I’m heading to Toronto this weekend to exhibit with Boston Comics Roundtable at TCAF.  I’ll have Jernegan Solution, Hooves of Death and Muqtatafat on the table — and there’ll be lots more from Jesse Lonergan, Ben Doane, Oliva Li and the rest of BCR!  Find us at table 316!
Starting this evening  (Sunday at 5:30, then again on Tuesday night at 10), the first episode of “The Drawing Board” will air on Cambridge Community Television. Â
Of course, only in Cambridge can you see this show on cable TV, but fear not: the show can be seen on Vimeo as well.
In upcoming episodes you can see more cartoonists, like Joel Gill, Mehitabel Glenhaber, EJ Barnes, Zach Giallongo, Roho, Olivia Li, L. J-Baptiste, Cara Bean, Caroline Hu and Donna Martinez.
Really? I read just four short comics in the entire month of May? Pitiful. Embarassing. Well, maybe posting this disgracefully short list will be a lesson to me — and I’ll do better in June!
Transfatal Express by Nik James.  Even in the universe of alt-indie comics, this is a very eccentric book.  It’s done as a series of 1930s style “Sundays,” full pages, telling a pulpy tale of gangsters and molls, cursed jewels, hard-boiled cops, and … whatever.  What makes this so cool and weird is the way James stays true to the spirit of his main model (Roy Crane, as he helpfully points out in a clever “wanted poster” extra), while not slavishly copying a graphic style… the black and white art evokes Crane and other 30s strip artists — but also Ditko — and the “hero” of the comic, Jack Iroquois the smuggler, looks more like he wandered in out of a Leiji Matsumoto western.  Anyway, the whole thing is strange, fun and beautiful to look at.
Future Ghost by Aaron Whitaker.  A 36 page mini from 2009; I don’t know how it ended up in my pile, being out of print, but glad it did.  A sad and funny story, very cleverly structured, about a young woman who house-sits a home with a ghostly presence. The way this comic works is very “medium-specific,” in its handling of time, of an invisible, inauduble character, and simultaneous dialogue.  Read it (if you can find a copy — its sold out, but i’ll lend you mine if you promise to give it back) and try to imagine it in cinematic or prose terms — wouldn’t work anywhere near the same.  The artist had some thoughts on this matter as well.
Hotblood! by Toril Orlesky. A pick-up from MICE 2014 (yes, that’s how behind I am in my reading), and a nice surprise. A western set in a slightly alternate reality in which centaurs and humans live side-by-side. This is a print version of a webcomic, and not being much in that world I don’t know how widely read it is. But as a book it’s quite good. The drawing has a loose rendering style but solid underpinnings, and Orlesky’s feel for the genre, characters and dialogue seems strong as well. She also lays out a well-conceived fantasy world, describing the culture and geographic distribution of the centaur minority.
Diamond Shifting by Murray Huber III. A short first chapter of a science fiction story. Disaffected youth of the future, hanging around in the ruins of a 20th century city for laughs, then heading back to the gleaming towers far above. I really like the super-fine line drawing and unusual color sense; no clue where the story is headed, but it has a nice sci-fi slice-of-life feel. Acquired at MECAF 2015, where it made its debut.
I’ve been too busy to update this… but it’s never too late, right?  February and early March were really slow for reading — I didn’t crack the mini-pile much, but made it through three GN’s:
Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen by Dylan Horrocks.  I love the way Horrocks draws, and the colors make it even nicer. I really like seeing him apply his clean, indie style to fantasy and superhero imagery. Somewhat disappointed in the book overall, though.  Like most of Horrocks’ previous work, this is a comic about comics, but where Hicksville and Atlas are weird and inspired, Sam Zabel plays more off of stereotypes without ever really transcending them.  It’s fun enough, but rather thin. Horrocks seems most concerned with correcting mainstream comics’ tendency to feed male sex-and-power fantasies, a worthy goal,  but it results here in a cautious, eager-for-approval tone that has little depth.
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. I was struck by how much manga influence there is in McCloud’s work now.  I especially noticed a similiarty to Tatsumi as in the examples below (though the vertical panels and heavy use of “aspect to aspect” paneling, as McCloud calls it, aren’t Tatsumi features).  As for the story and characters in this 500 page tome, the less said the better.
Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs.  I haven’t read as much Briggs as I ought (he hasn’t done that many comics), other than The Snowman.  This graphic novel about his parents’ 50-year marriage is just lovely, focusing on the small, almost private world of their relationship and life together, as British 20th century history unfolds around them.  The watercolor art evokes children’s book illustration (which is what Briggs has mostly done).  As unpretentious, subtle and natural as those last two books are… not.
And just a couple of small-press gems:
Malice in Ovenland #1 by Micheline Hess.  The first issue of a fun all-ages comic. Doing her kitchen chores, a girl falls into a creepy, smelly, greasy, magical world inside the filthy oven.  Hess’ drawing is colorful, simple and fun —  but not too simple: her pen-and-ink hatching helps create a fun/gross atmosphere for her fantasy world.  Recommended for kids — looking forward to the next issue.  From Rosarium Publishing.
