The top comics-related news stories from November 24 to November 30, 2007:
1. DC, Marvel and Top Cow ask to be released from consideration for the services of ZCult FM.
2. RJ Reynolds criticized for pull-out in Rolling Stone that features cartoon art, which advocacy believe is in direct violation of the old Joe Camel laws. RJ Reynolds makes a move where this won't be an issue any longer.
3. Tom Toles does yet another time what few cartoonists do at any time: criticizes his own newspaper.
Losers Of The Week
The syndicates that lost to out to WPWG for the services of one of the biggest free agents in years, Clay Bennett.
Quote Of The Week
"I know no one likes to see themselves as the bad guy, and likes to talk about how the "MPAA and RIAA are parasites" but -- SO ARE YOU. You're getting revenge on contracts between the MPAA and OTHER PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW YOU AND WOULDN'T LIKE YOU IF THEY DID? Thank you, Internet Zorro! -- Abhay Khosla
this week's imagery comes from pioneering comic book house Centaur Publications
Five For Friday #101—Super-Laundry Five For Friday #101 -- Name Two Costumes You Like, Two You Hate, and One You'd Wear Yourself (suggested by Eric Reynolds)
1. Sub-Mariner's swim trunks -- nothing speaks to any character's personality more than the fact Namor keeps showing up for fistfights wearing only a Speedo
2. Howard the Duck's suit -- he looks 90 percent not like the character when they lose the tie; plus: pantsless
3. Jack of Hearts -- so ugly I want to like it; too ugly to allow me this satisfaction
4. The Phantom -- Ghost Who Sweats
5. Mr. O'Malley -- Mittens!
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This subject is now closed. Thanks to all that participated.
***** Five For Friday is a reader response feature. To play, send a response while it's still Friday. Play fair. Responses up Sunday morning.
Marvel’s DCU To End Their DVD Line; DC, Top Cow Divest From ZCult FM
Michael Sangiacomo, who occasionally covers comics from a strong mainstream American comics perspective for Cleveland print media, catches up with the makers of Marvel's DVD products, GIT Corp., who will end production and sales at the end of February. The reason given is Marvel's on-line initiative DCU. This suggests the confidence that Marvel has in DCU. My understanding is that while not something that engendered a lot of press, the DVD collections of complete runs of various had done pretty well for Marvel and for the retailers who developed that niche. They seem to have worked well enough for GIT to pinpoint possible future projects with other companies.
Meanwhile, the well-traveled news of yesterday is that DC Comics and Top Cow joined Marvel in asking ZCult FM to remove their works from their listings, a request with which the company has complied. That story is very interesting in a lot of ways for how it informs the general floating argument about illegal downloading, such as in how ZCult seems to perceive itself, so I'd recommend reading the whole thing.
They Make Comics Without Telling Me Here's an article about a book launch next week for a book I haven't heard about at all (Extraction! A Comix Reportage), making use of an under-appreciated application of the form (journalism), from a publisher that as far as I can remember never did comics before (Cumulus Press), on what sounds like a compelling subject for its novelty (mining industry issues), featuring cartoonists in which I'm interested (Joe Ollmann, Jeff Lemire). I'm not sure whether to be delighted when a book like this shows up out of nowhere or frustrated with an industry so big right now that it happens all the time.
Go, Read: Rome News-Tribune Newspaper Editorial on Gordon Lee
I have very little to add to this must-read editorial in the Rome News-Tribune on the lingering charges facing local businessman Gordon Lee, except that I wish I'd thought of asking after any classical statuary to be found around town. Also, since it's unsigned, I would assume that the paper's entire editorial board backs its sentiments.
Go, Read: Writer Steven Grant on Comics Publishing In Today’s Market This is a first rate installment in Steven Grant's long-running column at Comic Book Resources. The practical advice to publishers that the current market no longer rewards just showing up is something that everyone should keep in mind. I would suggest a secondary observation that the market may not bring riches even if you hit your marks in terms of art, marketing and presentation.
Today’s Best Line: Tribune/Stantis This media scene-type article offers up the funniest comparison you'll read all day: the Chicago Tribune and Scott Stantis as two characters on a sitcom that everyone knows should get together but they don't. Beyond that little writer's gift, the notion is in itself worth pondering. The Tribune is a huge paper and an awesome stage that one could see benefiting greatly from someone willing to mix it up like Stantis. I hadn't known that they've left the position open for so long.
DC Comics: Grim, Gritty, Gruesome
I was going to write almost this exact same joke based on the cover alone, but Tim O'Neil has pictures from the inside, so his is better.
Speaking of plotlines that look totally bizarre if you're not totally immersed in mainstream American comic book, and maybe they seem weird from that perspective, too: it looks like Marvel may get its wish of an unattached Spider-Man. As befitting that character's historical grounding in the realities of everyday existence outside of his superpowers, the winds of plot change whisper... "Mephisto."
Creator: Jack Cole Publishing Information: Fantagraphics, soft cover, 104 pages, November 2007, $14.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781560978787 (ISBN13)
A book like Betsy & Me couldn't have come out at any time in the history of comics than the one we're in right now. It would have been too obscure to consider before higher end strip reprints exploded as a market force the last few years, and its presentation as art and history and biography would have been deemed too difficult for all but a handful of hardcore enthusiasts. Thankfully, Fantagraphics has embraced as full and as rigorous a printing as possible in the service of the former and a slightly melancholy, multi-faceted approach as a nod to the latter. The result is a must-have book that leaves a complex impression.
The first is that of a strip as an echo of Jack Cole's life and a final, considered shot at fame and success after two wonderful contributions that offered limited reward: creating one of the best five superhero comic books, the "Plastic Man" feature in Police Comics, and pioneering an approach to cheesecake cartooning in that phenomenon of print, Playboy. Jack Cole committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound almost three months after Betsy & Me began syndication, as puzzling and tragic a decision any prominent cartoonist has ever made. With its long introduction by RC Harvey emphasizing this well-known history, it's hard to not to see this book as a document by which we might suss out some clue as to the cartoonists' final fate. That reading may lead one to see the marriage of the Tibbits as a mirror of the Coles' -- daily cartoonists have so many comics to make nearly all of them draw from life to some extent -- their courtship as at least a testament to the affection friends knew Cole felt for his wife, and the genius son Farley as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the son they never had. Like most documents one can attach to someone who takes their own life, it's easier to see everything else than the one clue or insight that might explain the unexplainable. A lot of it pierces your heart anyway.
The second reading, one which I think might be downplayed, is the strip itself. Betsy & Me came at a somewhat chaotic time for the newspaper comics. Formats were changing to favor smaller papers, favorites from a golden age two decades were definitely now fading in influence a bit simply by virtue of being veteran rather than youthful features, the syndication business had begun to implode. It was a time when a strip could still make a man's fortune but no one really knew what was going to hit and why. Betsy & Me offers flashes of brilliance. Despite its surface simplicity as a domestic comedy, Cole provides a relatively complex series of visual ideas: the big-head design and its utility in showing folks head to floor, swirling perspectives, stylized representations of real-world tableaux, and maybe most ingeniously multiple verbal tracks differentiated by type size and lines drawn from one place to another. Cole's cartooning is of such a high quality that it's hard not to enjoy every single frame on a sensual level, the way you would a piece of chocolate cake despite having a cold. It's an absolute treat to be able to read more Jack Cole.
However, what Betsy & Me doesn't offer is the feel of a long-term hit as much as it does a strip that's dying to be one. In its brief life it switches focus several times: from Chet Tibbit's way of seeing reality in slightly more idealized terms, to the kid-genius strips, to a focus on the marriage and courtship leading up to same, to a look at the mores and foibles of suburban living. None of these points hit very hard, to the point that even though the boy genius elements are the most outsized, it's almost like you can't describe the strip that way. Combined with such a restless and relatively complex way of presenting its world, Betsy & Me seemed a bit too smart and urbane on one hand, to unfocused on the other, to have become a big hit. Considering his hopes for the feature, hopes that everyone has for such an endeavor but made grander for the level of his talent and the lack of bottom-line approbation and reward he had deserved twice over, this may be the most enjoyable strip ever to feel like a punch to the stomach.
This Isn’t A Library: New and Notable Releases to the Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are those books that jump out at me from this week's probably mostly accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the following -- I might not buy any -- but were I in a comic book shop I would likely pick up the following and look them over, potentially resulting in mean words and hurt feelings when my retailer objected.
*****
SEP070038 USAGI YOJIMBO #107 $2.99 SEP070172 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #8 $2.99 SEP070178 BATMAN #671 (GHUL) $2.99 SEP071981 CASANOVA #11 (MR) $1.99 SEP072191 DAREDEVIL #102 $2.99 SEP074035 DAN DARE #1 (OF 7) $2.99
Six reasons to hit the comics shop if you're an adventure comics fan. I like that there's a special Diamond code for Batman super-villain Ra's al Ghul.
SEP078033 CAPTAIN AMERICA BY ED BRUBAKER OMNIBUS HC VOL 01 DM ED $74.99
I'd be interested how these read put all together. So many modern superhero comics, even the good ones, suggest rather than provide the kind of depth that rewards reading a bunch of them at once.
OCT070023 CUT $9.95 SEP071958 POPGUN VOL 1 GN $29.99
A couple of curiosities. In the first, Dark Horse's Mike Richardson writes a horror comic; in the second, Image releases the first issue of a several hundred-page book anthology.
SEP070033 SPEAK O/T DEVIL #3 (OF 6) $3.50
The latest from Gilbert Hernandez and therefore an automatic buy from me.
MAY071857 AGE OF BRONZE VOL 3 BETRAYAL HC $27.99 MAY071856 AGE OF BRONZE VOL 3 BETRAYAL TP $17.99
The last great indy comic.
SEP072227 SUB-MARINER #6 (OF 6) CWI $2.99
Can some retailer out there .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)? I'm serious.
AUG073764 COMPLETE DICK TRACY HC VOL 03 $29.99
I'm not a Dick Tracy scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but as I recall the growth in Chester Gould's strip lasted a really long time. This means that every volume should be better than the previous one These should just be starting to get really good.
SEP073950 LITTLE SAMMY SNEEZE COMP COLOR SUNDAYS 1904-1905 HC $55.00
I had no idea this collection coming out, but it sounds awesome. This would be the first thing I'd track down in my store. It's from Sunday Press Books, so it should be of a very high quality.
SEP074019 WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED #38 FACTS ON THE GROUND $5.00
I want to see this latest issue of the under-appreciated, long-running title for its collection of some work that Peter Kuper did about political violence where he was living in Mexico.
JUL073549 ICE WANDERER GN (RES) $21.99 AUG073633 TIMES OF BOTCHAN VOL 2 GN (OF 10) (O/A) $19.99
Not one but two from Jiro Taniguchi, if you count the re-offer, and given Fanfare/Ponent Mon's complete lack of market penetration, you might as well. I've never even seen Ice Wanderer.
OCT073704 TREASURY VICTORIAN MURDER VOL 9 THE BLOODY BENDERS SC $9.95
This is the softcover edition of a sharp short piece of historical comics by Rick Geary. At this price, it seems like it would a nice value in addition to be solid comics.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock.
If I didn't list your new comic, you're welcome to assume the worst of me, but it's likely I just missed it. I am not a good person.
Editorial Cartoonist Out In Park City
The Park Record in Park City, Utah announced yesterday that they have asked for the resignation of editorial cartoonist John Kilbourn for plagiarizing a Mort Drucker cartoon. The similarity between the two cartoons was apparently brought to the paper's attention by a broadcast journalist. Kilbourn, who believed enough had been changed to warrant submission under his own name, had worked for the paper for 10 years. The article describes the cartoon plagiarized as "Bananaz," which I take to mean an image from the Bonanza parody done by Drucker and writer Lou Silverstone in what looks like 1962 or so.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the writer Warren Ellis has launched another focal point for conversation and hype on the Internet, this time centered on his forthcoming webcomic Freakangels. Since he's more successful than anyone at comics at doing this kind of thing, the site is worth noting even if you have no desire to participate. I think the offhand announcement that Freakangels will start in February 2008 may sort of be news, too.
* Forbidden Planet International's first-rate blog previews the forthcoming Turnhout Strip Festival, and reveals their attractive poster was done by the greatly accomplished designer, cartoonist and illustrator Richard McGuire. I know some people think that posters are overrated, but I'm interested in finding out about the festival based on McGuire's involvement alone.
* missed it: Moulinsart was convicted of violating a contractual agreement with an artist that provided them work on what was to be a limited series Tintin-related figure. This article at afNews.info suggests this might delight those who don't care for the current Herge empire caretakers, which suggests a whole world of infighting and rivalries I'm not sure I have enough energy to explore.
* because they decline to provide sales figures, I am greatly skeptical of the press releases that boast of second printings for various DC Comics publications. It's simply too easy to generate the need for a second printing, and with DC's healthy back catalog it's even more suspicious than it might be for a small, under-capitalized company when a volume sells out immediately. Also, sell-outs in general are only remarkable if they also come on the heels of solid first printing numbers. The other thing that happens is that whenever I read a story like this, I can't help but think that comics is so weird its companies routinely boast of misjudging demand.
* here's another release I didn't know about, although from what the anonymous tipster said, it might be one of those releases that kind of slips out without really anyone knowing about it: Mad Archives Vol. 2. This is some of the greatest comics work of the 20th Century. Along with the work in volume one -- which the tipster says is back in print, too, although I can't find evidence for it -- these are the issues that served as the foundation for MAD's long, great run as one of the two or three bedrocks of American humor 1950-2000. Everything from National Lampoon to The Simpsons and everything they've influenced owes a sizable debt to these comics, which are also just kind of awesome and still-funny on their own. This may be what I'm getting for myself this year.
Creators: Garth Ennis, Gary Erskine, Bryan Talbot, Greg Horn, Parasuraman A., Rakesh B. Mahadik Publishing Information: Virgin Comics, comic book, 24 pages, November 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers:
"Sturdy" usually isn't a compliment except of the backhanded kind, but that's the word that keeps popping into my head while reading the first issue of the new Garth Ennis/Gary Erskine Dan Dare series from Virgin comics. It's a modern comic book take on the classic British kids' comic character, filled with well-executed modern comic book things. There's a space battle, heroes with chipped-away souls just waiting to be restored by the right cause, the invocation of dread events of alternate history, craven politicians, and a clever plot twist or two that not only move the narrative along but reveal vital elements of character. The dialog feels dignified and proper and clips right along. The book has a solidly professional visual appeal, with a few subtle tricks of panel construction helping to guide the eye.
In fact, save for a hideous-looking alternate-cover by Greg Horn that seems entirely out of touch with the issue's contents, the project entire comes together well enough that what few negatives exist can be re-cast into positives. For instance, whatever stiffness might occasionally appear in the figure drawing feels more like homage to Dare serials past than simple artistic mis-steps, perhaps even a tribute to the square-jawed days being reflected upon and the notion of national identity evoked. It isn't Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes dignified yet morose reflection on the original stories but something a step or two down the ambition ladder: conceptual re-alignment as a character reclamation project. On those terms, so far so good. If I were a serial adventure comics fan, I'd want to see where this one goes.
The book proves competently well-told to an almost air-tight level, so that most criticism seems to rest on a perceived grasp of what's to come. There the answers get tougher. Will the characters develop enough to sustain the interest of those for whom their previous comics' appearances aren't locked into their mental landscape? Will they develop at all? Will the physical aspects of the space conflict remain clever and engaging in a way that distinguishes itself as the action part of the plotline continues to unfold? Will the story allow for its themes to be developed in a compelling way or does the narrative simply require the suggestion it can encompass such ideas to boast a sophisticated comics veneer? It's hard to say one way or the other.
One element specific to Ennis that might be worrisome is that in Dan Dare's encounter with the Prime Minister we see something of the super-certainty that has marked a number of leads in the writer's comics, from Preacher to The Boys. Ennis' characters are frequently, unquestionably right. They fairly swagger through the pages of their comics as if they had been soaking for days in a heavy liquid of undeniable awesomeness. It's hard not to see some of them as slightly more complex wish fulfillment figures for ex-superhero comic readers, icons of cool that tend to overwhelm any story in which they might be a part. Will Ennis resist doing something similar with Dan Dare? I'm not sure I could. Given the strong reaction that Ennis' past work has engendered among comics fans, I'm also not certain it isn't the most fruitful path for him to pursue. If it makes the story less complex and satisfying for readers like me, I can't imagine anyone involved will care.
* cover by Bryan Talbot
* inset art from Gary Erskine
* panel by Gary Erskine
Cartoon Criticism Hits Same Day as RJR Reynolds Drops Print Publication Ads
In perhaps the biggest "Screw you guys, I'm going home" of recent memory, the tobacco giant RJ Reynolds announced Monday that it will no longer advertise its cigarettes in newspapers and consumer magazines, as of 2008. Mitigating that symbolic move is word that print advertisements of that type, while a traditional strength of such companies decades ago, are said to be a small part of the company's overall advertising budget today.
The announcement came the same day they were criticized by an anti-tobacco advocacy group for their participation in a pull-out in Rolling Stone that feature what they saw as cartoon imagery designed to appeal to the 15 percent of the magazine's readership that are children or teenagers. The pages above were bookended by RJ Reynolds advertisements. Tobacco companies representatives have denied they had any knowledge of how their advertisements were to be presented.
Ged Melling, 1934-2007
Gerard "Ged" Melling, a prolific magazine and newspaper cartoonist frequently published in London and Dublin during the 1970s and 1980s, died October 29 after being knocked down while trying to cross a road in Bramley, Kent. He was 73 years old.
Melling was a latecomer to art and cartoons, attending school in London in the early 1960s, and for a time living in that city's culturally vibrant Soho district. He sold his first cartoon to Time Out soon upon that publication's arrival in 1968, a time during which Melling taught in London secondary schools to make a living. He would eventually teach and publish in Dublin and York. In the early 1980s he attempted cartooning full-time. His work during that decade could be found at the Times, The Economist, the abortive effort Today, Financial Times, the Observer and a number of specialty publications. He published two collections, Guttae (1974) and The Best of Ged (2004).
Melling also painted, illustrated books and participated in art exhibitions. One of those exhibitions was "Art Works In Mental Health" in 2002, which drew attention to his own manic depression. The above image is from that show.
Because he was such a highly productive artist, Melling did not do preliminary sketches, preferring to work directly with pen or brush.
He is survived by three sons.
thanks to Dirk Deppey for bringing this to my attention at Journalista
Shahid Mahmood Still Wants Answers
The cartoonist Shahid Mahmood denied a seat on a Canadian flight from Vancouver to nearby Victoria in 2004 became an international news story for his quest to find out why. He's still looking, and this article at theStar.com suggests that he filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission yesterday in order to further pursue why this happened. Mahmood notes that he's flown in Canada since the incident, although he hasn't tried to fly to the US partly for fear of reprisal for cartoons he's made critical of the United States.
Cartoonist Clay Bennett Joins WPWG Editor & Publishercovers the meat-and-potatoes story of new Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett joining The Washington Post Writer's Group as the vehicle through which his work will be syndicated. Two aspects of this prove to be fairly compelling. The first is that Bennett is a big sign, particularly in a shrinking market that depends more and more on name brands -- moving to Chattanooga was kind of like a big-time baseball slugger being declared a free agent in the middle of a season. The second is that the potential for working with a new syndicate was likely a part of the attraction of Bennett's surprise move to Tennessee, and that the only reason this aspect of a cartoonist's work didn't make up a significant part of the initial coverage and analysis of Bennett's hire is because I am apparently quite dim.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* congratulations to Amy and James Kochalka on the birth of their son Oliver Jonco on November 23. One imagines the best place for a peek into the now four-person family is James' diary strip American Elf.
* you know you're a powerful cartoonist when you can do a comic on a hot-button issue and it's fodder for a media analysis article despite there not being a ton of reaction.
* not comics: Spider-Man 3 was an odd and mostly not-good movie, even for its type. The most startling element was the complete lack of chemistry between the leads, which if memory serves was a huge part of making the initial movie a crossover hit. While it was nice to have confirmed my longstanding pre-'90s comics fan gut feeling that Venom, the only major super-villain that could be defeated by the cast of Stomp, sucks, it's probably time to put that series to bed.
* I have no idea why these kinds of articles crop up: if two smart, funny people are going to do thousands of gags over a period of decades, there's bound to be an occasional shared idea. There's all sorts of reasons for this: two people can arrive at the same destination, something can make an impression on your sub-conscious that bubbles up as its own idea... one that got me about a half-dozen times was building on some piece of humor that one of my humorous friends had shared in an informal setting and finding out after publication they had taken the funny item from somewhere else. But mostly it's just coincidence. The only thing that pressing cartoonists on the occasional single cartoon does is to make them needlessly defensive.
* this sounds like an enormously sensible idea, and I'd like to see the results.
* Geoff Boucher of the LA Timeslooks at the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited initiative, and likes a lot of it. He provides a sweet anecdote from Jeph Loeb about the appeal of comics, although Boucher fairly admits it doesn't really relate to the issue at hand. E! Online takes a similar look.
* over at Daily Cartoonist, they're discussing Scott Adams announced decision to blog less, which included a fairly strong indictment of blogging as a vehicle for doing what Adams hoped to do with it.
Jersey Cartoon Illustration Draws Ire This story at Editor & Publisher is interesting enough on its own: a newspaper criticized by a power political office for an editorial illustration. The reason I'm asking you to take note of it is because of the obvious effectiveness of the art's use in this context shows how papers can get extra value from their cartoonists or cartooning in general. I think you'll find that if you look at the newspapers that are more successful with editorial cartoons, this frequently involves a bit more in terms of creativity than merely slapping the latest syndicated offering on the designated page.
Casterman’s Kiki de Montparnasse Wins the 2007 Grand Prix RTL de la BD Spring 2007's Kiki de Montparnasse, by Catel and Jose-Louis Bocquet, has according to an article at ActuaBD.com won this year's Grand Prix RTL de la BD. As I recall, this is a prize related to a series of radio stations and part of the award is that your work is hyped on those stations. Also, the yearly winner is selected from a group of winners named every month. A relatively new award, although one that always seems to garner its fair share of press, the Grand Prix RTL de la BD has been around since 2004.
The best things about Kiyohiko Azuma's high school comedy are its tone -- sweet with just enough of an edge that everything goes down smoothly -- and the balance with which Azuma has built his characters. Because they are constructed from a series of overlapping qualities (two or three of the characters relate to sports in a unique way, for instance; while there's a smartest one, that doesn't mean academics doesn't play a role with other characters) and an offbeat factor or two (one characters loves but is hated by cats) instead of each one stuffed into a brightly emblazoned unique role in the manner of a North American entertainment, our initial sense of the main characters (Sakaki, Kagura, Chiyo, Tomo, Yomi and Osaka; teachers Yukari and Nyamo) feels real. They are neither too out-sized nor too ordinary; no one's eccentricities cross the line into disruption. Reading the gags, then, feels like spending time around a pleasant group of children as opposed to being forced into the company of a horrible group of child actors.
Azumanga Daioh's clever, ongoing piece of slight of hand is that both the spare setting and the outside events brought to bear in the four-panel vertical strips (yonkoma) feel greater than what is actually depicted because they are filtered through the careful interplay between each scene's actors. Those interactions legitimize what might otherwise seem like elements of an arbitrary trudge through a school calendar. Azuma developed his ability to depict extreme emotions fairly early on: things like shock and jealousy and worry are well portrayed here. Where he'll find a worlds to explore in those emotions in the subsequent Yotsuba&!, here's it's mostly a comedic effect, but a smart one. By the final fourth of this massive collection -- almost 700 pages for $25 in an omnibus collection that many hope will catch on -- you even start to see characters find growth, but in the realistic way of incremental exposure to a problem mitigated by friends and outside experience rather than through a more standard drama's catharsis followed by enlightenment.
All that in its favor, Azumanga Daioh still feels like a first major work. There are elements that don't seem a part of the grander narrative. A lot of humor with the teachers, while funny and endearing, never quite seems to fit in with the kid-driven material in a comedic or thematic sense. Some of the characters could be more sharply drawn -- literally, too, as initial sympathies might lie with some of the characters that are different physically to a greater degree because it's easier to follow them around the pages. Azumanga Daioh may not transcend its comedic sub-genre, and may remain a pleasant work rather than a thrilling one, but it fills a book with a kind of comfortable, affectionate humor that you don't see a lot of anywhere anymore.
Z-Cult FM Institutes New Policies
* the latest news coming from Marvel and DC Comics' attempts to go after certain actors in the uploading of their comics for free is that one of the first revealed-to-be-targeted entities, the site Z-Cult FM, will remove free Marvel content from their site in 7 days after Marvel contacted them in the manner preferred by Z-Cult FM. DC Comics did not contact Z-Cult FM via its preferred channels, but they will adopt a new policy anyway that will not allow DC Comics to be uploaded until 30 days after publication. The mainstream-focused sites CBR and Newsarama both cover that release.
* scroll down a bit in that Newsarama link for an interview with the Z-Cult FM gentlemen.
Comics Stories I Don’t Yet Understand
Readers probably come to this site for answers and perspective rather than public dithering, but I have to admit, I'm not quite getting some of this week's stories.
* Financial Hemorrhaging Up North: Quebecor World is in full trauma mode right now in terms of its financial state of being, due I think to a failed restructuring plan and made worse because of a temporary lull in which no action is being taken that might start to fix things. This blogger suggests possible immediate futures. I'm not quite sure to what degree this endangers comics printing, however, because I'm having a hard time tracking down just what's at risk in terms of day to day operations, and I'm unsure to what degree Quebecor World handles mainstream company printing as opposed to a more insulated spin-off company. Also, it's worth noting that a lot of comics publishing goes to Asia these days, and more could likely be shifted there were there problems. So while I'm unable to connect the dots with certainty, it's still a story to watch.
* Was the cover to Action Comics #1 Swiped?: Chris Knowles suggests it may be so, and even devotes a lot of time on his blog to the question. It's a nice feature article bullet point, but I would assume that the vast majority of early comic book covers are swiped and that a lot of early Superman comics have mythological resonance of some sort or another.
* Rolling Stone's Cigarette Pull-Out Cartoons: does the imagery used in this cigarette ad (PDF) count as cartoon imagery, and if so, does it fall under the ban of cartoon imagery as a way to draft the non tar-filled lungs of America's youth into the RJ Reynolds Army? I'm not as certain as some anti-smoking advocates seem to be, both in terms of this ad (which looks comics-y but not cartoon-y, if that makes sense) and the general notion that cartoon expression should be viewed in this manner. At the same time, it's hard to carve out space that even whispers the suggestion of a tacit endorsement of another marriage of corporate media and tobacco company concerns. It's unnatural, like choosing to write with your opposite hand or greeting people by extending your foot.
Delcourt Publishing Lost Girls After All I've mentioned this at least a couple of times on this site by now, but because of the number of people that seem to have linked to this article about Chris Staros' take on Delcourt deciding not to publish Lost Girls in a French-language edition, I wanted to devote a full post like this one to the news that Delcourt changed their mind and will publish their planned edition after all. This announcement was made on November 22, a week after an announcement they wouldn't be doing the work because of French laws concerning sexual depiction of the type in the enormous, sex-filled book. Their publicly stated reason for moving forward is because of the work's artistic and literary merit. This is great news, I think.
Miriam Katin Wins BD Critics’ Prize Miriam Katin has won the 2008 Grand Prix de la Critique bande dessinee for her work Seules contre tous, which was published in English in 2006 by Drawn and Quarterly as We Are On Our Own. The work's French-language publisher is Sueil, who released the work in late 2006. The award is given out every year by the Association des Critiques et Journalistes de Bandes Dessinees, or ACBD, France's professional association of writers about comics. It seems year in and year out to be one of the more important and well-publicized awards. Katin is interviewed here by ActuaBD.com. You can congratulate her in person at Dartmouth tomorrow.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the writer Bob Andelman interviews David Michaelis of Schulz and Peanuts, revealing among other things that Michaelis experienced the writing of the book as a slow build rather than having one of those "a-ha!" moments where everything falls into place.
* folks have been passing around links to this post from The Hero Initiative that features a recent success story for the fund that aids older and in-need comics folk, and a post by Tom Beland about the joys of being able to help.
* the cartoonist Matt Madden recently posted an adorable story about tutoring through comics.
* no one was hurt when a car smashed through a wall at DC Thomson last week, the third such incident regarding comics companies and cars smashing into them in recent memory, after SLG and Oni Press. I can only conclude that we are seeing the first public incidents of a long-simmering automobiles vs. funnybooks war.
* Gerry Alanguilan brings word that a key figure in a recent revival of comics in the Philippines, Martin Cadlum of Sterling Comics, has resigned his position, with his responsibilities to be taken up by two remaining staffers. Alanguilan also points out why no one should worry greatly about this.
Comics Christmas Shopping Update
Even with an extra week for shopping because of an as-early-as-possible Thanksgiving, it feels like enough traffic is moving through the postal system for people to maybe think cautiously in terms of what they can order and when it will arrive. Anyhow:
* add the Immonens to those entities having a sale for the holiday shopping season.
* I've received more suggestions for the CR Holiday Shopping Guide. It was never my intention to make a comprehensive list, or even to have a list of suggested buys, as much as I wanted to paint a portrait of comics in its full, deep, various option-providing potential shopping glory. It's pretty obvious that tons of comics and gifts are left out, and I don't feel compelled to add any. But I know people are proud of their works, so I wanted to mention them here for as long as it seems people are writing about their exclusion from the Guide and not simply angling for a mention in one of these updates.
Let me make something perfectly clear because four e-mails this morning and three times as many yesterday seem to indicate many of you are simply not getting it. I'm not listing these books in these updates as an endorsement. I'm listing these books in these updates because one of their creators wrote in dismayed they were left out of the Guide and/or hopeful they might be included. I'm not recommending them myself; I'm passing along the authors' pride in their work. I have no intention of updating the actual guide by request of the author, because that way lies madness, but I was happy to list a few books in these updates. Not anymore, though: sorry. I left many books out of the guide for many reasons, including human error, although I note in most cases the last two days these are books I didn't even receive in review copy form, so the fact they didn't come to mind among the first 200 gift offering/ideas seems sort of logical.
1. Notice the weird angle that Thompson takes with this Sunday. The only reason I can think that Thompson would do that is to heighten the overall visual interest a degree or two and allow the reader access to both the body movement of his characters and the object of their attention.
2. I love the character designs here because they're adorable without the usual suite of signifying visual elements that say "adorable." In fact, they're sort of ugly in a way. I like how Thompson uses two different version of how Alice's eyes are drawn in order to convey the shift in mood from antic to calm, something he does more quietly with Petey in panel two.
3. I think RC Harvey would approve of the strip's formal power. It has a definite visual flow in terms of the character's reactions, with a lot of work you might miss on a first glance: for example, the way Petey varies the weight he applies to leaning onto the table. The verbal element works out equally as well -- Thompson letters well enough to get away with underlining certain words without them becoming a distracting visual element -- and the banter is effective, affectionate without being cloying, distinct without being over the top in either case.Together the verbal and visual tracks provide background and depth to the other element. That's assured work. Assured work not only fails to get in the way of the joke, it makes for a pleasurable experience in and of itself, just in the reading.
4. Building a strip out of subtle visual cues to make a point about people failing to understand comics' more fundamental visual oddities is pretty darn funny -- even if that was an accident.
5. Alice's flip-out has a real intensity to it that makes it funny, and the way Thompson nails the oddball elements of it in the sixth panel, with the rigid arm and the crazy babbling makes her cool-down and the heat waves emanating from her head in the seventh panel that much funnier.
6. Note how Thompson subtly turns up the temperature a few degrees by changing the way he does the sixth panel's background coloring.
7. It's a good sign that Thompson is able to make an amusing little strip out of what in the end is a negative message. Most cartoonists shy away from anything that might portray a character in anything less than Sunday-at-Grandma's-good-behavior, for risk of people having a negative reaction.
Chad Varah, 1911-2007 Edward Chad Varah, the founder of the Samaritan movement and a contributor to various comics publication most notably the feature Dan Dare, died on November 8. He was 95 years old.
Varah was born in Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire in 1911, the oldest of nine children. His father was the vicar of Barton. Varah's education included a degree at Oxford. He became an ordained Anglican priest in 1946. The roots of what would become the Samaritans came in the young priest's experiences working with children and common folk that felt isolate and alone, even suicidal, as in the case of a 13-year-old girl who killed herself over misinformation about menstruation whose funeral over which he presided.
A fruitful parish assignment in the early 1950s led to the creation of the Samaritans in 1953, at first a handful of lay volunteers assigned to work person to person with people isolated or otherwise considering thoughts of suicide, eventually a movement of thousands with over 200 centers in the United Kingdom and an international arm. Varah served in various offices in the group, but also had a falling out with some of its aims late in life. That was merely another unconventional development in a hugely unconventional life, which saw Varah contribute sex advice columns to adult magazines and, at an early point in their development, work on comics features in boys magazines.
Through his friend and fellow vicar Marcus Morris, with whom he shared the opinion about the dullness of church publications, Varah became a scripting rock for the early Eagle magazine. There, while keeping to his parish responsibilities, he contributed scripts to an ongoing feature named Plot Against the World and back-cover biographical strips. In his lovely obituary, Steve Holland points at Mark the Youngest Disciple and The Travels of Marco Polo as Varah's best script work. Varah is probably best known for his contributions to the extremely popular Dan Dare, both as a kind of specialist editor that checked over the feature's handsome artwork for a basic level of scientific rigor, and as an early script writer.
He would later pen a play Nobody Understands Miranda, which would serve as the basis for a BBC program about the Samaritan movement and Varah's role in same, and in 1992 he formed Men against Genital Mutilation of Girls which proselytized against that practice in East Africa.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Doris, in 1993, and a son who died in April. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
More on Marvel DC Team-Up Vs. Content Uploads + Related Shenanigans News began to seep out over the Thanksgiving weekend that Marvel and DC had attempted to dissuade two well-known actors in the chain of how people get free comics downloads: the site Z-Cult FM, and a prominent up-loader of comics to Usenet that goes by the handle "Oroboros." This article suggests that Oroboros decided he was done, and this post followed by this post suggests that Z-Cult FM took their torrent/download stuff down and then put it back up again after they decided a) they're overseas, and therefore the legal threat doesn't apply, b) Marvel and DC didn't ask nicely and c) the people that traffic their site demanded it.
This is one of those stories that is bigger than it initially seems, and not just because it's in the early stage of development. Take a nickel and scrape off the silver coating on just about any aspect of this story and you'll see a world of thoughts and ideas on a range of subjects: how content should be treated on the Internet, whether or not artistic creations should be treated the same as other forms of content, the notion that actions are justified because they're good for a company's bottom line no matter how that company feels about it, the PR quandary of looking like a giant and oppressive dickweed to a group of natural, potential customers when asserting rights of ownership, how much any of these beliefs are truly held and how many are simply convenient justifications for actions by which people profit in a number of ways, and so on.
I've always been pretty firm on one aspect of this. I think that individuals and companies assigned those rights by individuals should be allowed to control the stuff that they own, no matter if they're the best stewards or not, no matter if they're impolite, no matter if it inconveniences me. In fact, I see the respect for someone else's stewardship as an important extension of creators rights. While I'm sympathetic to the idea of circumvention on the basis of unfair, exploitative contracts, it doesn't change what that circumvention is, it doesn't change that most of it has its basis in entitlement and a desire for gratification rather than morality, and it doesn't change the fact that I've never read a hint of convincing explanation that justifies the vast majority of arguments for assuming control over the dissemination of someone else's property when it's technologically possible for one to do so. I think Chris Butcher agrees with me.
Here's a wrap-up of a related instance about some confusing back-and-forth between SLG's Dan Vado and Z-Cult FM, now apparently rectified to everyone's satisfaction.
Go here to read a really depressing interview with Marvel's Dan Buckley, in which 1) he declares creators will be compensated for their work on Marvel's new digital as soon as they make sure the site is profitable, which isn't the way that should work, and 2) allows for leeway as to what Marvel can be expected to put up on their DCU that seems to me to work directly against the kind of certainty in terms of expectation of return that are usually the linchpin of subscription models. It's not quite, "subscribe now; we'll figure out what you're going to get later and that might change if we decide it changes" -- but it's close.
Greg Zura Leaves Fantagraphics Books Long-time Fantagraphics sales director has announced his departure from the alt-comics publisher to take up another, unnamed position at a non-comics company. Zura has been with Fantagraphics since 1996, starting in their sales and order departments before eventually moving (literally) upstairs in the company to his current position.
