated also featured a couple above average short stories written by newcomer David Campiti (who later went on to co-found Innovation Publishing) and illustrated by Tom Yeates (one of the most under-appreciated artists in comics). "Libretto," in issue #1, focused on the concept of a planet's gender, an interesting idea that worked very well in this short piece. Yeates' detailed linework (with inks by Rick Bryant) is reminiscent of Wally Wood and Al Davidson, and would have fit perfectly into an issue of Weird Science Fantasy.

"Be It What It Will, I'll Go To It Laughing," Campiti and Yeates' other story (which appeared in the third issue) is a loving homage to Ray Bradbury and several other science fiction writers, and while the story itself is a little erratic and hard to follow in places, Yeates' artwork, especially his figure drawing, is reminiscent of Hal Foster in its stunning photo-realistic detail. Interestingly, Bradbury wrote a letter proclaiming that the story had him "in tears."

The series also featured "Encyclopedias," an early four-part collaboration between Mike Baron and Steve Rude, the award-winning team that went on to create Nexus. I actually enjoyed this story quite a bit. It's a clever, comedic twist on the dystopian future genre - a rookie encyclopedia salesman is dropped into a suburban hellzone with the mission to sell or die.

This panel below is an example of just how talented Rude was right out of the gate. His fight scenes are full of dramatic energy, yet somehow remain grounded and natural!

Baron also wrote another story called "Quark" which appeared in the fourth and fifth issues. It was a fairly generic superhero story with some nice artwork by newcomer Rick Burchett (and great pastel colors by Marcus David), but when Vanguard was cancelled, the story was left unfinished.

The series also included several other random short stories of varying quality. In most cases, the stories were generally forgettable, but most, if not all, featured above average artwork. Here are a few of the many highlights:

"Legends of the Stargazers" (issue #2) - This story, also by Campiti, is silly and kind of hard to follow, but I really liked Bob McLeod's illustrations of over-the-top fantasy mixed with space women in lingerie.

"Adventures in Art" (issue #5) - Rick Geary contributed a couple of excellent short strips that were pre-cursors to his later work in Eclipse Magazine, Cheval Noir and many other anthologies.

"A Tangled Web" (issue #4) - I really liked this creepy little horror story about a grandmother stealing her granddaughter's body. It was written and illustrated by one Ruth Raymond, who unfortunately, to my knowledge, hasn't done any other comics.

"The God Run" (issue #6) - In addition to "Freakwave," Peter Milligan also wrote an excellent little short story about space madness, which featured dynamic art and colors by George Freeman (co-founder of Digital Chameleon coloring and inking studio).

"The Struggle's End" (issue #6) - Rex W. Lindsey, who would later go on to work on numerous Archie books, contributed two highly imaginative stories featuring some visionary artwork.

"The Trains Belong To Us" (issue #6) - George Perez illustrations for Joey Cavaleri's silent four-page, short story about teenage vampires are among some of his best.

"Doc Stearn...Mr. Monster" (issue #7) - Finally, many people may not realize this, but the seventh and final issue of Vanguard Illustrated featured the first appearance of the cult-classic character, Mister Monster, by Michael T. Gilbert and William Loebs.

In the big picture, I know Vanguard Illustrated may not be the best anthology published during the early days of the alt-comix movement. Eclipse Magazine and Eclipse Monthly, Taboo, Anything Goes, Crisis, Cheval Noir, Prime Cuts, Drawn and Quarterly and, of course, Raw, are all probably better in terms of the overall volume of quality content they published. But Vanguard Illustrated is a great little title with lots of hidden gems that make these issues worth tracking down.

Read The Red Stiletto Online

2009-07-12T14:46:00.006-05:00

I've created a Picasa web album of my mini-comic The Red Stiletto, so please check it out and tell me what you think.

Practice Makes Perfect

2009-06-30T12:31:00.004-05:00

One of my goals after finishing The Red Stiletto is to learn to draw more naturally. The sketches below, based on some of my favorite musicians and albums, are a small step in that direction. Although I still used photos as references, none of these sketches were traced as I'm trying to rely less on the pictures to guide my hand. They're presented in the order I drew them and I think (I hope) show some improvement.

Review #3

2009-06-27T17:25:00.002-05:00

Kevin over at Optical Sloth has posted a review of The Red Stiletto (as well as Starfish, an early mini that was intended to be developed into a four issue mini-series, but never quite got off the ground). Check it out!

Review #2

2009-06-21T12:34:00.003-05:00

Rob Clough has posted a review of Red Stiletto over at his blog, High-Low, along with several other mini-comics. Scroll down a little bit and check it out!

Lessons of an Amateur Cartoonist

2009-06-15T09:40:00.008-05:00

Now that I've finished my first comic, I wanted to reflect a little on the experience. Here are some of the more interesting thoughts and lessons that occurred to me along the way, culled from my notebooks over the last year, and presented in no particular order:

Comics are incredibly labor-intensive. I already knew this to an extent, but I now understand it on a whole new level. Chris Ware's infamous description of comics as "life-eating exercise" resonates with me in a whole new way.
Knowing that most readers will only spend a few seconds per panel, despite the hours devoted to perfecting each image, can be demoralizing, but I suspect that most comic artists are, to some degree, perfectionists and just can't help themselves.
Every single line on the page represents a conscious decision by the artist. Every single one! No reader (or critic), no matter how diligent, can ever appreciate the thought that goes into each panel.
Many of the lines that are NOT drawn are also conscious decisions.
It's sometimes hard to know when you're finished with a particular image.
How and when to vary the weight of each line (i.e. the pressure applied with the pen to alter line thickness) is also a conscious decision, and this has a tremendous impact on how the finished product looks. I know this is common knowledge, but actually applying it myself gave me a whole new appreciation for the importance and difficulty of this subtle artistic technique.
Maintaining perspective (keeping all of the objects and figures in the panel in proportionate size to each other) is much harder than it looks.
Hatching evenly and consistently is also much harder and more time-consuming than it looks. I love hatching, but I have a whole new appreciation for artists like Frank Miller (go back and look at Ronin!), Karl Stevens, John Hankiewicz, etc.
Contrary to my preconception, inking is much harder than penciling. However, inking is also far more rewarding than penciling. The permanence of ink is unforgiving (though Photoshop allows some flexibility) and merely tracing over pencil lines doesn't cut it. Inking is fleshing out shapes and shadows and adding texture and tone. I know I have a lot still to learn about inking, but doing this comic gave me a whole new appreciation for the critical role inkers play in the creative process.
The great artists make it look easy, but that doesn't mean it is. As Jaime Hernandez once said, “There’s a lot of work and thought and all this agony and pain that turns into that one perfect little line.”
Drawing comics is hard on the body. It strains the eyes, hunches the back, and cramps the hand.
There are literally hundreds of different types of inking pens and brushes available, and the choices that artists make greatly impact the look and feel of the finished panel. Not only does the weight and fluidity of the line itself depend on this choice, but also the combination of pens used in tandem with each other, to emphasize certain details, relegate others, snap objects to the fore, etc. - all of these are subtle effects that play into the readers’ experience of the image, but that most, if not all critics, myself included, are largely ignorant of. And, of course, the discussion of tools only grows more complex when considering colors and shading. Many people have written extensively about these types of decisions, but all of this is to say that, in creating my own comic, I became acutely aware of the way choosing the right pens can have a dramatic impact on the finished product.
Proper tools also make life much easier. I really could have used a drawing table (I drew Stiletto seated on a pillow hunched over a coffee table), a desk lamp, a French curve, a clear ruler, oversized Bristol paper (Stiletto was penciled and inked on regular laser paper), more varied types of pencils and pens, brushes, etc.
Hand lettering is a good way to avoid typos (in the end, I opted against hand lettering for fear that it was too messy and hard to read, but I did attempt it).
Asking your wife to pose for 200+ reference photos can be hazardous to your marriage.
Despite what I've read online in a few places, I think using reference photos is perfectly acceptable (Norman Rockwell did it; Crumb too). It's just one of many artistic choices and can add to the realism of the scene. Tracing photos, as I did for several of the panels in Stiletto is, admittedly, a crutch, but can still be a valid tool to tell stories visually. However, in my case, I think I over-relied on the photos to the detriment of the images. In a few places, the art feels flat and lifeless to me.
There is a huge difference between drawing with the wrist and drawing from the shoulder. I have no idea how to do the latter.
The difference in the creative pace of writing vs. drawing is staggering. Writing is a quick and prolonged rush of creative energy, where illustrating is a slow, tedious grind. In fact, I think it’s difficult for writers to grasp just how slow a process it is, and how much attention and focus is required. In making The Red Stiletto, it was not unusual to spend anywhere from 1-3 hours penciling and another 1-3 hours inking a single panel. Reconciling the two disciplines was perhaps the greatest struggle I had with Stiletto. Forcing myself to slow down and take my time on each image was indescribably difficult, though I did manage to get into a rhythm toward the end. Generally, the slower I draw, the more precise and controlled my line is, yet the writer in me gets impatient and is always whispering somewhere in the back of mind to move quickly.
Music is essential to the artistic process. Creating comics in silence, for me, is nearly impossible, and TV is far too distracting (though baseball games were good). Music focuses my attention, relaxes me mentally, and carries me through long stretches of work. Much of Stiletto was drawn listening to Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Patty Griffin.

Throughout the creation of The Red Stiletto, I constantly reminded myself that regardless of what anybody thought of the final product, there was value in the journey itself because it would give me an inside appreciation for the cartoonist's craft. By creating my own comic, I hoped, if nothing else, I would become a better writer about comics. A lot of these “lessons” may be laughable to established professionals, but to me, these were valuable things I needed to learn.

In that sense, I’m happy with the end result.

Review #1

2009-06-13T10:52:00.001-05:00

Death Ray Weekly has the first review of The Red Stiletto posted. Check it out!

MoCCA 2009

2009-06-09T18:10:00.015-05:00

You might have heard it was hot...

I barely noticed.

I was having way too much fun catching up with several creators and other industry types I've met over the years, and was also trying to hand out as many copies of my own mini-comic, The Red Stiletto, as possible.

Sadly, I missed my opportunity to pick up David Mazzucchelli's book, as Pantheon sold out pretty quickly, but I did get plenty of other great comics to keep me going for months.

Here's what I got:

It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken - I already own the individual issues of Palookaville that this story was reprinted from (#s 4-9), but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a sketch from Seth (who I found to be incredibly friendly and likable in our brief convesation) Why didn't I buy George Sprott instead? Too big to carry around.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? - If Asterios Polyp was the buzz book of the show, a strong case could be made for this book as a runner up. Brian Fies second book from Abrams ComicArts (the follow-up to the Eisner-winning Mom's Cancer) is a visual smorgasbord of various styles and storytelling techniques. The story (which I haven't read yet) apparently focuses on Fies relationship with his father. I can't wait to read this one.

