Building Stories

OK, so after I posted my list of comics I’m looking forward to this year, my buddy David Ball was like, “Dude, what about Building Stories?” And I was all like, “Building the what now?” And he was all like “You know, man, Chris Ware, the thing he’s been serializing forever in stuff like The New York Times and Acme Novelty, etc.” And then I was like, “No way man, for realz?” And he was like “Totes, man.” And then he sent me this link and it’s totally true. New Chris Ware book comin’ atcha this autumn.

Did anyone catch this before? The Pantheon post seems to be at least three months old, but I don’t remember anyone talking about it beforehand.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Chris Ware fans take note — the comics creator/designer has created a poster for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a 2010 Thai film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul that won the Palme d’Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

The poster is for sale from Mondo Tees; it’s $75 and limited to 400.

Via

Art Spiegelman

Creators | Michael Cavna talks with cartoonist Art Spiegelman about being only the third American to receive the Grand Prix from the Angoulême International Comics Festival. As recipient of the honor, the 62-year-old artist will help plan next year’s festival. “I don’t know whether you should say ‘congratulations’ or ‘condolences,’ ” he says. [The Washington Post]

Legal | A Michigan judge on Monday ordered the DNA of former retailer Michael George to be compared with a hair found on the body of his wife when she was shot to death in 1990 in their comic book store. George, 50, was found guilty in March 2008 of first-degree murder, but that conviction was set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct and the possibility of new evidence. [The Detroit News]

Eric Stephenson

Publishing | Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson discusses the state of the company, cover prices, digital comics, and the health of the medium and the industry: “I think the industry has certainly been healthier, but I’m not going to go on my blog and write about how the sky is falling, like some have done. I mean, I get it: The sky has fallen for you, but don’t try to apply your weird logic to the rest of the business just because bad decisions have pushed you personally to the brink of collapse. I mean, look: This year is actually my 20th year of working in comics in one form or another, and pretty much from day one, it’s been nothing but doom and gloom from all quarters. Is the industry in perfect health? For fuck’s sake, no. Things could be much, much better, but you know, we’re slogging through this shit economy and then asking people to buy five Deadpool comics. People aren’t having it.” [Multiversity Comics]

Publishing | Rich Johnston delves into financial documents and comes away with a snapshot of Radical Publishing’s inner workings. [Bleeding Cool]

Fear Itself

Publishing | Douglas Wolk compares the issue counts of recent comic-book events — including tie-ins and one-shots — and declares Secret Invasion king with a staggering total of 102. [Techland]

Publishing | On a related note, David Uzumeri looks at recent comic-event marketing. [Comics Alliance]

Retailing | Atlantis Comics in Lakewood, Colorado, has announced it will no longer be receiving shipments of comics, “or anything else new for that matter.” However, owner Rod DiManna, who opened the store in 1994, wrote on its website that he won’t be closing the store, as he still has a lease to honor. Instead, he’ll sell his back stock. “This is all very sudden for me, as it is for most of you,” DiManna wrote. “There are a multitude of reasons why this is happening, and now really isn’t time for me to go into lots of detail about it. However, I promise I will eventually lay it all out for everybody soon. I look forward to telling you all about it.” [Atlantis Comics]

Retailing | Kansas City’s B-Bop Comics will close its 11-year-old midtown location in March. [The Pitch]

Mike Mignola

Creators | Mike Mignola writes briefly about his career with Dark Horse. [Dark Horse]

Creators | Matthias Wivel concludes his two-part conversation with Chris Ware. [TCJ.com]

Creators | Faith Erin Hicks recounts how she became a comic-book consumer. [And Then Canada Exploded]

Creators | Kiel Phegley, news editor of Comic Book Resources, writes about Gene Luen Yang’s recent lecture at his graduate school. [The Cool Kids Table]

Events | A new exhibit called “The Browns and the Van Pelts: Siblings in Peanuts” will run through June 19 at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif. [Press Democrat]

Webcomics | Oliver Ho spotlights Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo. [PopMatters]

Comics | Blogosphere godfather NeilAlien hands out the Doctor Strange-centric 2010 NeilAlien Awards. [NeilAlien]

Comics | Jase Peeples traces the history of Batwoman. [SheWired]

Art Spiegelman

Awards | Art Spiegelman on Sunday won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, marking only the third time an American has received the honor (the other two were Will Eisner and Robert Crumb). “Considering my poor skills, I’m looking a little like the president Obama receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” he told the festival by telephone from the United States. Spiegelman will serve as the grand marshal for next year’s event.

Other winners at the four-day festival, which drew an estimated 200,000 visitors, include David Mazzuchelli for Asterios Polyp (Grand Jury Prize), and Naoki Urasawa and the late Osamu Tezuka for Pluto (Intergenerational Award). The full list of winners can be found here. [Agence France-Presse]

Retailing | The beleaguered Borders Group announced on Sunday that it’s delaying January payments to vendors and landlords in an effort to save cash while it tries to complete a debt restructuring. This marks the second round of delays for the bookseller, which has been pressuring large publishers and distributors to agree by Feb. 1 to convert late payments into $125 million in loans. The bookstore chain announced just last week that it secured a $550 million credit line from G.E. Capital, but only if several tough conditions were met — including an unlikely agreement from publishers. [The Wall Street Journal]

Jeff Alexander

Passings | Mike Rhode reports that Jeff Alexander, a former executive director of the Small Press Expo and coordinator of the Ignatz Awards, passed away over the weekend, apparently of a heart attack. The SPX website and Greg McElhatton have tributes. [ComicsDC]

Publishing | Dark Horse has announced it’s delaying the planned January launch of its proprietary platform for distributing digital comics, stating only that “factors beyond our control have impacted our plans and we are working to address these new developments.” [Dark Horse]

Publishing | Rich Johnston reports on rumors that Marvel will experiment with a 20-page/$2.99 price point approach for some of its books. [Bleeding Cool]

Legal | A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of a manga translator for possessing 39 drawings that violated the country’s child-pornography laws. It did, however, reduce the fine imposed on Simon Lundström from about $3,866 to $864. [The Local]

Conventions | Kari Dequine reports on last weekend’s Wizard World New Orleans Comic Con, which was expected to draw 10,000 attendees. There’s a related photo gallery. [Times Picayune]

Tokyo International Anime Fair

Conventions | Ninety-one exhibitors now have withdrawn from the upcoming Tokyo International Anime Fair following increased restrictions by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on the sale of manga and anime containing “extreme” depictions of sexual acts. Organizers of the March event acknowledge that there will be just 153 exhibitors. [The Independent]

Creators | Matthias Wivel posts the first part of a transcribed interview with Chris Ware conducted in May at the Copenhagen International Comics Festival. [TCJ.com]

Creators | Matthew Price interviews legendary MAD cartoonist Sergio Aragones. [The Oklahoman]

Comics | Ben Morse explains why super speed is better than flight. [The Cool Kids Table]

Tank Tankuro cover by Chris Ware

Comics creator Chris Ware provides the cover for Presspop’s upcoming Tank Tankuro: Perwar Works, which collects Gajo Sakamoto’s pre-World War II robot manga.

Via Flog

Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1

Welcome to another installment of “Food or Comics?” Every week we set certain hypothetical spending limits on ourselves and go through the agony of trying to determine what comes home and what stays on the shelves. So join us as we run down what comics we’d buy if they only had $15 and $30 to spend, as well as what we’d get if we had some “mad money” to splurge with.

Check out Diamond’s full release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.

Michael May

If I had $15:

I’d pick up Salimba ($9.99), because it’s Paul Chadwick drawing a jungle girl who fights pirates. Then I’d add Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 ($3.99) to that pile. I’m a huge Alpha Flight fan and can’t wait to read about the original team’s new adventure, even if they are dead.

If I had $30:

I’d also check out Firebreather, Volume 3 #1 ($3.99). I don’t know if this is the best place to jump into Firebreather or not, but we’re looking forward to the Cartoon Network movie at our house and this seems like a relatively inexpensive way to learn more about the character’s comics shenanigans. Next, I’d pick up Secret Avengers #7 ($3.99) ’cause with Shang Chi, Valkyrie, and Black Widow, this is a team book scientifically designed to appeal directly to me. To round out the pile, I’d get Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities: Ghastly Fiend of London #3 ($3.99) and Action Comics #895 ($3.99).

Splurge:

I really want that Shazam maquette ($99.99) inspired by the Return of Black Adam DVD. I don’t really need one more thing to dust in my office, but that’s a good-looking statue.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

Miss Don't Touch Me

I really enjoyed the first volume of Hubert and Krasocet’s Miss Don’t Touch Me, a thriller about a shy young woman who infiltrates a brothel to discover who killed her sister, so I’m definitely planning on putting money down for the second volume, out this week, if only to find out where the authors take the main character after the last story’s rather decisive conclusion.