Along with marketing coordinator Eric Reynolds, Zura served as one of the more prominent secondary faces for the company in its dealings with distributors and stores, as well as at public functions like Book Expo America. With a decade-plus tenure, Zura, along with folks like Reynolds and owners Kim Thompson and Gary Groth, has been one of the longtime employees with his mittens on the bumper of that company as they've driven through the brutal late-'90s snow drifts of of distributor madness and rampant store closings and into the more genteel, well-paved current period marked by a solid bookstore distributor relationship with WW Norton and high production value successes like their Complete Peanuts series. I don't know anyone that doesn't like Greg.
According to Eric Reynolds, Jason T. Miles will assume Zura's responsibilities and position at the company.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* for those of you in a pool, it looks like the date of the first American student to be suspended for keeping a pseudo-Death Note notebook where he or she wrote the name of classmates into it was November 21. At least if I'm not forgetting someone. You can't have people expressing their wishes that other people with whom they're in a community be dead, although I imagine there's some sympathy for a kid that alienated, too. Although to his credit, he probably knows how to spell "Japanese".
* I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty certain this is the first piece of coverage resulting from ComicsPRO hiring Amanda Fisher as its Communication Coordinator. I wouldn't be surprised if this were to become a pretty common article template.
* another article in the Guardian talks about Frank Miller as the ideal for a comics artist able at this point to move into film with his vision intact, but not before its headline and general premise cast comics as Entertainment Industry Slumsville, USA.
* this editorial by Ed Williams talking about posthumous events tied into the work and life of the late Doug Marlette shows just how big a hole can be left in a community and region when someone like that passes.
* it's been really tough to figure out how editorial cartoons have been treated in the recent political crisis in Pakistan. It's sounds through suggestions in articles like these like they're an important part of a chaotic news landscape, although most of the international press attention has been focused on decamped broadcast journalists.
One of the reasons I like to cover the Christmas retail season is that even having a holiday-period comics retail shopping season is a sign of the growing importance of the bookstore market and the markets for various ancillary products. That's a huge change, one that ripples out into what's released and why and when. While I don't think it's totally captured the comics publishing world's focus -- no one, for instance, would think a comics publisher to be insane for releasing a big book in January the way they would think poorly of a studio's business acumen if a Harry Potter movie opened then -- I think there are more moves to recognize that potential audience October 15 to December 15 now than ever before.
Anyway:
* Click here for the CR Holiday Shopping Guide, complete with newly updated Thing Mug photo, as seen above. I hope its gives you an idea of what's out there and how you can orient yourself to making comics purchases part of your Christmas-shopping artillery, if you're so inclined.
* Three publishers that I know of have announced holiday sales that are currently taking place: NBM, Top Shelf, and La Mano. La Mano to a great extent and NBM as a kind of a throw-away line have both indicated they could really use your consumerist attention.
* Several people wrote in to suggest dismay that I somehow failed get their very excellent comics-related item on the list, or just to suggest I might want to add their own project. I made no claims for comprehensiveness or authority when it came to putting various items in the spotlight; I'm sure there's another 200 things that could have been selected. However, I don't want anyone to go away mad if I can help it, so here are a few specifically named by those readers.
Let’s All Get Behind Floating World’s Rom Benefit Art Show December 6
Floating World Comics in Portland, Oregon will launch their Spacenight -- A Tribute to Bill Mantlo show December 6, taking advantage of the "First Thursday" promotion that many art gallery-heavy towns have. The show will benefit the mainstream comic book writer, who has been in a coma since a hit and run accident 15 years ago. Jason Leivian explains at the store/space's web site:
Thursday, Dec. 6th, 6-10pm. Show runs through Jan. 1st.
This December our First Thursday show is a tribute to my favorite comic character of all time, ROM Spaceknight, and the man who brought his adventures to life, Bill Mantlo. There will be over 100 contributors including: Jeffrey Brown, Sal Buscema, Guy Davis, Renee French, Simon Gane, Ken Garduno, Brandon Graham, Maureen Gubia, Kevin Hooyman, Corey Lewis, Al Milgrom, Jeff Parker, Ron Rege Jr, Zack Soto, Peter Thompson, Gordon Wiebe, Danijel Zezelj and more! A silent auction will be held for original art, and 11"x17" poster prints of every contribution will be available for a suggested donation of $5 or more.
The first comic I ever read was ROM Spaceknight, a silver cyborg fighting evil monsters throughout the universe. I collected every issue until the series was canceled at #75 (when I asked the comic clerk why it was canceled he kindly replied, "Well, they just ran out of stories to tell."). Years later I learned that all of these incredible stories were written by one man, Bill Mantlo. At the same time I learned that he had been injured in a hit and run accident in 1992. Due to the severe injuries, Bill currently resides in a Brain Injury Rehabilitation Nursing Home, and will probably do so for the rest of his life.
This show will serve as a fundraiser and celebration of the stories Bill has given us. All of the artwork and more will be compiled in a tribute comic next year that will be sold as a non-profit benefit book for Bill's brother/caregiver, Mike Mantlo, to provide funding to enable Bill to enjoy somewhat of a quality of life.
Based off an unsuccessful Parker Bros. toy, Bill Mantlo turned ROM into a series that ran for 75 issues and has since become a cult favorite. It has been an honor to connect with ROM fans all over the world and share their feedback and contributions with the Mantlo family. Due to licensing issues with Hasbro, Marvel Comics is unable to reprint any ROM stories or do anything new with the character. This show will mark the first new ROM material fans have seen in over 20 years.
Earlier this year, Publisher David Yurkovich and Mike Mantlo collaborated on a 72-page magazine, Mantlo -- A Life in Comics, that was also designed to raise money for Mantlo. Copies of this magazine will also be available at the show and private donations for Bill Mantlo can be sent to his brother, Mike, at 425 Riverside Drive, Apt. 12-E, New York, N.Y. 10025.
Special thanks to Mike Mantlo, David Yurkovich, Steve Duin, Brian K. Vaughan, Hero Initiative, Dark Tower Comics, Isotope Comics, and everyone who helped spread the word.
If you go through the link you'll find a paypal button for direct donations.
Anyhow, it seems like it will be a nice show, for a good cause, with lot of stuff on hand to buy and lots of ways to participate on-line. I hope you'll consider paying attention to it and perhaps contributing.
* go, attend: The Comic Bug re-opens today with a screening of Chris Brandt's Independents and the appearance of some of the folks featured in the film.\
First Thought Of The Day
The annoying thing about complaints that comics critics talk too much about the writing and not enough about the drawing is that they assume discussion of plot and narrative belongs to writing rather than to both elements equally. Comics critics don't talk about drawing as much as they could, but they don't really talk about writing all that often, either.
2. Delcourt reconsiders its decision to drop Lost Girls, and will publish a French-language edition after all.
3. One popular set of DM estimates shows a bump between 2006 and 2007, and not just at the top of the charts, where the top 25 dropped a collective 175K or so, but down the list.
Quote Of The Week
"Thanks for FINALLY agreeing with everyone else on this board that you are a completely untalented annoying moron. I glad we were able to finally work this all out." -- Coop, reaching out to the younger generation, at TCJ.com.
this week's imagery comes from pioneering comic book house Centaur Publications
Today is Black Friday 2007, the traditional first day of the hectic holiday shopping season.
Following are 171 suggestions for comics related gift-shopping to help spur you along if you've decided that sequential narrative presents and things related to sequential narratives are to be on Santa's list this year.
As I have little chance of actually selecting something for your friend or loved one, please use this as a starting point, something to give you an idea of what's out there, or as a way to start brainstorming on an idea of your own. Also, I'm sure I'm forgetting a list equally as long, filled with quality works and books, for which I apologize profusely.
Have fun today and the weeks ahead, and please remember a few simple rules about comics gift-giving:
1. When it comes to gifts, comics are often best for people that already like them as opposed to people that may like them someday.
2. The bigger the comics fan, the more likely that person is to be very specific about what it is they want, so be careful!
3. Comics don't have the saturation of DVDs, and some of the best things are carried by specific vendors or involve an element of handcraft, so make sure you have enough time to receive the thing it is you want to buy.
Happy Shopping!
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THE COMICS REPORTER BLACK FRIDAY HOLIDAY SHOPPING GUIDE 2007 or 171 REASONS TO SPEND YOUR SHOPPING MONEY ON COMICS THIS YEAR
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2007 TOP TEN GIFTS
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There's no such thing as a top 10 gift; the best gift is the gift that pleases the recipient, and that means there's a million top gifts out there. These are simply the gifts I'm giving someone this year or with which I've had some success in the past, or which look good or particularly interesting this time around.
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1. Jimbo, The Doll
The only vinyl figure people who don't really "get" vinyl figures will ever need. It's a fun toy, likely a collectible with which to be reckoned in years to come, and it features some nice presentation work -- all with Gary Panter's full cooperation. Next year may see almost 800 pages of Panter published, so you might as well prepare yourself now.
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2. Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine, Drawn & Quarterly, 2007
The nice thing about Adrian Tomine's latest work -- and this is true of Adrian's work in general -- as a gift is that it functions exactly like a short novel. I can't imagine anyone receiving it as a gift and being baffled by the intrusion of some comics-culture element that a lot of us take for granted.
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3. The Thing Mug
My friend got me this last year at Super Heros in Paris, and for the life of me I haven't been able to find out who sells them. I'm guessing it's an out-of-stock Sherwood Brands items. Anyway: best coffee mug ever, and I promise to replace the above scan (don't ask) with a proper photo sometime this weekend. It gives me great pleasure to drink from the hollowed-out skull of Benjamin J. Grimm.
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4. Palestine: The Special Edition, Joe Sacco, Fantagraphics, 2007
It always deserved to be in hard cover and now it is. The story of Joe Sacco's journey into the Middle East to talk to people whose stories he felt weren't represented in Western media hasn't aged a day. In fact, I think it's become sharper. The supplementary material is as good as I've ever seen.
6. Love and Rockets: The Latest Reprinting
There's one volume to go, but the good news is that you can now get the bulk of the greatest comics series of the last 25 years, Love & Rockets Vol. 1, for about $60 total if you look around a bit. That's an amazing thing. These books are so good I not only got a set for a friend but I dumped my much-beloved albums in their favor. I would have lost $10,000 if someone had bet me on what I was going to think about these books, but they're really perfect little things. I adore them.
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7. Original Art From Comic Art Collective
Comic Art Collective is a free service by which cartoonists can sell their original artwork. One thing I like about it is that there's a lot of super-affordable art of the pen-and-ink illustration variety from artists who work in those areas.
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8. DailyInk.com Subscription
For $60 you can buy into Marvel's DCU, but why not start out with the much-cheaper DailyInk.com from King Features, featuring old and new material at a size that actually rewards your reading it on a computer screen? A solid gift for you friend that knows which strips run on the Houston Chronicle web site as opposed to which run on the Seattle P-I's. It also seems like a good gift to me in that I think this is something someone might grow to appreciate if it's given to them, but it's not something a lot of people would want to spend the money on for themselves.
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9. The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, Ulrich Merkl, 2007
There are a lot of excellent high-end comic strip gifts this year, but this one was the most surprising: a coffee table-ready complete edition of Winsor McCay's early classic.
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10. Tales of the Bizarro World, Jerry Siegel and various, DC Comics, 2000
I've given this book as a gift more than any other comic book. A perfect collection of stupendously idiotic reprints in a trade that people may have forgotten about by now. If, like me, you laugh every time you see that stupid square planet hanging in the sky, this book is for you or your similarly-inclined friend.
14. Reading Comics, Douglas Wolk, Da Capo, $22.95
Judging by the 11,432 people who walked up to me during last summer's convention season and asked if I'd read it yet, many of you already have a copy. For the rest of you fine folks, Doug Wolk's look at comics and why they're read was this year's most discussed book about comics not starring Charles Schulz.
16. Making Comics, Scott McCloud, Harper, $22.95
Scott McCloud spent a year on tour with his family promoting this book; you should be able to find 30 seconds to consider buying it. A worthy sequel to his Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.
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17. Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson, Del Rey, $19.95
Approximately 1200 reviews stuffed into an over-sized soft cover explaining the appeal of the American versions of one of the world's great comics traditions. I own one and have used it about once a week.
20. It's Superman, Tom De Haven, Chronicle Books, 2005
Tom De Haven does for the Superman mythos what he did for comic strips in general with the Dugan Trilogy. This is both a compelling piece of fiction and an exploration of the hold the last son of Krypton has over the popular imagination.
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21. Custom Art From Gary Panter
The great Gary Panter is still offering custom art, drawn according to words that you provide him. Forget friends and any and all members of your family, this is what you should get me.
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22. Custom Art From Johnny Ryan
I have purchased two pieces of custom art from Johnny over the last few years. The results, like Judge Dredd above, were phenomenal.
24. Custom Art From Bill Mudron
I'm not all that familiar with Mudron's work -- okay, I'm completely unfamiliar with it -- but he came up several times when I asked around for artists that do commissioned drawings.
26. Original Art From Albert Moy
I've never purchased art through this site, but the number of artists represented seems pretty staggering to me, and they're certainly a first-rate looking outfit in terms of their web presence.
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27. Original Art From Comicartfans.com
I'm not familiar with this site, and can't vouch for it, but it seems to be a place where comics fans and a few professionals put up galleries of original art they own, including a large "classifieds" section of art for sale. I would imagine that many of the ads on the site might be helpful as well.
29. Original Art From Fanfare Sports and Entertainment
I don't know a thing about this company except that they strip their name into their jpegs. Looks like a fine line-up of comics talent, though, and it looks like they may more aggressively price to sell.
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30. Original Art From Mike Burkey
Again, I have no personal experience beyond knowing they've been around for a while.
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31. Original Art From The Artist's Choice
Over 60 artists represented at the site, including many of the finer practitioners of mainstream superhero comics art, such as David Mazzuchelli (above).
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32. Original Art From The Beguiling's Art Store
Retailer Peter Birkemoe is a classy guy who runs a classy comics business, and I hear he does very well by his client artists. Just a staggering line-up of cartoonists with work available here, from big-title alt-comics pages to more rarely seen work like the above from Genevieve Castree.
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33. Original Paintings From Tony Fitzpatrick
Tony Fitzpatrick is a painter, printmaker and poet. I used to work for Tony 10,000 years ago; his originals and prints are beautiful. As I recall, they're very popular with rich people in the performing arts. If you have the money to be giving these out as Christmas gifts, please contact this site immediately.
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34. Poster From Allposters.com
There are a surprising number of comics-related posters here, including a lot of stuff that's a few years old that another company might have liquidated by now. Be careful, though -- they ship through something called DHL Global Mail, where packages are delivered through DHL to your local post office and then sorted and delivered from there, meaning it takes more time and there's greater opportunity for shipping error.
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35. Posters And Prints From PictureBox, Inc.
I haven't seen any of these up close, but PictureBox has been a first-class outfit so far in terms of its comics publications, so I would imagine their prints and posters are of similarly high quality.
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36. Prints From Brusel
I have a beautiful Dupuy & Berberian print from these guys. I'm not sure what it's like to order from them, but I bet they have a different suite of artists than most American companies working this part of the market.
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37. Prints From Buenaventura Press
Alvin started out from the printmaking end of things, and what he's had for sale in this department has always been first class. You'll groan when you see what's no longer available, which should spur you to get something that still is.
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38. Prints From Dynamic Forces
I have no idea what their prints are like, but I know they certainly take a different, maybe more aggressive approach than most of the companies here in terms of who they're putting out there.
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39. Prints From Johnny Ryan
All of Johnny's stuff is generally great, and I'm sure the prints are, too.
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40. Art From Jim Rugg
Independent comics artist Jim Rugg offers pages from his groundbreaking Street Angel series on his site, and also has a link to contact him for quotes on custom art.
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41. A Dan Zettwoch Print
I love Dan Zettwoch's Lou Thesz print -- he still has a few -- and enjoy the cartoonist's work in general.
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ART BOOKS
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42. The Art of Bone, Jeff Smith, Dark Horse Comics, $39.95
This turned out a lot smarter-looking than I thought it would be, and I'm a fan. There's more attention than usual to design issues and how certain pieces of art are made. There's not a lot of new Bone stuff, either, when you think about it, that we have yet to see, so the book might appeal to a fan of the series on that level.
44. Free Radicals, PictureBox Inc., $10
I haven't seen this yet, but the stuff from PictureBox has generally been of a very high quality. I think they have a humongous Gary Panter art book coming out just before or just after Christmas, so you might want to save up for that, too.
47. PulpHope, Paul Pope, AdHouse Books, $29.95
Chris Pitzer has done such a good job with high-end art books you'd think that he spends his time publishing nothing but. This is a nice and necessary addition to the well-stocked comics library.
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48. Scrap Mettle, Scott Morse, Image, $39.99
There are a lot of Morse fans out there, and even those who aren't will probably be impressed by the image making in this massive volume.
53. Excess, Michael Golden, Vanguard, 2007
I have no idea if this is any good, but Golden's one of the more important and influential comic book artists of the last 35 years and an art book could show him off to fine effect.
56. Arf! Forum, Craig Yoe, Fantagraphics, 2007
Craig Yoe's compendiums of the intersection between comics and art have a lot of gift appeal, touching as they do on so many different artists' take on the subject at hand.
59. A Donation in Someone's Name to The Cartoon Art Museum
Of all comics' sources for donations this may be the least appreciated and also, as it turns out, one of the stronger performers in terms of routinely fulfilling their mandate.
62. A Donation in Someone's Name to the Hero Initiative
The charity formerly known as ACTOR (don't ask) has slowly grown in stature over the last few years, working behind the scenes to aid cartoonists in need and families of late cartoonists in dire straits.
64. Mini-Comics From Bodega Distribution
Randy Chang's business carries some of the best minis of the last 10 years, and only very rarely adds new titles.
66. Mini-Comics From Little House Comics
No pair of artists has put out more quality mini-comics of a wide variety the last five years than Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing.
68. Mini-Comics From Partyka
I don't know if the above image is in any of the mini-comics emanating from the collective Partyka, but many boast art just as captivating.
70. Mini-Comics From Poopsheet Foundation
This is the best source for a wide variety of mini-comics out there right now, and maybe the only one in terms of being able to track down historically important mini-comics. Rick Bradford is a swell guy, and I'm sure he'd be willing to work with anyone intimidated by the number of titles and artists represented if you were to contact him directly.
75. Bow-Wow Books
Formalist comics master Mark Newgarden co-authors this line of children's books that count on subtle visual effects and bright, funny plotlines.
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76. One of Richard McGuire's Children's Books
Richard McGuire's children's books -- What Goes Around Comes Around, Night Becomes Day, What's Wrong With This Book? and Orange Book -- are full of the sharp visuals and formal play that distinguishes comics like "Here."
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77. One of Lorenzo Mattotti's Children's Books
Mattotti provided book illustration as idiosyncratically colorful as any of his more famous comics albums on works like Eugenio. If they're not still on the shelves where you are, they're pretty easy to find on-line.
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78. One of Vertical's Osamu Tezuka Omnibuses
I believe 2006's Ode to Kirihito to be a fevered masterpiece of craft on a level with The Wild Bunch or White Dog; there is also much of interest craft-wise and story-wise and because it's Tezuka history-wise in 2007's MW and Apollo's Song.
****
79. Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White, Taiyo Matsumoto, Viz
Taiyo Matsumoto's visually electric book, once serialized here as Black and White, is re-packaged the same year as a well-reviewed film version is brought to North America.
****
80. Azumanga Daioh Omnibus, ADV, 2007
Collects volumes 1-4 of Kiyohiko Asuma's popular teen comedy strip, which runs mostly as a series of four-panel gag strip running top to bottom of page (I think the term yonkoma describes vertical strips like this and strips placed two by two). Not as seamlessly executed as the author's Yotsuba&! series, but still a lot of fun and it's a big chunk of material at that price.
****
81. Various Volumes From Ongoing Series
Manga can be a difficult buy as a present because the bulk of it comes in long series of individual books and many of its readers have highly refined tastes. Chances are a manga fan is already following the series they like best, and they may not be convinced to buy into another series where they didn't scope things out and
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I've been made aware that Delcourt has reversed their decision that became news last week and will publish a French-language version of Lost Girls after all. I'll write a proper brief on Monday, when more people will read it.
* a few Washington, D.C. superheroes helped some less fortunate citizens yesterday. I'd love for one of these local superhero groups to become prominent enough I could spend an equal amount of time as a cranky J Jonah Jameson figure decrying them.
* more evidence has surfaced that DC and Marvel are going after sites and people that illegally upload their comics. I like how silent and scary and rumor-driven these reports are. I sort of expect people to start disappearing or something.
New Marvel and DC Comics Team-Up?
Rodrigo Baeza notes that Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics, who have partnered in the past to protect their shared, general super-hero interests, may be teaming up again with a new target in mind: punching popular illegal comics download sites in the face. Or, as it's known in the real world: threatening them with legal action until they shut down or change policy. An early, perhaps first target? Z-Cult FM.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Jeet Heer writes about the David Michaelis biography of Charles Schulz twice (Part One, Part Two). Part One brought about commentary by Jeannie Schulz.
* it's sort of interesting to me that there aren't a lot of Thanksgiving comics covers like the great Little Lulu one at left, but it sort of makes sense. Certainly no international comics cover is going to feature an American-only holiday, and any bi-monthly comic is probably going to favor Halloween and then Christmas. The great holiday endorser of all comics-dom, Dennis the Menace, took a general pass on November's sit-and-eat day, a huge blow. Animals consuming animals is creepy enough that one can imagine it being avoided even by the most indolent art director, and the iconography doesn't really hook into an adventure narrative the way something like this masterpiece does.
* A review of Welcome to Tranquility #12 invites commentary from writer Gail Simone and things quickly degenerate to the kind of rhetorical free-for-all I recall from the Thanksgiving dinners of my youth, only with "quasi-Morrison emulation" and "John Byrne handbook" taking the place of "drinking too much" and "gambling problem."
* a Zapiro cartoon in support of a newspaper columnist fired for expressing support for people's right to believe in Satan has apparently riled Muslims.
Creator: Alex Robinson Publishing Information: Top Shelf, soft cover, small-sized, 56 pages, November 2007, $6.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781603090094 (ISBN13)
This is I'm guessing a light-hearted project between projects for Alex Robinson. Seeing as he's released two giant works set firmly in the modern world few people are likely to resent his having fun drawing monsters and magicians for a time. A barbarian woman enters into a classic role-playing game dungeon -- the kind where nobody seems to ever leave their specific room -- and goes from one end to the other in an effort to capture a very specific prize. Twists abound; mayhem reigns. There's actually an element of the Bernard Krigstein parody of Bringing Up Father that comes into play early on in the miniature-sized book. Fantasy games are so removed from the results of their violence that they routinely break it down into abstract numbers, while much of the art that serves that audience tends to be more antiseptic than brutal, less than rigorously demanding in terms of what logically happens when, say, you hack at living creatures with an axe. When our heroine is burned a bit and the various monsters are initially maimed, it's difficult not make the yikes face. That goes away pretty quickly, though, and soon it's easy to sit back and enjoy the room-to-room progression, the rush to a final resolution. I wish there were a bit more to it, both in terms of story and imaginative design, but it's hard to muster up a lot of anger that it's so slight considering it seems to almost wear its throwaway status as a badge of honor. I would guess Robinson likely had more fun making Lower Regions than I had reading it. I also suspect he'd be just fine with that.
This Isn’t A Library: New and Notable Releases to the Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are those books that jump out at me from this week's probably mostly accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the following -- I might not buy any -- but were I in a comic book shop I would likely pick up the following and look them over, potentially resulting in mean words and hurt feelings when my retailer objected.
*****
SEP070027 CONAN #46 (MR) $2.99 AUG070125 GROO HELL ON EARTH #2 (OF 4) $2.99 SEP070269 ARMY @ LOVE #9 (MR) $2.99 AUG073652 CASTLE WAITING VOL II #9 $3.95 SEP070253 EX MACHINA #32 (MR) $2.99 SEP073311 REX LIBRIS #9 $2.95 AUG070258 SPIRIT #11 $2.99 JUN071916 INVINCIBLE #46 $2.99 APR071868 GODLAND #20 $2.99 AUG072035 WALKING DEAD #44 (MR) $2.99 SEP072186 CAPTAIN AMERICA #32 $2.99
This is like an Iron Fist and a couple of Joss Whedons short of being every single superhero and adventure fantasy comic book that holds significant interest for older, more generalist comics fans. If I were 19 and home from college for Turkey Day and going to my LCS on my way to whatever depressing party was planned, I'd be thrilled.
JUL070248 JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL 3 HC $49.99
Does anyone buy something like this for full ticket at a store? That person should be hugged.
SEP070167 METAMORPHO YEAR ONE #4 (OF 6) $2.99
I want the editor that argued this series into existence to defend me if I ever go to court.
AUG073639 BETSY AND ME GN (NOTE PRICE) $14.95
Jack Cole's final effort in a life cut short by his own hand: a syndicated newspaper strip. There's sadness both in how Cole's fate hangs over everything and how the strip seems to act as a kind of wish-corrective for elements of the cartoonist's life.
SEP073631 PERLA LA LOCA LOCAS VOL 3 TP $16.95 SEP073627 BEYOND PALOMAR PALOMAR VOL 3 TP $16.95
Words can hardly describe how much I'm enjoying these affordable reprints of one of the five greatest comics series of all time.
SEP073634 NEW TALES OF OLD PALOMAR #3 $7.95
The first two books featured some of Gilbert's loveliest art ever.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock.
If I didn't list your new comic, you're welcome to assume the worst of me, but it's likely I just missed it. I am not a good person.
Condemnation For Court Decision Against El Jueves Cartoonsts Continues The London-based on-line magazine spikedin this article re-publishes the satirical magazine cover that recently cost its creators several thousand dollars and touched their careers with a guilty verdict for simply doing their jobs. As dozens of sites including this one have republished that cover multiple times without incident or comment, it's not really a brave stand in the way that even re-publishing the Muhammed caricatures might have seemed in early 2006, and in fact it's that silence that lends an air of the surreal to the affair. That cover carries whatever weight it has and has international currency only because the magazine was seized and the cover's creators brought to court. The legal result is almost too bizarre and obviously dismaying for people to comment on it in an effective way, although sources like this one try and point out the obvious that "no law should turn irreverence into a crime." But articles repeating the sentiment "this is totally stupid" over and over again can only go so far. Perhaps this equally ridiculous related incident will draw further attention to a blow against European free speech in just about the last place anyone expected it.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* it has to be that I've just missed it, but I don't think I've ever read Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak to the Danish Cartoons Controversy of 2006 before. This article about the controversial politician's address to a conference organized by a London think tank emphasizes her call for Muslims to protest terrorist acts just as many moderate Muslims deplored the violence that erupted due to a Denmark newspaper publishing 12 caricatures of Muhammed in Fall 2005. To remind us just how Hirsi Ali's experience and views may be different than our own, the paper notes she's still under 24-hour protection after a 2004 death threat from the murderers of filmmaker Theo van Gogh -- a threat they pinned to his chest with a knife.
* this article profiles one of the figures that received a big boost by his actions following the 2006 violence -- the charismatic Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* one of the nation's highest-profile editorial cartoonists, Signe Wilkinson, will launch a daily strip with United Media on January 7 -- some people consider the early January launch the big one for syndicates. Wilkinson discusses her Family Tree with Editor and Publisher.
* Jeff Parker gives notes on writing for artists: part one, part two.
* I suppose that a nice thing about the television show Heroes is that you finally understand what you sounded like to your friends if you ever talked to them about superhero comics.
* did I somehow miss news that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney won the National Book Award for their division? I guess if I didn't, it's nice enough to repeat. (via Toon Books)
* a comics and cartoon museum is due to open in Holon next month, and Shmuel Katz will win its first award. I don't know Katz, and can't find an image of his caricatures or cartoons, but this is nice-looking.
* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com notes that longtime managing editor Victor Gorelick moves into the late Richard Goldwater's Editor-in-Chief chair at Archie; Mike Pellerito will take Gorelick's old job.
Creators: Rob Jackson Publishing Information:Self-published, mini-comic, 32 pages, $4 Ordering Numbers: Rob Jackson, 41 Berkeley Rd, Bolton UK BL1 6PS
Rob Jackson's newest mini-comic is a goof on walking tour guides where instead of exploring Paris or Rome the reader gets a series of drawings and text that takes them through Jackson's home town of Bolton. The comedy appears mostly in the text, through the way that Jackson presents quotidian elements as if they were grand history, and in a few, mild jabs at the presentational tics in such documents. It's hard not to smile at throwaway lines like "This enigmatic bridge is a culture icon, having recently starred in the BBC's Life on Mars."
What makes it worth noting as a comic, however, is that if you pay attention to the visuals and the map in the back and peek past the acerbic tone, I suspect that On the Banks may work like an actual walking tour. In that way, it may remind some folks of Jeff Zenick's travelogues (that was Jeff Zenick, right?), only without Zenick's inquisitive voice and I think a greater element of the artist looking for consistency in the art, especially with the human figure. The look of the town as realized by Jackson proves more appealing than not; it has that quiet, dignified bearing that most towns manage to cobble together when viewed on foot from a variety of standpoints rather than the broad assumptions that arise out of looking at them from a car on the main thoroughfares. I wish every cartoonist would do something local like this. There's something powerful about comics that use the depiction of something right there in front of the artist as the visual component for a work, something arresting just for itself. Barring a rush to the drawing table by a hundred local reporters, I hope Jackson might consider another go-around himself.
Rita Hillman, 1912-2007
Rita Hillman, a noted New York City philanthropist and art collector who sold a Picasso painting in one of the most famous art auctions of the last 20 years in order to bankroll the education of hundreds of the city's nurses, died on November 8 at Lenox Hill Hospital. She was 95 years old.
Rita Hillman was the widow of Alex Hillman. They wed in 1932. A noted book industry veteran, Mr. Hillman founded Hillman Periodicals in 1938. In addition to a series of successful true crime and confessional magazines, Hillman published Pageant and a line of comic books. Pageant would go on to play a critical but accidental role in the development of comics in that leverage gained by the cartoonist/editor Harvey Kurtzman when offered a staff position at the higher-end magazine allowed him to change MAD from its original comic book format into the magazine it remains today. Hillman's comics played a more direct role, with over two dozen titles during its run in the 1940s and early 1950s, the most popular of which were probably Western Fighters, Real Clue Crime Comics and Air Fighters Comics, which by the mid-1940s became Airboy Comics. Those last two titles of course featured the character Airboy, revived in the 1980s alongside some other Hillman characters by Eclipse Comics.
Through their publishing ventures, the Hillmans amassed a fortune and began to acquire an impressive collection of fine paintings including works by Picasso, Miro, Degas and Renoir. When Alex Hillman died in 1968, Mrs Hillman set up the Alex Hillman Family Foundation and continued to assemble art for use in helping to fund philanthropic enterprise. In 1989, Mrs. Hillman sold Picasso's "Mother and Child" for $17 million and through the foundation started a scholarship program at the University of Pennsylvania for students willing to work in New York City for two years after graduation. Other targets of her philanthropy were New York University College of Nursing, Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing, and the place of her passing, Lenox Hill Hospital.
Rita Hillman is survived by a son and five grandchildren.
thanks to Bruce Chrislip and others that e-mailed about this story
Francoise Mouly Announces Book Format Kids Comic Line Toon Books For 2008
RAW Books co-publisher and New Yorker art director Francoise Mouly, a seminal figure in art comics for a quarter-century, has announced an ambitious line of book-format comics aimed at kids to begin publishing in 2008. Called Toon Books, the line will launch in Spring 2008 with three offerings: Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes; Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons by Agnes Rosentiehl; and Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch. Those books will be released in April, May and June respectively.
A Fall schedule has been set with Nick and Stinky, by the emerging cartoonist superstar Eleanor Davis; Jack and the Box by Mouly's longtime publishing partner Art Spiegelman (their resume together includes four Little Lit volumes aimed at kids); and Mo and Jo Fighting Forever Together by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch. It looks like two more titles could be added to make up a publishing line-up of eight in all. Spiegelman will also serve as series advisor. The books will be distributed by Diamond.
The two things that kind of popped out of the story for me was that Mouly, the line's editorial director, will also be financing the books. In addition to the extra control she gets with such such an arrangement, this sort of makes given her experience packaging books and publishing them. The related thing that leaps out at me is that this arrangement is due in part to potential publishing partners wanting to cherry pick the line.
Related: the Toon Book site has a blog that covers kids' comics in a more general sense; a much-needed addition to the blog-type coverage that's out there.
* a new book on prejudice facing Muslims focuses on media portrayals in editorial cartoons, and one of the co-authors explains why. To be fair, they go back as far as John Adams, so it's not like it only rips on portrayals in the modern press.
* it looks as if Jose Munoz is beginning his formal press and pr run leading up to 2008's festival at Angouleme. The cool thing about that is that this begins an equally fevered run of running cool Sinner art noting Munoz's appearances and, eventually, the festival he helps organize. afNews.com notes that the late artist Luciano Bottaro will be honored at the show.
* Terry Moore announces his new series. Since he's only had the one, this becomes a bit bigger news-wise than an equivalent announcement from most cartoonists.
* Dan Clowes talksThe Simpsons and drawing Frankenstein.
* Drew Litton celebrates 25 years as a sports cartoonist, which is kind of like celebrating 25 years as a big bandleader; E&P wishes him a happy anniversary.
Webcomics Surveyed, “Unreliably”
Admitting the measures are rough beyond measure and need some tweaking even within those limitations, Webcomics.com presents a measure of the most popular comics on the Web. If nothing else, it kind of confirms that xkcd.com really is just as popular as one would imagine it is reading about it and seeing it mentioned incessantly in second-hand fashion. All the writing about how the numbers were compiled is as interesting as the actual list, if you like reading that kind of thing.
ACBD Names Five Prize Finalists
I'm not going to pretend I know how this relates to an earlier list published, or if they're even the same award, but here are the five finalists for the critics' prize given out by L'Association des Critique et de Journalistes specialises en Bande Dessinee, with the winner to be named on Saturday:
* Kiki de Montparnasse, by Catel et Jose-Louis Bocquet, Casterman
* La ou vont nos peres, by Shaun Tan, Dargaud
* Abdallahi Vol. 2, by Jean-Denis Pendanx et Christophe Dabitch, Futuropolis
* Seules contre tous, by Miriam Katin, Le Seuil
* Massacre au pont de No Gun Ri, by Park Kun-woong, Vertige Graphic
Two of the books, the ones by Shaun Tan and Miriam Katin, may be noteworthy for readers of this site having enjoyed success in North America in their English-language editions.
There's a lovely sequence in the more recent panels of Drew Weing's Set to Sea that forced me to reconsider the series to date. Our large protagonist has through an episode of rage during ship to ship combat moved from navel conscript to third mate. Given a sense of daily purpose to balance against a more general love for books and writing, he settles into what seems like a fruitful, even happy period, seeing the world and functioning within it in addition to simply writing about it. Weing pulls out the drawing stops and gives us a dozen or so well-composed snapshots of this new life, condensing a lot of information into visual shorthand and taking a step back from the kind of narrative progression that whole panels sometimes do less well. It's eye-opening not just for the skill on display, in Weing's ability to massage the moment, but also in that it's the first time Set to Sea felt paced according to something other than the artist reaching for what might happen next. For the first time, it feels like a story.
What we don't know quite yet is how much the herky-jerky elements of the early sequences were an intentional reflection of the protagonist's uncertain, not-quite-fully-embraced existence, or, conversely, how much the sweep that starts to build during the travel sequence is a whisper of fulfillment close by or simply the romance of the seas filling the sails of Weing's narrative. One thing for certain: the change in pace has been crucial when it comes to suggesting something deeper to a story that for its first several weeks offered little but its cartoonist's oddball character design. Stories of the sea are difficult, as are tales featuring reluctant protagonists. While Weing's sea sequences exude a vitality missing from early panels, they aren't by themselves enough to imply poetry, or immersion, or meaning. Weing chose to make this a character study early on, and now that the setting has shifted to suggest a suitable backdrop for the lead character, Set to Sea must soon make good in terms of what happens to its unlikely protagonist, the story of his decisions and what they cost.
