Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | A committee recommended Monday that Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age, an anthology of comics about middle school edited by Ariel Schrag, should remain in the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School library in Dixfield, Maine, after the mother of a student challenged its appropriateness because of “objectionable sexual and language references.” The local school board will make a final ruling in January. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom sent a letter of support for the book prior to the hearing. A school board in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, pulled the graphic novel from middle-school libraries in November 2009, but allowed teachers to continue to use it in class. [Sun Journal]

Digital | Charlie Sorrel looks at the iPad comic reader called, appropriately enough, Comic Reader. [Wired]

From "Foul Play"

Creators | Cartoonist Jack Davis looks back on his lengthy career, the influence of Harvey Kurtzman, and the dislike for his own Tales From the Crypt stories, like “Foul Play,” which became one of Frederic Werthem’s targets in Seduction of the Innocent: “I have a hang-up. I love horror. I love ghost stories, but when it comes to illustrating it for thousands and thousands of young people to see it, I don’t go along with it. I think that happened, and I didn’t know it was happening at the time. I just knew that I would go in and I’d get a check and pick up a script and go home and do it. I sat in a little room and did this horrible baseball story, and it made the Senate [hearings] and everywhere. People liked it but I didn’t. I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ To this day I love all the people at Mad, but Mad had changed. It’s not like it used to be. It has some very good artists but their philosophy is not mine.” [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Larry Gonick talks about his long career creating nonfiction comics and his latest magnum opus The Cartoon Guide to Calculus. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Brilliant! Tragic!

Creators | Jamie McKelvie’s illustration for Art Brut’s album Brilliant! Tragic! is among Paste Magazine‘s 50 Best Album Covers of 2011. [Paste]

Creators | Health Care Reform artist Nathan Schreiber is profiled by his hometown newspaper. [The Milford Daily News]

Craft | Kevin Huizenga shares one of the templates he uses for drawing a comics page: “I draw most of my comics — the Ganges stories, especially — with 4 rows. When I’m starting a new story I usually print a few of these out on copy paper and sketch on them. Sometimes I figure out a page pretty much exactly right the first time, but often it takes a few tries. Or I’ll just sketch scenes and characters in the boxes and not worry about where each panel is going to go until later. For a few years now I’ve worked this way and it’s become second nature.” [New Construction]

If ever there’s been a time where I’ve been tempted to have a column literally consist of “[Name of Comic]. You guys. [Name of Comic Repeated for Emphasis],” then it’d be today, because Ganges #4. You guys. Ganges #4.

I’ve written before about my love of Kevin Huizenga’s work, but reading the latest issue of Ganges, I started thinking about the ways in which his work reminds me of another of my favorite creators, Eddie Campbell. Like Campbell, Huizenga creates some level of fictionalized memoir, recreating themselves – or, parts of themselves, at least; I don’t think there’s as direct a connection for Huizenga as there is for Campbell – as characters for some of their most well known, most successful work; as Campbell becomes Alec McGarry, Huizenga becomes Glenn Ganges. But both creators’ work is… I don’t want to say non-mainstream, because that makes it sound inaccessible when nothing could be further from the truth, but there’s something about the way that both are interested in something that is quieter, less obvious that most comics and comic creators, and that they employ methods that aren’t exactly the norm, nonetheless.

This isn’t to say that their work is actually that similar, because Campbell is ultimately much more straightforward both in terms of execution and subject matter than Huizenga, who gets… more cosmic, in a way. For example, the plot of Ganges #4 is, essentially, that Glenn Ganges can’t sleep, and his mind wanders as he tries to, which doesn’t really sound like something that is a strong contender for my favorite comic of the year. But it’s all in the execution; not just the choices of things that Glenn’s insomniac mind fills with (The obsessing about the calendar and everything that lies ahead is depressingly familiar to me, I have to admit), but the way that Huizenga visualizes the whole thing. Again, as in so many of his books, there’s formal play and experimentation happening here that’s akin to creating new language for comics in some way – Reading Glenn’s endless night as pages that bleed past the edge of the page, or the way Huizenga takes the calendar motif to abstraction and back again – and impressive even outside of its role in the storytelling.