If I had $30:

I already own a copy, so I won’t be picking it up, but the new volume of Acme Novelty Library is easily the pick of the week and should definitely be snagged if you haven’t gotten a copy yet already.

As for me, I might hold off on Miss Don’t Touch Me and instead check out Special Exits, a new memoir by former underground cartoonist Joyce Farmer about how she came to take care of her ailing parents in their final years. Yes, there’s been quite a lot of those kind of books out lately, but Farmer’s an interesting talent (she famously founded Tits n Clits in the 70s as a response to the misogynism of the early undergrounds) and the book has been building a strong, steady buzz. I’m curious.

Splurge:

It’s an easy choice for me this week, with the big hardcover release of Simon and Kirby’s Boy Commandos ($49.95). An essential pick for Kirby fans and Golden Age era devotees.

Graeme McMillan

Batwoman #0

It’s a weird week for new releases this week, with little really jumping out at me, and things I’d thought were coming out – Hi, King City #12! – apparently not on the Diamond shipping list. But that said, if I had $15, the first thing I’d pick up would be Batwoman #0, if only for the almost impossible to deny beauty of new art from JH Williams III and Amy Reeder. I’ll stick with Gotham City for my next pick, Detective Comics #871, the first issue for American Vampire‘s Scott Snyder and The Losers‘ Jock – I really liked the previews in last week’s DCU books, even if I go back and forth on Jock’s linework, as opposed to his lovely covers – and then admit that Marvel has me on the nostalgia vote with Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 (I loved Alpha Flight, back in the day. Don’t judge me. If it helps, Jim McCann’s writing, and I’ve enjoyed his Hawkeye and Mockingbird quite a bit). Last but not least, Stan Lee’s The Traveler #1 from BOOM! Studios: I’ve already read a preview of Mark Waid and Chad Hardin’s first issue, and it’s a lot of fun. Waid does a good job playing with expectations, and it doesn’t have the same “Retro? Not so retro?” awkwardness of Paul Cornell’s first Soldier Zero issue.

If I had $30, I’d let myself be swayed by Chris and my Techland colleague and fellow Portlander, Douglas Wolk, both of whom have said good things about Miss Don’t Touch Me. I haven’t read the first volume, but it’s being reissued this week to accompany the release of the second. Of course, if I don’t like it, Chris owes me $14.95 of his imaginary money next week.

Splurging this week, I’d be generous and give my splurge to my inner child: Oni Press are doing “board comics” for the surreal and wonderful Yo Gabba Gabba this week – Gabba Ball and Goodnight Gabbaland – and, I admit it: I’d be too tempted that I couldn’t help but pick at least one up. It’s okay: You can judge me for this one. I won’t blame you.

Brigid Alverson

If I had $15…

7 Billion Needles

I would start out with the second volume of Nobuake Tadano’s 7 Billion Needles ($10.95). I have only started reading the first volume, but already I am hooked. Although the main character is a schoolgirl, this sci-fi story is truly manga for grown-ups. The story is based on Hal Clement’s Needle, and the basic premise (girl is inhabited by a being from outer space) is not entirely original. I like the execution, though, especially Tadano’s careful rendering of cluttered interiors—so different from our stereotype of Japanese simplicity.

I’ll spend some of what’s left on Jughead #204, which features another of his Jughead Jones: Semi-Private Eye stories. That should make a nice palate-cleanser.

If I had $30…

I think I’d scrap Jughead and get my mystery fix with the second volume of Troublemaker. I question Dark Horse’s decision to split Janet and Alex Evanovich’s mystery novel across two volumes—is there really that much story?—but it’s a pleasant read and I’m enjoying Joelle Jones’s lively art.

Splurge…

Having cared for both my parents as they grew old, I know that final journey can be sad but also marked with moments of humor, terror, and pathos. It looks like Joyce Farmer gets it, and her family is quirky enough to make for some good reading, so I pick Special Exits as my splurge.

Speaking of my parents, Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist sounds like the sort of fantasy fable my father used to love, especially around the holidays, and I’d like to pick up the graphic novel adaptation that Sea Lion books is putting out.

This got me thinking. I know there are any number of logistical and financial reasons why such a thing doesn’t exist for comics. But we comics readers are an imaginative bunch, no? And today I choose to imagine a world where I can load up pretty much any book I can think of and read to my heart’s content. So here’s what my imaginary “Read Instantly” queue would look like, circa today. Check it out, then let us know what’s on your queue in the comments!

1. Powr Mastrs 3 by C.F. (PictureBox)
2. H Day by Renée French (PictureBox)
3. Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines (AdHouse)

This trio of eagerly anticipated alt/art-comix releases have been generating best-of-the-year buzz for weeks now, if not longer. I can’t wait to see what the fuss is about in all three cases.

4. Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee (Marvel)

I’ve heard nothing but good things about this all-ages-yet-not-kids’-stuff comic, from sources of the sort I wouldn’t normally expect to say good things about this kind of comic. Seeing as how I’m a big fan of a lot of “off-model” Marvel stuff, color me intrigued.

5. Twin Spica by Kou Yaginouma (Vertical)
6. Ax: A Collection of Alternative Manga Vol. 1 by Mitsuhiro Asakawa (compiler), Sean Michael Wilson (editor), and various cartoonists (Top Shelf)
7. A Drunken Dream by Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics)

My manga reading has been absolutely woeful this year — my short attention span (seriously, I don’t call my blog Attentiondeficitdisorderly for nothing) makes reading long series only after their completion more or less a must for me, while I’ve got a shelf full of prestige projects from American art-house publishers waiting for me to crack their spines. These recent releases are at the top of my manga must-read list.

8. The ACME Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly

I already read this the day I got it, then picked it up and read it again the next day. But it’s so chillingly good I want access to it 24/7.

9. Achewood by Chris Onstad

Now here’s where it gets a bit embarrassing: I’m literally years behind on Onstad’s much-beloved webcomic, which is especially galling considering that I was an early and vocal supporter. But for a while there I just didn’t have the wherewithal to follow any comic on a daily basis. This strip’s been going on for so long that maybe this is the equivalent of all those Mad Men and Breaking Bad DVDs that have cluttered up my queue waiting for the right time for literally months now, but someday…someday…

10. Wednesday Comics by Mark Chiarello (editor) and various writers/artists (DC)
11. Scarlet by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Marvel/Icon)

These are two titles to which, despite the presence of creators whose work I’d greatly enjoyed over the years, I found myself less warmly disposed than I’d have otherwise thought. In Wednesday Comics‘ case, it was my suspicion that nostalgia might be too heavy a presence; in Scarlet‘s, it was disappointment with the pair’s previous collaboration on Spider-Woman. But on a rainy weekend afternoon it might be fun to see what, if anything, I missed.

12. Berserk by Kentaro Miura (Dark Horse)

This long-running action-adventure serial has stealthily but steadily become one of the most influential books around in artcomics circles — Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit wears its influence on its sleeve, for example. I can’t see myself buying all 30-odd available volumes, but in my imaginary “Read Instantly” world, finding out whether Berserk is as berserk as everyone says would be irresistible.

13. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (DC)
14. The Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner (Frog)
15. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean (DC)

A trio of all-time favorites to which I never grow tired of returning. Yes, one of these things is not like the others.

16. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Saga (DC)
I read these in those gray-toned trade paperbacks ages ago and still feel the impact. The time has just never been right for me to plow through the four gorgeous Omnibus collections DC put out back-to-back. But I’ll get a chance at some point!

17. The Incal by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius (Humanoids)
18. Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)

And now the really embarrassing bit: I’ve never read so much as a panel by the masters of two of the world’s three major comic book traditions. Deeply, deeply sad. Well, now that I’ve outed myself, there’s no place to go but up, and I understand these are the books to start with.

19. Or Else #2 by Kevin Huizenga (Drawn and Quarterly)

The short story “A Sunset” in this issue of Huizenga’s series is the best comics short story I’ve ever read, I think. There’s nothing else like it. I want to be able to study it whenever the mood strikes me.

20. Boy’s Club #4 by Matt Furie (Pigeon Press)

I also want to be able to laugh at dick jokes until my sides hurt.

Well, there you have it — my imaginary “Read Instantly” queue in all its glory. I’ve showed you mine, now you show me yours!

Acme Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware

Acme Novelty Library Vol. 20
by Chris Ware
Drawn & Quarterly, 72 pages $23.95

(Note: I shall endeavor to be as spoiler-free as possible, but obviously if you’re the sort who would rather dive into a book like this knowing as little as possible then you may not want to click on that “continue reading” link.)

Acme Novelty Library #20 is about an asshole. The book’s main character, one Jordan W. Lint, is a bully, a coward, an adulterer, a drunkard, is frequently callous and cruel to friends and family, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In some regards he is an outright monster.