CR News: Top Shelf’s Chris Staros on Delcourt’s Passing on Lost Girls
Delcourt's recently announced decision not to publish a French-language translation of the Alan Moore/Melinda Gebbie work Lost Girls for one of the world's largest markets due to reasons of law surrounding the depiction of minors in sexual situations, an element the critically-lauded work provides in spades, made me wonder what original, English-language publisher Top Shelf had to say on the matter. Despite gearing up for the Thanksgiving holidays, Top Shelf Co-Publisher Chris Staros was happy to oblige me.
"Well, we are disappointed, of course, because Delcourt was a good fit for the project," Staros told CR. "But we respect [Publisher] Guy [Delcourt]'s decision, as we have been friends for a long time, and understand that publishing involves a myriad of difficult business decisions. I do know that Guy is a huge fan of the work, so this wasn't an easy decision for him to make." Staros pointed out that the decision came late in the project's development. "[Delcourt] had already put a lot of effort into getting the book ready for publication -- the translation, lettering, and packaging design were complete."
Staros was happy to provide his perspective on why Delcourt made their decision, which aligns with what was reported in their initial announcement. "From what I understand, their concern was over some French law on the books from the '90s, and updated in the last year, which forbids the representation of pornography involving minors. They were also concerned about the issue that comic book publishers over there, if considered "children's publishers," could fall under greater legal scrutiny. And even though we provided them with all the positive reviews and rulings on the book to date, all these issues, combined with the fact that the French don't possess the equivalent of the First Amendment, made their legal department flinch at the last moment." Staros indicated that in his capacity as the current President of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, he was familiar with cultural and legal biases against comics as a medium for children and the desire to protect children as a vehicle for overzealous law. "It sometimes feels like our lawmakers are trying to sanitize our
country the same way that the Comics Code Authority sanitized our medium in the 50s. Alan Moore actually addressed this issue best with the single line from Lost Girls: 'Fiction and fact: only madmen and magistrates cannot discriminate between them.'"
Staros went on to say while he could see why the decision was made, the fact that a company like Top Shelf took on the risks of publishing Lost Girls and a company like Delcourt did not, "really points out the value of smaller publishers, as we're often the only ones willing to risk everything to stand behind the books we believe in." Staros felt that his company should make that risk because of the potential chilling effect against publishing such works, and that the obvious literary merit of the work would be its ultimate shield against any severe action. He pointed to a Canadian customs letter from the person who reviewed the work, which he excerpted:
"The boxed set was found to contain depictions and descriptions of incest and bestiality, which are indicators of obscenity under current Canadian Border Services Agency guidelines. However, these depictions and descriptions are integral to the development of an intricate, imaginative and artfully rendered storyline. When considering the 'internal necessities' test, it appears that, in this instance, the portrayal of sex is necessary to a wider artistic and literary purpose. As a result, it is my opinion that the boxed set does not constitute obscenity.
"The boxed set was also found to contain depictions and descriptions of sexual acts involving persons under the age of 18. However, it would appear that these representations serve a legitimate purpose related to art and to the very detailed story about the sexual awakening and development of the three main female characters. Furthermore, it is my opinion that this item does not pose an undue risk of harm to persons under the age of 18 years. As a result, it is my opinion that this boxed set does not constitute child pornography.
"As the boxed set entitled Lost Girls does not constitute obscenity or child pornography, it does not fall within the provisions of tariff item 9899.00.00. Its importation into Canada is therefore allowed."
Staros underlined that he hoped that as the book continued to be sold, that it would meet the kind of "enlightened" reception in all markets as it did by Canada.
As for what happens next, Top Shelf and the creators keep the "modest" advance Delcourt paid to publish the works. Staros notes that if another French-language publisher steps forward, they can do so knowing they can purchase a translation and the lettering, as Delcourt has assured them of their support in that way.
ICv2.com: October ‘07 DM Estimates
The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com offers their usual array of lists, estimates and analysis regarding the performance of comic books and graphic novels in the Direct Market of comic and hobby shops, this time for October 2007.
The big news this month is in what I'm tagging as the analysis article, where ICv2.com points out a surge in their estimates for comics and graphic novels down the charts: better performances for books at lower chart positions. This goes against conventional wisdom that the Direct Market's recent relative health has been driven by top of the charts successes to the detriment of lower-selling titles.
I don't have an easy explanation for this, to be honest. A potential key that immediately suggests itself is some sort of market reaction to a collective dip at the top of the charts. Eyeballing the respective top 25s in 2006 and 2007, there's about a 175K difference in the 2006 estimates over 2007 from that subset of overall sales. Looking at what was being sold that month in the top 25, it looks like a lot of Civil War crossovers from Marvel and a still healthy 52 from DC in 2006; a more standard array of titles plus a zombie series launch from Marvel and a weaker performer in Countdown from DC in 2007.
However, this can't be a simple swing in consumer spending, the notion that without hot tie-in titles to buy comics fans are freed to buy comics down the line. I don't know any serious study that suggests fans do this. There's enough anecdotal conflict between the notion of consumers that spend a certain amount every week and the snapshot of consumers bearing a monomaniacal fascination with certain titles that will buy those comics and only those comics no matter how many come out for me to distrust a claim that either behavior is dominant. Even if you buy the "same money no matter what" model, there's nothing that indicates this money wouldn't be purchased on other top 25 titles as opposed to lower-selling ones. Besides, these are retailer figures, not consumer spending figures, and that's a difference worth noting here.
If I had to guess, I would say this is the continuation of a much more moderate trend stretching back to 2002 of full-chart growth that looks more awesome than usual because October 2006 was a strange month. The optimist in me says that this shows the ability of the DM to recover from over-stuffed months like that from one year ago and continue to see growth across the board. The pessimist in me says that the growth down the charts doesn't address massive imbalance in a way that works towards healthy stores long-term, what we might be seeing are comics entering the market better suited to secure lower positions at a higher level, and that given a choice the market drivers would choose a month that looks like 2006 rather than 2007 100 of 100 times. The suicide-risk in me notes a boost in purchases by stores down the charts may be the sign of a temporary consequence of a sudden inability of the big-time comics makers to make books people want to buy, a bigger decline in interest than the charts indicated because of the conservative nature of sales over time, and that a ripple effect that is already driving some books from the market entirely could become quite nasty in the next 36 months or so.
But really, at that point, I'm sort of making stuff up. I think it's enough for now to note that there's evidence that suggests growth since 2006 and, more importantly, since 2002, has taken place at several points in the market, and that our snapshots of how the DM works need to start taking that into account.
* famed editor Harold Ross's one-liner is funny than any of the color-using comics that follow in this New Yorker experiment.
* the great city of Los Angeles has a lot of good comic shops, including a half-dozen in which I've personally enjoyed shopping and about four I'd recommend to anyone: you can vote for your favorite in this sure-to-be-competitive poll.
* this article suggests that artists are self-censoring themselves in terms of commentary on radical Islam, due in part to the violence and political outrage that broke out in the Danish Cartoons Controversy of early 2006 but also due to other events like the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. It's kind of a muddy piece, but the central idea is worth consideration.
* last night I temporarily fell into a strange, pocket universe where a joke on a network television show can be made using the terms "Watchmen Babies." Kiel Phegley suffered the same fate and did a short interview with Alan Moore about it and his new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book.
* vocal retailer Brian Hibbs muses on Marvel's new on-line comics initiative, and suggests caution all around. His best point is that the DM market is fragile enough in the manner that when things are abused for years they tend to draw tight so that a small drop in retailer sales percentage-wise could trigger a catastrophic event. One of the more generous elements of rhetoric floated in some e-mails I've read is that the DM might be treated in healthier fashion if the onus for bottom-line sales fell to another market -- that suddenly there would be interest in treating comics as comics. I think this is insane, but it's still sort of interesting. The weakest part of Hibbs is when he suggests that the serial nature of comic books would dissuade people from buying individual issues on-line, as I think you'd see definite spikes for event moments and first issues. Hell, even I would have bought Captain America's death to get a look at the thing were I able to download it for $.99 or whatever.
* is it crazy to suggest that comics retailers might want to come up with a system where they could host individual comics downloads on their sites? I know why that would be a tough sell, but I'm not sure it's so conclusively not going to happen that someone shouldn't try. I wouldn't care if I went to ChicagoComics.com or Marvel.com to buy a few downloads to read on a Friday evening stuck at home.
I first heard of Josh Cotter when his mini-comic Skyscrapers of the Midwest won the inaugural Isotope Mini-Comics Award. The first full issue from AdHouse Books didn't disappoint. Drawn largely from his experiences growing up outside of a small town in Missouri, that first issue of Skyscrapers featured almost unbearably up close and personal examinations of its two brother characters that penetrated the rural setting for a stab at the great universal truths of life as pathetically led by nearly all of us at one time or another. It also boasted a handsome anthropomorphic style, one of the few in comics that wasn't also flat in terms of its depictions but full and rounded. Add in a sprinkle of whimsy that plays with the wide open spaces and the wild imagination of some of the characters, and Skyscrapers has been one of the best debut comics series this decade. It's sad beyond imagining that the debut issue has struggled to find 1500 readers and that subsequent, more accomplished issues had an even smaller audience.
Josh Cotter and I met for this interview in what was, at least that day, the loudest coffeehouse in Chicago. We talked a week or so after the 2007 Comic-Con International (there's a reference to the Eisners that speaks to them being only days earlier). The fourth and final comic book issue of Skyscrapers of the Midwest has since been released. I liked talking to Josh; he seemed to have a very definite interview in mind. I hope what follows won't disappoint.
*****
TOM SPURGEON: I don't know anything about you beyond some vague generalities. What is the small town you grew up in?
JOSH COTTER:Barnard, Missouri. I didn't actually grew up in the town. Population of 234. It was in Northwest Missouri, north of St. Joseph. I don't know if you're familiar with the Pony Express, Jesse James, all that stuff. It's north of there about 30 miles. I grew up on a farm about three miles east of Barnard. Starting out my parents had a few acres and my family had a few hundred all together. My dad, he farmed soybeans and corn during the summer and was a math teacher during the school year. I went to the local schools. There were anywhere from 12 to 18 people in my class for the entire 12 years, from pre-school through senior year.
SPURGEON: And when did you start making art?
COTTER: I started drawing when I was old enough to hold a crayon. I was one of those kids that just loved to scribble. My earliest drawings are still on the underside of my parents' coffee table. I was obsessed with Star Wars when I was two or three and I drew a lot of battle scenes underneath the coffee table. Lots of red and green crayons.
SPURGEON: Were they encouraging of your art?
COTTER: They were encouraging. For a small town they were pretty open minded as far as art went. When I decided to go to school for illustration they might have been a little skeptical -- and understandably so. But they were really supportive of me going for that, too, in the long run. If I wanted to draw, they always made sure I had paper and pencil. I was always drawing on something.
SPURGEON: Was comics a part of that?
COTTER: I always hear these interviews where people say [George] Herriman was an influence, but I didn't know who Herriman was. All I had was the Sunday funnies. My favorites were Bill Watterson, Charles Schulz... Gary Larson, when I was younger I didn't necessarily understand all of the humor but I loved Gary Larson. But mainly Calvin and Hobbes was the thing I was excited about when Sundays came around. The nearest grocery store was 20 miles away, so I didn't know I could buy comic books. When I went up there I wasn't allowed to buy stuff like that, anyway. Sunday was the only time I got my exposure to comics. My grandmother who lived a mile down the road -- she had a comic book of a drunk guy... Andy Capp! She had an Andy Capp book. I read that every time I went over there. I was obsessed with comics, but I never had the chance to get more of them.
We were very limited with what we had. We had a [Norman] Rockwell collection, a collection of World War II strips, and my Dad liked [M.C.] Escher so we had some Escher around. I liked album art and rock posters. In junior high my dad built a house where my great-grandparents used to live and we had an old shed in the back, and there were some old comic books from the '60s in there. They were Marvel, Strange Tales. That was the first time I ever read any Spider-Man vs. Sandman or anything like that. That sparked my interest; I'd never read anything like that before. I started getting an allowance for mowing the lawn, doing chores. The spinner rack at the grocery store caught my eye, and I bought Spider-Man #342 or something. I think Erik Larsen was drawing it.
SPURGEON: You just made me feel 1000 years old.
COTTER: If I had been five or six in a big city I would have been buying them then. But where I was, except for making my own little strips -- I guess that's where drawing came from. I had no entertainment other than a little brother to torture. Drawing was my outlet, my escapism.
I was always the weird kid. I was always different. I didn't see being an illustrator as being weird. But even leaving town isn't something you do. I was always an outcast, because I was always drawing. I did get some social acceptance through drawing. I was the little fat kid in school, an easy target. When I drew people had a mild form of respect for me. It was a way to get attention from 'friends', and later on girls.
SPURGEON: You went to school to become an illustrator. Were most of your classes geared towards that end?
COTTER: For Missouri, except for the Art Institute in Kansas City, where I went it was a respected program. I wanted to draw. I knew studio art might not be a way to go to make a living. For some reason I thought illustration and comics was going to be. [laughs] I didn't know about comics. I didn't want to sell my soul for commercial art, I just wanted to draw for a living. I had the basic core classes, and then a few illustration classes.
SPURGEON: A lot of artists I know tell me they wish they could tweak their art school experience. Were you satisfied with your education?
COTTER: I was. When I went to high school, we had no supplies besides cheap tempera and typing paper. When I got to art school, using acrylics and oils and stuff, that's a whole new thing for me. My art teacher in high school kept me interested in it from the time I was a child. I have to give him credit for keeping me interested (and for doing the best with the limited budget he had). When I went to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do, I thought it might just lead to something else. I didn't have a gameplan.
SPURGEON: How much time was there between going school and doing comics?
COTTER: I got out of school... I got a job as a production artist doing design in Kansas City. I worked for a place that invented the bumper sticker, Gill Studios. They employed '50s-style management. It was miserable... they timed you if you went to the restroom. You clocked in and clocked out. Buzzers for this, buzzers for that. But they paid decent enough, so I stuck with it. In the meantime, I did freelance for local newspapers like the Kansas City Star, spot illustrations. I worked for Gill for about two years, and I built a client list from mostly alternative weekly newspapers.
SPURGEON: How did that work?
COTTER: It usually ended up being something political. You know how alt-weeklies focus on scandal? They'd send me an article. Some art directors said go for it, some gave me an idea of what they wanted. I did little cartoon panels. I enjoyed it, but after two or three years of it I was still in production and I started to go nuts there. I enjoyed illustration but I wanted to work with my own ideas.
I guess I should go back to when I was re-introduced to comics.
SPURGEON: I assume there was a point where you saw more comics.
COTTER: In high school I read Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, maybe some Image titles when they started out because I liked Erik Larsen and Jim Lee. But after a while the books began to repeat themselves. When I got to high school I started putting money towards what social life I had and gas just to get around. I still read the comics I already had; I just stopped buying new ones. I still read strips, I still read Calvin and Hobbes. I read a lot of stuff over and over again.
My junior year in college the movie Crumb came out. I saw it and I was like, "Wow." This guy's art is amazing, and even though I'd seen the images before here or there, I wasn't aware of who he was. I started to hunt down independent comics to find more of this stuff. I went to comic shops in KC; Comic Cavern was one that had a lot of those comics. I bought a few Complete Crumbs, [Dan] Clowes, the indie standards. I started reading as much of stuff that I could find. With the superhero books, the possibilities seemed to be limited, at least at the time, anyway. These books seemed to have so much more substance, they were a lot more personal, effective, and, to me, memorable. It's the same story everyone else has.
SPURGEON: Were you reacting to the art, primarily, or the narratives?
COTTER: Crumb's subject matter kind of shocked me in a way. A naive little farm boy. That family one from Zap #4 ["Joe Blow"], I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was always obsessed with art more than storytelling. Art struck me first. It was important that someone had good art before the stories. Once the art grabbed me, the stories could grab me. From there I went to Top Shelf and Drawn and Quarterly... I bought a lot of anthologies because I could try out a lot of new things. By the time I left college I had a new found appreciation for comics , but it still never occurred to me that you could do them yourself. I don't know if that was a lack of confidence or what. It just never occurred to me.
SPURGEON: Did Crumb become an influence?
COTTER: I enjoyed Crumb's writing, but with the underground comics, it seemed as if they were shooting for a very specific thing, trying to shock the straights. His storytelling didn't have as much of an influence on me. He's an excellent writer. His stuff isn't necessarily groundbreaking anymore, not that it needs to be, but what I've seen of his current artwork seems that much more incredible. The real-life drawing he does, it's beautiful.
SPURGEON: A lot of folks have remarked that Skyscrapers looks like early Crumb.
COTTER: When I was younger, I had the Alice in Wonderland books, the copper plate engraving like [John] Tenniel did, guys like that. I always liked pen and ink drawings, and maybe that's why Crumb spoke to me so much. It had that look. Lots of hatching has always appealed to me. Lots of line work. Lots of stuff going on. Crumb, because of the art, comics hadn't spoken to me in a while and suddenly something had kicked me in the side of the head. You can't deny your influences. I had other influences, too, of course... I wish I could give you more than just the run of the mill influence list, but I only had what was in front of me.
SPURGEON: Is there anyone you liked that maybe others didn't, that you think is under appreciated?
COTTER: You mean influences or even contemporaries? I'd have to think about it. There are so many incredible cartoonists out there that don't get a chance. Every now and then, when I try the mainstream books, the art may be great but the story is still so standard. Story always seems to be second priority, but I still need story for it to work for me. It's still such a factory mentality. At the Eisners the other night it was like "I want to thank my letterer, my colorist, my inker..." The guys who do it all themselves, I think it's really cool. I'm not trying to put down the people who work in mainstream comics, but there are cartoonists who do everything, doing incredible work and receiving very little recognition. It just seems uneven. But who do I like... the AdHouse guys, Jamie Tanner, J. Chris Campbell and Jim Rugg, I think those guys are incredible illustrators and writers. Mike Dawson's new book is going to be excellent. Ivan Brunetti, Onsmith...
SPURGEON: Do you have writing influences?
COTTER: Since I didn't have comics around growing up, I read literature more than anything else. Movies have a pretty big influence on me, too. Books and movies and music. As far as writing goes, someone like [John] Steinbeck, his work moves me so much. I love [Franz] Kafka's writing. I love stuff that's non-linear. As far as movies go, I love David Lynch's movies, the Coen Brothers... when I first started wanted to make comics, I was doing freelance illustration and reading all of these comics. I was reading Chris Ware by that point. The writing and the art are both incredible. I wanted to create something where I could merge writing and art like that.
SPURGEON: It sounds like Chris Ware put it all together for you.
COTTER: I like some people's art and other people's writing, but there are other people who put it together well. Ware had everything where just page after page it wowed me. ACME Novelty Library was coming out book by book, and one of the first serial books I'd been excited about since I was a kid. I was that excited for the next book to come out. [Darren] Aronofsky's film Pi had come out, and his way of directing and editing made comics' way of constructing things made sense to me. The scenes in Requiem for a Dream where the characters are getting their fix, those really spoke to me.
I had never heard of mini-comics. A friend of mine made one a few years ago and gave it to me and I was like, "What is this?" [laughter]
I'm afraid this interview is going to make me look naive and ignorant.
SPURGEON: It's not so much what you're saying as it is the overalls and bare feet.
COTTER: I used to run around in my bare feet! We even had an outhouse for a while. I'm lucky I got away unscathed. That landscape in Skyscrapers, that is my home. Maybe I didn't get away unscathed, after all.
SPURGEON: So it looks like you have all the elements in place.
COTTER: Everything was starting to click with movies and mini-comics. I started thinking I was sick of doing illustration, and if I was going to say something, what would I say? I was really miserable. I sat down and started writing a story, images came up, they became sequential, and I started making mini-comics. Three or four months later I had made my first issue of Fun #1. It was the name of cigarettes, and the ads in Skyscrapers are based on those minis. I don't know why I started with anthropomorphics. That was part of the underground, and old cartoons. I was obsessed with Looney Tunes, the Muppets, Sesame Street. Talking animals always worked for me because it gave you a separation point from the story. It helps with unlikeable protagonists.
The Fun book was about an animal that was miserable with his job, and trying to find a way out. It was before I'd read [George] Orwell or [Ray] Bradbury or anything else, but it had a 1984/Big Brother feel to it. Turns out they did a much better job.
SPURGEON: How long did you do it?
COTTER: I started in 2000. I did three issues and it took me three-four months between issues. In the end it was a 72-page thing I had. I was pretty proud of it at the time.
SPURGEON: Was the feedback gratifying?
COTTER: One thing is I didn't know at the time is that there was a comic scene in Kansas City. There were some people locally, Hector Casanova e-mailed me and invited me to a meeting, they had the Kansas City Comics Creators Network going, and I realized there were dozens of creators in Kansas City. It made me realize I wasn't alone, and it was really exciting in a way. We had the CCN going, and I started hanging out with these other people, and I learned a lot about mini-comics, their possibilities.
I wouldn't want to show that comic (Fun) to anyone else now.
SPURGEON: When do we get to you doing the Skyscrapers mini-comic for James Sime's contest?
COTTER: There were a couple of things before Skyscrapers happened. When I was doing Fun, I had it in local comic shops and sold about 50 comics of each. I was pretty excited about that. The Kansas City Star, when Spider-Man I came out, they had a feature where cartoonists did their take on Spider-Man. They were just about to publish the thing, and three days before it was going to run one of the guys they had lined up dropped out, and the Star called a local comic shop to see if there were any more local creators they could recommend. . Do you know Friendly Frank [Mangiaracina]?
SPURGEON: Everybody knows Friendly Frank.
COTTER: He recommended me, and I did this strip. They liked it and they asked if I'd be willing to do a weekly strip for them. I was exhilarated. This was the thing I was really infatuated with growing up. It was exciting. This mini-comic had turned into a strip. It gave some validity to what I was doing to my family and people back home who don't think art was a practical thing. I still wasn't rolling the dough; I still am not. So it was exciting, and everything started happening at once. I was doing the strip, and I was done with Fun. I felt like I'd made a lot of personal accomplishments at that point, and I was ready to build on top of that. I got the idea to do a one-person anthology, that's what the original Skyscrapers minis were like. I tend to go with what feels right, and with Skyscrapers I wanted to address childhood issues. Skyscrapers kind of started as a semi-therapeutic thing.
SPURGEON: Has it worked?
COTTER: Not really. [sighs]
SPURGEON: [laughs]
COTTER: We can go on with that if you like. I made the mini-comics when I was working at a production house with bigger printers. When bumper stickers weren't being made, I'd throw my mini-comics out there. High production stuff. I was just learning, but Skyscrapers was the first thing I'd done I was really happy with. So when I saw the Isotope thing happening with APE, I decided I'd give it a shot. By this time it was 2002 or 2003. I sent it out, forgot about it, and then six months later I got an e-mail saying I had to come out.
SPURGEON: That's part of the contest, you agree to come out to accept the award in person if you win.
COTTER: Maybe there were ten people ahead of me that couldn't come out! It was my first convention. I never went to a Kansas City Convention, even. I had some vacation time. It was fantastic. Somewhere along the way Chris Pitzer got a hold of it. It was so exciting to see all these things clicking. I went to MoCCA with part two and met Chris Pitzer there. I was standing in line at Drawn & Quarterly, and I had a few copies on me. A few weeks later he e-mailed me.
SPURGEON: What it's like to work with Chris?
COTTER: He's totally trusting of what I do. That's a great thing about small-press publishing.
SPURGEON:Skyscrapers is a very handsome comic book. Who is responsible for that?
COTTER: Chris has incredible production values, and we went back and forth on things like the paper. AdHouse loses money on me.
SPURGEON: One thing I think that people react to in Skyscrapers is this feverish intensity and intimacy between the brothers.
COTTER: I think particularly because of the isolation that my brother and I have a relationship that many other brothers don't. When there are only four people around, it's a different situation. The family may not always get along, but I'm very close to my family. My grandparents were only a mile down the road. My aunt and uncle were across the street. That's how I was brought up. All I wanted to do was leave. Here I am living in Chicago.
SPURGEON: Has working on the series given you a different perspective on your experiences growing up?
COTTER: I think it has. Writing about it, it's begun to form organically.
SPURGEON: What is your family's reaction?
COTTER: They wonder if I'm OK sometimes.
SPURGEON: [laughs] Do they not recognize themselves in it?
COTTER: They know it's them. Before I did any writing about my family, I made sure they were comfortable with me doing that, or else I wouldn't have. My brother loves it. It's semi-autobiographical, but there's fiction in there, not just the sci-fi aspect. Getting kicked in the nuts by the girl I had a crush on is real, and then I build around it. I see what I can attach to it.
SPURGEON: Are you surprised by anything you see in Skyscrapers?
COTTER: I started it as a therapeutic thing in terms of the isolation I felt wherever I went. But doing comics has made me even more isolated. I've seen so many friendships and other relationships just fall away the last few years. I love doing comics, but everything suffers because of comics. I've become so obsessed working on comics, and it's such a solitary dispute. It's created more problems at time. I can't stop drawing, but the older I get the more into I get into something I'm doing the more things suffer.
SPURGEON: Do you feel camaraderie with other cartoonists?
COTTER: Going out with Jim Rugg and Jamie Tanner, we can talk about our experiences. What do you do when your wife gets fed up with your being a cartoonist? It's just --
SPURGEON: Wait, wait. What do you do when your wife is fed up with you? Half the people reading this just sat up straighter.
COTTER: We never came to a conclusion.
SPURGEON: We should tell people Rugg has the answer.
COTTER: He may have. He started to say something, but we veered off into something else. We almost had it...
It's great when those discussions happen, but they only take place every three or four years. Other than e-mail.
SPURGEON: Your career output to date has been old school in a way, with a serial title driving things and a few small assignments sprinkled here and there. Do you feel disassociated from some of your peers in terms of people going after book deals and big-time assignments?
COTTER: I do. I admire Jim Rugg for being able to straddle those worlds, and he's an incredible writer and artist who can do both. I don't think anyone's going to offer me Fantastic Four any time soon.
SPURGEON: It could be Fantastic Four of the Midwest, and they could all live on a farm.
COTTER: [laughs] I could go for that. But I'm happy with what I'm doing. The serial comics is the only thing I can do right now. I can't make a living at alternative comics right now. I'm still learning. I did three Fun mini-comics, two Skyscrapers mini-comics, and three full-length Skyscrapers. I still feel I'm sort of new at this. I think my writing can be stronger. I think my art can be stronger. One of the problems with Skyscrapers is that it took so long -- four years -- that at first I was growing and experiment but by book three I had to shrink away from growth just to keep the books consistent. That's why I've cut it off at four. I want to try different things, and a great thing about the Kansas City Star strips is that I can constantly experiment.
SPURGEON: So what's next?
COTTER: No staples. At MoCCA people would come to the table getting books for review, and people would say, "We don't want staples." Chris maybe printed up 1500 of this and we just sold out of #1. I hear people say that when there's a collection they might be interested in it. We're going to collect these four and put it out next year sometime. And then I'm putting Skyscrapers behind me. I've been experimenting with the strip, there have been some things going on in my life that have affected the way I'm writing now. It was hard as hell writing this fourth book, keeping it like the three others, because my brain is a totally different thing now.
SPURGEON: How much strip work is there?
COTTER: I do one a week. I did it for about two years straight, five year all together. At first it was the standard 'make 'em laugh', which I've always enjoyed and which is why I've always enjoyed comic strips in the first place. About eight months ago my life did a 180 and things started falling apart, and the strip became very strange. I didn't feel like being funny anymore. I did throw some jokes in, but now it's more experimental. If I keep down this track... I'd have to show it to you. In the beginning it was joke-punchline, but now I'm using the form of comics and applying how I feel in the morning when I get up. The first thought that crosses my mind. I want to keep the literal qualities. I've always focused so much on my past, but now I want to figure out what I am. So I'd do a joke one week and the next week I don't feel like it. I'll e-mail you some of them. My head's in a strange place... I wish I could say more, but it'll probably be better if I don't. Now that I'm getting more of a feel for standard comics structure, and you have to understand the basics before you can mess with them, I feel like I've spent seven years understanding the basic structure, so now I can mess with it a little bit.
SPURGEON: Are there any worries about being completely non-commercially viable?
COTTER: I've been non-viable for seven years.
SPURGEON: Trust me, it can get worse.
COTTER: I don't make any money now, and I don't anticipate making any in the future.
SPURGEON: God bless you.
COTTER: I'm not one of those artists who feels they don't need money to be a true artist. Everybody's got to pay the bills, but I feel it's important to be true to myself or else the work will suffer. It's weird, one day I woke up and I thought, "I don't feel like making a joke." That day I got feedback and e-mail more than I had in months. Maybe people can sense I'm being more honest. I think I'm going in the right direction and if the right direction becomes my new standard, that's fine. I'm just taking stabs in the dark and hoping for the best.
*****
* cover to Skyscrapers of the Midwest #4
* photo of Josh Cotter by Whit Spurgeon
* sketch of Darth Vader from much-later sketchbook
* domestic scene from early issue of Skyscrapers of the Midwest
* illustration
* illustration (a Cotter family member)
* inset from same early issue of Skyscrapers of the Midwest
* illustration
* image from Fun mini-comic
* CCN illustration
* more from Fun
* page from Skyscrapers of the Midwest
* front and back cover to Skyscrapers of the Midwest #3
* two-panel sequence from Skyscrapers of the Midwest
* change in style sequence
* sketchbook page
* strips
* page from Skyscrapers of the Midwest #4
* photo by Chris Pitzer
Fff Results Post #100—Nobody Gets You Quite Like I Get You Five For Friday #100 Results
On Friday afternoon, participating CR readers were asked to "Name Five Minor or Obscure Characters You Like More Than Anyone Else Likes Them." Here are the results.
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. Crackerjack Jackson -- made beans in a can for Incredible Hulk
2. Thibault -- proto-Nelson
3. Baron Mordo -- should be Darth Vader of Marvel super-duper world
4. The Clutching Hands -- best name ever
5. Brynocki -- sentient evil robot Dondi
1. The Grizzly, an ex-wrestler in a bear rug power suit. Spider-Man villain
2. The entire cast of D.P.7. from Marvels New Universe
3. Captain Marvel/Photon/Monica from Avengers, then Nextwave
4. Damian Hellstorm, the Son of Satan
5. Leir, the Lord of Lightning, a Tom DeFalco character from his run on Thor
*****
J Caleb Mozzocco
1.) The Human Flea (One-off villain from 1993's Batman: Shadow of the Bat #11-#12)
2.) Hecate, Set and Amon (The crazy-ass demon horses that used to pull Daimon Hellstrom, Son of Satan's flaming chariot)
3.) El Gato (One-off villain from Omega The Unknown #4)
4.) Cathedral (a superhero who wore a suite shaped like a church in two whole panels of Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come)
5.) That guy in the corner of the cover of Action Comics #1
1. Mr. McNabbem, the truant officer who for some reason thought it a good idea to go after Lulu, Tubby, and all their other little friends dressed in a suit made out of a blue and white checkered tablecloth.
2. Mike Murdock, Matt's swingin' "twin brother" whose persona made Funky Flashman seem downright subdued by comparison.
3. Gideon, the bald-headed zillionaire who tried to defeat the Fantastic Four using the raw, unfettered power of his money in FF #34, only to be stopped--and ultimately redeemed--by the pure goodness of his family's love on the story's final page.
4. Freddy, the "good boy" (and yeah, my namesake) whose last ten minutes of life we're witness to in a Spirit episode that features little more than a cameo by the series star.
5. Hyper-Man, the Man of Steel doppleganger from 1960's Action Comics #265 whose true identity was "accidentally" revealed (as well as being completely depowered in the process) to the denizens of his home planet by our own seemingly clumsy Superman after the Kryptonian discovered that, unbeknownst to the purple-suited do-gooder, Hyper-Man was slowly dying, and thus, wanted to insure him a final year of peace spent with the woman he loved. To this day, that one STILL gets me--sniff...
*****
Uriel A Duran
* Gyro Gearloose's Little Helper
* Gangbuster
* The Creature Commandos (the modern version)
* Max the Rottweiler (a.k.a. The Punisher's Dog)
* Mervyn Pumpkinhead
*****
Michael May
Snowbird (Alpha Flight)
Dane (30 Days of Night: Dark Days)
Yuki (30 Days of Night: Dark Days)
Lilly (Azrael)
Bork (The Power Company)
*****
David Gallaher
1. Thunderbolt -- Yeah that dead speedster in you Marvel Handbooks, yeah that guy!
2. Johnny Dollar -- Sure, I wrote a comic with him, but that doesn't make him any less obscure to comic fans!
3. Gomi from The Fallen Angels -- when was the last time you saw him in a book?
4. Hybrid -- not the Rom villain, the one from all those Venom minis in the 90s. I have his toy.
5. Justice from Avengers: The Initiative.
1. Willie Evans Jr. (the kid from Fantastic Four #203 who made an evil FF out of thin air)
2. Pseudo-Man (Steve Gerber villain from Sensational She-Hulk #11)
3. The Protector (Robin stand-in from the New Teen Titans Drug Awareness issues)
4. Snarf (from Larry Elmore's SnarfQuest that was serialized in the back of Dragon Magazine)
5. Any and all villains from those Hostess ads!
*****
Chris Randle
1. Mason Lang -- Bruce Wayne browsing Netflix on acid
2. Turner D. Century -- Flies around on a tandem bicycle, loves the Gay Nineties, scorns the degenerate modern world
3. Sauron -- I'm not sure that there anyone else who actually likes Sauron
4. Mark Lord -- I bet he totally listened to Earth Crisis while formulating his giant-panther-based scheme to destroy New York City
5. Mr Melmoth -- Evil Noel Coward
*****
Corey Blake
* The Bug-Eyed Voice: Speedball villain from the short-lived solo series by Steve Ditko. (Exactly what a bug-eyed voice sounds like, I have no idea. But I love the name and the cover sure was nifty. See Speedball #6.)
* Hauler: proto-Grapple from original Transformers episode 1. (He was seen for a whole 5 seconds, and not even in robot form, and then never seen from or mentioned again.)
* Silhouette: ex-girlfriend of Night Thrasher (Yes, I know, "Who?" But she's a handicapped half-black/half-Korean woman. She wins nearly every underdog/minority contest.)
* Blackout: Old Nova villain. (Sure his costume was goofy but that black gunk power was scary.)
* Cloak: partner to Dagger. (Everyone always likes Dagger more. But Cloak has a much better design and freaky powers.)
*****
Chris Keels
Dude, I totally like Brynocki more than you, but here you go...
1. Arnim Zola
2. The Reject (Eternals)
3. Fancy Dan (The Enforcers; all three of them are great, so this was a tough call)
4. Janet Polo (Love & Rockets)
5. Doggo (Mode O'Day)
*****
Scott Dunbier
Flower from Kamandi
Willie Lumpkin from the Fantastic Four
Rover from Gasoline Alley
Julie Schwartz in The Flash
Duncan in Danger Girl (Okay, I'm biased)
*****
David Jones
You made this one just for me, didn't ya. Only five. Hmmm...
1. Super-Hip! (Adventures of Bob Hope)
2. Gypsy (Justice League)
3. Beaker Parish (Thriller)
4. Hellgrammite (Brave and the Bold #80)
5. The Squire III (Beryl Hutchinson, from the recent Batman three parter and JLA Classified #'s 1-3)
*****
Aaron White
1. Kodachi Kuno, The Black Rose from Ranma ½-any woman who uses knockout drugs to subdue the guy she loves is okay by me.
2. That snake rapper from Matthew Thurber's Kramers Ergot 6 story. I'm always driven to rap along with him, even though I'm uncertain about the scansion.
3. The cuckolded husbands in those Housewives at Play pictures.
4. Netley -- From Hell. Just because I like to quote William Gull's line "What does this imply, Netley?" for no particular reason.
5. The Kidney Lady from Howard the Duck. I pretty much agree with everything she has to say.
First Thought of the Day
How do you get to be one of those TV cooking personalities that cooks with cans of food and prepackaged boxes? Cream of Mushroom cuisine has a proud history in our country, in those local charity cookbooks with the great, spooled plastic binding, but just as I don't need to see my local industrial league's hoops games being dissected by Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, neither do I need the culinary encouragement of anyone whose contribution to the development of my baking skills involves suggesting I open up some mix.
The top comics-related news stories from November 10 to November 16, 2007:
1. Former retailer Ronald Castree found guilty in the 1975 murder of Lesley Molseed.
2. The writer Manel Fontdevila and the cartoonist Guillermo Torres were each fined approximately $4500 after being found guilty of offending the crown for a cover to the satirical magazine El Jueves that used a depiction of the crown prince and his wife having sex.