There’s also more… ambivalence, perhaps, in Huizenga’s work than Campbell’s, which has always had a strong authorial voice (Something that’s always been a massive selling point for Alec, for me). Huizenga is anything but a passive creator, but he’s one that is more than happy to let his work speak for itself, as opposed to leading the reader to any particular conclusion. Ganges #4 feels like the furthest he’s gone in this direction for awhile, with so many silent panels and abstract sequences – it’s a comic that engages the reader in the sense of essentially expecting them to act as co-author, which makes it an especially rewarding read. But, despite all of this, there’s a humanity that’s present throughout the whole thing, a kindness of sorts. That might be what brought Eddie Campbell to mind, the first time I read it; the feeling, while reading, that this was actually someone’s life I was looking into, as complex and scattered and uncertain and sleepless as the rest of us.

Ganges #4 isn’t a quick read, and it isn’t necessarily an easy read. But it’s a great one, and it’s something that everyone should be picking up and reading. It’ll keep you awake at nights.

An important point is that Igort’s original vision [for the Ignatz comics line] was all about finding a way to help cartoonists get paid more. I can get behind that. I’d love to see more of that.

—Ganges author Kevin Huizenga on Italian cartoonist and publisher Igort’s motivation for launching the Ignatz line of high-end alternative comics. Now more or less defunct, the Ignatz line was co-published by Igort’s Coconino Press and a variety of international publishers, including Fantagraphics here in the United States. Boasting a line-up that included Huizenga, Gilbert Hernandez, David B., Zak Sally, Igort, Gipi, Gabriella Giandelli and more, the Ignatz line embraced an unusual format: oversized 32-page staple-bound comics with dust jackets. The idea was that the simultaneous release of individual comics in multiple languages made possible through Coconino’s co-publishing agreement would go a long way toward financially supporting the creators involved. The problem, as Huizenga explains in his interview with Robot 6′s Chris Mautner over at CBR, is that with all those creators and all those publishers in all those countries, there were too many variables for the project to function effectively for any prolonged period of time. Still, I’m with Huizenga: It’s nice to see an effort of that artistic pedigree be formulated not just for the fun of publishing good comics, but a sincere desire to see the makers of those good comics get paid well.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Graeme McMillan

It’s a slow week, this week; if I had $15, I’d use it to catch up on some recent enjoyments like Action Comics #3 (DC, $3.99) and OMAC #3 (DC, $2.99), two of my favorite titles from the New 52 relaunch–OMAC in particular has been a really weird and wonderful joy–as well as the final issue of Marvel’s great and sadly underrated Mystic revival (#4, $2.99). I’d also see if the parody-tastic Shame Itself #1 (Marvel, $3.99) lives up to its potential, because “Wyatt Cenac + Colleen Coover” sounds pretty promising to these ears.

That said, if I had $30, I’d put Shame Itself back on the shelf and pick up Tharg’s Terror Tales: Necronauts & A Love Like Blood (Rebellion, $19.99) instead, a collection of two 2000AD horror serials illustrated by Frazer Irving (One of which is written by John Smith, a favorite writer of mine from the days when I was reading 2000AD regularly). It’s early work from the artist, but what little I’ve seen of both makes it look well worth buying.

When it comes to splurging, I have to admit that the Joe The Barbarian Deluxe Hardcover (DC, $29.99), but I think if I had extra money, I’d just pick up some more individual issues: BOOM!’s Peanuts #0 ($1) and Betrayal of The Planet of The Apes #1 ($3.99) and Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men #1 ($3.99) and Villains For Hire #0.1($2.99), amongst others.

Brigid Alverson

No Longer Human

If I had $15: For the second week in a row, Vertical gets first dibs on my money; last week it was Drops of God, and this time I’m lured by the first volume of Usamaru Furuya’s No Longer Human. This book is a personal favorite of Vertical marketing director (and former blogger) Ed Chavez, and Ed’s picks are always stunning. Based on a semi-autobiographical novel, No Longer Human is the story of a young man who cannot shake his own alienation from the rest of the world. It’s supposedly a great work but also depressing, so to shake off the blues, I’ll spend my last $3.99 on issue #2 of Roger Langridge’s Snarked. His charming rascals-and-the-princess story is sure to bring a smile back to my face.

