The Long and Shortbox Of It!

Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 17:49:00 +0000

Hi all. I'm sorry I've been away-- finals are here and I've needed a little time to focus on some other stuff. Back soon.

Wednesday's New Things: Open Rebellion

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 18:53:00 +0000

This is the week we take what's ours. Click on the covers for a preview, where I could find one.

Convergence #1, written by Jeff King and Scott Lobdell, art by

Carlo Pagulayan and Jason Paz, colors by Peter Steigerwald

I've bought only a few DC comics since the relaunch, which is now approaching the four year mark, and I haven't exactly been quiet about what I think about the general quality of those books, which is to say that they're largely bad. This linewide Convergence event pits characters from different iterations and eras against each other and was necessitated by the publisher's ongoing move to the West Coast, though, does have the potential to be a little fun. In some ways, the kinds of comics being put out here-- much like the comics that Marvel will put out during Secret Wars a few months from now-- are my favorite kinds of superhero comics, remixes of characters and ideas into something recognizable but different. This kind of recycling is precisely what superhero comics do well, and here there are actually stakes within stories because the stakes involved in publishing are so unbelievably low-- this event is going to do whatever kind of business it does, since it'll only run for two months, and then it'll be over and there won't be any consequences. It's a quick, broad version of Marvel's old Exiles series, great because it's fun to see what creators come up with when the editorial reigns are a little looser. I may try out a couple of these books if any catch my fancy-- and the Chip Kidd variants do look good. At $5, though, I'll leave the main event book on the shelf.

All-New Hawkeye #2, written by Jeff Lemire, drawn by Ramon Perez, colored by Ramon Perez and Ian Herring

This is a good comic book, everything I hoped it would be. Lemire is running a kind of two-stories-at-the-same-time gig, something he's been experimenting with for a while, and it allows the book to run at two emotional registers at the same time. One of the reasons it works so well is that Perez is drawing the hell out of the both stories and in much different styles. Unlike the similar thing they've been trying on Bucky Barnes, though the two styles aren't so wildly different as to be jarring, with the more traditional superhero comics pages united with the dreamy flashbacks through, most prominently, the color palate. Looking forward to more of this one.

Jupiter's Circle #1, written by Mark Millar and Wilfredo Torres

A spinoff of Millar's much delayed collaboration with Frank Quitely, Jupiter's Legacy, this is a retro-styled styled comic with relatively simple art sporting flat colors, which makes explicit reference to the old Superfriends cartoon, the kind of intertextual element that's supposed to point you to a certain way of feeling about the book, which, presumably Millar will then juxtapose with a fair amount of sex, drugs, and other adult stuff. From the preview, it's got a similar effect to the Criminal: Last of the Innocent mini, which takes a similar perspective on Archie, transforming those comics into a site of everything Frederich Wertham was afraid of. This is therefore slightly less trod ground than the kind of superhero realism Millar is trying with this book's parent, at least insofar as it's work is formal as well as narrative; I think it might work better.

Nameless #3, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Chris Burnham, colors by Nathan Fairbairn

Rebels #1, written by Brian Wood, drawn by Andrea Mutti, Jordi Bellaire

I haven't read a book by Brian Wood in a while, but I remember liking DMZ a fair bit, at least in the early going. As an American Studies grad studies currently TAing for the first half of the American cultural history survey, this one may prove a little too hard to resist. Probably I'll spring for the first issue, just to see if I might want to try it in trade, later.

Wednesday's New Things: It's a Hit!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:00:00 +0000

This week, crime comics next big thing is back... click on covers for a preview, where my cursory googling could find one

Hit: 1957 #1, written by Bryce Carlson, art by Vanesa Del Rey, colors by Nikos Guardia, letters by Ed Dukeshire

Hit was one of my favorite books from 2013, a worthy, if a stylistically stilted, entry into the crime comics genre drawn by then-new comer Vanesa Del Rey, whose super thin line and hyper awareness of shape was the real attraction. Set in Los Angeles, it's got clear vibes from Chandler and Chinatown, which could have been a real stretch, but the book worked, enough that I think it's one of the great crime comics of the last few years. Having retroactively titled that book Hit: 1955, Boom's brought the series back as Hit: 1957, I guess with the idea being that it'll move forward in time, sort of a Mad Men gimmick. As before, even if this genre doesn't do it for you like it does for me, take a peek for the sake of Del Rey. I could look at her art forever, and comics can only be better when such a talented artist is a proven sale.

The Autumnlands #5, written by Kurt Busiek, art by Ben Dewey, colors by Jordie Bellaire, letters by Comicraft

The Empty #2, by Jimmie Robinson

They're Not Like Us #4, written by Eric Stephenson, drawn by Simon Gane, colors by Jordie Bellaire, letters by Fonografiks

The Wicked and the Divine #9, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

A quartet of quality books from Image this week. Autumnlands has been quietly very good, particularly since Busiek dumped some of the details that were a little too cute from the first issue. A sprawling fantasy piece of the first order, it's worth a looksee if you like Redwall or a politically oriented, vaguely retrofuturist kind of fantasy. The Empty is worthwhile, although the first issue was a little inconsistent and very on the nose; I'm interested to see where it goes. They're Not Like Us is a neat deconstructionist riff on the X-Men, and, although it's surprising to say this since superhero deconstruction is thirty years old, it's pretty fresh. I've been wanting to write about a particular physical element of that book that I really love, so maybe this week's the week I do that, and it may also be the week I write about how crazy issue #8 of WicDiv was. After largely avoiding the formalism that made Young Avengers so interesting, Gillen and McKelvie went all out last issue. Even if this book doesn't feel as vital as their work sometimes does, I'm all in here, particularly if they're headed back towards forward formal thinking.

Past Aways #1, written by Matt Kindt, drawn by Scott Kollins, colors by Bill Crabtree

Something sort of fun from Dark Horse, a sort of Booster Gold-style time travel story, with an exploring the past kind of angle. Parts of it seem a little trite, but Scott Kollins's art is simple and slick, and the colors are bold. Writer Matt Kindt is always best when he's working as his own artist (and his art is really something), but its good to seem him get work like this.

Nemo: River of Ghosts, written by Alan Moore, drawn by Kevin O'Neill

New Alan Moore is always news (did you hear we're finally going to see his million word novel Jerusalem? Can you imagine holding the damn thing?! In hardcover?! Coming 2016). I'm really pleased that he's still playing in the League of Extraordinary Gentleman sandbox; in some ways, Moore's real talent is for taking the elements of mainstream superhero comics, tearing them down to their base parts, moving them around or redressing them, and then turning something recognizable and also somehow unrecognizable back out into the world. I would have figured that he was bored with that by now, but there's something about doing patchwriting with literature that keeps him going, and I'm very glad for it.

Wednesday's New Things: Trapped In A Blog He Never Made!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:44:00 +0000

It's a slow week, so I'm going to get the duck on with it already. Click for a preview, where I could find one.

Howard the Duck #1, written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Joe Quinones, colors by Rico Renzi

I think that Howard the Duck may be the hero my generation needs. Trapped in a world we never made? Check. Have to endure articles about how terrible we are based in part on lazy reporters looking in the wrong place? Also check. In fact, I think what we really might need is Steve Gerber's version of the character but, in Chip Zdarsky, we've got someone who's interpretation is going to be anywhere from passable to good. Zdarsky, who came to prominence working with Matt Fraction on Sex Criminals, has a very well developed sense of humor and comically exaggerated, probably affected, sense of self importnace that leads him to do things like throw his own little convention, dedicated to himself, in a Toronto park. He is, in other words, more or less the perfect person to write a contemporary Howard the Duck. Some of the jokes in the preview do fall a little flat, but I think they'll probably play better in a form that's got actually context and flow, unlike a comic book preview. And he might need a few issues to get his sea legs anyway; this book, more than most, probably needs an investment of a few issues before deciding whether or not to keep pulling it. Joe Quinones's art is good, relatively simple and straight cartooning, but lacking the design influenced and retro style of Paolo Rivera, Javier Pulido or Marcos Martin. In a good example of form following function, though, Quinones's cartoony style does sign a particular kind of humor and irreverence even if, like Zdarksy, he might need a couple of issues to get his sea legs.

The Surface #1, written by Ales Kot, drawn by Langdon Foss, colors by Jordie Bellaire, letters by Clayton Cowles

Ales Kot, who seems to have exploded into comics 18 months ago or so and just taken off since then, is working here with his Bucky Barnes colleague Langdon Foss, who's straight style, sort of like the vaguely Euro-look of Frank Quitely or Nick Pitarra but with a smoother line, is weirdly matched with Marco Rudy's experimentation on that book. Here, they're working on a soft sci-fi/hacking adventure story set in Africa, which seems like it's worth a look.

Southern Cross #1, written by Becky Cloonan, drawn by Andy Belanger, colors by Lee Loughridge

Wednesday's New Things: The Man From Essex County

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 18:30:00 +0000

A rare small week. Click on the covers for previews, where I could find one.