3. Marvel launches its first major on-line initiative.
Winners Of The Week
Los Bros Hernandez: how many other non-mainstream cartoonists from the Class of 1982 made top of blog news this week?
Loser Of The Week
Free speech in Europe.
Quote Of The Week
"Wait, Monkey Joe was killed by Leather Boy? Was there a Marvel/Eros crossover that I missed?" -- Kristine
this week's imagery comes from pioneering comic book house Centaur Publications
Five For Friday #100—Nobody Gets You The Way That I Get You Five For Friday #100 -- Name Five Minor or Obscure Characters You Like More Than Anyone Else Likes Them
1. Crackerjack Jackson -- made beans in a can for Incredible Hulk
2. Thibault -- proto-Nelson
3. Baron Mordo -- should be Darth Vader of Marvel super-duper world
4. The Clutching Hands -- best name ever
5. Brynocki -- sentient evil robot Dondi
*****
This subject is now closed. Thanks to all that participated!
***** Five For Friday is a reader response feature. To play, send a response while it's still Friday. Play fair. Responses up Sunday morning.
Here's that panel of Flash Gordon running off to do battle against an invading army with tanks by whipping off his shirt and pulling out a knife, as referenced in yesterday's review. Sometimes I do my scanning before I write the review: sorry!
Newsmaker Interview: Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall is the former on-line editor at Wizard Entertainment, who was let go by the successful publications and convention-hosting company at the tail end of October. Wizard has apparently let go a number of employees in recent months, some of which are listed here. It's my understanding that Ben Morse, Kevin Mahadeo, Chris DiSanto and Mel Caylo may be former employees of a more recent vintage, in various ways, for various reasons (for example, Morse left to work at Marvel Comics).
Marshall has been blogging about the experience but he also offered to take questions. The extreme rarity of an ex-employee of a comics company willing to talk on the record will hopefully be balanced by you, the reader, against the fact that this is someone talking about a former employer, and this is a parting of ways that has not always gone smoothly. I present this as a newsmaker interview in part to make it clear that is Marshall's view on things, and ask you to keep that in mind while reading.
Still, as the story of one of comics most successful companies moving forward without perhaps a double-digit figure in terms of people working there as recently as this summer has been under-served, and the obvious importance of a story that gets into the efforts a massively successful print enterprise that grew to prominence covering superheroes must make to keep its relevance in a world where on-line publication is so important and superheroes maybe proportionally less so than ten years ago, I think Marshall's take on things to be obviously valuable and worth presenting.
As always, I'm happy to publish any and all dissenting views sent to this site regarding Marshall's views and opinions, specific or in general, and will feature such rejoinders prominently.
*****
TOM SPURGEON: Can you give me some professional background about your work before heading to Wizard?
RICK MARSHALL: Sure! Prior to working at Wizard, I was a staffer at an alternative newsweekly (a la The Village Voice) in Albany, NY, as well as a freelance writer/editor/columnist and occasional photographer for various newspapers, magazines and trade publications. I spent a few months as a government beat writer in the State Capitol, too. Basically, I've been a jack-of-all-trades journalist for most of my career. Prior to all of that, I served as a Data Analyst for a major medical insurance company for several years -- basically a glorified liaison between the IT people, the corporate people and the staff. I only mention that because it was interesting that the writing/editing and basic journalism aspects of my career seemed far less important at Wizard then my experience at the insurance company navigating between so many different departments and their often contradicting demands.
SPURGEON: What was your job there as you saw it? As I recall, Wizard's web presence was in the low five-figure hit range back then. What do you feel were some of your successes in building the site to the level of traffic it has now?
MARSHALL: I initially applied for an Associate Editor position at Wizard that was advertised on their site. It turned out that the position had already been filled, but they never got around to updating the site. Go figure, eh? However, because of my tech background, they invited me to interview for a position as the head of their online editorial department -- one that they were still in the process of defining. I was told I'd have a small budget, and a staff that would start out small but grow as the site evolved. From what I can piece together, my job was to recruit writers and columnists for the site, to find ways to generate traffic and to basically oversee the online presence of Wizard Entertainment's editorial department as a one-man managing editor, news editor, copy/content editor, etc. So the job description was a bit ambiguous, but it seemed like an attractive challenge.
As far as successes go, the fact that the site grew from 16,000 pageviews/month to 3-4 million pageviews/month during the period I was editor is amazing, but the fact that we were able to do it without any official budget (we had to borrow from the magazines) and a staff that was getting hired and fired faster than I could remember their names made it that that much more impressive.
On the content front, I consider Wizard's recognition of webcomics to be one of my favorite success stories. My former staff writer, Brian Warmoth, also has a very active interest in webcomics, and I feel like we were able to make some great steps in giving them the recognition they deserve. We eventually turned our piecemeal coverage into a full-fledged webcomics column, and I'm very proud of that.
On another, semi-related front, I'm very proud of columns like Keith Giffen's "As If I Care..." and J.G. Jones' "52 Covers Blog." Keith was one of my favorite creators to work with, and we remain good friends now. I'm glad I could give him a soapbox to shout from, and I'm honored that he agreed to do so. J.G. Jones' blog was a column that I had a hand in conceiving and it took off better than I had ever anticipated. I handled the first few weeks myself, and Brian worked with J.G. on the rest, so J.G. became a weekly feature in our lives for an entire year. It helped that he's one of the nicest guys I'd ever met.
So to bring it all back, it's disappointing that most of the real accomplishments that come to mind were achieved despite being under the Wizard banner and not because of it. But that's how things work sometimes.
SPURGEON: Were there times during which you felt you weren't being given the resources or opportunities to do what you had been brought in to do?
MARSHALL: I guess I already answered this one, but yes, definitely. In fact, the only time in which the site seemed to be fairly stable and we weren't working crazy hours just to generate the minimum level of daily content was the period while Sean Collins was serving as Managing Editor. During that period, we had two great design people working their butts off to post stories (they've all been let go or quit since then), and we had Brian, Sean, Eric (the editor we shared with Wizard Magazine) and myself handling the rest of the site. That was the site's peak, but it only lasted a month or two at most. The rest of the time, everyone involved with the site was juggling several dozen different sets of vaguely-defined responsibilities -- few of which had anything to do with their initial job description. For example, somewhere along the line I became our primary online marketing person -- at least as far as editorial content is concerned. That was a new role for me, to say the least. In most cases, it was a matter of "If you want it done right (and quickly), do it yourself," but there is so much that needs doing to make a successful site, and so few people at Wizard who could handle the tech-oriented duties.
SPURGEON: Were there any significant conflicts with what you were trying and accomplish and those on the news magazine, convention or even retail side of the company. How were those conflicts resolved?
MARSHALL: I feel like the site provided a rude awakening for the Wizard Magazine crew. Web site tracking systems provide a very easy, clear-cut way to determine which articles people are reading, and which articles people don't bother skipping over. I don't think Wizard Magazine was ready for the cold, hard facts that this type of tracking provided. Until the site came along, Wizard Magazine was always the biggest fish in a very small fishbowl -- in this case, the world of comics news in print format. To take the analogy a step further, creating the website dumped that little bowl and its alpha-male fish into the ocean of online news. Suddenly it had to compete against other fish, and I don't think it was ready for that. For example, the Wizard Magazine crew always seemed insulted by the fact that content from the magazine rarely received as many readers on the site as the original online content we produced. From a pure traffic standpoint, stories from ToyFare Magazine clobbered Wizard Magazine stories on a regular basis, and the reaction from the Wizard Magazine side always seemed to be that the fault wasn't with the content itself, but the way in which we provided it online. It was very frustrating to present all of this data indicating that changes were necessary, and to have it ignored time and time again.
However, the most prominent conflict was always the traffic-vs-political content issue. From the start, my marching orders were always "More Traffic" and "More Readers." But it became painfully obvious that many people at the company assumed that the most popular stories would always be the stories about the companies who buy the most space at conventions or advertise the most on the site -- that we could MAKE a topic popular simply by posting it. It was an ideology framed around the notion that "it's interesting because we tell you it's interesting."
That wasn't the case, though. I obsessively tracked the traffic for the site, and there was rarely any overlap between the people who were considered "Friends of Wizard" (yes, that was an actual term thrown around) and the types of content and subject matter that generated the most traffic. So, most of the time, we operated under a cycle of unavoidable bridge-burning and tail-chasing, with the people at the higher levels of the company alternating between complaints of "Why didn't you give my friend/client a front-page story?" and "Why weren't the numbers as high today as they were yesterday?" It was a Catch-22 situation.
The thing is, no matter how much I tried to explain these very fundamental problems, I don't think they ever really penetrated. I wish I could say they were resolved, but in the end, I think the resolution they arrived at was to kill the messenger.
SPURGEON: Can you provide any insight into Wizard's abortive re-design attempt and abortive re-launch from a while back, exactly what happened and why it didn't work?
MARSHALL: Have you ever played that game "Operator," in which you pass a message down a line of people and see how it's been mangled by the time it reaches the end? That sums up the relaunch. Basically, I sat down with the redesign company at the beginning of the project and discussed the editorial needs for the new site, and several months later I was shown a preliminary, semi-functional version of the new site. When I saw it, I was horrified. Not only did it lack 95 percent of what we asked for, but I was told that we would have to force our current site's database to fit into this new site's limited architecture. I still don't understand why the decision was made to push forward with this site, to be honest. So we worked around the clock changing our current database of content to fit into the very limited constraints of the redesigned site.
My only guess is that the entire fiasco had something to do with the decision to have the least tech-savvy people in the company play the most important roles in the process. Over time, the flow of information went through multiple PR people before it ever reached the people who would be working on the site the most. It was an operational nightmare. They eventually decided to scrap the new site and move on. There's another redesign happening down the road, and while this one has involved more of the right people, I think there are too many other issues that they'll need to deal with before it will have a chance against Newsarama, IGN or other sites out there.
SPURGEON: Is it true you were asked to train a replacement from the magazine side of things? Do you feel like this person was adequately prepared to take over the enterprise as you had established it?
MARSHALL: I was never actually asked to train my replacement. Unfortunately, that's not how Wizard does things. I was told at one point, just after Sean Collins was let go, that I was getting a new supervisor. This struck me as a bit odd, as I had always answered directly to the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the company, just like the Editors of each of the magazines. I was told that my new supervisor's job was to absorb some of the duties related to relationships with companies like Marvel Comics, and that his role was more to alleviate duties outside of the day-to-day managing of the site than to take a hands-on role in the Online Dept. My new supervisor had served as the Editor for the now-defunct InQuest Magazine and had a key role in creating those "How To" hardcover books that Wizard publishes and sells. This also struck me as a strange pairing, as he didn't have a stellar track record thus far, he had very little knowledge about the site (he admitted early on that he rarely looked at it), even less knowledge about the technology and systems that made the site possible. That, and he was only in the office one day each week. I remember him telling me early on that the one element we should be providing more of on the site is excerpts from the "How To" books -- because he believed that people were hungry for that type of thing and it would sell more books.
Then, over the next few weeks, I started receiving requests from him to explain more and more of the day-to-day aspects of running the site. He wanted all of my account information, and began asking the remaining online staff a lot of questions about how things run when I'm not around. So the writing was on the wall, really. I wasn't all that surprised when I started receiving calls from companies and freelancers who were confused when I answered my phone. They would ask for my supervisor, I'd tell them they had the wrong extension, and they would tell me that they were told to contact "the new Online Editor" by the Wizard Magazine crew and assumed this was his extension. This scenario happened quite a bit in the last few days before I was let go.
SPURGEON: Were you a given a reason why you were let go?
MARSHALL: The official line was "Your vision for the site no longer coincides with ours." This seemed especially odd, given the fact that I received a raise just a few months earlier due to the website's success under my supervision, but that's what I was told. Now, if anyone can actually get an answer as to what their vision for the site actually is, in clear, non-ambiguous wording, let me know. I couldn't get an answer to that one in two years.
SPURGEON: What was the nature of your disagreement with Wizard over severance? Why do you feel you can speak now?
MARSHALL: When I was let go, they offered me two weeks' pay and a long agreement I would have to sign in order to receive the severance pay. These terms included an agreement to provide "future cooperation" regarding any elements of the position that they request down the road, and a clause prohibiting any "disparaging remarks" about the company. I went over the agreement with several lawyers, and they all strongly advised against signing it. With their help, I drew up a counter offer, in which I placed a timeline on the "future cooperation" clause, requested that the "disparaging remarks" clause be made a mutual element, and that I receive a month's pay. According to the lawyers I consulted, as well as most labor and employment law resources, a month is pretty much the standard severance for employees who have been with a company for nearly two years -- and considering the great strides the site made under my supervision and the lack of any negative marks on my record, I was probably due more. Wizard ignored the offer, and after several weeks of prodding and tussling over the rights to the message boards and other non-proprietary elements of the site, Wizard indicated that they weren't interested in negotiating.
I declined the initial agreement, so I don't see any value in remaining silent. I firmly believe that the way a company handles it employees speaks volumes about the company itself. In this case, I feel like it's important to make people aware of the way Wizard treats its own. There are a great many people working at Wizard who are very talented and creative, but I believe that Wizard preys upon them. These talented, young people are willing to accept horribly low wages and long hours just to have a job with the products (be it toys, games, comics or anime/manga) that they love. But once the notion of "working in the comics scene" loses its appeal and they start to realize that they're worth more for their hard work, they get kicked to the curb and the next starry-eyed applicant walks through the door. Sure, this is how business works, for the most part, but with all of the talk these days about unions and such, I feel like it's important to make sure that companies who mishandle the people on their payroll are taken to task for it.
SPURGEON: What are your future plans?
MARSHALL: At the moment, I'm weighing my options. Sometimes it takes a very bad experience to develop a reliable reference point, and that's how I'm treating my time with Wizard. It provided an excellent example of a situation to avoid down the road, and it's important to know the warning signs firsthand. Many of the people who I got to know through my time at Wizard have been great since I was let go, sending me tips on job openings and, whenever possible, freelance work. It's funny how often I hear from former Wizard employees that "leaving Wizard was the best thing that ever happened to me." I'm fairly certain I'll be joining that chorus soon.
By the way, I encourage anyone interested in learning more about my experience at Wizard to contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Delcourt Takes a Pass On Lost Girls Citing French law that speaks directly to the transmission of pornographic images depicting underage participants, Delcourt has renounced its French publication rights to Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls. While it expresses its reluctance in doing so, the question that immediately arises is if French law changed between the time they seized the rights and this decision, or if something else has cropped up in the interim that's a factor I simply can't see due to my remove from the intricacies of French-language comics publishing. I'm still sorting this one out in my head, so if I get enough information to update I'll do so here.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the critic Graeme McMillan's take on the final issue of Marvel's latest crossover World War Hulk reads like the sort of baffled reaction that five years from now we may return to for signs as to why comic books have shed readers that much more quickly. Gotta stick the landing.
* just a few days after the release of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, Jess Nevins has another sure to be popular set of annotations for the reference-saturated comics work. I know I'll be spending some time with the book opened in front of the computer screen.
* Speaking of LOEG: TBD, Abhay Khosla questions some of the rhetoric out there suggesting there are no legal risks to publishing the material.
* even though part of my brain tells me I probably shouldn't have, I sort of enjoyed Angela Phillips massive media critique that springs from coverage of the Danish Cartoons Controversy. At least the first few graphs. Plus I hadn't heard of this.
* assuming Laura Hudson's report from the "Think Future" panel is representative of the depth of conversation that took place, and I'm sure the editors would pass on it if it weren't representative in that way, seeing as they were right there, her piece at PW underlines the problem with these kinds of panels. John Cunningham at DC says that a generation of readers will go to the screen for their comics just like they do for everything else; Joe Quesada asserts that on-line availability of comics will serve as a feeder system to print. That's at the very least two different parts of the elephant being described, if not an elephant and a rhino. It's fine if there are two diametrically opposed opinions, but it's hard to know how firmly those positions are held let alone their relative strength when they're not set against one another and their backers pressed for details. If a future can sustain both, we probably need to hear that, too. Otherwise, you might as well ask the participants to send their press releases to be read.
* it's a good thing when Steve Duin writes about comics; I'm catching up to this piece a few days too late to spark attendance, but I still liked it.
* you know, I can't remember a retailer piping up on the Marvel on-line initiative before this one. Between this, a future of comics panel that focused a lot on on-line moves and bookstore shelving, and the Love & Rockets announcement they're moving to annual form, this hasn't been the best week for the DM.
* how The Complete Dreams of a Rarebit Fiendwas restored.
* Emory University hosts the latest discussion related to the Cartooning For Peace exhibit. Ali Dilem comes across as the most to-the-point person in the room. Again.
Creators: Alex Raymond, Don Moore Publishing Information: Checker, hard cover, 100 pages, March 2005, $19.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781933160252 (ISBN13)
I simply didn't have an ear for aural perfection. When my teenage-years friends were spending hundreds of dollars on audio equipment for their bedrooms and cars, I made do with a mess of inherited pieces and low-end machines. That's true of comics and print quality as well, as many frustrated cartoonists who have had to sit me down with print jobs I think have gone swell and point out to me where the register is off will attest. All of that is necessary prelude to making this point: I don't know if Checker Publishing's hardcovers of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon era are printed with a degree of exactitude to please all of the material's fans. It looks fine to me; not being familiar with 1930s newspaper hot off the press it looks close to what my father's paper might have done 40 years later. Given the older papers' reputation for color saturation and clearer printing, this makes me think that someone with a more exacting eye might find reason to complain about one thing or another here. Well, even if it's true, I can only appreciate their pain, not share in it. I thought they looked just fine.
That means I get to read the comics with an unburdened mind. Checker's formatting allows the volume room for four unfettered serials from 1936 to 1938. They are divided into two out-in-nature adventures and two more palace and political intrigue-type adventures. The first two adventures are a lot more crazy and fun in a way, more direct in terms of what's at stake and allowing Raymond to riff on a number of natural circumstances, ugly caveman types and a horde of wonderful monsters. It's hard to imagine the joy this strip must have been for kids who yearned for an out of this world experience before comic books, TV shows and films devoted to them became a part of the fabric of life. To see an artist of this quality drawing spaceships and creatures and a burly, athletic hero defeating everything in front of him by physical beat downs and force of will must have felt for a lot of kids that Raymond had made Flash Gordon just for them. I bet most of those kids preferred the monster-heavy sequences. However, the final two chapters, for all their forced narration, seem to make for better comics. The plot points are less singular and relentless, the can-you-top-this energy of this volume's first half proves fairly exhausting.
There's a natural tension in Raymond's art in terms of how the reader's eye moves across the page in a way that builds narrative momentum and how it settles on one magnificent image after another in order to enjoy it on that level. Raymond's skilled at both, almost otherworldly so, but when you're in a run of new physical perils every week, that delicate balance tips towards backing away from the progression of the story and enjoying the monster of the week, both terrifying (a tree that chokes people to death in its vines) and occasionally ridiculous (flying, vicious, madness-inducing squirrels). That doesn't mean it stops being comics. I'm not one who automatically favors narrative propulsion over pictures that hold interest and one's attention, but the powerful mix between the two that distinguishes Raymond's best runs on the feature goes away when the strip favors action to the exclusion of everything else, that running in the forest away from creatures kind of physical activity.
I've never read a bunch of Raymond's Flash Gordon in a row. I'm struck by how less wimpy than most of her peers Dale Arden tends to be, and I like the fact that we never get a real sense of Gordon's physical appearance. Like most people, he doesn't have one face but several, driven by the situation in which he finds himself. I also found fascinating the strip's underlying morality, which seems to go past things like fair play and a vow against cruelty and into a larger statement about how moral and physical virtue may be closely related, and how interacting with other cultures not only demands a cautious hand, it occasionally asks for one balled into a big jaw-cracking fist. My favorite sequence is one where Flash strips down into his tights and with only a knife in his hand takes on a tank and kicks its ass, eventually turning the tide of combat in his favor. That's a very potent image, and it's the visual punch of Raymond's artwork that suggests a bit more than simply a run of stripped-down adventures. It's a fascinating way to look at the world, and at the past, in these times when we're less likely to see societal implications in a sock to the jaw.
Love and Rockets Switches to Annuals
In what seems like a highly symbolic move that speaks to the shape of the comics market today and perhaps all the days yet to come, Fantagraphics announced that Love and Rockets, the book that kicked off the alternative comics movement a quarter-century ago, will switch from a saddle-stitched periodical format to a square-bound annual presentation. The at-least 100-page editions will feature creators Gilbert, Jaime and occasionally Mario Hernandez, and the first edition will be released in summer 2008.
The Hernandez Brothers have been "format forward" at several times in their past. The first 50-issue volume of Love and Rockets was published at a magazine size, a format that at the time many believed help distinguish certain books from the bulk of material being produced. A second series, begun in 2000, was in standard comic-book size to allow for more regular racking by Direct Market owners. Other formats in which Love and Rockets comics have been published include color comic reprints in supplement to the magazine series (Mechanics, 1985), album-sized complete reprint collections (starting with Music for Mechanics), omnibus editions, (Palomar, Locas), a current run of popular smaller-sized reprints separated more cleanly by author (starting with Maggie the Mechanic and Heartbreak Soup), and even concurrent magazine/on-line serialization (Jaime's "La Maggie La Loca" in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and their web site).
Fantagraphics' press release says the latest run of books, seven in all collecting volume one of the magazines, have been successful enough that a move to spine-bear 100-plus page collection will allow to meet the needs of a newer audience they believe is purchasing those books. The company also cites their experience in making issues of ACME Novelty Library similarly available in a format that works outside the Direct Market of comics shops as something that had little effect on sales there. Gilbert Hernandez cited the creative freedom that comes with more pages.
Given the extreme profile of Love and Rockets and that publication's relationship with comic shops going back decades -- it was in the early-1990s the only alternative comic book that was sold in my hometown because the store had grown use to carrying it before the black and white bust and the flood of titles from all corners that kicked off that strange decade -- it's hard not to see this as at least a vote of no-confidence in the comic book periodical format, although I know that Gilbert Hernandez in particular isn't just paying lip service when he talks about relishing the opportunities of a 50-page or so platform with which to present certain work, and that shouldn't be discounted. But when you look at news like this and see occasional casual mentions like SLG's Jennifer de Guzman saying her company isn't interested in series right now, you start to wonder if an entire way of reading comics is slowly moving to the sidelines.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* if I'm reading articles like this one on the recent elections in Denmark correctly, and I'm probably not, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen won a third term in part on a positive appraisal of his handling of the international political crisis caused by caricatures of Muhammed appearing in the paper Jyllands-Posten in Fall 2005. It looks like by reaching out to the anti-tax, pro-immigration New Alliance to buttress his majority Rasmussen has placed some of the political issues surrounding growing Muslim populations in Europe more clearly on the table for a while.
* according to this article, the Danish Cartoons Controversy may have been the best thing to ever happen to Denmark: no terrorist attacks, limited economic fall-out, no violence against Muslims during that period, reduced influence enjoyed by radical imams, and a much more open dialog.
* this writer believes that the lack of a show of support for the El Jueves cartoonists is a display of some hypocrisy. I hate to harsh this writer's righteousness buzz, and I'm all for international support of Manel Fontdevila and Guillermo Torres, but if the writer's argument is dependent on their having been a worldwide show of support for the Danish Cartoonists by European editors and journalists, I don't really remember that happening.
* one Muslim in Baghdad profiled by the New York Times blames Muslims for using religion to gain secular power more than he does the Danish cartoonists.
* the theologian Karen Armstrong says here that the lesson of the Danish Cartoons Controversy wasn't a world divided by a religion, but a world struggling with misplaced feelings of nationalism in the guise of fundamentalism.
From BD Festival De Blois, It’s Your 2007 Grand Prix De La Critique Nominees
It strikes me that I haven't been seeing the usual flurry of French-language industry comics awards. Here's one -- nominees for the Grand Prix De La Critique. Familiar names include Guy Delisle, Miriam Katin, Shaun Tan and David B.
* Abdallahi T.2, Jean-Denis Pendanx and Christophe Dabitch (Futuropolis) * Chaque chose, Julien Neel (Gallimard-Bayou)
* Chroniques Birmanes, Guy Delisle (Delcourt)
* Construire un feu, Christophe Chaboute (Vents d'Ouest)
* Happy Living, Jean-Claude Gotting (Delcourt)
* Kiki de Montparnasse, Catel and Jose-Louis Bocquet (Casterman)
* La ligne de fuite, Benjamin Flao and Christophe Dabitch (Futuropolis)
* La ou vont nos peres, Shaun Tan (Dargaud)
* La theorie du grain de sable, Francois Schuiten and Benoit Peeters (Casterman)
* L'espace d'un soir, Colonel Moutarde and Brigitte Luciani (Delcourt)
* Massacre au pont de No Gun Ri, Park Kun-woong (Vertige Graphic)
* Par les chemins noirs T.1 : Les prologues, David B. (Futuropolis)
* RG T.1 : Riyad-sur-Seine, Frederick Peeters and Pierre Dragon (Gallimard-Bayou)
* Seules contre tous, Miriam Katin (Seuil)
* Trois ombres, Cyril Pedrosa (Delcourt)
It looks to me like these were announced the first day of the BD Festival at Blois.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the critic and historian Jeet Heer takes a look at the recent controversy surrounding the portrayal of Charles Schulz in David Michaelis' book Schulz and Peanuts.
* at first I thought this biographer was searching for a 350-page manuscript by Charles Dickens about his close friend and Pickwick Papers illustrator the cartoonist Robert Seymour, but once the EMTs revived me and I got back to the computer screen I see that he never quite says this. Still, I'd like for that manuscript to be recovered, too.
* this is how you do a book launch: at the market, after the band stops playing, with former government officials testifying to your essential awesomeness. Anyway, if you have a few minutes, it's a chance to see one of the world's most influential, award-winning cartoonists speak in public.
* ballots for the 2008 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award are now up at the Comic-Con site.
* this is the first longish review I've seen for Posy Simmonds' as-yet-to-be-out-everywhere Tamara Drewe, one of the reasons this site waits until Valentine's Day to release its previous year's best list.
* All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
* Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Marvel)
* A Treasury of Victorian Murder: Saga of the Bloody Benders, Rick Geary (NBM/ComicsLit)
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty (Dark Horse)
* Crecy, Warren Ellis and Raulo Caceres (Avatar)
* Criminal, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Marvel/Icon)
* I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics Books)
* League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (DC/Wildstorm)
* Marvel Zombies: Dead Days and Marvel Zombies 2, Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips (Marvel)
* Please Release, Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
* Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
* Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Spent, Joe Matt (Drawn and Quarterly)
* The Boys, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
* The Complete Peanuts, Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics)
Bonus Worst of 2007 List
* Green Lantern Sinestro Corps Special #1, Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver (DC)
* Martha Washington Dies, Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons (Dark Horse)
* Tales from the Crypt #1, various (Papercutz)
* The Highwaymen #1 (DC/Wildstorm)
* Thor #1, J. Michael Straczynski and Oliver Coipel (Marvel)
CR Review: Wonder Woman: Love and Murder; Wonder Woman #14
Title: Wonder Woman: Love and Murder Creators: Jodi Picoult, Terry Dodson, Drew Johnson, Paco Diaz Publishing Information: DC Comics, hard cover, 128 pages, November 2007, $19.99 Ordering Numbers 9781401214876 (ISBN13)
Title: Wonder Woman #14 Creators: Gail Simone, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson Publishing Information: DC Comics, comic book, 32 pages, November 2007, $2.99 Ordering Numbers
It's nice that they put author Jodi Picoult's name in larger type than the superhero she wrote in the comics collected into Wonder Woman: Love and Murder; what she really deserves is an apology. In the comic book version of a weird casting moment when someone is given a television or movie showcase that seems to outright work against the skill-set of the potential star, Picoult's suggested ability with banter and wordplay is asked to brighten up what feels like an arbitrary, continuity-heavy re-launch, which is almost immediately dragged into an even more laborious and poorly conceived, continuity super-heavy plot about the Amazons taking over Washington, D.C. I have enough experience with reading these kinds of four-color clusterfucks that were my life a video game it would be on my character's scroll-down menu, and I barely understood what was going on here half the time. Worse, I never cared. Former Senators jetting into world hot spots as trouble-shooting diplomats are frequently saddled with less baggage than this.
In an introduction that feels like a defense attorney's opening statement, Picoult talks about establishing a secret identity for Wonder Woman that matches the metaphor-rich second faces of her fellow licensing juggernauts, which sounds like a great idea never apparent in much of anything that follows. It should be said that the author's endorsement of a ridiculous cliffhanger ending that asks readers to buy yet another book after dropping 20 bucks on this one greatly diminishes her status as a figure of sympathy. It also makes me never want to buy one of her prose works for someone for fears that it will end up being tossed back at my head. All that running around and blowing stuff up and flirty dialog in the face of danger fails to lead to a resolution of of any kind; it leads to an advertisement. This may be the first Wonder Woman book Wonder Woman herself would object to giving someone as a gift.
It should be clear to just about anyone's eyes that Wonder Woman #14 works much better as a standard comic book than Wonder Woman: Love and Murder works as a high-end collection. The writer Gail Simone, after what I'm guessing was a stage-setting/clean-up issue #13, efficiently whips together a sturdy standard set of plot complications: a mysterious conspiracy with dire implications for our heroine, the re-introduction of a long-standing supporting character (Etta Candy) in a slightly different role, and a general ramping up of the physical obstacles. The most clever subplot involves of all things a group of super-gorillas that Wonder Woman defeats in battle and then has living in her apartment. Gorillas are generally funny, this crew is easy to understand as far-out fantasy characters even if you don't know anything about DC Universe super-gorilla back plot (or if simply reading that last sentence makes you giggle), and there's something to the invitation to come share her pad that speaks to the formidable earth mother aspects of the character, the notion that Wonder Woman's such a decent person she can reform some bad guys by simply sharing a refrigerator with them.
Unfortunately, those aspects only pop out in terms of a comparison to the more ragged work in the collection combined with the reduced expectations that still seem to go hand-in-hand with the common, humble funnybook. Taken on its own, this is really no better than a standard, forgettable comic book of the type that close editorial attention and the number of talented people wanting to make them should mean dozens of every week. You still have to care about people bearing names like Captain Nazi, and accept that with tens of thousands of comics pages shining a light on the character's world there's room for a conspiracy to have flowered just out of sight. The art is even more seductively rounded than work from the same pencil artist in Love and Murder, but the scenes in both rely on a number of disconcertingly generic backgrounds that I guess are there to make the figures pop when it's the detailed settings that are the most memorable. Both writers' scripts seem to push the art teams into stretch to find a level of visual interest in very talkative scenes, to mixed effect. The only real change between book and comic is a writer that seems a bit more at home: good news if you're inclined to buy this book anyway, but not really enough to demand your attention if you're not.
This Isn’t A Library: New and Notable Releases to the Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are those books that jump out at me from this week's probably mostly accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the following -- I might not buy any -- but were I in a comic book shop I would likely pick up the following and look them over, potentially resulting in mean words and hurt feelings when my retailer objected.
*****
JUN070172 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9 $2.99
The best ongoing superhero serial drops an issue in its standard, fits and starts manner.
SEP070169 BLACK ADAM THE DARK AGE #4 (OF 6) $2.99
Is this a comedy? A searing drama? How else do you make a superhero adventure comic book about a genocidal mass murderer? I guess you could kind of fudge and make him a standard anti-hero with a bigger than average body count by a factor of about 40 million, but that would be stupid.
AUG070308 EX MACHINA VOL 6 POWER DOWN TP (MR) $12.99
I always wonder why people stop talking about comics like this. Are the later issues bad? Is the initial praise more a fashion thing than anything else?
JUL078077 LOEG THE BLACK DOSSIER HC STANDARD EDITION (MR) $29.99
I read this last night and quite enjoyed it. I was afraid the text and mixed-media material would be dense to the of not being readable, but that stuff was actually fairly light and as easy to consume as the comics themselves. Best James Bond ever.
SEP070247 WORLD OF WARCRAFT #1 $2.99
This seems like a quiet release to me.
SEP072032 WANTED GN (NEW PTG) $19.99
I read a couple of the individual comics, and have no desire to own the trade, but if someone has actually figured out that a comics work related to a forthcoming movie (I still think it looks like Chuck: The Movie) should be made available for the anticipation of the movie rather than simply after it, when sales tend to tank, that should be noted here.
AUG073649 MEAT CAKE #16 (MR) $3.95
I used to go to the comic shop every week just to buy one-person anthologies like this one. Dame Darcy's comics vary wildly in quality, but she's one of a kind, and I've never regretted buying a single issue of her book.
SEP073635 NEW TALES OF OLD PALOMAR #1 (O/A) $7.95 SEP073636 NEW TALES OF OLD PALOMAR #2 (O/A) $7.95
What struck me about these is how pretty they were; Gilbert Hernandez is almost never appreciated on that level, and he should be.
APR073696 PALESTINE HC $29.95
The first hardcover edition of Joe Sacco's classic contains maybe the best making-of section I've ever seen in a comic book, including admirable insight from the cartoonist himself. The comics themselves haven't aged a day.
AUG073863 REMEMBRANCE THINGS PAST PT 3 LOVE OF SWANN VOL 1 HC $16.95
I've never seen this, but if I lived in a town with a comics shop that carried it, I would have checked it out.
JUN073779 SCOTT PILGRIM VOL 4 SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER GN (MR) $11.95
This is the release of the month for a lot of people, and I'm not going to even come close to making fun of any comics series that brings such pleasure to people that tend not to find the same degree of enjoyment in a lot else that's out there.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock.
If I didn't list your new comic, you're welcome to assume the worst of me, but it's likely I just missed it. I am not a good person.
Reaction to Spanish Court’s Decision Yesterday To Fine El Jueves Cartoonists As noted yesterday, the writer Manel Fontdevila and the cartoonist Guillermo Torres were each fined approximately $4440 (USD) after being found guilty of attacking the honor of Spain's Prince Felipe through a cartoon cover appearing on the satirical magazine El Jueves. The best general write-up I've read thus far was probably in the Telegraph. The best news: they plan to appeal. The worst reminder: they could have faced jail time, and a conviction only increases the possibility this could happen in the future.
The cover in question showed Felipe and his wife having sex and the prince commenting that if she were to get pregnant the sex would be the closest thing to work he'd ever done. This constituted a barb at both idle royalty and at a program to pay Spanish women for becoming pregnant. As one might expect for the outcome to an initial charge that dropped jaws for happening in a Spain where many felt this sort of thing would never happen, the guilty decision was criticized for itself, for the chilling effect it will have on free expression, and as a sign that Europe has become increasingly intolerant of the outer edges of free speech.
One of the higher profile hosts in the on-line cartooning world, Salon this week replaced Carol Lay's long-running Tuesday offering Way Lay with something called Kansas O'Flaherty... Secret Agent, which is decently well-pedigreed in that the creators have worked before on what seem like reasonably high-profile individual projects maybe not exactly comics. Lay's strip moves to Fridays. Anyway, Kansas O'Flaherty's first mission was not well received. At the very least the first 34 commentaries on Salon were flat-out negative. I would expect something positive to get on there sooner or later just from a buddy stepping in, or maybe a note from the kind of person that scoops up a spider and walks it outside rather than stepping on it. Until then, it's a reminder that comics is a tough gig.
I e-mailed with Lay last night, who confirmed her strip's move and said she was flattered that people have thought enough to ask after her strip's new schedule.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Calvin Reid of PWCWgets Pantheon to open up about its 2008 plans, which includes information on a few long-rumored projects, not quite all the way nailed down until now: the expanded Art Spiegelman Breakdowns that includes a new autobiographical sequence some segments of which are currently being serialized in the New Yorker and Virginia Quarterly Review; David Mazzucchelli's return to comics with the graphic novel Asterios Polyp; and that travel comic with Phoebe Gloeckner's Mexico stuff in it from actress Mia Kirshner. The planned David Heatley book at St. Martin's moves over to Pantheon, too, which is something I hadn't heard.
* ICv2.com reports that the Dabel Brothers, specialists in bringing genre author works into comics form, have signed a book trade distribution deal with Del Rey.
* one of the better comic strip anecdotes I've ever read is up on Scott Dunbier's blog, where a teenaged Michael Moorcock was writing his own captions for the Tarzan strip so as not to have to use work from an artist he didn't like.