Zen Ties - I actually justified getting this beautifully painted children's book by Jon J. Muth as a gift for my son, and while I do expect he'll enjoy it when he's old enough, I admit I really wanted it for myself. It's a sweet little story about bridging the gap between elderly and youth, and finding common ground in even the most strained relationships. Oh, and it's also jaw-droppingly gorgeous!

Swallow Me Whole - I had been considering getting this book for a while and after meeting Nate Powell and trading some minis (Cakewalk is fantastic!), I decided I had to have this book.

The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories - I wasn't really planning on buying this collection of Jiro Taniguchi's adaptations of Jack London's short nature stories, but Steve at the Fanfare Ponent Mon booth put on the hard sell and the book itself is so strikingly rich in visual detail, I couldn't resist (the discount also didn't hurt).

Syncopated Volume 4 - I'm a huge fan of Brendan Burford's three previous non-fiction comics anthologies, so I was definitely looking forward to picking up this fourth volume, the longest and most impressive to date (as well as the first published through Villard Books, an imprint of Random House). I'm already more than halfway through it and have learned how and why to bail hay (thanks to Nick Bertozzi) and the history of collecting postcards (thanks to Rina Piccolo). The standout piece, however, is Alex Holden's "West Side Improvements," a retelling of the history of mural paintings in the underground railroad tunnels underneath Riverside park on the west side of Manhattan. Holden's meticulous and comprehensive research of these fascinating events is unforgettable, and this piece is worth the price of the book alone. Of course, I'm still not finished, but this is sure to be one of my favorite books of the year and Brendan was also kind enough to do a great little sketch for me.

The First and Second Books of Hope - These were total impulse buys. Bries, the Dutch art comix publisher who always displays some of the most gorgeous looking books year after year, finally won me over with these two English language editions by Tommi Musturi. I haven't a clue what they're about yet, but the colors and artwork are amazing.

Uptight #3 - I was trying to avoid buying any Fanta books since I can get them for cheaper at Midtown, but who can resist new Jordan Crane? Plus, this might be one of the best covers ever to grace a comic book.

That's it for the indie-mainstream books I bought, but like everyone, I also picked up a ton of great-looking mini-comics, mostly through trades, including (in no particular order):

Pope Hats #1 by Ethan Rilly
Casual Comics #1-2 & Walking Through Red Hook by Paul Hoppe
Morning E-mails by G.B. Tran
Long Tail Kitty by Lark Pien
Bowl & Opal by Conor Hughes - a truly amazing artist who I'm collaborating with on another project as I write.
The Tiny Little Tale of Spaceboy Sam by Patricia Burgess - a great little children's fable about following one's dreams.
The Last and Gzorg Is Free by Dan Mazur - Highly recommended!
Cake Walk/Bets Are Off - a good, old-fashioned flipbook by Nate Powell and Rachel Bormann
Fantastic Life #1-2 by Kevin Mutch
Cragmore Book One by Pat Lewis
Geraniums and Bacon #5 by Cathy Leamy
Chrome Fetus Comics #5-7 by Hans Rickheit
Real Bad #1 by Conner Willumsen
Satisfactory Comics VIII by Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe - this is actually a set of 10 postcards that tell a sequential tale.
Snake Oil #1 by Charles Forsman
Freddy by Melissa Mendes (+ another untitled mini)
Freewheel #1-2 by Liz Baille
Let's Do This #1 & 4 by Jeremy Arambulo
Your Disease Spread Quick by Tom Neely - based on the music of The Melvins
Hickee #4 by Various
Mauled #1 by Various
Gotcha! #1-2 by Pete Friedrich
Cartoon Dialectics vol. 1 by Tom Kaczynski
Tear-Stained Makeup #7 and Carl's Large Story #4 by Marcos Perez
21st Century Depression Comics #1-2 by Justin Fox
I Dreamed of You and Mr. Eybyaninch Books 1 & 2 also by Justin Fox
Reich #5-6 by Elijah Brubaker
Windy Corner Magazine #2 by Various (edited by Austin English)
Pinokio #1-2 by Kurt Wolfgang - according to the artist, this is eventually going to be a silent adaptation of the classic children's story.
Counter Attack #1-2 by Alisa Harris
Melt Me Comics by Nick Sumida
Fubar #1-2 by Colin Walton
The Trial of Sweetie Snake by Steve Seck
Red Sparrow by Steve Fuentes
So...Buttons by Jonathan Baylis
Teatime Part 2 by Stef Lenk
Dumb Jersey White Boy #4 by Mark McMurray
Two Pages, Two Comics, One Abstraction: Selections by Derik Badman
Infandum! #3 by Molly Lawless
Bury Me Knot by Luisa Fox
Free Student Anthologies (Inkstains and The Bad and the Beautiful) from the School of Visual Arts
Free Comic Book Day offerings from NBM, Fantagraphics, DC Vertigo, Adhouse Books and Sparkplug Comics (Bird Hurdler)

I didn't spend nearly as much as it seems like, since I did so much trading, but I still blew my comics budget for the summer. My thanks to everyone who was kind enough to trade with me, and I hope to add links and other comments as I work my way through everything.

That's about it. Despite the heat, it was a truly great show.

Update

2009-06-01T06:56:00.004-05:00

Well, this is it! The Red Stiletto is finished and going to press (i.e. Kinkos) today. If you are planning to attend MoCCA and would like a copy, please find me and ask for one (sorry, I don't have a table this year). If you don't know me or can't attend MoCCA, e-mail me and I'll be happy to send you a copy (for $4.00 plus shipping). I'm also going to setup a Paypal link on this site very soon so you can purchase one that way if you prefer.

The Red Stiletto

2009-05-23T19:27:00.006-05:00

Part of why I've gone silent the past few weeks is that I'm pushing to finish a new mini-comic in time for MoCCA. It's called The Red Stiletto, and unlike my past mini-comics, I wrote and illustrated this one myself. More information coming soon...

Review - Dangerous Laughter

2009-05-18T13:30:00.002-05:00

What follows is a short, uncompleted review of Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser's latest collection of short stories. Originally I had intended to write about the entire book, but then I a) ran out of energy, b) discovered that many better reviewers had already written about the book at length, and c) realized that the review I had started would be so long, hardly anybody would read the entire thing (kind of like my "Love & Rockets X" review). At any rate, I decided to go ahead and post this partial review, focusing on the book's opening story, and encourage everyone who appreciates good fiction to read this excellent, excellent book.

Steven Millhauser is one of my favorite writers, and Dangerous Laughter, his new collection of thirteen short stories, which was just released in paperback, may just be the best single book he's ever written (which is saying something considering he won the Pulitzer for Martin Dressler).

The book opens, as did many of the old silent movies in the 30s and 40s, with a cartoon.

Actually, the opening story, "Cat 'N' Mouse," is less a cartoon than a meditation on the classic cartoon dynamic of Tom & Jerry (or Sylvester and Tweety). Now, I realize that calling something "a meditation" is somewhat cliched, and in and of itself kind of meaningless, but here I think the term is apropos. Millhauser conjures many colorful and exquisitely described mental cartoon scenarios, each of which are so familiar, they are a part of the pop-culture-saturated social fabric, a familar cartoon lexicon of unrealistic accidents and exaggerated conflicts which we all have imprinted on our collective memories. But what makes this story "a meditation" are the thoughtful passages interspersed between these familiar confrontations, in which the cat and the mouse reflect on themselves and their relationship, each recognizing their diametric hatred for the other, and yet also understanding the duality and dependency of their eternal conflict. In this sense, the psychology is not unlike that of the Joker/Batman paradigm which Christopher Nolan explored in the Dark Knight. Neither the cat nor the mouse quite understands what a final victory over the other would mean, or even if that would ultimately be fulfilling, and that sad revelation leads both characters to their only natural conclusion (which I won't spoil for you).

Of course all of these cartoonish scenes are written in Millhauser's typically sublime prose, which is among the most evocative and poetic of any modern writer, while still managing to be remain surprisingly natural and wholly accessible (unlike so many authors whose overblown descriptive prose can become tedious and alienating after a few pages).

FCBD

2009-05-15T12:37:00.027-05:00

I decided to boycott Free Comic Book Day this year. I am not opposed to the idea of FCBD itself, but just had such a bad experience last year, standing in line for over an hour at Midtown Comics, listening to some idiot in front of me shout rude insults to women as they walked by, then brag about how he was writing a Moon Knight movie script and was going to get Vin Diesel to star in it, that I decided not to bother. Plus, last year, when I finally got inside, they had run out of the Fantagraphics, D&Q and Top Shelf comics anyway, so all I got was a pile of stuff I wasn’t even interested in. Then, the icing on the cake was that, at MoCCA a few weeks later, all the indie publishers had tons of copies of their FCBD offerings available. So, anyway, I skipped the whole thing this year.

However, when I went to Midtown last night, I was lucky enough to score a few leftover freebies, including the Melvin Monster/Nancy book from D&Q. This is an exceptionally nice looking book for a free comic, with slick, shimmering covers designed by everybody’s favorite comics historian, Seth. And the book itself also delivered a real joy of discovery.

The flip book features Melvin Monster, which was both written and drawn by John Stanley (writer of the classic Little Lulu), and Nancy, written by Stanley and drawn by Dan Gormley. While these are essentially kids comics, their charm lies in the smooth flowing visual pace of the storytelling, punctuated with one skillfully depicted visual gag after another. Stanley's humor is timeless in the same way that a Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny cartoon is timeless, and the punchlines still elicit chuckles.

I also really enjoyed the way D&Q reproduced the yellowed newsprint effect, while using actual high-quality, thick, glossy paper. This unusual format gives the book an archival upgrade, but maintains that old, heavily-worn floppy comic feel. I wouldn’t have thought these two formats would blend well together, but I think D&Q found a healthy middle ground and, personally, I found this format more appealing that the usual remastering and recoloring that goes into most comics archival projects. I don't know if I’ll lay out the money for all three collections of Stanley’s work that D&Q is releasing this summer, but I’ll certainly look long and hard at them and may end up buying at least one.

BTW, Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat has links to several John Stanley comics currently making the rounds on various websites. It's worth clicking over.

Monsters on the Prowl

2009-04-26T16:43:00.010-05:00

More and more I find myself enjoying the bargain bins more than the new comics stands. I don't know if I'm just turned off by the endless crossovers and hack writing, or that the price of new comics has just become too high for my blood. Probably a little of both. Or maybe I'm just getting old, but these days I'd much rather spend my time sifting through long boxes or on eBay for hidden treasures at rock bottom prices than trying to keep up with the endless glut of new titles every Wednesday.