And yet, Ware manages to make us not only care, rather deeply, about this unlikeable figure but also sympathize and, to a surprising degree, understand his plight. Without condoning or excusing his behavior, Ware manages to offer a portrait that is nuanced enough to make us reflect upon our own foibles and fears. If that’s not the mark of a great artist, I’m not sure what is.

The book follows Lint’s entire life, from birth to death, in chronological order, with each page (more or less) focusing on a significant event from each successive year (again, more or less). And so we begin with a collection of small black and red circles (the only colors babies can recognize) that coalesce into a face. As the pages move on, abstract forms and images slowly become more concrete, and we watch as Jordan grows up with a rather large chip on his shoulder due to his mother’s untimely death and his father’s distant demeanor and constant disapproval. But we also see how that chip hardens and affects his life decisions as he moves into adolescence, adulthood and old age. By the end of the book, we feel we have a complete picture of Lint, despite only getting such brief encounters with him.

Or perhaps not. Ware reminds us several times throughout the book how memory and perception can alter our knowledge of any particular event. An early, significant childhood memory is thrown asunder at one point, and a horrific buried memory comes to the surface towards the end and throws (or perhaps in a sad way confirms) everything we have assumed about Lint up till that point. Ware deconstructs Lint’s life as much as he builds it up, reminding us that there may be issues and that we are not privy to (much is hinted but little seen about his father’s alcoholism for instance).

This type of story arc is a direction that Ware has been moving toward ever since Jimmy Corrigan first took shape. He’s always been an artist concerned with showing you the “big picture,” how things connect and how characters’ past experiences inform their present behavior. The old saw that you can’t really know a person, any person, until you’ve seen his or her whole life laid out before you is one that Ware seems to take great stock in. So in Jimmy Corrigan we not only see Jimmy’s childhood past, but learn learn about his grandfather’s as well, and even get to see his genealogy spread out over several pages. In Building Stories we follow the unnamed one-legged woman over several years as she moves past depression, gets married, had children and starts to build a life for herself. In the previous chapter of Rusty Brown (which Lint is actually a part of) we went back in time to learn about Rusty’s father, thereby shedding light on Rusty’s present and future. And now Jordan, one of Rusty’s various school tormentors, has his life laid open before us.

Ware brings a variety of visual motifs, both old and new, to the fore here. In addition to the afore-mentioned early childhood abstractions, reoccurring visual metaphors — a red smudge that serves at various times as blood, ink and illness; little black ants that creep along the page — abound. Jumbled words and images clutter the outside of various panel borders to signify Lint’s random thoughts and emotional state.

And then there’s the penultimate, go-for broke section, a stunning five-page sequence where Ware completely alters his style completely, adopting a Gary Panter-esque, surreal primitivism in order to fully convey the stark emotional and physical horror of the scene in question (which I wouldn’t dream of giving away).

If any complaints towards the book could be made it might be that it’s perhaps a little too psychologically pat. Ware seems to draw easy lines between Lint’s ugly, guilty behavior and the death of his mother, his father’s indifference and an early adolescent tragedy.I think there’s the chance that some readers will think Ware is being a bit too simplistic in laying out the case for how Lint ends up where he does.

But is that really the case here? Again, Ware constantly drops hints that Jordan’s memory is selective and thus not to be trusted as gospel. To put it another way, just because Lint feels emotionally wounded doesn’t mean he actually was. As Sean Collins noted in his review, the notion of how we attempt to narrate our lives, and how that narration ultimately fails to cohere properly or provide any sense of truth or solace seems to be one of the central themes of the book.

But even if Ware is asking readers to connect the dots in a rather simplistic fashion, there’s still no question that Acme Novelty Library #20 remains a stylistic tour de force and one of the most striking and emotionally devastating books of the year. It’s become very easy to dismiss Ware lately with a wave of the hand and a “Yeah, he’s great. Seminal influence. Move on.” We label him as a cold or indifferent artist, or one who is so immersed in solipsism, nostalgia and aspirations of high (i.e. pretentious) art that he’s incapable of achieving the goals he so grandly sets out for himself as an artist. I think Lint will finally quiet a lot of those criticisms. At least I hope it does.

If it’s our umpteenth month with 9.5+% unemployment, it must be Chris Ware on the cover of this week’s “Money Issue” of The New Yorker, showing a family rendered faceless and hopeless by the economy. That’s our Chris — always good for a laugh!

In other news, you must read The ACME Novelty Library #20 when it comes out in November. That is all.

(via Whitney Matheson)

Creepy Archives

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what’s on the night stands of the Robot 6 crew. This week our special guest is Kody Chamberlain, who you might know from such comics as Punks, newuniversal: 1959, The Foundation and his latest, Sweets, from Image Comics.

To see what Kody and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …

*****

Tim O’Shea

I was already enjoying Jen Van Meter & Javier Pulido’s Black Cat four-issue miniseries before interviewing Van Meter. But when she shared part of her take in the interview (“…She’s a thief. And she fully intends to be the best thief, for all the same good and bad reasons an athlete or chef might aspire to be the best: ego, competition, drive, morale, you name it. Not only does she love what she does, I don’t think she can imagine herself doing anything else.”) it shows an understanding and appreciation of the character that firmly convinced me Van Meter could write this series on a regular basis. I hope enough folks agree with me via their wallet-power. Issue 2 was as entertaining as ever.

I hate Paul Cornell, I hate him for making me enjoy a Lex Luthor story. Mister Mind messing with Luthor’s mind in Action Comics #891 allows for Cornell to toss Luthor into multiple classic genre stories in one issue. Imagine Lois Robot Lane as Bride of Frankenstein, that’s just one of the offbeat, engaging moments of this issue.

Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee have given us a Thor that smiles. As simple as that sounds, it’s a radically different version of Thor than one we’ve ever read (well it comes close to moments of the Walt Simonson era [my favorite Thor run], but in a very different way. Go get Thor the Mighty Avenger #2 (and 1 if you didn’t already).

Michael May

When Ben Zmith handed me a copy of his and Adam Hansen’s latest Rooster Jack mini-comic at SpringCon this year, I told him, “Adam’s writing these for me now.” I’ve loved every Rooster Jack comic they’ve made (and I can’t say that about most quest-fantasy parodies I’ve read), but throwing mermaid warriors into this one raised it up several notches for me. As did Laura Ault’s grayscales, which do wonderful, classy things to Zmith’s linework. And as for Zmith, his mermaids are as frightening and dangerous as Rooster and Company are funny and inept. These guys may not really be making these just for me, but I can’t tell it from the finished product and it’s nice to pretend.

I also read The Children of the Phoenix, a single-issue sequel to Radi Lewis’ graphic novel by the same name. Though the graphic novel was interesting enough, I didn’t much like the amateurish, confusing presentation of the story. Some of that’s been corrected with the new issue, but not everything. As the titular children try to make sense of what happened in Volume 1, people withhold information from them apparently for no other reason than to prolong the reader’s suspense. I hate when that happens in stories. “Yes, I know what’s happening to you, but no I’m not going to tell you because either a) I’m mysterious and enjoy speaking in riddles or b) you’re not ‘ready’ to know. Both of which actually meaning that the author just isn’t ready to reveal it to his audience yet.” Also, there’s nothing to distinguish between the title of this issue and the graphic novel. Volume 2 in the title would’ve been good, but since the story is to be continued beyond this issue, it’s kind of inexcusable not to put at least an issue number on the cover. Still, progress has been made and the art has improved a lot since Volume 1.

Chris Mautner

Reading Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches, I realized just how short most American war comics fall in portraying the reality and horror of war. Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank, The ‘Nam, even a good portion of Harvey Kurtzman’s war tales (though certainly not all) on down through the line fail to do little more than offer simplistic “war is bad” bromides. That is, if they’re not catering to the usual gung ho Americana jingoism.

That’s unfair I suppose. Many of those comics were written for a younger audience that Trenches certainly seeks to avoid. You can hardly expect something like Weird War Tales to offer depictions of soldiers attempting to crawl through the entrails of their comrades in order to reach safety. Certainly Maus and Safe Area Gorazde qualify as “war comics” and they both look full on into the abyss (though neither of those books deal with the “battlefield” per se). Still, I do think there is something to the notion that most war comics produced in this country have been kidding themselves about the true nature of their subject matter.

Not Trenches. Tardi has one point that he hammers again and again and again until you — yes you reader — get the message through your stupid, thick skull: World War I not merely brutal or ugly, it was an abomination, lacking utterly in justice, honor or mercy. The kind of war where getting separated from your unit or failing to do the impossible could lead you to being shot for dereliction of duty. Where the enemy advances with village women and children in front of them and you’re told to fire anyway because, well, they’re German. Where you have to bribe the medics if you’re wounded, because otherwise they’d leave you there to die.