* Marc -Oliver Frisch writes in response to criticisms we linked to here by comics author Brian Wood about sales estimates and reports on same.
* this blogger compares North American and Japanese approaches to the inevitability of on-line dissemination.
* the Christian Science Monitorsays goodbye to longtime cartoonist Clay Bennett on his last day in concise fashion; although one supposes a paper's not going to devote a ton of space to someone leaving for another job.
* given the implications of the Lesley Molseed conviction and a subsequent incident which mirrored the more famous murder, police will apparently now check for former comics retailer Ronald Castree's involvement in unsolved cases of a similar type.
Here's a few notes and initial thoughts of my own.
* the best news thus far is in this Doug Wolk interview with Joe Quesada and John Dokes that Marvel plans on paying royalties; I'm sort of confused as to why this has to be a plan-to answer rather than something you'd have in place from the start, but it's not the answer I expected.
* the big unanswered question for me is how a project with these price points can serve as a feeder system and offer unique value. Of all the feeder systems in which I participate in terms of sampling other media, none of them cost me $60 a year. The pair of unlimited access models to which I subscribe didn't come with huge, potential exceptions. I suspect this either appeals to a new kind of customer that's neither looking for a feeder platform or unlimited access, or that there will be adjustments a half-year or a full-year down the line.
* this is doubly important because I can't imagine there won't be some people waiting for some material to come out at MDCU rather than buying it at that exact moment. Frankly, that's my gut reaction already. I haven't even decided if I can get enough professional use out of the program to buy a membership but I'm still going to wait on buying some marginal Marvel titles that I was going to buy in Las Cruces this week until after I know.
* part of me wonders if the real target won't end up being people that have started to wander away from weekly comic shop consumption: readers that might be convinced to engage with Marvel on a digital basis as a substitute for the entire going to the shop thing, not as a supplement to it. A ton of anecdotal evidence suggests Marvel specifically and superhero comics in general may be due to start bleeding customers that as they get older still have tons of cash but don't have the energy or appetite to keep up with the weekly shop visits and Internet-tracking time commitments of being a modern superhero comics fan. The convenience factor may end up being a bigger player than the first wave of PR suggests.
* am I crazy thinking in my gut that the way people approach archival comics suggests an unlimited subscription model, but that the way people approach new comics strongly favors a single-buy download model at $.99 a pop? And that adopting something along those lines represents a real opportunity but also perhaps a PR nightmare for DC?
* I know without looking that somewhere out there is a Motley Fool article talking about how amazing this initiative is.
* one secondary question for me is I wonder on what basis people will renew their subscriptions given that say, one year into the experience they'll be likely to have sampled a significant number of the archives specifically attractive to them. To rotate the archival material or roll it out slowly will likely irritate loyal customers. This puts a lot of pressure on attracting return business according to six-month-old comics releases.
* as for the site going down, not being ready to meet on-line demand can be charming when it's one dude in his garage, but it's dumb to spin it in that way for a huge corporation.
* this is basically a note to myself, but I've been struck by the fact this seems like a Perelman-era initiative in a way, in that some of the PR rhetoric assumes a kind of broad affection for consuming Marvel product rather than emphasizing the laser-like exploitation of specific comics properties.
* one thing that seems to have been ignored in the press coverage I've read thus far is that King Features Syndicate went to an on-line pay model a couple of years back at about 25 percent the cost of Marvel's that features much more of its current product as well as work that is in equivalent media to the on-line sales they make to newspapers. That seems to me a much more daring and significant move -- to match it Marvel would have to not be delaying things six months and would have to have been offering digital comics for sale through store sites both before and after this launch. Where Marvel distinguishes itself is in a greater utilization of its massive library, but that's hardly a sexy press hook.
* I found the press roll-out aspects of this project kind of creepy in general, and far more controlled than usual, but I don't really have more than a vague feeling about this. I'm asking around. If I do come up with something, I'll report back here. Doug Wolk tells me that the massive interview linked to above was put together Monday, so my cranky suspicion that it was conducted pre-announcement is allayed. I probably just got up on the wrong side of the bed.
* I hate it when other people backseat drive huge corporations, but I have to admit I was sort of expecting them to initially offer a monthly subscription that could then be used as credit for an upgrade to a yearly.
* Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
* All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
* Aya, Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Exit Wounds, Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)
* I Killed Adolf Hitler, Jason (Fantagraphics)
* Laika, Nick Abadzis (Roaring Brook/First Second)
* MPD-Psycho, Volume 1, Eiji Otsuka and Sho-u Tajima (Dark Horse)
* MW, Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni)
* Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White, Taiyo Matsumoto (Viz)
* The Salon, Nick Bertozzi (St. Martin's)
Books of interest named in other categories were:
* the hybrid book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick (Scholastic Press)
* the illustration-heavy The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie, Ellen Forney (Little, Brown)
in children's fiction, and:
* Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by sometimes-cartoonist Mo Willems (Hyperion)
Creators: Emelie Friberg, Mattias Thorelli Publishing Information:Hallon Press, webcomics serial, approximately 170 pages to date, free Ordering Information:
I think what most people will take away from Emelie Friberg and Mattias Thorelli's What Birds Know is a level of craft that one doesn't tend to see a lot of on-line, at least without making a point of tracking it down. In fact, the high degree of competency in the art work almost makes it invisible in a way; it's clear what everything should be from the drawing, there's enough variation in how things are presented to keep a level of visual interest in terms of page structure and design, and there are appealing if fairly obvious effects of shading according to light source that reassures those of us who want those things in certain types of entertainment, particularly entertainment that works out of an almost generic Disney/manga design. If there's anything that's a half-step behind the rest of the artwork it is the design, which not only fails to impress when showing the pastoral baseline world in which we're immersed, but thus far doesn't quite invest the spookier moments with a greater or different element of visual punch.
It may just be getting there on its own terms. What Birds Know is so leisurely paced when compared to most modern entertainment it's almost jarring. The closest experience to the early scenes isn't another fantasy comic but those videogames where characters maintain crops, trade goods and collect items in their home. The story almost peeks out rather than slams its fist on the desk. We meet three girls from a village and watch them prepare for a trip to collect mushrooms, something they look forward to in multiple ways: for itself, as a break from the tedium of school and day to day life, and a chance to do something together. The basic structure of the book, at least so far, mirrors that journey and the difficulties the girls experience along the way. A couple of the story's most appealing aspects come out of the pacing and sturdy structure. The cartoonists take the time to establish the appeal of its characters and the setting in a more classic fantasy fashion than a lot of works that assume a knowledge of those tropes and attempt to riff on them. Home is here. The adventure is right over there. The appeal is a different world than one's own, but that doesn't mean the original world is unlovely or unsatisfying. The key suggests a connection between a personal and public past, perhaps not always examined, and how that has an effect on the right now and one's future. These are simple pleasures, but the way they're presented here they're at least believably sumptuous ones.
A lot more than usual depends on the future development of the story, how the classic fantasy elements are further brought to bear, whether we're at a one-half, one-third or one-tenth point in getting the entire tale, where the story goes in terms of theme and ultimate resolution. That may be the disadvantage of working in a classic mode: you get points for your ability to pull it off, to make something of a baseline quality, but it puts a lot more pressure on the elements that will eventually distinguish the work than you might see with a story idiosyncratically told from the start. There's a fine line between a stylish performance and an empty suit. One could only guess how it's going to to turn out here, both the narrative and the overall quality of the effort. Even 172 pages in it's impossible to see the ending to What Birds Know, which is a positive, or figure out if the story ends 10 pages from now or 500. We may not even have a finer appreciation for what's at risk quite yet. A lot of creative choices between now and "The End" will determine even how the material we've experienced thus far should be viewed.
One hopes for more sequences like one in which the tension is sent soaring through the roof due to the agitated actions of creatures we had until that point seen only in repose, not only effective in itself but something that uses the laconic rhythms of the story to date to its advantage. I'm a bit more worried about the creepier elements introduced and where that's going, in terms of it being the element that ends up distinguishing the wider story and in the cartoonists' ability to handle it as effectively as they gave us the set-up. That's not necessarily a bad worry to have at this point, but if there were thoroughbreds-style betting on narratives I'm not sure I'd be comfortable laying money on this one's resolution. I also have to admit I wish the story were done, and that it's not something I particularly want to read in parceled bits. In the end, I may walk away for a while, with a promise to return to see how things worked out.
Marvel Launches New On-Line Initiative
Marvel has unveiled something called either Marvel Digital Comics or Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, depending on what part of the available pages you read. USA Today goes with the latter version in their profile, so we will, too. It looks like a fairly large database of books anchored by first-100-issues blocs from high-profile series, with a $10 monthly fee that becomes $5 if you go a year at a time, and a six-month delay until new issues are available. It's also read-at-site rather than download.
How many people go for this and what that audience looks like should prove to be interesting, although as it's Marvel and not DC my guess is they may not have anything special set up in terms of gathering information for future marketing efforts. I'm trying to wrap my mind around dropping $60 to read some old comics on-line and I'm not quite getting there except maybe as a way to catch up on the last few years of crossover madness. That does sound a bit more efficient than my current strategy of sitting in a big-box bookstore reading them. I'm not sure how this serves as a feeder effort as is claimed for it; the fee set-up sounds more like a catcher than a feeder.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the UK press is taking turns today beating on convicted child murderer, pedophile and former comics dealer Ronald Castree.
* in a recent interview Aaron McGruder dashes all recent talk of coming back to a daily newspaper strip, and hampers most talk about his coming back to print Sundays-only. On the other hand, he reiterates a notion that has come up a few times that an on-line strip could be in the offing.
* one thing I missed in the retailer/crime coverage yesterday. Michael George isn't seeking bail as most of us understand it as a shift to a house arrest, that house being his mom's.
* I sort of missed the E&P story on the Houston Chronicle dropping a comics page. That story notes another reason this news is more depressing than usual: the Chronicle may have been running more comics than anyone. It also describes the Chronicle's criteria a bit.
* this message board thread is soaked with speculation that DC Comics shut down a fan site and reasons why this might have been done. It's interesting as a snapshot of a certain fan mindset even if none of the suggest details are true.
1. Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born
2. The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories
3. The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 Box Set
4. MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin
5. Shortcomings
6. Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations
7. Sopratos, The: A Pearls Before Swine Collection
8. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
9. Alice In Sunderland
10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home
It makes sense that this book would come out early enough for Christmas shopping season and contain works that are both popular (#s 1, 2, 10) and that have that classic gift-giving profile (#s 3, 4).
Creator: Laurence Hyde Publishing Information: Drawn and Quarterly, hardcover, 255 pages, October 2007, $24.95 Ordering Numbers: 9781897299104 (ISBN13)
This replica version of Laurence Hyde's 1951 wordless narrative told in multiple wood engravings has to be among the most handsome mountings of any such project, with a striking hardcover, beautiful scans, and scads of supplementary material. I just wish there was a little more to Hyde's story of a family of twice-over victims of American nuclear testing in a Bikini Atoll-type situation. A lot of other wood-engraved narratives of this type achieve a level of interest not just for the artistry involved but for the way they visually mix in with whatever story's being told something of the abstract states of mind, or religious impulses or even political ideas being bandied about. This is just an enormously blunt, TV-ready story dripping in cliches set up to cuff in the head an equally blunt, inhumane policy dancing around an obvious evil. The story's stridency may have been fueled by the massive burden a lot of artists felt processing in a moral sense an ugly war less than a decade completed while at the same time trying to make sense of a new war that was being conducted in every demeaning, draining way except for theaters of combat. The best portions of Southern Cross are found in three or four lovely sequences, my favorite being an elegant sweep back and away from the island as it's abandoned and then subjected to a test. A lot of the scene-setting tableaux are also worth it, if just to examine the various ways in which Hyde casts foreground and background objects against one another. Still, unless there's some level of complexity to this I'm simply not able to see, I would have to label Southern Cross a pretty, immaculately presented disappointment.
Ron Castree Found Guilty of Murdering 11-Year-Old Lesley Molseed in 1975
The jury in the Lesley Molseed murder trial returned a guilty verdict against former comics dealer Ronald Castree early today, ending a 32-year odyssey that devastated the Molseed family, ruined the lives of a man accused and falsely convicted of the crime and the mother that strove so hard to free him, and brought worldwide attention to the use of DNA evidence as a way of overturning undeserved convictions. A flurry of prepared material is being put up on UK web sites, including a profile of the Molseed family and severalnegativeportrayals of Castree himself, including descriptions of a crime one year after the Molseed case against a nine-year-old, marital infidelity, and an incident last year for which is DNA was swabbed leading to a connection to the earlier crime.
Castree's exact comics selling career has been an occasional headline supplement, and this photo of Castree that was used in promotion of his shop has been used quite a bit. I'm still a bit unclear as to its breadth. There was material early on that indicated he did some back-issues dealing in the Manchester area in the 1980s, but certainly he owned at least one shop, and I think for a time two shops, both called Arcadia, from 1994 until 2005. At what point he stopped having a physical shop and started dealing comics solely through Ebay is unknown, as is the length of time he used a stall to sell books before the physical shop, and where that stall was located.
Michael George Attorney Pursues Bail
The attorney for Michael George, the Pennsylvania retailer and convention organizer accused of murdering his then wife in 1990 in his store in Michigan, has asked for a bond hearing so that his client can be released prior to his trial. Carl Malinga's request seems like it could be gamesmanship as much as a desire to have George out on bail; it's been part of the George press and in-court rhetoric that the case is a weak one and this falls in line with that. Getting George released -- I think to his mother's address was how it was formulated at a previous hearing -- could underline that he's not that big of a threat; having that release denied may allow Malinga to paint the entire affair as one where the authorities are pressing their case. I have no idea why I've chosen this Monday morning to describe legal strategies as if I know anything about anything, but there you go.
The article also talks about some other facts surrounding the case: a potential witness prosecutors believe puts George at the scenes, and their analysis against a robbery motive that depended on $30,000 of missing comics. Melissa George died of a single gun shot wound to the head.
Lesley Molseed Jury Instructed That They Can Return Majority Verdict
The jury in the Ronald Castree trial for the 1975 murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed was sent home for the weekend and one guesses returns today. This article indicates that the judge will accept a majority decision if a unanimous one isn't reached. Castree was I believe a prominent comics dealer in the Manchester area in the 1980s who then ran a store in Ashton. The trial is noteworthy because a man was initially convicted back in the '70s and then freed by DNA evidence; he died after his release.
Extremely entertaining. Please note the above is my own crappy scan, and in no way reflects the astonishing quality of the visuals utilized in the slide show.
* Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Charles Brownstein talks to Newsarama about the recent mistrial in the Gordon Lee case. I think the key point is that the Fund plans a motion about what they believe to be the prosecutor office's misconduct throughout the affair, of which the mistrial is only the latest permutation.
* A case brought by cartoonist He Ying against China's Examination Center of the Ministry of Education for using his material in a test booklet without attribution or compensation was tried November 8; no verdict was returned. Ying seeks an apology, remuneration, and damages.
* This seems like a nice story: Kevin McVey receives something called the Tim Rosenthal Award for Volunteerism from the NCS, for his years in organizing institutional visits by New Jersey area cartoonists.
* The Shortcomings review in the Times discussed yesterday on this site appears here.
* If I'm reading this post correctly, the second Wonder Woman Day charity event raised $27,000 between its events in Portland and New Jersey, which goes to local shelters. That's pretty great.
* This Paul Gravett-penned article about comics through book publishing channels in the UK is probably more valuable for its snapshot of publisher's lines and plans that it is as another entry in the "how comics are perceived" phenomenon. For instance, Jonathan Cape is jacking up its publishing plans by 300 percent and is actively looking for more domestic material to augment some of the books it has planned.
* Chris Mautner rounds up a number of opinions from comics critics about the necessity of unique language when it comes to writing about comics. This worries me, as I don't always do that well with the language we already have.
* Apparently a group of prominent female European comics creators formed l'Association Artemisia on October 5; this article talks about the formation and I think their first press conference.
* Mark Thornhill ends an 18-year run at the North County Times. A co-worker pens an appreciation.
I'm told that younger industry members are sometimes confused why people of a certain age in comics suffer a gag reflex whenever Rosenberg's name is mentioned. Reynolds touches on the modern reasons, including but not limited to the fact that even Will Smith hasn't benefited as much by his proximity to Men In Black and Smith actually contributed something to that movie greater than shepherding a property from its creators into the hands of movie producers. Some might feel it odd that someone's still working a movie that many years old, although as someone with no relationships to big-ass hit movies anywhere on my resume, even ones from when Peyton Manning was still in college, I can't really throw that knife.
As for the classic, foundational reason for some folks' disdain, Rosenberg's crucial role when it came to crippling the rise of independent comics publishing in the 1980s -- or at the very least having sex with the wound -- for the sake of a few bucks unethically earned: Gary Groth wrote about it at the time. Just run a search on the phrase "cupidity and stupidity" if you want to get to the meat of it. I think it was probably worse than Gary puts it, as the crippling of the independent comics market at that point in its history may have changed the face of the comics market more than all the Deathmates and panicky Diamond exclusives combined, but I'm not yet ready to write that article.
I suppose some people might whine that those events were 20 years ago, but they matter because the manufacturing of a comic book event and minimal actual publishing described in the article is the same kind of unethical manipulation as running shell companies and shadowy distributors; it's just different markets being manipulated. They're both justified by a kind of vague, cynical "it worked/it works" appraisal of the deed, too, as well as attempts to show that there is some legitimate comics-making going on if you look hard enough.
I know this is probably too long for inclusion in Round-Up, but it doesn't deserve its own section. I know without looking that someone like Rosenberg likely considers negative assessments like this one as simply more buzz rather than bad PR, and it's hard to suggest summary, dismissive contempt on an Internet that measures value through number of hits, word counts and headlines. But please let me suggest that summary, dismissive contempt is the way to go here. There's about 18 billion things in comics more worthy of our attention than a long-time business hustler's latest sweaty enterprise.
* Tom McLean and I continue our discussion of early Image and mid-'90s comics history, brought about by his use of Image as a metaphor useful to understanding the current WGA strike, here.
A lot of comics cross my desk. While I'm pleased by a great many of them, I'm surprised by very few. The biggest surprise in recent memory came just a couple of weeks ago in the form of T Edward Bak's Fall release from Bodega, Service Industry. I missed out on both the serial version and the mini-comics version of this work, and I think my sole exposure to Bak's comics was his crude but energetic contribution to the Victorian horror anthology Orchid. I was therefore unprepared for the visually engaging cartooning, smart writing and formal playfulness of the new, over-sized publication. I read it three times in a row. A mix of autobiography touching on the cartoonist's time working in restaurants, fantasy and polemic, Bak leaps back and forth between settings and storytelling modes with ease and grace. It's a solidly crafted and narratively compelling comic book, done in an idiosyncratic style that distinguishes it from other works of its type. I dream of a world of constant discoveries like this one. By the end of the book, I was thrilled to add to my list yet another cartoonist I plan on following for a good, long time.
I spoke to Bak at his home in Vermont, where he was getting ready to watch Five Easy Pieces.
*****
TOM SPURGEON: Am I right in thinking you're some sort of artist-in-residence at CCS?
T EDWARD BAK: Basically, I'm the fellow for the Center for Cartoon Studies right now. It's kind of an artist-in-residency position. I was awarded the fellowship and came up for the 2007-2008 school year. They have a two-year program here.
I don't want to say it landed in my lap. I went after it. I was living in Portland at the time. I had been living in Georgia and moved back to Portland a couple of years back. I was out having breakfast with Zack Soto and James Sturm called me right before we sat down. That was March or April this year. I started talking with people here at the school, and they were telling me, "Come on up! The sooner the better, you can get settled and acclimated." I'm like, "That sounds great." So I get up here in June and there's nobody fucking here.
SPURGEON: [laughs]
BAK: They're all gone. I just got here and sat around and started to try to get acclimated -- but I still don't feel acclimated. Rural Vermont, it's like 2500 people in this community. Athens is like 50,000 people. This is so much smaller. It's New England, so there are all these little towns five to ten miles apart. It's not totally isolated. But there are no big cities around here at all.
SPURGEON: Did the fellowship come from the school itself?
BAK: Yeah, it's from the school.
SPURGEON: So what do you do as a fellow? Do you teach? Are you there as a resource?
BAK: I work on my own projects and I'm a resource if they want to use me. I don't think I've been very useful. [laughter] I think they're like, "He doesn't have anything to say; we're not going to consult him for anything." I'm accessible to the students if they need me. I've made one presentation so far, and I'm expected to make more. I might have a presentation next month; Steve Bissette asked me to do something.
I'm working on a project with the students that's a rotating door comic strip, so each one will do a strip about something historical in the area. Upper Vally Ephemera. I'll be the editor and pitch it around to newspapers. This is my idea; I want to get them involved, get them published, see how deadlines can be worked out and give them an idea of what it's like to do a weekly strip. I'm sure we can get a newspaper in the area to pick it up. I'm into doing small projects like that with the students.
SPURGEON: I know that dealing with students can be interesting for artists because you're facing younger people and playing a different role than you might be used to playing. That can be unsettling for some people.
BAK: I've never been in a position like this, I can tell you that. I've found it to be quite a challenge, because I don't feel like... I was actually just talking about this earlier. I felt pretty enthusiastic about being involved with the school in this aspect because I thought these students have to be really amped about new comics, new work, new artists, and thought this would be a good opportunity to see what they think, see what they're going to do, see what they're interested in doing. Some of them are interested in new stuff, but there's a really solid focus on history and on homework that's comics based, they're very involved in school work that I've kind of had to get into the position where I hang back. I need to be focused on my work and the project I'm working on with the students. They have enough to deal with it as it is; they don't need me as the fellow or whatever bothering them. I don't want to challenge the instructors and contradict anyone. Just trying to have my own space and my own work at this point.
SPURGEON: The first time I remember ever seeing your work was Orchid. Were you a latecomer, or was I just not aware of you for a very long time?
BAK: I'm a latecomer. I had done a couple of small, self-published runs of things. I had done a comics/card project [Firefly Waltz] that I was really excited about at the time which was handmade and was really different. A few people got that. That was the second time I lived in Portland and I was beginning to make friends with some cartoonists on the west coast. Around this time, Dylan Williams and Ben Catmull asked me to participate in the Orchid project. I was really excited because it was the first real anthology I was going to have anything to do with. So I jumped at that. I hadn't really done anything like that before. That was 2002, I think.
The earliest thing I had done before that on my own was FLUKE which I started in Georgia. I think the first one was 2002, and I think Firefly Waltz was 2002 and Orchid came out a little bit later. That's basically how I kind of got started doing my comics. I had always had an interest in it, but I don't think I was ready until '99 or 2000 to really get serious about it. I had been working on a lot of different ideas up until that point.
SPURGEON: How do you look back on the FLUKE experience? One thing that someone wrote about FLUKE is that it was more about celebrating that scene than about a showcase, that it was great just to find out who was in town and who was working on what. That's not exactly a big commercial aspiration. Seeing that was five years ago now, how do you look back on that time?
BAK: In Georgia I was isolated from the cartoonists who I felt more of a kinship with on the west coast and in Montreal and New York. I really wanted to do something different. I thought, this is Athens, Georgia, which has a reputation for its music scene. There's a lot of arts, too, and I thought it would be interesting to have everything together in one place, music and comics, have it all in one space, and encourage everyone who was doing comics in the area to come. I didn't even know about SCAD at the time, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea to delegate authority. I had no idea what was going on.
On a whim I got a hold of Jeff Mason and Chris Staros. They were like, "Sure, we'll help you out." So they ended up being a couple of early sponsors with Top Shelf and Alternative. We had local businesses who chipped in here and there. We set it up in a bar. We did the comics thing with local people. One or two people came from way out of state. One guy came from Texas. The guy who does Optical Sloth, Kevin [Bramer], he came down. Sam Henderson and Rich Tommaso came a couple of the years I was involved.
I had no idea what I was doing. I was homeless at the time. My girlfriend had just kicked me out. [laughter] I'd lost my job. I had nothing. I was losing my mind, and this was the only thing I had. It gave me some focus. One of the artists who worked for the local newspaper really liked my card thing and she offered to put it on the front cover of the newspaper. For me that was like, holy shit. It was some kind of validation. People responded to it. Later that year I began working on the Service Industry comic strip.
SPURGEON: That kind of community building -- has that been good for you to have these relationships?
BAK: Yeah. I think I was skeptical of SCAD artists in the beginning, and I didn't know how that was going to turn out. Drew [Weing] and Eleanor [Davis] moved to Athens and started working with Robert Newsome and Patrick Dean. I don't know if you've seen the new FLUKE anthology, but it's fucking unbelievably beautiful. It's one of the nicest anthologies I've ever seen. That's five years after we did this hand-stapled Xeroxed thing. I haven't had anything to do with it over the past few years, but seeing that is like, "Wow." Seeing it at SPX just blew me my mind. It looks so beautiful. They did such a great job. Drew and Eleanor are phenomenal cartoonists, too.
SPURGEON: They're horrible people, though. Jerks.
BAK: [laughs] Yeah, especially Eleanor. No, they are both genuine sweethearts.
SPURGEON: Can you tell me how Service Industry started in terms of the concept involved?
BAK: Originally, the idea came from how I had been working in food service and hospitality since high school, off and on, odd jobs. After FLUKE I finally did land a decent job working in a public library. I was also working nights in a restaurant in downtown Athens. I'd had this idea for many years, that it would be great to have something set in a restaurant, a day to day kind of thing. I wanted to do a strip about this and started working on this idea with this ensemble cast, all these great characters. All these interactions. But none of that actually worked out in the strip. I kept writing this autobiographical stuff over and over. I never had the chance to put these characters in there.
It ended up being a monologue with the occasional character popping in and saying something. Then for a while it had an anti-war angle because for the first time since high school I was fired up about what was going on. It was so mind-boggling. I started reacting to that stuff in the comic strip. I wanted to do something more autobiographical, more about me and my life. I started working on this story and wanted to examine some personal stuff. I had nothing to lose, so I could throw everything at it. It was very stressful. When it was finished I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, actually. But it turned out OK. It enabled me to clear some family cobwebs out, too.
SPURGEON: So the book that Bodega's done is that story, the more focused autobiographical run.
BAK: Yes.
SPURGEON: Now, it was Flagpole that was running this originally.
BAK:Flagpole Magazine, yes.
SPURGEON: It's an over-sized book; how big were the pages that ran in Flagpole?
BAK: Each page was one week of the strip.
SPURGEON: Good lord.
BAK: Yeah. [laughs] If you jumped in like week four or five you were never going to get it. And some people didn't! Charles Burns had warned me, "Don't try to give them anything more than four or five weeks. You'll lose them." I'd seen it with Big Baby; that was tough to follow. I was like, "I don't care! I'm going to throw everything into this." So I did.
The thing is, not all of it really ran in order. I'd get working on a week and I'd be too close to a deadline and have to crank something else out which didn't end up in the book. It would totally throw people off. I tried to keep some sense of continuity, but some weeks it didn't work. I was really excited when I first self-published it, because people could read what I'd originally intended. Some people did and they were like, "This is great." So I knew it was okay after that. That was how I'd wanted to build the story.
Flagpole gave me a great opportunity. I'd like to thank Larry Tenner and Pete McCommons, the production guy and the editor respectively, who encouraged me from the beginning.
SPURGEON: You use a really nice wash effect, and even some color. Was Flagpole able to handle that?
BAK: Everything looked like a gray-tone wash. They didn't print anything in color. They put the color strips on-line, so you could look at it there. Some people followed it that way, too. There was nothing printed in color. We ran everything as drawings. Even the color stuff looked like black and white wash drawings.
SPURGEON: The wash was really attractive, I thought; were they printed on nice enough paper it turned out?
BAK: It turned out OK.
SPURGEON: Were you ever worried about the production aspects of doing a work in a weekly magazine instead of in a comics publication of some sort?
BAK: Not really, because I knew it would get collected and published. I was like, "In the paper it can run like this, but when people want to see it full size..." This new book is almost to size; the originals are just a little bit larger.
SPURGEON: I want to ask you about some of your formal choices. I don't see a lot of cartoonists doing this, but you run text through multiple panels, not quite indiscriminately, but in a way that your panels are no longer discrete units. You'll start a sentence in one panel and end it three panels later.
BAK: There wasn't enough room in that panel!
SPURGEON: [laughs]
BAK: I wanted to have the juxtaposition of that visual movement accompanying, for lack of a better word, a lyrical kind of flow. One holding the other's hand through the narrative. I was aware of how I was going to do it, but I let it happen pretty naturally. I felt pretty instinctive about it. It happened naturally, but I knew that's how I wanted it to go. When I had that form to follow, I let it flow out that way.
SPURGEON: You use a lot of different visual approaches page to page. One page is a suite of panels, others have continuous backgrounds. Did that also flow organically?
BAK: I wanted to do as much as I could but I wanted to maintain some consistency of the mood, and my own iconography, thematically the same ideas. One thing that was kind of a challenge is when I started working in the negative, the blacks, with kind of an inverted approach. I didn't turn that around, that was drawn on black paper with colored pens. I knew when I started doing that I was like, "I'm getting near the end," because the style was changing into something else. I wanted to see it all the way through, but when it was finished it was finished. I was like, "I have nothing more to say about this." I had fulfilled what I intended. But there are a lot of playful elements I'd like to return to, the submarine with the characters in there and the little ninja-bats and robots and stuff.
SPURGEON: On those black pages you're a lot more verbal. It has a "furiously written essay" feel to it more than a comics feel. That kind of text-heavy shift isn't something that most cartoonists are comfortable doing. Were you worried about loading up on the text part of it, or is that another thing you felt was needed?
BAK: I felt it was all part of this narrative, and I knew there were symbols I could count on when I was on my soapbox. I knew I could throw them in there to get the idea across and it was something I wasn't going to rely on for the rest of the strip or the rest of the book, but the emphasis there was on the text, and I wanted to keep the visual symbolism very simple.
SPURGEON: One of your more striking icons is the skeletal angel. Where did that come from?
BAK: That originates in a movie called The World According to Garp, based on the John Irving novel. In the movie, Duncan, Garp's oldest son, runs around on Halloween in this costume, and the youngest son, Walt, who's dressed as a bear, is telling Garp how bears aren't afraid of anything except death, and then he dies later on. There's this foreshadowing with Duncan following Garp and Walt around and jumping out and scaring them both at some point.
I'm also referring to [Jose Guadalupe] Posada, the Mexican printmaker from the late 19th Century, who used these types of skeletons and calaveras in so much of his work. To me, that icon enabled me to have this visual representation of something that was culturally significant to me but also referred to these other ideas of the disguise of death, how life and death are aspects of the same thing. The figure of death moves through different aspects of the work. That was something I wanted to play around with. I'm probably too ambitiously philosophical.
SPURGEON: There's a real ruminative quality to your work in that you're continually processing things that have happened to you. In the black pages suite, there's this death motif, and the concerns of the strip seem more immediate than reflective because of it. In general, when you hold this work in your hands, do you look at what's been collected as a satisfying statement? Do you feel it was worth working through the issues involved?
BAK: I know that it is for me. Thematically, the work for me is about making sense of things on your own terms. That's basically what I had moved towards. When I was able to get that out, for me, there was kind of a catharsis to it. It made me feel... it lightened my load a bit. I felt this was something I was compelled to do, that I needed to do, that I needed to get it out there. I still do, I still want to see what else I have to say. It's a process, something I'm continuing to figure out.
SPURGEON: There's definitely a closed circle aspect to this book. This seems like something that you can both stand on and do new work as well as return to if you wanted later on. Speaking of which, what do you have planned? Are you ever going to do that project you talked about where you go to various cities and speak to people in the service industries?
BAK: Not right now, but I was going to go down to Georgia, there's an exhibition in Georgia, a comic exhibition I was recently invited me to. I won't be able to make it, but I'm going to do a signing at Giant Robot in New York. Then I'm going to come back here and Randy Chang of Bodega and I are going to Expozine in Montreal. I'm going to do some small signing events, including Giant Robot on the 20th. I may go back to Georgia later.
SPURGEON: Were you happy with the way the book turned out in terms of the production and printing?
BAK: Yeah. There were some minor issues that came up. Randy and I were both stressed out about it at first. Then when I saw it, I was like, "We have nothing to worry about. This is fantastic." I think it looks swell. If it gets reprinted, we can fix a couple of colors. But otherwise, I think it turned out fine and Randy does, too.
SPURGEON: Other than the student strip, what's next comics-wise?
BAK: There's a Drawn and Quarterly Showcase in the spring of 2008. I have a story in there. There's Orchid 2 which is going to be maybe sometime next year. But my piece was finished two years ago, so now I kind of want to re-draw it.
SPURGEON:Eric Reynolds says he's been dying to get you into MOME. Will that happen?
BAK: Hopefully I can start on something by the end of this year. I do have a secret project that I'm working on, but I just had a sketchbook stolen from me with a lot of my ideas and stuff for that. I couldn't even draw for a week. I was like, "Holy shit." I kept calling the bus station and they were like, "Nobody's turned it in, sorry!" It's been over a week since I lost it and I know I've gotta let it go. It really blows. There's that. Before I left Portland I signed a contract with an agent who'll be pitching a graphic novel project to publishers early in 2008, so I'm working on that, too. It's an autobiographical examination of memory based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and like Service Industry goes back and forth between different stories.
*****
* cover to the new book is at top
* all other art taken from Service Industry interiors except for the Orchid page, which is the fourth image counting down from the top
* as is usual, all copyrights to Mr. Bak or the appropriate copyright holder
* Mr. Bak would like to emphasize that we were kidding about Drew Weing and Eleanor Davis being jerks; they are indeed swell people
Remembering Veterans On Their Day
Tomorrow is the observance of Veteran's Day in terms of government building closure and a break in mail service, but today is the actual holiday. There are any number of comics-related ways to celebrate a day given over to an appreciation of the high cost of war and the men and women who have paid that price, but I'll suggest three.
* go, buy: today's New York Times Book Review has a piece on Shortcomings that kind of ignores entirely the fact that it's a comic book, which is an amazing thing if you read a lot of these kinds of reviews. If like me you read many publications of this type while standing in a grocery store or in the aisles of a big-box bookstore, the page looks like that image at right but a lot bigger. I'd blow it up into legibility, but that would be stealing.
* go, look: this is a well-written survey article about political storylines in modern superhero comics, which manages to point out a lot of inherent difficulties when it comes to representing political ideas because of the basic superhero concept and established set-up for 99 percent of those characters. As an aside -- did Black Adam really kill everybody in an entire nation? That sounds ridiculous and depressing. How could anyone bear to live in a world where some dude kills an entire country with -- I'm guessing -- his bare hands? How is that not that number one preoccupation of everybody in the entire world for the next ten years? I would sleep a lot and cry frequently if I lived on a superhero's Earth.
* go, bookmark: I don't think I agree with any of the views I see brought to life in Patrick O'Connor's cartoons, but they're lively; his blog provides a lot of ongoing talk about process, which I think could be a really beneficial thing for young cartoonists as well as fans of the medium interested in that perspective. (thanks to Pam Noles for the heads up)
* go, read: Brian Wood on the Lucca Comics Festival. It's worth it for both his super-positive impression of the general scene and how impressed he was with the level of craft he was seeing from the artists he met.
Fff Results Post #99—Bent, Not Bowed Five For Friday #99 Results
On Friday afternoon, participating CR readers were asked to "Name Five Senior Citizen-ish Comics Characters You Like." Here are the results.
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. Uncle Sam, master of the pre-asskicking sleeve roll-up
2. Gorgo
3. Mr. Natural
4. Lacey Davenport
5. Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana
*****
James Langdell
For once I'm at a computer and have a minute to respond during your brief window of time for Five For Friday. Glad I have something to say about this topic...
1. Bacchus (Eddie Campbell's)
2. Jay Garrick (as written by William Messner-Loebs)
3. Alfred (in The Dark Knight Returns)
4. Dusty (in The Elderberries)
5. Julius Schwartz (in Superman #411)
*****
Jones
5. The Vulture, (the apotheosis of the Freudian subtext in the Ditko/Lee Spider-Man)
4. Aunt May (solely because she almost married Doctor Octopus that one time)
3. Crotchety old Cerebus (alone, unmourned and unloved, just as predicted)
2. Abe "Grampa" Simpson (he's in the Bongo comics, so he counts)
1. Poopdeck Pappy (because I share the Segar-love)
*****
David Jones
1. Cusick the Tuscarora (Timespirits)
2. The Ancient One, of course
3. Jenette Miller, from Marvel Graphic Novel #7: Killraven -- Last Dreams Broken (Thanks to Gordon!)
4. The Spider (Jack Staff)
5. The Incredible I-Ching from the Diana Prince-Wonder Woman days
1. Aunt May
2. Grandma Rose from Bone
3. Uncle Scrooge
4. Wolverine
5. Archie's Grandfather -- okay, I only saw him in the first Archie story, but he provided a balance between Archie and his father, plus offered friendly advice to Archie as needed.