If I had $30: I’d go for a little more silliness with James Kochalka’s Dragon Puncher #2 ($9.95), the followup to his eminently silly Dragon Puncher #1. Kochalka does silly with an edge of surreal that makes it absolutely delightful. I’ll cut that up with American Vampire #20 ($2.99), and wind up with the first issue of the Peanuts ongoing comic, which is priced at a recession-friendly $1.

Splurge: There are a lot of temptations on this week’s list, but I’m leaning heavily toward Abrams, which has some interesting collections out this week. Government Issue: Comics for the People 1940-2000s is a collection of government-issued comics by the great (Will Eisner, Walt Kelly) and the obscure. It looks like a steal at $29.95. Somewhat pricier at $55 is The Someday Funnies, a collection of the Rolling Stone’s comics section that features a different set of iconic creators–Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman. Also a must have for me. And finally, I’ll stagger over to the Dark Horse section and grab the original graphic novel Hellboy: House of the Living Dead ($14.95), which sends our eponymous hero south of the border for a fight with a Frankenstein monster–a perfect post-Halloween treat.

Chris Mautner

Ganges

If I had $15: I managed to pick up a copy ahead of time, but Ganges #4 seems to me to be the obvious choice for the $15 and under crowd, continuing everyman Glenn Ganges’ attempts to get some shuteye. This time he attempts to find a really dull book and the results are hugely entertaining.

I’d also at least peruse through John Marz’s Heaven All Day, about a lonely factory worker and an abandoned robot whose lives intertwine, which looks interesting.

If I had $30: I’d get Usumaru Furuya’s No Longer Human, for all the reasons Brigid mentioned. I’m really happy to see Furuya get some love on these shores, as I’ve admired his work since the Secret Comics Japan anthology came out from Blast Books all those years ago.

Splurge: That Joe the Barbarian anthology is certainly on my Amazon wish list, and that Abrams anthology of government-issue comics looks intriguing as well, but my splurge money this week would have to be spent on Color Engineering, Yuichi Yokoyama’s neon-pop colored collection of short comic adventures, and Someday Funnies, a mind-boggling anthology, literally decades in the making, featuring contributions from just about every major cartoonist of the 1970s, like Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Moebius, Rene Goscinny, and on and on and on and on. This could well be the great lost treasure of the ages. Or not. I can’t wait to find out, though.

Michael May

Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes #1

If I had $15, I’d go back for a couple of series I’m enjoying and try three new ones. Action Comics continues to exceed my expectations (especially in comparison to the gloominess of Superman), so #3 ($3.99) is an easy decision in spite of the price. I’m also enjoying Avengers 1959, a series that Howard Chaykin is especially perfect for, to I’ll grab the third issue ($2.99) of that as well. I guess I missed the first issue of Fear Itself: The Fearless so I’ll need to find some money for that, but #2 ($2.99) is definitely going home with me this week. I didn’t read Fear Itself, but I’m fond enough of some of the characters in The Fearless that I’m going to want to at least check this out. Finally a couple of new titles from BOOM! have caught my eye. I love their Planet of the Apes ongoing, so I’m eager to see if they can nail it again with Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes #1 ($3.99). And having just watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Monday, I’m also excited about Peanuts #0 ($1). A big part of me just wants to read the Fantagraphics collection again, but for a buck I’m happy to see what cartoonists Ron Zorman and Vicki Scott have in mind.

With $30, I’d add another new BOOM! series (they’ve got a lot of cool stuff this week), 7 Warriors #1 ($3.99) because I love comics about ass-kicking women. IDW’s Jack Avarice is the Courier #1 ($3.99) kicks off what sounds like a fun, weekly comic for the month of November, so that’s mine too. Then I’d top off the pile with a couple of X-Men books because X-Men: Regenesis reminded me that I’ve been wanting to learn more about the Dani Moonstar character. She’s in New Mutants #33 ($3.99) and–according to Regenesis–will also be on Cyclops’ team in Uncanny X-Men #1 ($3.99).

