Everyone's one

Last week we talked about credentials and whether or not that affects how we value criticism. And in the comments to that post, a lot of folks began to segue into what I want to talk about today: the reasons people participate in criticism. That’s great and actually, it started in the comments section to that first post. I maybe should’ve started this series of observations with today’s post, because it’s so fundamental to the discussion, but I guess I wanted to save the best for last. As some of those comments reveal, we don’t all have the same assumptions for why people talk about comics.

Tom Spurgeon wrote about it that “I used to participate in these frequent discussions on the role of a comics critic, but at some point I just started thinking that writing about comics is pretty much the same about any other writing. I would imagine that applies to writing about writing about comics, too.” I don’t want to put words in his mouth, so I’ll just say that what that suggests to me is that writing about comics (or anything else) is an art form all its own. I know there are those who disagree, but they’re wrong. It probably won’t be that hard to argue that criticism is a lesser art than creating a story, but there’s still art to it. It’s still a medium for expressing yourself. There are those who do it very well and those who do it very poorly and a great number of people somewhere in between who are continually trying to improve.

Since criticism is an art form, in defining good criticism it’s helpful to think about it in terms similar to the way we think about other art. Authorial intent, for instance. In order to judge whether or not a piece of criticism works, it’s not only useful, but vital to know why someone is talking about comics in the first place. I’ve thought of four reasons, but there could be others. And certainly, individuals not only bounce between these groups depending on their audience or mood; they may also have two or more of these motivations going at once. Knowing that is helpful too.

Everyone's one of these, too.

Sometimes, the goal is simply to entertain an audience, using comics as subject matter for what’s essentially a comedy routine. That’s perfectly valid, and there’s a steady increase in paid writing-about-comics that’s created for that purpose. I’m not suggesting that “serious” comics criticism shouldn’t also be entertaining; just that when entertainment is the primary motivation, the conversation has a different goal from discussing what makes a comic good.

But even those who seek to participate in the larger, cultural discussion about comics have different reasons for doing so. There seem to be three motivations for talking about whether or not a comic worked. The first is interested in informing consumers. These are the Reviewers and the primary statement they’re making is either “You should buy this” or “No, you really shouldn’t.”

Someone commented on that first post with the suggestion that the only group the critic owes anything to is her audience. I didn’t argue the point because I didn’t know exactly where the commenter was coming from and in one sense, that’s an absolutely true statement. Anyone who writes down thoughts for people to read – or opens his mouth to voice a judgment – owes his readers or listeners a thoughtful opinion. But that’s the only universal thing that people who talk about comics owe their audiences. Only the Reviewer feels she owes more than that: a recommendation.

Atomic Robo

There’s a second group that feels it’s serving creators by offering critiques on their work. There were quite a few comments supporting this idea, including one by Atomic Robo’s Scott Wegener who expressed an interest in reading thoughtful reviews of his work. It takes a thick skin to do that, but I know several creators who feel the same way and go looking for criticism that will help them improve their craft. Approaching a piece of criticism from that point of view is just as valid as offering a reading recommendation, but it’s a different purpose and identifying it as such will help focus the discussion as well as affect its tone. If I’m supposedly talking to the creator of a book, I should communicate much differently than if I’m telling someone whether or not he should buy it.

The last motivation for talking about comics has to do with curating what’s going into our cultural canon. In other words, what’s good enough to stand the test of time? What are we going to look back at in ten or more years and say, “Yes, that’s a great comic?” As much as I like sharing recommendations and talking to creators about craft, this is my favorite. It’s the one that I feel most elevates comics because it takes the personalities out of the equation and just looks at the comic itself.

I understand the possible concern that looking at it this way might lead to more brutal reviews. I agree that it’s unnecessary to be a dick about expressing criticism, but I’m going to argue that by removing personalities from the process, critics are less likely to get nasty; not more. After all, getting nasty in a review is just another way of saying, “making it personal,” and the point of good, work-focused criticism is to not do that. Reader recommendations and creator critiques make the creative process about either the reader or the creator. They make it personal by definition.

But saying that my own preference is for work-focused criticism isn’t to say that universally it’s the best approach. Entertainment, recommendations, and critiques are all valuable and necessary. My point is that knowing why you’re talking about comics (ie what you hope to get out of the conversation) will help focus your discussion and direct you to people with a similar interest. That’s good for everyone.

Nate Powell at the U.N.

Creators | Any Empire and Swallow Me Whole creator (and our special guest this weekend for What Are You Reading?) Nate Powell appeared at the United Nations earlier this month with several teen-fiction writers who contributed to What You Wish For, a benefit book to fund libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad. Video of the event can now be found on the U.N. website. [Top Shelf]

Business | Details on the collaboration between Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment Inc. and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s Vuguru have emerged: The two companies will work on a YouTube channel called “Stan Lee’s YouTube World of Heroes.” The channel is one of the 100 online video channels announced by the Google-owned video site, which seeks to add “professional, high-quality programming” to its site. [Los Angeles Times]

Business | They might move slow and eat people, but MSNBC estimates that zombies are worth about $5 billion to the economy. [MSNBC]

Creators | In answering a question about how to break into the business, Glory and Hell Yeah writer Joe Keatinge shares advice from his long road to becoming a comics writer. [Joe Keatinge's Comics & Stories]

Creators | Writer J.M. DeMatteis shares a not-entirely-true-but-still-funny essay from the Hero Squared paperback that recounts how he and Keith Giffen began working together. [Creation Point]