*****
Scott Dunbier
Walt from Gasoline Alley
Grandpa in Heaven from Family Circus
Alfred the Butler from Dark Knight
Shazam
Uncle Scrooge
*****
Fred Hembeck
1. Peter Parker's Aunt May (Ditko version)
2. Veronica's dad, Mr. Lodge (DeCarlo version)
3. Commissioner Dolan
4. Iggy's Granpa Feeb (now THERE'S a name you couldn't get away with nowadays, even if you were John Stanley!...)
5. Jay Garrick, the original Flash (who may hardly seem like a senior citizen, but ever since I first came across him when I was a kid back in 1961's FLASH #123, those greying temples marked him as a real oldie in my mind from that point on! After all, only ancient duffers wear hats, right?...)
*****
Brian Moore
1. Uncle Sam (I don't think I've ever even read a story featuring him; I just like the idea of the character)
2. Old Bruce Wayne (Batman Beyond animated series). Clothes don't make the Batman.
3. Sam'l Perkins (Polly and Her Pals). Stoic in the face of a hostile, well-designed world
4. Yupa Miralda (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind). Not only is he a world-renowned swordsman/adventurer, but he's got an awesome mohawk.
5. The Guardian (Donjon: Zenith). He has traps into which Grimtooth himself would fall, you know.
*****
Jason Michelitch
Grandma Ben from BONE
Lucius from BONE
Grandma from PREACHER
Max Mercury from the Mark Waid/Humberto Ramos IMPULSE series
Uncle Scrooge!
*****
Tom Bondurant
1. Bruce Wayne's Aunt Agatha
2. The Flash (Jay Garrick)
3. Nick Fury
4. The Old-Timer
5. George Stacy
*****
Dave Knott
* The Vulture
* Highfather
* The Ancient One
* Alfred Pennyworth
* Uncle Dudley Marvel
*****
Family Hook
1. Nick Fury, Agent of Shield (the Kirby/Steranko version)
2. Uncle Elby
3. Agatha Harkness
4. Uncle Scrooge McDuck
5. Doc Ledicker
*****
Matt Wiegle
Roughly in the order I thought of them:
1. Michael Kupperman's version of Pablo Picasso
2. Uncle Scrooge
3. Ma and Pa Bradley from Hate, etc.
4. Septimus Crisp, the guy in the bag from The Chuckling Whatsit
5. Barney Banks from Banks/Eubanks
*****
Daniel Mata
1: Jay Garrick -- JSA
2: Alan Scott -- JSA
3: Jeff -- Mutt & Jeff
4: Uncle Sam -- Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters
5: Ganthet -- Green Lantern
*****
Evan Dorkin
1. Uncle Scrooge
2. Captain Stacy from Amazing Spider-Man
3. The Sea Hag
4. The Crypt Keeper
5. Commissioner Dolan from the Spirit
1. 'Kremlin' from Ex Machina
2. weird alternate universe time traveller guy -- also Ex Machina
3. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s equivalent of James Bond's Q... Sidney "Gaffer" Levine... although they also had a Boothroyd...
4. The High Evolutionary
5. Mother Fucking Magneto, bitch!
First Thought Of The Day
Shouldn't there have been some progress by now in the getting people to shut the fuck up at the movie theater war? I think maybe we lost that one.
Quote Of The Week
"Please, Hollywood Screenwriters of America, I beg of you, comics are fucked enough, just keep doing the great job you're doing fucking up the movies, won't you?" -- Evan Dorkin
this week's imagery comes from pioneering comic book house Centaur Publications
If I Were In LA, I’d Go To This Seth Fisher Show at Secret Headquarters
Block of text-like information here. Another comic shop's recommendation here. The show will feature three new mini-comics/books from the late artist -- Bob's Life, The Man with 1000 Noses, and a sketchbook mini -- and all proceeds will go to his son's educational fund.
Lesley Molseed Trial Goes To Jury
The trial of former Manchester-area comics dealer Ronald Castree for the 1975 murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed has gone to a jury for deliberation. Molseed was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. A suspect was tried and convicted soon after the murder, but he was later exonerated by irrefutable DNA evidence, a kind of test later applied to suggest a physical connection between Castree and the girl's killing.
Robert “Bob” Bindig, 1920-2007
Alan Gardner at Daily Cartoonist is reporting the death of the great advertising artist and cartoonist Bob Bindig this Tuesday just past. I am unable to confirm.
Bindig was trained in Buffalo and was drafted for the second half of the Second World War, where he belonged to the Psychological Warfare Detachment, meaning he created art for various piece of information disseminating publications up to and including outright propaganda. His entry at Lambiek.net notes that while heading up the art department for the Military government in post-war Korea he created the comic strip The Mischievous Twin Bears for a Korean newspaper. When he returned home, he turned to commercial art and became a highly-respected art director. Among his clients were Fisher Price. He was honored in 1989 with the divisional Reuben for Best Advertising Cartoonist. Bindig also took home an Ink Pot from San Diego in 1982.
His ten year run on the Big Boy comics began in 1985; his departure preceded the character's final comic book by approximately a year.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I always vaguely knew that the late, legendary Joe Strummer was a cartoonist, but I never thought much about it; the use of some of those cartoons as the fodder for animation in a forthcoming movie has put the thought back into my head.
* Theresa Kennelly suggests that if Scott Adams wants to take some cartoons off of his blog, he should be allowed to without howls of nerd pain from fans denied their me wanty privileges as a result.
* a professor rips into a University of Dayton newspaper cartoon he found discriminatory against gays.
* here's a negative appraisal of Finnish journalistic reaction during the Danish Cartoons Controversy and related issues.
* for some reason I really liked the opening of this video interview with Regis Loisel where he walks out looking halfway pissed off and fires comics albums from his hand like some strange Flash super-villain.
* the Muhammed Cartoon Musical story seems to have life of its own; I can't tell if there's ever any new information in them or if people just keep re-writing the first one.
Houston Chronicle Announces Intention To Drop An Entire Page of Comic Strips They're blunt about why, too: to save money. Alan Gardner found a list of the strips going from print to on-line only status:
A few observations. First, that's a pretty broad list of features, and includes several new offerings for whom this has to hurt a little bit more: Diesel Sweeties, Arctic Circle, My Cage and Spot the Frog jump out at me as comics in that category, although I'm not sure when Spot was launched and there are a few strips with which I'm unfamiliar that might be just as new. Second, this is a blow because it's paper costs and syndication fees, which aren't things likely to roll back any time soon. In other words, if other papers follow, uh-oh. Third, and I don't think this is entirely clear from the linked-to posting, but the Chronicle is an enormously friendly newspaper to comic strips and cartoonists, so to have this drastic a move come from that particular publication has more power than if a paper with a different reputation had announced it.
Creator: Alex Holden Publishing Information: Self-Published, mini-comic, 20 pages, October 2007, $3 Ordering Numbers:.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
I'm guessing that this short book from cartoonist Alex Holden featuring his Magic Hour milieu is more something that was put together for the festivals than a continuation of the title itself. However, I rather like the way this mini is put together as a comic. Adding a number of black and white sketches of city scenes that look like they're depicting roughly the same places the stories are set give the book depth and texture; the sketches sort of provide additional commentary on the Magic Hour concept of monsters and creatures standing in for strange people in the neighborhood perceived by kids as being different. It adds another level of reality, almost like a still photo that takes us into a period movie.
The gem of the comics included is a short called "On the A Train" where the character Ricky has a spooky encounter with two street people that may or may not bear a mystical, spiritual element. Not only is the comic told in a series of compelling, shifting angles, but Holden uses a wonderful, cascading image within a speech balloon effect that's both attractive and eerie. I'm still not sure how far and how deep Holden can go with the overall concept, and none of the stories have the narrative momentum that might call those issues into question. I'm also left wondering about one or two ways that Holden chooses to simplify his figures. After reading the sketchbook, I can say I would definitely buy a serial comic book effort with this material using this approach, whether the work finally coheres into some greater or not.
King Features Syndicate Commits $100K To Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship King Features Syndicate announced yesterday it has committed $100,000 to establish a scholarship named after it former Editor-In-Chief Jay Kennedy, who had been at the company from 1988 until his drowning death earlier this year. The fund will be administered by the Foundation of the National Cartoonists Society. The award will be given out during the Reuben Awards, held at the yearly National Cartoonists Society convention, which the recipient will attend. The syndicate plans additional fund-raising. Contributions can be made by addressing a check to the National Cartoonists Society Foundation and mailing ito to National Cartoonists Society Foundation, Attention: Donations, 341 N. Maitland Avenue, Suite 130, Maitland, FL 32751-4761.
Go, Read: Charles Brownstein on State of the Gordon Lee Case Post-Mistrial
There's a nice interview with Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Charles Brownstein up at ICv2.com about the mistrial earlier this week in the Gordon Lee trial and various issues swirling around the case. I did not know that one thing at issue was a local newspaper article that potential jurors read that brought up a past case, although that statement in that article made my eyes pop a bit. Simon Jones is much less confident than some about the final outcome.
Controversial Cartoons: Burn More Jews, The President’s Imaginary Friend
* a Jewish member of the newspaper staff at Middle Tennessee State University defends the right of a cartoonist making a satirical point even when the surface elements speak to the sorts of bigotry she has suffered. This is so reasonable and admirable I'm pretty certain this young person has no future in journalism.
* Daryl Cagle interviews the cartoonist Mr. Fish in the November 7 entry at his blog about a cartoon in which President Bush's "imaginary friend" is Jesus. Mr. Fish says that he's been able to start a dialog with the vast majority of people writing in to complain, although my guess is that some of that has to do with a general inability to stay upset with someone sporting the delightful name of Mr. Fish.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* this Canadian reader notes that Marvel has reduced their Canadian prices to $.06 over the US prices, while DC still boasts a much larger margin. If anything, the difference should favor Canadians right now.
* Chris Butcher points out that it took less than a single day for a creator to express disappointment with the Zuda Comics editorial process.
* You used to see a lot more of this type of article, an urge that's probably been subsumed into more sustained, issue-by-issue blogging: the general outlook for and feelings experienced by pursuing a career in an aspect of comics. In this case, it's gag cartooning, and the writer is Mike Lynch, but a lot of cartoonists and writers should recognize at least a portion of what Lynch is saying.
* Frenchy Lunny of Mechademiahas won a fellowship from the Fulbright program to go to Japan and study the transnational elements of manga.
* I hate to say it, but one of the first thoughts I had when Marvel had a fine 3Q report was that this was so going to make the day of the folks at Motley Fool who love Marvel with a purity that shames any love I've experienced in my life time.
* Marvel recalls 110,000 Curious George toys. Is this new? I can't tell.
I'm enjoying this long series of issue-by-issue dissections of the landmark first Love and Rockets series, which here moves into its second half with a really long dissection of issue #26. This includes a look back at the entire Blood of Palomar serial.
I'm not sure I'm capable of providing a decent review of Popeye. I consider the Popeye run of E.C. Segar's strip one of the towering achievements in comics. In fact, I like so many aspects of it that for me to discuss why tends to end up with my pointing at stuff and saying "awesome" a lot, like an Ed Helms sketch that was funnier in dress. I still want to point people in direction of the imminent second Fantagraphics hardcover collection, as it contains some of the greatest humor comics of all time. This includes the mighty King Blozo sequence "The Great Rough-House War," about a half-dozen of those exquisite Sundays centered around some horrifically violent prizefight, and a surprising number of effective jokes starring Olive Oyl (like Marge Simpson, she tends to be at her most amusing when having to function while angry). The introductory material balances Mort Walker and his killer piece of fan art with a thoughtful essay by Donald Phelps that features among several points driven home in the critic's looping prose a grand description of the extent to which Segar staged his comics over designing them.
The best thing about this volume is the introduction of J. Wellington Wimpy, my vote for the greatest character in comics history. There are characters before and since that have lived primarily in the id, but none of them tend to be as funny as Wimpy while doing so, and certainly none of them try to negotiate this world through a series of obtuse excuses and moronic shticks, none of which ever work. All of this within a package so solid and lovely looking I would have purchased it had it housed seven years of Marvin. If I bought three comics in a year, one of them would be this one. If I only bought one, I'd have a hard time deciding, and only because I've already read this stuff.
This Isn’t A Library: New and Notable Releases to the Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are those books that jump out at me from this week's probably mostly accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the following -- I might not buy any -- but were I in a comic book shop I would likely pick up the following and look them over, potentially resulting in mean words and hurt feelings when my retailer objected.
*****
SEP074014 LOWER REGIONS GN $6.95
Alex Robinson's contribution to the exploding indy fantasy phenomenon. Not really exploding, not really a phenomenon, but worth noting.
SEP073598 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY VOL 18.5 PX PORTFOLIO (MR) $32.00
A great-looking portfolio previewed here. Remember when you could buy portfolios in every comic book shop?
SEP073599 BIG QUESTIONS #10 (MR) $6.50
"Anders Nilsen's next book" should be enough to interest anyone who was paying attention to his major league drop of excellent books over the last couple of years.
APR070023 GRENDEL ART OF MATT WAGNERS GRENDEL HC $39.95
I like the art of Matt Wagner enough to pick this up and look at it, for sure.
JUL070018 GROO HELL ON EARTH #1 (OF 4) $2.99 JUL070031 HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS #6 (OF 6) $2.99 SEP070081 LOBSTER JOHNSON THE IRON PROMETHEUS #3 (OF 5) $2.99 JUN072192 ASTONISHING X-MEN #23 $2.99 AUG072277 CRIMINAL #10 (MR) $2.99 AUG072221 IMMORTAL IRON FIST #10 $2.99 SEP072219 OMEGA UNKNOWN #2 (OF 10) $2.99
A big week for old-fashioned serial adventure comic books, and their various close cousins.
JUL070292 CAIRO HARDCOVER (MR) $24.99
I haven't read this yet, and DC is pushing it pretty hard, but having held it in my hands I would have guessed a price point about $10 cheaper.
SEP073475 ALEX RAYMONDS FLASH GORDON VOL 1-7 HC SET $139.65
I have no idea what this is, but it sounds awesome.
SEP073289 AZUMANGA DAIOH OMNIBUS VOL 1 GN $24.99
For those of us who missed it the first time around.
AUG074063 NARUTO VOL 22 TP $7.95 AUG074064 NARUTO VOL 23 TP $7.95 AUG074065 NARUTO VOL 24 TP $7.95
The flood of Naruto books continues.
AUG074094 NAUSICAA WATERCOLOR IMPRESSIONS HC $34.99
These are really pretty, although not my kind of thing.
JUL074019 GIANT ROBOT #50 $4.99
Congratulations!
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry.
To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock.
If I didn't list your new comic, you're welcome to assume the worst of me, but it's likely I just missed it. I am not a good person.
Richard Thompson’s Cul-de-Sac Has Bill Watterson’s Written Endorsement
It's hard to gauge buzz in the comic strip world. All strips that launch have at least some measure of press coverage, or at least enthusiastic sales people behind them, and there are more important steps into making a hit than what happens with initial launch -- whether or not readers complain when the first papers drop a feature, the move into profitability between 70 and 125 clients, and the move past that into solid, usually long-term sales status at 200 papers and beyond.
Still, there's something about Richard Thompson's recently-launched Cul-de-Sac that not only sounds promising, but promising in a way that could make it a quality newspaper mainstay if things come together. Plus, Bill Watterson's endorsement is part of the sales package. That's sort of like getting JD Salinger to do a cover blurb.
Brian Wood on Comics Sales Figures Discrepancies and Summary Analyses
A few of you have e-mailed links to this post by the creator Brian Wood, who has been on the record in the past about the inaccuracy of sales estimates and the damage that can be caused by people making summary statements about those inaccurate figures.
It's a position for which it's easy to find a great deal of sympathy. Beyond the principle of the matter, Wood like many creators tends to work in an area of comics where someone not figuring in 2500 in reorders can change the entire picture of how his projects are doing. If that fact, or the reporting of that fact, costs him any traction in any comic shops, that's an unfortunate thing. Avoidable, too. Further, Wood appears totally cognizant that a lot of this could be solved if the publishers made accurate sales information available, either generally or to a specific agency, but seems to be saying just because there's frustration with the lack of better information, it shouldn't mean he has to suffer unfairly. I agree with him.
It's a good mini-essay, and I hope everyone will read it.
The reason that companies should be castigated for being secretive about their numbers isn't that they owe readers numbers, but that 1) releasing them in a reasonable way is an act of good industry citizenship that would benefit people in making accurate decisions, and 2) they frequently seek to gain advantages by not releasing them, and in many cases I feel they do this in unethical ways.
The Best & Worst Things I Read Today
Strangely, they're both connected to the Writers' Strike.
* the best thing I've read today is a post from SLG's Jennifer de Guzman at Evan Dorkin's site, where she says they've already received an e-mail from an agent declaring their writers ready to work on comics, and that they also received a submission where "the writer listed all of the unproduced screenplays he'd written (which of course he was submitting in graphic novel form)." It's funny because it's sad. I like the idea that making comics is a set of skills that any writer with time on their hands can provide as easily as wanting to, let alone there being a notion that the marketplace is somehow starved for more clumsy, high-concept genre comics.
* the worst thing I've read today is this piece by Tom McLean at Variety. McLean starts out with some sturdy link-blogging to plans for writers with a foot in each world to do some comics work, and the sensible suggestion that if the strike goes on that some ridiculously delayed projects might actually be concluded.
It then goes into a long history lesson linking the strike to the formation of Image. I guess this is a connection that could be made on some level, but McLean provides a history of Image that bites on every piece of self-promotion that company ever put forward, formally and informally, like it was a golden apple from the Vine of Truth.
The piece is riddled with odd logic and oversights. Marvel is castigated by a set-up where we found out they thought that they could survive the loss of the Image creators the same way they survived the loss of Jack Kirby. Well, they did, and spectacularly. And of course the final lesson from Image has yet to be drawn -- Image is still around. Jim Lee selling WildStorm to DC seems to be put in the victory for the general thrust of Image and therefore creator's rights category, which I think could be debated from a variety of standpoints. Rob Liefeld wasn't fired from anything; the whole deal is dependent on him not being an employee.
My main objection would be historical fudging or willfully looking the other way. Let's take a big one. McLean says, "Of course, that kind of runaway growth couldn't be sustained, and the crash was so hard that its repercussions are still being felt." It's the "of course" part that grates. Making the slow late '90s/ early '00s sales wheeze part of a natural cycle absolves all of the abuse that Image heaped on a market that had never seen a publisher that popular and that erratic, abuses which were charted in excellent fashion by a young Eric Reynolds, and can be testified to by store owners that were wounded, some critically, by the cash flow problems caused by late arriving books and books of dubious quality. It also ignores stuff like the shortsighted, key decision that Image made to give the market over to a Diamond whose primary policies were going to be shaped by the deals they made with a few power companies; thanks, Image. Other areas where I'd have issues in a historical sense is that many of the creators who McLean casts in the light of making a move for creators rights turned right around and were doing work for hire themselves before too long, from both directions; I don't really remember Marvel and DC hiring a bunch of Image imitators any more than it's usual for popular creators to have imitators (DC in fact was pretty conservative art-wise through the mid-'90s); and the Image founders benefited from being made names by companies who saw value in creating names; they can be hostile places to creators in the end, and may value the company over the creator, but not because they see absolutely no value in the creator. I think they've long seen that as a commodity as well.
None of this means I hate Image. I like Image, generally, I like the Image deal, particularly as it exists now in comparison to some out there, and I agree with McLean it can be used as a model against which the claims of companies who trumpet they must have all cross-media rights should be examined -- Image wants none of them. Image's founding was a pretty amazing business story with some creator's rights elements, but as a Creator's Rights story, it sort of tanks. Hard. When McLean laments the state of the current Direct Market dependent on work-for-hire properties, that should be the first clue that no such revolution was ever really fought.
Creators: Joe Casey, Charlie Adlard Publishing Information: AiT/Planet Lar, soft cover, 112 pages, September 2006, $12.95 Ordering Numbers: 1932051457 (ISBN10), 9781932501452 (ISBN13)
With so many titles out right now, it doesn't take much for a book to slip out of one's interest based on a facile, surface evaluation that has little to do with the work as fully experienced at a later date. What I knew about Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard's Rock Bottom from its accompanying press speak and a couple of flip-throughs indicated a skewed version of the hard-skin superhero story. This includes the hero's dismay at finding his body transformed, observations how this might have an effect on the details of day to day living, dangling metaphors in terms of how that thick outer covering bears relation to his own relationships with other people (or hardening heart), passages where we see how the affliction changes the people around the protagonist, and even the rescue of a small boy from an oncoming car. And it is all of those things; in fact, I think Rock Bottom's big negative is that Casey and Adlard don't go far enough away from a basic gruff redemption storyline that the outcome of the story is ever in doubt, or its details ever fully surprising. This may be a reflection of the book's preoccupation with mortality, in that when people die it's usually right out there in front of them and not something they get to avoid, but I think it's still a failing. As much as the book spends time on hospital policy or the change state of mind from its rock musician lead, those sequences lack a comparable payoff or richness of experience. If all you remember are the affecting moments, you may recall a Rock Bottom 16 pages long.
There are virtues, however. Casey's scripting proves to be reasonably tight, his writing disappears into the book in a good way, and he's working on familiar ground of adult disappointments and unexpected opportunities for redemption. Adlard's decision to go with line work except for the hardened skin of the work's protagonist is an obvious choice in many ways (the character pops off the page as different and alienated), and a curious choice in others (the character's subtle epiphanies don't work all that well against this wave of visual information, dropping the shading from the world puts the onus on it and not the lead for what Casey's script seems to be selling as his difficulties in relating to others), but it's generally attractive, particularly in the way the Walking Dead artist finds appropriate abstraction to communicate backgrounds and settings rather than simply dropping them away altogether. Rock Bottom is a sturdy story, but not one that feels fresh or particularly insightful or that demands consideration. I admire its dour faith in the subtleties of the medium, but unlike its characters that become more real and human as the story progresses, this tale remains a bit too abstract and artificial to transcend its serial-drama roots.
Paul Norris, 1914-2007 Paul Norris, best known in comic book circles for drawing the first adventure of the iconic character Aquaman and best known in comic strip circles for a 35-year run on the adventure feature Brick Bradford, died late last night after a period of ill health. The writer and comics historian Mark Evanier has the first word, and likely the most elegant.
Norris was born in Ohio, followed a relative on faculty at Midland Lutheran College to start his education there, rooming with a cousin. He left the school in order to pursue an opportunity to illustrate a syndicated cartoon halfway through sophomore year. He ended up at the Dayton Art Institute (then the Dayton School of Art) for more formal training, completing his education there. Like many cartoonists of his generation, he started in the bullpen of a newspaper as an illustrator and spot cartoonist, in his case at the Dayton Daily News.
Also like many cartoonists of the day, Norris made the move to New York in 1940s. The city was still the hub of published illustration, the home to the greatest and farthest-reaching strip syndicates, and had recently become the cradle of the burgeoning comic book trade. It is in the last of those three that Norris initially found work, for Prize Publications. At that point, working for Prize meant strips and feature for its flagship title Prize Comics, which had begun earlier that same year. Norris worked on Power Nelson, Futureman and launched features such as Yank and Doodle.
The assignment to draw the first Aquaman story came in 1941, in an issue of More Fun. The story was written by editor/writer Mort Weisinger. The character was later credited solely to Norris, Evanier notes, because of a lack of formal attribution on Weisinger's behalf. The character would enjoy a slow start but eventually become one of the more successful titles of the company mid-century resurgence, finding a place in its Justice League flagship, an articially successful title of its own, and some spin-off appeal. He remains one of those character who routinely headlines his own comic book, and retains some cultural relevance as one of its bigger names.
Norris provided his clients a clean, stripped-down version of the adventure comic strip style popular at the time, maybe halfway between the energy of the best comic book artists and the ornate, illustrative beauty of the most popular strip cartoonists. His career after a stint in the military at the end of World War II began to reflect those skills, although before joining the service he was briefly a part of PM's powerful strip line-up. Norris split time between being a substitute on King Features strips before settling in on Brick Bradford, and a comic book artist whose specialty seemed to be adventure comics, many featuring such strip characters, primarily at Dell and then eventually Western.
Norris finished with Brick Bradford in 1987. He was a well-liked figure in fandom -- Evanier speaks to his professionalism and courtesy regarding appearances at the San Diego Con until health issues kept him from attending -- and a figure of much speculation in creators rights circles as a living cartoonist behind one of their iconic characters who may or may not have been the beneficiary of Time Warner further seeking to establish its rights to the characters in a way that may have benefited Norris. He was in his last few years the subject of an art show at his alma mater and at least one major newspaper profile. He was the last living creator of one of DC Comics' big-name superheroes, and in that way among other his death marks the passing of a generation.
E&P On Clay Bennett’s Big Move Editor & Publisherfollows up on the surprising announcement that Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Clay Bennett was going to leave his Christian Science Monitor position and take Bruce Plante's place at the Chattanooga Times Free Press on January 1. E&P notes that Bennett looks forward to the opportunities of a metro newspaper, such as doing cartoons on local issues, and that the paper plans on using him in color on Sunday and four times a week in black and white. I think that's a fairly huge hire in that a few people automatically figured that the Times Free Press wouldn't hire a cartoonist after Plante left, and it not only did so, it hired one of dozen biggest names in the business. Bennett notes that he believes CSM will hire a replacement for him, which might prove equally interesting.
* Everyone including Marvel believes that the company had a fine third quarter. Comics publishing gets its usual "everything is still very profitable"-type mention, and although I'm not a financial analyst the general thrust of Marvel's take on the better than expected period is that licensing fees were still strong in support of a Spider-Man movie that was the third in a series and which probably had a shorter than expected duration of box office vibrancy, and that things are sound going into next year's move into financing their own films. I have no idea if notes like Forbes' piece makes that Marvel seems to be underplaying the amount of revenue expected from next summer's Iron Man and Hulk films is par for the course or not, although overall expectations are raised.
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen: Danish Cartoons Now Forgotten
In an interview leading up to elections November 13, Denmark's prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that the Danish Cartoons Controversy no longer effects his country's image abroad and that people have "forgotten" the cartoon crisis. The publication of twelve caricatures in a Danish newspaper in 2005 led to riots and economic boycotts and even deaths in several countries in the the first quarter of 2006. As readers of this blog know, echoes of those events continue to be felt or at least reported on in nearly every instance of controversy surrounding the depiction of Muhammed in illustrated form, from that of the Swedish artist Lars Vilks and the jailed Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman. Where Rasmussen may be most correct is in identifying a growing impatience with the subject, or disfavor for the subject matter, among those more immersed in it from day one.
Continuing a run of bizarre outcomes, the case against Rome, Georgia retailer Gordon Lee ended in a mistrial this afternoon, declared after statements made by State prosecutor John Tully during his opening arguments. At issue was Tully's use of a statement on the retailer's character and previous actions in which Lee has been involved. That line had been part of a previous motion agreed to by the prosecution. After a fifteen minute recess, Judge Larry Salmon declared a mistrial.
Such an action is a good thing for the defense in that a) the trial isn't allowed to continued with a jury having been exposed to the statements in question, b) it allows the defense to argue that no new trial should be scheduled because of the clear prosecutorial misconduct, building on other instances of prosecutorial malfeasance and/or misconduct. It's a bad thing in that a) it's yet another incident keeping Lee from a trial and final resolution, and b) one imagines it could extend costs.
Lee is on trial from a legal action stemming from the dissemination of a copy of Alternative Comics #2 to two minors during a giveaway in conjunction with Halloween 2004. The case may eventually be tried in 2008.
Tuesday morning update: the local news media provides some immediate perspective, although nothing that contradicts anything in the initial CBLDF release, while as expected the prosecutor announced the state's intention to get a place for a new trial on the next open misdemeanor position on the court's calendar, in 2008.
Creator: Elliot Cowan Publishing Information:Self-Published, web comic, single panel, Free. Ordering Numbers:
Elliot Cowan's Downbeat is still more of an idea getting a workout than a fully-realized creation, but I think a lot of people will find one or two gags worth scanning in the lot provided through the link. The four included here as example and illustration are a pretty fair indication of what you can expect. Cowan's put himself into a tricky position as a cartoonist. The depressing idea embodied by the two brightly-colored blobs must be easy to parse if not outright understood in the two or three seconds a typical reader gives over to such things. The novelty of the statement becomes more important than usual because as a "feel bad" strip there's less of a reward to be garnered from simple recognition, or reflection. That's a difficult sweet spot to hit over and over, and Downbeat doesn't quite get there consistently.
If it ever happens, however, Cowan could have a popular little feature on his hands. The nice thing about these cartoons is that they present several avenues for accessing the humor. Three that leap to mind are humor from the statements themselves, comedy in seeing the statements as one's observations of incidents of over-the-top rudeness from one being to another, and getting a laugh out of seeing the entire thing as some sort of twist on typical greeting card shallowness. Take that suggestion of depth and nascent display of versatility and combine it with a point of view that should only get more specific as more strips are done, and suddenly those limitations become the parameters by which the feature gains its focus. There's always the chance that there's no groove to find, no depths to explore, and that the lack of versatility may simply limit the number of effective jokes as opposed to concentrating them. I also suspect that Cowan would be better off narrowing down the general effect he wishes his visuals to achieve -- an expectation based on how things are drawn might better connect the individual cartoons. I think it's worth checking back in on Downbeat every so often to see what has happened.
By Daniel Holloway, special to The Comics Reporter
Marjane Satrapi has spent the last three and a half years working on a project she never intended to start: a film adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis. The movie, which premieres in the U.S. on Christmas day, has already won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and been nominated by France's film board for the U.S. foreign film Academy Award. All this has led to Satrapi becoming one of only two cartoonists I can think of (the other being Daniel Clowes) to have endured one of the most ridiculous of entertainment reporting rituals, the hotel press junket.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I missed Satrapi during her round of quickie New York sitdowns back in October. I had to settle instead for a quickie phone interview a few weeks later. The following transcript is taken from that interview, conducted for a mini-profile that ran in the NYC newspaper I work for, Metro. If it's at any point worth reading, it's due entirely to Satrapi's refreshing candor (folks who have been asked the same question a hundred times in a short period while doing movie press usually make little effort to hide their exhaustion with the subject), and not to anything on my part that would resemble interviewing skill. -- Daniel Holloway
*****
DANIEL HOLLOWAY: How is making a film different from making a comic book?
MARJANE SATRAPI: Well everything changes. I was a very solitary person, working with myself and being all alone -- which I like, actually, a lot. In a movie, you have to work with all sorts of people. It's absolutely not the same relationship to the work. That was very difficult at the beginning. But also, you have a number of things that you never think about -- such as the music and a number of things I never had to take care of. Now I had to take care of that. That was quite an experience.
HOLLOWAY: You were the co-director. Did that give you final say on the work your collaborators were doing?
SATRAPI: Absolutely. I directed the movie with my best friend. Not only that but in France, according to the law, it is the director that has the final cut and nobody else. I think it's a good idea, because I don't know who else but the director should have the final cut, because you're the only person who knows exactly where you are going. I wouldn't work if it were otherwise, because my life is not just making movies. If I can do what I like, then I will make movies. But if I have to pull down my pants and do whatever people tell me, then I will just do my comic books, be independent and decide what I want. Freedom in the artistic world is the most important thing. I wouldn't do it otherwise.
HOLLOWAY: How did the idea to convert the books into a film come to you?
SATRAPI: At the beginning, I always thought it was a very bad idea to, out of the book that you yourself have made, make a movie. Because you are a good cartoonist, you will not necessarily be a good moviemaker. It's not the same narrative language. You cannot just take the book and say, "OK, because the book is nice, it's possible to make a good movie out of it." It was not really my idea, but I was exposed to a situation where they were proposing something where I could make it exactly the way I wanted it, where I would have the complete freedom. I said, "I want to work with my best friend." "OK, no problem." "I want to make it in black and white." "OK, no problem." As an artist, how many times in your life do you have that opportunity?
So it was just to try it. They gave me a magnificent toy, and suddenly I had the right to play with it. But the good thing was that I was aware of the danger. I was aware that it was not sufficient to take the frame of the book and trim it, and I would have a movie. I knew that the script should be a completely different narration, that it should be a new language. I was aware of that.
HOLLOWAY: How exactly did that opportunity come to you?
SATRAPI: I had a friend of mine who had been working at a TV station for a long time, and he wanted to become a producer. He liked the story, and he became the producer for the movie. All the people that I worked with -- the musicians, the producer -- whoever is in the movie, they were all my friends. I knew everybody from before, except for the actors. That made everything much easier.
HOLLOWAY: How would it be different collaborating with people if you didn't have such close personal relationships with them?
SATRAPI: I don't know. But I can never work with people if I don't like them. It's impossible. Some people will tell you, "Oh, this is business." For me, nothing is business. Everything is personal. So if I don't like people, it is impossible for me to work with them, because I take everything extremely personally. I would kill them probably, or they would kill me. Something bad would come out of it.
HOLLOWAY: Do you think American audiences will receive the film differently than European audiences?
SATRAPI: I don't think so, because I saw the reaction of the Americans. I think that the American audiences will enjoy it a little more. I don't know why, but I have this feeling. For example, my books work better in America than anywhere else, even France. I love the American people. I think that I have something in common with them.
HOLLOWAY: Especially with American audiences, do you think your work benefits from a timeliness, given the Bush administrations rhetoric toward Iran?
SATRAPI: Oh yes, but it is a coincidence. People say, "Oh, this is so timely." How could I know? I started the movie three and a half years ago. Three and a half years ago, there was no question about Iran. It was only Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm someone who also lives in a certain period of time, so it's normal that the things that I say or do make an echo to what is happening. At the same time, it is not a reflex. It's not political propaganda. It has nothing to do with that. I deeply believe that this movie, in 10 years or 15 years, will be like The Deer Hunter. Deer Hunter is a movie that came just after the Vietnam War. But you can still watch it now. It's still a great movie. It's a very timely moment to have the movie, but it doesn't take any value away from the movie.
HOLLOWAY: You've said in recent interviews that you're not a religious person, but would you say that Islamic fundamentalism has influenced your worldview?
SATRAPI: No, I don't think so. I'm against stupidity, and I think fundamentalism, whether it be Islamic, Christian or even secular is stupid. When I say I'm not a religious person, the thing is that I don't have a problem with any religion. Not at all. I'm not a secular person who thinks that religion sucks. I think that religion is a very personal practice and it has to stay personal. When I'm asked about it, it's a question that I don't have to answer. It's like asking me the color of my underwear. It's the same thing. It's too personal. But again, I am against any form of stupidity. "If you're not with me, you are my enemy." That is the basis of fundamentalism. What I do in my work, whether it be in the movies or in my books, is to try to show that a situation is complex. As an artist, I am asking questions. I never give answers. I never say, "This is good," or, "This is not good," because this is not my duty. This is the duty of the preacher -- and the preachers, I hate them, to tell you the truth. As an artist, I put people in front of a complex situation and ask how you as a person will react to this complex situation.
Why I am against fundamentalism is that it takes away this complexity. It just tells you, "This is the way it is." I don't believe in it, because there are so many ways of seeing things. That is not to say that I am against Islam or any religion or any ideology. You can defend anything. My problem starts when people believe in something, then they tell me, "If you're not like me, you're against me -- and I have the right to kill you." That is when I don't agree anymore. If people want to go by themselves and do what they want, that is not my problem. Who am I to tell people what to do? For example, in New York, there was a journalist who said to me, "This movie is against theocracy." I said this was not true. I have received so many e-mails from Polish, Romanian people, people in the former Communist bloc. The movie is against totalitarianism. It is against repression -- any sort of repression. Repression can even occur under democracy. It can be in a small town. I think anybody can relate to this movie.
HOLLOWAY: You came from a very politically engaged family in Iran. How politically engaged are you?