With that in mind, I found this obscure early 70s Marvel monster comic for 50 cents at the NYCC. The issue features three stories, one featuring King Kull, illustrated by the legendary John Severin which is apparently a part of a larger, ongoing story arc serialized within the title. It's not bad, and Severin's artwork is exceptional genre fare, but the two backup stories are the real gems.

The first, "Where Walks the Ghost" is illustrated by Steve Ditko and while the story is as basic a haunted house tale as you can get - an ex-con rents a house to hideout in, only to be scared into turning himself in by a resident ghost - the artwork is vintage Ditko. Check out that awesome splash page. Nobody used negative space better!

But the issue's highlight is "Mister Morgan's Monster," written and drawn by Jack Kirby with inks by Dick Ayers. The story is just a frenzy of comic book energy. In just six pages, Kirby crams in robots, aliens, spaceships and a whole lot of bizarre melodrama, all with an odd, but clever twist ending that suits the story perfectly. It's probably not going to make any best-of Kirby lists, but it's fun, and certainly worth the 50 cents I paid for it.

An Especially Long Friday Afternoon Comics Ramble

2009-04-24T09:24:00.004-05:00

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time and energy to blog. First I was sick with a vicious little stomach bug, then I was away for my sister’s wedding. Suddenly a few weeks got away from me. But I did manage to do a fair bit of reading while offline, including:

Dr. Strange Classics #1-4 and the Marvel Milestones Edition of Dr. Strange's first appearance – Believe it or not I’m not very well read when it comes to early Marvel superhero books. I’ve read most of the Ditko Spider-Man books in reprints like Marvel Tales, but I had never read any Dr. Strange. Anyway, when I realized that Marvel had done a nice reprint of some of the early Strange Tales stories in a cheap four issue mini-series back in the mid-80s, it was easy enough to track down on eBay. The story featured is the one where Dr. Strange battles Mordo who is secretly powered by the Dread Dormammu, and while it’s a fairly predictable, overly-melodramatic-in-a-way-only-Stan-Lee-could-write story, it’s Ditko’s surrealist alternate dimensions which are what warrants the “classics” moniker. And while I am sure this has been written about hundreds of time, in much more depth and intelligence than I plan to go into here, the imagination and visionary alternate worlds and dimensions that Ditko created in these stories really are incredible. I enjoyed these stories enough to want to track down more.

Gentleman of the Road – I’ve read almost all of Michael Chabon’s books, and while I can still appreciate the author’s mastery at verb usage and sentence construction, I found his last couple books to be lackluster. Summerland was explicitly intended for teenagers, but the story’s inner logic and tendency to heap coincidence upon coincidence, got a little predictable and boring after a while. This story, by contrast, is better than Summerland, but still lacks the character depth and sympathies of Chabon's earlier novels like Mysteries of Pittsburgh or Wonder Boys. The story’s unusual genre (a medieval swashbuckling quest) is also a stretch for Chabon, which is not to say the author is not up to the challenge, or should be limited in pursuing his imagination to its farthest boundaries, but it did seem that Chabon was hovering just behind the curtain, like a puppeteer, manipulating his characters through their paces. I also found the language Chabon used a little too academic and impenetrable for the type of story he was telling, essentially, a boy’s adventure tale. The book did have one major highlight that made the whole experience worth it, however, and that was the spot illustrations by Gary Gianni, an artist whose work on the syndicated Prince Valiant made him perfectly suited for the style and drama of this story.

Tales from Outer Suburbia – Shaun Tan’s latest book is a revelation. Whereas The Arrival was itself a revelation in that the comics world discovered a major new artistic talent, Tales confirmed that Tan is also a great writer with a charming and outlandish imagination. The book consists of about fifteen short stories, a few in pure comics format, but most skillfully blending text and illustrations in a way that is rare, yet remarkably comfortable and seamless. Often the text was used as a buildup to some magnificent illustrated punchline. The stories range from modern fable to distorted reality, and are reminiscent of Steven Millhauser’s early short stories, while Tan's wide range of art techniques (photo distortion, pencil drawings, paintings, collage, mixed media, etc.) is reminiscent of David Mack's Kabuki. Of all the books I read recently, this was my favorite by far. Here's a nice little ten-page preview which will give you a flavor for the book's charm.

Drawn & Quarterly Showcase vol. 4 – This is also a great book. I had picked up this volume of D&Q’s periodic anthology at Midtown Comics half off sale, and it turned out to be a great purchase. This is the best volume of the series by far (though I haven’t read the fifth), and features three short stories. The first, a story by Gabrielle Bell, is the best work I’ve read of hers. Included in the recent collection, Cecil and Jordan in New York, it tells the story of a young woman artist struggling to find her place in the art world, when she is unexpectedly hired by a famous artist to tutor his son. It is a touching story, subtle yet pointed in its assessment of the modern art world, and Bell’s panel-to-panel storytelling is confident and assured. Bell is followed by Martin Cendreda whose short story focuses on how an old urban legend from the Philippines still informs a small town in America. Cendreda’s thin-lined clear artwork is a joy to look at. His simplified figures retain the essential elements of personality and humanity in much the same way Ivan Brunetti’s do. The story itself is charming and unfolds slowly, like the lazy afternoon it depicts. The final story in the book is among the greatest anthology pieces I can remember reading. It is Dan Zettwoch’s impeccably researched re-telling of his grandfather’s experiences during the great Louisville flood. Zettwoch takes us on an adventure as his grandfather journeys through the city in a homemade boat, and experiences firsthand the disruption and general mood that pervaded the city during that extraordinary time. Zettwoch’s commitment to the faithful reproduction of the event itself is impressive, including maps of the city and extensive photo-referencing. The bibliography at the end of the story reveals just how much time and effort was expended on research. It is an unforgettable and unsympathetic depiction of a human tragedy, and it draws you into its world and makes you feel as if you were actually there.

City of Glass – I also re-read City of Glass, one of my all-time favorite graphic novels and the one I think is most under-appreciated among hardcore comics fans. Paul Auster’s story of a writer who decides to assume the life of one his characters is as original today as when it was first published back in the 80s as part of the New York Trilogy, and Mazzucchelli and Karasik’s adaptation of it takes the story and transforms it into a layered visual metaphor of memory and symbology. The artwork is rich with detail without overwhelming readers, and enhances the lead character’s experiences by providing visual cues to the character’s inner thoughts. The story also explores the meaning of language in society, and both Karasik and Mazzucchelli use the artwork as a similar exploration of the visual language of comics by diverging from the simple depictions of characters speaking. I think I’m struggling to define exactly what makes this work such a classic, and I’m sure there are some better essays on this book online, but I’m not exaggerating when I say this is near the very top of my list of all-time favorite graphic novels. This is the third time I’ve read it and it won’t be the last.

Webcomics - Finally, I’ve read three comics online recently that are worth checking out if you haven’t already. Generally, I’m not a huge fan of reading comics online because I like to hold the book in my hands (I know, I’m old school. I also still bag and board), but these are all excellent for different reasons and are not available anywhere else. First is Paul Pope’s short six-page story about Mr. Spock in Wired magazine. Anything Pope does is worth looking at for the art alone, and that’s really all this one is worth, too. The story is really just a promo for the upcoming Star Trek blockbuster which is sure to disappoint, but Pope’s interpretation of the characters and the Enterprise are worth gazing at for a few seconds.

Second is “Life Insurance,” an old pre-Code horror tale penciled by John Romita and inked by Les Zakarin from Weird Mysteries #11 posted by David Zuzelo (link from Journalista). It’s just one of those random old stories in the EC vein that featured a clever twist and some stunning artwork, but it’s definitely worth a read, and the artwork reminded me of Tim Lane’s Abandoned Cars.

Finally, Maira Kalman’s latest illustrated essay in the New York Times, entitled “And the Pursuit of Happiness,” features a look at the origin of laws and some of the leading women in American politics. Kalman’s paintings and photos are always stunningly beautiful, and her rambling, stream-of-conscious philosophies are often insightful and endearing. This is one of her stronger pieces of the ones she’s posted recently, and its definitely worth a look.

As for new comics, I’m just not that into them anymore. I still follow Walking Dead, Ex Machina, Daredevil (though I’m out of there when Brubaker leaves), Fantastic Four, Mome, Criminal/Incognito, Young Liars and a few other mini-series, but for the most part, I’m trying to save money in case I lose my job. I did just pick up Miss Lasko-Gross’s new GN, A Mess of Everything, but haven’t read it yet. There’s a lot of stuff I’m curious about, including just about everything Fantagraphics publishes, and maybe I’ll go back and pick up some of the best stuff someday, but I have so many comics I’ve bought and never read, others that I kept because I want to re-read (like City of Glass) and also have access to a lot of good stuff at the public library for free, that it just doesn’t make sense to spend too much money on new comics anymore.

Muto

2009-04-02T16:09:00.004-05:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is a totally brilliant fusion of animation and reality, like a cartoon drawn on real world canvasses. I've never seen anything quite like it. Check it out!

Gilbert on the Beatles

2009-03-31T10:12:00.002-05:00

I'm working through a number of old Los Bros interviews in preparation for my next major piece of writing on "Wig Wam Bam," and I came across this odd, but interesting quote from Gilbert (in TCJ #178) about the Beatles, specifically the common notion that Lennon was the better artist, and Paul was jealous.

"People make the mistake of thinking that Paul was the weaker Beatle, which is not true. He just decided to go the path of ballads and softer music. That's all. That was his decision because that's what he felt stronger doing. I think the actual rift between Paul and John was that they were equally strong, and John resented that in Paul. He could not eclipse Paul in the Beatles because Paul would always come back with something else. I think there was this real rivalry that just drove John nuts - and maybe McCartney too and he just hid it better, I don't know. But what I'm saying is, I'm defending McCartney because people always think somehow he's the weaker Beatle because he did ballads, and that's not true at all."

Favorite Panels #7 - Neal Adams

2009-03-29T11:50:00.005-05:00

This Eisner-inspired image of Batman comes from Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' classic Ra's al Ghul stories that ran in Batman and Detective Comics in the early 70s, and which were reprinted in the 1987 mini-series, The Saga of Ra's al Ghul. I've probably owned these comics for over a decade, but was finally inspired to actually sit down and read them by this interesting post over at the Comics Reporter about five alternatives to buying new comics every week, followed up by this discussion of the Baxter paper reprint series from the early 80s over at Comic Book Galaxy (the follow-up post here has a good list of all of these titles). These Batman stories actually hold up pretty well nearly 40 years later, although some of O'Neil's narration seems a little over-baked by today's standards. Still, Neal Adams' take on the Caped Crusader is among the greatest all time, and that's saying something considering how many superb artists have drawn Batman over the years. And the coloring by Cory Adams really shines on the Baxter paper, which preserves the art's lustre much better than the original newsprint versions.