Tardi brings every ounce of his talent to the task of trying to articulate the sheer horror of this war. And while he doesn’t flinch once, neither does he resort to trite “war is bad” or “good versus evil” oversimplifications. He merely puts you directly in the soldiers’ viewpoint and then tries to relate their experiences to you. Except for the very end it avoids any cute visual metaphors or formal trickery. It’s a raw, uncompromising, devastating book, and, I’m kind of sad to say, unlike anything that’s been published on these shores.

Kody Chamberlain

Besides Mad Magazine, I never read comics as a kid. I started reading in the early 90′s, so I’ve been playing catch-up by buying collected editions of out of print work, and slowly picking up back issues when I find something that catches my eye. Unlike some industry pros, I do still love going to the comic shop on Wednesdays and picking up new books. So my current reading list is a mix of new and old, but they’re all sitting on my nightstand this very moment.

CREEPY ARCHIVES
by Various
from Dark Horse Comics
It’s amazing to see how much talent passed through this anthology including Al Williamson, Alex Toth, Frank Frazetta, Steve Ditko, Joe Orlando, John Severin, Wally Wood, Angelo Torres, and more. I re-read these constantly and I enjoy going back to study certain panels to try to absorb some of the ‘awesome’ found within. I’ve been spending lots of time studying the Gene Colan shorts, some of my favorite comic art of all time. The harsh black and white line work is flawless, and his ability to control ink wash is truly inspirational. I’ll be making my way through the EERIE ARCHIVES next. I’m also thrilled to see Dark Horse Comics putting out new CREEPY comics with new stories. I’ve got a few short CREEPYesque stories of my own I’d like to pitch, so as soon as I get a minute I’ll be knocking on Dark Horse’s door.

Criminal: The Sinners #5

CRIMINAL
by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
from Marvel Comics’ Icon
CRIMINAL is a solid book from top to bottom and Brubaker and Phillips are one of the few creative teams in comics that read like a single creator. I know that’s probably a very subjective concept, but I can often see a bit of separation between art and story when I read comics. That separation doesn’t exist with Brubaker and Phillips, everything just clicks into place. I’ve enjoyed each of their collaborations so far, but the overall value for CRIMINAL is fantastic because they toss in a healthy dose of bonus features into each issue. I tracked down Sean Phillips at Comic-Con this past week since I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of INTERSECTIONS, the sketchbook conversation concept he did with Duncan Fegredo. Thankfully he had a few with him and I’ve been studying the book ever since. Do yourself a favor and pick up CRIMINAL and INTERSECTIONS.

HELLBOY
by Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo
from Dark Horse Comics
When I heard Mike Mignola was bringing in someone else to draw HELLBOY so he could focus on the writing, I was upset. Spin-off books are fine, but having someone else draw the core HELLBOY book? No thanks. But the second I heard Duncan Fegredo’s name as a possible choice, I reversed my opinion. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Hey, didn’t you already mention Fegredo?” Yes. I did. I’ve loved Fegredo’s work since I first picked up ENIGMA and I’ve bought pretty much every comic he’s drawn and/or painted since. Fegredo is an artistic chameleon and can flip styles so drastically you’d think it was a completely different artist. He’s got the rare ability to do each style so well, you’d think he’d been doing it all his life. At some point on Sunday, Phillips brought Fegredo over to my table at Comic-Con and we had a great chat about tools, painting, sketchbooks, and more. I left the convention inspired, and humbled. Both Phillips and Fegredo could have easily shown up in those 1960′s CREEPY comics and would have fit right in beside Toth, Williamson, and Colan.

Jimmy Corrigan. The Smartest Kid on Earth

JIMMY CORRIGAN, THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH
by Chris Ware
from Pantheon Books
It’s kind of hard to describe Chris Ware’s work, it’s a crazy mix of cartooning, graphic design, and raw emotion. Having been a fan of the ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY hardcovers, I picked up JIMMY CORRIGAN expecting to find more short, one or two page comics. But instead, I found myself sucked into the 380 page graphic novel about a single character awkwardly making his way through life. The comic felt semi-autobiographical at times, and other times seemed like complete fantasy. There are laugh-out-loud moments and times where you can’t help but feel a bit depressed. It’s a brilliant piece of fiction done entirely by one man. I’ve recently started re-reading this book for the third time, it’s one of my favorites.

Lastly, I’m reading two books done by very close friends, so I’m probably a little biased. But since they’re both on my nightstand at the moment, it’d be irresponsible to not mention them.

CHEW
by John Layman and Rob Guillory
from Image Comics
Rob Guillory has been a friend of mine since college and his studio is right across the hall from my studio. I used to read his comic strips in the VERMILION, our college newspaper, so I was a fan long before almost anyone in comics. From the moment Guillory and Layman hooked up to collaborate on CHEW, I knew it would be a hit. I’m currently reading the second collected volume, and it’s fantastic. Sadly, I see all the original art in progress as the pass across my scanner, so there’s no way around the constant spoilers.

TUMOR
by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon
from Archaia Studios Press
I worked with Fialkov on our creator owned book PUNKS, and it’s easily one of the best collaboration experiences I’ve ever had. Fialkov is a fantastic writer with an imagination unrivaled by anyone in comics. It’s interesting to see how well he writes humor on a book like PUNKS, and then compare that to his more dramatical work like ELK’S RUN or TUMOR. I’m only a few chapters deep with TUMOR, but I’m hooked. Tuazon’s art is minimal, but effective. Fans of WALKING DEAD’s Charlie Adlard will also appreciate this book. The logo is also very nice.

Acme Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware

As if Memorial Day Weekend weren’t eventful enough for the nerd community, Blog Flume’s eagle-eyed Ken Parille spotted and posted the none-more-blue cover for the 20th installment of Chris Ware’s one-man anthology series, Acme Novelty Library. Subtitled “Lint,” the volume collects a chapter from the ongoing Rusty Brown graphic novel that Ware originally serialized in The Virginia Quarterly Review. The product description on Amazon reads like a bio for main character Jordan Wellington Lint; see if you can spot the quick phrase that hit me like a punch in the gut. The book hits shelves on October 12th of this year–earlier in the season than the last few releases, and hopefully early enough for the book to get ample consideration for year-end best-of listings. (Something tells me it’ll be worth considering.)

The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking

I first met David Ball a few years ago, while working on a story for my employer, The Patriot-News, about how comics were being used in high school and college classrooms. Luckily for me, Ball just happened to be teaching a class on the subject at the nearby Dickinson College. Ball was kind enough to return the favor and invite me to speak to his comics class when he taught it again a few semesters later.

Fast forward to today, where Ball is co-editor, along with Martha Kuhlman, of the new book from the University of Mississippi Press, The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking, a collection of essays by noted comics scholars like Jeet Heer about the seminal Acme cartoonist.

Knowing Ball lived and worked next door (relatively speaking), it seemed silly for me not to get in touch with him and see if he was up for an interview. Thankfully, he was eager to talk about the book.

Why Ware? What is it about him and his comics that you feel justify a book of this nature?

Unlike many of our contributors in the collected volume, I came to Ware’s work very late and not as a dedicated reader of comics but rather as a scholar of American literature. I had known that fascinating things were going on in contemporary comics for a while, but reading Jimmy Corrigan knocked the wind out of me. The book seemed so versed in the American literary genealogy of Melville and Faulkner and Nabokov with which I was familiar, but was using techniques, referring to other comics, and stretching my brain in ways that were wholly new to me. I knew that I would need to educate myself rapidly to catch up — a still ongoing process — and that colleagues in history, art history, and comparative literature, as well as comics commentators and enthusiasts could help me better understand what I was reading. Ware quickly became a discovery I could share with others and a way I could talk to, and learn from, scholars and readers whose interests were different than mine. That kind of intellectual dialogue is what this book of essays is about, and I hope that readers of the volume will similarly find ideas that are new to them, and share in that sense of discovery. Every time I reread one of Ware’s comics, or get my hands on a new fragment of “Rusty Brown” or “Building Stories,” I find something new and unexpected. That sense of discovery is a rare thing in any art form, and I’m convinced it’s why we’ll still be reading Ware fifty years from now.

What is it about Ware’s comics that appeals personally to you? How did you discover his work?

Above all else, I admire Ware’s simultaneous ambition and his emotional range. Readers often comment on his experimentalism and, in places, conspicuous difficulty, but it’s astonishing that he pursues such complex and intricate narratives while still being able to generate meaningful stories and resonant characters. I think Ware’s detractors often miss this aspect of his comics. His ability to inhabit multiple characters’ viewpoints — ranging from a frat boy like Jordan Lint to the complex maturity of the female protagonist of “Building Stories,” while sensing what their lives might have in common — is a rare gift.