Immovable Objects by James Hindle. A nicely done minicomic, from 2012.  In the “sad, frustrated guy” genre of indie comics, looking like a minimalist Dan Clowes/Chris Ware/Adrian Tomine kinda thing… maybe that genre is a little overdone by now, but this one was worth the read: formally interesting and a nice text/image interplay.  The flatness of the visuals corresponds to the flatness of the protagonist’s affect.
Too often people ask me, “what have you been reading lately?” and I don’t even remember. So here’s a way to keep track of/share at least some what I’m reading, especially the good stuff. I’m going to see if I can do it on a monthly basis:
Not the sort of reading month I had planned — little progress in my huge pile of minis and graphic novels I’ve acquired over the last… oh, year, year and a half. Alexander Danner and I were asked to contribute a chapter on “The International Graphic Novel,” for a collection, so I re-read some stuff for that — which is great. Hard to find time to re-read things, but it’s always worthwhile. But I did squeeze in some “first reads” as well…. (read more)
Two new reviews of the book have appeared this week: one by Pascal Lefevre in the online journal Image and Narrative, and one in theaustralian.com by Cefn Ridout.
These are both well written and perceptive pieces, and follow the general pattern of most of the book’s reviews, in terms of both positives and negatives:
Gratifyingly, the critics express admiration for the scope of the task and our success at achieving it. Lefevre says,
“Even with these limitations [that is, narrowing the “global” scope down to Europe, Japan and North America, for the most part], it remains an impressive achievement to tackle the three major comics-producing cultures, North America, Francophone Europe and Japan. Not only the most popular or acclaimed titles of the three regions are succinctly presented, but also lesser-known but historically important works. So, I guess that every reader from every part of the world will learn about several new interesting titles or artists.”
And Ridout: “Where the authors undeniably succeed is in distilling their extensive research into a single volume that places the development of comics in five continents across five decades into a wider cultural context, revealing fascinating parallels, divergences and cross-pollination between the disparate histories.”
Both Lefevre and Ridout also mention specific points they agreed with.
Lefevre liked that “the authors rightly state that demographics played an important role:
the postwar baby boom created a mass of children’s comics readers in the 1950s and one they became teenagers and young adults, in the 1960s, they were accustomed to reading graphic narratives and they were ready for graphic narratives with more adult aspirations.”
Ridout mentions a few “enjoyable discoveries” of previously unknown work, such as Pazienza, Oshima, Neaud. That, for me, is what it’s all about!
On the negative side, there’s been pretty much unanimous critical agreement, of course, that the ambitions of the project necessitate some omissions, and each critic will point out those that they feel are the most egregious. In almost all cases, these complaints are perfectly valid. For Lefevre, it’s the thin coverage of newspaper strips, and also the relatively small number of source citations.
Ridout points out that our acknowleged focus on artistic rather than commerical importance “creates a somewhat skewed, auteurist history that overlooks writer Stan Lee’s equally pivotal role alongside artist Jack Kirby in attracting college-aged readers to Marvel Comics in the 60s and the impact of mainstream publishers embracing non-anglophone artists and writers since the 70s.” Fair enough.
Ridout, with a sensitive ear for tone, also catches the uncharacteristically “sombre” mood of the final chapter, in which Alexander and I succumbed, perhaps, to a little bit of a “good old days” quality in musing on the decline of the fictional graphic novel in recent years. That’s a criticism that hits home, since I don’t think either of us really feels, or wishes to convey, a negative judgment on contemporary comics!
I’m looking forward to taking part in this panel at Emerson tomorrow (it’s open to the public):
November 18, 2014 6:00pm to 7:30pmÂ
Little Building (80 Boylston Street), Charles Beard RoomÂ
Join a panel discussion with professional comic-book and graphic-novel creators.
In this session, writer Alexander Danner, co-author of Comics: a Global History, 1968 to the Present; Muppets Show comics artist Shelli Paroline; and independent cartoonist/author/publisher Dan Mazur will explore the differences between today’s comic books and graphic novels, look into the inspiration that drives comics creators and graphic novelists, and talk about the Boston-area comics/graphic novel community.
The Department of Professional Studies presents Graphic Novel Industry Nights as part of the Graphic Novel Certificate Program. Learn more about the Graphic Novel Certificate and graphic novel courses »
Sponsored by Professional Studies. This event is open to the public.
For more information, please contact: Trent Bagley 617-824-8280.
Kalle Kniivilä of the Esperanto website Libera Folio, interviewed me about my Esperanto story in SubCultures (if you don’t read Esperanto, try Google translate).  Oh, and: no, I don’t speak Esperanto myself… the interview was originally conducted in English!
And Eunice Williams is in it!
To be more precise, “Captives, the Stories of Eunice and John Williams!”
Buy it at your local book shop. Or, if you must, from this mom and pop book-selling website.