WildPig

Conventions | Chris Eberle, owner and organizer of next weekend’s WildPig Comic Convention in Central New Jersey, is profiled. [My Central Jersey]

Conventions | Elizabeth Keenan covers the New York Comic Con panel “It Gets Better (With Comics!),” featuring writer Ivan Velez, Jr., manga creator Rica Takashima, Zan Christiansen of Prism Comics, and Marvel editor Daniel Ketchum talking about gay and lesbian characters in comics and their own work as gay creators and editors. [MTV Geek]

Conventions | The Long Beach Press-Telegram profiles this past weekend’s Long Beach Comic and Horro Con. [Long Beach Press-Telegram]

Commentary | The anonymity and distance provided by the internet make it easy to slam creators, but Josh Flanagan asks that reader think twice before dismissing a comic with a curt phrase (as he once did): “I’m not saying you have to like everything. Lord knows I don’t. But I can never get it out of my mind that there are people who made those comic book pages, and sooner or later, I’m going to run into them at a comic book convention, and have to look them in the eye. And if I’ve criticized their work, I need to feel like it was valid and respectful.” [iFanboy]

Commentary | Jonathan Liu reviews MK Reed and Jonathan Hill’s anti-censorship graphic novel Americus. [Wired's GeekDad]

Commentary | Richard Bruton critiques Erik Skillman and Jhomar Soriano’s noir graphic novel Liar’s Kiss. [The Forbidden Planet Blog Log]

Commentary | Rachel Cook counts down her personal ten best, from Tintin to Shortcomings. [The Guardian]

"So what I told you was true..."

I’m not quite done talking about comics criticism. Your comments to that post from last week were awesome and gave me even more to think about, so I want to dig into this a little deeper. Maybe for a couple or three posts. In this and the next one I’d like to offer some definitions that I’ve found helpful in thinking about criticism and role it plays in the comics industry. After that, I’m planning to talk about some rules for good criticism, pulled from a variety of sources. We may not agree on all of them, but hopefully it’ll make a good discussion.

Last week, I mentioned the idea that everyone’s a critic. To quote Obi-Wan, that’s true “from a certain point of view.” Anyone who talks about the comics she buys is participating in criticism. (And we should maybe pause for a second to clarify that “criticism” doesn’t automatically mean ragging on something. It can be positive or even praising. More on that next week.) But though everyone can join in the work of a critic, it’s still helpful to put some labels on the groups of people who do.

It’s not helpful from the standpoint of classifying who we will and won’t listen to. As I said last week, there are some great professional critics, but there are also useless ones whose primary motivation seems to be getting quoted. There’s a lot of irrelevant noise in message-board land, but there are also people who use that as their primary platform to talk eloquently about the comics they read. It doesn’t matter what the label is; useful discussion about comics can be found anywhere.

A couple of things make these labels helpful though.

What you know influences what you think.

The one I want to talk about this week is that they let us know the level of expertise someone brings to the discussion. Even when I’m sitting with a group of friends talking informally about comics, I’m going to take some of my pals more seriously than others. If all you’ve ever read are a couple of issues of the New 52, I’m not going to give your opinions the same consideration that I would someone who’s familiar with DC’s long history. And I wouldn’t take that person as seriously as someone who knows the broader history of comics in all of its genres and formats. And even if you’re extremely widely read, I’ll still weigh your opinions carefully against someone who’s made a formal study of comics. That doesn’t mean that the formal, professional, capital-C Critic’s opinion about Morrison’s Action Comics is more valid than my buddy who’s only read that one title, but it does mean that the critic’s opinion is richer and better informed. I’d be foolish not to take that into account.

Somewhere in between those extremes are what people used to call “gentleman-amateurs,” a term that I like for the image of reading comics in a smoking jacket by the fireplace in the parlour, but that we should find a gender-neutral equivalent for. The idea is that it’s a person who’s spent a lot of time (because, being a gentleman-of-leisure, he has a lot of time to spend) familiarizing himself with and thinking about his area of interest. He’s not a trained professional, but he’s not inexperienced with his subject-matter either. This describes most of the comics criticism landscape and it’s useful to make the distinction between people like me and people who’ve studied this stuff academically and draw their primary income from discussing it.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the value that experience brings to the discussion of comics. Do you give more authority to the opinion of someone like Douglas Wolk or to friends who generally like the same kinds of things you do? The answer to that question might depend on the reasons we talk about comics in the first place. Am I trying to learn more about the art form or simply looking for reading recommendations? Both of those are valid, but the reason I go into a discussion affects what I’ll be able to take away from it. Knowing what I want will dramatically increase my chances of getting it. That’s what we’ll talk about next week.

If you can read them, you can talk about them.

I’ve been thinking about comics criticism lately. That may sound a little inside baseball, but it’s not really. Not the way I’ve been thinking about it. As “real” critics are fond of pointing out, the threshold for criticism is extremely low. In fact, we all engage in criticism, even if we’re just talking with our friends about the movie we just saw or discussing our weekly comics stash on a message board. There are supposed to be some differences between someone writing a review for publication and people chatting on Facebook, but I’m not sure there always are.

Professional critics are supposed to adhere to some standards that in reality they sometimes disregard. In contrast, I’ve read some very insightful reviews and had some meaningful discussions about comics (and movies and TV) in the most informal of places. Good criticism isn’t about venue or credentials, it’s about gaining knowledge about a subject and being able to apply that knowledge thoughtfully to the things you read and watch. So when I talk about comics criticism, I’m not just talking about a particular kind, but simply the way we all talk about comics.