That said, I don’t mind being challenged as a reader, and I find the most rewarding authors and artists are those who ask us to think. I relish the thrill of discovery when making a genealogical link between characters in Jimmy Corrigan or seeing the patterns that guide the composition of a single page in Quimby the Mouse. When the serial New Yorker covers of Ware’s 2006 “Thanksgiving” series came out, the back issues of the magazine sold out in days and I went newsstand to newsstand, even bartering Princeton University’s library copy for a double I already had. When Ware later came out with the two collected editions of that series, the “Upper East Side” and “Lower East Side,” I was both abashed and awed that he could make fun of this collecting impulse, while also recognizing that same impulse as the force that guides us to construct fictional narratives and put the pieces together as readers and enthusiasts. It felt like falling down the intellectual rabbit hole.

What was the initial conception of the book? Who came up with the original idea, you or Martha Kuhlman? How did the two of you meet and decide to work on this project together?

I started working up my thoughts on “Thanksgiving” into an essay (one not collected in this book, but in another forthcoming University Press of Mississippi volume titled The Rise of the American Comics Artist) and realized how much I wanted to be in conversation with other scholars who shared my interests. I put out a call for papers and organized a roundtable at the Modern Language Association, the national conference of language and literature professors that was being held in Chicago that year. The five scholars who participated in that roundtable — Benjamin Widiss, Isaac Cates, Matthew Godbey, Peter Sattler, and Martha — formed the backbone of The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing is a Way of Thinking. That conversation is one of the most energizing critical debates I’ve had as an academic, demonstrating the narrowness of my own horizons and pointing toward exactly how much could be learned by a careful and thoughtful analysis of Ware’s comics.

The University Press of Mississippi, which I’m sure many of your readers will already be familiar with for their long line of comics research and scholarship, got in touch with me and thoughts of a bigger collection began to take shape. Martha immediately shared my vision for a book-length project, and her background as a comparative literature scholar and her already long resume of comics scholarship — she’s published on Spiegelman’s Maus, Czech graphic novels, and Karasik and Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of City of Glass, among many other topics — made her a perfect fit as a co-editor. Having two editors made the scope of the project, fifteen essays total, possible in only two years, and the book is very much a collaborative project. We were constantly bouncing ideas off one another, weighing the relative merits of different contributions, and putting the collection as a whole into its final shape. We must have sent twenty-five drafts of the co-written introduction back and forth by the time we were ready to go to press, and the strength of the volume as a whole is because of this collaborative effort.

We made a conscious decision to choose essays that came at Ware’s comics from different perspectives and to develop a choral approach that still allowed for disagreement and debate among individual essayists. I feel very fortunate to have worked with, and learned from, such a talented scholar and writer as Martha.

Can you talk a little bit more about the selection process for the book? How did you go about deciding what essays to put in and what to leave out? Were there certain critics or scholars you sought out in particular?

With the roundtable contributors assembled, we put out a general call for papers and began thinking of the shape of volume as a whole, with the aim of representing as many views and critical positions as possible. We did seek out an art historian, Katherine Roeder, who had just edited an issue of American Art on comics (she beautifully analyzes Ware’s four-page history of art that he originally did for the Whitney Biennial) and we brought Jeet Heer into the fold to talk about his work with Ware on the Frank King Walt and Skeezix reprints and Ware’s relationship to early 20^th-century comics more generally. We’d first envisioned the volume as multidisciplinary in order to reach as broad an audience as possible, and essays like these really added to the range and depth of the entire volume. I’d admired an essay Daniel Worden wrote in Modern Fiction Studies on McSweeney’s 13 and I was persuasive enough to get him to submit a wonderful piece on Lost Buildings, the DVD collaboration Ware did with Ira Glass and “This American Life,” about preservation efforts in Chicago to rescue Louis Sullivan’s architecture.

I had the good fortune to be on a panel with Joanna Davis-McElligatt on the topic of race in the novels of William Faulkner, and after the panel was over, we began excitedly talking about Ware’s account of race and immigration in Jimmy Corrigan. That conversation turned into a wide-ranging, ambitious, and incisive chapter on the subject that has completely changed my understanding of the novel.

Other contributors emerged in the call for papers, including Peter Sattler’s essay on memory in “Building Stories” (Peter is also the consummate collector among us, and his encyclopedic knowledge of Ware’s work was invaluable throughout) and Georgiana Banita’s chapter on the ways in which time is slowed down in Ware’s comics. I was especially impressed by a number of graduate students who submitted essays, and I’m convinced they’ll be among the next generation of important comics scholars, benefitting as they are from the strength of what’s being written and published in the field. Jacob Brogan at Cornell University wrote a piece on Ware’s ambivalence toward the superhero genre, Margaret Fink-Berman at the University of Chicago talks about how disability is represented in “Building Stories,” and Shawn Gilmore at the University of Illinois excavates how Jimmy Corrigan inhabits the history of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. That such talented scholars are emerging from some of the best grad schools in the country speaks well of the future of comics scholarship.

Did you have an idea of how you wanted to organize the book from the beginning into the different sections or did it develop over time as you worked on the book?

A little bit of both. There were major issues we couldn’t avoid — Ware’s accounts of American and comics history, for example — but we wanted contributors’ interests to guide their essays as well. So, for example, Matt Godbey writes at great length about the process of gentrification in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, not something I’d expected to be a focus of the volume, but it brings to life an aspect of “Building Stories” that few readers will have considered. Martha and I used our own essays to both speak to our own interests and tackle themes that had gone unaddressed in the other contributors’ pieces. Martha writes about the kinship between Ware’s more experimental writing and avant-garde French comics artists of the OuBaPo (L’Ouvoir de Bande Dessinée Potentielle) and I talk about Ware’s tendency toward apology and self-abnegation, both in his comics and his self-presentation in interviews and elsewhere.

We also wanted to account for the heterogeneity of Ware’s publications outside of the work that will be most familiar to his readers: Benjamin Widiss writes a brilliant essay on the early Quimby the Mouse strips, Peter Sattler analyses some comics that have yet to be collected in readily available form, and Marc Singer offers a critique of Ware’s role as a anthologist of contemporary comics.

In the introduction, we talk about his role as curator, collector, and essayist, wanting to offer as full a picture as we can of his contributions to the medium and the profession as a whole. That said, compelling connections between essays frequently emerged that we couldn’t have possibly foreseen. Jeet Heer’s, Jacob Brogan’s, Marc Singer’s, and my essays begin a critical debate about how Ware situates himself in an emerging comics canon in ways that surprised both of us as we put the entire collection together, while essays with as different topics as the role of time, disability, and memory (Georgiana’s, Margaret’s, and Peter’s respectively) all theorized the ways in which Ware is drawn toward representing the quotidian, even banal, world of everyday actions and events. Of course, these larger themes emerge out of Ware’s own interests, but it was illuminating to watch them present themselves as the book took its final shape.

How did the editing process go? Was there a lot of back and forth between you and the contributors or not so much?

We asked a great deal of our contributors, offering what we felt was a very rigorous editing process to allow for sharper and clearer arguments as well as to avoid too much overlap between essays. We also wanted the book to be easily accessible to fans and enthusiasts while still having the academic rigor expected by scholars, a challenging tightrope that I think we managed to walk. Our contributors were very patient with us and willing to engage in this kind of intellectual dialog, the same kind of dialog we hope the book will generate more widely among scholars and fans alike. The result is, I hope, engaging and determinedly jargon-free. Editing itself is not a particularly glamorous endeavor, but even some of the more mind-numbing tasks (read: compiling the index) yielded unexpected insights.

It should be said that any project like this is a group effort: the talents of the contributors themselves, the teamwork of the editors, the suggestions of outside evaluators, the editorial and design teams at the University Press of Mississippi … I could go on. I also had a cohort of very talented Dickinson College students who served as readers offering the perspective of non-specialists, letting us know at each stage when our arguments were unclear or the writing opaque. It was very gratifying to see all of these efforts come together at the end.

One of the things that struck me about the book was that not every essay was very laudatory. Marc Singer’s, for example, was downright harsh. Was that a deliberate attempt on your part to bring some “balance” to the book?

We wanted to avoid either unstinting praise of unthinking critiques of Ware’s work; you can find plenty of both online already. Marc’s argument is about Ware’s role as an anthologist of contemporary comics, and he takes issue, quite forcefully, with what he sees a limiting set of choices, especially in the Best American Comics volume that Ware edited. I don’t want to speak for Marc, but I think he’d be the first to tell you that Ware’s work is worth reading and considering (he actually stated as much in an interesting blog post he just published, talking about his experience teaching Jimmy Corrigan in the undergraduate classroom), and I understand the force of his objections as, in part, a measure of the strength of Ware’s own position.

That different scholars can arrive at very different positions about the same comics strikes me as one of the measures of Ware’s accomplishment, and Martha and I didn’t want to foreclose what we hope will be a very generative debate for the future of a comics canon and Ware’s place within it. For my part, I’m hesitant to state that comics can only be one thing—entertainment culture or fine art or historical record—and part of their power, in my estimation, remains the ways in which they can speak to multiple audiences simultaneously.