SATRAPI: It's not so much that I'm interested in politics. The problem is that politics are in interested in me -- and you. If these politicians would pay for their own beer, then I wouldn't give a damn what they do. The problem is that you and I have to pay for their beer, and that is why I'm not happy. But I believe that the guys who are really interested in policy and power are the real freaks. Who wants to be responsible for 200 million people? The problem is that the people who want power are exactly the people who shouldn't have the power. People think that I'm an extreme leftist, or they think that I'm a bourgeoisie, so I'm from the right wing. In fact, I'm neither from right nor left. I believe in the importance of the human being, and I think it's about time that the human being should be at the center of interest. The war, of course it drives me mad. Of course I express myself. But what do you want me to say? The problem is that they are just all assholes. I'm sorry to say that, but this is it. I know that you cannot write that, but I can say it to you anyway.
HOLLOWAY: We'll bleep it out. At what age did you start drawing comics? I realize every cartoonist you ask that, they say, "I've always been drawing." But at what age did you start drawing comics specifically?
SATRAPI: I've been drawing all my life. But comics came much later, because I don't come from a country with a big comics culture. And I was too serious. I read Dostoyevsky and things like that as a child. I was extremely serious. I wanted to grow up very fast.
HOLLOWAY: At what point did you decide to write and draw about your childhood?
SATRAPI: I cannot only write. I love to draw and to write, and I do not know why I should choose only one or the other. When I read Maus by Art Spiegelman, I saw that it was possible to talk about any subject in this medium. It was so much the story of a childhood, my own story. Autobiography is you have a problem with your family and your friends and you don't dare to talk about it with them, so you make a book and that solves your problems. That is not my case. I use myself to describe what is happening around me. The reason I use myself is not because I want to make a political or sociological or historical statement, because I'm neither a politician nor a sociologist nor a historian. I am one person who was born in a place and has grown up in a place and has seen stuff and has had some feelings and has asked some questions. It happened that when I saw this story, I was a kid and I had a kid's point of view. But I'm not a kid throughout the story. I grow up.
HOLLOWAY: How are French comics different from American comics?
SATRAPI: Oh, Jesus Christ. What a question. It's very, very different. We have an interesting comics scene in France. But in France they say that my comics are in the same vein as the American comics. I don't know why they say that, but that's what they say. The only thing I would say is that my favorite cartoonists are all American, whether it be Art Spiegelman or Chris Ware or Dan Clowes or Joe Sacco or Charles Burns. All these people are American. Probably because pop art is part of the American culture, and comics is very much a popular art. That's why I like it so much, because it's a popular art. And you are the country of popular art.
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images split between her New York Times op-ed, her books, and publicity stills from the films, and all rights to the respective rights holders
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Ms. Satrapi's film is currently winning awards on the festival circuit and will open in the US on December 25. Her books are available just about everywhere books are sold.
The trial of retailer Gordon Lee stemming from a 2004 incident when a copy of Alternative Comics #2 was mistakenly given to a pair of local children during the store's participation in a local merchants' Halloween-related promotion gets underway today. Lee has been backed since January 2005 by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which has managed to work its way through a battery of charges, including felonies, until only two misdemeanor claims remain. Lee faces up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine for each count, if he loses.
The local newspaper may be one of the first places to receive direct updates; here's their pre-trial article. The paper also brings recent news that Lee pulled a TJ Hooker last week on two suspected shoplifters.
Manny Curtis, 1924-2007
Veteran gag cartoonist Manny Curtis has passed away, according to a report by the artist David Lloyd. Curtis worked in both single-panel and three-panel standard newspaper form, with both one-shot and recurring characters.
Curtis was an aspiring cartoonist before World War II who availed himself of the various aspects of London cartooning culture and education opportunities as a teenager. World War II took him to the Far East theater in 1943; he left the service in 1947. When he returned home and restarted his education, he found a thriving market driven by the sudden expansion of newspapers no longer restricted to a set number of pages by shortage. "It was a crazy, crazy period," he said in the short film interview embedded here, "but marvelous for me."
That short film speaks to the origin of Curtis' feature on black kids and white kids playing together, Algy and Fred, which Curtis says was inspired by the notion that there were no black characters in comics and anyone looking at the comics as represented as social history would think no black people existed in mid-Century England. It was purchased by an editor whose kids played with neighbor children in much the same way as Curtis depicted. The cartoonist says the strip was reprinted in Africa, China and Japan.
Recent work by Curtis may be seen here. Reminiscences of his time in Burma and his return there in 2005 can be found here.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* James Vance remembers the life and work of Archie Goodwin.
* Lars Vilks, who made recent international news for drawing Muhammed's head on the body of a dog and receiving death threats a-plenty as a result, will be speaking this Friday in New York.
* I find it interesting that Ben Templesmith's tour in the Philippines apparently has him to do signings at various cinemas. Other than the occasional chat-room declaration that this should happen in order to save comics or whatever, I can't remember anyone ever doing it before.
* Mark Badger weighs in on initial criticism about DC's Zuda webcomics effort using Flash; Barney Sheehan replies to Badger. Based on a 15 second reading of both letters and my own experiences stumbling around the Zuda site, I agree more with Sheehan than I do Badger, I think. Matt Maxwell's appraisal of the content is so even-handed it's kind of scary. Okay, it's not really scary.
Handala Dropped from SF State Mural The bottom half of this article about the unveiling of a cultural mural by Palestinian students at San Francisco State talks about how the final product did not include an image of Handala, the iconic figure used by Naji al-Ali before his murder in 1987. It seems that Handala has come to represent the Palestinian notion of right of return, which some people think of as a notion of automatic threat to the continue existence of an Israeli state, a meaning I wasn't aware of. In fact, now I'd love to know if that's a specific meaning al-Ali intended or, seeing as he's carrying stuff in some of the post-'87 imagery, if that's something that's grown out of the character since his death in a kind of internationally political Pissing Calvin manner.
Rick Veitch came into comics as a member of the Direct Market generation, a group of cartoonists, writers and artists with an appreciation for old-school craft and the desire of most creative people born from the mid-century on to express themselves through their chosen art. Some folks may remember him through projects at Marvel's Epic efforts like Abraxas and the Earthman and The One, others may recall his contributions to expressive fantasies like Swamp Thing or 1963, still others satirical projects like Brat Pack and Maximortal, and yet another group may know him mostly for his dream comics in the self-published Rare Bit Fiends. There's even a small chance that some out there might not think of Veitch as a cartoonist or writer at all as much as they see him as a co-founder of the comics Internet anchor site Comicon.com.
Like many past Rick Veitch comics, his latest series, Army@Love stands alone in the marketplace: a long-form satire in fictional form, brutally critical of Western military policy and motivation on several levels while respectful of the emotions and human weaknesses in play. Army@Love is set in an immediate future with the United States still at war in the Middle East and beyond while employing, exploiting and encouraging strategies and behaviors that seem completely absurd and outrageous but contain within them enough revelatory truth as to the country's state of mind they would likely surprise very few of us were they to one day become standard procedure. This series not only comes at a point when Vertigo seems sorely lacking in the kinds of high-energy titles that brought the imprint its initial success, it arrives in the midst of an ongoing Rick Veitch in-print renaissance in terms of current projects and reprints making it onto the stands. I was pleased he found the time to answer my questions.
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TOM SPURGEON: Rick, can I get a snapshot of what you're working on now, and what you have out? It seems like you've had a ton of material out in the last several months. Can you locate where you are exactly with Army@Love and the various King Hell projects?
RICK VEITCH: Vertigo-wise, I've just finished the pencils to Army@Love #12. I'm writing the outline to what we're calling "Season Two" which is essentially the next six issue story arc. I think #8 is in stores and the first trade shipped in October. I believe the next Swamp Thing collected volume is about to be released. Over at King Hell I've been publishing about one book a year but I'm hoping to pick up the pace a bit. I'll be soliciting Heartburst and Other Romances for the spring and I've got Bong! The Lost Undergrounds in the pipeline; hopefully for fall. I've also been working on another Nature comic for WNET.
SPURGEON: Do you feel as busy and productive as all of that looks? Like with Abraxas and the Earthman finally being collected, did you make a decision to simply have a lot more work out there?
VEITCH: I wish I could say it was a coherent marketing strategy to position myself as a brand, but it's more a case of just me following my interests. I love to make comics and its the way I've earned my living so I'm always productive on the commercial side. In terms of self-publishing, I've planned to put the stuff from my Epic period in print from the moment I launched King Hell. It just took a while to get the equipment and teach myself how to use it so I could achieve the color reproduction that the painted originals demanded. It probably does help to release a small press project like Shiny Beasts on the coattails of something mainstreamy like Army@Love. So maybe there is method to my madness.
SPURGEON: I think more than anyone I've spoken to in recent memory, you can remember the fallow period before this latest flush period in terms of attention and sales of some books, but you can also recall participating in the last flush period, with projects at Tundra and Image, and before that DC. What are the differences between comics right now and comics 15 and then even 20 years ago in terms of functioning as a professional in that world? Do you like it the way it is now? Are there more opportunities from your perspective?
VEITCH: Doesn't matter feast or famine, comics publishing has always been a crazy field. Comics is a place where business and creativity collide head on so there's a lot of casualties as well as amazing energy and no lack of absurdity. I came in with the Direct Sales Market and except for a brief period at the very beginning, there's always been too many comics chasing too few readers in the marketplace. Whenever anyone figures out a new angle to sell books a thousand other guys pig-pile on. It's just the nature of the beast.
The trick, for me at least, has always been to find the right niche where I can follow my own muse and retain some sort of equity. That's why you see me over at Epic doing The One, or at Tundra doing Brat Pack and The Maximortal, or at Image doing 1963, or self publishing Rare Bit Fiends, or right now at Vertigo doing Can't Get No and Army@Love. Sure, I had to do a few things like Aquaman or Cy-Gor now and then to pay the rent, but for the most part I've been really lucky having the opportunity to follow my own vision while retaining either complete ownership or a big piece of most of my projects.
Opportunities are always there for folks who really want (or need) to pursue this form of art. But the business models behind the opportunities seem to rely less and less on selling actual comics and more on creating intellectual properties for other media. And there seem to be a lot of folks making comics out there who aren't getting paid very much for their creative labors. Last year I was approached by a fairly well-known publisher who asked me to pitch a graphic novel. When we started to talk deal, their whole offer was $500 to write and illustrate a complete 64 page color book! On top of that they wanted 51% of the rights. Their rationale was that my real payoff would come when they got a movie deal for the property. I can only wonder how many young artists and writers are slaving away under such terms just to get published.
SPURGEON:Army@Love feels like one of those projects that came together rather than one that came in a bolt out of the blue. Was there a long genesis with the project? Where did you start and at what point did it cohere into something that resembles what's been published?
VEITCH: The very first thing that came to me was the title, which originally was Army at Love. I dug the way it evoked the old war and romance comics while the impossible grammar made it strangely surreal and subversive.
I let the title roll around in the back of my mind for maybe a year just giving my intuition free reign to play with what the project wanted to be. The war part came through as a satire of the Iraq mess; that was pretty much a no-brainer. But the romance side was what really caught my interest. Mature Reader titles had evolved to the point where it was okay to show people having sex. But most of those titles used sex in a demented context. Sex is such an important part of being human, I wanted to use it to build character naturally, rather than push those horror movie buttons.
At that point I ran the raw concept by Karen [Berger] and she seemed to like the basic premise. We batted it back and forth a little bit which really helped me zero in the tone. Then I set about creating the large cast of characters, mapping out who was sleeping with whom and who was stabbing whom in the back. She read the outline and suggested a few additions to the cast to round it out and pretty soon we had a deal. DC was a little reticent of the Army at Love title at first, feeling like it was too much a parody of Our Army at War. So I substituted the @ sign which I think sets it apart in a more modern sense.
SPURGEON: It's hard for me to think of antecedents in comics form to this project. Was there anything in comics that inspired you? Am I right in thinking it's more the popular satirical anti-war movies and even the more frank-about-sex popular books and movies of the late '60s into the '70s which inform the work?
VEITCH: I'm sure whatever I soaked up in my formative years comes through anything I do. But I'm not overtly copping or vamping that stuff. Army@Love has a very distinct soap opera rhythm. The plot unfolds like an origami rather than straightforward like a film or cop show. It isn't as formally challenging as Can't Get No, but there's a lot of information packed into each panel and you need to pay attention to the drawings to get some of the gags and story points. I hope Army@Love is its own thing.
SPURGEON: Is there anything that informs Army@Love that might surprise its readers? Now that you've completed a fair chunk of work, is there anything that you find in the work that surprises you?
VEITCH: The characters aren't heroes or villains, but complicated people acting in their own self interests. They make unexpected choices, just like we all do in real life. That might be a little difficult for readers who are trained to expect good guy/bad guy set ups in comics. What's surprised me is how these characters have come alive in my head, not only when writing them, but when I'm drawing too. They seem to really want to "act" in the panels, rather than stand around looking pretty.
SPURGEON: You've mentioned in a couple of interviews a couple of the more serious, cable-ready television shows as a comparison to what you're doing. Is that convenient shorthand for you to describe what you're doing, and did you draw on those shows for your approach as well, say with the ensemble casting?
VEITCH: It kind of contradicts what I said above about not echoing other media, but I really do enjoy shows like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. And mentioning them in the course of doing PR helps potential readers get some sort of handle on what I'm trying to do. There are no proverbial three acts in an episode of The Sopranos. They drop you down in the middle of a dynamic community of characters and before you know it you are rooting for career criminals and murderers. I'd love to pull that off in Army@Love.
SPURGEON: We're a fairly satire-heavy culture, what with the prominence of things like The Onion and The Daily Show -- what can you do with a fictional narrative like Army@Love that these more reactive sources can't do? What do you think the strengths in general are to your approach?
VEITCH:The Daily Show tends to focus on immediate issues in the news, while Army@Love goes after the underlying structures of a society that has allowed something like the war in Iraq to happen. Satire-wise, I think I'm getting at stuff that you're never going to see on commercial TV. Like how the military industrial complex has merged with the entertainment industry. How 21st century people live inside a Skinner Box of media-generated ideas. How deeply marketing permeates our lives, virtually dictating our thoughts and actions. I agree though, that The Onion does a great job of playing with those kinds of ideas.
SPURGEON: Can you talk about your decision to fictionalize certain future elements, like Afbaghistan, as opposed to making more elements strictly observant of reality? Is the ambiguity of the term Afbaghistan intentional?
VEITCH: The naming is done to give the satire a little room to breath. After all, hundreds of thousands of people have died over there already and who knows how many have been physically and mentally wounded. In Army@Love it's left ambiguous if "Afbaghistan" is meant to be a fictional country, or if it's a slang term for a much expanded area of combat operations in the Middle East.
SPURGEON: Do you feel like we're headed to an expansion of the Afghani and Iraqi conflicts?
VEITCH: I fervently hope the war is ended immediately, but looking at the strategic situation, I'm really worried its become such a clusterfuck that it will be impossible for the next President to get out.
SPURGEON: Have you heard anything from soldiers?
VEITCH: After Military Times did a write-up I got a bunch of e-mails from soldiers serving in Iraq who wanted to know how they could buy the book. From what I could glean from their e-mails they weren't in the slightest bit offended and seemed to dig the idea. I wasn't able to find any on-line comics sites that would ship to an APO though, which was unfortunate. I'd love to get the book over there.
SPURGEON: How about magicians or PR people?
VEITCH: Yesterday was Halloween and I received a coded message from Harry Houdini. Nothing from Funky Flashman yet.
SPURGEON: Has there been any backlash given you're doing this within the publishing efforts of such a big multi-national corporation?
VEITCH: Nothing that I've seen beyond a few political kerfluffles on message boards; but you know how that goes. Even though Vertigo is owned by Time Warner, I think comics are perceived as being somehow outside the greater culture wars that have been raging in America for the last few decades. Comics have such small audiences compared to mass media that no one seems worried about their propaganda impact which makes them attractive to someone subversive like me.
SPURGEON: My favorite satirical element in Army@Love is the pushing of fighting on the front lines as a peak experience in order to better attract the adrenaline junkie teens. Can you talk about developing that line of satire specifically? For instance, was this something that you extrapolated from the "Army of One" advertising, or something you read about, or did it seem like a leap that made sense to you?
VEITCH: I'm not an expert on marketing and advertising, but I'm interested in how it has been refined and how it works on the mind. As a culture we've had almost a century now of product marketing aimed directly at the subconscious. Did you know that Sigmund Freud's son-in-law is recognized as the founder of modern advertising? Selling something as hideous as a war uses the same techniques of psychological manipulation that keep us buying Pepsi and Twinkies. In Iraq right now we have a professional army fighting a war that most people back home are happy to turn up their iPods and ignore. But if it keeps going badly over there then the military is going to have to figure out how to sell the idea of a draft, just like they did in World War Two. That's when the marketing barrage will really hit and you can bet it will be perfectly shaped and aimed to get its target audience in the mood to fight.
SPURGEON: How do you find the balance between presenting notions that have a strong sense of reality and others that might be more out there?
VEITCH: I'm shooting for something that when first read will come across as comically absurd, but that might begin to make creepy sense with a little consideration. I'm not sure how I zone in on that balance. It just seems to be there for the taking since modern life is so bizarre to begin with.
SPURGEON: In addition to the very strong sex/violence dialectic and the well-portrayed delineation between home front and front line, are there other dichotomies you think are important to note in the story?
VEITCH: One of the subtexts is that the war is essentially a conflict to the death between a religious society, with a medieval vision of God, and a secular civilization, whose god is Mammon.
SPURGEON: Have you been green-lit for more than 12 issues yet? When will you know if this is to be an ongoing or a limited series? Do you have an ending in mind?
VEITCH: We've been green-lit through #18. So I'm shaping #13-18 as a distinct arc subtitled "The War That Time Misplaced." From there it will depend on sales of the trades, since sales have been lousy in the floppies. There will be a delay between #12 and 13 to help me catch up on the schedule, with possibly the second trade released in the interim. And yes, I've got an ending in mind, but it can pretty much work anywhere I want to bring it in.
SPURGEON: Now that you've had time to step back from what I know was a major project for you, Can't Get No, was there anything particularly edifying or even frustrating about the reaction that the book received? How do you look on that project yourself at this point?
VEITCH: The cliche is you write poetry for the echo and Can't Get No got more intelligent response than anything I've ever put out there. DC did a great job getting review copies out to a broad selection of literary critics and I was delighted how many of them really seemed to understand what I was doing with Can't Get No and responded favorably.
The way the book uses word and image is challenging, but I think it rewards with a completely original reading experience. In terms of my life's work it's probably the thing I'm most proud of.
SPURGEON: How are things with Comicon.com? I ask only because it's stayed pretty much with its basic functions which is a really rare thing in the Internet world. Do you have plans to do anything different with the site in future years, or are you happy with the way things are right now?
VEITCH:Comicon.com is chugging along happily. There's plenty of on-line advertising money these days so we always have our dance card filled. Traffic continues to grow every month and we're at the top of just about any comics related Google search. Steve [Conley] and I aren't bloodthirsty business types, so we haven't leveraged what we have to make a killing. We still see it as our way of serving the community of comics. I don't even promote myself with the site, which is kind of crazy when I think about it. We can see that the internet is morphing and at some point we'll need to reshape Comicon.com to fit that, but right now why fix what ain't broke?
SPURGEON: Was it your idea to put all those quotes on the first trade of Army@Love [pictured at the top of this article]? Assuming it's yours, do you have a general approach to design or do you look at things project to project? The Army@Love covers kind of remind me of Brat Pack in that a human figure or two tends to be portrayed front and center but in addition to being a typical character-based comic book cover the image embodies some sort of satirical point.
VEITCH: It was my idea to try and mimic a Cosmopolitan cover for the trade, but I didn't do the actual design. My general approach to cover design on the comic has been to mash up fashion and recruiting advertising. It was one of those approaches that seemed so absurd when we began, but now isn't all that far-fetched. In fact, Vogue Italiajust did a fashion spread in which every photo could be an Army@Love cover!
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* cover to new Army@Love trade, art by Gary Erskine
* cover image for issue #7 of the ongoing Army@Love comic book, art by Gary Erskine
* cover to new Abraxas collection
* cover to an issue of the self-published Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends
* four images from new Army@Love trade, art by Gary Erskine
* cover image for issue #10 of the ongoing Army@Love comic book, art by Gary Erskine
* sequence spotlighting my favorite bit of satire from the series, art by Gary Erskine
* cover image from Can't Get No
* Comicon.com logo
* cover image for issue #8 of the ongoing Army@Love comic book, art by Gary Erskine
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Army@Love Volume One: The Hot Zone Club, Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine, Vertigo, soft cover, 128 pages, 9781401214746 (ISBN13), October 2007, $9.99.
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[PS -- if any retailer out there is willing to work with Rick to get Army@Love to US military personnel as he talks about above, I have to imagine -- without being able to guarantee it -- Rick would love to hear from you; send a note to me through this site if you don't have Rick's contact information and I'll pass your e-mail along]
Fff Results Post #98—Major Minors Five For Friday #98 Results
On Friday afternoon, participating CR readers were asked to "Name Five Kid Characters You Like." Here are the results.
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Tom Spurgeon
1. Linus from Peanuts
2. Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes
3. Annie from Little Orphan Annie
4. Kid Eternity from Hit Comics
5. Guadalupe from Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar Stories
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Jones
5. "Sweet" Chubby Cheeks
4. The two protagonists of Octopus Girl
3. Little Orphan Annie (yeah, I know you already picked her, but she's so damn plucky)
2. The Morrison/Irving interpretation of Klarion the Witch Boy
1. Alvin, Tubby, Annie and Lulu
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David Gallaher
1. Charlie Brown from Peanuts
2. Jason Fox from Foxtrot
3. Franklin Richards from Fantastic Four
4. Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes
5. Alex Power / Zero-G from Power Pack & New Warriors
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Dave Knott
* Venus, from Beto's post-Palomar stories
* Skeezix Wallet, from Gasoline Alley (my father used to call me Skeezix when I was a wee lad!)
* Chang, from The Blue Lotus and Tintin in Tibet
* Sardine
* Gumby!
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Scott Dunbier
Jack B. Quick
Little Lulu
Terry (of Pirate fame)
Calvin
Donald's nephews (three way tie)
1. Tubby Tompkins from Little Lulu
2. Melvin from Playful Little Audrey
3. Barry Ween, Boy Genius
4. Supersnipe from the comic of the same name
5. The kid who tells Ted Grant about Green Lantern, inspiring him to become Wildcat
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Evan Dorkin
1) Sluggo from Nancy
2) Kayo Mullins from Moon Mullins
3) Jetcat/Melanie McKay from Jay Stephen's Jetcat/Oddville
4) Skeezix from Gasoline Alley (as an infant/toddler esp.)
5. Steven from Doug Allen's Steven (he is a kid, isn't he?)
1. Courtney Crumrin
2. Barry Ween
3. Daigoro from Lone Wolf and Cub
4. Little Lotta
5. Lenore
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Austin Mayor
1. Arthur Curry Jr. aka "Aquababy"
2. Valeria Richards of the Fantastic Four
3. Rerun from Peanuts
4. Nelson Muntz of Simpsons
5. Philippe from Achewood
First Thought Of The Day
Martha Stewart-ish nerd homemaking tip of the day: I'm using two extra copies of Suburban Glamour #1 as Christmas present wrapping paper for DVDs I'm giving some people. Unstapled comics spreads are the perfect size to wrap most individual DVDs, and the bright colors in which Suburban Glamour is bathed are a perfect, snappy complement to any future under-the-tree gift array.
Five For Friday #98 -- Name Five Kid Characters You Like
1. Linus from Peanuts
2. Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes
3. Annie from Little Orphan Annie
4. Handala from Naji Al-Ali's Editorial Cartoons
5. Guadalupe from Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar Stories
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This category is now closed. Thanks to all that participated.
***** Five For Friday is a reader response feature. To play, send a response while it's still Friday. Play fair. Responses up Sunday morning.
There was more than one webcomics entity making news this week. On Monday Joey Manley of Webcomics Nation and its related family of sites and Josh Roberts of ComicSpace and Onlinecomics.net announced a merger and the new merger's partnership with an investment firm.
With the prominence of both sites in the webcomics world and the number of creators and readers affected, I wanted to ask a few follow-up questions. Manley was good enough to humor me, and Josh Roberts even showed up for a cameo.
*****
TOM SPURGEON: Can you talk a little about the timing involved from here on out? When should we see changes and will the first signs be?
JOEY MANLEY: The first thing that will happen has already happened -- but it is kind of small and cheesy: we are selling one set of advertising slots that stretch across all of the sites that will eventually be combined (Webcomics Nation, OnlineComics.net, TalkAboutComics, ComicSpace). I don't want people to think that that's the ultimate goal or anything, but it is an easy and convenient little baby step.
SPURGEON: When should the sites that are going to combine, combine?
MANLEY: It's important that we not launch the new combined site until every single thing that people can do in each of the current sites is represented -- and improved upon significantly -- in the new site. You can look for that somewhere between 3-5 months from now. After that happens, we'll start layering on the new features.
SPURGEON: Do you have an idea of where you're going to be six months, a year from from now?
MANLEY: For the past few months we've been doing our detailed financial and technology planning for the next three years. Three years! It's mind boggling. So the answer to your question is: yes. I do have an idea where we hope to be at those times you mentioned -- and well beyond.
SPURGEON: [laughs] Okay. Now, I was surprised when I looked around for information on your investors E-Line that I couldn't find anything other than what was in your announcement. Who are they, exactly?
MANLEY: E-Line is a new early-stage venture capital firm started by Michael Angst and Alan Gershenfeld. They have not yet formally announced the venture -- which is why there is nothing yet posted on the internet about them -- ComicSpace is one of their first investments. The fund is focused on companies that provide innovative solutions that empower individuals, small businesses and disenfranchised populations.
The E-Line folks have relevant experience to help support us, have introduced to us to technical and business advisors who have been great -- and they are in the process of closing other investments that we believe will be very complimentary. I've attached their bios to this email to give you a little more background on them. [see below]
SPURGEON: Can you talk about how the deal came together with E-Line? How did you guys get in touch and for how long did negotiations progress before you came to a deal?
MANLEY: Alan actually contacted me first. We began speaking back in the summer -- before he and Michael had actually formed their new venture fund. He originally approached me to chat about comics on mobile, but as we got to know each other, and especially after I introduced him to Josh, we began to see the potential for a larger partnership. When Alan told us that he was planning to start a new fund with Michael, everything fell quickly into place.
SPURGEON: I know that you might not be able to talk about this in full, but can you speak to basic ownership issues? Are you two sharing the merged venture? Does E-line's investment include an ownership share? Is there a third company set up with all of your investment? Are there silent partners out there?
MANLEY: Together, Josh and I are the largest shareholders of the new venture -- which will be called ComicSpace -- and we each own an equal percentage of the company. E-Line is a minority investor and together we may invite a few individual and strategic investors to participate in the round.
SPURGEON: On what basis did you decide what sites to fold into the new ComicSpace site and what to keep as separate brands? Traffic? Artists involved? Your own rough estimation? I'm sort of intrigued by how you made those distinctions.
MANLEY: Webcomics Nation, ComicSpace, TalkAboutComics and OnlineComics.net are what we call in our ugly parlance "user generated content" sites -- meaning that the material contained within those sites is created by the people who visit them. Modern Tales, Girlamatic, serializer and Graphic Smash, on the other hand, are quite the opposite: they're highly-curated anthologies of quality comics, each with its own unique editorial mission and voice. The secret to Modern Tales' success isn't just that it's a "quality comics" portal, but that it is, very particularly, Shaenon Garrity's vision of a quality comics portal. To merge that with all the other sites would cause it to cease to exist, for all intents and purposes, because its sole purpose is to exclude things that don't fit its mandate. It would be like merging Kramer's Ergot with Arf! with Dark Horse Presents. Just wouldn't make any sense.
Another metaphor that springs to mind is that WCN, OnlineComics.net, TalkAboutComics and ComicSpace are printing presses. Modern Tales, Girlamatic, serializer, and Graphic Smash are magazines.
SPURGEON: Can you talk in terms of your new partner and a few skills each of you might bring to the table? I know that you've said you complement each other, and I'd love your perspective on exactly how you do.
MANLEY: Josh's sites have been more concerned with helping readers find, and keep track of, the webcomics they love. My sites have been more concerned with helping creators publish and monetize their own webcomics. Each fits tightly into the other.
SPURGEON: In your comments thread you talk a bit about your ability to make functional attractive sites; do you think this is a greater issue now than when you were first working with webcomics?
MANLEY: Not really. Great design has always been important.
Here's what happened, though. The fewer things your website does, the easier it is to make it usable. A website with one webcomic on it, for example, is pretty easy to design effectively. Add two webcomics, by two different creators, and you hit a whole 'nother level of complexity in your design spec. Add seven thousand webcomics, plus four thousand blogs, plus nine hundred fan-art items, plus seven hundred merchandise items, plus twelve thousand art galleries, plus nine hundred forums with hundreds of thousands of conversations, plus seven hundred webcomic reviews, and so on and so on and so on, and usability becomes even more important, and even more difficult to achieve. At a certain point in the growth of my websites, the ante got upped in terms of usability far beyond my own ability to improve as a designer.
SPURGEON: What is one thing that Josh doesn't do well that you might?
[editor's note: this question was passed along to Josh Roberts, who answered]
JOSH ROBERTS: There are many things Joey does better than me because, well, we're completely opposite in almost every way. It's kind of humorous to the people we work with, I think. Top of the list: Joey is infinitely superior in all things related to communicating with other human beings. I prefer to sit at my computer and tinker with code all day, and most days that's exactly what I do. We've been in this business for about the same amount of time, but where I've cultivated maybe a handful of relationships, Joey's cultivated hundreds... thousands?.
SPURGEON: What has been the reaction of your artists to any of this news? Have you been keeping them informed through the process? Are there any special concerns the artists have?
MANLEY: As I mentioned in my announcement, I've been looking for a business partner or investor to help me move forward for the last two years -- and I've turned down a lot of offers. Every time I did have a suitor, I let the Modern Tales, Girlamatic, serializer and Graphic Smash artists know, in the vaguest possible terms, that there was a possibility some kind of deal might be in the works. I think in the end it turned into a "boy who cried wolf" kind of situation, where I had done this so many times, they didn't take me very seriously when I started telling them that I was talking to some guys in New York, and that there might be a deal to be made. Which is all I told them until the announcement came out the other day.
I have had the opportunity during those two years to get a good sense of what kinds of concerns the artists would have if a deal ever came down -- and went into every negotiation with those concerns at the top of my agenda. For example, there was no way I'd be making any kind of deal with any company that would be asking for any share of the artist's intellectual property rights -- never mind those companies who ask for all of it. Giving up any share at all of their intellectual property rights would have been completely unacceptable to the majority of the artists I work with, and to me.
Going into conversations with potential partners with that kind of stance tends to weed out a lot of potential partners, especially in the comics field! Which is good! It took me a while to find the right investors -- but once I did, the way that I knew they were the right ones is that they actually approached me with every one of the same creator's rights bullet points that I'd been using in my negotiations with others. I didn't have the educate them. They already knew.
SPURGEON: You made a special point in your initial press statement that E-Line has interest in the social impact of the properties in which they might invest. Are there social aspects to your work that you think they found attractive?
MANLEY: Absolutely -- we are all about empowering comic creators and readers with the best possible services, while leaving them with full ownership and control of their own intellectual property. This is directly aligned with E-Line's investment thesis. When we began our discussions it was all about values and goals -- not money. The financial discussions came after we made sure we were really in synch. on the mission. This was really refreshing after some of the ways other folks had approached us.
SPURGEON: This might be too much to ask, and I'm really only interested in the generalities of it, but when you say that you were only going to merge if you could find an investor, where in what you had in mind was something that needed investment to do, basically? Were you targeting manpower? Paying certain talent? Just taking the already-existing financial strain off of you backs?
MANLEY: On the most practical level, Josh and I were both operating as sole proprietors, and we had no way of splitting the money if we merged without a business infrastructure to support us.
Beyond that, we'd both been aware for quite some time that neither of us could continue to innovate at the level we needed to, without hiring some very significant programming, design, and business management talent helping us out. Our sites were profitable, but not so profitable that we could afford the kind of people we needed. Between us, we'd each put in a cumulative total of about twelve years working solo. It was time to turn to others for help. Josh just passed his six-year anniversary, and mine's coming up in March.
SPURGEON: Was the timing of the announcement meant to coincide with Zuda's launch, the way the baseball player Alex Rodriguez and his agent crashed the World Series?
MANLEY: What is a Zuda, again?
Ha! No, not at all. The announcement happened immediately after Josh and I signed the paperwork -- we'd been wanting to put this out there for months, but couldn't. We got the paperwork from E-Line last week, then our respective attorneys had to read everything and do their attorney thing. I dropped my paperwork off at FedEx Monday morning, called Josh and confirmed that he'd done the same, and then we went and posted our announcements. The Zuda thing just sort of happened accidentally. Though I do note that they didn't actually get their comics up until around 6pm Eastern, so they managed to dominate the, um, late evening news cycle after all.
*****
logos; images from Dwarf Attack, Rex, Lil' Mell and Planet Saturday
Speaking of the great Steve Ditko, I finally had a moment to see Jonathan Ross In Search of Steve Ditko over the weekend. I liked it quite a bit. I enjoyed the forthright attitude towards what was valuable in Steve Ditko's work, didn't mind at all the recurring emphasis on the character's pop-culture aspects or the acknowledgment that these were primarily directed towards young people, liked the matter-of-fact way they dealt with John Romita's Spider-Man in contrast to Ditko's and was generally fascinated by how they repeated visual information a bunch of times in order to let it sink in.
On the negative side, I found the sloppiness of some of the pick-up shots distracting and unnecessary, and did Flo Steinberg actually get to speak about interacting with Ditko or was she just used as a witness of the general bullpen shenanigans? I think the show could have benefited greatly from testimony from more people that dealt with Ditko personally, in order to make the final scenes more poignant. I also thought the idea that he may have left Marvel because of a money dispute with Martin Goodman being left out was odd, as 1) it's the most likely scenario, 2) if you wanted the drama of suggesting all of these different reasons, adding a money motive would have driven the drama up, not down. I was also a bit sad about Ditko's amazing Warren Magazines work not garnering at least a mention (that I remember), but I am an obsessive nerd saddened by a lot of things, and should be ignored.
I thought they did a particularly nice job with making as clear as possible the distinction Stan Lee was referring to as he emphasized the idea over the execution. That's not an idea everyone always gets, and they laid the groundwork so that an average, attentive listener would understand instantly what was in question. Plus, they used Ditko's own one-page comic on the matter, and I always thought Ditko sounded rational on that point. The most interesting thing about the interview with Lee was the former Marvel head honcho's regret at actually speaking his mind over how he feels giving the co-creator credit. It proved Ditko right on an objection about the word "considered" that was initially played as an unreasonable concern on Ditko's part, and revealed a lot about how much this extended controversy has worn on Lee, I think.
Anyhow, if you haven't seen it, it's a nice little piece of comics history lite: engaging, funny and affectionate. A bonus element is getting a faceful of Alan Moore and watching Neil Gaiman being flustered by Ross into comparing himself to Etta Candy. Plus Ralph Macchio apparently started working in comics when he nine years old.
If you want to drown in some Ditko because of the round-number of the birthday, here are a few links. Clearly one of comics' most fascinating figures, Ditko is also one of the most evocative and idiosyncratic creators in the medium's history. His attention to gesture, his detailed cityscapes, his design work, his feel for emotion and for physical restraint, and the overall quality of his visual imagination distinguish a long and fruitful career. Happy birthday to Mr. Ditko. Comics would be a totally different place had he never entered the field.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Mark Badger has a word or two for an aspect of criticism leveled at Zuda Comics.
* the complainant has been called to appear in the case regarding the publication of Tintin Au Congo in France. As this article points out, this should at least result in a press conference, but the judge also has the leeway to close the case at any time.
* many of you have written in to follow-up on yesterday's news of Rick Marshall leaving Wizard's On-Line Editor position with word that the site was down yesterday afternoon and by this morning was back up via a stores.yahoo account. I have no idea what this means, if anything.
* this very linked-to article discusses a German comic book used to argue against the dangers of engaging extremist Muslim views.
* Brian Wood is blogging from the Lucca Festival. I'd say without much to back it up other than a hunch that Lucca is the European comics festival that's been the most friendly to American comics creators historically. At least, you always read about the Buscemas and the Kuberts and the Infantinos of the world making that trip more than any other. Plus, it's one big festival, and as Brian writes, it has the classic all-around-town set-up which is really amazing to see after you become accustomed to the American convention center way of doing things.