Whether they’re reading The New York Times or a comment on a blog post, readers decide whether or not to take criticism seriously based on how seriously the critic is taking his or her subject. And part of taking a comic seriously is thinking about things like authorial intent.

Judging comics: what's fair?

By “author” I don’t mean just the writer, but everyone involved in the creative process. In comics that might only be one person or it could be a huge team. The point is that the people who make the comics have something that they’re trying to accomplish and good criticism of the book should take that into account. It’s not fair for me to open Dan Clowes’ Death Ray expecting it to be like Fantastic Four. Conversely, it’s not fair to read Batwoman hoping it’s going to be like Fun Home. The creators of those comics have wildly different purposes for telling the stories they are.

Those are extreme examples, but the same concept applies even within specific genres, like superheroes. I hope I’m not misunderstood here, but I’m going to argue that it’s not fair to judge Judd Winick’s Catwoman for not being Brian Azzarello’s Wonder Woman. There’s plenty to judge Catwoman for; I’m not defending it. But to judge it correctly, critics need to focus on what it is they think that Winick and Company are trying to accomplish and whether or not it succeeds on that level.

There’s a whole other discussion to be had about whether or not Catwoman’s goals are worthy goals on a fundamental level, but that’s a separate issue and not one that’s undervalued by people talking about comics. I’ll even agree that it’s the more important issue right now in comics history, but I hope that in the appropriate fuss that’s being made about that we’re not losing sight of the relatively less important, but still valuable discussion around whether or not these comics are successful as the kinds of comics they are. There are and always have been other comics designed to titillate; how does a comic like Catwoman compare to Brandon Graham’s work, for instance? Winick has described Catwoman as “part crime story, part mystery and part romance,” so how does it compare to other romantic crime stories like Loose Ends? I’m not trying to answer those questions, nor am I trying to pick solely on Catwoman. The same questions should be asked of any comic. When Tom Spurgeon suggests, “Maybe these are just bad comics,” authorial intent is one way of measuring whether or not he’s right.

The flipside

The flipside of this is the theory that literary critic Roland Barthes called “Death of the Author.” I’m simplifying, but his argument was essentially that once a work of art exists, it no longer matters what the author intended for it. It’s now its own thing. I enthusiastically believe that to be true, but it really is just the other side of the same coin as authorial intent. It’s just that instead of asking what the author wanted from the work, we’re asking what the work itself wants to be.

What both of these approaches have in common is their opposition to judging a work based on what the audience wants it to be. It’s not always easy to separate my own expectations for a comic from what the comic actually is, but doing it is extremely rewarding. It’s fun to think about and it leads to discussions that are infinitely more satisfying than simply sharing initial, knee-jerk responses. That’s what I mean by taking comics seriously, and people who talk about comics should do that more, whether they’re getting paid for it or not.

Two panels of SVK with and without the hidden content

Comics critic Paul Gravett has a peek at SVK, the new graphic novel due out from Warren Ellis and D’Israeli, as part of an interesting article on comics that trick the eye. SVK, which was announced last December, is a graphic novel with a hidden agenda, so to speak: The private thoughts of some characters are invisible on the printed page until the reader shines an ultraviolet light on them, at which point they appear in thought balloons. Gravett shows a few examples of this and then goes on to some interesting historical examples of other comics that use concealed content, including 3D comics, vintage newspaper strips that used invisible ink, and a comic that flips upside-down halfway through.

Suat was kind enough back in January of ’09 to invite me to be one of the judges for this year’s round-up. the other judges consisting of Tim Hodler, Johanna Draper Carlson, Melinda Beasi, Derik Badman, Shannon Garrity and Bill Randall. I’ll go through this year’s winners, with my personal commentary in a minute, but if you’re the impatient type, you can see the final results here and here.

First, some brief observances …

When I was first invited to attend this shindig I was rather excited — one might even say giddy — at the prospect. First of all there’s the honor of being asked to contribute, but I also hoped there would be a good deal of animated conversations — that I and my fellow judges would heatedly defend or deride the choices being offered and a healthy, robust debate would ensue. I even made the suggestion to Suat that he set up a Google group to facilitate said discussion.

Needless to say it never occurred. We merely sent our choices to Suat every so often, made our final votes, consolidated them slightly when necessary and that was that. I can’t honestly say I’m terribly surprised. Enthusiasm wanes even in the best of times and it was hard enough to remember to make a decent enough list of links to send to Suat and company every couple of months, let alone write a treatise on why so-and-so’s essay was the bee’s knees. This honestly isn’t meant as a complaint so much as it is an observation — it’s not like I did anything to encourage discussion.

While I did try to branch out to sites and critics I wasn’t as familiar with, for the most part I stayed within my circle of familiarity, as I suspect a number of the judges did. My criteria for what got my attention and what didn’t wasn’t very stringent. I was simply looking for work that was very well written and had something insightful to say about the work (or works) it was discussing.

So without further ado, here are my thoughts on this year’s winners and who I voted for:

1. “The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name”, by Jason Thompson (6 votes) – I voted for this one, although I also considered voting for Thompson’s essay on morality in action manga instead. In the end though, I think I was simply impressed with how Thompson was able to address an uncomfortable and taboo subject (the popularity of incest manga) and provide more than just a Readers Digest-style overview of the genre, adding insight and some sharp analysis.