I’ve never understood the anxiety some comics enthusiasts express toward scholarly work, as if comics would be “spoiled” somehow by the sustained intellectual attention paid to them. I’ve always believed that loving something and thinking critically about it are mutually reinforcing activities, and I hope this book can change a few minds in that regard. At the same time, this isn’t a 288-page swoon over Ware’s genius; I’m not convinced that mere hagiography would produce interesting conversations about the work itself. If I didn’t think Ware was among the most significant and powerful artists and writers working today, I wouldn’t have completed this book. The comics are brilliant, and though every essay in the volume might not sing in the same key, each contributor reveals another layer to the densely packed meanings in these comics.

I know you’ve been in contact with Ware since the book came out. What has his reaction been? Did he have any input or response in general to the book while you were working on it?

I first contacted Ware when I put together the MLA roundtable in 2007, and he expressed surprise, embarrassment, and unstinting kindness. At the time he wrote: “I must say, I’m not sure whether to be pleased or terrified that my stuff would fall under the scrutiny of people who are clearly educated enough to know better. I’d imagine that your roundtable will quickly dissolve into topics of much more pressing interest, or that you’ll at least be able to adjourn early for a place in line at lunch, etc.” That still cracks me up. Martha and I were very careful to try to bother him as little as possible when writing this book, although he very generously answered more questions than it was probably fair to ask of him at the time.

As for the contents of the volume itself, Ware himself had no input, although it probably goes without saying that the influence of his artistic and intellectual vision is palpable on every page of the book. Our focus is on the comics rather than the creator (a bias, no doubt, due in part to our training as literary scholars), and while we offer a brief biography in the introduction, most of our time is spent talking about what’s taking place in the pages of Ware’s books. However, I can’t say enough about Ware’s generosity, particularly with the rights to reproduce the images in the book (we have over 50 of them, 20 of them in color). As too many scholars and comics creators know, copyright law can really cripple scholarly and creative work alike, and many of my colleagues have horror stories about the prohibitive costs exacted by the executors of literary estates and archives. Ware not only gave us the permissions, but sent us the original files to ensure their reproduction would be on the highest quality, and the highest praise he could give us was when he said that he thought the finished book looked great. I received a very kind email from him just last week congratulating us and saying how it encouraged him in his work. That might just be flattery, but it made the whole process worthwhile, and I similarly hope that for readers of The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing is a Way of Thinking, the experience of seeing these arguments will make them want to dive back into Ware’s comics and reread them. It’s certainly been fun for me as both a scholar and a fan to watch these ideas take hold, and I’m anxious to watch the response to them begin to unfold as they are taken up and discussed more widely.

For those who want to join in the conversation, please feel free to visit our Facebook page.

Quimby the Mouse

Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.

This month we’re examining looking at the career of one Chris Ware, who’s name you may have seen bandied about in certain circles here and there. He’s certainly become one of the more divisive figures in comics — those who love him proclaim him to be one of the finest and most important cartoonists working in the field today, while those who dislike him describe his work as cold, overly precise, depressing and overly pretentious.

I don’t believe any of those descriptors are true (at least not to the extent that his critics seem to think they are) but I can see where those who have for one reason or another avoided his work thus far may have difficulty finding an entry point. So let’s see if we can alleviate that problem somewhat …

Why he’s important

Simply put, he’s the most influential contemporary cartoonist to come out of the indie scene of the ’80s and ’90s, perhaps even the most influential cartoonist alive today. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying Ware changed the way people think about comics, both on the shallow “wait, you mean these funnybooks are real literature” level and on the “wow, he’s completely made me rethink what comics are capable of” level. He brought a sense of graphic design to the medium, forcing readers to think about the entire page as a unit, and think about how their eye traveled across the page. He’s been able to deal with tricky themes like social isolation, racism, urban decay, how our family relationships mold and affect us, and the general passage of time with aplomb.

Plus, he’s been a huge champion of the medium and has helped bring neglected comic strip artists like Gasoline Alley’s Frank King to the forefront once more, which in itself is worthy of merit.

Where to start

Acme Novelty Library #18

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth would seem to be a logical starting point, as it was the book that broke Ware out to the larger reading public and influenced so many other cartoonists (not to mention winning a whole bunch of awards) but I’m nothing if not a contrarian. More to the point, I’m honestly not entirely sure it’s the best place for newcomers. I think for some its length, knotty narrative (it frequently skips around in time), and incredibly passive title character could make for too foreboding an entranceway.

So instead, I’m going to suggest the 18th issue of Acme Novelty Library, a self-contained (though it’s part of his larger “Building Stories” series) and slim tale involving a physically handicapped and rather despondent young woman looking back on her relatively short life and trying to figure out how she managed to become so alone.

So yes, it’s an up-front and unflinching examination of depression and misery, but it’s not a depressing or miserable book. Far from it, in fact, as Ware’s artistry at conveying the woman’s inner thoughts and emotions until she feels as fully rounded and realized as any character you’ve ever read in comics is nothing short of breathtaking.  I honestly think is one of his best works to date, combining his literary sensibilities with his exemplary sense of design and control to create a seamless work, and it’s the best place in my opinion for a neophyte to begin. You’ll know by the time you get to the end if you want to continue on the Yellow Ware Road or not.

From there you should read

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth

Assuming you do, the afore-mentioned Jimmy Corrigan would be the next stop on your list, for all the reasons mentioned above and then some. Despite my misgivings about it being the first point of entry into Ware-world, there’s no question in my mind it deserves all of the accolades it has received. It’s one of the most influential comics of the past ten years and should really be read if for no other reason than to try to understand why.

From there I’d move on to Quimby the Mouse, an often heartbreaking collection of “gag” strips involving the title character — a cartoon rodent drawn in a variety of old-timey styles — and his convoluted relationships with a) his terminally ill Siamese twin; b) a frequently abused and generally ill-treated (and sentient) cat head. These strips tend to be more experimental in nature and highlight Ware’s formalist side, but aren’t any less involving or emotional because of it.

What’s more this book contains “Thrilling Adventure Stories,” an amazing narrative experiment exploring the relationship between image and text, originally serialized in Raw, that gobsmacked everyone who originally read it back in 198whatever.

Further Reading

Acme Novelty Library

Acme Novelty Library’s No. 16, 17 and 19 contain his currently ongoing “Rusty Brown” series, about, yes, another group of socially maladjusted and painfully awkward kids. You can see Ware attempting to stretch himself out here though, as Rusty features a much larger cast of characters that he seems to be attempting to give equal time to. He also mixes things up very nicely in Vol. 19 with a bit of a sci-fi tale that suggests he could have a career in horror should the whole indie/art comix scene not work out.

Acme Novelty Library 18.5, meanwhile, is almost more of a portfolio than a comic, collecting as it does a series of four interconnected prints Ware originally did for the Thanksgiving issue of the New Yorker magazine. Lovely work too.

Not to be confused with the yearly series, the Acme Novelty Library hardcover from Pantheon collects even more one-page gag material from the early days of the series, mainly starring the dunder-headed but well-meaning Big Tex, the forthright and ever-plagued with bad luck Rocket Sam, and the futuristic, Corriganesque schlub from Tales of Tomorrow. Plus there’s lots of newer material done in that big circle, jokey style that he seems to really like these days, as well as a glow in the dark star chart.

Ancillary material

Acme Novelty Library #1

Believe it or not, not every issue of Acme Novelty Library has been collected in book form yet. Issues #1, 3 and #10 have yet to be compiled in any sort of trade paperback or hardcover. One and ten, which feature more Jimmy Corrigan antics (ten is a particularly harrowing affair and arguably the darkest story Ware has ever done), are a bit hard to track down, but three, which features early work starring a potato-shaped character who keeps inadvertently gouging his eyes out, is easily available.

If you really want to immerse yourself in Ware, however, you should definitely check out Vols. 1 and 2 of the Acme Novelty Date Book, which collects the best of his sketchbook material from 1986 onward. Ware adopts an almost entirely different, looser and rougher style here than in his “regular comics,” which may be a revelation for those who find his usual style too controlled and stiff. Unlike a lot of other cartoonists sketchbook work, the Date Book material is nearly equal to his other published comics, something you can only say aobut one or two other artists.

Avoid

If you come across Ware’s first published work, Floyd Farland, Citizen of the Future, keep it far away from the author. Or don’t as the case may be, since he will reportedly pay you for the opportunity to get it back so he can destroy it. Apparently he’s that embarrassed by it. Certainly it’s not emblematic of his best work, though the few pages I’ve seen here and there suggest it’s far from the travesty he seems to think it is. (You can see samples from the comic here).