There’s a lot to splurge on this week. Dragon Puncher, Volume 2 ($9.95) sounds fun (and inexpensive). 30 Days of Night: Night Again ($17.99) pairs Joe Lansdale with Sam Keith on a horror comic and that’s a combination I’d want to read with or without a recognizable brand in the title. Nordguard, Volume 1 ($19.95) is about a team of anthropomorphic sled dogs, and that also sounds cool. My top pick though is influenced by my recent mainlining of the last three BPRD books. I’m all about the Mignolaverse right now, so the Hellboy vs Frankenstein’s Monster story in Hellboy: House of the Living Dead ($14.99) is what I’m craving.

Chris Arrant

Fear Agent #32

If I had $15, I’d spend the first little bit on the bittersweet finale of Fear Agent, #32 (Dark Horse, $3.50). This long-running series was made longer by the delays in the final arc as the creators were pulled away for work at Marvel, so I’m glad this Wednesday to finally get it all. I’m just as excited to find out the ending as I am to have a complete collection to re-read over the weekend. Next up would be another creator-owned book, Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley’s Invincible #84 (Image, $2.99); I’m still not sure about the Viltrumite-living-on-Earth vibe (I never liked Alien Nation), but I’m willing to give this duo the benefit of the doubt for a while longer. Finally would be a double-shot of DC’s New 52, Action Comics #3 (DC, $3.99) and Animal Man #3 (DC, $2.99).

If I had $30, I’d snag a third DC book–Swamp Thing #3 (DC, $2.99)–before buying the auspicious new #1 of Uncanny X-Men (Marvel, $3.99). Count me in the camp as one who things the renumbering is ill-advised, and factor than in with the nonplussed nature of Greg Land’s current work and yet I’m still buying this just to see what Kieron does with it. His finale of Uncanny X-Men caught me off-guard with how good it was, so he’s got my money here. Last up would be Kevin Huzienga’s Gagnes #4 (Fantagraphics, $7.95). I’ve been waiting for this one awhile, and glad to see it. $7.95 might seem like a lot for a 32 page book, but Huzienga’s craft really makes it worth it. It’d also be an ideal palette cleanser in case I read some unexpectedly bad books.

If I had the cash to splurge, I’d go for DC’s Joe The Barbarian Deluxe Edition(DC/Vertigo, $29.99). Yes I have it in singles, but I’m the type that’d re-buy things like this in a more lasting edition because it looks good and so I have an excuse to give away my singles to someone who might dig the series.

JK Parkin

Six Guns #1

If I had $15, Ganges #4 ($7.95) would be at the top of my stack. I think the third issue of Kevin Huizenga’s series was either at the top of my list of favorite comics of last year, or at least very near the top, so this is one of my most anticipated releases not just for this week, but probably this year. I’d also get Andy Diggle and Davide Gianfelice Six Guns #1 (Marvel, $2.99); the Daredevil: Reborn team reimagines several of marvel’s Western heroes in a modern setting, and based on their track record I’m looking forward to it. I’d round it out with Animal Man #3 (DC Comics, $2.99).

If I had $30,. I’d add a bunch of my regular ongoing favorites: Swamp Thing #3 ($2.99), Boys #60 ($3.99) and New Mutants #33 ($2.99), and would then add the Our Love Is Real one-shot ($3.99) if I didn’t already have it in digital form. But what the hell, we’re assuming I live in a hypothetical world where I can only spend $30 on comics anyway, so let’s pretend I didn’t have the money to download it previously. Can we also pretend I’m a viking?

Splurgewise, my peers have mentioned a lot of nice stuff, so I’ll just point out the second volume of Super Pro K.O. ($11.99), the follow-up to what proved to be a fun first volume by Jarrett Williams.

The Body of Work

I suppose on a certain level running through all the loot you nabbed at this or that convention seems a bit like bragging, even if the intention is merely to say, “Hey, here’s some cool comics you should check out.” That being said, it seems like a while since anyone’s done one of those “here’s the stuff I bought” posts, so I thought I’d run down some of the more interesting-looking books I nabbed at SPX this past weekend. Forgive me.