2 (tie). “Ayako”, by Katherine Dacey (5 votes). My original vote was for Dacey’s piece on Sexy Voice and Robot with Harriet the Spy, which I think is a brilliant comparison and the sort of left-field thinking that makes me appreciate her writing as much as I do. Her review of Ayako was the clear front-runner among the judges though, and in the end I was willing to alter my vote because, while I prefer the other essay, the latter remains a strong review that

2 (tie). “The Problem with American Vampires Is That They Just Don’t Think”, by Joe McCulloch (5 votes). I voted for this one. Obviously I’m horribly biased as I consider Joe a friend, but I do honestly think it’s a fine piece of criticism that goes beyond the usual liked it/didn’t like it reviews that typically appear online.

4. “Born Again Again”, by Craig Fischer (4 votes). Voted for this one too. Good criticism should see connections and provide new ways of thinking about an artist’s oeuvre. Fischer’s piece on David Mazzuchelli did that for me in spades. He’s one of the few critics that really understands how to write about the visual aspects of comics, which for some reason always seems to be a tricky proposition.

5 (tie). “Tintinopolis”, by David Bordwell (3 votes). Didn’t vote for this one, though it’s an excellent essay and certainly deserves to be on the final list.

5 (tie). “The Mirror of Male-Love Love”, by Dirk Deppey (3 votes). Didn’t vote for this one either, though it was on my short list. I’m not sure why it didn’t make the final cut.

5 (tie). “Casper, Formalism, and the ‘Great’ Search Party”, by Ken Parille (3 votes). Voted for this. I’m a formalist at heart and I love essays that break down and closely examine the distinct parts of a particular comic, as Parille’s essay does rather well.

And, not that you asked for it, but here are the other pieces I voted for:

Brian Chippendale on the Avengers. I love reviews that can bring the snark without sacrificing any insight for the sake of a cheap shot. I’m also always interested in reading what creators have to say about other comics. Particularly when they’re as funny and sharp as Chippendale is.

Jog and Matt Seneca talk Kirby and Steranko. OK, this was total cheating on my part, as I had already voted for Jog once before, but I really enjoyed the hell out of this dialogue. Seneca came out of nowhere to become one of the most noteworthy critics around, and reading him and Joe go back and forth about two important artists was (Aside note: what’s amazing to me is the number of Seneca’s posts that were nominated during the year and yet he still didn’t manage to make the final round.)

The Twitter review round-up of the Ax anthology. On retrospect, I probably should have switched my vote here for Andrei Molotiu’s excellent piece on Steve Ditko, which I had completely forgotten about for reasons I can’t possibly fathom. At the time though, I was quite enamoured with this unique manner of roundtable discussion and that, despite the 140 character limit, managed to provide a good overview of the anthology and its strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, 2010 seemed to me to be a year where the critical discourse was as much reflected by online discussions and conversations as much as it was by the one-person, one-perspective essay, and I wanted to reflect that in my final vote somehow.

Abhay Khosla rambling about webcomics. Abhay will get my vote just about any year. I am always impressed at how he can seemingly let segue follow seque and yet still tie it up into a cohesive, discerning read, in this case on the plethora of webcomics out there and how that sheer amount of material can leave you, well, overstimulated and anxious. Plus, the dude’s really funny.

Michel Fiffe and Tucker Stone on Love and Rockets #3. See my comments on the Twitter/Ax thing. Plus, it’s one of the best pieces of writing on one of the best comics of the year.

In the end, there were a lot of good essays to pick from this year, so that narrowing it down to a specially chosen few was difficult. Hopefully, that suggests that good comics criticism is alive and well on the Internet. Or maybe I just have trouble making tough decisions. Or both.

Sean Michael Wilson, the editor of the alt-manga anthology AX, didn’t do a scientific survey, but he did read the reviews of his book and noticed something interesting:

However, one aspect has surprised both myself and Asakawa, the Japanese editor – quite a few female American reviewers have taken issue with the large amount of scatalogical toilet humour and also the sexual content of the collection. Somehow they seem to find it offensive, or unpleasant, or immature. It was surprising to me to see this kind of reaction, as it never occurred to me at all – as a British person – that these could be seen as negative.

It was surprising to me that Sean would find this surprising, but maybe that’s because I’m a female American comics reviewer, and I have always regarded potty humor as the purview of seven-year-old boys. I haven’t been to Scotland since I was six years old; now I’m beginning to wonder what I’m missing. Do sophisticated people there stand around at gallery openings sipping Cabernet and cracking fart jokes?

I have paged through AX but I haven’t sat down and read it cover to cover. That’s partly because of the issue Sean addresses—I have a pretty high threshold, but I still found some of it distasteful. That wouldn’t stop me from reading it, though. I don’t mind being challenged by good literature. What stopped me was the crudeness of the art. Sexual content in a comic is fine—no, it’s awesome—if it’s done well, but that wasn’t what I saw, at least not at first glance. You can give it a French name and call it a style if you like, but it’s still bad drawing, and bad drawing is no fun to look at. (Don’t get me wrong—there’s a lot of good drawing, too, but the crudeness of the drawing seems to scale directly with the crudeness of the content.)