For more comprehensive information on Ware, check out the book Chris Ware by Dan Raeburn, the soon-to-be-released collection of essays The Comics of Chris Ware, and the Acme Novelty Archive Web site.

Next month: Lewis Trondheim

Yes, the New Yorker

Heidi MacDonald and D&Q beat me to the punch, but just in case you missed the news, I thought I’d let you know that this week’s issue of The New Yorker magazine is sporting four swell covers by Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Ivan Brunetti. Supposedly when you arrange the four covers together in a certain way, a super-secret picture forms. Alright, I’ll spoil it: It’s a picture of Eustace Tilly. It must be one of those “Magic Eye” type images though, because I’ve been staring at the bloody things for hours on end, and all I’m getting is a headache.

Conan O'Brien, the Smartest Fired Talk Show Host on Earth

As if we didn’t already have enough reasons to join Team Coco: Peggy Burns at Drawn & Quarterly draws our attention to a very cool pre-commercial bumper that the soon-to-be late and lamented Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien used the other night, featuring art that looks a whole heckuva lot like the sticks ‘n’ circles style of ACME Novelty Library genius Chris Ware. Peggy snagged the screenshot from Adam Kempa, who reproduces an earlier Ware Easter egg from the show as well. Unfortunately, with the final episode airing tonight, I guess we won’t be seeing any more … for now, at least.

I sat around trying to fill in the blank for “Heh, Jay Leno probably reads _____ instead,” but I couldn’t think of a comic so self-evidently lame that it wouldn’t fill the comment thread with pissed-off fans anyway.

Chinese cover to Jimmy Corrigan

Of course you do! And thanks to this Flickr set, you can! (via)

The Scariest Kid on Earth

Batton Lash is posting the back-up story to Supernatural Law #39, which features a parody of Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, on his website in full color. The story is about a werewolf appearing as an attraction in Quimby’s Carnavale & Sideshow.

The complete press release is available after the jump. You can start reading the story here. Watch for new pages every Monday and Thursday.

*****

Press release

“The Scariest Kid on Earth” the new Supernatural Law tale now in progress at www.supernaturallaw.com, bears a striking resemblance to Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware’s Smartest Kid on Earth. Although this parody originally appeared as a backup in the Supernatural Law #39 print comic, the online version is in full color for the first time. In the story, the scariest kid is a not-so-young werewolf appearing as an attraction in Quimby’s Carnavale & Sideshow. New episodes of the story go up every Monday and Thursday, and it will conclude January 18.

Cartoonist Batton Lash has been chronicling the cases of attorneys Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre, since 1979, first as a weekly newspaper strip, then as comic books and graphic novels, and for the last four years online as well as in print.

The just completed webcomic storyline, “Rights of the Werewolf,” is the longest story Batton has ever done featuring his characters, taking over a year to unfold. In that saga, an accidental werewolf gets caught up in politics and the media, as “shapeshifter rights” activists take the law into their own hands.

“I love telling werewolf stories,” says Batton, “but readers tell me I don’t do enough of them. So here are two werewolf stories back to back, including one about a ‘ware-wolf.’”

The online version of Supernatural Law is part of webcomicsnation.com, where it has consistently been in the top 20 strips viewed there over the past four years. It also won the Eagle Award for favorite webcomic in 2005.

More information on Batton (who is also the writer of Archie: Freshman Year and of Bongo’s Radioactive Man comics) and Supernatural Law can be found at www.exhibitapress.com.

The Scariest Kid on Earth

Humbug

Like a train eager to meet its next destination, What Are You Reading chugs along into the new year without ever once looking back. Our guest this week is the ridiculously prolific cartoonist, critic and blogger Shaenon Garrity (who can also be found here). In addition to her latest comic Skin Horse, you can read her regular reviews at The Comics Journal and she has a regular column over at Comixology.

But if you want to know what Shaenon’s reading this week, you’ll have to click on the link below.

Token

Brigid Alverson: I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: DC folded Minx too soon. The series was really hitting its stride in its second season, with solid books aimed at slightly older readers and a more authentic voice. Token is like that. As the mother of teenagers, I actually found it a bit hard to read — but that’s the point. They aren’t writing for me. Token is set in Miami’s South Beach in 1987, and the authors have just the right amount of setting—it’s not crazy-glitzy, it’s comfortable and a bit down-at-the-heels. Our protagonist, Shira, lost her mother as a child and lives in a hotel with her grandmother and her father; her best friend is a foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking former movie actress. Shira’s heart is in the right place, and she loves her family, but things start spinning out of control for her. Her father starts dating his secretary, who is a lovely woman, but all Shira can see is that he isn’t paying as much attention to her. On an impulse she shoplifts a ring, and soon shoplifting is a habit for her. Complicating all this is a mysterious young man from Spain who seems to materialize a lot; when he catches her shoplifting, the two team up. Of course it all ends in a big disaster, but what I like about it is that this is not a straight moral tale; there’s a bit of ambiguity to it, and the sense that even though the ending isn’t entirely happy — the last page features a picture of Shira glaring at her father’s wedding — that everyone will get through it in their own way.

I picked up the first volume of Inio Asano’s What a Wonderful World recently, and if nothing else, it made me appreciate the joys of being over 30. This volume is a collection of stories about young people — middle school through early 20s—who are plodding through a gray, depressing world, hemmed in by a rigid school-work system that makes no allowance for individual quirks. Not that it would make much difference for Asano’s characters, because they don’t have any quirks; their defining characteristic is their dissatisfaction. Each story briefly sketches a turning point, a decision that must be made, and each character does show a spark of life at that moment. Aside from that one moment, though, they spend most of their time either complaining or quietly enduring. Most of the characters appear in several stories, so you get to see more than one facet of them, but it’s like a Cubist painting in that the different sides never seem to quite fit together. Still, I liked the book better the second time I read it, when I started to see the interrelationships between the stories.

Captain America: Bicentennial Battles

Tom Bondurant: When I went out of town for Christmas, I took with me the final two collections of Jack Kirby’s mid-’70s return to Captain America. I had read these stories previously, but my expectations were colored both by Kirby’s DC work and by his more cosmic efforts for Marvel like Eternals and 2001. This time I let go of all that and found a lot to appreciate in these two books. Bicentennial Battles contains the oversized “treasury” issue which features Cap bouncing around through American history, as well as a monthly storyline about asylum escapees living in another dimension. The Swine finds Cap battling a cruel prison warden in the South American jungles, before being waylaid and blinded by the combined villainy of Arnim Zola and the Red Skull. So yeah, it did seem rather familiar in light of recent Cap developments. However, Kirby uses Cap not just for square-jawed heroics — and there are a lot of those — but truly as the living embodiment of the American spirit. Obviously this comes through most clearly in the “Bicentennial Battles” story, because who can badmouth Captain America surrounded by eager, optimistic kids? It carries through, though, to the end of Kirby’s monthly involvement, where a blind Cap fights a determined assassin. Since OMAC started as Kirby’s take on a future Captain America, I may have to re-read it next.

Staying in the ’70s, I’ve been reading Showcase Presents The Warlord Volume 1, written and drawn by Mike Grell (with some inks by Vince Colletta). It starts off a bit awkwardly — opening narration talks about the timelessness of the story and then establishes a specific date — and it never really justifies its pulp-adventure conventions (everyone speaks English, and ancient texts look like modern tech manuals). Wardrobes are skimpy, of course, and every few issues Grell describes how our hero Travis Morgan sheds his veneer of civilization to become a savage. Grell’s figures, and his use of perspective, are sometimes jarring as well. Still, it’s pretty dynamic stuff, mixing sword-and-sorcery elements with some sci-fi, and
tied together by Morgan’s nominal charm. The earliest stories are around 17 pages, and Grell tends to keep the immediate cast pretty small, so although he’s establishing a lot of mythology, it’s all in manageable bites.

Last night I finally got around to reading all four issues of Beasts Of Burden (written by Evan Dorkin, drawn by Jill Thompson) in one big chunk. I’d read the first issue and bought the next three, but never found the time to follow up. Boy, am I sorry I waited. This is a beautifully written, exquisitely drawn series which (as if I needed to tell you) concerns a group of dogs and cats who fight demons. From the giant frog to the puppies’ spirits, from the teenage boy to the rat king, each issue worked as a self-contained story while simultaneously setting up a much larger plot. I presume that will be addressed in a follow-up miniseries, but for now I have to visit the BoB stories online at darkhorse.com.

Finally, thanks to the very generous folks at W.W. Norton, I got a big box of graphic novels a couple of days ago, including R. Crumb’s The Book Of Genesis Illustrated. Now, I have read the original a few times, and it is pretty much the closest thing the Bible has to a soap opera, so I can’t wait to see how Crumb handles the various family dramas. At the moment, though, I have only read the first few chapters of Crumb’s adaptation, with Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden. It’s as good as I was expecting, although Crumb sticks pretty close to a conventional grid. Maybe I was expecting something more like Kirby….