The Body of Work by Kevin Huizenga. In addition to promoting the release of Ganges #4, Huizenga had a couple of mini-comics for sale as well. This one features some of the comics he’s been posting online like Postcard from Fielder.

Color Engineering

Danger Country by Levon Jihanian. This is the first chapter of what feels like a rather ambitious fantasy series about warring factions, done in a spartan, but nicely detailed line. This was nominated for outstanding comic and oustanding mini comic this year, and chapter two is supposed to be released in October. File this under “promising.”

Lizzie’s Tail by Darryl Ayo. Ayo won the Promising New Talent Ignatz Award at the show, and reading this mini-comic, a surreal little jaunt about a woman who goes questing for a necklace, it’s not too hard to see why.

Color Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama. The other big debut book at the Picturebox table. Yokoyama’s Garden has been my favorite book of 2011 so far, so there was no way I was going to pass the chance to nab this collection of color work, most of which seems to have even more of a pop art sensibility than his black and white work. Picturebox also had limited copies of this book available, which looked pretty sweet.

The Naked Heroes by Benjamin Marra. A light goof from Marra, apparently done as a favor for some musician friends, it concerns a tough-as-nails couple that enter an otherwordly bar and end up taking on a two-bodied demon monster and its hellspawn. Lots of blood and violence, as one would expect. At the show, Marra let it be known that he was working on the second issue of Gangsta Rap Posse, the plot of which sounded almost too awesome to be believed.

A Lion in Winter by Jiro Taniguchi. I always try to pick up at least one book at the Fanfare/Ponent Mon table, if only because tracking down their books in stores can be such a tricky proposition (although I should note it has gotten considerably better). This is their latest book, another entry from their top star Taniguichi, although this one, about a young man who attempts to start a career in manga, is apparently his most autobiographical work to date.

Forming

Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly. My comics collection is in complete disarray right now so I can’t look at the first issue for comparision’s sake, but it seems like Rilly’s art has taken a huge leap forward, becoming looser, more assured and more detailed. A nice eurocomics vibe throughout. Look for a more thoughtful, official review to show up sometime in the near future.

Forming by Jesse Moynihan. Another fantasy-style graphic novel, though this tends to lean more towards the mythology side of things, as it deals with a bunch of Biblical/Greek/etc. godlike beings fighting and speaking in a modern idiom. I haven’t had a chance to do more than browse through this, but it certainly seems promising. NoBrow Press did a really nice job with the production here, and I think it’s fair to say it was one of the better looking books at the show. AdHouse had copies of these but they sold out rather quickly on Saturday.

Theories of Everything by Roz Chast. One of the things I like about SPX is how cartoonists outside the traditional indie comics community like Roz Chast and Ann Telnaes  can fit in and be welcomed so easily. As I mentioned in my photo round-up, I’m a rather big Chast fan — honestly, I think she’s the best thing in the magazine these days; certainly the most idiosyncratic — so picking up this chunky “best of” collection of cartoons was kind of a no-brainer.

SPX, or the Small Press Expo, returns to the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, Md. this weekend.

The show’s special guests include Roz Chast, Jim Woodring, Diane Noomin, Jim Rugg, Ann Telnaes, Chester Brown, Johnny Ryan, Craig Thompson and Matthew Thurber, and fans who attend will also have the opportunity to meet and/or hear from Kevin Huizenga, Anders Nilsen, Jessica Abel, Sarah Glidden, Alex Robinson, Brian Ralph, Mike Dawson, Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge and Julia Wertz, just to name a few. I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out that our own Chris Mautner will be attending and conducting a Q&A with Johnny Ryan on Saturday, so be sure to tell him hi for us.

In addition to a lot of great talent, SPX also offers a full schedule of programming and the yearly Ignatz Awards. And a whole lot of new books and cool things will be available at the show:

• Drawn + Quarterly will have a ton of new books at the show, as detailed here, like Brain Ralph’s Daybreak collection, the Death-Ray hardcover and Big Questions, among many others.

• As we noted yesterday, AdHouse and Tom Scioli will have an American Barbarian print at the show. They’ll also have guests like Jim Rugg, Lamar Abrams, Ethan Rilly and Sterling Hundley at their table.