Descender #1, written by Jeff Lemire, art by Dustin Nguyen

All-New Hawkeye #1, written by Jeff Lemire, art by Ramon Perez

Two new books from cartoonist extraordinaire Jeff Lemire, who seems to have settled in to the role of mainstay mainstream funny book writer quite nicely. The sci-fi Descender is the heir to his creator owned Sweet Tooth and Trillium books and seems, in particular, to pick up on the themes of the latter. He's working with Dustin Nguyen, who has painted all of the art. Painting seems like a sort of weird strategy for attacking sci-fi and, in general, I find painted art to be static and ugly, but Nguyen's is beautiful, and subtle, adding a soft atmosphere and has a nice texture. That it's dissonant with the tone of the scene in the preview only serves to make that scene that much eerier. More interesting, if only because it's kind of out of left field, is Lemire's All-New Hawkeye. The series that he's following, Matt Fraction and David Aja's very well regarded Hawkeye, has been released at inconsistent intervals since about six months in, and isn't concluding until next month. Despite it's frustrating pace, Fraction and Aja's work is very well liked, in part because it's about how unglamorous super heroics can be; in terms of genre, its an espionage cloak covering a story about what happens when Marvel's vaunted man on the street happens to be so skilled at one particular thing that he can use it for good. It's also deeply, deeply engaged with comics as a form, with the extraordinarily talented artists Aja and Annie Wu, along with colorist Matt Hollingsworth, breaking the form and putting it back together on a semi-regular basis. Thankfully, Marvel seems to have figured out that it's not just the character that's bringing people to the book, and by tapping Lemire and artist Ramon Perez (the kind of worthwhile and intriguing creator choices they were making a year ago before abruptly pulling up), they've put themselves in a position to maintain a fair bit of the audience they've built up. Perez's art is slick and cartoony, with a little bit of Bruce Timm influence, and Lemire is well aware that this book plays to his strengths, which are more in the realm of thick characterization than in traditional superheroics. Part of the book is going to be flashbacks to Clint Barton's childhood and about his relationship with his brother Barney, which makes me hopeful that what we're getting is the other side of Lemire's work on Essex County, just with the Marvel insignia on the front cover. If, in fact, that's what's in store, then we'll have a transcendent comic book on our hands, the fulfillment of Lemire's promise as a writer of mainstream comic books.

Big Man Plans (1 of 4), written by Eric Powell and Tim Weisch, art by Eric Powell

The Goon's (man, I just love the Goon) Eric Powell turning his attention to a more or less straight crime comic? That's something sweet.

The Shaolin Cowboy: Shemp Buffet, by Geoff Darrow with colors by Dave Stewart

Princess Leia #1, written by Mark Waid, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Rachel Dodson, colors by Jordie Bellaire

Wednesday's New Things: It's Just Criminal

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 15:17:00 +0000

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's finest series returns. Click the cover for a preview, where I could find one.

Criminal: Special Edition One Shot/Criminal: Savage Edition Magazine Variant, written by Ed Brubaker, drawn by Sean Phillips, colors by Elizabeth Breitweiser

If this new issue of Criminal were the only comic book released this week, I would come home from my LCS a happy man. Criminal is my absolute favorite of the very long running and more or less uninterrupted-from-the-first series of collaborations between Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips; of all their work Criminal plays it the straightest. Even so, the most recent series, "The Last of the Innocent," was a riff on Archie comics, and it presaged their more recent work with genre experimentation in Fatale and the attempt at meta-Hollywood-melodrama in The Fade Out. I liked those recent series, but I've often wished they'd come back to Criminal and now, happily, they've done so, in a double length one-shot that comes smack dab in the middle of Image's lovely rereleases of the trade paperbacks. Perhaps most fun of all, Brubaker and Phillips return here to Teeg Lawless, a character that popped up in the series in its earliest iterations. The kernel of the idea here is that Lawless is in county lock up and reading a Savage Sword of Conan-style comic, something that Brubaker says he thought up after learning what kinds of comics were popular with prison populations in the 70s and 80s. Presumably, the two stories proceed together, which squares with the kind of experimentation that they've been doing over the last couple of years (and has fun resonances both with the earlier "Last of the Innocent" serial and Watchmen) but makes me pessimistic that we'll ever see Criminal comics that are quite like the early ones. There's also a neat publishing thing going on here, since the regular edition is being released alongside a slightly more expensive magazine sized edition, which presumably also has some extras. This is a gimmick they tried a few months ago with an issue of The Fade Out and, although I liked the idea, I passed because the magazine variant followed the regular edition by a couple of weeks, and I didn't want to pay for the same content twice. If the two editions are released together, however, (EDIT: both Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips tweeted at me to say that they came out on the same day; my mistake) I'll absolutely pony up the extra buck for the slightly bigger one. I hope that this strategy works; I'd like to see it more often. For what it's worth, I'd love to see more Criminal, too.

Love: The Tiger, written by Frédéric Brrémaud, drawn by Federico Bertolucci

This one's an award winner from France, totally wordless and the first in a series dealing with the life of an animal in a particular kind of environment. Written for an audience at the intersection of children and adults, it has the kind of charm that books meant for wide audiences often rely on. The art is very highly rendered, somehow both stiff and lithe, but it gives a real and detailed sense of the world of the tiger, which is what Bertolucci is probably going for. From the preview, the utter silence of the pages seems extraordinary, emphasizing what's going on in individual panels in away that more cartoony silent comics, like Jason's, don't manage (although, for Jason, that's not the point). I have hunch that, for that reason, this book, and the ones that follow in the Love series, are unusual reading experiences, certainly worth a look.

Prince Valiant #1, written by Nate Cosby, art by Ron Salas

I'm on the record as liking the idea of these King Features/Dynamite comics, and this Prince Valiant comic looks like the best of the bunch. As a corollary to WHO IS THIS COMIC FOR?! though, one wonders if it wouldn't have been a better idea, in terms of sales, to go full on Hal Foster, in order to bring in those who like the original Prince Valiant strip for its storybook feel, as well as for its content.

The Wicked and the Divine #8, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Coming Soon To A Spinner Rack Near You: Astro Boy

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 01:52:00 +0000

In September, Dark Horse is putting out a 700 page Astro Boy omnibus. 700 pages. Somehow, Amazon has the retail price listed at $20, which seems impossible, but, hey, I'm in. Tezuka is such an important creator, and Astro Boy is such a well known property, that I'm positive that this isn't the first time we've seen this work in English. I can't, however, ever recall actually seeing it in a comic book store, so I'm looking forward to cracking it open.

Wednesday's New Things: Gone Digital

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 20:30:00 +0000

Digital is a place. Or something. Click on the covers for previews, where I could find one.

Atomic Robo: The Kinghts of the Golden Circle, written by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener

Atomic Robo is a comic book I've always wanted to read. I mean, it's got adventuring robots and a dinosaur and it just looks like a lot of fun. In what longtime readers will recognize as a theme of this column, I just never got around to it. In part, that's because I was never really looking for it, but also because it wasn't really at hand--I would have had to go looking for it--and so I never gave it a shot. But this release is the last time that's going to be a problem since, as of mid-January, the Atomic Robo team has ditched their publisher and gone totally digital, using the webcomic model. They're in the process of uploading all of the previously released content, at the rate of about three issues a week, and they'll say that'll put them in a position to start releasing new stuff sometime in mid-May. This is the only time I've heard of someone doing something like this, the transition usually goes the other way and is rarely a total one, but I think it has the potential to expand their readership exponentially, putting it within the reach of many more hands (or, in this case, cursors). It's a pretty bold strategy, although probably a cost effective one insofar as it drastically reduces costs and has the potential, with exposure, to actually increase physical circulation. It's certainly an interesting alternative to the comixology strategy of digital archiving, insofar as they're betting on the community of the internet. It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them, and if anyone follows suit. In the meantime, there's robots and dinosaurs-- what's not to like?

She-Hulk #12, written by Charles Soule, art by Javier Pulido

This book was one of the good ones, a memory of a moment just a year ago when Marvel was combining good concepts with talented writers and dynamic artists to make a bunch of really good comic books. Not all the books are gone, but the company has moved on, and, although there's no more definitive sign of that than the upcoming notareboot, the end of She-Hulk, which was announced first, certainly felt like a mortal wound to any hope that that moment was going to have any real duration. The economics of comics are what they are, but it's a real shame, if not necessarily an indictment of anyone, that we're going to lose this super smart, super well drawn comic book.

Black Widow #15, written by Nathan Edmondson, art by Phil Noto

Multiversity: Master Men #1, written by Grant Morrison, art by Jim Lee

Bitch Planet #3, written by Kelly Sue Deconnick, art by Valentine De Landro

The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw #4, written by Kurt Busiek, art by Ben Dewey and Jordie Bellaire

Wednesday's New Things: The Shortest Distance Between Point A and Point B, No Matter How Far You've Gone

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 17:30:00 +0000

Let's get mathy...

Displacement by Lucy Knisley

I had the good fortune to read this book's twin, An Age of License, just after the new year. That book is about what happens after we grow up, and Displacement is its other side, what happens when our loved ones grow old. Knisley's work, delicately colored and generally free of the visual structure provided by panels, has an easy touch, but also hits right where it hurts-- something about just how diagrammatic it is, something about how all the open space draws you in, something about her inward focus, makes for very effective memoir, like Lucy Knisley's books are, more or less, guides to being Lucy Knisley. I'm looking forward to this one. Preview here.

The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

I'll let McCloud speak for himself, except to say that I would put money down on The Sculptor being a quality read.

Help Us! Great Warrior by Madeleine Flores, colors by Trillian Gunn

Speaking of McCloud, one of the things he talked about on Sunday, something I didn't write about yesterday, was the fact that, for aspiring cartoonists, putting your work out online is never a bad idea. If it's good, if it's interesting, if people like it, then either companies will come calling or you'll be able to put the work out yourself. Help Us! Great Warrior is a good example; formerly a webcomic, Flores has recently been working for Nickelodeon, and also managed to get Boom to put out her sweet and funny comic in physical format. Seems like a win win.

The Empty by Jimmie Robinson

It's curious that comics haven't really embraced the trends that have emerged from YA literature over the last decade or so and then proliferated into television and movies, notably dystopian fiction and vampires. You see bits and pieces, here and there, and, as the eighties showed, any world with superheroes in it is, in one respect or many, a dystopian one. Jimmie Robinson's The Empty doesn't quite fit in with that paradigm, seeming to align more in tone with sci-fi comics like Prophet and Saga, but, from the preview, it does seem to share the deep darkness and cynicism of the former genre. I've never read Robinson's long running Bomb Queens, but The Empty, with its wide open imagination and its melodramatic beats, seems like its worth a look.

Satellite Sam, written by Matt Fraction, art by Howard Chaykin

Satellite Sam's third act is upon us. In some ways, I think the television murder mystery represents the positive side of a shift, as of maybe 18 months ago, to a later stage in Matt Fraction's career, in which he's only working on projects he really cares about (and, not coincidentally, that are largely creator owned). This book, too, has grown up a lot-- I found Chaykin's black and white art hard to follow in the beginning, and several of the characters hard to tell apart, but he quickly straightened everything out. I've been trade waiting this one; I think perhaps it's time to catch up.

Darth Vader #1, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Salvador Lorroca, color by Edgar Delgado

The great licensing comic conundrum returns! Gillen is usually an auto buy for me, although this is the second of his recent comics about which I'm unsure (the first being Angela: Asgard's Assassin). I have no doubt that this comic is good, and I bet Sal Lorroca's sheen is perfect for it, but at $4.99 I think I'll see if I can't read someone else's copy. Preview here.

The Cartoonist and The Sculptor

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 18:00:00 +0000

I was so engrossed I only remembered to take one picture!
That's McCloud on the right.

This past Sunday, Scott McCloud came to Austin Books and Comics.

He was, unsurprisingly, gregarious, and very funny. The afternoon was a Q+A moderated by the Austin Chronicle's Wayne Allen Brenner, who also did an interview that ran in the alt-weekly last week. The Q+A, like the interview, was wide ranging, with Brenner asking McCloud to return to and elaborate on several themes and specific questions from their earlier conversation. The early going was taken up with a discussion of McCloud's imminent graphic novel, The Sculptor, a project he's been working on for about a half a decade. Using powerpoint, he shared with us his all digital workflow, which, at the thumbnail stage, includes sequences many pages long. This setup, he says, prevents him from getting "hung up on a given page" and enables him to see the forward flow more clearly. It also makes for an easier revision process, allowing him to move pieces around-- or take them out-- like sentences or paragraphs in a word processor. Using photoshop further allows him to draw layers on top of layers, he estimated an average of 40 per drawing, making complex illustration easier to do, undo, or redo. Ultimately, McCloud says, he likes digital because it allows him to stay focused on his work all day, getting caught up on the art rather than the tools that he uses to make that art. The only time he ever prints the sequences out is to see the whole flow-- and he does that at a very small size.

This idea of a comic's flow, and flow's relation to length, seems central to McCloud's thinking these days-- he spent a lot of time talking about how American comics are limited by the 22 page average. Citing his friend Kurt Busiek, he called that standard "the original sin of American comics," and suggested that the industry made a mistake half a century ago when it chose to keep prices steady rather than keep page count high (the idea that we might have even had a choice, that it was one or the other and not both, now seems utopian). As McCloud describes it, this compression has lead to a problem where both words and pictures are used as shorthands, with art talking precedence over characterization and words used as a short cut to the kinds of description proper to the juxtapositional grammar of comics. Later, during audience questions, he said that he believes that this is why we get the same stories over and over; there's only so many things that "fit in the shoebox." Comics that are longer have more room to breathe, and both elements of the invisible art become more effective, and you get an entire page of a character coming to a realization or actually get to work out the rhythm of a conversation--silences, essential to any natural talk, are impossible when every panel needs to be action packed.

With this in mind, and with prompting from Brenner, he praised several creators. Most notably, he cited David Aja's work on Hawkeye, saying that the Spaniard's work with Fraction on that series represents nothing less than a deconstruction of the form of the 22 page comic (which, I think, we can generally understand as superhero-length) in order to try find a way around some of the problems with that duration. He also mentioned Jillian and Mariko Tamaki's This One Summer ("it's like virtual reality, you just plunge right in") and James Sturm's Market Day, which he called "bulletproof" even as he described it as a story about a rug merchant having trouble selling his rugs. He finally turned to Raina Telgemeier, whom he praised in both formal and cultural terms, saying that she solves the compression problem by giving every emotion a panel, while also putting her at the vanguard of a group of young, largely female, fans who have comics for childhood and adulthood and every step in between. This group, McCloud says, is charging over the hill-- "in nine years, the industry will be majority female."

That last little bit was, I think, the most important of the afternoon, in both its generalities and its specifics. At this point, McCloud is an optimist before all else, and what he sees in a medium constantly in the process of reinventing itself is infinite possibility, much like the infinite time and infinite space signed by the gutter.

I'm very much looking forward to reading The Sculptor.

Wednesday's New Things: The Goon Runneth Over

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:28:00 +0000

Man, I just love the Goon...

The Goon: Once Upon A Hard Time #1 by Eric Powell

In Eric Powell's recent Reddit AMA, he suggested that things were about to change for the Goon:

Once Upon a Hard Time is the climax to everything I’ve done in the Goon so far. In fact, it may be the last story entitled “the Goon” I ever do. The mythology I’ve created will keep going. But I’m creating new characters to interact with the old ones, shifting barely used characters to the limelight, and putting everyone in different environments. The next mini-series I do involving this mythology will have a different title and will feature a large cast of characters including several who survive the last Goon series.

All that's very exciting, but I'll be a little sad if this is the last we see of him. I'm way behind, and now seems like a good time to catch up on what I've missed, maybe even to fill up my bookshelf and start from the beginning. I just love the Goon.

Love and Rockets New Stories #7 by Gilbert Hernandez and Jamie Hernandez

As always, Los Bros speak for themselves.

Nameless #1, written by Grant Morrison, art by Chris Burnham

It's good to see that Morrison and Burnham, who together concluded Morrison's Batman, Inc. story line, are still working together. Although is a little unfair to Burnham, I think part of the reason that Morrison likes working with him is that he works with a thin, hairy line that makes color is the dominant art element on the page, a style that very closely resembles Frank Quitely's (with one of the differences being that the colors in Quitely's work are often slightly darker and more muted than the ones that Burnham uses). That style seems perfect for what Burnham has called "the ultimate horror comic," so the key here is going to be which Morrison shows up, which side of what Jon calls "cuckoopajamapants" is the book going to be on. The preview has me a little worried, but new Grant Morrison is always worth a look.

Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #1, by David Lapham

Saga #25, art by Fiona Staples, written by Brian K. Vaughn

Two Image series returning from short breaks, each of which I need to catch up on (well, in the case of Stray Bullets, which I need to read any of at all). The question, as always, is in what form?

Velvet #9, written by Ed Brubaker, drawn by Steve Epting, colors by Elizabeth Breitweiser

Velvet is the best espionage comic on the market right now. It just comes out... so... slowly...

Captain America: Fear Him #1, written by Dennis Hopeless, art by Simon Kudranski and Mast & Geoffo, colors by Andres Mossa

I thought I would always buy Captain America, but Rick Remender runs so hot and cold I just couldn't take it anymore (I think it was the issue long straw man argument between Captain America and Nuke that really did it in for me). I'm waiting out the rest of his run on the character before I give it another shot, which is too bad because I think putting Sam Wilson in the flag is a fun and interesting idea, and I expect by the time we get a new writer that we'll have Steve back to full strength That's why this is sort of exciting, even though I don't really like to buy mini series and the art looks a little goofy. I don't know if it's a buy. But it's certainly worth a look.

Jungle Jim #1, written by Paul Tobin, art by Sandy Jarrell

As part of a celebration of King Feature's hundredth birthday, Dynamite put together a small run of series featuring characters from the syndicate's strips, which I think is a pretty cool idea. I haven't seen any of these out in the world, and $3.99 seems like a lot for a comic book that seems to be largely written in the stilted dialogue register comic strip... but it also looks kinda nuts. If the trade is more reasonably priced, I think I'd like to give it a shot.

Atomic Size Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Way, way back, Veronica Berns and I went to high school together. Not for very long, mind you, since she was a senior when I was a freshman. Veronica has since gone on to do a lot of cool stuff, including getting a PhD in chemistry, turning her dissertation into a comic book in the process. That comic, Atomic Size Matters, is funding on kickstarter right now. She and I recently spoke about chemistry, comics, and grad school.

Josh Kopin: Before we get talking about your comic "Atomic Size Matters" itself, can you explain your graduate work and your dissertation project?

Veronica Berns: I'm a solid state chemist, and I did graduate work on the crystal structures of metals, that is, the way that atoms arrange themselves in solid compounds. The Fredrickson Group (the research group I did graduate work in) focuses on the complexity in intermetallics. It may be surprising, but we still don't have a good idea of why certain compounds form one arrangement over another. And we certainly don't have a good way to predict when a structure will be really simple or really complicated.

My project specifically dealt with the influence of atomic size on the resulting crystal structure. Intuitively, the size of one atom should impact the arrangements that it can make, but it turns out that is a really hard thing to test. So I did a lot of calculations to draw conclusions about the connection between size and structure. The project is ongoing, as other students have taken over, but my portion of the work culminated in a connection between a very simple compound called CaCu5, and an icsoahedral quasicrystal, a material that contradicts our definition of "crystal"; they have 5-fold rotational symmetry, but no translational symmetry. Quasicrystals are seemingly impossible materials, but they actually do exist! And their discoverer recently won a Nobel Prize in 2011.

JK: Writing a dissertation is a long and complicated process; why did you decide to do the extra work of turning your dissertation into a comic?

VB: You're right, writing a dissertation is really hard!

About a year before I intended to graduate, I thought about how long and complicated the dissertation writing process would be. And I thought about how much I loved my graduate work--I often stayed late at work not because I had a deadline (though I had plenty of those too!), but because I was lost in the joy of what I was doing and I would forget that I needed to sleep. Ultimately, I was excited about the prospect of creating a thesis, a document that would make all of my efforts tangible, but I was sad that my family wouldn't understand it. My field is really specialized, and the academic language we use is very efficient and necessary for talking to other experts, but those same academic words are admittedly impenetrable to most people who haven't studied chemistry since high school.
It started off as a fun thing to do for the benefit of a few people, and I ended up with a fairly long comic book. Yes, it was hard to do in addition to the work of writing a thesis, but it was ultimately worth it.

JK: Can you describe the differences between the two versions of your dissertation?

VB: There are a few differences. The dissertation covers more ground. There was just no way I could cover everything in a comic book. I chose the chapter with the broadest appeal to turn into a comic.
The dissertation goes into a lot of mathy detail about the programs that my colleagues (Kale Engelkemier and Yiming Guo) coded. I used those programs to run calculations, and then I drew conclusions about the results. Though the comic explains the gist of the calculations, it focuses more on the conclusions.

The dissertation also includes a few things completely left out of the comic. Though I did a lot of theoretical calculations, I also did experimental work: I mixed metals together to make the compounds we were thinking about. A few new compounds came out of those efforts, but nothing that connected to our work on icosahedral quasicrystals.

I should also point out that the comic book is actually the last chapter in the thesis itself. So soon the University of Wisconsin's esteemed library will include a silly drawing of me as a runway model.

JK: What did your committee think of the comic book, and how did they feel about it being included in your finished product?

VB: One of my committee members, when I handed him the thick, paper dissertation, immediately started thumbing through it. Suddenly he saw a flash of color, and had a very confused look on his face. So I explained the whole thing, and he giggled excitedly! He told me later how read that part with his school-age kids, and he was very impressed that they could follow what I was saying.
I didn't plan to mention the comic at my defense, but they brought it up first! Our department has open defenses, and my committee wanted me to show a few pages to my classmates who hadn't seen it before. They encouraged me to do something with it, and approved of the idea to self-publish on Kickstarter. I think one or two of them has even bought a copy!

JK: What, if anything, were the particular difficulties in the creation of Atomic Size Matters? Are those difficulties different to those you encounter trying to explain you work conversationally, or are they more or less the same?

VB: Ironically, it is difficult to remember the difficulties I had in making the comic. I know I struggled with simplifying certain concepts, but ultimately it was something I was doing for fun and at those times I would take a break, and return to the work later. What got me through the hard parts was thinking about a metaphor that my dad or mom would understand. Like I would revise the comic by asking myself, "What question would dad have after he read that?"

I think the difficult concepts are always difficult, no matter the medium. I see the comic as a practical substitute for having a face-to-face conversation with someone.

JK: Some comics makers, including Art Spiegelman, have described comics as essentially diagrammatic. What's the relationship between your work and more traditional chemical diagrams?

VB: I tried to incorporate as many traditional chemistry visualizations as possible. It was important to me for someone who reads the comic to be able to pick up one of my academic papers and look through the figures and say "Hmm, this looks familiar. Maybe reading this isn't going to be as difficult as it seems." I get very jazzed up about demystifying and making hard science less intimidating to people who don't think about that stuff daily.

A few examples of this are the diagrams of crystal structures, the Chemical Pressure plots, and the "Energy-distance diagram" that appears pretty early in the book. We draw these a lot, especially in chemistry classrooms, to talk about distances in a molecule.

JK: What parts of the book were particularly fun or challenging to make?

VB: There are a lot of Easter eggs in the book. Because I made it for my family and friends, I tried to put in a lot of stuff that would just make them laugh. I don't know how much I want to give away, but there's a spaceship from one of my favorite videogames and a famous internet cat that were really fun to draw. There's also a picture of me as Ron Burgundy, which was really fun too.

It was hardest to draw the Chemical Pressure diagrams. They obviously come from a computer program, but I was really set on making those in the style of the comic book. Oh man! Getting those the proper scale and shape was really rough! I scaled everything as accurately as possible, but every drop of ink you see is a drawing, not a computer generated image.

JK: Do you have any particular influences, even outside of comics in more traditional science writing?

VB: In my Kickstarter video I mention that I loved Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy as a kid. Obviously, those materials are geared towards a younger audience, but the spirit of them is something I would like to carry forward. Even if someone is a fan of dinosaurs or space travel or whatever as a kid, I think at some point most adults stop talking about science in an excited way. In high school or college, many people decide that they're never taking a science class again because they don't like it, or it is too hard. But that shouldn't stop the ideas from being exciting! There's so much out there that people are just learning right now, and it is all just as cool as T-rexes and triceratops. Figuring out how to present it is often a problem.

There's one episode of Radiolab called Tell Me a Story, where Robert Krulwich basically lays out an argument for talking about science in a graduation speech. I listened and relistened to that piece quite a few times when I was making the comic.

So anyway, I would say that I really respect that essence. I think Bill Nye has done some awesome work recently, especially with Neil deGrasse Tyson on Star Talk Radio and Cosmos. Though I read a lot of comic books and graphic novels, most of the influences on my art come from Sunday comics strips like Peanuts and Pearls Before Swine. A thick black line, bold color, and handwritten text.

JK: Do you think that the fact that comics are words and pictures working together in a particularly close way makes it a particularly useful medium for science writing?

VB: Yes! Whenever I'm talking about science--to either an expert or a novice--I rely heavily on pictures. I think most scientists do. It's natural to want to support your assertions with evidence, and that evidence is often a graph or an image. If you think about it, a really good power point presentation is basically a panel-by-panel view of a comic book: a few sentences that refer to an image on a slide is just like a panel with a caption.

I think comic books are a great way to explain a lot of things, beyond science. I'm just most able to talk about chemistry.

JK: Would you be willing to share what it is you're working on now that you're done with your PhD. program? Are you hoping to turn further research into comics as well, or to help other interested scientists do the same?

VB: I am a research scientist for a company called Honeywell. I can't really talk much about the materials that I make, but my day focuses on making things that have never been made before, and finding the most efficient way to make them.

I'm going to continue making comics, but my work now is confidential, so I'll be tackling other topics.

I would love it if more people made their work into comics. Even if it isn't a comic. Maybe someone is really good at music or creative writing or claymation, who knows! Forcing myself to think differently about my work had huge benefits--both in the lab and out-- and I think more people should try it out. And if they need help in any way, I'm available!

Line Wide Covers and Comic Shop Design

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:30:00 +0000

IGN has posted 40 variant covers for DC's upcoming Convergence event, each of which was put together by noted designer Chip Kidd. There's an interview, too, and Kidd mentions a few guiding principles-- the color blocks match up to the four color printing process and correspond to particular release weeks, the vintage art, a few other things. One of the more interesting choices he doesn't talk about is the way that the words relate to the pictures; the specific series title isn't always legible against the art, and the second half of the word "convergence" is always covered up, making the covers as a whole a little too dependent on iconographic recognition, in the first instance and prior knowledge, in the second. The burden for a new reader is a little high, for my taste, which means some of them fail as covers. On a purely visual level, some of them work better than others (the black works the best), at least on a computer screen. But, in general, I think they're pretty striking.

The last time I remember anyone doing any thing this design forward for a Big 2 comics was Rian Hughes's work on Iron Man: Disassembled. What's really different here is that Kidd's work for Convergence is line wide. If these were the main covers, the DC shelves at every comic book store in the country would be a sight for two whole months. That's the masterful bit of design here, that Kidd has designed the comics shop, as much as anything. It's a neat trick, and it points to something about the materiality of comics that we forget, that comics are things that we acquire and that the method of acquisition matters, at least a little. In terms of purchasing, if nothing else, I could see myself splurging on a couple of these, at least out of curiosity. It's a shame that the fact that they're variants means that they'll be hidden, and they're impact will be blunted. But maybe, just maybe, we'll see some more stuff like it in the future.

Wednesday's New Things: First Day of Class

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:30:00 +0000

My semester started yesterday. Here we go!

March: Book Two, written by Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, art by Nate Powell

My great regret, perhaps my only regret, about my time at ICAF last November was that I had to skip out of Columbus before a Saturday night presentation by Congressman Lewis, Aydin, and Powell, coincident with the Billy Ireland's excellent exhibit on comics and civil rights. Still, it's good to see the publication of the second volume of their (auto)biography of Lewis, drawn by Powell in really rich black and white tones. I think a book like this would have been widely acclaimed whenever it appeared, but I think its timing is particularly good-- the idea that the battle for civil rights didn't end in the sixties is becoming increasingly evident to people who aren't either activists or academics, and it will be interesting to see if the events of the last year or so will result in a different sort of reception for this book than the last one. Very short preview here.

Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell, by Jacques Tardi, adapted from the novel Ô Dingos! Ô Châteaux! by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated by Doug Headline

I've always wanted to read Jacques Tardi's adaptations of Jean-Patrick Manchette's crime novels, but for whatever reason I've just never gotten around to it. One time, in particular, I was determined to buy Like A Sniper Lining Up His Shot, so much so that I walked from the Angelika theatre on Houston Street to the Strand, only to learn that the book wasn't out yet. Tardi's clean, elastic lines are a real pleasure, and are of course the real draw here, but the story seems like its the kind of crime tale I love the best, the one that's just this side of absurd, played out by characters who are only caricatures when they need to be. It's interesting that Manchette gets equal billing with Tardi here, like they collaborated on the projected (they could have only done so with the help of a medium, as the former died in 1995). My hunch, and I've no way to back this up, is that Tardi must feel unusually indebted to the source material, perhaps even that he's working with or in Manchette's spirit. It would be interesting to read these adaptations alongside the original, and compare the way they were handled with the way, say, that Darwyn Cooke's Parker was.

Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier, written by Ales Kot, art by Langdon Foss and Marco Rudy

I want to love this comic. I love the character, I like the writer, I even think that the concept has some serious legs. But Marvel totally botched the art assignment, handing it to Marco Rudy to give this space espionage opera a little bit of a painterly European album flavor, which, while interesting, only really serves to make the comic stiff and illegible, exactly the opposite of what this book needs. Now they've added Langdon Foss to handle some of the drawing, and he's all the way at the other side of the spectrum.

I give up.

The Autumnlands: Tooth and Claw #3, written by Kurt Busiek, art by Ben Dewey and Jordie Bellaire

The Wicked and the Divine #7, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson

Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues, written by Erik Burnham, art by Nacho Arranz and Esther Sanz

Finally, from the annals of WHO IS THIS COMIC FOR?!

Episode 4.5

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 20:00:00 +0000

I have a general policy against buying licensed comics. In general, although not always, they're just not very interesting; they're formally boring, by nature the writing is not very inventive, and they're weirdly placed in relation to the main stories of whatever property is being turned into a comic. Licensed comics (in fact, anything that's adapted from one medium to another with the express purpose of drawing fans of the first thing to the adaptation and not of making a unique work with its own successes and failures) assume that what I like about a particular thing is the plot and perhaps the general outline of the characters and not whatever artistry made the original thing worthwhile. Remember: the movie can't ruin the book, because the movie and the book aren't the same thing, because the joy of watching a movie and the joy of reading a book are not the same.

The fact that comics adaptations tend to forefront plot and characters is a more acute problem than it is elsewhere. The difference between the licensing of television and movie properties for comics and the adaptation of, for example, books into movies is that the economics of the two are significantly different. The latter is much more expensive, and it behooves who ever is putting up the money to make sure that the product is good (of course, that doesn't always pan out), while the risk of putting together a licensed comic is much smaller. I can't imagine that the market for comics based on the original Battlestar Galactica television show is particularly strong, but, because the production of those comics isn't very expensive, Dynamite doesn't have to sell more than a few copies to turn a profit. Such comics are designed to attract rabid fans of a particular property and no one else, while the Battlestar Galactica reboot was able to draw new fans in on its own merits. These comics are for those who can't get enough, who will do anything for more of the thing they love. Accordingly, the creators assigned to such comics are new, or not highly regarded, or just not very good, because they don't have to be. This is part, although not all, of the reason that we go batshit when they turn a comic into a movie, but why nobody cares when, say, Django Unchained or Fight Club is turned into a comic book.

Star Wars is, of course, a fundamentally different kind of property, although I can't say I think any differently about the Star Wars comics than I do about the Battlestar ones, at least, until this new Star Wars #1. Marvel isn't exactly betting the farm here, but I've read that there are at least a million copies of this book in existence, which is an incredible number, even when you factor the equally incredible number of variant covers (my store lists fifteen, and surely there are at least a few more floating around). Even the top selling individual issues for the last several years have topped out at around a third of that number, and the last time that this many sales of an individual issue was reported it was 1993.

So what's different? Well, the excitement about the new Star Wars movie, for one-- Disney is hoping that it can turn that into sales figures for comics and toys, as well as revenue from shows like Star Wars: Rebels. The mere fact that the muscle behind these releases is Disney and not a pretty well respected comic book company like Dark Horse is another. Even so, I have a feeling, call it a gut feeling, that we'll be seeing these Star Wars #1s floating around and easily available for awhile, like those Spider-Man Obama variants from 2008. I don't know a ton about the economics of comic books, but it'll be interesting to see whether or not Marvel chooses to reprint this issue, and how many of the next few issues they produce; check back in a year, and I expect the number of copies will be a lot closer to what that market is actually able to support.

There's also a difference on the level of the comics themselves, though, and that is that they might actually be good. Look: except for some my parents bought me when I was a kid, I've never bought a Star Wars comic, and there's nothing particularly exciting about these new Star Wars comics, except the creative teams involved. I remain disinclined to buy a Star Wars comic, but I will absolutely buy one or two issues of a Star Wars comic written by Jason Aaron and drawn by John Cassaday just to see if, maybe, two creators I really like could make it worthwhile.

And, in fact, they more or less have. Star Wars #1 is a pretty good comic book, which is extraordinary given the fact that its hamstrung by its setting in the timeline, right after the end of A New Hope. If the stories that Cassaday and Aaron were going to tell were of real importance, they would have already been told. Instead, we got The Empire Strikes Back, which I think we can probably agree is better than the best case scenario Star Wars comic. The problem is not that we already know what happens in the end, although that does limit the potential opportunities for dramatic tension. Instead, it's just sort of hard to shake the feeling that these stories don't matter, that they're just vehicles for profit through fan service, products for fans who want just want more, which is, of course, exactly what they are.

Aaron and Cassaday's key choice was to understand what was at the core of these comics, and embrace it. Star Wars #1 is chock full of moments that seem tailored to get the eight year old in me excited; there are lightsabers, AT-ATs, a smooth talking smuggler, a badass princess, and a cliffhanger ending that suggests an upcoming fight scene between father and son. Aaron's character beats are perfect, particularly his C-3PO, and Cassaday is back to old form, something that probably has to do with the seriously long lead time he had for this book. On the whole, it's competent and well executed, even if some of what goes on in the first few pages is an attempt to do in comics what movies do well. In other words, it's everything that bad licensed comics are not, with just a dash of what they are. This series isn't going to break any ground, and its not going particularly interesting or exciting, but I do think we can count on it to be fun. Which I think is worth a lot, although maybe not $4.99 a month.

What's particularly revealing here is that Star Wars #1 feels a lot like a contemporary Big 2 comic book, even if its not, not really. It may be that, as ~~Marvel and DC~~ Disney and Warner Brothers find new ways to make cross medium profits by synergizing their traditionally-mostly-comics properties is that comics from those companies will increasingly look like this, even as things have already sort of been this way. I know that Marvel and DC aren't really at the cutting edge, and haven't been for a long time, but I do believe that, as recently as a year ago, the former was at least giving some interesting things a shot, putting out books drawn by interesting young writers and drawn by talented artists. They've stopped doing that in favor of what I gather is likely to be a kind of gimmicky reboot, and some of these books have been canceled, but many, like, Black Widow, remain. From this vantage, the landscape looks a lot different. And maybe that's ok-- the creative aspects of the big two companies has seemed moribund for a long time, with occasional, line wide blips of hope. We've got good stuff, really good stuff, coming out the years these days. If the Big 2 want to step into the position of providing comfort through branding, maybe it opens up room for some of that other stuff to see a wider audience. And, I feel strongly about this, creativity finds a way. Good mainstream superhero comics aren't over, but we may have to strain harder to find them from the swaddled comfort of what's to come.

Wednesday's New Things: The Force Awakens

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen by Dylan Horrocks

Dylan Horrocks's Hicksville is one of the great comic books of all time, a book that doesn't star a super hero and yet maybe one of the great books about super heroes (and the fan favorite artists who make them) of all time. Sam Zabel, which is set in the same universe, has been serialized online and you could read it there. But Horrocks is a master, and I have a feeling that this the kind of book--itself a beautiful object-- you'll want to keep on your shelf.

Henshin by Ken Niimura

Henshin is a collection of short stories by I Kill Giants artist Ken Niimura, who focuses on a story's turn-- that moment when everything changes. I was curious, but not particularly intrigued, until I read this story, which was affecting without being sentimental.

Star Wars #1, written by Jason Aaron, Art by John Cassaday

This is by far the most interesting comic coming out this week, no offense meant to some of the other stuff coming out, which is bound to be better. More tomorrow.

S.H.I.E.L.D #2, written by Mark Waid, art by Humberto Ramos

I want to like this comic. I really do. I like the tv series that it's based on. But the first issue was atrocious, poorly written and poorly executed, and the cover price was an absolutely batshit $4.99. No thanks. Preview here, if you're more interested than I am.

Wednesday's New Things: ...And We're Back

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:02:00 +0000

I got a little caught up in finals after Thanksgiving. But there's no time like the present, right?

Feathers #1 by Jorge Corona

I can't ever recall going into a preview cold and getting as excited about a comic as I am about Jorge Corona's debut. It reminds me a lot of a couple particular Sandman stories, although edging perhaps a little more closely to a youth audience. Still, there's very little shelf space for all ages comics that aren't really just kids comics, and, if this little mystery can live up to its promise, it might just open a teeny tiny bit more space.

Treasury of Mini-Comics Vol. 2, edited by Michael Dowers

There's a lot to like about mini comics, but logistically they're an absolute pain. Locating them is a bear, storing them in a way that's easily accessible and attractive is impossible, and they're very, very easy to lose. Although treasuries like this take some of the fun out, they're also very helpful if you're looking for something in particular, or you don't live near a shop that stocks a lot of minis. There are a lot of great lights in this one; full list of contributors and a preview here.

Casanova: Gula, written by Matt Fraction, art by Fabio Moon

Casanova is a very well respected comic, I think either the first or second major book by now both popular-and-very-well-regarded writer Matt Fraction, with a very interesting publishing history; the first two volumes were at Image, in a slightly slimer than usual format in just a few colors, then full color reprints of those two volumes and a third one from Marvel's creator owned imprint Icon, and now hardcover collections of all three volumes and a fourth one back at Image. It was also, I think an introduction to twins Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon for American readers, at the forefront of a mini-invasion of excellent Brazilian artists that also includes Rafael Grampa, Rafael Albuquerque, and Gustavo Duarte. The fact that it's moved back and forth is, I think, an indication of just how much people like this book. I will admit to having bought it in several different iterations, I can never quite make it through-- it's a very, very dense book, and there's just too many words. I keep trying because all the creators involved are favorites; Perhaps, though, it's time I try to slog through it again.

Lady Killer, by Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich

The newest collaboration between Jones and Rich, the solicitation says "Betty Draper meets Hannibal" but I think a better comparison is something like "Betty Draper meets Dexter" or "Betty Draper meets Black Widow." Jones's art is slick and stylish, ever so exaggerated in just the right places and aided and abetted by the slight cartoony sheen that Laura Allred puts on the largely flat colors. This is a definite buy for me, just to see if it's as good as it looks.

Ant-Man #1, written by Nick Spencer, art by Ramon Rosanas

Marvel's ability to synergize its televisual properties with its comics properties often leaves a lot to be desired-- that new SHIELD comic, for example? It's terrible. Here, at least, they've got the timing down, launching this new Ant-Man book the day after the debut of the first trailer for July's Ant-Man movie with Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd. The movie looks somewhere between good and pretty good and, fairly surprisingly, so does the comic. I've never heard of artist Ramon Rosanas before, but it's nice to see that Marvel hasn't completely abandoned the idea of employing artists with a sense of style, in this case the sort of blockiness that I often associate with Chris Samnee, which has the upside of being both appealing and accessible. I'm not sure anyone feels particularly strongly about the Scott Lang version of the character (and I know how most people feel about Hank Pym), but, if nothing else, this one is worth a shot.

Fungus: The Unbearable Rot of Being, by James Kolchaka

From the solicitation: "Eisner Award-winner James Kochalka presents a forest full of cute but strange fungus creatures that live beneath our feet. “Fungus: The Unbearable Rot of Being” contains 11 chapters of little fungal creatures ruminating on a variety of topics, including such bizarre mysteries as “comics” and “philosophy”, “cyberspace” and “redemption”. A surreal and funny outside look at the elements of our own reality" [sic]. Mushrooms and philosophy? What could be bad.

Wolverines #1, written by Charles Soule, art by Nick Bradshaw

This is basically from the annals of WHO IS THIS COMIC FOR...but, I dunno, maybe this one just might work. I'm suspicious of a weekly comic priced a $3.99, and I guess I was naive to think that "no Wolverine until 2016" really meant "no Wolverine until 2016." Furthermore, its a comic that stars a bunch of more or less minor Wolverine characters fighting it out to determine what to do with his adamantium encased body? I just sounds like a terrible idea. But Charles Soule is an excellent writer and Nick Bradshaw did some very fun stuff on Wolverine and the X-Men. It's probably not for me, and the preview isn't very encouraging. But maybe, just maybe...

Color's Not Free

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 16:00:00 +0000

I think we forget how important good coloring is, particularly in super hero comics. In every comic, though, I think we think it's incidental, perfunctory, and after the fact, perhaps because not every comic has it. I think we forget that color is a choice. The truth, though, is that good pencils and good inks can be sunk by bad coloring, and good color can salvage less than ideal pencils. Colors, good or bad, can have as much effect on meaning as any other aspect of the process (and, if inking is merely misunderstood, lettering is similarly marginal).

One of the reason that good superhero comics are so hard to find is that they're often the result of a collaboration between four or five different people. For a comic to pass muster, a team has to work together on every aspect of the book, color included. Matt Hollingsworth is one of the best colorists we've got, and this series of tweets about his work with Matt Fraction and David Aja on Hawkeye, posted earlier this week, are a good reminder of why he's so good, and why color matters.

Hawkeye #3 with @mattfraction & @davaja. Hawkeye always has color laid out over the entire issue, not page by page. pic.twitter.com/I4govOPmSO
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

Hawkeye #8 with @mattfraction & @davaja. #colorswithoutlineart pic.twitter.com/4192du2t8I
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

Hawkeye #11 with @mattfraction & @davaja. Pizza Dog issue. pic.twitter.com/DfVZ9nkWbE
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

For Pizza Dog, @mattfraction sent me this as a concept. And a sound concept it was. @davaja pic.twitter.com/gZ5CkTsDaY
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

With Hawkeye, look for mirrored colors. Same colors appear throughout the book on pages w/ different palettes. Hawkeye wastes no colors.
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

Wednesday's New Things: Waiting for a Superman Trade Paperback

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 23:23:00 +0000

Saga Deluxe Edition Vol 1. written by Brian K. Vaughn, art by Fiona Staples. Iron Fist: The Living Weapon Vol. 1, by Kaare Andrews

Two different kinds of collected comics, two different reasons for thinking about picking them up. I've wanted to buy a Saga collection for my bookshelf since I fell behind on the comics almost a year ago and this deluxe volume seems like a good bet. It collects the first 18 issues, so through the time when I stopped reading, and I bet it's beautiful, the kind of format I want to own a series like Saga in. Of course, if I start buying in the format then I'm committed to buying in this format, and it'll probably be 18 months or more before I can move on-- which is a big check in the con column. Kaare Andrews's Iron Fist series looked great when I bought the first issue, but I decided to wait for the trade. I'll probably pick it up one of these days.

Multiversity: Pax Americana, written by Grant Morrison, art by Frank Quitely

This project is fascinating for me. It's like that really fun Marvel Exiles book from when I was a teenager, but all grown up. This particular book is interesting to me, though, in part because it features the Charleston characters, many of whom Alan Moore cribbed for Watchmen, and some of whom have since entered the mainstream DC continuities. The cultural force of Watchmen has grown so great that one of the comments on the Newsarama preview actually asks if the inclusion of the Question (originally an objectivist character created by objectivist Steve Ditko) is an oblique reference to Rorschach, which I point out not so that we can laugh, but instead to suggest that the whole thing eats itself. How Morrison, himself a referencer extraordinaire, will choose to play with this irony, and him not choosing to play with it will be itself interesting, will likely make excellent reading. Also, anything that Quitely draws is a treat; its good to see him back at the drawing board.

Intersect by Ray Fawkes

This one looks fun and beautiful, although perhaps a mite hard to follow.

Nancy Loves Sluggo: Complete Dailies 1949-1951 by Ernie Bushmiller

This is one of those things I'll have to pick up one day. I've heard nothing but good things about Nancy, the most recent of which came from Carol Tyler at ICAF. As I begin to look more seriously at comics strips (and in particular Peanuts, which debuted during the period that this collection covers) this will be one of the first places I'll go.

Black Widow #12, written by Nathan Edmonson, art by Phil Noto, ft. Anderson Cooper (!?)

From ICAF w/ Love

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:09:00 +0000

I don’t know what I was expecting when I went to ICAF.

A friend came back from the big American Studies conference, ASA, a few days before I left. She liked it ok, but she thought it was cliquey, and deeply weird, a sort of surreal parade of academia into and out of various hotel ballrooms.

I think I expected ICAF to be the same, more or less. What I got instead was a series of talks organized by a group of people who care deeply about comics, both about what they mean and what it means to make them. I sat up late on Wednesday night, finishing my presentation with the help of a pint of espresso ice cream from Jeni’s Splendid Creams, already fortified by a sampling of sausage from a Bavarian restaurant in the Columbus neighborhood known as German Village, sausage consumed to the tune of an oom pa pa band. I did not know then how the paper would go over, I did not know that the community would be deeply welcoming, that they would be interested in me and what I was working on. I chugged on anyway, working out of a notebook I had been scribbling in in the German restaurant, eyes watering from the dust in the carpet of the apartment I was staying in.

The next morning, after little sleep, I wandered in to the Ohio Union just as the conference was starting. I heard talks about the historic and formal relationships between comics and fine art, about comics exhibitions in the French context, about the anti-comics tendency of the critical boosters of Persepolis, about the history of comics in England, and the embodiment of Hellboy. Academic talks in the morning were followed by artist talks later in the day, and as the focus shifted on the first evening it became clear to me that ICAF was the thing I was always disappointed that comic con was not—a chance to talk about comics with people who care about comics, in a real and serious way, at a place where consumption is secondary to appreciation.

I’m in an American Studies graduate program that, thankfully, takes my work seriously, but that also doesn’t have any comics studies scholars who can advise me. Often, I feel that I’m in the weeds. When I got up to give my talk, though, I saw a group that was genuinely interested in who I was and what I was doing—who also wanted to know why it was that Gilbert Hernandez slotted a representation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night into a short “Heartbreak Soup” story. Afterwards, we talked about it, or about other things, and both other graduate students and full time tenured faculty seemed interested in the project, and in what else I was working on. They shared their work with me, too; a masters thesis on Calvin and Hobbes, another on neoliberalism and comics, a dissertation on post-unification German comics. I knew that other comics studies folks existed; what I didn’t know was how friendly and generous they were going to be to a newbie like me.

I shouldn't have been too surprised. It turns out that many us of feel a little in the weeds; Bart Beaty's keynote ("Here There Be Dragons") was about the terra incognita of comics studies, and the last event of the first day was about how to build institutions that will support the discipline. On the second day, we laid the foundation for the first of those new institutions, voting into existence the Comics Studies Society. As the CSS grows, it will come to serve as the institutional support for the community I joined last week. Perhaps most excitingly of all was the founding of the CSS’s graduate caucus, a group of graduate students and recently minted PhDs that exists to support each other as we attempt to navigate our entrances into academia. What I learned last week was that I don’t need anyone to advise me on the particulars at my institution, because there is a community, now more formal than it was even a week ago, that I can turn to when I need it.

To focus on the academic alone, though, would to give ICAF short shrift. What makes it really wonderful is that the people who come to it come to appreciate the work of practitioners as much as they come to share their own work, and so we gathered not only to listen to each other, but also to listen Justin Green (“I think the surveillance state is crazier than Binky Brown’s penis rays), Carol Tyler, Phoebe Gloeckner, Finnish cartoonist Hanneriina Moisseinen, Dash Shaw and, finally, Jeff Smith, in talks moderated by figures with diverse interests and a wide reach, figures like Bill Kartalopolous, Tom Spurgeon, Jared Gardner and Corey Creekmur. Each of the artists was stunning in their own way; Green and Tyler’s love for each other was as evident as how hard they work, and very rarely for a big reward; Gloeckner gave the strangest, rawest, most emotionally affecting presentation of work I think I’ve ever seen; and Moisseinen shared with us a documentary she’s featured in, about learning from the last of the great Finnish rune singers, and then she sang for us. She closed her eyes and sang, hauntingly, hypnotically. Afterwards, grad students, professors, journalists, editors, and artists, as many as wanted, really, gathered for drinks. The last of us didn’t head home until 2 AM.

Gone Conferencin'

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:46:00 +0000

See you next week.

Talk Over Balloons: Rotten Roots

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 21:42:00 +0000

Six summers ago, when I was in between high school and college, I worked on a congressional campaign for a candidate who couldn't quite get over. It's too bad-- he would have been a good congressman. Just because he didn't get elected, though, doesn't mean the experience wasn't worthwhile--among other things, I met Paul Axel, then a University of Wisconsin student, now a comic book creator on the verge of completing a successful Kickstarter for his first series, Rotten Roots, which he wrote and features Renée Majkut on art. He and I spoke, for the first time in several years, about the comic; you can read the interview below. Rotten Roots is in its final days-- but there's still time to help Paul and Renée out.

JK: Can you give a little bit of a synopsis of Rotten Roots, and a little bit of a history about how the project came together?

PA: Rotten Roots is, as I've described it, a neo-noir crime drama, mixed with historical fiction. It starts with the murder of Harold Wood, the wealthy and well-respected patriarch of one of the oldest families in Osprey City, a fictional place located on Cape Cod. As Detective Mark Robles investigates the case, he uncovers the family history of the Woods, and a 400-year-old legacy of schemes, betrayal, and murder.

When I finished a rough draft of the script for issue 1, I sent it on to my friend, Brian McKenzie, who does a lot of editing for superhero and comic-type stories - just to get his opinion on the work, and get a few pointers. Since he liked it so much, I decided to show it to the owner of my local comic book shop, Bob Howard at Comicazi. Bob's a co-writer on a self-published comic, and I figured that, if I ever turned Rotten Roots into something real, it couldn't hurt to have a shop owner in my corner. Bob also loved the script, and offered to help publish under his nascent independent press, Bad Kids Press. Through a little monthly event he holds at the shop called "Drink 'n' Draw," Bob got me in touch with Renee - and her art blew me away. You can see it for yourself. It's a style you don't see too often these days in comics. It sort of reminded me of the Miller/Janson work on The Dark Knight Returns. I signed her to a contract to produce five completed pages of the first issue, and she's been with the project ever since. She does the pencils and inks, her husband Tom does the formatting (and is perhaps the best pitchman we've ever had - the video on the Kickstarter is all his doing). I wrote, and I do the lettering. Add in Brian as editor, and that's pretty much the Rotten Roots team right there.

I’m always a little curious about how people came to comics—what got you started? What are you reading now?

I think my dad gave me my first comics before I was ten. There was a little used-book store in Sheboygan, WI (where my grandparents lived). He would buy them there for me - lots of Batman and the Outsiders (the original '83-'86 run). I stopped reading for a while, picked it up in high school, dropped it for a couple years in college, picked it up near the end of college, and I haven't stopped since. On my pull list currently is Captain America, Batman,Batman: Eternal, Future's End, Nova, The Fade Out, Fables, Legenderry, and a few random issues here and there if the story intrigues me, like the new Batgirl run.

Branching off of that, how did you decide you wanted to make a comic? Is Rotten Roots your first attempt?

I always joke that Rotten Roots came about in the midst of a bout of extended unemployment. I figured, I had always read comics (even if it was on-and-off at times), and I love the medium. After I read Scott Snyder's "Court of Owls" arc in Batman, I decided to try my hand at writing a comic - I won't deny that Snyder's over-arching themes influenced my own story. But I feel like I've gone in a different, more realistic direction; I would have been disappointed in myself if I had turned out too similar to Snyder's work.

Rotten Roots is my first attempt at writing a comic (apart from that mini-comic that I wrote and drew in third grade and sold for a quarter a copy), and my first serious attempt at creative writing. I've written for academia and for op-eds, but I've never told a story like this before. It's a lot of fun, which I think is the most important part!

Can you talk a little bit about your influences for the project? Specifically, what do you mean when you say it’s a neo-noir?

"Noir" and "neo-noir" are a couple of terms that a lot of people feel have been thrown around so much that they've lost all meaning. I'd like to think that I do adopt a lot of the characteristics of the noir style - the use of flashbacks to disrupt the main narrative, in particular. Every issue jumps back and forth between the present and a historical period in American history. Consequently, there's a lot of "voiceover" narration from dead people - also a hallmark of the noir style. The fact that Rotten Roots, at its core, is a detective story, a type of story that's key to the very idea of noir.

As far as influences go, apart from noir, I'm inspired by the works of James Michener (multi-generational historical fiction), and the writing styles of Scott Snyder and Ed Brubaker. There's probably a bit of Law and Order in there as well, I won't lie.

I know that you’ve finished the scripting for the series—are you and Renee working together to revise it, or is your part more or less finished? How was the process been different or similar than what you expected?

My part is more or less finished, though sometimes I will go back to a script to make a small change if a new historical fact I've learned warrants it (for example, I got a clarification on colonial-era tar-and-feathering from a graduate school colleague of mine). I'll share with Renee my thoughts on how characters or places should look - I really wanted to use Clancy Brown as an inspiration for one of my characters in Issue 2 (you hear that, Mr. Brown? If you're reading this, drop me a line!). I'm sitting on more stories, but I probably won't start really settling down to write them until this project is completed. For now, I'm occupying myself with the Kickstarter campaign, and then more of the business end of Rotten Roots.

The process - getting from script to Kickstarter - took much longer than I anticipated, and that's a good thing. If I originally went at the schedule I wanted, it would have been a much more half-assed product, and I don't think the Kickstarter would have been as successful as it was. So, it's a good thing that people - especially Bob - told me to slow down and wait.

How have you found the process of using Kickstarter? Do you think you’ll use it again?

Kickstarter is ridiculously easy. It shouldn't be this easy, but it is. I'm probably feeling that way because of my awesome team and how well we've done, but if you take the time to put together a well-crafted pitch, explain everything clearly, include some pretty pictures, and just spread word as much as you can, you can reach your goal. I've got to say, you have to really do your research before you present your project - above everything else, have a budget written out, shop around for prices, but be able to tell everyone how much you're spending on what.

If Volume 1 of Rotten Roots sells well, and people like it, I probably will Kickstart the second half. This volume is only half the story, and I'm hoping people want to see how it ends, because I really want to show everyone how it ends!

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Other than "visit the Kickstarter," yes. If you want to write a comic, sit down and write a comic. Of course, have an idea first, but write the comic. People will help you fine-tune your story, and maybe help you find an artist, but none of that happens unless you actually write the comic. It has never been easier to write and publish a comic, so do it. We're living in a golden age - take advantage!

Wednesday's New Things: Remember, Remember

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 17:30:00 +0000

The Ghost Fleet #1 by Donny Cates, Daniel Warren Johnson, and Lauren Affe

The Humans #1 by Keenan Marshall Keller, Tom Neely and Kristina Collantes

I've gotten very serious about comics. Too serious-- I regularly refer to my "purchasing strategy" in this space, as if I were a political consultant contemplating some kind of ad buy. There are some good reasons for that shift, but it's important every now and again to take a step back and remember that comic books can be stupid fun-- that that's part of the reason I came to love them in the first place. To that end, two books of interest this week. The Ghost Fleet looks more or less deeply silly-- "When one of the world’s most elite combat-trained truckers takes a forbidden peek at his payload, he uncovers a conspiracy that will change his life forever!"-- but that art's not bad and I'm a sucker for a good heist story. The Humans is a little more intriguing-- Easy Rider on The Planet of the Apes-- and writer Keenan Marshall Keller is big on exploitation movies. There's just something sort of unhinged seeming about it, appealing in the same way that The Auteur is, although perhaps a mite less grotesque.

Velvet #8 by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, and Elizabeth Breitweiser

Not all fun has to be stupid, though. Velvet is an exemplar of this kind of series for me, a space where Ed Brubaker can show off his espionage chops, but minus the sort of self seriousness that's endemic to his similar work on Captin America or the almost deadly seriousness of his most recent series with Sean Phillips, The Fade Out. Part of the appeal here is that it's more or less an old school bit of spy fiction, the kind we very rarely see these days, but with the added dimension that the protagonist was literally hiding in plain sight, retired and taking on the Mrs. Moneypenny role. Velvet's knowledge of the agency she's been working for is more or less absolute, there is no doubt of her ability and, even so, you don't know if she's going to make it out of any particular issue alive, or even who's after her. Even though there's an unfortunate amount of time between issues, Brubaker's been a master at building tension here, one that's got me buying it off the rack rather than waiting for the trade.

Kinski by Gabriel Hardman

Gabriel Hardman is a cartoonist I've admired from a run of work on Marvel books from a few years ago-- I remember his work being both solid and pleasingly sketchy. Kinski is a collection of a series revolving around a salesman saving an abused dog, originally put out by digital only publisher Monkey Brain, now being collected by Image. Hardman packs kinetic energy between each panel here, propelling you from frame to frame. If the story plays out even close to the way that the preview suggests, the writing's not bad either.

Tooth & Claw #1 by Kurt Busiek, Ben Dewey, Jordie Bellaire, and Comicraft

I don't even know what to make of this one. Seems sort of like a mystical Redwall, for adults but influenced by the Dinotopia books. It certainly looks good, and the way the art interacts with the lettering is unusually playful, suggesting that, even as the preview points to a certain amount of death and destruction, it'll be tempered by a little levity. Kurt Busiek is one of those grand comics writers who's been around forever; sometimes series like this, by writers like that, are indulgences, but this one really seems like a passion project. We might have a special one here.

Grandville: Noel by Bryan Talbot

Arsene Schrauwen by Olivier Schrauwen

Back to being serious, just for a second at the end, Olivier Schrauwen is always one to watch. This one looks like it might be particularly interesting, and watching him play with a little bit of family history might be useful for thinking through some things I'm working on right now.

Here, There, Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 21:33:00 +0000

Pardon my crappy iPhone photos

There is now, and there always will be, something very weird for me about seeing comics artwork in a gallery space. It's almost uncanny, familiar and yet unfamiliar, and it puts the social norms of the museum in conflict with the process of reading. At those exhibits I've been to, I'm always compelled to try to contemplate and consume simultaneously, which means I do neither particular well. Even more frustrating, comics pages are supposed to both follow and precede other, similar pages; since exhibitions are focused on the visual and since they privilege the work they could could access, any attempt at reading is, sooner or later, stymied.

Sometimes, like at the Dan Clowes show I saw last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the curators attempt to temper this conflict by providing comfortable places to sit and read full copies of the work being displayed, in part, on the walls. That recognition of the fundamental contradictions of comics presented in a fine art space was welcome, and there were many things about that show that were extraordinary, but, despite its enormity, despite its attempt at reconciling the experience of reading comics with the experience of being at an art museum, its parts didn't really seem to fit together. And, yet, there's hope. From Here to Here, the show featuring work from Richard McGuire's revived Here project, running through November 9th at the Morgan Library in Manhattan, is coherent in a way that I have not seen before.

In part, this is because McGuire's work resists reading. Here is probably best described as a series of windows into a particular corner of a particular house in a particular part of New Jersey, laid out non-chronologically and often on top of each other in a way that superficially resembles a traditional comics page but that, again, resists traditional reading. The juxtapositions of different moments and contexts trouble the relationship between comics and seriality, suggesting both that the panel has more in common than the infinite time and infinite space of the gutter than we usually assume and that the comics page can operate in what is functionally three dimensions. When complete art from Here is hung on a wall, then, it seems more or less the same then it does on the page. There's no assumption of linear sequence to drag on the experience; McGuire has already smashed those expectations. In some ways, it seems like even the static form of a book limits his ambition; one of the features of the exhibition is an early version of an ebook version of Here, which allows scenes to be done or undone with the touch of a finger.

The other aspect of From Here to Here that sets it apart may have to do with circumstances unique to Here's creation. Originally a six page strip published by Raw in 1989 (and since republished in Ivan Brunetti's An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories), McGuire has been toying with expanding it since. Starting with those original pages, the one room exhibition walks you around its perimeter, through various stages of revision and expansion, including a false start that would have featured one moment on each page, as well as the mock ups, sketches, collages, and pencils that make up the anatomy of the new work, some of which is itself displayed in a ribbon across the top of the other displays, leading finally to the ebook and a copy of the printed book at the other end. In the center there is a series of display cases, which places McGuire's named influences (Tadnoori Yokoo's Waterfall Rapture Postcards of Falling Water, My Addiction, My Edition, My Collection) and antecedents to Here (like a particularly formalist Gasoline Alley strip) alongside his sketchbooks and his work in other mediums.

The result is that From Here to Here puts a completed work in conversation with its creation and evolution. It is an absolutely coherent expression of what Here is and how it came to be, satisfying not just as a vindication (look at the comics in a fine art space!) or a curiosity (the tendency to show pencils along with completed original art) but as a genealogy of a particular work that illuminates it in ways impossible to do by simply looking at that work alone. Even given that certain features of Here enable this kind of exposition, From Here To Here is an exemplary show. From Here to Here is up at the Morgan Library, at 225 Madison Avenue, in Manhattan, until Sunday, November 9.

Wednesday's New Things: Being Bad at Comic Books

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Kopin) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 22:53:00 +0000

Saga #24 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

I'm bad at comic books. Over the past year or so, I've lost track of three or four series I really love; East of West, Uber, and, most criminally of all, ("If Star Wars was any good," sez the sign at my favorite comic shop in the state of Illinois, "it would be...) Saga. I'm not completely sure how this happened, although before I was limiting my purchases I was buying enough that I didn't have quite the time to read all of it. It's also possible that, as I was considering new purchasing strategies, I let some of these series fall of because they would be better in trade (something that I maintain will be most true for East of West, which is so deeply built up and weird that it can be hard to follow from month to month). Saga, though, is so good, so well paced, that it deserves that monthly $3.50-- one of these days, I'll just walk into my comic shop and by the lot that I'm missing. Maybe that day is today.

PEN&INK: HIT BY VANESA R. DEL REY

These Boom Pen&Ink books are like the IDW artists editions, in that they take established content and break them down into the process pieces that preceded their publication, but they're significantly less involved, and therefore cheaper, and they draw from material in the publisher's home stable. Vanesa Del Ray is a serious talent, my favorite new artist from last year, who toiled away on this more than decent but sort of hard to track crime noir. As is often true, it'll be interesting to see her art separated from what we generally understand to be the "writerly" and utilitarian (speech bubbles, narration, and so on) aspects of comics making.

Set to Sea by Drew Weing

I've been following Drew Weing's wonderful and charming The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo for a spell, and, from the preview, Set to Sea seems of a similar bent, although more Melville than Sendak. What unites the kids in the first with the shanghaied poet in the second is the understanding that the world is just a little bit stranger than we might be inclined to believe. The form is slightly different, though, with every page in Set to Sea functioning as an individual panel, shortening the story but also giving Weing a large canvas to explore the blocky and scratchy world he's drawn.

Showa: A History of Japan (1944-1953) by Shigeru Mizuki

This is the third volume of Shigeru Mizuki's history of Japan's showa period, which has seemed to be generally pretty well received. History comics, and non-fiction comics in general, are hard to pull off, which is one of the reason why I think that cartoonists have often pursued memoir instead of my straight non-fiction genres. Memoir allows folks to easily balance a work's words and pictures, and is more readily open to dialogue, while historical comics or comics journalism seems to fall more easily into looking and feeling like illustrated prose. From all accounts, the Showa volumes so far seem to work, perhaps because they are part memoir. The mix of illustrated realism and stylized drawing also probably helps, giving the pictures weight enough so that they hang with the words.

The Leaning Girl by Francois Schuiten and Benoit Peeters, translated by Stephen D. Smith

This is the first of a series of Franco-Belgian comics series called The Obscure Cities, some of which have seen print in America and some of which have not. It's a fun concept, set on a counter-Earth where folks live in city states defined by architectural style, and where sometimes weird things happen. What I like about projects like this one is that someone, in this case it seems like its the publisher and translator Stephen D. Smith, cares enough about these works to make sure that they see release in English. That's the best kind of endorsement. What I like about this particular project, at least in theory, is that design is specifically, rather than loosely, tied to definition of place, something that will be fun to tease out if I ever decide to pick them up.