Animal Man #1

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Kevin Colden, whose comic work includes Fishtown, I Rule the Night, Vertigo’s Strange Adventures and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, among others. He’s also the drummer for the band Heads Up Display.

To see what Kevin and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below …

*****

Michael May

Justice League #1

I spent most of my week getting caught up on the New 52. I liked some of Justice League #1, but have many of the same problems others did. I’m primarily interested in Justice League to see what kind of relationships the heroes have with each other in this new version. That’s what I like most about team books anyway, and I did enjoy Green Lantern’s feeling like Batman needed to prove himself and how Batman reacted to that. It was a new take that couldn’t have been done without the reboot. But stretching that out to an entire issue was disappointing and I may wait until Wonder Woman shows up in the series before I buy another issue. I’m very curious to see how Johns’ version compares to the way Azzarello’s going to write her.

Action Comics #1 was a nice surprise though. I love, Love, LOVE the less-powered Superman. I’ve been watching the Fleischer Superman cartoons lately and this reminded me a lot of those. Superman’s incredibly tough and strong, but not invincible and I sincerely hope he stays that way. Even though it reminded me a lot of Batman: Year One and Spider-Man 2, I also liked the Superman vs. the cops scene with the people coming to Superman’s defense. I don’t care that it’s not the first time I’ve ever seen that kind of thing, it’s the first time I’ve seen it with Superman and it was awesome. Lois reminds me of Fleischer’s Lois too: badass and capable, but not immune to getting in over her head and needing some help. There’s so much storytelling potential there that doesn’t have to have her be as goofy and helpless as her Silver Age version. I bought the issue out of curiosity, but I’m very much looking forward to more like it.

Batgirl

Batgirl #1 was another disappointment though. I typically love Gail Simone’s work so much, but I wanted a light-hearted superheroine (like the one on the cover) and didn’t care at all for Batgirl’s dealing with the Post Traumatic Stress of being shot by the Joker. I’m not saying it’s a bad story, it’s just very heavy and not what I’m looking for. I won’t buy the second issue, but may come back to it in the collected version if the buzz is good.

Static Shock #1 – My hopes that this will include more Milestone characters than just Static are encouraged by Hardware’s playing a major role in Virgil Hawkins’ story. I’m hoping for more like that (Blood Syndicate please!), but in the meantime, this was a lot of fun with some great, new villains and I can’t wait for the next issue.

Demon Knights was always going to be a hard sell for me because I’m not a big Demon fan, nor do I generally care for the way Marvel and DC have portrayed medieval times. But Diogenes Neves has some nice designs and halfway through the issue Paul Cornell threw in a romantic triangle that hooked me but good. Then he netted me and put me in the boat with the last page. I not making any long-term commitments, but there are some great elements here and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Brigid Alverson

MetaMaus

I got an advance copy of MetaMaus this week, and when I sat down and started flipping through it I couldn’t put it down. It’s basically a book about Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and the heart of it is a lengthy interview with Spiegelman himself in which he talks about the thought process that went into the book, how the making of Maus affected his relationship with his father and the origins of many of the images in the graphic novel. The book is crammed with visuals, including photos from Spiegelman’s bar mitzvah album and pictures from books about the Holocaust that once belonged to his mother. The result is fascinating, at least for a Spiegelman fan like me. The book comes with a disc that includes Maus in its entirety as well as recordings of Spiegelman’s father. I haven’t cracked that yet, but I know it will add a whole new dimension to the experience.

On a much, much lighter note, I worked my way through the first year of the Life With Archie magazine, with its dual Archie-marries-Veronica and Archie-marries-Betty storylines, this week. I have been picking these up and putting them down all year, but sitting down and reading them all at once makes the stories come into sharper focus. It’s interesting that some events occur in both storylines, while other outcomes are totally different—for instance, Moose becomes mayor of Riverdale in one story and janitor of Riverdale High in another, for reasons that have nothing to do with Archie’s choice of a spouse. Although the multiplicity of characters and subplots makes it a bit confusing to read both at once, it’s hard to put the stories down, as writer Paul Kupperberg keeps the plot twists coming thick and fast. It’s good melodrama, and because the characters are all familiar faces, it’s fun to see what directions they evolve into from their teenage selves.

Tim O’Shea

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1: When I picked up this week’s comics from the local store, my pal Dugan admitted that this comic reminded him somewhat of Hellboy. After I read it, I had to agree with him to a certain extent. Oddly enough, it also reminded me of another Dark Horse property, The Umbrella Academy. One major thing that annoyed me about Jeff Lemire’s writing (as much as I typically enjoy it) was this issue seemed really too text-intensive–and I hope the S.H.A.D.E.NET narrative. (If I never see another writer use narrative elements like “Data incoming…97% downloaded” I will be happy). But the first issue, despite its hiccups, introduced enough interesting characters (I bailed on Flashpoint after the first issue) to me to want to return for issue #2.

Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #523: This series is at its strongest when writer David Liss is teamed with artist Francesco Francavilla (as with this issue), Since this series began (with the departure of lead character) a major focal point of the series has been the importance of Hell’s Kitchen. T’Challa/Black Panther’s efforts to help Hell’s Kitchen continues to pay off in the neighborhood’s darkest hours. In terms of the supporting cast, I love love love Sofija.

Daredevil #3: I would not be surprised if Marvel is pitching Mark Waid’s Daredevil run as a TV series at some point. The surprise twist involving Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson’s law firm in this latest issue was really what triggered my theory. While the book is called Daredevil, Waid has devoted a good amount of time to showing Murdoch attempting to rebuild his life and career, which has entertained me to date. This was my favorite read of the week.

Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors #5: I feel for independent creators trying to garner attention for their respective series in a month like this, where the new DCU 52 dominates the news and review cycle. If you have not checked out Mark Andrew Smith and Armand Villavert’s Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, you are genuinely missing out on a quirky series. In this issue, all the kids get a hold of the comics that the Nefarious Kid has been reading. (The two-page sample of those comics that Villavert offers early in this issue is executed with such great homage-level attention, it actually reminded me of some of the scenes from Jim Rugg’s Afrodisiac). The story really kicks into high gear in this installment and I really love where the creators leave things at the end of this installment (always leave folks wanting more, of course [which surprisingly some creators fail to do]).

Chris Mautner

Prison Pit 3

Prison Pit 3 — I had the opportunity to do a Q&A panel with Johnny Ryan at SPX last weekend. One of the more interesting parts of discussion was when Ryan said how each volume of Prison Pit had to have a different vibe or theme so that the different books didn’t feel interchangable. That’s certainly true in volume three, as we see the inclusion of a new character, who, while just as violent and vicious as CF, is completely different in attitude and demeanor. Plus, he has one of the most amazing (and utterly grotesque) resurrection scenes I’ve ever seen. There’s also a neat little bit toward the end where it seems like Ryan is heavily drawing upon the Fort Thunder crowd, particularly Mat Brinkman. All in all, it’s another excellent volume.

Prince Valiant Vol. 4 — This volume covers the most of the WWII years, 1943-44, when the paper shortage was at its highest. As Brian Kane notes in the introduction, this meant creator Hal Foster had to format the strip so parts could be cut for papers that had been forced to shrink their page count. He did this by adding a bottom strip, The Medieval Castle, which, while certainly informative and amusing, wasn’t necessarily as good as pure, unadulterated Valiant, especially since this new situation meant that Foster was unable to do the big, impressive vistas that had quickly become the strip’s trademark. Still, while no doubt hampered by this new situation, it did nothing to harm his storytelling skills, and Valiant remains a hugely enjoyable action strip, as Valiant battles a variety of ne’r do wells on a quest to find his true love, Aleta.

Mome Vol. 22 — I’ve talked at length before about how good the Mome anthology has been, and while I’m sad to see it come to a close, it’s nice to see it end on such a high note. Seriously, this is the best volume of Mome yet, with standout contributions by Chuck Forsman, Eleanor Davis, Laura Park, Dash Shaw, Jesse Moynihan and Sara Edward-Corbett. But really, there’s not a bad story in this entire book. It might seem weird recommending the last book of a series, but if you gotta only read one of these things, this would be the one.

Kevin Colden

Besides obsessively lurking on my Twitter feed and the typical mind-sucking websites like Damn You Autocorrect my, um… INTELLECTUAL reading time has been chock full of good stuff.

I suppose the elephant in the room would be the DC New 52 books – of which I’ve read about half so far (maybe 13 of the 27 to date). The overall concept of the reboot is solid, though some of the books have nailed it better than others. Animal Man in particular is one of the best new books I’ve read in a long time. I’ve always thought that Jeff Lemire was an interesting, unorthodox choice to write DCU books, and he and Travel Foreman have crafted an eerie, tonal work that recalls Moore and Totleben’s Swamp Thing – and it lives up to its pedigree. I got really excited for this title when I saw a preview of Foreman and inker Dan Green’s artwork for this book – creepy, angular and distorted, with a tasty late-80′s vibe – and it delivers. Colorist Lovern Kindzierski complements their work by smartly keeping it subtle, not eating the ink with rendering and doing some sweet limited-palette work as well. This one is on my regular list now and forever.