Favorite Panels #6 - Matt Wagner

2009-03-28T16:17:00.004-05:00

Can you tell I've been on kind of a superhero kick lately?

This panel is from Batman and the Mad Monk, a six-issue mini-series from 2006. I picked up the entire series for three bucks at NYCC (it would have cost me $21.00 retail) and for that price, it was a great find. Having read the entire 70-issues of Sandman Mystery Theatre about a year ago, I can tell you that Matt Wagner is a great writer, but this story, which is set in Batman's early years, is less a showcase for Wagner's writing than his art. Throughout the quick six issues, Wagner's panels are dynamic, varied, dramatic and generally a lot of fun to look at. Anyway, there's nothing especially innovative or earth-shattering about this particular image; it's just a damn good drawing of Batman from a series full of damn good drawings.

20 Essential Songs

2009-03-26T08:51:00.002-05:00

In one of my day jobs, I work as a youth advisor for a group of teenagers in NYC. Recently, we agreed to do a CD Mix night, in which we each record our favorite songs onto a CD and do a blind exchange. Now, I have over 15,000 songs on my computer, so to select 20 that would appeal to teenagers was no small task. I decided to go with the classics (or, as my wife called it, “the school of rock approach”) rather than try to impress them with how hip and cool I am by picking a bunch of obscure indie artists. So I spent a few hours scouring my iTunes for the “essential songs,” but I didn’t want it to be too boring (or, frankly, to seem old) so I decided not to go with anything too obvious. Thus, no Beatles, no Eagles, no Rolling Stones, no Elvis, etc. Anyway, here’s what I finally came up with:

1. Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry
2. All Right Now - Free
3. Fat Bottomed Girls - Queen
4. Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum
5. Sweet Home Alabama - Lynard Skynard
6. Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
7. American Woman - The Guess Who
8. Radar Love - Golden Earring
9. Jack & Diane - John Mellencamp
10. Renegade - Styx
11.Stray Cat Strut - Stray Cats
12. Bad Leroy Brown - Jim Croce
13. Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
14. Paranoid - Black Sabbath
15. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
16. Walk This Way - Aerosmith
17. Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
18. Good Times, Bad Times - Led Zeppelin
19. Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
20. I Don't Wanna Grow Up - The Ramones

So, how'd I do?

The REAL All Star Superman

2009-03-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

With apologies to Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant, I would pay twice as much for 12 issues drawn by either of these guys.

InkStuds Interview - Jaime Hernandez

2009-03-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

Here's another interview with Jaime Hernandez that's worth a listen. This one was conducted in 2006, following Jaime's stint with the NY Times Funny Pages.

Shelf Life Update - Love & Rockets X

2009-03-17T10:55:00.010-05:00

FINALLY!!!

Part 1 of my column looking at the landmark issue #39 is up at the Shelf Life temporary site. This one features my analysis of Gilbert Hernandez's under-rated masterpiece, "Love & Rockets X." I know it's been a while, but I was hoping that Sequart would come back so I could post it there. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be down for the foreseeable future. Grab a cup of coffee and a snack; this one is LONG, but hopefully worth your time.

Review - The Murder of the Terminal Patient

2009-03-13T16:37:00.006-05:00

I read Rutu Modan's The Murder of the Terminal Patient yesterday on the NY Times website during my lunch hour. Normally I don't care for comics on the computer screen, but I don't buy newspapers, and these NY Times Funny Pages comics are too good to pass up. In just a couple years, Modan has become a cartooning force, and her presence in the Funny Pages alongside such luminaries as Seth, Jaime Hernandez, and Dan Clowes, is strong evidence to her talent. As with her breakout graphic novel, Exit Wounds, the story is constructed around a central mystery, and unfolds quickly until its big and satisfying reveal in the final episode. At seventeen pages, the story is a little light on character development, but there's certainly enough to hold a reader's interest. But what makes Modan worthy of such exclusive company is her seemingly effortless synthesis of Hernandez and Herge, a clean line approach which incorporates all the familiar aspects of cartooning and combines them with an illustrator's sense of composition and design. Modan also relies on a soft, textured color pallete which straddles the line between fantasy and reality. Anyway, if you've got 15 minutes to spare, you could do a lot worse than spend it reading this short story. My only complaint is a technical one - why can't the NY Times format these stories like every single other webcomic so you don't have to navigate back and forth to the table of contents every time you want to advance pages? It's a trivial gripe, but it seems like common sense to me, yet has somehow eluded the greatest newspaper editors of the world.

Review - Creepy Archives vol. 1

2009-03-09T10:05:00.013-05:00

Creepy Archives vol. 1

Published by Dark Horse Comics

Hardcover, US $49.99

This is the first installment of an extended reprint project collecting the late 50s Warren horror magazines, Creepy and Eerie. Both were extensions of the EC horror format, particularly Tales From the Crypt, but there were a few notable differences. The most significant was that the Warren magazines were published in black and white, allowing many of the artists' stunning linework to take center stage. These books were also among the first post-Comics Code horror titles on the stands. This volume collects the first five issues of the magazine.

So what do I look for in a comics archive project?

First, is the quality of the art reproduction. I don't know whether the pages in this collection were shot from original artwork or scanned, but the line detail is sharp, and, to my eye, there are no signs of distortion or murkiness. The covers, four of which are by fantasy master Frank Frazetta, are also reproduced in full color, and look sharp and clear.

Second is completeness. The format of this book is similar to Gemstone's EC Archives collections. Not only are all 50 pages of story from each of the first five issues reprinted, but the letters pages and original house ads are also included. These might be the kind of details most people skip over, but for my dollar, I appreciate having the inside cover introductions, tables of contents and old ads for monster masks and Boris Karloff readings. The only thing missing are the magazine's original back covers, which are hardly essential.

Third are the bonus features. Here, the collection is a little lacking. The only special feature the archive includes is a single, three-page introduction by Comic Artist magazine’s Jon Cooke. Cooke’s overview is respectful, and provides decent background and context, but avoids delving deeper into the individual artists or stories. Other than this introduction, there are no additional materials, and that’s too bad. It would have been nice to see some of the artists commenting on their work (as was done in the EC Archives books), or the late Archie Goodwin, who wrote most of the stories (and who, Mr. Cooke goes to painstaking efforts to convey, was the nicest man who ever walked the planet), or some background on Mr. Warren himself, or the magazine’s impact, being the first significant revival of the EC formula following the establishment of the comics code authority. Of course, to be fair, there are future Creepy and Eerie Archives planned, so the opportunity for these kinds of materials still exists.

Fourth, and most importantly, is the quality of the material itself. Are these stories worth archiving, or is this just another attempt to repackage mediocre comics, as we have seen from Marvel and DC time and time again? Well, first of all, unlike many of the trade paperbacks that flood the shelves each week, these stories are not readily available in other formats. In fact, the original five issues of Creepy typically go for anywhere from $25 to $200 each on Ebay, and it’s highly unlikely that most people would spend that much money to read the issues (especially in the current economic recession). But as with most anthologies, the quality of the stories themselves are mixed. Some are fairly formulaic or too predictable, while others feature fascinating character snapshots or clever twist endings. Some highlights include Otto Binder’s "Adam Link" stories, Goodwin and Crandall’s Edgar Allen Poe adaptations and Frank Frazetta’s "Werewolf."

But, unlike most anthologies, the quality of the artwork is incredibly consistent throughout. These are some of the industry’s masters of horror storytelling at the top of their game. Al Williamson. Joe Orlando. Gray Morrow. Jack Davis. Frank Frazetta. Angelo Torres. Reed Crandall. If these names aren’t familiar to you, then you’re missing out on some of the most skilled draftsman in comics.

Favorite Panels #5 - Will Eisner

2009-03-04T21:34:00.004-05:00

This is not technically a "panel." It's the LIFE illustration from Will Eisner's "City" portfolio. I discovered the image in a 1988 interview Eisner did with the obscure British fanzine, Ark Magazine. What I love about it is how perfectly Eisner captures that old New York neighborhood feel. The rooftop perspective, the dillapidated buildings, the people hanging out on their fire escapes, the kids playing in the street, the clothes lines between buildings; all of these details harken back to a romantic version of New York City that is forever lost. Recapturing that feel of the city that he loved was one of Eisner's main goals in his art, and this is one of the best examples I've seen.

Favorite Panels #4 - Simon Bisley

2009-03-02T21:04:00.004-05:00

I've been having fun reading old 2000 A.D.s lately, mostly from the mid-80s to early 90s. The stories are mediocre sci-fi and fantasy fare, but the black and white artwork throughout was frequently outstanding, even in the most mundane stories. In the US, it's easy to forget that virtually every major British artist of the past two decades got their start in the pages of 2000 A.D.

Anyway, this particular A.B.C. Warriors panel comes from Prog #563 (from Feb. 22, 1988). If all you know of Simon Bisley's work is his 80s Lobo mini-series and those classic Doom Patrol covers for Vertigo, you may not realize what a stunning and imaginative artist he is. I liked this particular panel above for its clever use of text in the image, but for the sheer beauty of his linework, there are many better examples.

Yet Another Friday Afternoon Comics Ramble

2009-02-20T16:34:00.003-05:00

* Yesterday I stopped by Midtown Comics for the first time in several weeks and was pleasantly surprised to see they were having a 40% off sale on all graphic novels. So, being a card-carrying geek consumer, I couldn’t resist a few small impulse buys:

Love & Rockets Sketchbook Two – I’ve been wanting this for a long, long while now, but just kept putting it off, trying to save a little money. But at 40% off, I could resist no longer. The first volume is apparently out of print; I’ve been keeping an eye out for it on eBay but haven’t even seen one listed in ages. With all of the other Bros stuff Fantagraphics has been releasing recently, these should really be brought back into print, preferably in one nice hardback collection a la Acme Novelty Datebook. Of course, it’s easy to sit here as a fan and say that, without any business perspective from a publisher’s standpoint. Oh well, I can dream…at least we have the Todd Hignite’s Jaime art book to look forward to this summer!
Drawn & Quarterly Showcase vol. 4 – this is the one with Gabrielle Bell, Dan Zettwoch and Martin Cendreda; an exceptional lineup, so I was thrilled to get it for only $9.
Scalped vol. 1 – after NYCC, several of us went out drinking and the consensus around the table was that this was the best Vertigo book in years. So, for only $6, I decided to finally check it out.