I know Sean thinks he has stumbled onto a cultural phenomenon here; he notes that only “North American ladies” objected to the sexual and scatological content, implying that men and non-North Americans had no problem with it. While it’s true that I can’t recall ever hearing a man complain about toilet humor, I think painting the ladies as prudes with regard to sexual content is too much of a stretch. Read a cross-section of reviews by North American women, as I do every morning, and you will see these same writers giving two thumbs up to some mighty sexy manga. It’s just that we like a little style with our smut.

Borders

Retailing | As the financially troubled Borders Group met Tuesday with publishers in hopes of converting delayed payments into interest-bearing debt, the bookseller’s larger rival Barnes & Noble expressed concerns that could complicate negotiations. “We think the playing field should be even,” B&N spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said in a statement. “We expect publishers to offer same terms to all other booksellers, including Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers.  We fully expect publisher’s will require Borders to pay their bills on the same basis upon which all other booksellers pay theirs.  Any changes in publishers terms should be made available to all.” Meanwhile, Reuters considers what the closing of Borders’ 600 stores would mean to the book industry. [The New York Times, Publishers Weekly]

Stan Lee

Creators | Jevon Phillips and Geoff Boucher profile Stan Lee and cover the Tuesday ceremony unveiling his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “He is that American dream that we all look for,” Todd McFarlane said during the dedication. “He comes up with the ideas that we all look for to move us forward.” [Hero Complex]

Best of the year | Acme Novelty Library #20 tops PW Comics Week’s fifth annual critics’ poll. [Publishers Weekly]

Best of the year | Kai-Ming Cha selects the best manga of 2010. [Publishers Weekly]

Internet | Retailer, critic and convention organizer Christopher Butcher considers “the comics journalism conundrum” — specifically, why so many comics sites devote so much attention to superhero comics. [Comics212]

Metro Times

Creators | Detroit’s weekly Metro Times devotes its cover to the area’s comic-book ties, from James O’Barr and Jim Starlin to Geoff Johns and Katie Cook. The Detroit-era Justice League even gets a shoutout. [Metro Times]

Creators | Newly minted Superman writer Chris Roberson is the subject of a lengthy profile in his local newspaper: “I believe in Superman the way some people believe in Jesus. I believe that he is real and that he matters. The fact that he’s fictional doesn’t really enter into it.” [Austin American-Statesman]

Conventions | The first Indian Comic Con will be held Feb. 19-20 in New Delhi. [Hindustan Times]

Conventions | Organizers of the Middle East Film and Comic Con have released preliminary details of the April 29-30 event, billed as the first of its kind in the region. Held in Dubai, the convention will reportedly feature creators from Marvel, DC Comics, Top Cow Producions, Udon, Tokyopop and IDW Publishing. [press release]

New Teen Titans

Comics | Ben Morse writes about his fondness for teen superheroes: “For me, I think it’s that I’m an unabashed fan of the soap opera element of comic books just like I am of television or movies, so I’ll naturally gravitate to stuff starring teens or young adults where that is dialed up to 11 (I love Gossip Girl, but my parents have been on me for months and I still haven’t given The Good Wife a shot). If I’m going to get lost in a world of pathos, angst, romance and heroics, I want my escapism writ large and to the extreme, the way teenagers tend to view life (and the way me and most of my friends do too, since we’re largely in a collective state of arrested development). There’s something about every new crush being the love of your life, every test you face (written or super villainous) being the most devastating ever, and this group of friends being the one you’ll keep forever that appeals greatly to me.” [The Cool Kids Table]

Blogosphere | The Comics Journal has launched The Panelists, a comics criticism blog featuring contributions by Derik Badman, Alex Boney, Isaac Cates, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner and Charles Hatfield. [The Panelists]

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Broadway | The Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark canceled both Wednesday performances to test new safety measures following the Monday-night fall that left a stuntman hospitalized with broken ribs and internal bleeding. The cancellation of the sold-out evening show was announced just three hours before showtime at the Foxwoods Theatre. Tonight’s performance is expected to go on as planned.

Producers and creators met privately on Tuesday with the entire company to address safety concerns about the $65-million musical, the most expensive and technically complex in Broadway history. Although accidents in theater productions aren’t uncommon, it’s unusual for there to be four injuries before a show has officially opened. MTV offers some context. [The New York Times, The Associated Press]

Eiichiro Oda

Creators | According to calculations by Weekly Bunshun magazine, One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda makes about $24 million a year. Nearly $15.5 million of that comes just from sales of the insanely popular pirate manga. Oda turns 36 years old on Jan. 1. [Anime News Network]

Publishing | Michael Kavanagh reports on declining profits at Scottish media company DC Thomson, publisher of The Beano and The Dandy. [Financial Times]

Retailing | Robert Wilonsky uses the announcement of ComicsPRO‘s February annual meeting in Dallas as a chance to take the temperature of direct-market retailers and the trade organization. [Dallas Observer]

Publishing | The mainstream media pick up on the Marvel’s decision to bump off a member of the Fantastic Four in the January issue. [CNN.com]

Paul Cornell

Digital piracy | Writer Paul Cornell wades into the often-heated piracy discussion: “I think, and have had many conversations to support this view, that a large majority of creators in all media loathe illegal downloading. But few of them are willing to say anything in public. Reasons range from a desire to be seen to be cutting edge, to a fear of alienating one’s audience, to fear of a denial of service attack on one’s website. I’ve been on a lot of panels where, asked that question, everyone answers an entirely different one, about how ‘e-books are the future’. I feel that the one thing we can do, as creators, to affect illegal downloaders is to make it clear that we withold our approval. You can’t be an enthusiastic and beloved fan of a great writer and at the same time steal their stuff.” [PaulCornell.com]