Bakuman

Keeping my comic selection broad and stroking my passion for well-crafted manga, a few months back DC Digital super editor and newly-installed Angeleno Kwanza Johnson recommended I read Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Or maybe he strong-armed me into reading it. I don’t remember. Either way, I loved the creators’ previous work Death Note (which I also highly recommend; I read the first five volumes -about 1000 pages – in one sitting), so I figured this one was a good bet. Bakuman is about two high school-age kids making comics. Yeah. It’s about writing and drawing – possibly the least interesting and least active things in the universe – yet somehow the creators infuse the story with drama, tension and suspense. Besides some inexplicably bizarre behavior by two characters that requires Herculean suspension of disbelief, it’s thoroughly enjoyable and the art is stellar. Interestingly, Viz released volume 4 as a digital day-and-date experiment, and then promptly abandoned that plan with volume 5. Boo.

On my bookshelf, you will find many, many a finely bound graphic novel. You will also find my only two other reading passions – mountain-climbing memoirs and music biographies. I kid you not. I love reading about climbing because I will never be able to do it myself. I like to read about being a touring musician, because I will likewise never be able to do it myself. My current musical selection is See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody by Bob Mould. It’s a great companion piece to Andrew Earles 2010 Husker Du biography (for which Mould declined to be interviewed, in anticipation of his own book), detailing Mould’s view of the band’s acrimonious history, and moving further into his time with Sugar, his solo career and his life as a gay man. It’s a fascinating, unflinching, sometimes brutal portrait of a self-made artist, and it’s one of the best and most inspiring I’ve read.

Those selections, by the way – all purchased and read digitally. The revolution is here, and it will not be televised. It will be downloaded.

Willworld

Which is not to say I’m all ones and zeroes here – quite the opposite. I’m a biblio-junkie with a bad habit. Two weeks ago, I read WE3 by Morrison and Quitely, Green Lantern Willworld by DeMatteis and the late, great Seth Fisher (buy all of his work – ALL OF IT), and when my wife is done with it, our pal Mike Dawson’s Troop 142 is in the pile. Last weekend, I was at Small Press Expo and went on such an insane buying binge that I’m not even sure what I bought. I know I had Jennifer Hayden sign a copy of her new book Underwire, and I picked up Eddie Campbell’s Alec (both from Top Shelf), got a few Roger Langridge’s books, and went on a blind spree at Fantagraphics with Four Color Fear, an Alex Toth collection, some books by Jordan Crane and an impulsively bought Jacques Tardi book because CBLDF’s Alex Cox told me I needed it. That’s the first bag of three.

What am I reading? Everything, apparently.

from The Last Lonely Saturday

The Last Lonely Saturday, by Uptight and The Clouds Above cartoonist Jordan Crane, is one of my favorite comics of all time. Why? You can find out if you read the entire beautifully bittersweet story online at Crane’s webcomics portal, What Things Do.

It’ll only take a minute or two. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

There now. Need a hankie? I figured. The story of an elderly man bringing flowers to his beloved, The Last Lonely Saturday is where I first discovered Crane’s impeccably cartoony character designs and near-wordless storytelling chops, as well as his knack for teasing both the darkness and the light out of issues of love and loss. And now the comic has been adapted into a live-action short film by director Seth Craven. The movie premieres as part of the HollyShorts Film Festival at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in Los Angeles on August 12 at 5pm. Get ready to be heartbroken.

If you’ve seen Jordan Crane’s elegant webcomics hub What Things Do — or better still, if you’re one of the lucky few who have a copy of his hand-silkscreened, die-cut, three-books-in-one anthology NON #5 — you know that the cartoonist behind Uptight and The Clouds Above is one of comics’ best designers. But I think that with Keep Our Secrets, his new comics-style children’s book for McSweeney’s kids’ imprint McMullens, the man has truly outdone himself. This sucker is partially printed in heat-sensitive, color-changing black ink that disappears when touched to reveal a picture hidden underneath. Check it out in the video above, as two adorable tykes help demonstrate. If I were a little kid, I think being able to touch a book and suddenly see hidden stuff appear — like an accordion stuffed with cats, say, or a guy with banana hands under his gloves — would be something close to magic.

In the immortal words of that slowed-down Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson pizza-making video, when does a dream become a nightmare? This is the question addressed by justly celebrated young cartoonist Michael DeForge, in the context of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man no less, in his cheerfully unauthorized, thoroughly unpleasant Spider-Man comic “Peter’s Muscle,” which you can now read online in its entirety at Jordan Crane’s webcomics portal What Things Do. Spinning out of the infamous (and in-continuity!) relationship between Aunt May and Doctor Octopus, the story finds the Wall-Crawler recounting a disturbing dream that starts with finding a face underneath a membranous sidewalk and somehow only gets more uncomfortably intimate from there. With any luck, a full-color edition of this strip will anchor a future Strange Tales installment, but for now, this will more than suffice.

Finder: Voice

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.

Chris Arrant

$15:

This week is a busy week for me -– I count 13 single issues I’d buy if I was a rich man, but with only $15 I’d narrow it down to four things. DMZ #62 (DC/Vertigo $2.99) looks to be really amping up the series for it’s final year. I’ve enjoyed this series’ long run, and the way he’s built up this world only to tear it down seems amazing. Second in my bag would be the closest thing to a modern Moebius at Marvel, Shield #6 (Marvel $2.99). This secret history of the Marvel U has been really eye-opening, and Hickman’s bold reach really takes some big brass ones. This in line would be Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force #5 (Marvel $3.99). Remender’s done some solid modern-work while trying to not be outshone by Jerome Opena’s star-turn, but in this issue it’s got guest art by Esad Ribic. Ribic’s work has always carried this sense of gravitas without being stuffy like some painters, and I’m interested to see how he does these visceral heroes. Last up would be Brightest Day #20. On paper, a book with a league of b-list heroes seems like a non-starter, but I really like what the team have done on this, especially the Martian Manhunter and Firestorm threads.

$30:

If I doubled my money to $30, I’d pick up Jason Aaron’s Wolverine #6, which has a new artist, Daniel Acuna. Aaron’s seemed to have found his character in this series, and it’ll be interesting to see what Acuna does. I’ve been a big fan of his for years, but it seems he’s never gotten the right book to show it off. Second would be Alex Toth Adventures: Jon Fury In Japan Special Edition (Paul Power, $11). I buy each of these Toth collections has they come out, despite the uneven print quality I’ve seen. I hope this is something special -– although I kind of wish someone like IDW or Image would do a series of Alex Toth volumes collecting everything one by one.

Splurge:

My splurge this week would be the new Finder graphic novel Finder: Voice (Dark Horse, $19.99). I’m excited to see what Carla is doing now that she can focus less on self-publishing and more on cartooning.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

Uptight #4

The new issue of The Boys is out ($3.99) but for me the must-grab item of the week is the fourth issue of Jordan Crane’s always excellent Uptight from Fantagraphics ($3.95). It’s kind of fascinating to me how Crane has become one of the few indie guys to still be plugging away at the semi-regular pamphlet series, when so many of his peers and direct influences have given up on that format. I’m not sure what, if anything, it means, but he’s cranking out some of the best stuff of his career in these pages, let me tell you.

If I had $30:

I’m kind of curious to check out Dark Horse’s first collected volume of Carla Speed McNeil’s much lauded Finder ($19.99). I’ve only read her work in bits and pieces and haven’t really gotten a feel for it yet. I know there are many who really appreciate her work though, so I’d like to check it out (plus, she’d probably be a great Comics College entry somewhere down the road).

Splurge:

I can’t think of a better book to splurge your hard-earned money this week than on than the $75 Captain America by Jack Kirby Omnibus. Collecting all of Kirby’s great ’70s Cap material, including the history-warping Bicentennial Battles, this is great stuff that any Kirby or Cap fan should get their hands on if they don’t already have it in some other form.

Michael May

Wonder Woman #607

If I had $15:

I’m a complete-story kind of reader, so I’ve been waiting until it’s all done to dig into Kill Shakespeare, but the 100 Penny Press edition of the first issue ($1) is awfully tempting. Meanwhile, Josh Fialkov is one of the sickest (in a good way), most inventive minds in comics and I can’t imagine a more surprising thing for him to be writing than a one-shot about the early days of Marvel Girl ($2.99), which of course makes me want to read it that much more.

Meanwhile meanwhile, my disinterest in what Straczynski was doing with Wonder Woman is rivaled only by my extreme desire to read Phil Hester’s writing that series. It’s these in-between issues like this week’s #607 ($2.99) that are killing me: not only does Hester have to ease himself and us out of Straczynski’s plot, but in order to understand it, I’m going to have to go back and read the Hesterless issues too. I wouldn’t do that for many writers, but I’ll do it for him.

Rounding out the #15 pile would be Flash Gordon: Invasion of the Red Sword #1 ($3.99) and Jennifer Blood #1 ($3.99). Flash Gordon’s an easy choice for me at any time, but Garth Ennis’s new series is outside of my usual range. I have a very limited tolerance for Ennis’ kind of storytelling, but it’s been a long time since I’ve indulged and the vigilante housewife concept sounds fun.

If I had $30:

I’d add Brian Clevinger’s Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet ($14.99). I’m looking forward to seeing what the Atomic Robo writer does when he’s cut loose in the Marvel Universe.

Splurge:

I’d finally check out Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder series via the new printing of the first volume from Dark Horse ($19.99). I’m embarrassed by how long it’s taken me to do that.