* I also picked up the latest Walking Dead (#58). I still like this series, but it does seem to be a little off track lately in the sense that there is less forward momentum than usual, and less overarching drama. And, maybe it’s just me, but there’s too many rape references for my liking. Last issue there was child rape, and now in this issue, there’s gang rape. I find this kind of writing a little cheap and cliched, though it’s not fair to exaggerate this one issue at the expense of the greater book. Overall, Kirkman is a solid storyteller and has hooked me for 58 issues, which is quite a feat for a mainstream comic, and I’m sure I’ll be back next month.

* I passed on the new Neil Gaiman Batman book. For one thing, I think it’s insulting that, with the economic crisis, DC would raise the price of this mediocre superhero book by a dollar (to $3.99!) just because they have a celebrity writer attached to the project. I mean, there’s no increased page count or anything special to justify such an increase. Anyway, if it’s any good, I’ll pick it up in the bargain bins sometime down the road.

* The only other comic I got was the new I Am Legion from John Cassaday. By comparison, this is a higher quality product, with thicker, glossier paper, and a card stock cover, as well as additional pages, for only $3.50. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks great, and makes me long for the conclusion to Planetary already.

* This past week I finished my second EC Archives collection – Shock SuspenseStories vol. 1. Since my EC experience is limited to this and the first volume of Two-Fisted Tales, I have no qualms saying that Kurtzman’s war stories are far, far better, but I liked many of the stories in this volume, too. I was especially fond of stories drawn by Jack Kamen, Joe Orlando and Wally Wood. Al Feldstein is a good writer, but his style is extremely prose-heavy, and felt cumbersome and overwrought in places. Also, some of the “shock” endings were fairly predictable. Overall, I thought the most effective stories were those that were written in the first person.

Is There Anyone Out There Who ISN'T Re-reading The Watchmen?

2009-02-17T18:30:00.021-05:00

Like the rest of the comics world, I just started re-reading The Watchmen in anticipation of the upcoming movie. This is the fourth time I've read it, but is actually the first in about a decade, so it's been interesting to come at it from a much more mature and critical eye than I did in my previous readings.

Over at Comic Book Resources, retailers Carr D'Angelo and Atom! Freeman are also Re-reading the Watchmen, but they're going issue by issue and doing a back and forth discussion column on it. I've cut and pasted some of the quotes I found most interesting below, but you definitely should read their full columns:

Issue #1
1) "The script for the 26-page first issue was 101 pages of single-spaced type."

Wow! I knew Alan Moore's reputation for lengthty scripts, but that is incredible! One wonders what details Gibbons was forced to eliminate simply for space purposes, and what other non-illustratable (pretty sure that's not a word) details are in there that might enhance the story.

2) "The storytelling is cinematic in that you really have to glean the necessary plot info from the pictures. Signs tell you that you're at Mason's Auto Repair. You have to figure out what Rorschach is measuring with that coat hanger because there's no thought balloon that reads, "Hurm, the closet is smaller on the inside than the outside. I wonder if there's some sort of secret--ah, there it is!"

This is, in my opinion, the key to Watchmen's success, not so much as a story, but as a comic book story. The fact that reading the artwork is so critical to the overall understanding of the story is what makes it stand apart from virtually all of its mainstream peers. Not that this is anything new and original. Harvey Kurtzman was doing this kind of storytelling back in the 50s in Two-Fisted Tales, and Los Bros Love & Rockets comes immediately to mind (no surprise!) in thinking of 80s contemporaries who were versed in the language of using the art as much as possible to tell the story.

However, Watchmen is unique in that it is one of the few writer/artist collaborations to do this successfully. More often than not, it is the vision of a single cartoonist which utilizes the art to such great effect. Also, Moore and Gibbons go to much greater lengths than the average creators with the sheer volume of story information that is crammed into each panel. Foreshadowing, symbology, political and social context - almost all of this rich subtext is conveyed in bits and pieces of visual background information.

3) "It was only at this past San Diego Comic-Con...that I realized "Under the Hood" had a double meaning since Mason is a masked hero and a mechanic."

Hmm. That actually never occurred to me either.

Issue #2
4) "For Moore, the costumes keep coming back to sexual perversion as motivation."

Well, certainly the scene where the Comedian tries to rape the Silk Spectre supports this, and it is undeniably a theme that runs underneath the greater story, but I don't know that this was Moore's essential point.

5) "...I think the cops went on strike to protest the vigilante movement and the Keene Act was passed to gets the cops back on the street. Moore is hypothesizing that in the real word, cops would not put up with masked vigilantes."

The scene they're referring to here is the flashback in which Nite Owl and the Comedian are trying to disperse an angry mob before the Comedian opens fire. I never registered the fact that the cops were on strike because they were protesting the masked vigilantes, but this makes perfect sense. What's more interesting is how the vigilantes fail in their attempt to take the cops place, and are totally unable to control the mob. Rather, they immediately place themselves above the law, and use lethal force against the innocent civilians, which only further alienates them.

6) "I remember someone saying that the reason the colors are changing every panel when the Comedian is in Moloch's apartment is because of the flashing neon sign outside. Unfortunately, it's one of the tricks that doesn't hold up. Neon flashes are rhythmic and brief, yet each one of these panels is filled with a big ol' word balloon; the timing doesn't match up. It was one of those "trying too hard" moments."

I don't agree. It's these kinds of subtle stylistic details that make this book such a joy to re-read. In fact, the alternating light and dark creates a wavering, disorienting mood which is well-suited to the scene, and fits perfectly with the Comedian's own rambling instability. It also controls the dramatic tempo of the scene, adding a rhythm, almost like a heartbeat, to the otherwise static point of view.

7) "Some of the dialogue here is amazing. Moloch's bit about cancer, that he's got the kind you don't get better from, is a great line."

I totally agree, and this particular line stood out for me as well. Moore has always had an excellent ear for spoken dialogue. I remember being particularly impressed by his phonetic use of a Scottish accent in V for Vendetta (though I can't remember the character's name).

8) "...when you know where the story is going, it's amazing to see how much foreshadowing Moore and Gibbons laid in."

This, to me, is also one of the most satisfying parts of re-reading this story so many times. For example, in the second chapter you already see a poster for a missing writer in the background of a random panel. There's no other mention or reference to its significance at this point in the story, so upon a first reading, most people would probably gloss right over this detail, or forget it. This is why re-reading Watchmen is so critical to understanding and appreciating the work. It's the complexity of the plot and the immense amount of planning and foreshadowing that went into every panel which can only be appreciated upon a second or third reading.

9) "I was obsessed with finding meaning in all the names. Edward Blake obviously suggests famed comedy director Blake Edwards ("The Pink Panther"). But other names refer to comedy. Walter Kovacs recalls TV great Ernie Kovacs. Veidt could refer to Conrad Veidt, the actor who played the grinning freak in "The Man Who Laughs," the movie that was a visual inspiration for the Joker."

Interesting background info I didn't know, though I'm not surprised that Moore's character names have deeper meanings and influences.

Issue #3

10) "I kind of remember this chapter as the one where I started to "get it." The devices and motifs start coming together. The close-up of the Fallout Shelter sign that sends a different message: "All Out Helter." This is when it starts to hit the fan. And when you really start poring over the art looking for clues."

You know, even trying to do a close reading, I missed this. Carr is referring to the cover image above with the first letters of the "Fallout Shelter" sign truncated. It's an interesting observation, and although I wonder if this was an intentional device, or merely a coincidence, knowing how much scrupulous attention to detail went into this story, it wouldn't surprise me if this is in Moore's script.

11) "Actually, the pirate story is a distraction to keep you from noticing all the "Easter eggs" in the newsstand scene: there's a guy with a truck full of "Fallout Shelter" signs. A poster for a missing writer, which connects to the Comedian's rant to Moloch last issue. The recharging station for electric vehicles that the kid is leaning on has The Flash's emblem, a "Top Ten" sort of touch. An ad for the "Veidt Method" on the back of the comic, making Ozymandias this world's answer to Charles Atlas, or maybe Flex Mentallo."

While I wouldn't use the word "distraction," I do agree that this is one of the great scenes in this issue. The details Carr cites are all conveyed visually, and there's others. The Nova Express headlines referring to Nixon's third heart operation, for example, tips off the reader that this is a slightly altered version of our world where Nixon never left office.

12) "I don’t know much about who’s cast in the movie, but how great would it be if Janey Slater was played by Margot Kidder?"

This would be awesome, actually. I've always believed that Kidder's version of Lois Lane was the definitive version of the character, and actually, was the single best female lead role in any superhero movie. Now that she's older, I could see her pulling off the bitter ex-girlfriend role beautifully.

13) "When I was reading “Watchmen” for the first time, cancer and nuclear war were extremely scary to me, so the tension was really building this issue. When I look back at it though, does the conspiracy against Dr. Manhattan hold water?"

I personally don't have a problem with this. The intent of the story is to show the real world's reaction to the emergence of an actual superhero, and I think paranoia is a very realistic portrayal. And, of course, the fact that the media would latch onto the cancer stories and spin it into a front-page controversy is dead-on accurate, as is the sleazy Nova Express tabloid-style interview with Janey Slater to sell papers.

14) "I've had customers ask if they had to read the text pages and this is the chapter that demonstrates why you have to. It's not just Moore adding atmosphere, there is actually story content in these pages. After issue #2, Hooded Justice seemed like the most likely suspect for the Comedian's murder. But when you read "Under the Hood," you realize the Comedian probably got to Hooded Justice first."

First of all, skipping the text pieces is a terribe idea. But the notion that it was the Comedian who actually killed Hooded Justice is interesting. I don't think Mason ever comes out and makes that accusation, so maybe it's referred to again down the line? Makes perfect sense, though. I mean, the Comedian was obviously angry over the fight after the Christmas party when he tried to rape the Silk Specter, and is definitely the type of vengeful bastard who would do that.

15) "I love the constant commentary on the history of American comics through the lens of actual superheroes in this world....There's also a Golden Age/Silver Age parallel: superheroes would have died out as a fad if not for 1960s sensation Dr. Manhattan. Is Doc a metaphor for Marvel Comics?"

This is actually one of the most interesting ideas in the column: the parallels between the evolution of the comic book industry and how it matured as its readers did. There are many specifics which I won't get into yet, but the passages in "Under the Hood" stand out as great examples of an older "golden age" hero reflecting back on the innocence and fun of the early days before things became more serious and dark. It's a keen observation, and the irony is that, once Moore laid bare these themes, his story accelerated the infusion of this realism and seriousness in mainstream superhero comics to such an extreme, that still today, 20+ years later, the influence of Watchmen resonates through the industry.