Blogosphere | Tom Spurgeon continues his series of holiday interviews with a discussion with critic, writer and artist Matt Seneca. [The Comics Reporter]

Best of the year | Douglas Wolk selects the 10 best comics of 2010. [Techland]

Superboy #1

Best of the year | Dave Ferraro names to the 10 best superhero comics of the year. [Comics and More]

Best of the year | January Magazine names Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon’s Tumor among the best crime fiction of 2010. [January Magazine]

Gift guides | Brian Truitt, John Geddes and David Colton choose “essential 2010 graphic novels for comics gift-giving.” [USA Today]

Music | There’s a Michigan punk band named Cain Marko, after Marvel’s Juggernaut. “Juggernaut is just kind of a great character with an interesting past and kind of a tortured soul,” guitarist Jeremy Verwys says. “He’s just going to run through walls, and that’s what we kind of feel like … be uncompromising.” [The Grand Rapids Press]

It’s funny because it’s true: Julia Wertz provides a peek into the effects of reviews on a creator’s psyche at The Fart Party. Then to prove she’s not that thin-skinned, she posts some excerpts from bad reviews at her blog:

Only in America could an alcoholic, whiney, self-sabotaging person with limited artistic skill write and illustrate a comic, oops, “graphic novel” about her pathetic and boring life in San Francisco and New York City/Brooklyn and become successful. Reading it almost drove me to drink.

Ouch! Actually, Drinking at the Movies is anything but boring—it’s funny and perceptive and unsparing, and it’s well worth a read. I’m with the New York LA Times on this one.

In the case of Booth, the historical graphic novel about Lincoln’s assassin, by historian C.C. Colbert and French artist Tanitoc, it’s not just me. Writer J.L. Bell had the same reaction, and he explains one reason why: Misleading word balloons.

Take this panel, for example. The curve in the tail of the balloon at the left suggests that its words come from the balding man looking away from us. But in fact those words are those of John Wilkes Booth, in the muddy green. If I hadn’t remembered that in real life Booth claimed to have thrust himself into the John Brown affair, I would never have been able to interpret this panel.

Bell also notes that Tanitoc’s art is sometimes too blobby and hard to read visually. Despite these flaws, I would still recommend the book; the story was strong enough to carry me through the rough parts, but I do wish it had been a bit smoother.

Hiroyuki Takei's Butsu Zone

Manga: It’s a Jason Thompson hat trick: The prolific editor and writer, and the author of Manga: The Complete Guide, has three recently published articles, and all are worth a look: At comiXology he sings the praises of Shaman King creator Hiroyuki Takei; at Anime News Network, he writes about the classic manga The Rose of Versailles, which tells the story of Marie Antoinette and her cross-dressing bodyguard; and at io9, he looks at five sexually twisted manga.

Roundtable: The Savage Critics get together to discuss Dan Clowes’s Wilson, and how much they resemble (or don’t resemble) the title character.

Art comix: Paul Gravett talks to John Broadley about his hand-crafted graphic mini-comics woven around bits and pieces that he finds at his day job at a clipping service.

Advice: Lauren Davis looks at a couple of diary comics and notes the importance of having some sort of overarching theme.

Criticism: Kate Dacey, chronicles the seven deadly scenes of reviewing—and admits she has committed a few herself.

Timing: David Welsh discusses the sometimes unexpected pacing in One Piece, noting that lead character Luffy achieves one milestone on the way to becoming King of the Pirates in just a chapter, rather than a volume.

Snark: Chris Eckert retells Identity Crisis from the culprit’s point of view. Warning: Spoiler!

Conversation: Translator Jocelyn Allen, blogger Deb Aoki, retailer Christopher Butcher, and editors Erik Ko, Dan Nadel, and Ryan Sands got together at TCAF for a panel on indie manga, and Deb has the transcript for your reading pleasure.

Tintin

Publishing | Stanley Pignal takes a look at the transformation of the Tintin brand since the death of Hergé in 1983, as the cartoonist’s widow Fanny Vlamynck and her husband Nick Rodwell drastically changed merchandising strategies. In the process, the prickly Rodwell has become a controversial figure, running afoul of fans and journalists alike in his effort to exert control over Tintin’s image.

Of particular interest is a brief profile of Bob Garcia, a novelist and fan who published a series of books examining Hergé’s possible inspirations for Tintin. Garcia believed he could legally reproduce a few copyrighted illustrations for the purpose of critique, but Moulinsart saw things differently: The writer is now fighting to keep his home as penalties and legal fees mount. [Financial Times]

Crime | Danny Wayne Barton, owner of Kryptonite Komics in Carbon Hill, Alabama, was arrested Thursday after he allegedly sold marijuana to police informants on four separate occasions. Three of those incidents reportedly occurred in Barton’s shop, which also sells smoking devices as the Good Karma Store. The 38-year-old retailer faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison on four counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance within a three-mile radius of a school. [Daily Mountain Eagle]

Comix Experience

Retailing | Tom Spurgeon talks at length with Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience about sales of alt comics, the challenges of opening a comic store, the digital model, ComicsPRO, Diamond and more. [The Comics Reporter]

Webcomics | Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), Chris Onstad (Achewood) and Brad Guigar (Webcomics.com) discuss making a living through webcomics: “In good years, Onstad grosses around $250,000 in sales, though sales have been leaner in the past two recession years. He estimates having about 100,000 regular readers.” [AOL Small Business]