* the cartoonist Martin Kozlowski talks about one pretty great-sounding work sabbatical.
* the new books of criticism from John Updike apparently includes an essay on Saul Steinberg.
* it's not comics, but a discussion of the "new satirists" like Stephen Colbert, compares them to Thomas Nast. I think the more interesting question is why in an age with so much accessible satire from The Simpsons to The Daily Show, the grind of strident, exploitative politics goes on like none of these things are convincing anyone of anything.
* here's five Q&A cartoons between the musician/cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis and people writing in to ask him question.
* Jim Woodring is selling a bunch of not-available-before-now art on his art sales site.
Go, Read: Butcher vs. Hibbs on TPB Creep and Training for the Trade The Beguiling's Chris Butcher answers a recent Brian Hibbs column about various company's sales and scheduling strategies for trades pressing single-issue sales to the overall detriment of retailers. I agree with Butcher that Hibbs frequently conflates how things work in his store with how they should work across the DM entire, and that he frequently chooses facts and "facts" according to their ability to put his arguments in the most flattering light. He's aided in this by a horrible mish-mash of inexact figures and guesstimations and limited profiles and leaps of self-labeled conventional wisdom that are out there masquerading as real numbers, and I'd say enabled by an industry that favors strong, shoe-on-podium statements over arguments that admit a state of doing things that reflects complexity and conflict and answers with costs. Chris is right on in showing how applying a slightly different set of numbers and values can paint an entirely different picture.
As to the issue itself, I'm sympathetic to both sides. On the one hand, it's hard to offer affection to artificial constructs that fairly tweak a consumer to double dip when one time around might be more satisfactory in the short and especially long term, even if they serve a retailer's desire to continue doing business a certain way -- at least not at the expense of a process whereby a company may more directly serve the desires of many of its customers. It's doubly wrong to phrase these desires and preferences in rigid absolutes. On the other hand, comics has historically shoved its way into new paradigms without considering the cost of abandoning the old.
If there's any middle ground to be found, it seems to me that it will be seen in continued, steady pressure against comics that maybe don't provide specific value as serial comics in favor of a "trade only" or "trade quickly" option, and also a realization that some comics provide great entertainment and value and great market benefit that way and that when the tipping point comes (if it's not already here) the lack of an instant trade isn't then seen as some betrayal of a new, equally false expectation. There's no need to move quickly, though, and no reason to boil down the argument to one strategy or another. If a comic has a lot of appeal and works in a certain way, it can interact with an audience at a bunch of different levels: Chris Ware, for instance, makes comics that appeal to three different reading experiences (newspaper serialization, comic book, book). Zits could be seen as having four (on-line, newspaper serial, collections, more intermittent but larger collections). Even an artist with a modest industry profile like Brian Ralph manages to produce work on multiple fronts (on-line, mini-comics or serial trades, book) without pissing anyone off. It follows that there are mainstream comics that could appeal in more than one way, too. (My guess is that an experience based on interacting with art may be more portable than one that serves to update the reader on the status of a series of plot points, but that's a black hole of argumentation.) Comics doesn't need to alienate any potential customer, or spend time propping up any way of doing things. Surely there's a third way that doesn't involve artificially favoring any direction.
I am far from the natural audience for what some people call abstract comics, others call garbage, and I'd probably describe as comics that eschew representational art and progressive narratives for a gathering of drawings that emphasize a range of qualities within the drawings themselves and an arrangement that may not encourage story. Even typing that out made my head hurt. However, as much my taste might run elsewhere, I adore the fact that books like Tommi Musturi's Concrete Floor exist and I love getting a chance to read them every opportunity I can. Because of comics' history with commercially-driven restrictions and its recent legacy of modeled artistic excellence that inspires on an almost case to case basis, both factors that encourage many artists to reach after previously existing ways of doing comics, reading a book consisting of nothing but wild drawings can sabotage our expectations regarding what makes good comics art, even underlining a comic's visual component in terms of communicating information, a feel, emotional subtext. Books like this serve as a palate cleanser, a way of challenging the reader within to make sense of art beyond its nostalgic appeal and a feeling of what goes where.
As a bonus, Concrete Floor proves to be really fun to look over. The best drawings are thin-line, page edge to page edge swirls of component energy, the best being the two-page centerpiece. That drawing contains elements of not just buildings and landscapes and figure blending and what happens when those things relate in proximity to one another, it frequently suggests compelling through-lines of movement cut into that texture, where a couple of visual elements might work in conjunction to increase the length and even momentum of certain displays of energy. I've found myself looking at a few comics since in terms of such lines. Unlike the few comics in the US that could claim some kinship with this book, like Billy Mavreas' mini-comics of bunny imagery, Concrete Floor has a professional presentation, with heavy, slick pages and sharp printing of a kind that skips well past most other comics. If nothing else, it's an object from some sort of dream world where comics penetrate in such a broad way that this would be a viable commercial enterprise.
Rick Marshall Let Go By Wizard
I've heard from a few sources including finally Marshall that Wizard Online Editor Rick Marshall has just been let go by the company. Marshall had been with the company since they began to more heavily invest in an on-line face in 2006, and during his time at the company hits on the site went from a few thousand in a month to what is believe to be a mid-seven figures count. I've heard that Mike Searle, who has held a variety of editorial titles at the company, is the likely successor.
Update on and Additional Context For Bangladeshi Cartoonist Arifur Rahman This article takes a look at the situation that continues to face cartoonist Arifur Rahman in Bangladesh, who made a cartoon that depended on a wordplay whereby the name Muhammed was to be used for a cat. This has put the still-young Rahman in jail, where I take it he continues to stay based on a law that allows authorities to jail instigators of public protests for the good of the populace. Meanwhile, the public apology provided by Rahman's paper includes a vow "never to publish anything written or sketched" by Rahman ever again. I don't know anything to add except this continuing story leaves me saddened and discouraged and hoping that there's a positive outcome for Rahman in the end.
If the thought of a young artist sitting in jail without hope of returning to a career is too much to bear, The Sentinel provides the much more hopeful but still melancholy story of Issa Nyaphaga, an artist and cartoonist who was jailed and tortured in his native Cameroon for his work before escaping to France.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* for some reason, there are a couple of articles out there talking about the deletion of entries for webcomics on the user-driven information resource wikipedia, which is a story I think was around during Bible times. I have no idea why it would pop up again right now, although maybe I missed something that makes it specifically relevant today. If you're not aware of the subject, it's sort of fun reading; it's naturally juicy in its ability to bring neuroses and specific cultural ideas to the table. The things it touches on include the idea of what defines relevance in a culture where the popular arts peanut butter is spread over a much bigger piece of bread than 30 years ago, whether or not reader-driven resources should also include a no vote or an editorial conscience, and a special concern that webcomics folks might have for being told they don't matter.
* Olivier Van Vaerenbergh is out at Spirou Hebdo; it looks like a team of editors will take over. The article suggests sales were not up to expectations.
* apparently, Wizard favors photos, illustrations and humorous features that play to the worst tendencies of its hardcore male fanboy audience. I have no idea why anyone would think this is more true right now than it was, well, ever, but as a magazine it doesn't loom as large in my reading life as it might if I were to read a lot of superhero books. I know this isn't the first time they've run photos like this, though. Also, I have to admit I'm sort of equally skeeved out by the sweeping analysis of the actress' appearance in the comments as much as I am the cheesecake photo that instigated it. That's probably just me.
* I enjoyed this interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams as it gets into one of my favorite aspects of his story: the fact that he didn't quit his dayjob for years after launching his strip. It also reveals the puzzling news that people keep suggesting he do a cross-over with Cathy, which isn't something I would have thought of if I lived ten thousand lifetimes.
* a newspaper editor defends extreme caricature to make political points.
Zuda Launches; Usual Questions Raised
The DC Comics web initiative Zuda Comics launched I think late Tuesday, maybe not until Wednesday, but it's certainly up now. This article seems to me a nice, introductory summary of some of the issues the launch raises, including lingering doubts about the fairness of the contract which all the invocations of "please get a lawyer" won't make go away. That they're using Flash is the kind of thing I wouldn't catch on my own but the fact that they're using a way of presenting their cartoons that some people think thwarts easy loading and works against the viral nature of having word of these features spread around the Internet, that's the kind of big-launch news that seems to dog a lot of similar projects. The awkwardness is almost comforting.
I have to say, though: the fact that it took a while for me to load most of the cartoons available on Day One combined with the fact that most of what I read seemed on first glance 1980s indy-comic amateurish and 1990s Spirits of Independence boring and almost solely restricted to fantasy comics of various types with other elements sprinkled in? All that makes me not want to go back for a while. I'm totally not the intended audience, but my first impression is I have to imagine there are better works for that intended audience.
In other on-line comics site news, Dave Kellet, Kris Straub and Brad Guigar have left Blank Label Comics to form Half Pixel with well-established on-line comics creator Scott Kurtz. Actually, I think Half Pixel already existed, so maybe this should be seen as a reorientation of that project. I'm pulling most of my information from this interview, but frankly, it's pretty hype-driven and vague on a lot of concrete reasons and expectations about moving from one place to another. Kind of a "Those guys are still totally awesome; this new project could be that much more awesome. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!" vibe. This could be because the reasons for making such a move may actually be hype-driven and the reasons may be general rather than specific; I'm not quite certain, but those are all cartoonists worth tracking.
Lynda Barry Announces On-Line Shift A Tuesday afternoon entry at the Drawn and Quarterly blog suggests that the great Lynda Barry will be posting her work on-line in part because of the loss of independent newsweekly clients that have been her bread and butter, primary market for years and years. D&Q will host the strips via a special page yet to be created, while other places to find the world including Barry's interesting MySpace page and Marlys Magazine. I'm not sure why that jumps out at me as more significant than the standard announcement of work being offered on-line, but it does, perhaps because of how much I perceived of the alt-weekly model as a major part of my experience with artists like Barry, even more so than their books.
You might just want to follow the first link in order to read four cartoons posted in that announcement.
Here's 
The first is that of a strip as an echo of Jack Cole's life and a final, considered shot at fame and success after two wonderful contributions that offered limited reward: creating one of the best five superhero comic books, the "Plastic Man" feature in Police Comics, and pioneering an approach to cheesecake cartooning in that phenomenon of print, Playboy. Jack Cole committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound almost three months after Betsy & Me began syndication, as puzzling and tragic a decision any prominent cartoonist has ever made. With its long introduction by RC Harvey emphasizing this well-known history, it's hard to not to see this book as a document by which we might suss out some clue as to the cartoonists' final fate. That reading may lead one to see the marriage of the Tibbits as a mirror of the Coles' -- daily cartoonists have so many comics to make nearly all of them draw from life to some extent -- their courtship as at least a testament to the affection friends knew Cole felt for his wife, and the genius son Farley as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the son they never had. Like most documents one can attach to someone who takes their own life, it's easier to see everything else than the one clue or insight that might explain the unexplainable. A lot of it pierces your heart anyway.
The second reading, one which I think might be downplayed, is the strip itself. Betsy & Me came at a somewhat chaotic time for the newspaper comics. Formats were changing to favor smaller papers, favorites from a golden age two decades were definitely now fading in influence a bit simply by virtue of being veteran rather than youthful features, the syndication business had begun to implode. It was a time when a strip could still make a man's fortune but no one really knew what was going to hit and why. Betsy & Me offers flashes of brilliance. Despite its surface simplicity as a domestic comedy, Cole provides a relatively complex series of visual ideas: the big-head design and its utility in showing folks head to floor, swirling perspectives, stylized representations of real-world tableaux, and maybe most ingeniously multiple verbal tracks differentiated by type size and lines drawn from one place to another. Cole's cartooning is of such a high quality that it's hard not to enjoy every single frame on a sensual level, the way you would a piece of chocolate cake despite having a cold. It's an absolute treat to be able to read more Jack Cole.
* 
* here's another release I didn't know about, although from what the anonymous tipster said, it might be one of those releases that kind of slips out without really anyone knowing about it: 
In fact, save for a hideous-looking alternate-cover by Greg Horn that seems entirely out of touch with the issue's contents, the project entire comes together well enough that what few negatives exist can be re-cast into positives. For instance, whatever stiffness might occasionally appear in the figure drawing feels more like homage to Dare serials past than simple artistic mis-steps, perhaps even a tribute to the square-jawed days being reflected upon and the notion of national identity evoked. It isn't Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes dignified yet morose reflection on the original stories but something a step or two down the ambition ladder: conceptual re-alignment as a character reclamation project. On those terms, so far so good. If I were a serial adventure comics fan, I'd want to see where this one goes.
Melling was a latecomer to art and cartoons, attending school in London in the early 1960s, and for a time living in that city's culturally vibrant Soho district. He sold his first cartoon to Time Out soon upon that publication's arrival in 1968, a time during which Melling taught in London secondary schools to make a living. He would eventually teach and publish in Dublin and York. In the early 1980s he attempted cartooning full-time. His work during that decade could be found at the Times, The Economist, the abortive effort Today, Financial Times, the Observer and a number of specialty publications. He published two collections, Guttae (1974) and The Best of Ged (2004). 
* the Anti-Defamation League points out the latest round of 
Spring 2007's Kiki de Montparnasse, by Catel and Jose-Louis Bocquet, has 
Azumanga Daioh's clever, ongoing piece of slight of hand is that both the spare setting and the outside events brought to bear in the four-panel vertical strips (yonkoma) feel greater than what is actually depicted because they are filtered through the careful interplay between each scene's actors. Those interactions legitimize what might otherwise seem like elements of an arbitrary trudge through a school calendar. Azuma developed his ability to depict extreme emotions fairly early on: things like shock and jealousy and worry are well portrayed here. Where he'll find a worlds to explore in those emotions in the subsequent Yotsuba&!, here's it's mostly a comedic effect, but a smart one. By the final fourth of this massive collection -- almost 700 pages for $25 in an omnibus collection that many hope will catch on -- you even start to see characters find growth, but in the realistic way of incremental exposure to a problem mitigated by friends and outside experience rather than through a more standard drama's catharsis followed by enlightenment. 
* Was the cover to Action Comics #1 Swiped?: Chris Knowles 
I've mentioned this at least a couple of times on this site by now, but because of the number of people that seem to have linked to 
Miriam Katin 
Through his friend and fellow vicar Marcus Morris, with whom he shared the opinion about the dullness of church publications, Varah became a scripting rock for the early Eagle magazine. There, while keeping to his parish responsibilities, he contributed scripts to an ongoing feature named Plot Against the World and back-cover biographical strips. 
Long-time Fantagraphics sales director 
* Epileptic, David B. 
The first comic I ever read was ROM Spaceknight, a silver cyborg fighting evil monsters throughout the universe. I collected every issue until the series was canceled at #75 (when I asked the comic clerk why it was canceled he kindly replied, "Well, they just ran out of stories to tell."). Years later I learned that all of these incredible stories were written by one man, Bill Mantlo. At the same time I learned that he had been injured in a hit and run accident in 1992. Due to the severe injuries, Bill currently resides in a Brain Injury Rehabilitation Nursing Home, and will probably do so for the rest of his life.
* it's sort of interesting to me that there aren't a lot of Thanksgiving comics covers like 
This is I'm guessing a light-hearted project between projects for Alex Robinson. Seeing as he's released two giant works set firmly in the modern world few people are likely to resent his having fun drawing monsters and magicians for a time. A barbarian woman enters into a classic role-playing game dungeon -- the kind where nobody seems to ever leave their specific room -- and goes from one end to the other in an effort to capture a very specific prize. Twists abound; mayhem reigns. There's actually an element of the Bernard Krigstein parody of Bringing Up Father that comes into play early on in the miniature-sized book. Fantasy games are so removed from the results of their violence that they routinely break it down into abstract numbers, while much of the art that serves that audience tends to be more antiseptic than brutal, less than rigorously demanding in terms of what logically happens when, say, you hack at living creatures with an axe. When our heroine is burned a bit and the various monsters are initially maimed, it's difficult not make the yikes face. That goes away pretty quickly, though, and soon it's easy to sit back and enjoy the room-to-room progression, the rush to a final resolution. I wish there were a bit more to it, both in terms of story and imaginative design, but it's hard to muster up a lot of anger that it's so slight considering it seems to almost wear its throwaway status as a badge of honor. I would guess Robinson likely had more fun making Lower Regions than I had reading it. I also suspect he'd be just fine with that.
The London-based on-line magazine spiked 
Rob Jackson's newest mini-comic is a goof on walking tour guides where instead of exploring Paris or Rome the reader gets a series of drawings and text that takes them through Jackson's home town of Bolton. The comedy appears mostly in the text, through the way that Jackson presents quotidian elements as if they were grand history, and in a few, mild jabs at the presentational tics in such documents. It's hard not to smile at throwaway lines like "This enigmatic bridge is a culture icon, having recently starred in the BBC's Life on Mars."
Rita Hillman was the widow of Alex Hillman. They wed in 1932. A noted book industry veteran, Mr. Hillman founded Hillman Periodicals in 1938. In addition to a series of successful true crime and confessional magazines, Hillman published Pageant and a line of comic books. Pageant would go on to play a critical but accidental role in the development of comics in that leverage gained by the cartoonist/editor Harvey Kurtzman when offered a staff position at the higher-end magazine allowed him to change MAD from its original comic book format into the magazine it remains today. Hillman's comics played a more direct role, with over two dozen titles during its run in the 1940s and early 1950s, the most popular of which were probably Western Fighters, Real Clue Crime Comics and Air Fighters Comics, which by the mid-1940s became Airboy Comics. Those last two titles of course featured the character Airboy, revived in the 1980s alongside some other Hillman characters by Eclipse Comics.
A Fall schedule has been set with Nick and Stinky, by the emerging cartoonist superstar Eleanor Davis; Jack and the Box by Mouly's longtime publishing partner Art Spiegelman (their resume together includes four Little Lit volumes aimed at kids); and Mo and Jo Fighting Forever Together by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch. It looks like two more titles could be added to make up a publishing line-up of eight in all. Spiegelman will also serve as series advisor. The books will be distributed by Diamond.
* it looks as if Jose Munoz 
There's a lovely sequence in the more recent panels of Drew Weing's Set to Sea that forced me to reconsider the series to date. Our large protagonist has through an episode of rage during ship to ship combat moved from navel conscript to third mate. Given a sense of daily purpose to balance against a more general love for books and writing, he settles into what seems like a fruitful, even happy period, seeing the world and functioning within it in addition to simply writing about it. Weing pulls out the drawing stops and gives us a dozen or so well-composed snapshots of this new life, condensing a lot of information into visual shorthand and taking a step back from the kind of narrative progression that whole panels sometimes do less well. It's eye-opening not just for the skill on display, in Weing's ability to massage the moment, but also in that it's the first time Set to Sea felt paced according to something other than the artist reaching for what might happen next. For the first time, it feels like a story.
Staros was happy to provide his perspective on why Delcourt made their decision, which aligns with what was reported in their initial announcement. "From what I understand, their concern was over some French law on the books from the '90s, and updated in the last year, which forbids the representation of pornography involving minors. They were also concerned about the issue that comic book publishers over there, if considered "children's publishers," could fall under greater legal scrutiny. And even though we provided them with all the positive reviews and rulings on the book to date, all these issues, combined with the fact that the French don't possess the equivalent of the First Amendment, made their legal department flinch at the last moment." Staros indicated that in his capacity as the current President of the 
The big news this month is in what I'm tagging as the analysis article, where ICv2.com points out a surge in their estimates for comics and graphic novels down the charts: better performances for books at lower chart positions. This goes against conventional wisdom that the Direct Market's recent relative health has been driven by top of the charts successes to the detriment of lower-selling titles.
* speaking of people I saw on TV in that place, there's no reason you shouldn't be reading 
I first heard of Josh Cotter when his mini-comic Skyscrapers of the Midwest won the inaugural Isotope Mini-Comics Award. The first full issue from AdHouse Books didn't disappoint. Drawn largely from his experiences growing up outside of a small town in Missouri, that first issue of Skyscrapers featured almost unbearably up close and personal examinations of its two brother characters that penetrated the rural setting for a stab at the great universal truths of life as pathetically led by nearly all of us at one time or another. It also boasted a handsome anthropomorphic style, one of the few in comics that wasn't also flat in terms of its depictions but full and rounded. Add in a sprinkle of whimsy that plays with the wide open spaces and the wild imagination of some of the characters, and Skyscrapers has been one of the best debut comics series this decade. It's sad beyond imagining that the debut issue has struggled to find 1500 readers and that subsequent, more accomplished issues had an even smaller audience. 
COTTER: I started drawing when I was old enough to hold a crayon. I was one of those kids that just loved to scribble. My earliest drawings are still on the underside of my parents' coffee table. I was obsessed with 
COTTER: For Missouri, except for 
SPURGEON: I assume there was a point where you saw more comics.
COTTER: Everything was starting to click with movies and mini-comics. I started thinking I was sick of doing illustration, and if I was going to say something, what would I say? I was really miserable. I sat down and started writing a story, images came up, they became sequential, and I started making mini-comics. Three or four months later I had made my first issue of 
SPURGEON: Are there any worries about being completely non-commercially viable?
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Citing French law that speaks directly to the transmission of pornographic images depicting underage participants, Delcourt 
* "HIM," Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four #66-67
There's a natural tension in Raymond's art in terms of how the reader's eye moves across the page in a way that builds narrative momentum and how it settles on one magnificent image after another in order to enjoy it on that level. Raymond's skilled at both, almost otherworldly so, but when you're in a run of new physical perils every week, that delicate balance tips towards backing away from the progression of the story and enjoying the monster of the week, both terrifying (a tree that chokes people to death in its vines) and occasionally ridiculous (flying, vicious, madness-inducing squirrels). That doesn't mean it stops being comics. I'm not one who automatically favors narrative propulsion over pictures that hold interest and one's attention, but the powerful mix between the two that distinguishes Raymond's best runs on the feature goes away when the strip favors action to the exclusion of everything else, that running in the forest away from creatures kind of physical activity.
The Hernandez Brothers have been "format forward" at several times in their past. The first 50-issue volume of Love and Rockets was published at a magazine size, a format that at the time many believed help distinguish certain books from the bulk of material being produced. A second series, begun in 2000, was in standard comic-book size to allow for more regular racking by Direct Market owners. Other formats in which Love and Rockets comics have been published include color comic reprints in supplement to the magazine series (Mechanics, 1985), album-sized complete reprint collections (starting with Music for Mechanics), omnibus editions, (Palomar, Locas), a current run of popular smaller-sized reprints separated more cleanly by author (starting with Maggie the Mechanic and Heartbreak Soup), and even concurrent magazine/on-line serialization (Jaime's "La Maggie La Loca" in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and their web site). 
* Chaque chose, Julien Neel (Gallimard-Bayou)
* All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
In an introduction that feels like a defense attorney's opening statement, Picoult talks about establishing a secret identity for Wonder Woman that matches the metaphor-rich second faces of her fellow licensing juggernauts, which sounds like a great idea never apparent in much of anything that follows. It should be said that the author's endorsement of a ridiculous cliffhanger ending that asks readers to buy yet another book after dropping 20 bucks on this one greatly diminishes her status as a figure of sympathy. It also makes me never want to buy one of her prose works for someone for fears that it will end up being tossed back at my head. All that running around and blowing stuff up and flirty dialog in the face of danger fails to lead to a resolution of of any kind; it leads to an advertisement. This may be the first Wonder Woman book Wonder Woman herself would object to giving someone as a gift.
As noted yesterday, the writer Manel Fontdevila and the cartoonist Guillermo Torres were each fined approximately $4440 (USD) after being found guilty of attacking the honor of Spain's Prince Felipe through a cartoon cover appearing on the satirical magazine El Jueves. The best general write-up I've read thus far 
* part of me wonders if the real target won't end up being people that have started to wander away from weekly comic shop consumption: readers that might be convinced to engage with Marvel on a digital basis as a substitute for the entire going to the shop thing, not as a supplement to it. A ton of anecdotal evidence suggests Marvel specifically and superhero comics in general may be due to start bleeding customers that as they get older still have tons of cash but don't have the energy or appetite to keep up with the weekly shop visits and Internet-tracking time commitments of being a modern superhero comics fan. The convenience factor may end up being a bigger player than the first wave of PR suggests.
* Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
It may just be getting there on its own terms. What Birds Know is so leisurely paced when compared to most modern entertainment it's almost jarring. The closest experience to the early scenes isn't another fantasy comic but those videogames where characters maintain crops, trade goods and collect items in their home. The story almost peeks out rather than slams its fist on the desk. We meet three girls from a village and watch them prepare for a trip to collect mushrooms, something they look forward to in multiple ways: for itself, as a break from the tedium of school and day to day life, and a chance to do something together. The basic structure of the book, at least so far, mirrors that journey and the difficulties the girls experience along the way. A couple of the story's most appealing aspects come out of the pacing and sturdy structure. The cartoonists take the time to establish the appeal of its characters and the setting in a more classic fantasy fashion than a lot of works that assume a knowledge of those tropes and attempt to riff on them. Home is here. The adventure is right over there. The appeal is a different world than one's own, but that doesn't mean the original world is unlovely or unsatisfying. The key suggests a connection between a personal and public past, perhaps not always examined, and how that has an effect on the right now and one's future. These are simple pleasures, but the way they're presented here they're at least believably sumptuous ones.
This replica version of Laurence Hyde's 1951 wordless narrative told in multiple wood engravings has to be among the most handsome mountings of any such project, with a striking hardcover, beautiful scans, and scads of supplementary material. I just wish there was a little more to Hyde's story of a family of twice-over victims of American nuclear testing in a Bikini Atoll-type situation. A lot of other wood-engraved narratives of this type achieve a level of interest not just for the artistry involved but for the way they visually mix in with whatever story's being told something of the abstract states of mind, or religious impulses or even political ideas being bandied about. This is just an enormously blunt, TV-ready story dripping in cliches set up to cuff in the head an equally blunt, inhumane policy dancing around an obvious evil. The story's stridency may have been fueled by the massive burden a lot of artists felt processing in a moral sense an ugly war less than a decade completed while at the same time trying to make sense of a new war that was being conducted in every demeaning, draining way except for theaters of combat. The best portions of Southern Cross are found in three or four lovely sequences, my favorite being an elegant sweep back and away from the island as it's abandoned and then subjected to a test. A lot of the scene-setting tableaux are also worth it, if just to examine the various ways in which Hyde casts foreground and background objects against one another. Still, unless there's some level of complexity to this I'm simply not able to see, I would have to label Southern Cross a pretty, immaculately presented disappointment.
A lot of comics cross my desk. While I'm pleased by a great many of them, I'm surprised by very few. The biggest surprise in recent memory came just a couple of weeks ago in the form of T Edward Bak's Fall release from Bodega, Service Industry. I missed out on both the serial version and the mini-comics version of this work, and I think my sole exposure to Bak's comics was his crude but energetic contribution to the Victorian horror anthology Orchid. I was therefore unprepared for the visually engaging cartooning, smart writing and formal playfulness of the new, over-sized publication. I read it three times in a row. A mix of autobiography touching on the cartoonist's time working in restaurants, fantasy and polemic, Bak leaps back and forth between settings and storytelling modes with ease and grace. It's a solidly crafted and narratively compelling comic book, done in an idiosyncratic style that distinguishes it from other works of its type. I dream of a world of constant discoveries like this one. By the end of the book, I was thrilled to add to my list yet another cartoonist I plan on following for a good, long time. 
TOM SPURGEON: Am I right in thinking you're some sort of artist-in-residence at CCS? 
SPURGEON: One of your more striking icons is the skeletal angel. Where did that come from? 
* go, buy: today's New York Times Book Review has a piece on Shortcomings that kind of ignores entirely the fact that it's a comic book, which is an amazing thing if you read a lot of these kinds of reviews. If like me you read many publications of this type while standing in a grocery store or in the aisles of a big-box bookstore, the page looks like that image at right but a lot bigger. I'd blow it up into legibility, but that would be stealing.
They're blunt about why, too: 
I'm guessing that this short book from cartoonist Alex Holden featuring his Magic Hour milieu is more something that was put together for the festivals than a continuation of the title itself. However, I rather like the way this mini is put together as a comic. Adding a number of black and white sketches of city scenes that look like they're depicting roughly the same places the stories are set give the book depth and texture; the sketches sort of provide additional commentary on the Magic Hour concept of monsters and creatures standing in for strange people in the neighborhood perceived by kids as being different. It adds another level of reality, almost like a still photo that takes us into a period movie. 
King Features Syndicate announced yesterday it has committed $100,000 to establish a scholarship named after it former Editor-In-Chief Jay Kennedy, who had been at the company from 1988 until his drowning death earlier this year. The fund will be administered by the Foundation of the National Cartoonists Society. The award will be given out during the Reuben Awards, held at the yearly National Cartoonists Society convention, which the recipient will attend. The syndicate plans additional fund-raising. Contributions can be made by addressing a check to the National Cartoonists Society Foundation and mailing ito to National Cartoonists Society Foundation, Attention: Donations, 341 N. Maitland Avenue, Suite 130, Maitland, FL 32751-4761.
I'm not sure I'm capable of providing a decent review of Popeye. I consider the Popeye run of E.C. Segar's strip one of the towering achievements in comics. In fact, I like so many aspects of it that for me to discuss why tends to end up with my pointing at stuff and saying "awesome" a lot, like an Ed Helms sketch that was funnier in dress. I still want to point people in direction of the imminent second Fantagraphics hardcover collection, as it contains some of the greatest humor comics of all time. This includes the mighty King Blozo sequence "The Great Rough-House War," about a half-dozen of those exquisite Sundays centered around some horrifically violent prizefight, and a surprising number of effective jokes starring Olive Oyl (like Marge Simpson, she tends to be at her most amusing when having to function while angry). The introductory material balances Mort Walker and his killer piece of fan art with a thoughtful essay by Donald Phelps that features among several points driven home in the critic's looping prose a grand description of the extent to which Segar staged his comics over designing them.
It's a position for which it's easy to find a great deal of sympathy. Beyond the principle of the matter, Wood like many creators tends to work in an area of comics where someone not figuring in 2500 in reorders can change the entire picture of how his projects are doing. If that fact, or the reporting of that fact, costs him any traction in any comic shops, that's an unfortunate thing. Avoidable, too. Further, Wood appears totally cognizant that a lot of this could be solved if the publishers made accurate sales information available, either generally or to a specific agency, but seems to be saying just because there's frustration with the lack of better information, it shouldn't mean he has to suffer unfairly. I agree with him.
My main objection would be historical fudging or willfully looking the other way. Let's take a big one. McLean says, "Of course, that kind of runaway growth couldn't be sustained, and the crash was so hard that its repercussions are still being felt." It's the "of course" part that grates. Making the slow late '90s/ early '00s sales wheeze part of a natural cycle absolves all of the abuse that Image heaped on a market that had never seen a publisher that popular and that erratic, abuses which were charted in excellent fashion by a young Eric Reynolds, and can be testified to by store owners that were wounded, some critically, by the cash flow problems caused by late arriving books and books of dubious quality. It also ignores stuff like the shortsighted, key decision that Image made to give the market over to a Diamond whose primary policies were going to be shaped by the deals they made with a few power companies; thanks, Image. Other areas where I'd have issues in a historical sense is that many of the creators who McLean casts in the light of making a move for creators rights turned right around and were doing work for hire themselves before too long, from both directions; I don't really remember Marvel and DC hiring a bunch of Image imitators any more than it's usual for popular creators to have imitators (DC in fact was pretty conservative art-wise through the mid-'90s); and the Image founders benefited from being made names by companies who saw value in creating names; they can be hostile places to creators in the end, and may value the company over the creator, but not because they see absolutely no value in the creator. I think they've long seen that as a commodity as well.
With so many titles out right now, it doesn't take much for a book to slip out of one's interest based on a facile, surface evaluation that has little to do with the work as fully experienced at a later date. What I knew about Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard's Rock Bottom from its accompanying press speak and a couple of flip-throughs indicated a skewed version of the hard-skin superhero story. This includes the hero's dismay at finding his body transformed, observations how this might have an effect on the details of day to day living, dangling metaphors in terms of how that thick outer covering bears relation to his own relationships with other people (or hardening heart), passages where we see how the affliction changes the people around the protagonist, and even the rescue of a small boy from an oncoming car. And it is all of those things; in fact, I think Rock Bottom's big negative is that Casey and Adlard don't go far enough away from a basic gruff redemption storyline that the outcome of the story is ever in doubt, or its details ever fully surprising. This may be a reflection of the book's preoccupation with mortality, in that when people die it's usually right out there in front of them and not something they get to avoid, but I think it's still a failing. As much as the book spends time on hospital policy or the change state of mind from its rock musician lead, those sequences lack a comparable payoff or richness of experience. If all you remember are the affecting moments, you may recall a Rock Bottom 16 pages long.
Norris provided his clients a clean, stripped-down version of the adventure comic strip style popular at the time, maybe halfway between the energy of the best comic book artists and the ornate, illustrative beauty of the most popular strip cartoonists. His career after a stint in the military at the end of World War II began to reflect those skills, although before joining the service he was briefly a part of PM's powerful strip line-up. Norris split time between being a substitute on King Features strips before settling in on Brick Bradford, and a comic book artist whose specialty seemed to be adventure comics, many featuring such strip characters, primarily at Dell and then eventually Western.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I missed Satrapi during her round of quickie New York sitdowns back in October. I had to settle instead for a quickie phone interview a few weeks later. The following transcript is taken from that interview, conducted for a mini-profile that ran in the NYC newspaper I work for, 
The bottom half of 
TOM SPURGEON: Rick, can I get a snapshot of what you're working on now, and what you have out? It seems like you've had a ton of material out in the last several months. Can you locate where you are exactly with Army@Love and the various King Hell projects?
SPURGEON: Do you feel as busy and productive as all of that looks? Like with Abraxas and the Earthman finally being collected, did you make a decision to simply have a lot more work out there?
The trick, for me at least, has always been to find the right niche where I can follow my own muse and retain some sort of equity. That's why you see me over at Epic doing The One, or at Tundra doing Brat Pack and The Maximortal, or at Image doing 1963, or self publishing Rare Bit Fiends, or right now at Vertigo doing Can't Get No and Army@Love. Sure, I had to do a few things like 
VEITCH: 
SPURGEON: Was it your idea to put all those quotes on the first trade of Army@Love [pictured at the top of this article]? Assuming it's yours, do you have a general approach to design or do you look at things project to project? The Army@Love covers kind of remind me of Brat Pack in that a human figure or two tends to be portrayed front and center but in addition to being a typical character-based comic book cover the image embodies some sort of satirical point.
I thought they did a particularly nice job with making as clear as possible the distinction Stan Lee was referring to as he emphasized the idea over the execution. That's not an idea everyone always gets, and they laid the groundwork so that an average, attentive listener would understand instantly what was in question. Plus, they used Ditko's own one-page comic on the matter, and I always thought Ditko sounded rational on that point. The most interesting thing about the interview with Lee was the former Marvel head honcho's regret at actually speaking his mind over how he feels giving the co-creator credit. It proved Ditko right on an objection about the word "considered" that was initially played as an unreasonable concern on Ditko's part, and revealed a lot about how much this extended controversy has worn on Lee, I think.
I am far from the natural audience for what some people call abstract comics, others call garbage, and I'd probably describe as comics that eschew representational art and progressive narratives for a gathering of drawings that emphasize a range of qualities within the drawings themselves and an arrangement that may not encourage story. Even typing that out made my head hurt. However, as much my taste might run elsewhere, I adore the fact that books like Tommi Musturi's Concrete Floor exist and I love getting a chance to read them every opportunity I can. Because of comics' history with commercially-driven restrictions and its recent legacy of modeled artistic excellence that inspires on an almost case to case basis, both factors that encourage many artists to reach after previously existing ways of doing comics, reading a book consisting of nothing but wild drawings can sabotage our expectations regarding what makes good comics art, even underlining a comic's visual component in terms of communicating information, a feel, emotional subtext. Books like this serve as a palate cleanser, a way of challenging the reader within to make sense of art beyond its nostalgic appeal and a feeling of what goes where.
A Tuesday afternoon entry at 
![[John] Tenniel](http://www.childscapes.com/jpegs/allnew/1115%20john%20tenniel.jpg){kind=link}