**Issues #4-6 coming as soon as I read them.

Favorite Panels #3 - Richmond Lewis

2009-02-16T23:08:00.004-05:00

Richmond Lewis did some great coloring on The Shadow.

I never knew the national anthem could sound sexy...

2009-02-15T17:36:00.006-05:00

...until I heard this version by Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game.

Favorite Panels #2 - Bill Sienkiewicz

2009-02-14T22:35:00.009-05:00

This is a page from The Shadow #2, artwork by the great Bill Sienkiewicz.

Having just fallen from an airplane, wrestling with a clone, the Shadow is saved at the last second by another airship, while the clone plummets to his death. The situation is typical superhero melodrama, but what makes this a favorite is the structure of the page itself.

While at first glance, this appears to be four separate panels, there are three techniques that Sienkiewicz uses which allow the page to operate as a single meta-panel, while at the same time, letting the artist retain the ability to control the timing and meter of the scene.

The first is the movement of the airship in the upper left corner. Although there are three distinct images of the ship itself, the air current which indicates the ship's flight path flows seamlessly across the three panels, giving the sense of one distinct motion.

Second is the falling figure of the clone, which, again, is shown in all three panels (though, in the third panel, the character is only implied), yet it is the consistent trail of the word balloons accompanying his fall which give the movement a consistent flow across the page. Also notice how, as the falling man gets closer to the ground, his screams grow louder and thus, the word balloons become larger. The "SPLURK" sound effect splattered across the third and fourth panel unites the two images, and the panel border even disappears as the scene dramatically breaches into the final panel.

At the same time, the actions of the figures along the bottom of the page are clearly broken down into four separate panels. Their dialogue puts the scene into context and provides the sense of actual time passing. The first three panels take maybe 2-3 seconds of real time, while the fourth panel appears to skip ahead just a few seconds or so.

This combination of techniques is possible because Sienkiewicz uses thin black lines rather than actual gutters to divide the panels (and maintains a fixed camera angle throughout).

Fascinating stuff! I've never seen anything quite like it, though I'm sure this can't be the only example of such a technique.

NYCC 2009

2009-02-10T17:46:00.010-05:00

Despite the fact that I have little or no interest in about 95% of the exhibitors and panels at this mostly mainstream convention, I still managed to put my cynicism aside and enjoy myself. The highlights:

* Catching up with the various writers, editors and artists who work with Sequart (I'm trying to be better about not name-dropping on this blog, but they know who they are). Many a geeky comics discussion was had throughout the day, and spilled over into dinner, drinks and some very late night antics.

* Also, you may not realize this, but while the site has been in technical limbo, Sequart's book line has been significantly ramped up. There are now five books available, including Mutant Cinema: the X-Men Trilogy From Comics to Screen by Thomas McLean, and a new book called Our Sentence Is Up by Patrick Meaney featuring an in-depth analysis of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, which should hit stores by the summer.

* I could only go on Saturday, which is always the height of the convention, and as in the past, it was frustratingly overcrowded. You'd think I'd be used to that by now, living in Queens and all, but I found myself constantly frustrated by the crowds of middle-aged Vampirellas and lightsaber-carrying Jedis.

* Given the state of my own personal economy, I was anxious to spend as little as money as possible, while still satisfying that undeniable itch to buy comics. My compromise? Spending a couple hours sifting through the dollar and fifty cent bins. To my astonishment, I actually snagged quite a few decent items by this method, and managed to leave the day having only spent $26 on comics. Here's what I got:

Hate #2-12 - A good run of first prints of Peter Bagge's classic 90s Fantagraphics series, and in decent shape too.

Smax #1-5 - The complete Alan Moore mini-series and the only one from the Top Ten universe that I never read.

Sandman Mystery Theater: Sleep of Reason #1-5 - The complete mini-series relaunch of the classic Vertigo series. Tim Callahan assured me that it was dreadful, and a few glances at the artwork certainly confirm that Eric Nguyen is no Guy Davis, but since I just read all 70 issues of the original series last year, I was curious to see how John Ney Reiber handled this series resurrection.

Batman and the Mad Monk #1-6 - The complete Matt Wagner mini-series from 2006.

The Shadow Annuals #1 and 2 - I have spent a couple years gathering all of the individual issues of this underrated 80s series (art by Bill Sienkewicz and Kyle Baker!) and since all I needed were these two annuals, I was very pleased to find them for 50 cents each.

Grip: The Strange World of Men #1-3, 5 - Gilbert Hernandez is always worth the price, but unfortunately, I couldn't find the 4th issue. Shouldn't be hard to track it down, though.

Monsters on the Prowl #16 - This was certainly an impulse buy, but the old 70s Marvel comic was in decent shape and features stories by John Severin, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, so, for a buck, I figured I couldn't go wrong.

Doctor Strange: Marvel Milestone Edition - Speaking of Ditko, I couldn't resist this full color facsimile reprint of the first four Doctor Strange stories from Strange Tales #110, 111, 114 and 115. Can you believe I never read these before?

Not Quite Dead #4 - This purchase was inspired by Gilbert Shelton's recent story in Mome. I think this issue, from Rip Off Press, features the same characters but I'm not sure.

Epic Lite #1 - I know very little about this humor anthology from the short lived imprint. I bought it for the Kyle Baker and Evan Dorkin stories, but there were a few other artists I'd never heard of who looked to have some interesting work in there.

* Despite the absence of both Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly, there were several indie-related projects being promoted that I'm really looking forward to, including:

The Art of Jaime Hernandez - By Todd Hignite. A combination of biography and art book. Will include the first reprint of Jaime's NY Times Magazine Locas story. I cannot wait for this! Available August 2009 from Abrams Comicarts.

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman - By Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. Contains 200 full color illustrations! Available June 2009 from Abrams Comicarts.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow - By Brian Fies (follow-up to Mom's Cancer). Prediction: this is going to be the sleeper book of the year. the five page preview is stunning! Also available June 2009 from Abrams Comicarts.

A.D. After the Deluge - Josh Neufeld's story about Hurricane Katrina (Pantheon) looks amazing.

Asterios Polyp - David Mazzuchelli's highly anticipated new graphic novel (I tried to convince the publishers that they need to collect Rubber Blanket next, but they just looked at me like I was crazy).

Sequential Art Student Sampler volume 1 - Not really an upcoming book, but SCAD: The Savannah College of Art and Design was handing out free copies of their brochure and damn if it isn't a gorgeous little mini-comic. PLUS, it features a new 8-page Eleanor Davis story. Davis also provided the stunning cover painting above (seriously, click on the image).

That's about it, I guess. I'm definitely glad I went, but it was no MoCCA.

Shelf Life Update #2

2009-02-02T12:32:00.004-05:00

I've added six more columns to the Shelf Life temporary site (issues #7-12). In a way, it's good that I'm going through all of these old columns again because it's refreshing my memory about the early issues, and is also giving me lots of ideas for when I'm finally ready to edit the book. On the other hand, reloading and formating all the images takes time, and Blogger is much clumsier to work with than Sequart.

Favorite Panels #1 - Jack Kamen

2009-02-01T08:45:00.009-05:00

I'm working my way through my second EC Archives collection - Shock Suspenstories vol. 1 - and while all of the EC artists are excellent, Jack Kamen is becoming a particular favorite of mine. In the sequence above, from "Kickback," I love the cinematic way the cigarette smoke blends with the gutter to transition the scene, and the way the woman's figure spans both panels, making the transition less abrupt and more cinematic. I also like the ominous hatched black shape used to offset the figures in the last panel. Kamen's figure drawing is measured and precise and, of all the artists in this collection, he has the best control of facial expressions (check out that sinister look on the woman's face in the last panel).

Your Friday Afternoon Comics Ramble...

2009-01-30T14:12:00.017-05:00

* Paul Gravett has a great article up with 10 tips on how to keep enjoying comics during the economic recession. It's a great list, but the one that most resonates with me is "re-read your favorites." I've got thousands of old comics - in boxes, on shelves, in drawers - and for what? I mean, why am I saving all this stuff, if not to someday re-read them. Well, for me, that time is now. I'm trying to keep my comics spending to around $50 per month, so now is the time to finally do some serious long-box surfing.

* Weening myself off new comics consumption is far from easy, though. I stopped by the comic shop yesterday and dropped forty bucks on the fourth Criminal TP, Daredevil #115, the new Comics Journal and a couple back issues of Jon Lewis's True Swamp.

* I did take one of Gravett's other suggestions seriously, though. I checked out Superman: Secret Identity from my local library this week. Now, I've never been much of a Superman fan, although I did enjoy All Star Superman, but this has to be one of the best Superman stories I've ever read (maybe second only to It's a Bird, which is one of those books I plan to re-read someday). What's remarkable about this story is how atypical it is. There's no fighting (other than as sort of a one or two panel allusion, rather than a central conflict), no villains, and, in fact, the real Superman, the one who exists within the DC Universe's continuity, is not really featured in this story except as a fictional character. Busiek's spin on the real world Superman is nothing new (he's written stories with very similar perspectives in both Astro City and Marvels), and yet, this feels like his most successful work. Part of this, no doubt, is due to the unbelievably beautiful artwork from Stuart Immonen. I'm in now way qualified to speculate on whether this is the artist's best work to date, but it is certainly the best I've seen. Immonen draws in a photo-realistic style and makes great use of single and double-page spreads to create a breathtaking hero's perspective on the real world (Busiek describes it in the Introduction as "glorying in the wonder of superpowers more than the violence"). I also prefer Immonen's style ("tight, illustrative pencil renderings on each page...scanned...and digitally colored, using a palette inspired by 1950s advertising art" ) to anything I've seen from Alex Ross. But the real heart of the story is Busiek's warm, confessional narrator, who walks us through the ups and downs of his life, from the discovery of his powers to the frailties of old age. Despite this alternative Clark Kent's incredible powers, in Busiek's hands he retains a wonderfully grounded sense of humanity, and it is that subtle difference which makes Secret Identity stand apart from the hundreds of other Superman stories.

* I also continue to work my way through many of the comics which Los Bros have cited as inspirations, both seeking to understand their artistic decisions better and to round out my own knowledge base of comics history. Most recently I finished reading the first EC Archives volume of Harvey Kurtzman's Two Fisted Tales (which, incidentally, I scored off Ebay for $15) and although I don't exactly have the energy right now to put into words exactly what I loved about this book, the thing that sticks with me the most is Kurtzman's unwavering commitment to portray the harsh realities of war, rather than to romanticize or politicize it. There are letters from real GIs and military personnel in each of the later issues testifying to how realistic Kurtzman's perspectives on war were. Artistically, there are some definite similarities with Gilbert's work, particularly in Kurtzman's character designs and storytelling approaches (apparently he did the initial layouts for all of his artists), but I'll have to do a little more homework on this to really understand where the specific influences are in Love & Rockets.