Graeme McMillan

Morning Glories Vol. 1

If I had $15 this week, the majority of it would go on the first collection of Nick Spencer’s Morning Glories (Vol. 1: For A Better Future, Image Comics, $9.99); I’ve heard good things about the series and liked Spencer’s writing elsewhere, but this passed me by when it was first released, so I’m looking forward to trying it out. I’d also pick up IDW’s GI Joe: Cobra II #13, to see what happens after the previous issue’s death of Cobra Commander. I’m a sucker for things like that, I admit.

That said, if I had $30, I’d probably tradewait for Cobra II, and pick up Finder Vol. 1: Voice (Dark Horse, $19.99) instead. I’ve read some of Carla Speed McNeal’s great sci-fi series before in borrowed collections from friends, and so have been anxiously awaiting the roll-out of Dark Horse’s new line of collected editions to have them for myself.

When it comes to splurging, it’s between two choices for me this week: DC’s Bayou Vol. 2 TP ($14.99) continues the print edition of the former Zuda webcomic, while the Captain America By Jack Kirby Omnibus (Marvel Comics, $74.99) contains some of the best and weirdest Cap comics ever made. If only I had a lot of money to imaginary splurge with…

Wow: Cold Heat cartoonist and Comics Comics blogger Frank Santoro went to Los Angeles, and all he got was this wondrous photo of him and a gaggle of the greatest alternative comics creators on the West Coast. From left to right, you’re looking at Johnny Ryan (Prison Pit, Angry Youth Comix), Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets), Ron Regé Jr. (Yeast Hoist, Against Pain), Jordan Crane (Uptight, What Things Do), Sammy Harkham (Crickets, Kramers Ergot), and Santoro. I haven’t seen this kind of star power packed into one picture since Crumb, Ware, Clowes, Tomine, and Buenaventura straddled the cliffs of France like comic-book colossi.

Click the link to read Frank’s whole “L.A. Diary,” with great you-are-there accounts of the cartoonists and insightful thoughts about their work — and about the City of Angels itself:

Me and Sammy went up to Griffith Park, up to the Rebel Without a Cause Observatory to look out over the city and smoke cigarettes. L.A. is kind of magical. It’s like Heaven. Or Hell. Your choice. I had been so lonely out in the desert of New Mexico that I tagged along with Sammy while he went on his errands. We went to one of those movie poster stores on Hollywood Blvd. He bought a couple film stills for references. Then we went to the Family Store. Then I sat in the barber shop while he got a trim. Then to the butcher shop. I was stalling him as long as I could. Then his wife called and he had to go home for dinner. So I drove back to Echo Park. Me and Ron hit the taco truck. Heaven.

Read the whole thing for a slice of comics history.

Kill Shakespeare

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Today’s special guests are Johnny Zito and Tony Trov, writers of Black Cherry Bombshells, Moon Girl, Lamorte Sisters and D.O.G.S. of Mars.

To see what Tony, Johnny and the Robot 6 crew are reading, click the link below.

*****

Michael May

Aquaman #16 (1964)

I’ve been absent from What Are You Reading? for a few weeks while I’ve been working my way through Showcase Presents Aquaman, Volume 3. I’ve already shared some of my thoughts on these Silver Age stories and finishing this volume hasn’t changed my mind. These are some awfully silly comics where characters’ personalities change dramatically from issue to issue as the plot demands. But I can’t make myself hate them either. The art by Ramona Fradon and Nick Cardy is fantastic and the plots themselves are inventive and exciting.

The first appearance of Black Manta in Aquaman #35 is especially awesome. Bob Haney opens the story with a sudden attack by Manta and his terrifying manta-men on Atlantis and doesn’t let up for the entire issue. Aquaman and the Atlanteans try various tactics to defend themselves, but Black Manta keeps adapting. And then Ocean Master shows up. Other stories feature Aquaman on loan to the US government in Bond-inspired stories as he goes up against a criminal organization called O.G.R.E.

For the most part though, Aquaman stays beneath the waves, defending Atlantis and his family from various aliens, monsters, and invaders from the surface world. It’s great fun as long as you take a very relaxed attitude about characterization. Something I wasn’t always able to do.

Chris Mautner

Krazy & Ignatz

I’ve been delving into a number of classic comic strips lately, thanks to a bundle of new books from Fantagraphics.

First up was the latest Krazy & Ignatz book, “1919-1921: A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick.” What stands out for me here, other than George Herriman’s usual artistry, is the subtle jokes about race — Ignatz becomes dirty after rolling around in soot and Krazy doesn’t recognize him and refuses to have anything to do with him; Krazy ends up covered in white paint and suddenly becomes irresistible to Ignatz. Considering Herriman’s own ethnic and racial heritage, I find moments like this fascinatingly telling.

I also read the fifth volume of Popeye, “Wha’s A Jeep.” I’ve gone on and on about my love for Segar’s Thimble Theater here and elsewhere countless times before, so I won’t bore you by listing the all the numerous reasons this strip tickles my fancy so well. Suffice it to say I think it’s an American classic and earns my heartiest recommendation, whatever that’s worth.

Finally, I read the third volume of Prince Valiant, which covers the years 1941-1942. I still can’t quite get over just how much fun Hal Foster’s medieval epic is. Far from the dull, staid, storybook slog a first glance would suggest, the strip bursts with life and adventure, and not a little bit of bloodsport. I lost count at a certain point how many evildoers Val killed, although the highlight (violence-wise at least) has to be the viking who gets his hand lopped off by Val on the last page, itty-bitty, graceful splurt of blood included.

Carla Hoffman

Ultimate Comics Doom #2

Ultimate Doom #2 isn’t half bad. On the whole, I would think more fondly of the Ultimate universe if we had read all of this instead of Ultimatum. Think of that for a moment, wouldn’t you? Yeah… Anyways, the action isn’t as slow or as startling as in, say Bendis’ Avengers work, and I would guess he is far more comfortable writing with the Ultimate characters than the ol’ 616 universe. But that’s me. I also know that it might be my gut feeling, but the whole villain of this particular arc of the Ultimate Secret/Ultimate Enemy/Ultimate Doom series is kind of disappointing. I understand their motivations and all, but without a reasoned and engaging explanation, I’m still down-hearted. I’m sure that’s even the point of naming this character a huge threat to their friends, loved ones and even the multiverse at large, so I’ll wait and see how it all develops.

I’ll totally admit to having not read Ultimate Secret or Ultimate Enemy before this, but it tells you how good a comic is if you can pick an issue up, read through it and understand the basic plotline enough to want to read more. In the same spirit, I also read Action Comics #897. The fancy character spotlight covers did not help me in this as I had to check the cover several times to remember what this issue was for later, but it also helped as Lex Luthor looking evil with Superman’s cape destroyed is pretty cool. Again, I haven’t read anything before it, but Paul Cornell is a pretty cool guy and the title’s been getting a lot of positive press from friends, so why not see what all this is? The good news is that it’s incredibly well-written. While the idea of a robot Lois Lane is lost on me, I caught quickly on to the fact that she was a robot and believed that Luthor want to create such a thing for his understandably nefarious needs. The black hole problem and his main reason for action? No clue. But the very idea of Lex Luthor taking his robot Lois Lane in to see the Joker at Arkham Asylum? Count me in. The exchange was engaging, fascinating and appropriately weird (“Jazz hands!”). Not sure if I’ll remain just as interested to pick up the next issue, but I might go back-issue hunting tomorrow and see if the last issue was as good as this one.

Last but not least, I read Infestation #1 because I need to know if Abnett and Lanning can make ANYTHING GOOD. Short answer: yes, yes they can. Long answer: you know when someone comes up with something so bizarre or unreal that you have to see it? Dynamite books and the internet work on this idea; we find strange and uncomprehendable YouTube videos and put them on Facebook. Infestation leaves your jaw open the whole time and you know it’s going to end in ZOMBIES in STAR TREK comics. That’s unheard of, but even on your way to getting to ZOMBIES in TRANSFORMERS comics, you’re not only given a fairly decent premise but throw in terms like Hofstadtian Strange Loop whi, if you Google odd words like I do, find out that it’s an ACTUAL THING. Not only did they jump on to a rather ludicrous idea of onvolving major properties in a current horror fad, but bothered to look up a Nobel Prize winning heirarchical theory. That’s right, you just learned something in a book that has robots, zombies and zombie-robots.

Sean T. Collins

Johnny 23

Still bouncing between prose and comics this week. On the prose end, I’m knee deep in Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain fantasy series, which in terms of their underlying theme as they chronicle the life of a young pig farmer turned unexpected hero can be summed up as “put in the hard work necessary to learn how not to be a jerk.” As various people I’ve described them to have put it, it’s like the anti-Ayn Rand — something we need even more now than we did when Alexander wrote the books in the ’60s.

As for comics, click the links for full reviews!

Johnny 23 by Charles Burns (Le Dernier Cri): Burns “remixes” his own book X’d Out to stunning effect, reformatting its pages and reshuffling their contents to further emphasize their surreal, gorgeous images.

AX: Alternative Manga Vol. 1 by various artists, compiled by Mitsuhiro Asakawa, edited by Sean Michael Wilson (Top Shelf): The incredibly wide range of comics in this compilation culled from one of Japan’s most prominent alternative-comics anthologies guarantees that you’ll find something you really like — you just have to make it past some frustrating production choices involving the translation and lettering to get to them.