• Jennifer Hayden’s Underwire, from Top Shelf, makes its debut:

Underwire

• Roger Langridge’s The Show Must Go On! collection from BOOM! Town will debut there, and Langridge will also have a Snarked! print:

Snarked!

• Kevin Huizenga will have some new stuff at the show, not the least of which is a new Ganges book from Fantagraphics.

• NBM will debut Stargazing Dog and Ernie Colon’s Inner Sanctum at the show.

• The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will host the first Jeff Alexander Memorial Benefit Auction, named for a cartoonist and an organizer of SPX and the Ignatz Awards. He passed away earlier this year. The auction includes pieces from Alexander ’s collection that he donated to the CBLDF, including original art by Charles Vess and Jeff Smith, Tony Millionaire, and Roger Langridge. The auction also includes contributions from Keith Knight, Raina Telgemeier, Jeffrey Brown and many more.

• A signed and numbered edition of Craig Thompson’s Habibi will be available from the CBLDF during the show. And Sara Varon will be at their table on Saturday signing Bake Sale.

• The SPX has a whole bunch more listed on their site, including Mike Dawson’s Troop 142, Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly, Old-Time Hockey Tales by Robert Ullman and Jeffrey Brown, Monster Isle: Big Monster Stuff by Joey Weiser and more.

Comics’ panel-by-panel mode of presentation is incredibly effective at sucking people in.  The simple fact that we say we “read” comics when we describe following strings of pictures attests to how strong a tool for immersion sequencing is.  And it’s especially strong when we step back for a moment and think about just how weird, how alien cartoons look.  A single panel of a comic, especially one drawn with the blend of simplification and exaggeration that forms the look of newspaper strips and many alternative comics, is as much a conceptual statement about form as a depictive drawing.  Where the real depiction comes into play is with the sequencing, which turns cartoons from abstractions into living vehicles for movement and action.

Kevin Huizenga is one of the cartoonists whose work addresses comics’ conflict between the abstract and the literal most frequently and interestingly.  Huizenga’s attempts at using comics to mimic the visual effect of video games are especially notable: rather than creating the simulacrum of reality that the vast majority of comics do, what is brought forth instead is a simulacrum of a simulacrum, a copy of a copy, something already abstract abstracted further, its ties to reality stressed and stretched about as close to the breaking point as they can go.

Huizenga’s departure from reality is a highly attractive one for a few reasons beyond the usual — though certainly still valid — comics-are-supposed to-be-escapism chestnut.  It’s a mental workout, something more engaging (even edifying) than the passive reception most comics allow their readers.  In order to glean meaning from the sequenced shapes and symbols on this page, the reader is forced to consider the specifics of what’s going on from panel to panel, to reconstruct the oblique narrative with each new picture.  Sometimes comics give readers too much, making the words and pictures blur into the indistinguishable mass called “story” without first being recognized for what they are.  With pictures like Huizenga’s, which give us nothing more real than a horizon line, the immediate effect is that of drawings rather than narrative.  It’s a gradual process to piece this page together into an uninterrupted sequence, which means readers have that much more time to spend with the crisp lines and radically unfamiliar forms Huizenga builds with.

More than that, though, Huizenga uses his unfamiliar symbols to create a true fantasy comic, something not held by our world.  Here, abstraction is an excuse for the artist to draw whatever he wants as much as anything else, and Huizenga’s imagination is up to the challenge.  Every new panel holds something completely unexpected when what’s going on is divorced from reality: forms explode, recombine, sprout new appendages, and perform the violent physical interaction so native to comics in a way that can’t quite be fully understood.  (Though the sunset in the final three panels does inject a perverse logic into the sequence by evoking the world’s single most inevitable, basic process, the passage of solar time.)  On this page, Huizenga creates a world that is completely under his control, subject not even to the basic laws of physics and logic, only to the imagination propelling it.  It reminds us of a basic truth of comics: anything the artist can dream can be drawn.  Just put it in sequence.

My, but this has some oomph, doesn’t it? That clean block lettering (Helvetica? font geeks, help me out here), all that black…I know I’m excited. The latest installment in Huizenga’s oversized solo anthology series is due in August from Fantagraphics.