Superman #695

Tim O’Shea: I don’t know if James Robinson’s ear for dialogue has degraded in recent years or my standards have been elevated. But as much as I enjoy the general plot direction of Superman 695 in terms of Mon-El’s arc, it is supremely undermined by Robinson’s penchant for starting bits of Mon-El’s dialogue with “‘K” (as in OK [as in Mon-El is a 13-year old]).

I’m hard pressed to single out my favorite part of Fantastic Four 574, the Franklin surprise birthday party with a reveal via his mom making all the partygoers visible; the party itself; the Spider-Man cameo (complete with Peter/Johnny banter) or the letters column. Jonathan Hickman continues to deliver an engagingly fun version of the Fantastic Four.

Fred Van Lente really surprised me in Spider-Man 616 with the Sandman character development/fix he’s constructed to explain how he could have once been a villain and once been a hero. I could actually see a series of some kind build out of this. I doubt Marvel could get Javier Pulido on a monthly, but man the scenarios he came up with for Sandy were outstanding. I was sad that it was not more than a two-parter honestly, but like it’s often said: “Leave ‘em asking for more.”

Back to Mr. Hickman, he gave me back Dum Dum Dugan (heroes with bowlers need to increase in 2010)–and for that alone (and Nick Fury of course) I continue to love, love, love Secret Warriors. Though I assume the book will end once Siege plays out to its conclusion.

PunisherMax #1

Matt Maxwell: As a Kindle was my big present this year, I’ve been mostly reading stuff on that.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HORROR, Noel Carroll
Wherein Mr. Carroll presents a unified theory of what makes horror tick in literature and film and other popular media. There’s some interesting stuff to chew on in here, but part of me wonders “why?” For me horror is pretty much whatever horrifies, and worrying whether or not ALIEN is or is not horror (it is) and strict genre definitions aren’t at the forefront. However Mr. Carroll is presenting some interesting tools with which to dissect this group of aesthetic experiences. Still working my way through this one.

THE COMPLETE CONAN, Robert E. Howard
The granddaddy of them all. Only read a handful of these, and I’m finding the prose less…lusty and gusto-filled than I expected it. Perhaps Mr. Howard really hits his stride later on. Just picking at this stuff in my (hahahaha) spare time.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU, H.P. Lovecraft
Grabbed a couple collections of Mr. Lovecraft’s work as well, just to have something to chew on. I still remain un-frightened by these stories, no matter how provocative they are or how influential they have been to writers (including myself, though I can’t imagine two prose styles and outlooks that are more opposed than mine and his).

PUNISHERMAX, Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon
Jason Aaron’s take on Wilson Fisk? He’s a hard man. Calculating, remorseless, and yes, he has a loving wife and son, but somehow I feel like it’s all an act. I’m interested to see where this first arc goes and if I’ll continue my monthly purchase of these or wait on trades. There’s a whole lot of potential here and I’m betting that the creative team can deliver on the promise of these first couple of issues.

The Bloody Crown of Conan

Sean Collins: Well what have we here, a rare WAYR appearance by yours truly! As I think I’ve said around here before, there’s usually not much of a point to me letting y’all know what I’m reading, because in the event that you’re interested, you’ll find out soon enough in the thrice-weekly comics reviews I post on my main blog. But right now I’ve got enough of a review backlog that I finally have a little time to indulge in some prose. And on cold winter nights like this, nothing warms me up more than watching Conan slice and dice his way across Hyboria in The Bloody Crown of Conan. This is the second of three volumes collecting all of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories in chronological order. The imagination on display, the white-knuckle pacing and visceral violence, are as impressive as all get-out. But what really gets me is the underlying idea that the world is beset by forces so cruelly irrational and horrible that the only way to get through it all is to be a bit of a barbarian.

The Summit of the Gods

Chris Mautner: At SPX this past fall, I entered a drawing Fanfare/Ponent Mon was holding on a whim and, surprisingly enough, won a couple of books, including the first volume of Summit of the Gods, by Jiro Taniguchi and Yumemakura Baku. This is another of Taniguchi’s wilderness manga, similar in themes and settings to The Ice Wanderer and Quest for the Missing Girl (though that was admittedly more of a standard mystery/thriller with mountain climbing extras). I haven’t cared for a lot of the recent Taniguchi stuff Fanfare has been translating — he’s a stellar craftsman but the stories themselves are rather tepid, middlebrow affairs, but I found myself engrossed in Summit’s tale. It starts out about a photographer who thinks he may have found Sir Edmund Hillary’s lost camera, but then the plot turns 90 degrees to tell the story of this young, rather brusque climber, who is determined to make a name for himself and brave the most treacherous peaks regardless of work, friends or manners. It doesn’t sound like the most fascinating tale, I know, but Taniguchi and Baku managed to weave an engrossing tale, enough so that I’m eager for Vol. 2.

Michael May: Outlaw Entertainment’s WE THE PEOPLE is about the descendants of Sinbad, Zorro, and Robin Hood banding together to fight injustice in the modern world. I’d hoped it would be something along the lines of MAGE with the heroes coming to terms with their identities and exploring what those characters meant to the world, but unfortunately it’s generic superhero stuff without the superpowers.

Unless you count “destiny” as a superpower, I guess. That’s the only explanation for the heroes’ getting together and Robyn’s knowing how to shoot an arrow without ever having picked up a bow. But destiny isn’t even used in an interesting way. It’s a cheat to get the characters where they need to be and into costume and then it’s discarded. Other than that, this could be about any three people taking up arms against a cartoonish, unbelievably corrupt government. Very disappointing.

Acme Novelty Library #19

Shaenon Garrity: I just finished Acme Novelty Library #19. I know it came out a year ago, but it’s not like I’ve missed any other Acme Novelty Libraries in the interim. Anyway, it’s pretty good. It’s about Fisher-Price people who are sad. This time they’re sad IN SPACE. So, yeah, good if you like being sad.

What else? I got the new two-volume hardcover collection of Humbug for Christmas. I love Harvey Kurtzman’s failed magazine projects. They don’t quite succeed at what they’re trying to do, but they’re trying hard, and the contributors are absurdly gifted artists. Kurtzman never had much success in all his long career, but he had a talent for making smart people want to give him a hand. Humbug is the magazine Kurtzman set up as a collective project, with revenues to be split between the contributors, and when there were no revenues everyone lost a ton of money on it. Except Jack Davis, who demanded payment up front. Smart guy. Anyway, fun stuff. It’s got a lot of work by Arnold Roth, whom I love.

I’m following a bunch of Viz’s SigIkki titles, on the website and in print. Children of the Sea is great; somehow the art captures the damp chill of a northern seaside, and the characters look appropriately wrung-out. Both the Natsume Ono titles, not simple and House of Five Leaves, are fascinating, not in the least for how different they are from each other. I’m looking forward to the print edition of Tokyo Flow Chart, possibly the least-loved title in the sigikki.com lineup. I’m sorry, I think it’s funny. It reminds me of Jason Shiga’s work, only loose and rambling.

Oh, and I reread Understanding Comics over the holidays. What most struck me this time is that cartoon Scott McCloud smiles a LOT. He does all the smiling for the people in Acme Novelty Library.

Ware's original cover for Acme #17

Looking for something to cleanse the palate after all that ham and Christmas cookies? How about this: A rather lengthy and impressive collection of original art by Chris Ware, courtesy of the Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. Just the thing to use all that money you got from your aunt on.

James Stokoe's poster for the San Francisco Panorama

Wow, newspaper nostalgia is quite the hot ticket for comics these days, huh?

First there was Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham and Alvin Buenaventura’s avant-garde anthology, printed at a massive size meant to emulate Winsor McKay’s full-page Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper strips. Then there was Wednesday Comics, DC’s 12-issue anthology title, published on fold-out newsprint. And now there’s the San Francisco Panorama, a one-time-only “21st-century newspaper prototype” that doubles as the 33rd issue of author/publisher Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.

Boasting 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format Panorama contains full-color comics from Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Erik Larsen (still can’t get over that) and more. It also features prose contributions of varying stripes from such comics-relevant authors as Michael Chabon, Chip Kidd, Stephen King, Junot Díaz and Michelle Tea, and a poster of the 49ers’ Patrick Willis drawn by Wonton Soup‘s James Stokoe. And there’s all the other stuff you’d expect from a newspaper — journalism, sports, features, a magazine, a book section and more. Only, y’know, all fancy-pants.

The New York Times reports that the paper has already sold through the limited run made available for sale on the San Francisco streets yesterday at the low price of $5, but it’s still available (or will be soon, that is) at the full $16 pricetag at bookstores and at the McSweeney’s site. Click here for an extensive preview.

(Times link via Pop Candy.)