Libraries | John Campanelli spotlights Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum which, if all goes as planned, will move from its basement location to a $20.6 million home in a renovated Sullivant Hall in 2013. [The Plain Dealer]

San Diego Convention Center

Conventions | Luke Y. Thompson assesses the mood among professional attendees regarding a possible move by Comic-Con: “My sources invariably see it as a battle between San Diego and Los Angeles, with Anaheim an irrelevant factor, despite the fact that it has the most hotel space. First of all, it’s Disney’s backyard, which could put the other movie studios ill at ease (Glanzer denies that this would be an issue, saying that it was originally a question they had, but that all parties involved have assured him it would not be a problem). And secondly, it’s enough of a commute from L.A. to be an annoyance, and not quite enough to be a vacation (though fans and exhibitors who actually live in OC are for it, nobody else seems to be).” [Deadline]

Passings | Bruce Weber pens an obituary for Modesty Blaise creator Peter O’Donnell, who passed away on May 3. [The New York Times]

Creators | Douglas Wolk chats with Grant Morrison about Batman and Robin, the identity of Oberon Sexton and The Return of Bruce Wayne. [Techland]

Turf #2

Creators | This profile of television host Jonathan Ross divides its focus between his departure from the BBC and his move into comics with Turf, his Image collaboration with artist Tommy Lee Edwards: “Christ, it’s hard! But I’m really enjoying the nuts and bolts of the writing, which I didn’t think I would — I thought I’d just be thrilled at the sheer vanity of having my name on something with colours and pictures.” [Times Online]

Creators | Artist Shane Davis is interviewed by his local newspaper. [Hickory Daily Record]

Comics | Tom Spurgeon talks with Ben Schwartz, editor of The Best American Comics Criticism. [The Comics Reporter]

Manga | Jason Thompson considers “five brilliantly perverted manga.” [i09.com]

Comics | Ben Morse explains the appeal of Iron Man: “He’s basically a walking action figure, the type of concept that is like candy coated in crack to a kid, as you can go wild over his accessories and the fact that he’s got different suits for different occasions. I also think the idea of ‘suit of armor’ is just easier for people to wrap their head around than something like telepathy, a healing factor, freeze breath or even super speed (to say nothing of the really complex super powers).” [The Cool Kids Table]

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.

It Was the War of the Trenches

Peter Richardson discusses why World War I did not capture creators’ imaginations the way other wars have, and he accompanies his discussion with a beautiful counterexample, a sample from Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches, upcoming from Fantagraphics next month. (via Journalista)

Craig Fischer has a decidedly mixed review of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion, but then halfway through he goes roaring off into a digression on one of Hal Foster’s possible influences, Olive Beaupre Miller’s series of children’s books titled My Bookhouse. For good measure, someone just sent Ben Towle a set. (I had these as a kid, and they are lovely.) For more about Foster, see Ng Suat Tong’s recent post at The Hooded Utilitarian.

Tom Crippen, who is no Sarah Palin fan, cries foul nonetheless on Oliphant’s cartoon showing her postcoital encounter with a moose, pointing out that it probably reveals more about Oliphant than Palin.

Vom Marlowe reviews vol. 1 of Song of the Hanging Sky, a lovely manga with a quirky plot and a few perplexing translation problems.
Brian Heater thinks Jason’s Almost Silent is a good choice for graphic novel newbies.

Frank Santoro reviews Gipi’s Garage Band at Comics Comics.

Also at Comics Comics: Jeet Heer posts some loosely related notes on John Stanley.

Larry Cruz explains why video game webcomics are a good thing at The Webcomic Overlook.

Sean Gaffney reviews D&Q’s latest Yoshihio Tatsumi release, Black Blizzard.

Super-cute bacteria from the Moyashimon anime

Biochemist/manga adaptor Lianne Sentar looks at three manga series that get the science right (well mostly) and are still entertaining.

Noah Berlatsky thinks he has settled the question of what is and isn’t a comic once and for all, and he makes a pretty good case, but the commenters manage to have a lively argument anyway.

Librarians Eva Volin and Robin Brenner discuss all 10 volumes of Emma, and they jump right in with a discussion of full frontal nudity.

Jog takes a look at the many forms and uses of the thought balloon, which, despite an editor’s admonition to Stephen King, is far from dead. Scott McCloud adds his two cents as well. Related: Chris Sims explains exactly what’s wrong with the lettering in the Twilight graphic novel.

Sean Kleefeld explains why he prefers comics to television: It’s an individual voice as opposed to a collaboration.

At Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi convenes a bloggers’ roundtable on the first two volumes of Banana Fish.

Rob McMonigal re-reads the first volume of Christy Lijewski’s RE:play and decides he was right the first time.

Greg McElhatton shares his thoughts on American Vampire #1.

David Welsh discusses the narrative techniques that make One Piece so addictive.

Larry Cruz reviews the long-running webcomic Rice Boy.

The Art of Jaime Hernandez

• Tim Holder offers an initial critique of the upcoming Art of Jaime Hernandez book, which results in a flurry of great comments from book designers, critics and the editor of said book. Easily one of the most informative and insightful comments threads in months, if not years. (Also: L&R fan Marc Sobel offers his thoughts.)

• Along the same lines, Jeet Heer offers an old review of Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz.

• Marc Singer talks about why he included Maus in his comics class, and how his students reacted to it.