* Speaking of Love & Rockets, Jaime Hernandez has a great new illustration in this week's New Yorker, accompanying George Saunders' story, "Al Roosten." I didn't love the story, it was ok, but Jaime's picture is typically awesome. The same issue also features a great cover by Adrian Tomine.

* I'll be at the NY Comicon next Saturday, and will be spending some time at the Sequart booth, so if you're there, please stop by and say hello.

* Finally, this has nothing to do with comics, but I'm very excited for Steven Millhauser's new collection of short stories, Dangerous Laughter, which comes out in paperback in about two weeks (on Feb. 10). I've read a couple of these stories in Harper's, and they're as awesome as anything the author has written, though perhaps a shade or two darker in tone. Anyway, if you're looking to try something different, I highly recommend this book (or any of his other short story collections).

Five For Friday #148

2009-01-27T12:01:00.002-05:00

I missed the deadline for this week's Five for Friday feature over at the Comics Reporter, but since it was an especially good topic, I wanted to post my responses here. The category was: "Name Your Five Favorite Marvel or DC Comics Single Issues, Nothing From The Same Series Twice."

1) House of Secrets #7 by Steven T. Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen - "Blueprint: Elevation A" is an underrated masterpiece, and one of the best single issues of any Vertigo comic. It's also sort of a prelude to one of the stories in Kristiansen's issue of Solo.

2) Sandman #18 - by Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones and Malcolm Jones III - "The Dream of a Thousand Cats" is my favorite single issue of the Sandman, and this is also one of McKean's five best covers.

3) The Uncanny X-Men #190 - This was my favorite X-Men story as a kid. Plus, it features some great, early John Romita Jr. art and the best X-Men cover ever! It just just barely beat out Barry Windsor Smith's Wolverine solo story in #205, which is also a classic.

4) Wonder Woman #19 - My favorite single issue from George Perez's awesome run, and actually, one of the best single issue superhero stories of all time. This is the done-in-one "Who Killed Mindy Mayer" story, told in a series of newspaper articles with some of Perez's best art.

5) Marvel Fanfare #40 - David Mazzuchelli's Angel story makes this issue a must, but the fact that the backup story is a Claremont penned solo Storm story illustrated by Craig Hamilton (he of the amazing pinups) makes this one of my personal favorites comics of all time.

And because I'm not bound by Comics Reporter rules, here are five more favorites:

6) Fantastic Four #285 -My favorite story from John Byrne's run (although I still haven't read the first half). By the way, here's a great in-depth appreciation of this issue that I came across while searching for covers.

7) Batman: Black and White #4 - by Brian Bolland, Kevin Nowlan (written by Jan Strnad), Gary Gianni (written by Archie Goodwin), Brian Stelfreeze (written by Denny O'Neil) and Katsuhiro Otomo. Plus, if that weren't enough, awesome cover by Alex Toth.

8) Animal Man #5 - By Grant Morrison, Chas Truog and Doug Hazelwood - Probably Grant Morrison's best single issue story ever, and definitely the starting point for all that was to come in Animal Man.

9) Marvel Tales #118 - This Gerry Conway/Ross Andru issue reprints the story from ASM #141 in which Mysterio tricks Spider-Man into thinking he's fighting all of his main villains at once. This was another one of my favorite stories as a kid (I blogged about it here). Plus, it features the Spider-mobile!

10) Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe - The funniest single issue Marvel has ever published. Haven't read it in years.

Honorable Mentions:

11) Daredevil #227 - The start of "Born Again," still the single best DD story ever told.
12) Justice League #1 - Giffen and DeMatteis's humorous take on the League is one of my favorite series of all time.
13) Spider-Man versus Wolverine - the landmark 64-page special issue from 1987 still holds up after all these years.
14) Detective Comics Annual #2 - Features a seriously underrated story by Mark Waid.
15) Superman #400 - The best of DC's many anniversary all-star anthology issues.
16) Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules #1 - Probably the best mini-series Marvel has published in the last decade.

Birthday Review #3 - Not Brand Echh #11

2009-01-24T11:52:00.009-05:00

Not Brand Echh #11 (published by Marvel Comics, December 1968)

CONTENTS:

"King Konk '68" by Roy Thomas (writer); Tom Sutton (penciller); Marie Severin (inker)
"Super-Hero Daydreams" by Marie Severin (writer/penciller); John Tartaglione (inker)
"Dark Moon Rise, Heck Hound Hurt" by Arnold Drake (writer); Frank Springer (penciller); Tom Sutton (inker)
"It's A Mad, Mad Ave." by Stu Schwartzberg (writer); Marie Severin (penciller/inker)
"The Puns of Will Bonnet" by Arnold Drake (writer); Tom Sutton (penciller/inker)
"How To Be A Comic Book Artist" by Marie Severin (writer/penciller/inker)
"Don't Rock The Vote" by Arnold Drake (writer); Tom Sutton (penciller/inker)
"Auntie Goose Rhymes Dept." by Roy Thomas (writer); John Verpoorten (penciller/inker)
"Ivanshmoe" by Roy Thomas/Stan Lee (writers); Tom Sutton (penciller/inker)
"Fame Is A Cross-Eyed Blind Date With B-A-A-A-D Breath" by Arnold Drake (writer); Marie Severin (penciller); John Tartaglione (inker)

About halfway through this oversized issue of humor strips based on the Marvel Universe, it suddenly struck me that very rarely are mainstream superhero comics fun anymore!

Not that fun is the only measure of quality, but the trend toward gritty, ultra-realistic dystopian darkness has turned most superhero comics into bleak morality tales. Endless images of a corrupt, unjust world, overcome with violence and sex, pervade the genre, and even in those rare stories where a more light-hearted approach is taken (e.g. Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League or John Byrne's She-Hulk), none achieve the outright silliness and manic energy of this late 60s series.

All that being said, I wouldn't exactly call Not Brand Echh a masterpiece or anything. The book essentially follows the Mad Magazine format, with several short parodies and gag strips drawn in a distorted cartoonish style (a la Don Martin) using Marvel superheroes in odd, contrived and occasionally just plain stupid situations. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but there is a certain persistent cleverness and wit that make it a satisfying reading experience.

There are a couple different types of humor in this book. The first is situational humor; Marvel superheroes are used as stooges in sitcom-style parodies. For example, in "Don't Rock the Vote," we have Namor (renamed "No-More, the Sunk Mariner") running for President against Aquaman (renamed "Aqualung Man"). The strip, which includes a ridiculous debate, outrageous campaign ads and a whole lot of other nonsense, can, occassionly induces a chuckle or two, but the real joy is searching for the literally dozens of subtle visual gags that Tom Sutton works into every panel.

Similarly, in the book's opening story, a slapstick parody of King Kong called "King Konk '68," the alliterative attempts at humor ("another mind-boggling milestone along mighty Marble's momentous migration toward mediocrity") are tedious at times, but the story is saved by the sheer tenacity of Sutton's visuals. The scan above is a typical example. The page is dense with text balloons, most of which are punchlines or random asides, but the real joy is the artwork, which crams dozens of buffoonish variations of familiar characters into an otherwise iconic scene.

The comic also has a lot of inside jokes and not-so-subtle jabs at many of Marvel's artists at the time. For example, "Auntie Goose Rhymes Dept." features Aunt May reading nursery rhymes which poke fun at Jack Kirby. The best example of this insider humor is ""Dark Moon Rise, Heck Hound Hurt." The entire point of this strip is to poke fun at Jim Steranko's page designs from his classic Nick Fury #3 and Frank Springer does an excellent job mimicking and exaggerating Steranko's worst visual habits, especially his confusing page arrangements, where it's hard to determine which order to read the text balloons. The lead character, "Knock Furious, Agent of S.H.E.E.S.H." is bumbling and oafish, the antithesis of masculine perfection that usually typifies Marvel's superheroes.

And that's kind of the point of the whole book. All of these stories feature Marvel heroes acting decidedly unheroic; rather, they're cloyingly clumsy and catastrophically clueless (sorry!).

The highlight of the book, and perhaps its only real source of enduring humor, is the old advertisements for all kinds of ridiculous products like "electronic computer brains" and "giant stallion murals." And of course, no 60s Marvel comic would be complete without ads for "the secrets of muscle power," "new scientific discoveries to help you gain weight," remedies to prevent hair loss, and quick study guides to earn your G.E.D. But my personal favorite is the ad for the "Perfect Voice Institute" which promises "you can have a He-Man voice if you send away for the free booklet, "Voice Power and Personal Power" by Eugene Feuchtinger. I mean, who wouldn't want a He-Man voice?

Shelf Life Update

2009-01-21T21:31:00.005-05:00

It's been a while, so I just wanted to give a quick status update.

1) Bad news first. It looks like Sequart will be back, but it might take a little while longer. I don't know all the details, but the entire site had to be moved to a new server, and there's some significant recoding that was required.

2) In the meantime, I've built a temporary site for Shelf Life. So far, I've only loaded the first six issues, but depending on how long it's going to be, I may add some more. Once Sequart is back, I plan to deactivate this site.

3) After more than three years, I've finally reached the most challenging part of the entire project. Issue #39 concludes not only Jaime's "Wig Wam Bam," but also Gilbert's "Love & Rockets X," and issue #40 concludes "Poison River." At this point, I am about 85-90% finished with my analysis of "Love & Rockets X" (which, I have to mention, is an underrated masterpiece). Depending on where Sequart is in the recovery process, I may post this at the temporary site sometime in the next few weeks. Once I hit issue #41, I expect things will go much quicker since the Brothers look like they gave up on the longform epics and returned to doing short stories.

4) My personal goal is to reach issue #50 in 2009, but it'll just depend on how long it takes me to get through "Poison River." I plan to re-read the entire story, including the additional pages added in the collected edition, so that is the most likely bottleneck I can foresee.

The 52 Weeks Project

2009-01-19T18:47:00.002-05:00

It really feels like this, doesn't it?

This incredible image is by Greg Ruth, artist of Sudden Gravity, Conan and Freaks of the Heartland, and is part of his excellent 52 Weeks Project.

Jonah's Book of the Year

2009-01-17T17:23:00.009-05:00

About four years ago, I reviewed Hope Larson's Salamander Dream as part of one of my Crack Shots columns for Comic Book Galaxy. But while I liked the book a lot back then, it's hard to put into words just how much I love it now.