Uptight #4 by Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics): One all-ages comic, and one very adult one, comprise the latest issue of Crane’s impeccably crafted one-man anthology series.

Johnny Zito

Outside of a few webcomics I don’t think I’m reading anything that comes out regularly right now. As I’ve gotten older I like to sit down with a collection, a celebrated run or self contained graphic novel. I’ve been reading a lot in the last few weeks.

Batman: Knightfall

Batman: Knightfall – When they cast the next Batman sequel earlier in the month I dug out my old Knightfall trades. Bane is a great villain because unlike so many who came before him he was BOTH the physical and mental equal of the Dark Knight. They juxtapose his methods with the crazies that Bane breaks out of Arkham. Honestly I forgot how tight the plotting is; tons of fun to watch Bane marshal his forces and legitimately take down the Bat… The art is vintage 90′s; scratchy, inconsistent and full of splash pages but that stuff can be fun with the right material.

Kill Shakespeare – I lied. I do read Kill Shakespeare month to month. However, it’s new so it didn’t immediately spring to mind. It fills the void that Fables and X-Men used to, full of drama and romance and fighting. Comics are at their best when they aspire to be Shakespearean. Men and women running around the night, wearing masks, fighting for love or revenge or whatever. Kill Shakespeare has all of that for obvious reasons and capitalizes with clever twists on old standards. The art lends a real gravity to the source material, it feels real. Or better yet it feels like a play, a world built out of set pieces and cardboard trees. It’s a surreal brain treat that I can’t recommend enough.

Wednesday Comics – Finally got to crack the spine (Bane reference?) on my Christmas present to myself. The collected Wednesday Comics are just FANTASTIC. Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Batman immediately jump out as gloriously crafted love letters to those characters. The Flash, Metamorpho and Adam Strange got experimental and these stories took chances. There was such a variety of talent on the series that all 12 stories feel completely unique. I dig anthologies in general, there’s something very ‘comic-book-y’ about a bunch of people coming together to tackle a project no one of them could handle on their own.

Tony Trov

I have been crazy busy and haven’t had as much time to read since the Holiday.

Wonder Woman Archives, Vol 1 – I was never really into the Wonder Woman series until recently. I always thought of her as a campy TV show from the 70s… not that I don’t love Linda Carter, but you know what I mean.

These Golden Age stories are straight up weird and trippy. All, of course, in a good way. I do find them to be oddly fetishy, too. Which is pretty awesome considering when they were being published. I haven’t counted, but I think someone is bound and tied up on just about every single page.

Thanks for including us, come hang out on our website at SOUTHfellini.com.

The Walking Dead print by Jordan Crane

Whoa. These are pretty much the last official promotional items I ever expected to see, but man am I ever glad I’m seeing them: Alternative-comics creators Jordan Crane, Lisa Hanawalt, Johnny Ryan, and Jon Vermilyea have each created a Walking Dead print. Made to look like shooting-range practice targets, the prints tie in with Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (and Tony Moore)’s series, the television adaptation of which will make its debut on AMC this Halloween. Each print is signed by the artist and by Kirkman himself, emblazoned with the “Grant County, Georgia Law Enforcement and Public Safety” logo, limited to a run of 100, and priced to sell at $40. Best of all, each artist worked in his or her own inimitable style: Crane’s features linework so impeccable it actually becomes somewhat menacing itself, Ryan’s is spectacularly gross and upsetting, Vermilyea’s is a riot of squiggly detail, and Hanawalt’s has a cat’s head instead of a human’s.

The prints were curated by L.A.’s Secret Headquarters. Click here to see them all and buy them, but remember: If you end up using them for target practice, headshots only!

(Hat tip: David Paggi)

Robot 6 readers seemingly can’t get enough links to cartoonist Jordan Crane’s hugely impressive webcomics portal What Things Do. Fortunately, Crane’s served up a spooky snippet of all-ages adventure that’s perfect for Robot 666. Discover “Dark Day,” the latest chapter in the saga of Simon and Jack, the schoolboy and giant cat who starred in Crane’s beloved The Clouds Above. Warning: Here be monsters!

“5 years, 20 volumes, 72 artists, and 2,352 pages of comics.” Strictly by the numbers — taken from the Editor’s Notes that kick off Mome Vol. 20: Fall 2010, on sale this month — Fantagraphics’ signature anthology is a force to be reckoned with. Launched in 2005 with the intention of providing a regular home for new work by promising young cartoonists like Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Anders Nilsen, Paul Hornschemeier, and Sophie Crumb, it rapidly evolved into something else, something arguably more: a showcase for alternative comics of nearly every style and stripe. During its five-year history, Mome‘s diverse accomplishments have included publishing work from European greats like David B. and Lewis Trondheim, serializing Tim Hensley’s acclaimed graphic novel Wally Gropius, reintroducing Al Columbia to the comics scene prior to the release of his landmark Pim & Francie, giving Dash Shaw yet another forum for his experimental take on science fiction, providing an unlikely venue for underground legend Gilbert Shelton, showcasing up-and-comers like Jon Vermilyea and Nate Neal…and, like all anthologies, starting a good deal of debate over which contributors were any good at all. With its like-clockwork quarterly schedule, Mome is a go-to destination for finding out what’s going on at comics’ cutting edge.

Eric Reynolds by Jaime Hernandez

Presiding over all this has been editor Eric Reynolds, who inherited full control of the anthology from original co-editor and co-publisher Gary Groth. When last I spoke to Reynolds about Mome in October of 2007, he was prepping Vol. 10, which sported a new look, new work from Columbia, and the second half of a story by altcomix titan Jim Woodring. Three years and ten issues later, the series has gotten a full-on makeover from designer Adam Grano, and is in the midst of some of its most challenging work ever from Shaw, Josh Simmons, Derek Van Gieson and more. What has changed, what has remained constant, and what lies in store? Reynolds spoke with Robot 6 about all this and more in a fifth-anniversary interview.

If I’d ask you five years ago to describe what Mome Vol. 20 would look like, what would you have said?

I would’ve said there’s no way this thing’s going to last 20 issues. Really, I’m sure I would have had no other answer.

This may be a weird question, then, but how does that sort of belief — the belief that this thing we’re about to do doesn’t stand a chance of lasting very long — affect doing that thing in the first place? What were you hoping for, in terms of how long it lasted? Or did you not really care?

I honestly don’t know what I was hoping for. I’m sure I was hoping it could last 20 issues, but realistically, how could I have expected it? Look at any other anthology that’s ever been. I’m not sure there’s ever been one in alternative comics that’s published more pages of comics than Mome. We’re at around 2,350 pages of comics thru issue 20. What are the most successful comix anthologies of all-time? RAW? Zap? Weirdo? Zero Zero? Arcade? Kramers? None ever approached that many pages. So I don’t think I had a fatalistic attitude going in; it was more of a realistic one. I mean, I know enough from working at Fanta that there are few book series we’ve ever launched that could sustain 20 volumes. I thought we’d have a decent run but I just don’t think I could have anticipated 20 issues.

Mome Vol. 1

It’s probably been a while since you’ve been asked this one, but what was the thinking behind the launch of Mome?

Well, there were a lot of specific ideas behind it that I think is well-traveled territory, but really, I just felt like there was a need for an ongoing anthology that came out frequently enough to give a number of cartoonists a platform to publish stories regularly. The periodical market was already shrinking rapidly, and I thought and continue to think that this was not a good thing, creatively-speaking. Virtually every towering alternative cartooning figure I can think of, from Spiegelman to Crumb to Los Bros to Clowes to Ware to Sacco to Chester Brown, etc., honed their craft and found their voice by doing comic books and contributing to anthologies. I knew we were past the point where we were going to be starting too many comic book series anymore and thought an anthology could help fill that void a bit. I had been thinking about it for awhile, and one day Gary and I just started talking about it and decided to do it.

Mome was originally conceived of as featuring a fixed roster of young cartoonists whom we could watch develop over time. That version of the series didn’t last very long at all, and since then there have been, I think, several “eras” for the book: An SNL-style “regular cast plus guest star” model, a period where things felt more like underground comics than alternative comics, a period featuring a lot of experimental takes on genre, a slightly edgier feel in the last few issues…If I’m mischaracterizing anything I apologize, but I was wondering how the evolution of the book looked from your vantage point.

You probably have a clearer perspective on it than I do. To me, they tend to blend together at this point. The evolution has been subtle and organic and rarely conscious. I can understand the perception of the eras you’ve defined, but it wasn’t conscious, per se, and I’m not sure I could’ve ever come up with them on my own.

That makes sense, but were there ever any conscious moves on your part to introduce a sensibility or approach you felt was missing? Like “Hey, you know what we need?”

from Mome Vol. 10 by Tim Hensley

Well, sure. But not in a broad, overarching sense. For better or worse, it’s really more like, “Boy, I really like this, we need this,” from issue to issue as opposed to trying to reinvent the entire Mome wheel periodically. I’m not that smart, Sean.

The “name names” portion of the interview: Whose work in Mome are you proudest of?

I’m probably most proud of Tim Hensley, because I’ve been a pretty big fan of his for going on 20 years now — I think he was the only early Mome contributor that had also done work for my Dirty Stories anthologies of the mid-1990s — and I don’t think Wally Gropius would exist if we hadn’t asked him to contribute to Mome. I don’t think Wally was really swimming around in Tim’s head until he was specifically asked to contribute X number of pages to Mome per issue and he had to come up with something. And I think that book is one of the great graphic novels of the 2000s, so I can’t help but take some pride in that even though it’s all Tim’s work.

