People Are Writing About Others’ Comics

"What really makes Sloth haunting, though, is Hernandez's artwork. In his other books (including his previous graphic novel, Luba: The Book of Ofelia, published only a few months ago), he's usually gotten over on his mastery of exaggeratedly 'cartoony' facial expressions and body language, and his gift for finding individual images that encapsulate an entire scene. For this book, though, he's developed a new drawing style, built around patterns and textures made by meticulous stippling and compulsively repeated brush strokes. Every page has its own dominant visual motif, a way of suggesting shade and depth that alters the story's tone and pacing -- sometimes it's even echoed in the design on the hat that one character wears." -- Douglas Wolk at Salon on the best of this summer's trade onslaught.

"We're meant to see Edison as a mutant, at least initially, a specter of something appealing. The presumably desired effect is binary repulsion, first at Edison for his physical iniquities, then at ourselves for conflating fact with meaning. Conversely, Edison sees the world around him as breathtakingly clinical. It's a heartbreaking condition, one that remains intangible throughout the book. You continue to sense that there's something wrong with Edison (other than his appearance), but it's difficult to say what. At some point it becomes clear that his problem is the same as yours, presumably, an inability to appreciate the nature of things beyond what they appear to be. The Ticking is scattered with Edison's drawings, careful diagrams of his environment, cross sections of a little world." -- Chris Tamarri's lengthy interpretation of Renee French's The Ticking (Top Shelf).

"The problem is the wordplay isn't quite as peppy (or bountiful) as before, and the action is colored a bit too dimly (Lovern Kindzierski handles the lion's share of the hues, though letterer Peter Doherty steps in to 're-jig' a single page). I understand that this is an affirmative creative choice, as the issue's final page brings up back up into the sunset and fully popping hue, but I couldn't help but feel the dankness of the beast's belly was overpronounced to the point of detracting from the all-important action." -- Jog on issues of 52 and Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman).

"My theory is that Hawkman got really drunk on Thanagarian ale one night while he was waxing his chest and he decided to try to shape his eyebrows. He fucked up and ended up giving himself creepy thin Joan Crawford eyebrows, and had to wear this helmet to cover them up. Can you imagine all the crap Green Arrow would give Hawkman if he had girly eyebrows?" -- David Campbell on The New Teen Titans #19 (DC Comics, 1982).

"Despite the lack of respect given most of these authors -- Spurgeon has some acclaim for Goodwin and Moore, but more often credits the others for popularity and sales rather than skill or individual styles -- one thing that does come through in the book is that these writers, to a man, come off as more thoughtful than nearly any current comics writer, though whether some of the blame lies in TCJ rarely doing interviews with superhero comics writers anymore, leaving it to lesser magazines and fawning websites is certainly an argument that can be made. -- Chris Allen on my own The Comics Journal Library Volume 6: The Writers (Fantagraphics Books).
 
posted 4:04 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives