The Hurting

Drawn & Quarterly Showcase: Book One - Part II

Issue #259 of The Comics Journal was the "Youthquake" issue, and it featured interviews and critical examinations of several cartoonists who could legitimately be termed "up and coming." If there’s even one loose thread I think we can discern running between cartoonists as disparate as Drew Weing, John Pham and Paul Hornscheimer, it’s a return to a more classically-honed sense of formalism. This would be as opposed to the more intuitive (and sometimes plain surreal) brand of storytelling practiced by the last notable generation of up-and-comers, such as the ex-Fort Thunder crowd and the notoriously anti-craft James Kochalka. (This is a loose generalization, mind you, I could come up with any number of examples to refute it myself.)

In Tom Spurgeon’s introduction to his interview with Kevin Huizenga, Spurgeon proclaims that "[Huizenga] stands as good a chance as anyone working today of being the next alternative comics superstar," and I find this claim difficult to contradict. His work may lack the self-conscious flash of Sammy Harkham’s or the appealing professionalism of Derek Kirk Kim’s, but his stories hide deep layers the likes of which most of his peers have yet to realize.

Huizenga’s contribution to the first Drawn & Quarterly Showcase comes in the form of three interlocking and closely related stories, a triptych focusing on the life of Huizenga’s ostensible alter-ego Glenn Ganges. Huizenga isn’t married, however, and he’s never had to wrestle with an inability to conceive or eat a feathered ogre’s egg. Ganges is merely a conceit, and is used by Huizenga in a manner comparable to the way Philip Roth uses Nathan Zuckerman – as a patsy, a cipher, a keyhole with which to peer through the heart of his stories.

Huizenga tells a story with the effortless exposition of a master autodidact, someone who knows too much and can’t help but let his knowledge seep over the sides of the cup. It’s a refreshing change, given the focus on stringent formalism that has consumed leading cartoonists such as Ware and Clowes (And the many remoras who follow them), to read a story that is actually about something other than the act of being a comic book. Whereas Ware and Clowes use formalism as a cudgel, constricting the circulation in their stories until the constant desire for perfection produces a strangulation effect, Huizenga seems content to produce work that uses a deft touch of formal craftsmanship merely to illustrate ideas, and not to communicate emotional content through the nigh-oppressive use of craft.

(Already I can see the English majors in the audience nodding their heads in pity – "but if he’s not a structuralist then what the hell good is he?" [Hey, I was an English major too, I just ignored the stupid stuff.]) (And I hardly dislike Ware & Clowes, either, I’m not stupid.)

The first story in the trilogy is untitled, and takes place in the space of about five minutes on a clear spring afternoon. Glenn goes for the mail and spends the rest of the strip contemplating the fate of the missing children whose pictures are printed on the back of direct-mail flyers. After a bit he digresses and discusses an enclave of recent Sudanese refugees who have settled in his community. Along the way, he very matter-of-factly drops in the fact that he and his wife have been unsuccessfully attempting to conceive a child for some time.

Huizenga deserves credit for avoiding the obvious thematic touchstones that you would expect to see in a story like this. Usually, if the story dealt with an infertile couple, you would expect to see the world illustrated with an eye towards obvious symbols of fertility or decay – deer with young fawns or rotting roadkill. Instead, he avoids the use of any explicit imagery to nail his thematic context. Instead, he illustrates his narration in a very straightforward manner, using a light and airy brushline to communicate an almost immaterial reality.

Instead of either life or death, the story focuses on the concept of detachment – of children detached from their families, of families detached from the mainstream of society, of immigrants detached from their culture, and of a young couple detached from their own abilities to reproduce.

The story features two distinct "movements." The first, which begins with Glenn’s musings on the missing children and the wonders of age advancement technology, ends with Glenn’s comment about his family’s infertility. It’s a poignant, painful moment, made no less so by the fact that he slips it in very subtly. After a short pause (about the time it takes to turn the page) the story picks up steam again, this time on the subject of the Sudanese immigrants. Glenn’s thoughts follow the Sudanese as their story unfolds and he contemplates their cultural remove. After two pages of extremely dense exposition, Huizenga finishes the story with another long pause, an almost wordless two-page sequence in which Glenn closes the mailbox and brings the mail into his wife. After the extremely dense content of the preceding few pages, these panels seem almost barren, filled with empty lawns and cloudless skies. Again, Huizenga’s light brushwork lends the story a sense of delicate melancholy that a heavier technique would not have communicated so easily.

The final page is set-up to the story’s virtual punchline. I won’t give it away (because it would be meaningless outside the story’s context) but in one gesture Huizenga does a brilliant job of communicating Glenn’s rootless despair and the helplessness of their situation. It sounds heavy, and perhaps it is, but it actually reads remarkably light. There’s a remarkable melange of contradictory and conflicting emotions here, just as in real life. You don’t know whether to smirk or to frown. As a reader, you don’t know how to react, and it’s just this ambiguity that makes the story such an interesting achievement.

The next story, "28th Street," is the focal point of the two shorter pieces that buttress it. It’s based on an Italian folktale called "The Feathered Ogre." Basically, after the Ganges have tried everything they can do to have a child, Glenn is told that if he can steal a feather off a feathered ogre, he will be allowed to conceive. So he goes on a strange quest to find the feathered ogre.

In terms of atmosphere, I see a lot of similarities between Huizenga’s approach to the story’s fantastic elements and Matt Brinkman’s treatment of similar concepts. Stylistically, the two artists couldn’t be further apart, but in terms of the way that they both present bizarre fantasy elements matter-of-factly in the course of their narrative, there’s a lot of common ground. When Glenn finally meets the feathered ogre (pretending to be Satan by wearing a bag over his head and taking his pants off – don’t ask) the ogre doesn’t have any great and solemn pronouncement, he merely says "Let’s eat – I’m starving," in the curt tone of a busy urban professional.

In terms of the way Huizenga tackles urban cityscapes, he shares a lot with the aforementioned Clowes. Pages 24-25 are mostly focused on showing off the town as Glenn drives around looking for the ogre. It’s basically the same type of suburban mid-sized townscape we’ve all encountered more times than we can count. But whereas Clowes’ and Wares’ precision can be ominous and alienating, Huizenga’s very naturalistic view of urban scenery is more familiar. Of course, the best part is seeing the typical cityscape melt into a Marc Bell-meets-Ron Rege, Jr. nightmare when Glenn dowses his eyes in magic gasoline in order to find the ogre. Scenes like this suggest that Huizenga has a lot more visual dexterity under his sleeve than his more formally restrained work might suggest (no fair if you get to peek ahead and read Little Sammy McSkinker!)

The final story in the triptych, "The Curse," features a brief history of the starling in North America. There are two passages herein that really stand out. The first is page 42, which illustrates groups of starlings moving across and over the countryside. Interestingly, even though Huizenga illustrates the starlings in flight as tiny folded lines, he still manages to communicate emotion and intent on the part of the birds through their motions and their aggregations.

The second sequence of note, and perhaps the most interesting sequence I’ve yet read this year, occurs on page 45. After Glenn scares a flock of starlings from his tree with a firecracker they take flight, swooping and curving through the air with no seeming shape or purpose, until finally aggregating into a recognizable flock and disappearing over the horizon. It may not sound like much on paper, but it’s a startling sequence in terms of the utter simplicity with which Huizenga can ably and affectingly illustrate a very complicated visual maneuver.

(I will also point out that page 47 also features a rather blatant Crumb swipe.)

In any event, Huizenga’s contribution to this volume ably illustrates why he must be considered at the very top of his incoming class. There are few cartoonists working today who would be so comfortable juggling so many different genres and performing across so many emotional registers within the scope of only forty pages. The ambiguity and emotional engagement with which he imbues his stories foreshadows the coming of a truly monumental cartooning talent. Let us hope that he can live up to the promise within these pages.

Not to pressure him or anything.




|

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho

First off, I’d like to thank Master Shake, Garfield the cat, Ariel the Little Mermaid, Robert Smith of the Cure and Lee Iacocca for filling in for me last week. They all stepped up to the plate and did a terrific job!

But I would like to point out that it’s not every day we get big-time celebrity guests to come and share their wisdom with this here blogosphere. You people need to show some appreciation for these fine upstanding citizens for sharing their hard-earned time with us.

We were going to have a telethon to raise money for you sense-of-humor impaired people but we realized that we would ultimately need too much money because no one seems to have a sense of humor anymore.

I mean, good Lord, I say anything that dares impugn the superhero, everyone gets all up in arms and talks about it for weeks. But try to spread laughter and joy to all the children of the world? Damned if I don’t hear crickets chirping.

Speaking of which, I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the new Mike Millar Spider-Man book. Sure, it’s nothing really new but I think this book should serve as a nice rebuttal to anyone who sees Millar as a cynical craftsmen with no affection for these characters. He’s got a good handle on just about all the major players, and that’s no mean feat. It is a bit darker than I think most Spidey books should probably be, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s still handled well: this is exactly how I think Spider-Man would act in such a dire situation. I wouldn’t give the book to an eight-year old Spidey fan who just saw the movie but it would probably be perfect for a 12-14 year old.

One problem, and I know I can’t be the first to notice this. Why does Spidey have any problem getting into Avengers Mansion? He has an ID card. He has his retinal scans on file with the Avengers’ computer. Hell, even if you forgot that he’s been an Avenger since the early 90’s, they covered this in last month’s issue of She-Hulk. Its not enough to make me dislike the book, because it is fun, but little things like that just rub me the wrong way.

Be sure to check out my new reviews posted at Popmatters – including my take on Uberzone’s excellent contribution to the Y4K series as well as Theo Parrish’s fantastic Parallel Dimensions album. If you like my review of Parallel Dimensions, please feel free to check out my Amazon link to the left of your screen . . . hey, it’s not like I get paid to do this, so I can’t afford shame.

Tomorrow we’ll continue our look at the first Drawn & Quarterly Showcase book, this time focusing on Kevin Huizenga’s superb contribution. Buh-bye!





Travels With Larry Part XII

Couscous Express

Will Eisner aside, there aren’t very many comics being made out there, in any genre, that have successfully attempted to communicate the cultural plight of the immigrant in America. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that most cartoonists are WASPs (with some Jews thrown in to the mix as well).

Couscous Express gets some points for trying to tackle these issues head on. However, I’m afraid to say that there’s not much else I can find to recommend this book.

The book details the adventures of Olive Yassin, a fast-food delivery girl in New York City, working for her parents’ award-winning middle-eastern restaurant. First, Olive is perhaps the least likeable protagonist since Leatherface in the first texas Chainsaw Massacre. I know that writer Brian Wood isn’t stupid, I realize he made a conscious decision to portray her as an irredeemable brat. But as with many things, there are two ways to make an unlikable protagonist viable in a your narrative: the way that works and the way that doesn’t. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. She’s a self-absorbed brat who complicates and endangers the lives of everyone around her.

The story is supposedly built around an arc of character growth on her part, but it’s an unconvincing transformation. At the end of the book, despite all the danger and destruction, all the main characters are essentially unscathed. Olive has had some bad times but the fact that everyone came out OK in the end serves only to reinforce the essentially solipsistic nature of her character. At the very end of the story she says she’s learned her lesson, but at no point does Wood actually show this. Just having her say she learned and grew is hardly enough. Show, don’t tell. People lie, and we have no reason to believe that Olive is any less of a bitch on the last page than on the first page.

Brett Weldele’s artwork doesn’t do much for me either. I can tell he majored in design, because his pages are full of cool design elements and trippy Photoshop effects. The one thing his pages lack, however, is the ability to tell a story clearly and succinctly. There are many times throughout, especially during longer action sequences, when the reader is basically left to their own devices in terms of following the narrative thrust. Perhaps the years will reveal Weldele as a rising star, but his work in Couscous Express is very, very raw.

Ultimately, Couscous Express failed for me on a very visceral level as a direct result of the casual violence and gun fetishism throughout the book. Maybe I’m a "square", but I don’t think guns are very fun. Guns are dangerous. A bullet can shatter an arm, a leg or a life. Every time a shot is fired, the potential exists to permanently damage or destroy someone’s life, as well as the lives of everyone they know and love.

Violence is a very real and very unpleasant part of life. I don’t like art that glorifies or fetishizes or in any way puts across the notion that violence is an acceptable solution. I can handle it in a superhero comic book or a horror movie, because they’re fantasy. I can handle it when used in satire (as in The Punisher) or realistically (The Wild Bunch springs to mind). But I don’t like action movies. I don’t like heroes who shoot first and ask questions later without any thought to the pain and havoc they wreak with every bullet. I don’t like these things portrayed in a straightforward and essentially uncritical manner. I don’t like seeing the lifestyle of the young and criminally inclined glorified in the manner that Couscous Express glorifies the group of violent criminals, the self-proclaimed "urban warriors" at its core. Where are the police? Why is there no acknowledgement of the fact that these people live lives of meaningless and inescapable violence?

The book ends with a figurative "happy ever after", on the assumption that simply because enough people have died the violence is over. But that’s not how it works. Violence begets violence begets violence. Our culture is awash in art that attempts to convince us that casual, sexualized violence is OK, when it’s not.

Art has no external moral prerogative, but it must remain true. Couscous Express reads incredibly false to me, the product of having seen too many bad action movies and maybe having lived one of those rare and privileged lives that is never darkened by brutal violence. As someone who has touched the barest perimeter of overwhelming violence, and felt the uncontrollably pain and suffering it inspires, I can’t help but find this book sorely lacking.



|

Master of Industry

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a world-beating captain of industry



Well now, what’s this here comic book blog I’ve been given to write today? Well, quite a propitious circumstance it is indeed. It looks to be time for an important announcement from me,



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!

You see, I’ve made the decision to buy comics. Not just a few comics, or a few comic companies, but all of comics.

Why, you may be asking yourselves in tones of hushed wonder? Why is such an important, handsome and enigmatically charismatic living legend bothering with such a pissant little industry as comics?

Because it pleases me to do so.

After all, they said I couldn’t bring the American automobile industry back to the forefront of world business.



It was supposed to explode. Somehow the advertising people didn’t get that part across.

They said I couldn’t make a successful artificial butter spread with an old man flavor.



People love the old man flavor – they come up to me in shopping malls and at rodeos and tell me "Mr. Iacocca, Sir, this artificial butter canola spread tastes just like you!!!" It doesn’t even explode. When I see the joyous gleam in the eyes of a small child, there is no prouder moment possible for . . .



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!

They said you couldn’t start a nationwide franchise of strip clubs with preteen boys as entertainment, and then they watched as my Lee Iacocca presents P.J. O’Cucumber’s chain rose to become the number one pre-teen sex-club franchise in the country.



So why comics? Simple – looks like an easy target. You got all these pissant companies vying for pieces of an ever-smaller pie – sounds like Detroit in the 70s, doesn’t it? Who else but . . .



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!

. . . could possibly save this benighted industry?

Man, I love these gummy fish I got down at the Shaw’s. They were in the clearance basket for seventy-five cents a package, I think I’ll go back and grab the lot of them. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned. I may be diabetic, but I never turn down a gummy shark!



So, we’re going to see some changes around here. I don’t like this Spider-Man fellow having his name so big, so I’m going to change "The Amazing Spider-Man" to . . .



Just imagine yourself a child again, for a moment, in the beautiful world of childhood where everything is so grand and wonderful and optimistic. Say you’re flipping through the comic book rack with your greasy stubby peasant fingers looking for a comic book to waste your mind on . . . what will appeal to you? A picture of a fruit-loop in tights or a picture of me,



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!

The choice is clear.

And that’s not all!

Tokyopop is unfortunately going to be put out of business, and all the employees pink-slipped. There’s a very simple reason for this: Courtney Love ran over my dog.

There I was, walking Puddles down the side of the street (or, to be more correct, my manservant Ezekiah was doing it) and Ms. Love comes blazing down the street in a 1972 Grand Tourino and leaves Puddles as nothing more than a bloody stain on the pavement. I think she was hopped up on the wacky tobaccy as well.

Anyway, Tokyopop has gotten into bed with the sinister Ms. Love, in the form of this forthcoming comic book:



I don’t know quite how it works: whether they have some sort of gun that shrinks her down into a comic strip character, or whether she has magic powers that enable her to somehow exist simultaneously on two planes of existence . . . but I do know that if I buy Tokyopop and burn the place to the ground I will finally be rid of that meddlesome shrew!

On the ashes of the Tokyopop compound I shall erect an enormous memorial to my dear Puddles, the greatest dog in the world. The only thing that makes it easier to get by from day to day is the knowledge that even though my Puddles is safe in Dog Heaven, the first Puddles will live forever in my heart and on newspaper pages all across the world . . .



So, what else? Well, we’ve got these smaller independent companies that seem to exist merely to bother the real entrepreneurs. The problem is that they have some lucrative properties, if they’d only know how to exploit them.

Take Eightball, for example. I am sure this Clowes fellow is a nice guy, but nice guys just don’t cut it in the world of business. One issue every three years isn’t going to send the stock through the roof. So, as of next October, Eightball is going monthly, with a new creator behind the helm, Chuck Austen. I’m told this kid is really hot – never misses a deadline. I’ve seen some of his drawings and his work looks a lot better than that Clowes guy in any event – he works with computers! It’s got to be great! There will, in any event, be more explosions, more violence, and a return to the characters from the popular Ghost World movie – only now they’re bounty hunters in a scarred post-apocalyptic wasteland where they have to fight dinosaurs and giant robots. Plus, they’ve got really big hooters now.

I know what the youth of America want, for I am



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!

I don’t think we’ll be publishing those Archie comics anymore, I met the men who owned the company and they had some green beans in their teeth. I realize they had probably just returned from lunch but I will not have such immoral and unsanitary characters in my publishing enterprise. So, the Archie properties will be folded into Fantagraphics’ existing Eros line. They should be able to get sales up. Kids will eat it up!

Most importantly, I want there to be more Insane Clown Posse comics.



Yes, I realize that they already have a few comics on the market, but soon they will be the number one franchise in the world. I feel my deep roots in the town of Detroit, the heart of America . . . and the ICP remain Detroit’s - and by extension America’s – greatest living troubadours.

We live in a day and age when the American Dream is a living reality. What else speaks to the primal urgency of the American Dream like two men in clown makeup spraying fat people with Faygo brand soda pop?

They’ve already conquered the world of movies:



It’s only a matter of time before America’s children are all screaming to own all the Skinny J and 2 Shaggy Dope merchandise and artificial-butter canola spread that we can produce.

But first I’m closing all the comic book stores and I will personally go around and put my fat Cuban cigar out in the eye of anyone who speaks ill of these plans on an internet message board. I swear to God, you miserable punks, I don’t know what a fucking Heroclix is, and if you tell me you bought three cases without getting a "Bat Sentry" one more time I will ensure that Congress passes legislation banning you. You personally. From breathing.

Because at the end of the day, you don’t fuck with



Lee Iacocca,
Master of Industry!!!



|

Disintigration

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a somber black-haired post-punker



So, eh, wot's this then? 'Ere I was about to sit down to a nice cuppa and some chap calls me up and says: "See 'ere, Robert, would you mind doing me a terribly awkward favor now and filling in on me comic book blog?" And sure as I said "yes'n" 'e was orf the line doin' a jig or sumpin', I’m sure.

Only problem is, see, I don' know much about these 'ere comical books, least not wot you Yanks is used to. 'Ere on the Islands we read good proper boys comics, like Beano.



Now that’s a right cracking good comical book, guv'ner! None of this "bam and pow" rot like on your bloody Yank books, although we 'ad our fair share of those bleeders as well, right right. Sent over as ballast, they were, in the 'ulls of cargo ships.



That’s 'em and all. I wonder, 'ave Oy ever been in a comical book such as 'is?



Bloody 'ell! I guess I was an' all!

Anyways, I figures to sit down and 'ave me a spot of tea while I write this 'ere blogument on the subject of comical books, so Oy’ll just put some music on in the background, like this, see . . . ah, yes, if it ain’t me favorite group, the Cure. I quite fancy the fellow wot sings for them, he’s got 'imself an 'andsome face, yes he does. 'Ets put on some Bloodflowers, 'cause someone's got to listen to that one, I say, an' it moit as 'ell be me since no one else is nickin' it, roit?

Anyways, where was we? Ah yes, me old pal Biffo:



Jolly old chap 'e was, always bumblin' into some jolly fun mischief, was 'e. Splendid fun, roit.

Now, I do say, wot since a fellow loiks bein' seen in makeup an' frizzy 'air, everyone sees fit to call 'im a ponce! Now, see how, chaps, but that's not quite roit. It's a sartororial choice, it is, an' I don't see your manly visage on the posters on the walls of America's yout', now do I?

Now wots this we 'ave 'ere?



'Ell, now, looks as if we’ve got us a big black chap and a pink fellow doin' some ballroom dancing, loik, "step one two" and all that rot. Looks like the pink fellow even put 'is top 'at on for the occasion, idn't dat noice?



Wot's this then? Looks like 'ere’s a cock on this here comical book cover! If 'at don’t just beat all!



It 'ould appear to be everyone’s favorite space monkey, Alf, wit' 'is very own comic book. Looks a bit dodgy, though, as 'e seems to possess three diff'rent noses in this par’ticula picture.



Now, why exactically would a ghost be partic'ulaloy 'appy? It boggles the moind, it surely does. I mean, if I was a ghost, why Oy’d be dead now wouldn’t Oy? It seems to stand to reason that Oy would be if Oy was, which I aint’ but if Oy was it would not be too much call for chipper cheer now, would it? I doubt I’d be right down to the pub for a pint and a silk cut, now would Oy? Oy’d probabably be pretty un'happy about the whole thing, all thigns considered.



Well, now, if it isn’t the Great American Pastime itself, wot it is, but baseball. Ain’t a notch on the bum to cricket, sad to say, but that’s just the way of it now, idn’t it?

Mmmm. I do loik me a nice spot of tea, some Earl Gray really quenches the spot, now but it does.



But bloody 'ell, it looks to me loik a comic telling the wee young lads that takin' drugs is the way to be. Well, now, let me tell you it ain’t, an' all, that’s just the way of it now.

So don’t be lookin' at dis 'ere comical pamphlet and sayin' "bloody ’ell, but it looks loik methampetatatamoines is cert’unlly the way to be goin’ now." That’s sure’n not the way to be gettin’ along in loif. Take it from me, Robert Smit’ o’ the Cure – Drugs is bad.



Well now, if that don’t appear to be nuffink else than moy smilin’ vis’age on the cover of this here comical magazine. Oy wonder how they did that. Ain’t I gots a lawyer no more?

As Oy ’ave been known to observe, boys don’t croy – but seein’ my likeness nicked by some barmy comical book manufacturarers makes moy blood boil suffink black, I tell you!

Well, but I guess this her blogomat is over and all, seein’ as I ’ave been mortally offended and all. But remember, now, buy lots of Cure CDs, wot wot?

Tip top tally ho, young chaps an’ chappettes!




|

Under Da Sea

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a red-haired mermaid



So, like, ohmiGAWD I am so totally STOKED to be here with ya'll today! This is, like, a total honor, or something, I am totally, totally sure.

So, uh, we're talking about what? Comic books? Um, I, like, don't know anything about those, except, like, I was in one of those things once, I think:



It was, like, totally grody. It looks like we're having, like, such a fun time but really there were all these old men just, like, looking at me while I was on panel. They said they were, um, editors or something but they just kept their hands in their pockets and were just, like, really interested in me. It was super creepy.

So, um, you're probably wondering what I've been up to all these years. Well, like, it's just been one long and crazy roller coaster ride ever since my movie came out in 1989 (or whenever it was, I am such a total ditz!). Just one thing after another! I love going around and meeting all my fans across the world, even in the Middle East where I usually get stoned and heckled! But I know that's just their way of showing their appreciation for the magical world of Walt Disney.



This, as you know, is my, like, total best friend in the whole world, Sebastian the crab. Well, he wants you all to know that he has, like, never been happier these last few years since he finally came out of the closet. I was, like, so totally proud of him for being brave, you know? Even if it meant he couldn't ever set foot on Disney property again, which it kinda did.

But he's working for Sandals in the Caribbean, he's, um, the musical director or something for one of the resorts down there. He's been living with a handsome mullosk named Dave for about two years now and has never been in better shape! You should, like, totally see his abs, they are just to die for.



That's Dave. Isn't he just a total super cutie-pie?



Aw, weren't they, like, so perfect for each other? They were just a super couple, weren't they?

But those were, like, happier times, back before the drugs and, like, before he cheated on her with that total slut Pocahontas.



Let me tell you something . . . like, a total secret: when she was singing about "painting with the colors of the wind" or whatever, she was totally ripped on PCP. Everyone, like, so totally knew but they didn't fire her because her and Eisner had, like, a thing going on there for a while. But when he got bored that ho was so totally on her ass, it was not even funny.

Last I heard she was doing Chinese-language soap operas, or something, in Taiwan or Hong Kong or Mekong or one of those oriental countries.



Um. Oh, I am so totally going to cry! I can remember exactly where I was when I heard . . . I was sitting in the living room watching, like, 90210, and then I get this call, and it's Belle, and she's totally crying and I can't understand what she's saying and then she says, like, "Simba's dead," and I'm like, "No!" and she's all like, "Way!" and I'm just "No way!" Apperantly, he was shot by poachers or something, I still don't, like, know what really went down. But I do know that those faggots at E! who said he had that vial of Coke on him were so totally full of S-H-I-T!



Isn't he just a total hottie? I so thought so too. But he was such a freaking prima-donna, let me tell you. He was, like, all "You cannot address me, you brazen harlot, cover yourself in the name of Allah" and I was like, "you are so totally not talking that way to me," so I left that party. Like, I, um, respect his religion and stuff, but he was just a total prick about it. So, um, no-one was too surprised to hear about what happened after 9/11.



But, like, the parrot took the money he made from the movie and opened a deli with two of the Aristocats. I've been there but, like, I so totally couldn't eat anything on the menu because, like, I'm just a total anorexic! I mean, I am so fucking fat, I'm like, just totally repulsive!



Now there's an honestly happy person! He is just, like, one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. They found him, like, living in a trailer park in Florida for circus freaks and he was just totally stoked to be in the movie, he says he was blessed by God to be able to bring joy to so many children, or something like that. It's, like, almost creepy, hes so damn happy.

I got an e-mail from him, like, a couple months back said they were putting together, like, a total package tour with him, Corky from Life Goes On, the Elephant Man and that guy who played Urkel.



But that Esmerelda was, just, like, a total flaming bitch, and a mega-whore to boot. I don't care what she tells you, I was not in the car with Hercules at that party. I don't even like Hercules, he is so totally gay it isn't even funny.



Just remember, like, next time you watch Hunchback: she's a total ho and she'd suck a toad if she thought he had some coke in his pocket. Like, totally.



I always thought Mulan was, like, totally pretty. But, like, after she did her movie she cut her hair, why did she do that? Like, I totally respect her not wanting to make the whole Disney thing her life, and stuff, and I totally understand wanting to go to college and get a degree in, um, feminist studies or something? But she sent me this book for Christmas two years ago that, like, I just don't understand at all . . .



And now I hear she's working for, like, the Mayor of San Francisco or something. I dunno.

And, like, that's just about it for all of the "old crowd" . . . we've kind of, um, drifted apart the past few years, because we've all got jobs and stuff, but, like, it's always fun to get together and stuff, you know, talk about the old days.

I don't know much about these new kids, especially, like, the Pixar guys . . . they're kind of, um, weird, and they all seem really, really serious when they're not performing. I don't know, I met Mike from Monsters, Inc. at a company party and he looked really nice with his glasses on and his hair combed back but he was kind of, um, what's the word, condescending to me . . . he was talking to that toy guy, um, Buzz Light-Something about this book he read by some guy, like, Noah Chauncy or Chompsy or something . . . they were having this total deep and meaningful conversation about, like, government and stuff right in the middle of a cocktail party. I mean, Donald Duck was fucking throwing up in the guest bathroom and they didn't even notice. Kind of stuck up, I think.

The worst part is that now that I'm getting older Mike doesn't answer my calls. I still do Disneyland events and mall openings but, like, I'm going to start working with Bob Eisner now, he kind-of does things cheaper than Mike. He gave me some scripts and I don't know if I want to do Jeepers Creepers 4. I don't know, should I?

I mean, work is work, right?



Drawn & Quarterly Showcase: Book One - Part I

The first of hopefully many editions in the Drawn & Quarterly Showcase series features the work of two artists, Kevin Huizenga and Nicholas Robel. While neither artist could accurately be described as "new", they have both just recently entered the first real phase of their careers as up-and-coming cartoonists: the phase where people start to notice and to care.

Future volumes of the D&Q showcase promise to follow in this tradition by premiering new work from artists perhaps just one major story away from breaking into the "big times." The second volume promises work by Jeffrey Brown and Pentti Otsamo. In the first case it's a bit late for me, because after reading the knockout combo of Unlikely, Clumsy and Be A Man, I don't really need any more convincing that Brown is one of the best young cartoonists currently working today. But I don't know who Otsamo is, so that's definitely something to look forward to. (The multinational balance of the Showcase seems refreshing as well - the fact that a domestic and a foreign cartoonist are featured in the first two volume bodes well for the future.)

The book is split in half, with 41 pages allotted to Huizenga and 45 to Robel. Both acquit themselves well but I believe that Huizenga's is the more interesting specimen, so I'll tackle Robel first.

"87 blvd des Capucines" is slightly maddening, one of those stories that takes a seemingly malicious glee in obfuscating the reader. It's one of those stories that rewards a patient reading, and you will find yourself flipping back and forth through the story multiple times in search of answers - "who's that?", "what did he do?", "is that still the same character?", and so forth.

Of course, this problem is a result of a rather sneaky maneuver on Robel's part, one of those slight-of-hand tricks that almost seem like showing-off on the part of the cartoonist but isn't, not really.

The book begins normally enough, with a young couple looking at an empty apartment owned by the type of mothballed old lady you see in movies all the time. But after only a few pages of the young couple walking around the apartment, things get weird. At first you think that maybe the young lady, Isrine, is flashing back to her childhood. Later on, certain storytelling conceits of Robel's clue you in on the fact that she's actually dreaming, and when you realize that the entire story snaps into sharp focus.

Or rather, it doesn't: it doesn't become a whit less opaque in certain areas. But most importantly, the fact that by the story's end you know you're not supposed to make sense of everything is one of its strengths. This is obviously not a Freudian dream fantasy: there are things that make sense as we learn more about Isrine's background, and there are things that remain obscured and apparently meaningless.

Dreams are scary by their nature. I don't believe that dreams can really "tell" you anything. There's something ominous and anomalous about the act of thinking while you're not supposed to be thinking, of visualizing and cogitating when everything up top is supposed to be resting. But the shock of unexpected juxtaposition and amorphous reality that characterize dreams can be one of the most elusive feelings for a storyteller to conjure. Unlike in the movies, dreams don't usually involve dwarves or backwards-running clocks. You don't know you're dreaming while you're dreaming - or at least not most of the time - and the feeling of reality slowly falling out from under your feet is one of the most vulnerable experiences in the world.

"87 blvd des Capucines" somehow manages to achieve the strange and bizarre texture of an actual, honest-to-God dream, or at least what you would reasonably expect a dream to look like if it crawled out of your head and drew itself on the paper. (Most dream comics don't make it this far, simply reflecting how the conscious mind wants to interpret the act of dreaming.)

The dream is composed of a number of vignettes culled from Isrine's unhappy childhood - the divorce of her parents, her first kiss, the death (or disappearance? abandonment?) of her sister. The most effective and affecting moment comes toward the end of the story, and acts as the ostensible climax in a story with no discernable structure. Isrine clutches her abdomen and rushes up many flights of stairs to the bathroom, and it is there we see the spot of blood on the crotch of her dress. She strips and steps into the tub, until the water becomes red with the blood from her menstruation. Over the red water we see her parents arguing about their painful separation. After they leave, Isrine gets out of the tub, throws up in the toilet and lies on the cold tile bathroom floor for a moment before she puts her dress back on and goes hunting for her boyfriend.

If there is something a bit false about this, it would be the fact that I think male creators never quite get the act of menstruation to ring true. There's a good rule of thumb that whenever you see a story with some sort of woman being drowned in blood, like some sort of metaphor for the terror of menses, it was written by a guy. This says a lot more about the stereotypical (if somewhat accurate) fear of women's bodies that many men have, than anything about what women actually feel to the process of menstruation. But, given that caveat, it is a remarkable passage, with the shameful bloody adolescent menstruation set against the family turmoil of her childhood to illustrate the character's deep seated unease and detachment.

Earlier in the story, before the beginning of the overtly "dreamlike" body of the story, Isrine is berated by her boyfriend for being immature, callow and irresponsible, a perpetual adolescent in an adult's body. We don't get any sort of hollow maturation on the protagonist's part, but we do get a deep and abiding sense of just who Isrine actually is - not who she wants to be or who she was, but who she is. The perpetual present-tense of the dream-like fugue creates an insistent sense of now, the awareness that dissembling is useless - because lying implies an awareness of the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in dreams.

Stylistically, Robel evokes the best of both Richard Sala and Ron Rege, Jr. From the former you can easily see the sketchy, flat shapes playing against a background of awkwardly placed dry brushstrokes. With Rege he shares a sense of size and shape evocative of the Cubists, an almost sardonic awareness of three-dimensional space as perceived on the medium of flat paper. The overall effect of his style is slightly disassociative, but very much European. Here is someone who obviously pulls from a rich multicultural cartooning heritage that doesn't just include representational figure work and bigfoot cartooning.

But what about those clouds, you ask? Ah, the damn clouds. Everyone and everything in this story interacts with the clouds - whether they look like wind or errant word balloons or the sound from a spinning record player or wailing poltergeists. It's a smart motif, one of those irresistibly clever visual metaphors that mark the presence of a master craftsman, someone who takes full advantages of the infinite metaphorical opportunities open to the cartoonist with every line he draws. "87 blvd des Capucines" is a hazy fever dream of a comic, and one of the most interesting works I've read in ages.

But, of course, I still liked Huizenga's contribution better - and it is to that I will speak either tomorrow or Friday.






|

Lasagna

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a fat orange cat



So, have I ever mentioned how much I hate Mondays? The alarm clock rings (I’m a cat, why the fuck do I even own an alarm clock in the first place?) and I can feel the evil seeping in like the light through a venetian blind. It’s strange, as I am a four-legged housepet, and have never had to work a 9-5 job, that I dread Mondays so much – but there you have it.

There’s a Boomtown Rats lyrics that I’ve had in my head lately that I think sums the issue up nicely:

Tell me why/
I Don't like Mondays/
I want to shoot/
The whole day down

That’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it?

Perhaps my dread of Mondays is merely a conscious indicator of the overall malaise in my life. I can’t sugar coat the truth: I’m a morbidly obese housecat. My life is an endless series of personal humiliations. I can’t even clean myself after I take a shit, Jon has to clip the wads of soiled fur from around my ass. And really, the problem only compounds itself. Like Dr. Phil says, it’s a vicious cycle: I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat.

It perhaps doesn’t help that my so-called "master" is one of the most pathetically closeted people in the world. He thinks he has a crush on my veterinarian. This is horrible for me, because he’s spent thousands of dollars on unnecessary and particularly unpleasant procedures just to get the excuse to spend time in the same room as this woman. But he’s not really in love with her, she just reminds him of his mother and he’s transferring his maternal fixation onto her. It’s deeply unhealthy. I mean, she’s married, for Chrissakes. One of these days he’s going to get his ass beat, and I for one am not going to be able to feel much pity for him.

Besides, I know what kind of dirty magazines the man buys. He keeps them right under his bed, where I hock my furballs. I’ll give you a hint: they have sweaty naked men on the cover.

In any event, they’ve made a movie out of my life. Which is odd, considering my popularity peaked about fifteen years ago, but hey. I guess that makes sense. They didn’t make a He-Man movie until Prince Adam was parking cars in Redondo Beach.

In all seriousness, I’m a bit pissed about the whole thing. How many billions of dollars has that Davis prick made off of my image and likeness? All I ever get is a plate of soggy microwave Stouffers lasagna. Bill Murray gets to do Letterman, I get to do a pissant comic book blog. Where’s the justice?

So, since I’m in the type of foul and curmudgeonly mood that has made me beloved by millions of unimaginative toddlers and "developmentally challenged" high school janitors, I figured I’d share some juicy gossip to pass the time.





It’s not secret that Beetle here has been a grateful beneficiary of the Armed Forces "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. King Features has actually done a good job of covering up the more recent and far more serious allegation that Beetle was one of the half-dozen or so MPs indicted in the recent Abu Ghraib prison scandal. That dog being sicced on Iraqi prisoners? That’s Sarge’s loveable pooch, Otto.



Ah, if it ain’t everyone’s new favorite firebrand radical, Huey Freeman. Nothing like making militant radicalism palatable to the mass market in order to sell plush toys and TV pilots.

But the secret that the Universal Press Syndicate doesn’t want you to know is that until 1997, Freeman was a registered Republican. It was only when it became politically expedient to be a liberal that he switched party affiliations, perhaps in hopes of nabbing his party’s vice-presidential nomination.

Oh, wait, I’m thinking of Ret. General Wesley Clark.



Well, shit. I guess I’ll just say Huey’s gay too. Is anyone surprised? It’s always the angry ones.



Ah, the Patterson clan. Is there a better example of filial unity and unadorned affection to be found anywhere on the comics page? What dark secrets could possibly lurk under this lovely exterior?

Well, there was great consternation on the set when it was learned that the actress playing Deanna Patterson nee Sobinski had actually had an earlier career playing "blue" roles in Brian Michael Bendis comic books. Apparently the strict moral code that Lynn Johnston forces her actors to work under almost caused an irreparable tear in the strip’s continuity. It was only the last-minute interference of United Features that saved the character from an untimely death by wood chipper after the revelation was leaked.



Here’s Deanna Patterson, in "family" way in a very pro-family oriented strip . . .



. . . and here’s Deena Pilgrim, in a not so family way in a very un-family oriented strip.

They took away Vanessa William’s crown for less.



No. Fucking. Comment.

How did this get in here? I am not talking about this shitheel.

Next slide.

Next fucking slide.



Everyone’s favorite comic strip medico, Dr. Rex Morgan, has some skeletons in his closet, too . . .



Ah, to be young and desperate for money.



Finally, we have those comics page mainstays, the Dagwoods. Nothing wrong here, is there?



Well, we’ll never know, since King Features paid a rumored $5.6 million dollars to bury a 1996 BBC documentary on the couple’s supposedly rocky marriage. The terms of the settlement explicitly forbade any BBC employees from revealing just what the shocking revelations would have been, but let’s just say that a little birdie told me that Farley Patterson’s death was no accident.

He knew too much.



About a month before Farley died he came over to see me. It was late and he’d been drinking. He seemed very upset, like he’d just had a jolt or a horrible shock. I couldn’t get anything straight out of him, he just kept coming back to the same sad refrain: "I know what’s in Dagwood’s sandwiches . . ."

About a month later he died "saving" that Patterson brat. The truth died with him.



And if I did know, I’d never tell. Because I value my life.


|

Mailbag!

Note: The following column has been subcontracted to a talking milkshake



What the hell, people? What is going on here? I am supposed to be doing important things in my life, important beyond the comprehension of your puny brains. This is the best my booking agent could get me? Answering e-mails on a website, and what is more, a website without naked ladies on it? I do not know what I have done to deserve this, I really do not.

"'what they are and were always intended to be'

"cheese Tim I have read both yours and Dave's back and forth and I just wanted to pipe in with the fact that you may have stepped into more than you realize.

"Artistic intent has got to be the watch word of most of what has been labeled post-modern crit in the past 20 years. After a certain fashion who gives a rat's arse what Alan Moore intended with the Watchmen for the pleasures of discovery are not found in unlocking a grand design devised by the genius who more likly than not doesn't know what he is doing anyway. If anything came out those years and tiresome papers then let it be that there is some equal good in art tha also operates from the unconscious. I am not saying that intent is valueless just that it is not as important as you suggest. I also think Dave wins me over just on the merit of a treasure found rather than the eat your vegetables approach to art.

"sorry - keep up the work I still enjoy reading you often"



I would answer your questions but I will not on the grounds that you and your petty concerns bore me. And this Tim of which you speak - he is not talking to anyone now. I had to get my own pudding cup out of his refrigerator because he was curled up in a fetal position in the corner of the room, apparently too scared to breath.

And as for eating vegetables - I personally do not think that eating vegetables is in any way proscribed by the law or Almighty God. After all, if God had wanted us to eat vegetables he would not have given us legs with which to hunt and kill deer and cows, now would he have? So what I am trying to say is that you should not eat vegetables, it's just a terrible, terrible thing . . . there are children in India who want to eat carrots, and to this I say we should let them have at it. I am a humanitarian.

"Mr. O'Neil,

"I have no problems discussing the relationship of Superheroes and Fascism. As much as I claim they are 'The New Mythology' and agree with most of the 'Literature of Ethics' arguments, I will be the first to admit - even point out - the inherent Paternalism in the idea in an individual with all the power choosing what is right. But you are painting with too wide a brush. In trying to make 'Great Power' come from Mussolini, you essentially dismiss *all* power as Fascist. It makes a nice bumper sticker - like 'All Sex is Rape' - but it is as brain dead and one sided as simply mouthing 'Literature of Ethics'. Or never questioning authority. (Or never questioning those that insist we should always question authority, for that matter.)

You accuse your detractors of 'intellectual laziness', and yet you resost to the knee-jerk, superficial arguments. 'Power Corrupts' is not an absolute. The original phrase is 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' More likely than not, perhaps, but not a tautology. Are you going to insist that *every* police officer, every soldier, every politician will eventually abuse their power? That regardless of who they are, they will all sink to a level of corruption equivalent to their rise in power? Are you saying that were you to wake up one morning with 'the power to change the course of mighty tivers', you *would* become a mass-murdering world tyrant, simply because you could? Before you worry that comics never analyze their assumptions about morality, perhaps you should analyze your assumptions about the lack of it.

"'Just because we can do a thing does not mean that we *must* do a thing' is another nice moral bumper sticker. But one that is perhaps more appropriate. The ideal that superheroes pose is not in what they do, so much as what they choose not to do. Everyone assumes the 'Great Responsibility' is to use the power, to abuse the power to enforce one's personal ethics on the masses. (But then, don't we all?) But it is actually the realization that with the power to do things comes the responsibility to use that power wisely. Since you have the ability to do more, you have to be more careful in what you do. Superman is not Superman because he could take over the world, but because he doesn't. Paul Dini made it explicit in the recent 'Peace on Earth', but the idea that Superman cannot be there for every one goes back to Superman #352 with Destiny, and further. The early comics were pretty two-dimensional, sure. But they were merely a product of their times. Post-Watergate, there are plenty of stroies that question those in power, or question the need to apply that power. 'Spider-Man no more!' wasn't created just for this summer's movie, but has been a constant theme in Peter Parker's life ever since he took on 'Great Responsibility'.

"The claim that '99.9% of all superhero books' never examine the ethical dilemma is as vacuous as the statement '99.9% of mystery novels never question the protagonist's ability to come to a solution through careful detective work.' Literary genre's are defined by their convention, not their exceptions. And in this case, it's even more false as well. While a few mysteries are solved - and crimes comitted - by luck as much as careful planning, nearly every superhero story has the collary to 'Great Responsibility', the person that decides that great power is to be used any way they choose: the Super Villain. And just like the Hero, we have seen an evolution of the Villain. Luthor started as just a nut, a vaguely Russian nut as if that explained everything. Then he was a nut with a really silly hatred of Superboy. Then he was a businessman distrustful/jealous of people with superhuman abilities. For a time he was even a hero, in an environment without a Superman to hate. We have seen Villains who feel they are doing the right thing, and Heroes for whom the ends justify the means. About the only place that the strict Black/White 'Comic Book Morality' really applies anymore is in arguments about why comics are 'just for kids'.

"Now, one aspect of comic book morality that does go unquestioned a little too oftn for me to recommend them as social primers is the question of vigilantism. The 'Voluteer Fireman' argument tries to explain it in terms of Good Samaritainism. I tend to fall back on Nietzche's Ubermensch, having 'gone over' traditional morality and being the only one capable of dealing with others of his kind. (In other words, superheroes can't follow 'normal' rules because those rules were not written with them in mind. But as Kurt Busiek showed in the recent Astro City, the Law is a dance, and it will adapt to new situations.) Many heroes do end up hunted by police at one time or another, or gain official sanction at still another. But since you insist that any sanctioned superheroics is nothing more than facism, they can't win. Either they commit anti-social acts by seperating themselves from societies rules, or they abuse their power by enforcing the rules that society has created for them. (Gosh, ethics is not a collection of absolutes, but requires a balance between the ideals of governance and the realities of personal interactions. A 'Never ending battle' if you will...)

"If you want to engage in a discussion about the application of power, or ever the morality of applying it in the first place, then by all means, take an extremist position and defend it with rational arguments and a rigid code of ethics. That's exactly the way that morality and government should be constantly analyzed and hopefully improved. But if all you have is some sophmoric, 'I hate my parents so I dress up in a black bandana and trash a McDonalds to "denounce" the G8 summits' pique of adolescent rage, then don't for a second try and point fingers about whose literature is 'just for kids'.

"Sincerely,

"David Oakes"



I gave up trying to read this letter because, in all honesty, it did not interest me. These people know too many big words and that is a frightening fact of life. I do not know who these people are, that have the time on their hands to write such long and boring letters. Do they not possess television sets? Is there no cable TV? The farm report was on the television once and I swear to God I was so bored that I felt my life slipping away from me, seeping out of my body and into a small puddle on the ground.

Now, I did skim the last part of your letter and it seems to me that you are accusing this person of being a Hippy. If I were him, I would challenge you to a duel in order to reclaim my honor, because there is nothing worse on this planet than a dirty hippy. I saw one of them on TV once and I think it scarred me for life, it really did. I like bathing, even if I don't get to do so as often as I would like, because, frankly, I am a busy man, and life does not always play out as we would like, and that is why I am talking to you today.

I have a slip of paper here that says I am supposed to tell you that some comic book company declared bankruptcy. To which I say: we are all safer for it. There is really nothing to be done about the fact that our society is being slowly destroyed from the inside out by traitorous, disease-carrying Chinamen -

(Editor's Note: The views expressed by Master Shake do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hurting or its editorial staff.)

- and these Chinamen are all reading comic books. I was in the supermarket the other day and I saw them on the shelves, some sort of strange books that read from right to left. So, to top it off, the cannot read correctly either. If comic book companies are going bankrupt, then I say the Republic is safer on account of that.

What was that? You want me to talk about the comic books?

I have been given a pile of books to "read" and comment upon, but I do not think I shall do this. Rather I shall burn the books and inhale the fumes, and form these ancient signs shall I foretell the future.

I have been given something with people on it, people drawn in some sort of pose around a coffin or something, perhaps a cooler with cold beverages inside it. There are breasts on a skinny child with long black hair.



What is this crap? This is crap. This was written by an old, old man, for the consumption of other old men. I have been told that this is the "comics event of the year." So you are telling me that the comics event of the year is a flimsy paper pamphlet designed to launch a Stretch-Guy limited series, or whatever this douchebag's name is? I mean, killing someone's wife to make a third-tear character more interesting really isn't a new idea, didn't they do that on Manimal or something?



And what is this? This was actually pretty good. Not good enough to pay for it, but better than that first piece of crap . . .



But then again I would not pay for any of this. My money has many more valuable things to pay for than this. But anyway, I enjoyed this, this reminded me of a movie I saw once, I don't remember what, maybe something with Richard Grieco. This is fun because I know that at some point people are going to get blown up, and perhaps even set on fire at some point in the future, and that is a good thing because most of these comic books are just boring.

So, the book that seems to have been copied from a late night Cinemax heist fick is definitely better than the book that seems to have been written by Dr. Boring, the Mayor of Boringville, USA. If I had to read but one comic book for the rest of my life, it would not be either of these, but then again, I would be thrilled with joy at only having to read one comic book for the rest of my life.

I need to lay down, perhaps in a darkened room. My sciatica is causing me great amount of pain, and I do not care enough for any of you to continue speaking when I am clearly in massive amounts of work-related pain.





Travels With Larry Part XI

Demo #6

During my previous round-up of Demo #1-5, I maintained that the series seemed to be improving with every issue. I am pleased to report that this trend continues with issue number six, probably my favorite of the series so far.

First of all, the MVP for this issue would have to be Ms. Becky Cloonan. Just in the space ofthese six months, her skills as a storyteller have improved by leaps and bounds. This is perhaps her most confident issue yet, and that probably has as much to do with the fact that, from a storytelling sense, this is her most straightforward work on the series.

There's nothing flashy here, no big high-concept storytelling gimmick or elaborate stylistic departure. Just well-composed panels, one after another, that add up to an incredibly solid story. Her use of gray to balance her compositions is something that definitely sets her above many of her AiT/Planet Lar stablemates, some of whom draw B&W no differently than they would a color illustration (this has been a weakness of books such as Abel and Giant Robot Warriors. I particularly like her stylized use of zipatone (or, I imagine, computerized zipatone). But on that same note, I think she could also profit from using some gray-washes in future issues, which do allow for a more subtle range of effects than the artificially stippled computer tones.

Of particular note is the sequence of wordless panels on page seven, a sequence that manages to communicate both the events and the emotions of the scene with perfect alacrity. If I had one complaint it would be that sometimes Cloonan forgets one of the most important rules of storytelling: never leave a big reveal on the bottom of the right-hand page. She does this with a particularly important scene - I won't give it away if you haven't read it but it involves the puppy (if you have you'll know which one I'm referring to). It's the most dramatic reveal of the series but it's on the bottom of a right-hand page, so it's telegraphed long before you actually reach it.

But aside from these brief quibbles, Demo #6 is the confident work of a team at the height of confidence in their growing prowess. They seem to be growing past the stylistic twitches that may have marred earlier issues of the series. I look forward with growing anticipation to seeing how the rest of the series plays out.



|

Oh, Dios Mio!

Well, shit.

Without meaning to, I seem to have riled up the ol’ interweb hornets again. You see, I wasn’t trying to be controversial, I was just trying to find something interesting to write. Seriously, I promise.

It’s taking a lot of self-control to keep from getting cranky about the whole thing. Everyone else seems to be getting cranky, but I will try to keep a civil tongue about me. I won’t make any comments like “have fun at Wizard World,” or “make sure to double bag your Youngblood back issues,” or even “dude, sounds to me like someone’s spider-sense woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” No, that would just be an asshole thing to do, and I’m hardly an asshole, now am I?

I’m just a floating nimbus of freelance love.

Anyway, on with the show.

Kudos to Dave Fiore for keeping a civil tongue and not dismissing my arguments out of hand simply because I disagree with him. As always, he writes some of the most cogent and interesting stuff around, such as this:

. . . here's my question: what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value? That's why I would say that the only people who shouldn't read superhero comics are kids who haven't developed a critical perspective yet! Look at Tim--he's a smart guy, but he seems unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative. Why? By his own admission, it's because he read too many superhero comics as a young child . . . (Emphasis Mine>

The answer to your question is painfully simple. Given the state of the world today, when you ask “what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value?” I have a hard time not laughing. I’m sorry, perhaps I am cynical. But people are gullible. People are willing to believe anything, and the percentage of the population who practice the kind of critical thinking and examination you and I obviously take for granted is miniscule (and no, for all you smartasses out there, I don’t have any exact figures). It’s just damned naïve on the face of it, and I hate to say this because I respect your intelligence, but you’re giving the average Joe way too much credit. Even the average intelligent Joe doesn’t read everything with that kind of critical eye, and especially not escapist literature like superhero comics.

I would ask you, in all seriousness, if you’ve ever read an issue of Wizard from cover to cover. I have. I used to subscribe to the damn thing, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” (as they say). That’s the mentality of the average reader of superhero comics. And by average, I mean the vast majority.

Fiore points out, correctly, that I “[seem] unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative.” Well, yes, that’s true. For an Alan Moore or Grant Morrison story, yes, I’ll definitely buy that. But for the most part . . . the kind of structuralist and post-structuralist lit critique you’re applying to the average superhero book is patently absurd.

You want to know what I think about the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga? Well, buddy, with all due respect to someone who seems to spend quite a bit of time thinking deep thoughts on stories like this: the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga is quite possibly one of the stupidest stories every written. It’s a bad soap opera with outlandish sci-fi elements that break the suspension of disbelief in a premise already filled to the brim with bad sci-fi elements. It wasn’t written with any sort of systematic literary ideation in mind, it was written with the hopes of entertaining 8-12 year olds and hopefully getting them to spend cold hard cash on thirty-two pages of garishly printed newspaper.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that something written for a pop audience as disposable escapism was later revealed to have deep and fathomless depths of which the masses were unaware. But considering the circumstances, an infatuation with 70’s Spider-Man seems masturbatory at best, downright inane at worst. I may be proven wrong by the cascading tide of history, but I doubt it.

Why are we even talking about these books? The superhero genre is such a tiny, insignificant corner of the comics medium that it is simply galling on the face of it that so much literal and digital ink is wasted on the subject. Yes, wasted . . . because I’ll be damned if I think that bad 70’s Spider-Man comics deserve this kind of rigorous explication while Louis Riel or Quimby the Mouse or even The Boondocks are never discussed. Love & Rockets makes 99% of even the best superhero books look like dog puke, and I never see anyone discussing it. I’d love to see Fiore tackle a book like that, something I think could actually reward such a deep examination.

Elsewhere, Fiore states:

My own hypergeneralized tag for the genre was "the literature of moral and epistemological inquiry". Of course, in order to entertain this notion, you have to accept my contention that superhero comics have been progressing toward the work of Gruenwald (Squadron Supreme, Quasar and Captain America) and Morrison (Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and, most recently, and perhaps most spectacularly, The Filth) since the beginning (or, at least, since 1961). There's no reason you ought to accept this. But there's no reason to dismiss my statement simply because most superhero comics have fallen far short of these exalted heights either.

I think that’s a pretty fair and pretty reasoned idea. But I just don’t think it holds water, because the only trends that have any meaningful relevance on mainstream comics history are marketing trends. Now, of course, marketing is a part of every art medium, however much one may try to deny it, but there’s also no separating the fact that editorial decisions in mainstream comics are made solely on the basis of what sells. Manga is popular, so what does Marvel do? They produce numerous books that copy the superficial qualities of manga. Watchmen and Dark Knight were popular in the late 80s, so what did they do? Produce a series of books that questioned the moral and epistemological underpinnings of the genre in a formalistically experimental manner? No, they made their heroes “grim & gritty” and used a lot of spotted blacks to make the heroes look all tortured and dangerous.

So that’s why I think looking for literary trends in commercial comics is ultimately futile, because the trends in commercial comics are fueled by what fifty-year old men in bad suits think twentysomethings in soiled WCW T-Shirts will buy. The percentage of the audience who read mainstream comics in as critical and involved a matter as you people do is statistically negligible, so they just don’t make the comics with these ideas in mind. If they do come out like that every now and again, it’s surely a mistake.

Moving on to the less kind members of our blogosphere, Steven at Peiratikos takes less-nuanced umbrage with my statement that “there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books.” He sees this as a “cop out generalization,” which is, I suppose, fair. I’m not going to go over every spandex book ever published in order to back that kind of a statistic up. I’ve read a shit-load of the things, both good and bad, and whatever their various strengths or weaknesses may be, they are just not very ambiguous in terms of moral examination.

He finishes up his rather curt arguments with the galling assumption that “[his] real point seems to be that he prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike (uncritical) manner, rather than an adult (critical) matter, and his elaborate justifications merely obfuscate this. Which would be a nice way to win the argument, if it wasn’t a gross misstatement.

This whole argument reminds me, in a roundabout way, of a book that was published a few years back which caused quite a bit of uproar in the scholarly community. It was called The Bible Code and it was written by a man named Michael Drosnin. This book claimed that there was a secret code hidden in the first five books of the Bible by God as it was dictated to Moses, and that this code revealed all sorts of magical secrets of prophecy.

Of course, this is poppycock of the stinkiest kind. The point is, you can find anything if you look for it hard enough. People have been finding explanations for the wackiest behavior in the books of the Bible for some 1,800 years by now, and it doesn’t look like its going to stop anytime soon. Likewise, I think people who insist on reading you average, garden variety superhero book and seeking out deep and subtle meanings are just looking too hard for something that isn’t there. Stan Lee wasn’t trying to undertake any sort of secret philosophical dialectic in the pages of the early Marvels, he was just writing some cheap entertainment, and doing his best to keep Ditko and Kirby’s philosophies (overt and covert, respectively) out of the books as best he could.

I think most superhero books should be read on an uncritical basis because that is how they were intended to be absorbed. I guarantee you that if they had thought people would have any interest in debating these things all these years later, they wouldn’t have made such a botch-up of Wonder Girl’s origin, for one. That’s a cheap joke but it’s basically the truth: for most of these books, if you go looking for deeper meaning, you’re going to end up grafting your own prejudices and conceptions onto the text, because, with some exceptions, the deeper meaning just isn’t there to be found.

(And I’m hardly encouraging children to read pro-Fascist literature. I think kids should read all the wonderful fantastic literature they can find, be it C.S. Lewis or Tolkein or Harry Potter or Captain America. Subtext is something you, hopefully, discover when you’re grown up. When you’re young, its good enough to understand that Cap tries to do the right things for the right reason, and the question of how and why can wait until you’re older . . . or, at least, I hope they can. Likewise, I wouldn’t care about my kid reading The Chronicles of Narnia either, despite the overt Christian subtext. They’ll figure it out later - if they care to - when they’re old enough to make their own decisions about these things. Likewise with Cap.)

Marc Singer over at I Am Not The Beastmaster says some interesting things too, which I would recommend you read, even if I don’t quite agree with him. I’ve already spent enough time defending myself from Peiratikos’ slings and arrows, and I’m getting tired – if I had known I’d be writing about this subject again, I’d have just kept my trap shut – but there is one point where he chimes in with Steven’s argument to add that “he [me] prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike manner and then criticize them for being childlike”.

Which is not the case. I prefer to read them in an uncritical manner, yes, because otherwise (if you’re not going for a formalistic reading of the storytelling geniuses involved in some of the books) they fall apart like the cheaply-printed tissue paper they are. I’m not criticizing the books for being childlike, I am merely pointing out a fact, just as the sun rises in the east and Marmite tastes like ass. I am criticizing otherwise healthy, sane, rational adults for taking such limited, stunted, and downright silly literature so damned seriously. It’s not a criticism to say that the Clone Saga was intended to be read by children and young adults, it’s merely a statement of fact. It’s almost a tautology: children’s books are meant to be read by children, and therefore most of them are childlike.

What a freakin’ concept, Vern.

Sorry if that offends you. It just seems pointless to spend so much time thinking about such damn trivial pieces of art. I mean, I can talk about bad old comics all day long, I love it. But I think it’s a grievous error to accept the vast majority of them as anything more than what they are and were always intended to be: fastly produced, cheaply made escapism.

There is so much good stuff out there that is absolutely ignored, and seeing the heartfelt attention that is paid to the crappiest of the crap breaks my heart.



"This subject of discussion is hereby declared illegal. It is stupid and must be destoyed!"








|

the Secret Origin of Il Duce

Sean T. Collins recently threw out this little bon mot on the Comics Journal. Basically, in a nutshell, I get the idea that Collins doesn't quite agree with the notion that superheroes are an essentially fascistic idea.

In my life, I have spent some time thinking about just this concept. As I see it, it's pretty cut-and-dried. Superhero stories, at their heart, were created to appeal to children. As such, they make great childrens stories, and can even have some appeal to non-children when done well enough. But the same attributes that make them marvelous vehicles for entertaining children make them absolutely poisonous - ideologically speaking - for grown adults to take too seriously.

In a lot of ways, this hearkens back to the "literature of ethics" conversation of a few months back. As we discussed then, the "literature of ethics" concept was good except for one teeny-tiny fact: there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books. Black and white, good and evil, are pretty much accepted as is, and any shades of grey are presented as mere obstacles to be overcome. So, when you pick up The Avengers or Superman, the unspoken assumption is that the powerful superbeings whose adventures take place therein are morally infallible creatures whose strange abilities give them the obligation to combat "evil" outside of the traditional constraints of our legal system.

If you're eight or twelve, its an attractive and enjoyable fantasy. But if you grow older and never at some point examine the deeper ethical questions of obligation, responsibility, and corruption that would inevitably follow if superheroes really existed, you are ignoring the facts of reality and history.

Namely, the fact that power corrupts, and even if absolute power could theoretically be wielded by an incorruptible superman (like, say, Superman), it would still be intrinsically dangerous simply because the potential exists for abuse.

"With great power comes great responsibility" could easily have been said by Mussolini. Fascism was, above all else, a system dedicated to the destruction of the Individual by powerful forces in the State. As with Stalinism, fascism created and maintained the notion of the state as a living organism with needs and responsibilities above the petty concerns of the Individual. Unlike Communism, however, whose ultimate (stated) goal was a classless society of equals, Fascism was very much dedicated to the notion of social Darwinism. Weakness - whether in individuals, peoples or nations - was something to be eradicated and purged, so that only the strong survived. The strong were best represented by supernational entities who rose up from the faceless masses to protect the State from the hazards of mob rule (democracy and anarchy) and who were believed to embody the chosen ideals of the nation. This is the way the world works in a fascist state: the State is an organism whose cells and organs are composed of separate individuals, and whose head is ruled by the actions of preturnaturally gifted supermen such as Hitler or Mussolini. (Of course, in practice, this is also how Communism ended up working, as the high ideals of socialist revolution were uniformly replaced by the totalitarian pseudo-fascism practiced by Lenin and Stalin and later Mao and Castro. It's important to remember that despite the many similarities in the Communist and Fascist systems, the Communists and Fascists hated each other more than either of them hated the western republics, which explains why the USSR fought with the Allies. But you probably know all that, and I have digressed mightily.)

So, if you are a grown person who takes the moral underpinnings of superhero comics seriously, I don't know what to say: you would make a great fascist.

Uncritical acceptance of powerful authority figures is great when you're a kid... hell, it comes with the job description. But as you get older you need to question authority. You need to realize that power exerts a corrupting force. All the things that makes superheroes great and wonderful in the context of a kid's comic book make them deeply, powerfully impracticable in the real world. The idea of sanctioning groups of powerful supermen to watch over us - either tacitly, as with groups like the X-Men, or overtly, as with the Avengers and JLA - is damn near suicidal, and definitely fascistic.

Which is why I just don't think an intelligent, grown adult can seriously accept most superhero books on face value, because to do so is to court the worst kind of moral laziness. There have been a relative few books that have actually attacked the ethics of superbeings in one way or another, and whenever these books have tackled the notion of even semi-realistic superheroes, they have almost always touched on the fascistic elements implicit in characters who can change the course of mighty rivers with their bare hands.

I'll talk about some of these books tomorrow.

|

Psychology Is One Of My Subroutines

There is nothing in this world more frustrating than not being able to find something you know you own.

If you know me at all, you know I am only sporadically organized. Some things, such as my wife's records, I make a good attempt at keeping orderly (for her sake, believe me). Other things, such as my own comic books, are not even close to being slightly organized.

So one of the all-too-common recurring motifs in my life is rummaging through longboxes in search of one or two specific issues which I just can't seem to find. Of course, there are patches here and there that are organized, bunches of books that I bought many years ago and don't reference much (like, say, my complete run of Sleepwalker). But the books I like and want to find on a consistent basis are the ones that forever elude me.

Over the past week I must have spent probably four or six hours rummaging through comics in search of two (T-W-O) issues of a book which I can't find. I'm one of those people who often saves mini-series to read after they've been completely published, but sometimes this technique backfires, as when I cannot find two issues of a ten-issue series which I know I bought in its entirety as it was released. I won't give away the name of this series, save ot say it rhymes with "Louis Riel."

So, I'm a bit frustrated. Now, I don't have all my comics with me - most of them are in safe storage a good 3,000 miles across the country - but the comics I do have with me still represent an imposing pile. So, I've wasted quite a bit of time looking through these boxes, repeatedly looking for two issues which have disappeared off the face of the planet. Of course, the two issues in question can probably still be bought for around cover price, so I have spent hours and hours and hours of my life, hours which I will never regain, in a fruitless hunt for 6$ worth of lost comic books. Its the story of my life, I tell you.



Travels With Larry Part X

Scurvy Dogs

Just so you know, and in the spirit of complete candor, my favorite nautically-themed movie of any kind is Cabin Boy which I regard to be an underrated masterpiece of world cinema. I'm not joking, either.

So you know I'm no snob when it comes to humor. But I still find Scurvy Dogs an unsatisfying mixed bag. On the one hand, its obvious that Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount have a lot of fun putting every issue of this series together. On the other, its just not what I would call "ready for prime time", either in the consistent level of the humor or the craftsmanship involved in the book's production.

For this type of humor, I consider Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comics to be the absolute gold standard. There is not an issue of AYC that does not succeed in getting a few belly-laughs out of me, despite my best intentions - it's sick, twisted, offensive and brutally, almost maliciously evil in its consistent desire to flaunt all conventions of civilized existence. But whereas AYC is Ha-Ha Funny in a big way, Scurvy Dogs is just sorta Mildly Wacky. The occasional chuckle is the most I can expect (I have to admit, "Lita Fjord" was pretty good).

If this were a folded & stapled mini-comic I think I would like this better. As it is, as a 3$ comic with card-stock covers and great production values, it is something of a baffler. Larry Young's commercial instincts seem pretty spot-on to me: even if I don't like something AiT/Planet Lar publishes, I think I have a pretty good chance of figuring out why it was published. But other than the grating "Pirates Are The New Monkeys" legend on the inside front cover, these series seems to have no overriding reason to exist other than the compromising photos Boyd & Yount took of Young with that anteater at the San Francisco Zoo.

Which is not to say that in another five years Scurvy Dogs couldn't be one of the best, funniest comics being published. But its not there yet, and I don't see how I can reccomend it until it is.
|

Ch-ch-check It Out

My good lord, is it actually time for a new Beastie Boys record? I didn't know that hell had frozen over.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll probably buy the damn thing (OK, probably definitely), but I'm still kinda pissed at artists who just feel like they can take 6 freakin' years off to scratch their collective asses. It's not hard people. Yes, I know you put out a DVD, it was a good DVD. But come on. Hello Nasty just wasn't that good, and that was the last we heard from you (not counting "Alive" off the boxed set). I realize you're off freeing Tibet or something but even Trent can be bothered to get off his duff and release an album every five years.

Why can't more artists be like Weezer? I'm not the biggest Weezer fan in the world, but anyone whose record company has to physically restrain them from releasing more than one record a year gets my vote. Hell, they should all aspire to be as cool as Guided By Voices. If Bjork released music at the rate Robert Pollard did, wouldn't the world be a better place? I mean, wouldn't it?

In any event, I noticed that in my absence former TCJ editor in chief Milo George has set up his very own sniper nest on the World Wide Webiverse. I'd say welcome aboard and blah blah blah happy bunnies and stuff blah blah blah but I never really went in for the whole blogoverse peace love and unity thing. See, the way I see it, everyone else is just so full of love and mutual appreciation that the injection of a Milo George into the blogoverse was almost a natural prerogative. If he hadn't done it, someone else would have. People need people to piss on their parades. Especially if you're reading this: you're probably someone who believes in the magical fairy elves of "community" and "brotherhood". Well, screw that, or go back and reference my infamous "Kill All Hippies" post of a couple months back. Fact is, I was half joking when I wrote that, but only half. People are just stupid and there's no getting around that.

But if you send me free stuff I'll be your best friend. Seriously. Or if you buy something really expensive through my Amazon.com button. I will get down on my knees and swear to God that Skate Man is the greatest achievement in the history of the four-color funnies if you buy one of these.

Makes you think, eh Larry?

Anyhoo.

Seems people are still talking about The Filth. But some of these people are missing the point. If you're getting hung up on the lack of female characters, or the preponderance of juvenile, downright offensive imagery, you need to take a step back and look at what Morrison was trying to accomplish. Everything that happens on the surface of the story is totally and completely meaningless. The point of The Filth is that there is exactly one character in the entire book who isn't just a small part in a series of dizzyingly complicated and dehumanizing patterns and systems. Just about every other character is a fake personality, co-opted and replicated by the Powers That Be as the occasion arises. I wouldn't get too upset about any misogynistic undercurrent here, because the real worrisome subcontext is the totality of the misanthropic worldview Morrison is illustrating. People, men and women alike, are basically bags of stinking, lustful meat - this is the cancerous, fascistic ideal that Greg Feely exists to combat. Women are degraded and dehumanized in The Filth, but so are men, children, dolphins and even chimpanzees. See, the whole thing is basically a big ol' middle finger aimed square at the structuralist school of literary theory. It's all in the semiotics.

So, that'll be it for today. Tune in tomorrow as I compare Scurvy Dogs to Maus.





|

Bullpin Bulletins

Face Front, True Believers!!! That’s right, friends and compatriots, after an extended hiatus the Hurting is once again back and broadcasting from a secret undisclosed location somewhere near the center of the Earth. I’m sure the naysayers over at our Distinguished Competition didn’t think we’d be back – that we’d be joining the ranks of Dashing Dirk Deppey and Singing Alan David Doane on the Island of Esteemed Ex-Bloggers. Well, effendi, you’re not gettin’ rid of us that easy. Who says this ain’t the age of peerless self-puffery? Pas je, croyants vrais!!!

So, as a wise man once said, don’t take any wooden buffalo nickels, and, oh yeah . . .

Excelsior!



Item!

So, Ronald Reagan is dead. Hmmm. Maybe the Bullpen will refrain from any overtly political statements on account of the still-grieving family . . . but then again, it would behoove any patriot to remember, even as we honor the office of the Presidency, that Reagan himself was an absolutely abysmal President, and responsible for a great many of the problems which our nation and our world still face to this day! Food for thought, effendi!

Item!

The Bullpen’s recent trip to California went off uneventfully, which, considering the nature of this trips, is quite the blessing. There was one question raised, however, during a brief stopover in Las Vegas, and that question was a simple one: why the hell would anyone live in Las Vegas to being with?

As seen from the air, you can definitely ascertain from a glance why Vegas is the fastest growing city in America (or at least one of them). Everything is under construction. There are empty tracts of sun bleached sand juxtaposed against budding housing developments in a checkerboard pattern throughout the area. It seems, from the air, almost a construction site in search of a community.

I grew up in Northern California and spent quite a bit of time in Nevada during my formative years. There’s an ethos in the state that I remember quite clearly from my early travels, an almost willful parochialism that sits at odds with the constantly expanding population of the region. Reno calls itself the “Biggest Little City in the World,” and I think it fair to say that that’s an accurate description of the entire state.

Wanting an answer to this urgent, burning question, I went straight to the horse’s mouth – yes, the world’s most famous Las Vegan, Mr. Steven Grant:

“I don't live in Las Vegas proper, but in one of the communities outside of it. But I like the dry heat, (and) I like the lack of winter. The people are friendly without being cloying about it. It's relatively close to Los Angeles, so I can get in there for meetings without too much cost and effort and without having to live in California. There are no state income taxes. I can get to the airport in seven minutes. Lots of people I know travel through Las Vegas, so I get to see far more people here than I ever saw in Los Angeles or Seattle. I could afford a home here, at the time I moved in. (I wouldn't be able to afford one now.) The library system's pretty good. I like the view of the mountains wherever you look, and I like the view of the Strip from pretty much anywhere in my area, including my office window. I don't spend a lot of time on the Strip but I like going there once in awhile, and I like being able to get there without much effort. I like the comics shops here. I like that pretty much anything happening culturally in America now comes through Las Vegas sooner or later. I like the sudden flood of art museums here. I like all the free movies. I like the underlying outlaw attitude that still pervades here; you can still get a whiff of the old west when you want to. The emptiness is deceptive; there are actually a ton of things to do within an hour's drive of the place. I like casino culture and I like the way casinos and the various things in them (like buffets, and the aforementioned art museums and other attractions) discount for locals to lure them in. I like the National Rodeo Finals every year. I like that, where I am, the roads are very passable, except where they're doing construction. I like the vaguely ‘evil’ air the rest of the country thinks the place has. I like that I can go get a meal at 2:30 in the morning if I want to (not that I ever have). I like seeing the world's biggest flashlight every night. I like the way the air feels in my backyard after dark. I like watching the airplanes cruise in 24 hours a day. I like the easy access to all kinds of conventions like computer shows, and TV conferences. I like that on one level it's just another American city like pretty much any of them (I like that it isn't huge) and on another there's no other place even remotely like it on Earth. I like the Bugsy Siegel myth of the place, even though that's a convenient lie.

“I'm sure there's more; that's just what popped into my head. Short version: what's not to like?

“Having grown up in the Midwest and lived in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle areas, I've run out of other places to move to.

“I can understand what it might look like from on high; it's not what I'd call a planned community. But it doesn't look that way from street level.

“I remember a line from a Dylan song. Flip it into the reverse and it pretty much sums up my attitude:

“And you ask why I don't live there? Man, how come you don't move?”

Question asked and answered! Check out Mr. Grant’s weekly Comic Book Resources column, Permanent Damage. It’s pretty much the only comic book column I never miss.

Item!

Larry Young vs. A Grizzly Bear – coming this October from AiT/Planet Lar!

Checklist For Items Shipping The Month of June

Collect ‘Em All!

The Doofus Omnibus

Toons For A New Medium

Kaskade – In The Moment

Greyboy – Soul Mosaic

Sofa Surfers – See The Light

Squarepusher - Ultravisitor

Various Artists – Om reMixed

Chickenlips – DJ Kicks





Travels With Larry Part IX

Planet of the Capes

One of the last things I did before I got on the plane to California was to sit down and read “Planet of the Capes” in its’ entirety. It would be specious to say that I’ve been thinking about the book non-stop for the last six weeks, but it has been on my mind. At the very least, a great deal of thought has gone into the creation of this book, and it demands a great deal of thought in reciprocation.

As has already been covered all across the internet, “Planet” is a satirical allegory of the comics industry in the guise of a boilerplate superhero story. There’s a great deal of subtle criticism leveled against the mainstream publishers just in the way the story is told. The reader is dropped into the middle of the story, with strange characters doing strange things for no apparent reason and with no apparent motivation.

It’s a clever device, but I’d be willing to bet it backfires with at least half of the people who pick the book up. By replicating the experience of the prospective new reader of any superhero comic, Larry Young risks alienating the very audience he’s depending on to buy the book in the first place. There’s probably a few readers who finished the book (or at least flipped through it in the store) and asked their retailer: “I don’t read independents, where did Justice Hall first appear?” Which is, of course, one of the risks you run when your audience is also your target.

Or at least, part of the target. The fact is, the comic book consumer is only a small part, almost only by implication, of Young’s real target. There are huge letters across the back cover that read: “Nobody Learns Anything. Everybody Dies.” It’s a pretty succinct encapsulation of the story inside but it’s also Larry Young’s personal forecast for the next ten years in the mainstream American comics industry.

If you think about it, its pretty hard not to make money in comics these days. Manga sells like the proverbial hotcakes, and Shonen Jump is sold in every supermarket and gas station across the country. Collections of strips such as Get Fuzzy and Boondocks fly off the shelves, to say nothing about the The Complete Peanuts’enormous success. Even internet comics make money (Chris Onstad of Achewood fame makes enough money to live a comfortable middle-class life simply based on proceeds from Achewood merchandise). Larry Young, one dude working out of his house with his wife, is able to make a comfortable living selling black and white graphic novels. How the hell is it that everyone in the comics industry seems flush and prosperous except those companies who have put all their eggs into the direct market basket? Based on this evidence, I have to conclude that neither Marvel or DC have learned much from the success all around them, and they are in perilous danger of imminent demise – perhaps Young feels similarly.

All of which points to one of “Capes” weaknesses, which would be the very concept of allegory. Ever since I had to read “Gulliver’s Travels” in high school, I’ve had a deep distrust of works that present allegory as their primary purpose. Allegory can be a useful tool but I believe that it ultimately limits the impact of any narrative to have the entirety of its meaning be dependant on extra-textual insight. For instance, and to use the example of the aforementioned “Gulliver,” most filmmakers who have adapted the book have focused primarily on the fantastic elements of that story: the big people, the small people, the talking horses and the time travelers. But if you actually read the book, you will find that most copies come supplied with profuse foot- and end-notes, detailing what every piece of the story refers to on an allegorical basis. The meaning of the story is worlds removed from the fun fantasy story most kids know from the cartoon or the Ted Danson TV movie, but a series of very specific political and social critiques of 18th century England. The fact that we’re still reading the book three hundred years later is amazing, because without at least a layman’s knowledge of the events being lampooned, the book is almost meaningless.

Larry Young at least partially recognizes these weaknesses. One of his strategies is complication: I don’t think, in any event, that any of the allegorical representations are strictly 1:1. There’s a lot of wiggle room, and a lot of food for thought throughout. Again, the success of the book lies primarily in the fact that it does inspire great thought on the part of anyone who reads it. You have to do so in order to make any sense, because otherwise it makes about as much sense as your average mid-70’s issue of “The Avengers” taken out of context and read by someone whose been stuck in a sensory depravation chamber since 1938.

Worrying about the details, in any event, is unimportant. The brief alternate-history bit at the beginning of the book is ultimately as important to “Capes” as the origin of Forbush Man is to your enjoyment of the average issue of “Not Brand Ecch.” As I said earlier, “Capes” depends a lot on the multiple interpretations that a reader can bring to the ambiguous situations therein, and focusing on the actual story details is an easy way to miss the entire point of the book.

But regardless of all the smaller issues at work in “Capes,” there’s really no mistaking the book’s brutal ending. DC and Marvel are locked in a death struggle. Marvel has the same strategy it’s employed successfully for over fifty years: overwhelming force, filling up every nook of shelf space with sub-par product in order to defeat the competition through attrition. DC, while nowhere near as powerful as Marvel, is slightly smarter – just smart enough to ensure that if one of them dies, they both perish.

If there’s anything wrong with this forecast, on the face of it, it’s that it’s a bit tardy. The fact is, Manga has so totally reoriented the economies of the comics industry in just a few short years that the life and death struggle between the “Big Two” just isn’t that important. The Manga publishers have flooded the market with supreme efficiency – with more efficiency, truth be told, than Marvel could ever have hoped to muster. Perhaps “Capes”’ ending really is appropriate, then, because the “Big Two” are ultimately fighting over the bragging rights to King of the Ash-Heap. They’ve exerted every iota of their power in order to make sure that the other one can’t get a leg up, and they both suffer for their intransigence.

There’s a lot more here, and it’s a testament to Young’s skill as a writer that the book rewards so many different allegorical examinations. On the other hand, the very fact that it is so dependant on specific allegorical interpretation in order to make sense limits its appeal and, ultimately, stunts its effect. There is the feeling here that “Capes” is essentially a formal exercise on Young’s part, a challenge to himself and to his readers.

I hope that Young can find enough time in his busy schedule as publisher and raconteur to continue writing, because the evidence of “Capes,” in addition to the various “Astronauts in Trouble” volumes, reveals the outlines of a startlingly bright and perceptive writer. But in twenty years’ time, I doubt that “Capes” will be more than a footnote in Young’s career, an odd artifact dependant on too much specific historical knowledge for a meaningful interpretation when removed from its immediate context.




|