I figured he’d be high on your list. One of the coolest things about that comic is that I think it caught a lot of people by surprise. In the individual installments, I know a lot of people who just thought “Oh, that’s a funny Archie parody” or whatever. It wasn’t until the collection hit that a lot of people cottoned to what he was up to. For me, it was the incest strip that did it. How early on did you know he was up to something special?

Oh, right away. Page 1. It was clear he was embarking on his Magnum Opus. I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Know-it-All, like I knew this was going to set the world on fire. His work just really resonates with me, I love literally everything about it, it’s as close to perfect a comic as anything I can think of in regard to my own, undefined, unconscious Platonic ideal of what makes a good comic. The rest of the world, to a man, could hate it and it would do nothing to shake my faith in it, because I know how much *I* value it. The only thing I’ve read this year that is on that same plane for me, as a fan, has been Jaime [Hernandez]‘s stuff in the new Love and Rockets, [Daniel] Clowes’s Wilson, and [Charles] Burns’s X’ed Out. For whatever reason, these comics are just right in my wheelhouse.

Dirty Stories Vol. 2, edited by Reynolds

Now that you mention it, how did your experience with Dirty Stories affect your work with Mome? Tom Spurgeon suggested recently that Vol. 19′s strips are the best reminder yet that you were the editor of both books…

That sort of makes sense because 19 is definitely my favorite issue so far and the issue that I think most closely reflects my own tastes as a comics fan. I’m not sure how DS affected my work with Mome, really, other than to give me the confidence that I could do something that others might want to read. They’re pretty different titles, though. I was very young when I did Dirty Stories and had a much more reactionary, transgressive streak in me than I do now. Dirty Stories came from a very punk mindset. Mome was a much more idealistic endeavor.

from Mome Vol. 10 by Dash Shaw

What other contributors have you been really happy with?

I’ve been extremely proud of what Dash Shaw has done in Mome. I think he’s been the perfect Mome contributor in many ways, actively utilizing the format to experiment in a myriad of ways.

He’s sort of a cartoonist who’s never done the same thing twice, isn’t he? I mean, the growth from, like, Love Eats Brains to Bottomless Belly Button…

Yeah, exactly. Trying different genres, experimenting with fiction and nonfiction, playing with color, with technique, and having no fear…The guy is really something else.

from Mome Vol. 10 by Tom Kaczynski

I could list any number of cartoonists and what I’ve liked about their work, but one other who comes to mind that I’ve been really proud of is Tom Kaczynski. He was someone I met through Gabrielle Bell and I liked his work from the get go but it’s only as I’ve gotten to know him a little bit better and read his contributions to Mome that I’ve discovered what a smart, thoughtful guy he is. And he has the cartooning chops to match what’s going on in his head. I have a feeling there are very few rooms that Tom walks into where he isn’t the smartest one in it. The sociopolitical themes he wrestles in his work would in the hands of a lesser cartoonist come off as preachy or dogmatic, but he manages to never do that. I think he has only important work in him.

from Mome Vol. 1 by David Heatley

Did any of your contributors let you down?

As far as who let me down…I don’t really want to go there and nobody immediately came to mind, even, although thinking about it a bit I would have to say the biggest disappointment is that David Heatley never finished Overpeck. I think that was shaping up to be a tremendously weird and powerful story and I was eager to see where it was headed.

That’s a great call. And not just because what he ended up doing instead was so divisive, but because I really did feel that that was his best work yet. What happened there — is it something you can go into?

I’m not even sure I remember the specifics. I know I tried very hard to convince him to continue it. If I recall, he had gotten his book deal to do My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down and with it there may have been a deal or an option for Overpeck, as well, and he decided he didn’t want to tip his hand any further and simply wait for the collection to publish it. Which was fine, it was his decision, but I just really liked the work and wanted to see it finish in Mome. I haven’t talked to David in quite a long time, so I have no idea if it’s still in the cards or what.

from Mome Vol. 13 by Gilbert Shelton & Pic

Who was your biggest get?

I guess I’d have to say David B., Jim Woodring, Al Columbia or Gilbert Shelton. David B. was really key because I think he was the first truly established cartoonist to consent to being in Mome, it was very early on (issue 3) and I think he lent some much-needed legitimacy to what we were doing. I was grateful to Al and Jim, two guys I’d known for over 15 years, to trust me enough to let me run their work, because they could have published anywhere they wanted, I’m sure. Personally, I was probably most excited to have Gilbert Shelton. I get the impression that his pieces didn’t go over so well with a lot of Mome readers but holy fucking shit it’s Gilbert Shelton! I knew he would be a weird fit for Mome in some ways but I saw it as a real chance to introduce him to a new generation of cartoonists. I think it’s not unreasonable to say that Shelton has kind of fallen off the radar when it comes to discussing a pantheon of the all-time greats. Most of his work over the last couple decades from Knockabout and Rip Off seemed to be off the radar of most alt-comix readers. So, as silly as it might sound, I thought he might stand to benefit from Mome as much as any of the younger folks, and certainly more than, say, David B. or Jim Woodring. I also thought his strip was very funny and contemporary despite the superficial hippie trappings that seem to put some folks off. I think if he drew his characters to look like urban hipsters folks would have loved it, which is kind of depressing.

Are there any cartoonists you think of as “the ones that got away,” who you wanted to get in the book but couldn’t?

There were a few folks who were initially slated to be in Mome‘s initial core group but had to back out for whatever reasons prior to the first issue. Marc Bell was one, I think Kevin Huizenga was another. I would have been thrilled to publish them in there but it didn’t work out.

At Comic Con this year, Brian Ralph told me that he was bummed at the time Mome started because he wasn’t asked to contribute. Brian would have been an awesome guy for Mome, so now I’m bummed that I didn’t.

from Mome Vol. 1 by Jonathan Bennett

I also really miss Jonathan Bennett being in Mome, which I know he knows. I love his work and it felt like he was in a very strong creative groove with the first several issues of Mome and that the best was still yet to come. I think he’s a tremendously underrated cartoonist, an impeccable craftsman with a very strong voice. But his career as a graphic designer really took off shortly after Mome began and he hasn’t been able to create many comics the last few years. Whether it’s for Mome or otherwise, I really hope he gets back to them because he’s really, really good.

Do you get a lot of feedback from the artists in Mome about the other artists in Mome? How does their juxtaposition with one another affect the reception of their work, do you think? Have any of them ever offered their thoughts on that?

You’d have to ask them, I guess. I mean, yes, I have gotten and do get feedback from some of the artists about what they like and don’t like, and I always enjoy that. But I couldn’t tell you much more, specifically. It’s not like we all work in a big clubhouse. In fact, I’m often lousy at communicating with Mome artists, which I’m really embarrassed to say, it’s really something I wish I was better at. I’d like to think they and the readers enjoy the juxtapositions, and I always try to create interesting juxtapositions within each issue. Rob Clough has a real knack for picking up on those things whenever he reviews Mome.

One thing I’ve been curious about for a long time is what Mome‘s audience is like, since it’s a format that’s very different than anything else out there. Is it people getting every single issue? Subscribers? People who pick individual volumes up depending on who’s in them? The audience for the literary journals that inspired it?

I really have no idea. I just don’t. I mean, I know where we sell the books, but I don’t know who the consumers are, per se. And where we sell Mome is not appreciably different than where we sell most of our books. About half go thru W.W. Norton to bookstores and Amazon and half go thru Diamond to specialty shops. We do have a subscriber base although it’s farily minimal, maybe a couple of hundred people.

One slight trend I’ve noticed and which has been pretty gratifying is that a lot of cartooning students tell me they read it. I’ve taken trips in the last couple of years to places like MCAD and CCS and I’m really gratified to have a surprising number of aspiring cartoonists tell me how much they really enjoy it. I like that. When we started Mome, the idea was essentially to help the cartoonists who were in it. If it actually somehow serves as some kind of inspiration or influence to cartoonists who aren’t even in it, then that’s a really great fringe benefit that never even occurred to me as a possibility when we started.

That’s interesting. It’s not as though I have any contact with cartooning students whatsoever, but i wonder if it’s seen as sort of the Big Leagues, the way people at the sketch and improv institutions in New York and Chicago and L.A. and so on see Saturday Night Live. That’s why I’ve pitched to it, I could tell you that much.

Maybe. I imagine it’s maybe something they see as both the Big Leagues but yet also attainable, if that makes sense.

If I’m not mistaken, Vol. 20 marks your debut as the sole editor of the series.

I’ve actually been the sole editor for quite awhile. I forget what issue Gary’s name came off the masthead but it’s been several.

Oh, look at that — it was Vol. 17, Winter 2010. How had you and Gary split the work, and what’s changed now?