Since I wrote that review, I've read Larson's fable about "Hailey and her masked friend, sharing fantasies together in the quiet of the forest" about 100 times; it's my son's favorite book.

Jonah, who just turned 17 months, LOVES Salamander Dream in a way that is so pure and so joyful, it's indescribable. And his affection for the story is unusual for a kid his age. It's much longer than any of his other picture books, and definitely a more involved story than, say, Clifford the Big Red Dog or Goodnight Moon, and yet, night after night, he sits still (except when he leans in to give Salamander a kiss) and eagerly stares at each page while I improvise the narrative. At some points, he gets so excited, he literally shakes and squeals with delight, especially when Salamander emerges from his tree, or climbs onto the eagle's back, or shrinks down to an atomic element.

Despite all my efforts to describe what makes certain comics great, Jonah's love for this story is the best evidence I can think of that there's a certain magic to comics that is, and always will be, beyond the critics' reach.

F.M. Howarth Classics

2009-01-15T20:43:00.005-05:00

Here's nine more F.M. Howarth comics from Comics From Scribner's Magazine. I'll try to post some of the other artists from this anthology as soon as I have time to scan and upload them.

A Lost Classic

2009-01-14T06:13:00.004-05:00

An early example of sequential art by F.M. Howarth, who was the subject of a great article by Jared Gardner in The Comics Journal #292. This comes from Comics From Scribner's Magazine (1890).

Cerebus - A Diablog

2009-01-12T18:03:00.006-05:00

In case you haven't heard yet, the other major indie comic from the 80s, Cerebus, is now the subject of a first-time critical reading by Laura Hudson (former editor of Comic Foundry magazine) and Leigh Walton (Top Shelf 2.0 Editor). Having taken the better part of three years to finish 38 columns about Love & Rockets, it's kind of staggering to think of Laura and Leigh going all the way through 300 issues, especially given how dense the later issues get. Yet, at the same time, it helps that they have two of them to bounce ideas off of. From what they've posted so far, they're off to a great start. Check it out!

Birthday Review #2 - John Byrne's 2112

2009-01-10T21:31:00.002-05:00

"In 1990, Stan Lee contacted me and asked me if I would like the be 'editor-in-chief' of a whole new line he was going to create at Marvel -- a line which would be set in Marvel's future, unconnected to the Marvel Universe as we knew it. As it happened, I had been giving some thought to a 'Futureverse' of my own, and, being flattered by Stan's offer, I suggested that what I had come up with (but at that time thought I had no place to develop) would fit the bill for his project. To this end I plotted (Stan was to script) and drew a 64 page pilot.

When Stan saw the pilot pages he asked for more specific MU references. I'd tried to keep the thing 'clean,' so as not to turn the whole MU into a Superboy story, but Stan thought we SHOULD at least HINT at what had happened to some of the folk we knew from the present continuity. Fortunately, since my story was told in the 64 pages, this meant only adding some 12 additional pages and some bridging material to make them fit. Thus, when I took the project back it was, luckily, not a case of re-writing or re-drawing, but simply of removing pages I had not wanted in there in the first place. I'd taken a set of concepts, bent them slightly to fit Stan's needs, and then had only to 'unbend' them to get back to my own original material.

Stuck with 64 pages and no thought of where to put 'em -- I did not want to offer the book to DC, since that seemed vaguely scabrous somehow -- I mentioned my dilemma to Roger Stern, who suggested I give Dark Horse a call. I did. They accepted the proposal with open arms. I also pitched NEXT MEN, which had been floating in my brain for a while, and which they also liked. I then realized the tiniest bit of tweaking in the dialogue would make my graphic novel -- now titled 2112 -- into a prequel/sequel pilot for JBNM."

-- John Byrne (3/28/1998)

Interesting, huh?

I never realized that 2112 originated as a concept for Marvel, nor that it was a precursor to the 2099 titles, none of which I ever read seriously (I vaguely remember reading a couple issues of the Spider-Man title, but recall absolutely nothing about them). But the fact that this started out as a Marvel concept, even if it lacks any direct connection to the Marvel universe, is telling. It reveals Byrne's deep understanding of the formula that superhero comics must conform to, and demonstrates what a master he is at crafting interesting stories that adhere to this formula.

And 2112, as a sci-fi book with superhero elements, is a very enjoyable read. Its high concept centers around a world teetering on the brink of a science-war, as genetic mutations have become a sexually transmitted disease. Safeguard, the massive privatized security force which replaced the militaries of the world, has coped with this outbreak of mutations by shipping the "halflings" to Appolyon, a prison planet. But the bureaucrats in charge fail to acknowledge that Sathanas (a character who looks like he wandered right off one of Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four pages) has united the halflings and plans to reclaim the earth.

The early 90s was a particularly creative period for John Byrne. His Next Men series, which ran 31 issues, was among my favorite comics at the time. During the same period, he also produced two Babe mini-series, Danger Unlimited, a four-issue homage to the early Fantastic Four, and scripted the first story for Mike Mignola's Hellboy, all for Dark Horse's Legend imprint. Of course, Byrne also continued working in mainstream superheroes. At the same time as his Dark Horse work, he wrote Iron Man, and both wrote and illustrated Marvel's She-Hulk series, as well as another favorite of mine, Namor, the Sub-Mariner (Byrne wrote and illustrated the first 25 issues before handing over art duties to then newcomer, Jae Lee).

That Byrne was able to produce such a substantial body of work in such a small window of time is impressive, but it's his consistent quality during this period that bears discussion. His entrepreneurial take on Namor was among the most novel in the character's 50+ year history. Similarly, his self-deprecating She-Hulk, who was aware of her starring role in her own comic book, allowed Byrne to poke fun at the medium and himself.

But it's his Next Men series which stands out as his most memorable, most successful effort from that period. A much darker story, Next Men essentially took a group of superheroes and dropped them into the real world. While it's been 15 years or so since I read the series, I remember enjoying it very much at the time; yet for some reason, I never managed to read 2112, which is essentially the prelude to the Next Men, although unlike most preludes, it occurs in the future, rather than the past.

The best part about 2112 is Byrne's enthusiasm and creative energy. The book was written, pencilled, inked and lettered by Byrne himself (with colors by Steve Oliff) and this complete creative control allowed Byrne to bring his vision to life free from editorial constraints.

His art has a naturalism that reminds me of a cross between Gilbert Hernandez and Gene Colan. There is an anatomical smoothness and grace to the figure poses, regardless of how exaggerated or fictional the situations are. The panel above, with Agent Red poised for battle while a giant halfling emerges from behind a mountain, is an excellent example of this naturalism. Red's slightly crouched position, coiled and ready to spring into action as he twists around, surprised by the monster, is magnificent. The giant, despite his enormous proportions, also appears to be moving with a certain natural flow. There is nothing stiff or staged about this scene.

Many of Byrne's panel compositions in this story are exceptional. For example, in the first panel at the top of this review, there is a tangible sense of grandeur and depth as we look over the spacedeck out onto the alien planet, and Byrne's use of fore, middle and background, as well as the angled perspective of the panel, all contribute to that disorienting feeling of being in space. Byrne is also a master character designer, as evidenced by this panel of "halflings" preparing to attack.

Say what you will about John Byrne, he knows how to spin a good yarn. Despite the fact that, at its core, this is really just another superhero story, Byrne brings an incredible vision to the book which draws you completely into its imaginary world. Overall, 2112 was a lot of fun, nothing particularly special, but a good, solid story with some of Byrne's better artwork, and it made me nostalgic to go back and re-read the Next Men.

*Also check out Eric Reynold's recent post about John Byrne's Fantastic Four.

Birthday Review #1 - Moebius Comics #1

2009-01-04T16:48:00.016-05:00

Moebius Comics #1 (published by Caliber Comics, May 1996) - Despite the beautiful cover, this was kind of a mixed bag, a mishmash of odds and ends crammed together into a confusing one-man anthology. The book opens with a random middle chapter from an ongoing story called "The Man From Ciguri," which is apparently the sequel to another story called the "Airtight Garage." Despite the editor's attempts to provide background for new readers (the multi-page summary was more confusing than helpful, describing dozens of characters and locations with strange names), I gave up trying to read the story and just tried to enjoy the artwork. Moebius is clearly a master of fantasy art, with a vivid imagination, but I found the artwork in this story a little muddied. The problem is that Moebius used a dead, unvaried line throughout, with virtually no negative space, and the result was a lot of cluttered, visually confusing panels, like this one:

Perhaps if this were colored it might help, but as it is, the scene is very hard to distinguish. The next story is the opening chapter to a sci-fi serial called "Destiny x3" and this was a much stronger piece. Although only a three-page prelude, Moebius's artwork was much clearer and offered a glimpse of why the artist is considered one of the greats:

The panel compositions seemed inspired by Philipe Druillet in terms of their cosmic scope and incredibly detailed architectures, and I'd be interested in someday reading the entire story. Next was another confusing story called "Interstellar Transfer," drawn in a much sketchier, unfinished pencil format, about...honestly, I'm not sure. There was something about space pilots searching for new "energy stores" and a crowd of spectators watching an alien invasion. It felt like very early work, unpolished and juvenile, and was perhaps something that Moebius abandoned only to be resurrected to fill pages for this project.

The final story is an adaptation of an unfinished strip discovered in Moebius's sketchbooks, and this was by far the highlight. The silent 8-page story, entitled "Arzaq," is illustrated by Wm. Stout based on Moebius' rough sketches, which are also presented. Stout's artwork is stunning, as usual, although the story is again very slight - an alien dives into an ocean to retrieve an egg, which he then takes to a nest and waits with it until it hatches into some kind of pterodactyl.

Overall, reading this comic was the equivalent of watching the special features DVD for a movie you haven't seen. It was neat to see the behind-the-scenes odds and ends, but they meant very little out of context. There are far better examples of Moebius' artwork out there; I would only recommend this comic for completists and hardcore fans.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sobel

2009-01-02T16:20:00.012-05:00

So today is my 36th birthday (which, incidentally, I share with Lynda Barry) and every year I treat myself to five random back issues. There are only three rules I try to follow:

1) The comics have to be total impulse buys (not something off my want list, or stuff that I had been planning on getting anyway),
2) Comics only, no trade paperbacks or graphic novels, and
3) The total cost has to be under $36 (basically, my age).

Here's what I got this year:

Happy Birthday, Mr. Salinger

2009-01-01T17:19:00.003-05:00

If anyone out there is as obsessed with J.D. Salinger as I am, and especially if you've managed to read the infamous "Hapworth 16, 1924," this is an excellent article on the Glass family, written in honor of the eccentric author's 90th birthday next week.