• Responding to an earlier essay by Jeet Heer (there he is again) on cartoonists’ mid-life crises, Gary Groth offers his own thoughts and posts an essay he’d written on the topic several years ago. (part one, part two, and part three).

• The Hooded Utilitarian recently wrapped up a lengthy roundtable discussion on Likewise, with author Ariel Schrag chiming in at the end. You can read the whole thing by going here.

• Charles Hatfield reports on a recent exhibit featuring R. Crumb’s Genesis adaptation.

• Likewise, Diana Tamblyn reports on a recent show of Seth’s work in Ontario.

• Ken Parille breaks down a page from a Casper story so you don’t have to.

• Sara Boslaugh reviews Copper by Kazu Kibuishi.

• Paul Gravett looks at the work of Baron Storey.

• Bill Sherman calls the Lewis Trondheim’s third entry in his Little Nothings series “thoughtful and amusing.”

• Finally, Richard Bruton says Jason Shiga’s Meanwhile is “almost guaranteed to engross and entertain anyone who picks it up.”

GoGo Monster

Number 5 is a strange work that reflects both Tekkonkinkreet and GoGo Monster. A schizophrenic collision of vicious playfulness and loose introspective beauty. At some point in each of his stories Matsumoto begins to pull you through a series of seemingly unrelated hoops, usually at an intense climatic moment when the characters are at a psychological breaking point. What slightly deviates in Number 5 is that the narrative hardly ever relaxes into a rhythm of storytelling for long. The entire book is a challenging ride that you have to hold onto constantly to not get thrown off track. But there are many pages of easy flowing action.

• Derik Badman and Thought Balloonist Craig Fischer engage in a great, lengthy discussion on the recent Abstract Comics anthology. Fellow TBer Charles Hatfield offers his own thoughts on the book here.

• Jog reviews two recent maga: Biomega and All My Darling Daughters. It’s worth checking out just to read his synopsis of the former.

• For the past week, David Welsh has been taking an in-depth look at one of the great uncompleted (at least in the US) manga, Sexy Voice and Robo, and has been asking friends and fellow bloggers to offer their own thoughts on the book in something he calls the “Manga Moveable Feast.” Rather than single any particular essay out I’d say just head to David’s site and start scrolling down.

• Not to be outdone on the manga front, Matthew Brady is spending a good deal of time talking about manga this month, including One-Pound Gospel and Black Jack.

• I don’t think I ever linked to this article by Seth on the “Quiet Art of Cartooning” before, did I? While you’re at it, check out this related post by Ken Parille on the art of Pete Morisi.

• Sandy Bilus recommends the latest Best American Comics collection.

• Rob Clough lists his favorite comics of last year, and the best comics of the past decade.

• Noah Berlatsky keeps on biting the hand that feeds him.

• David Ferraro calls The Troublemakers “good pulpy fun.”

• Johanna Draper Carlson continues to find 20th Century Boys to be worth her time.

• Finally, if you happen to speak French, the magazine 9eme Art has updated and expanded their Web site.

I would posit that even though there are far more comics being published now, there are no more truly great comics being produced now than there were at the beginning of the last decade. If you discount the constant stream of reprints and international offerings, new English-language comics are about as good as they’ve ever been, it’s just that there are more of them. In fact, because of the market’s rapid expansion, actual average quality has plummeted. It’s not a question of having abandoned critical standards in order to gain popular market share: comics never had critical standards. What we have done now is to adopt the standards of the larger book market.

• Andrei Molotiu has been blogging up a storm at the Abstract Comics site, examining how classic, mainstream comic book artists have incorporated abstract shapes and forms into their work. Here he is talking about Steve Ditko; and here he is talking about Frank Miller. You’ll want to read both pieces.

Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons

• Jeet Heer makes the case for Gahan Wilson: “For all their morbidity and ghoulishness, Wilson’s cartoons affirm the value of cherishing life.”

• While we’re on the subject, The San Francisco Chronicle’s Laurel Maury really likes that new Wilson collection as well.

• Neil Cohn looks at a type of visual shorthand in comics he calls “action stars.”

• Matthew Brady reviews The Squirrel Machine: ” It’s a compelling, fascinating journey through an often creepy and always striking world.”

• Cory Doctorow examines Goats II: The Corndog Imperitive: “Rosenberg continues to walk the razor-edged line between silly and dumb, and does not slip onto the dumb side.”

• Nina Stone compares reading Not Simple to having a date with Eeyore. Ouch.

• The Mindless Ones’ Botswana Beast and Zom look at recent issues of Starman and Spider-Man, respectively.

• The Forbidden Planet’s Richard Bruton doesn’t care much for horror comics, but he liked The Abortion.

• Finally, Ryan Sands shares his opinion on a few books he’s been reading lately.

Best American Comics Criticism

Over at his blog, Drew Friedman has unveiled the official cover to Fantagraphics’ upcoming book, The Best American Comics Criticism. And, lest you fear those portraits are supposed to be of you or someone you may know, let him put your mind at ease:

I created these lovely faces for this new book cover from Fantagraphics, designed by Alexa Koenings and due out next month. The idea was conceived by the author, journalist/historian Ben Schwartz, to be an homage/parody of THE BELIEVER covers, although I had no intention, or interest in parodying the regular Charles Burns portraits. The faces are not meant to be any one in particular, rather I wanted to capture certain “types’ who write Comics Criticism.

(via)