This might sound self-serving, I really don’t mean it to, but I was always doing the heavy lifting on Mome even though we consulted together on everything early on. Gary always has too much to do. It got to the point where I was making a lot of decisions without even consulting Gary because he’s a Very Busy Man and I didn’t want to bother him with too many details, and at some point he suggested to me that I take his name off the masthead because he felt guilty about taking co-credit. So I did. The division of labor early on was simply that we both invited cartoonists to contribute and that I did most of the nuts and bolts assembly of the book while he contributed the interview every issue. It was a lot of fun because even though I work ten feet apart from Gary we hadn’t really collaborated on a project like this since I was an editor for The Comics Journal in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Mome Vol. 10

This issue sees a redesign, the biggest since Jordan Crane designed the very first installment. I know the layout was altered at issue #10, removing the two-tone wallpaper-style patterns and moving the title from a bar at the bottom to a box in the upper left, but the logo remained the same. Why change what turned out to be a pretty iconic design?

Well, I guess it came down to, “Why not?” It’s not like Mome has ever been hugely successful, and it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise when I say that after 20 issues, sales have flattened out a bit. Adam Grano has been doing the production and design for Mome since almost the very beginning, adhering to Jordan’s template. He’s done a great, unsung job considering — let’s face it — it can’t be as creatively satisfying adhering to someone else’s template is it would be to create your own. So when Adam proposed redesigning the series a few issues back, even though the obsessive-compulsive in me resisted the idea, the more I thought about it and the more it seemed like a good idea. So I gave him the green light for issue 20, which seemed like a good “anniversary” issue to do it with. We’d made a slight design change with issue 10, eliminating the title bar across the bottom and eschewing the patterned backgrounds, so 20 seemed like a good place to mix it up even further. It enabled Adam to put his stamp on it a bit. If Mome was a tremendous commercial success I would’ve likely been more resistant to it. I love The Believer and love that they’ve stuck to their template for 70-some issues now. Charles Burns is their David Levine. I love that kind of continuity personally. But it felt right to resist those inclinations and try something different.

Anthologies are a dicey business in comics. To what do you attribute Mome‘s longevity?

Just enough sales. I realize you’re really asking me, “To what do you attribute just enough sales to?” and to that end I really have no idea. I’m just grateful it’s hung on.

Fair enough! Speaking of anthologies, though, where do you see Mome in relation to some of the other approaches to that format over recent years — Kramers Ergot or Papercutter or D&Q Showcase?

Well, I’ll be the first to admit that Mome is hardly as tightly-curated or as well-conceived as the last few Kramers. That’s like the gold standard for anthologies at this point. But one of the great benefits of Mome is, for me, its frequency. I very purposefully created with Jordan Crane a template that would enable me to be able to get issues out every three months. I work on Mome as a labor of love, I do it on the side for no pay, and to be able to do that, I simply couldn’t be as hands-on and as detail-oriented as Sammy [Harkham] has been with Kramers. You’ll never see me flying to Malaysia to watch Mome come off the press. I wish that wasn’t the case, but I would’ve burned out after a few issues. So I see Mome‘s great strength as being its periodicity, as superficial as that might sound, but it really was a key component of the idea behind it, that by doing four issues a year with four deadlines, the contributors might be pushed to create more pages than they otherwise would, and try things they might not otherwise have done.

There does seem to be a bit of a renaissance of good anthologies lately. Smoke Signals from Brooklyn’s Desert Island, Diamond Comics from Floating World in Portland, some of the stuff Sparkplug has been doing, student work from CCS and SCAD, etc. I don’t know where Mome fits in it all, really. I just hope enough people enjoy it on its own terms to justify its existence. When there isn’t enough, we’ll end it. I’m not too precious about it.

Bizarrely, I’d never thought of the anthologies of the past few years as a replacement for the solo alternative comic book until just now, when you mentioned how Mome was a response to the latter’s disappearance. Now, of course, it makes perfect sense: If you’re not one of the very few artists continuing to pursue that format, perhaps quixotically — Kevin Huizenga seems to have made the most successful go of it recently, and Michael DeForge seems to mean business about it — an anthology makes sense as a way to work frequently in print, in front of an audience. Did you get a sense from your artists that that’s how they saw it as well?

I think so, yeah. I mean, that was really the explicit intent of it being quarterly. And I think you’re right about Kevin, he’s one of the Last Men Standing as far as that goes, the exception to prove the rule. There were always anthologies, even when the periodical market was thriving, but I think they’re even more valuable now. There are just not enough publishers to support all the good cartoonists out there. I am constantly having to reject some pretty good work because we just have a ceiling of how many books we can publish a year. It’s my least favorite part of the job. Mome is at least a small way to help offset that reality.

Related question: It can be argued that web publishing can serve the same purpose that the solo series used to serve, or that the print anthologies serve today. Lately we’ve been seeing a lot more work from established alternative cartoonists going up online, from Brian Chippendale to Frank Santoro to Gabrielle Bell to everyone on Jordan Crane’s What Things Do, which is a real murderer’s row. As an editor of a print anthology dedicated to that sort of material, how do you see the rise of the alternative webcomic?

Well, it’s a good question, because you could argue quite easily that a good cartoonist could pretty easily find as large an audience — and quite possibly a significantly larger one — online as they would contributing to something like Mome. I harbor no illusions about that. But I also think there’s still something to be said for preparing your work for print, seeing it printed in ink, on paper, that validates the work.

This may “out” me as an old man clutching to dying technologies, but I grew up wit print and love its tactile thrill. What the internet now delivers in instant gratification and access it lacks in stirring that fetishistic affection in my soul for print and paper and black, black ink. Evolution has already eliminated this gene from younger generations; it was a largely 20th century anomaly in humankind. Personally, even though I don’t make a lot of minicomics or zines anymore, I would still rather do a minicomic than a webcomic. Preparing something for print and making a physical object should be a part of the whole creative experience, it seems to me. When something only exists a screen it doesn’t feel like the physical effort of drawing a comic amounted to anything real. Printing is an inherent component of the history of cartooning and comics. Removing that from the equation will make cartooning a different thing in the 21st century, as different as ragtime and electronic music. I am personally invested in keeping the tradition of hand-drawn and physically-printed cartooning alive.

That’s not at all to dismiss the Internet or webcomics, which is clearly become a vital component of the contemporary comics scene, and is probably a more valid path for many cartoonists than pursuing print, and digital will win out in the very end. I understand and accept the whole “adapt-or-die” and think about it daily in my larger position here at Fantagraphics. I love Jordan’s site and think it’s the best thing going on the web, and it bodes well for the future of webcomics. But I still, simply, see a value in print, and think both ends can coexist peacefully. I mean, I know Jordan, for all of the work he’s put into What Things Do, still ultimately sees the web as a means to end for the eventual print collections of his work. The books are still the Thing in What Things Do.

What does the future hold for Mome?

Well, I’d like to say 20 more issues, but I honestly don’t know. I take it very much issue to issue. I’m starting to put together 21 now. Tom Kaczynski and Kurt Wolfgang are back, which is exciting to me, I love those guys. I think Kurt’s the last remaining contributor whose been with Mome since issue 1. And [Wolfgang's story] Nothing Eve is going to be a fantastic book when it’s done. Sara Edward-Corbett just turned in a story that blew me away, it’s her most gorgeous piece ever, very Gorey-esque yet still unmistakably Sara. Josh Simmons’ crazy White Rhinoceros serial is just getting started. And lots of other stuff, of course.

Well, this is an unexpected delight: Jin & Jam #1, Hellen Jo’s auspicious 2008 Sparkplug debut, is now available online in its entirety at Jordan Crane’s indispensable webcomics portal What Things Do. Part Maggie & Hopey, part Tekkon Kinkreet, it’s the story of two teenage troublemakers and, well, the trouble they make, drawn with a really memorably rubbery and kinetic line by Jo.

Incidentally, you’ve all put What Things Do in your RSS readers, right? With a lineup of creators that includes Jo, Crane, Gabrielle Bell, Abner Dean, Sammy Harkham, Jaime Hernandez, Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, John Porcellino, Ron Regé Jr., Steve Weissman, and Dan Zettwoch, how could you not?

Artichoke Tales

What does it take to make a story just right for some creators? As revealed in this interview with Megan Kelso, with her latest book, Artichoke Tales (released by Fantagraphics a few months ago and praised by Brigid just yesterday)–it took 10 years. Not every storyteller takes the time to indulge my questions in the manner that Kelso did, an effort for which I’m extremely grateful. Here’s the scoop on the book: “Artichoke Tales is a coming-of-age story about a young girl named Brigitte whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil war, a graphic novel that takes place in a world that echoes our own, but whose people have artichoke leaves instead of hair. Influenced in equal parts by Little House on the Prairie, The Thorn Birds, Dharma Bums, and Cold Mountain, Kelso weaves a moving story about family amidst war. Kelso’s visual storytelling, uniquely combining delicate linework with rhythmic, musical page compositions, creates a dramatic tension between intimate, ruminative character studies and the unflinching depiction of the consequences of war and carnage, lending cohesion and resonance to a generational epic. This is Kelso’s first new work in four years; the widespread critical reception of her previous work makes Artichoke Tales one of the most eagerly anticipated graphic novels of 2010.”  Fun aside, in clarifying a detail about this interview, I learned that Kelso created a iGoogle theme, which can be accessed here. One last item, Fantagraphics posted a 16-page preview here.

Tim O’Shea: Creating Artichoke Tales represented more than six years of your creative life–can you describe how relieving (or what emotion you felt) when you finished the tale?

Megan Kelso: Truth be told, it was more like a ten year project. I think for some reason my publisher wanted to down play how friggin’ long it took me to finish this book. It was very protracted because I took a lot of breaks to do other things; freelance work, a wedding, moving, having a baby, moving again. I actually finished pencilling the last two chapters in 2005, which is really the heart of the creative work. I pushed myself on that because I wanted to be done with the storytelling part of it before I was pregnant. But then the final denoument, the inking, the computer shading, the corrections – I didn’t begin that work until two and a half years later. It was kind of excruciating doing all the final work on the book after it had been completely drawn – I think because the urgency and excitement of getting the story out was over. Then it was just drudge work. I finally finished all the work just before Thanksgiving of 2009 and I was 100% thrilled and happy about it for months. The let-down, “nothing left but doubt” part of finishing a huge project did not set in until I recently saw it in printed form. I am totally happy with how the printing and production came out, but even still, there’s a bit of a void. I think I’m fending off a bit of a mid-life crisis.

O’Shea: On page 24, as the two characters are intimate, I was curious at your use of candlelight to convey the scene in silhouette–is that how you had always viewed that scene or did you have a few failed drafts before settling on that manner of executing it?

Kelso: I think this is pretty much how I pictured the scene in my head. I did a lot of backpacking as a kid, and always loved the shadow-play effect that a camping tent lit from within has. Of course in reality you would never see such crisp silhouettes. When it came time to do the shading though, I do remember re-doing that a bunch of times. What looks good, what is realistic, and what is clean and simple are not always the same thing with shading!

O’Shea: Rather than opting for black and white or full color, the book is done in a light blue-greenish tone, how did you arrive at that look for the pages?

Kelso: Artichoke Tales started as a black and white minicomic in 1999 with very minimal gray shading. But long about chapter 3, some colleagues who I respect a lot started suggesting that it would be awesome if Artichoke Tales would be in full color. Color printing was getting cheaper and cheaper, and I had started doing more color work for various anthologies and magazines, so I started experimenting with the idea of coloring it. I tried a lot of different palettes and approaches and really agonized over it, but I couldn’t find a color scheme that I thought really worked and gave the world the look that I had in my mind. But once the idea of color for Artichoke Tales was in my head, it was hard to go back to accepting black and white. I have been very influenced design-wise by Tom Devlin and Jordan Crane who have used a lot of single pantone colors for printing black and white stories. Tom Devlin and Brian Ralph did Brian’s book “Cave In” that way. Jordan did Non #5 that way. So after giving up on the full color idea, I hit upon their method of using one pantone color with a couple different percentages of shading. It was a little nerve wracking picking the color, but I got a lot of advice and support from Jordan Crane and Jacob Covey, who is the book’s designer at Fantagraphics.

O’Shea: Was the story always going to be about three generations or did it grow to three generations as you worked on it?

Kelso: The original plan was a three chapter story, but as I started thumbnailing those first three chapters, things quickly got more complicated, and I realized I needed to have 6 chapters in order to have this symmetrical structure I wanted of 1.present day, 2.old history, 3.recent history, 4.recent history, 5.old history, 6.present day. So that structure of three generations, 6 chapters was in place before I completed the first chapter. Though the structure was in place early, the specifics of the family tree and the events changed quite dramatically over time.

O’Shea: While the book is able to cover a great deal of ground, literally and figuratively, were there aspects that you had to leave out to allow the overall story to breathe?

Kelso: I puzzled over the family members quite a lot. There were some aunts, uncles and siblings that got jettisoned. It was challenging to strike a balance between having a family that was populated enough to seem like a real family, but not so big that it would be impossible to keep the characters straight. I was further handicapped by choosing to have everyone have the same hairdo! It never really dawned on me until I was well into Artichoke Tales that hairdos are the major signifier that cartoonists use to distinguish different characters from each other. I also had a lot more information in the “old history” chapters about the Queen that I wound up not using, because I didn’t want to get into that whole Lord of the RIngs thing where Tolkien had all these appendices to add in the extra backstories he’d invented. I didn’t want the book to be overly dominated by the backstory.

O’Shea: I expect you have an affinity for all the characters in the story, but as you juggled the various players over time, did any of them grow on you more as you went along–and in fact grew (in character dynamics) beyond your initial intent?

Kelso: Definitely. Dorian is the best example. He started out as a peripheral character, and then eventually became Brigitte’s father. It was one of those situations where it felt like he asserted himself independently of my plan for him. And I liked him, so he got a bigger role. In fact, the only significant re-drawing I did after finishing the book was in Chapter 1, because that was done before I knew Dorian was Brigitte’s father. I had to go back and re-draw him so the difference in their ages was more apparent.

O’Shea: In building the artichoke world and the Quicksand family, how did you arrive on those aspects–why make it an artichoke world, as opposed to say a celery world? This is not meant in jest, I’m genuinely curious.

Kelso: The artichoke people started as a casual doodle. I think I was riffing on The Jolly Green Giant’s sidekick, Sprout. So I just started drawing these people whenever I was on the telephone, or just playing around in my sketchbook. The more I drew them, the more ideas I had about their world, and I just slowly started to build a story about them. This was the first time since starting to make comics, that I generated a story from a drawing rather than from an idea, or from something I’d written. It was excitng to me because it seemed more like “pure comics” to me, coming from a drawing. I think it was the beginning of me taking a more intuitive approach to coming up with stories, rather than nailing it all down ahead of time with a script. I think for that reason the artichoke people have a special place in my heart because they came to me in this rather mysterious muse-like way, rather than the more cerebral, “I want to do a story about X” way, which was how I’d worked before. The first artichoke story was called “Pennyroyal Tea” and it ran in my comic book Girlhero #5 in 1995 I think. After I did that story, I just knew I wasn’t done with them. The short story suggested a larger world to me. In 1996, I roughed out a 3 chapter story that was kind of the skeleton of Artichoke Tales. I set it aside for awhile to finish the last issue of Girlhero, and then to do some stories for my first book collection Queen of the Black Black, and a 24-page educational comic about recycling. I didn’t take up Artichoke Tales again until 1999 – and by then, I decided it was an even longer story, and expanded the roughs to the 6 chapter structure. I got to work on it in earnest in the spring of 2000. I finished the first chapter by the end of the year, but I didn’t put it out as a minicomic until 2001.

O’Shea: As an afterword in the book, you explain that “‘Place’ is not a character in this book.I dislike that conceit.” There’s a passion to those two lines that surprised me (but given the quality and nature of your work, I should not have been surprised [that is a compliment]). Why do you so passionately “dislike that conceit”?

Kelso: I dislike the conceit that place can be a character because I think its reductive and human-centric. Places are hard, unforgiving, unfeeling, kind of the opposite of human attributes – that is especially apparent in wild, harsh places like mountains and oceans. They don’t have feelings or personalities. They can be beautiful and sweet, but also violent, destructive and fatal. It is all completely amoral; the beautiful landscapes are not here to reward us, nor do natural disasters happen to punish us. They simply exist. And so to suggest, even in a metaphorical way, that place can be a character, is to miss the point; the existential bleakness of relationships between people and places. Our love for them is completely one-sided. I find our human connection to and love for places so mysterious and kind of tragic. I think an example of this is how reluctant people are sometimes to leave a place during a natural disaster. I think of the few people who died during the eruption of Mt. St. Helens because they wouldn’t evacuate. This happens in almost all natural disasters – some people just won’t leave. Why? And another question, why do people keep re-building in places where disaster is bound to strike again, flood plains, earthquake fault lines, etc.? We love places and feel like we know them, understand them, BELONG there, and then, whoops! tidal wave, earthquake, volcanic eruption, forest fire, flood. Dead people.

O’Shea: I love the pages in the story where you allowed the art to speak for itself and avoided any kind of dialogue or internal monologue–how important was it to you to have a good chunk of pages without dialogue–and how challenging was that to pull off for you?

Kelso: I’ve always been drawn to silent passages in comics. One of the masters of silent comics is Brian Ralph. And Mat Brinkman. Those guys had a huge influence on my work when I was doing Artichoke Tales. I have a fair amount to say as a cartoonist, and could never pull off an entirely silent comic that was any longer than 4 or so pages, because eventually, I want to SAY some shit, but I think silent passages in comics can be enormously effective, in allowing the reader to have their own thoughts and interpretation of events, and to serve as contrasts to especially talky passages. I love doing silent passages in comics because its a different kind of problem solving, figuring out how to convey things visually, how to employ atmospherics and rhythm to communicate. Also, it can be kind of a relief not to have to figure out where to put word balloons, and to just let the art open up into the whole panel.

O’Shea: Back in 2007, you created Watergate Sue for the New York Times. When doing different projects that took your mind away from Artichoke Tales, did taking that creative shift allow you to step away to a certain extent and get a fresh look at aspects of Artichoke that may have been challenging you?

Kelso: Over the years of working on Artichoke Tales, I set it aside numerous times to work on freelance jobs. Usually the breaks were about 6 months long, and every time I’d come back to Artichoke Tales, I’d sit down and read through all of what I’d done already and think hard about if I still liked the story, still liked where it was going. Those breaks usually did help in terms of getting perspective on the book, and finding ways to solve problems with it that had been bothering me. But I’m afraid the last break I took from it wound up being too long. What with having a baby, doing Watergate Sue, and moving, there was a two and a half year gap between finishing the pencilling and doing the final inking and production work. When I finally got back to work on it, I really struggled to re-engage. It wasn’t that I didn’t still like the story, it just felt separate from me. Old concerns. It wasn’t til I got into re-drawing some panels, fixing some continuity stuff, that I finally re-connected with the book and felt my old love for it come back.

The best webcomics site on the Internet has once again expanded its altcomix all-star roster: Gabrielle Bell’s strip “Manifestation” — about her doomed (and entirely fictional) comics adaptation of Valerie “I Shot Andy Warhol” Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto — is now available for your free reading pleasure at cartoonist and designer Jordan Crane’s online comics clearinghouse What Things Do. In addition to Bell and Crane, the site boasts comics by Sammy Harkham, Jaime Hernandez, Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, John Porcellino, Ron Regé Jr., Steve Weissman, and Dan Zettwoch, as well as mid-century illustrator Abner Dean. Click on over and kill an hour or two.

"Consciousness of Lack" by Jordan Crane

To paraphrase Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos, EFF George A. Romero*–Jordan Crane just took him to zombie school.

The master cartoonist, designer and printmaker behind Uptight, The Clouds Above, NON and the webcomics collective What Things Do has just unveiled the zombie-tastic print above, titled “Consciousness of Lack.” Printed and signed by Crane himself, the piece costs $80 and can be purchased at his website.

The undead are well worth a few dead presidents, no?

*Just kidding

from What Am I Doing Here? by Abner Dean

The Internet is filled with comics riches, and What Things Do, the corner of the Internet run by cartoonist/designer Jordan Crane, contains plenty of them. It’s filled to bursting with new and old comics by the likes of Crane himself, Jaime Hernandez, Sammy Harkham, Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, John Porcellino, Dan Zettwoch, and Steve Weissman. But for me, the big discovery at the site is the work of Abner Dean, a New Yorker and Esquire cartoonist who specialized in anxiety-dream images of (anatomically incorrect) naked people is satirically absurd situations. What Things Do is reprinting the 1947 Dean collection What Am I Doing Here?, and the bounty is rather astonishing — the strength of both the images Dean concocts and his execution of them all but bowls me over. I’ve never seen its like, though if you’ve ever seen Matt Groening’s Life in Hell, you’ve seen a kindred spirit at the very least. The shrunken-down image above truly doesn’t do justice to seeing Dean’s stuff in its full-sized, screen-spanning glory, so click on over and check it out!

©2009 Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons © & ™Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

I somehow missed this in Tucker Stone’s report from MoCCA last week, but luckily Heidi over at the Beat caught it — Stone spoke with John Kerschbaum about his future projects, and the creator revealed that he’s working on this year’s Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror book for Bongo Comics.

Kerschbaum isn’t the only one working on the book, though; as you can see below in the solicitation copy that Bongo was kind enough to send us, they’ve recruited a Murderer’s Row of creators, including Jeffrey Brown, Kevin Huizenga, Matthew Thurber and many more, and it’s edited by Sammy Harkham of Kramers Ergot fame:

Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15
Edited by Sammy Harkham
$4.99
48 pages/standard format/color/humor
UPC: 01511 (7-98342-02851-5)

Guest edited by Sammy Harkham, the award-winning creator of the popular Kramers Ergot anthology, this year’s issue is a jam-packed with some of the most idiosyncratic (and weirdest) takes on “The Simpsons” universe ever. Among Halloween-inspired short strips by such visionary cartoonists as Jordan Crane (Uptight), C.F. (Powr Mastrs), Will Sweeney (Tales from Greenfuzz), Tim Hensley (MOME), and John Kerschbaum (Petey & Pussy), are four featured tales of inspired Simpsons lunacy: heralded artists Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Or Else) and Matthew Thurber (1-800 Mice, Kramers Ergot) collaborate on a weird and wild story equal parts Lovecraftian eco-horror and Philip K. Dick identity comedy. Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots, Clumsy) does a creepy and suitably pathetic story featuring Milhouse in a “Bad Ronald”-inspired tale of murder and crawl space living. Harkham and Ted May (INJURY) pull out all the stops for a tragic monster tale of unrequited love, bad karaoke, and body snatching at Moe’s Bar. Ben Jones (Paper Rad) does the comic of his life with an epic tale of how bootleg candy being sold at the Kwik-E-Mart rapidly spirals out of control into an Invasion of The Body Snatchers-like nightmare of a Springfield filled with cheap bootleg versions of familiar characters. And nobody does squishy, sweaty, and gross like up and coming cartoonist Jon Vermilyea (MOME), who outdoes himself with “C.H.U.M.M.,” a C.H.U.D.-inspired parody featuring everybody’s favorite senior citizen, Hans Moleman!

With a cover by Dan Zettwoch, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15 is like nothing you’ve ever seen, and is sure to be one of the most talked about comics of the year by alternative comic readers and Simpsons fans of all ages!

This goes on my “must buy” list.

Unlovable Vol. 1

Esther Pearl Watson‘s Unlovable Vol. 1 features an artistic style that reminds me of Lynda Barry. Clearly I’m not the first to see the similarity (and in fact Barry offers words of praise for the book). As described by Fantagraphics: “Loosely based on a teenager’s diary from the 1980s found in a gas-station bathroom, Unlovable details the sometimes ordinary, sometimes humiliating, often poignant and frequently hilarious exploits of underdog Tammy Pierce … In the epic saga that is Unlovable, Tammy finds herself dealing with: tampons, teasing, crushes, The Smiths, tube socks, facial hair, lice, celibacy, fantasy dream proms, gym showers, skid marks, a secret admirer, prank calls, backstabbers, winter ball, barfing, narcs, breakdancing, hot wheels, glamour shots, roller coasters, Halloween costumes, boogers, boys, boy crazy feelings, biker babes, and even some butt cracks. Tammy’s life isn’t pretty, but it is endlessly charming and hilarious.

Originally (and still) serialized in Bust magazine, Unlovable includes over 100 new pages created just for this edition, which is handsomely packaged in a unique hot pink hardcover format with sparkly blue glitter that would make Tammy proud.”

One great thing I learned in this interview is that this is only the first volume of Unlovable. Next year on Valentine’s Day will mark the release of the second volume. Volume 1 covers from fall of 1988 to 1989 and Volume 2 is set in 1989. Be sure to visit the book’s page on Fantagraphics, for another of its great Flickr videos, allowing one to “flip” through the book virtually. And in a literal sense, Fantagraphics has a 20-page preview of the 416-page Volume 1.

Tim O’Shea: I have to know–”I walked around with a red lollipop stuck to my butt”–was that a direct quote from the found diary that inspired Unlovable or a total (incredibly hilarious) creation of your mind?

Esther Pearl Watson: Well…I made that up.

O’Shea: The book getting picked up by Urban Outfitters, had you known this was possible or did the development pleasantly blindside you? What was your reaction when you found out?

Watson: This was a surprise. I put so much love into this book, I really hope people find it any way they can…and love it too.

O’Shea: The diary that inspired Unlovable was found in 1995, but you set the fictional version in 1987–was that an effort to distance the work even further from the inspirational source?

Watson: The diary was old (from the 80′s) when I found it.

O’Shea: Have you ever heard from women who think your work is based on a diary that they lost?

Watson: So many people come up to me and tell me they are Tammy…even guys.

O’Shea: Did the diary you initially found have any art in it?

Watson: None. But it should have. That’s why my version is an illustrated diary.

O’Shea: Can you give me a timeline of how the strips transitioned from your self-published minicomics to Bust magazine and then ultimately to this collection? Just seeing the time it take for the journey might give aspiring creators an idea of how long and hard you’ve worked to get to this point.

Watson: I did a bunch of drawings that made me crack up…showed some friends. Then forked over $1500 to have it off-set printed at a Christian print-shop down the street. When I went to pick up issue #1 they all said I was a very strange woman. I took that as a good sign. Sent out a bunch of copies to magazines. Bust called a few months later and had me do the back page comic. I had never illustrated a panel comic before. Each year, I save my pennies and published a new issue until 2008. Jordan Crane showed Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics one of my Unlovables. And then I had a contract and created a 700-page book dummy that we decided to split into 2 volumes. Working on Volume 2 now.

O’Shea: How much did your own teenage years serve as fodder for Unlovable (if at all)?

Watson: A lot. I was a lot like Tammy and still am. It’s everything I fear.

O’Shea: What was the thinking behind using a green tint on the pages (as opposed to straight black and white or another tint)? And in that same line of thinking, who can I compliment for the great 1980s hot pink cover with sparkle nail polish?

Watson: I wanted it to feel like I photocopied it. Full of flaws. As for the cover, crazy hot pink and glitter is exactly what Tammy would have chose! I also wanted it to stand out on Fantagraphics table at Comic Con so I could find my book real easy.

O’Shea: Looking through the collection as a whole, do you have certain entries that stand out as your personal favorites?

Watson: I love drawing Tammy 3/4 view or profile. All deformed.

Many of the stories are my favorite. I try to write work that makes me laugh and spit all over the paper while I’m inking.

O’Shea: What really appealed to me about these diary entries was Tammy’s penchant for fantasy versus her teenage failure to perceive reality. How hard was it to balance the theater of the absurd juxtaposed against her reality (for example, when she dreams of having a guy’s baby, but his only interest is to borrow her bike)?

Watson: I don’t know for sure if she picked her nose during a phone call or what she was thinking when a guy called her…but I tried to guess it out. I figure, I’m pretty close.