At New York City’s Parsons Art & Design College, aficionados of comics, cartoons or just fine art in general are getting something special to look at starting Feb. 4: a new exhibition called “Cartoon Polymaths”. Curated by Bill Kartalopoulis and set to open this Thursday, this exhibition of multimedia work profiles several high-profile artists who are cartoonists themselves or show “cartoon sensibility.” The premise of the exhibit, taken from Parsons’ website, is: “While the word cartoon is usually associated with humorous line drawing, the form has a deep influence across many types of art and design, from animation and children’s books to puppetry and product design. What is it about the cartoon that permits—or enables—such an evolution? “

On display will be newspaper tearsheets, comics, puppets, posters, zines, animated clips and other media from artists such as Winsor McCay, Saul Steinberg, Kevin Huizenga and more. The show’s organizers even commissioned Kevin Huizenga for a two-page comic about the show that’s available as a free booklet. In addition to the exhibition itself, Parsons and Bill Kartalopoulos are coordinating a slate of public programs for the area featuring Ricard McGuire, R. Sikoryak and Jacob Ciocci.

The exhibition opens Friday, Feb. 4 at Parsons’ Sheila C. Johnson Design Center and will be on display through April 15. An opening reception will be held Thursday, Feb. 3 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Achewood by Chris Onstad

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

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

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

12. Berserk by Kentaro Miura (Dark Horse)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cover to Ganges #3

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

This month we’re looking at the career of a relative newcomer to the comics industry, Mr. Kevin Huizenga.

Why he’s important

Even amidst a generation of cartoonists that includes such stellar folk as Anders Nilsen, Dash Shaw, Dan Zettwoch and Eleanor Davis, Huizenga stands apart for his artistry and ingenious, inventive use of the medium. In many ways he also embodies many of the characteristics of his contemporaries. To wit: an interest in comics of all types and genres resulting in a bevy of disparate influences, and an interest in formalism and experimentation that parallels an interest at more straightforward storytelling and characterization. In the short time he’s been making comics, Huizenga has shown himself to be an author of considerable talent and probing sincerity.

Where to start

Ganges #1

In addition to arguably being his best known work, the award-winning Ganges series remains the most emblematic of Huizenga’s comics so far and thus the best place for newcomers to start. Fantagraphics has published three issues to date as part of the oversize Ignatz format and all are worth getting and reading, preferably in order. The series follows an afternoon and subsequent evening in the life of Huizenga’s everyman Glenn Ganges as he goes to the library, plays some video games, reminisces on a previous job and battles insomnia. It sounds like drab minutiae, but Huizenga has a wonderful way of making the everyday seem not just relatable in the “I’ve been there too” sense but significant. He also is the only cartoonist I know of that is able to visually express difficult to describe thoughts and emotions in ways that make you wonder how no one ever came up with them before. His portrayal of Glenn’s frantic attempt at sleep in issue 3 for example, drawing him awash in a sea of random thoughts and word balloons is inspired.

From there you should read

Curses collects most of Huizenga’s best work up till now, including the stellar short stories “28th Street,” “Green Tea,” and “Jeepers Jacobs.” Most of these stories star Ganges again in one form or another and are actually interrelated in so far as they loosely follows Ganges and his wife Wendy’s attempts to conceive a child. Huizenga shows a deep interest in folklore, religion and mythology here that examines how spiritual and a belief in otherwordly or supernatural forces affect our perception of the world around us.

Further reading

Curses

Huizenga temporarily attempted to publish a semi-regular comic book series via Drawn & Quarterly entitled Or Else. There were only five issues released, and about half of the work has been collected in books like Curses, but interested readers will want to track down a copy of issue #2 (currently out of print), which contains the lovely “Gloriana” story (which in turn was originally serialized in Huizenga’s Supermonster minicomics) and #3 (also out of print), which offers a more autobiographical slant (sort of).

Flight or Run: Shadow of the Chopper showcases Huizenga’s more avant-garde side, as it presents an odd video game of sorts where abstracted, seemingly voiceless characters battle it out in all sorts of bizarre ways (to get a better idea of what I’m talking about, check out Huizenga’s Fight or Run blog.

Ancillary material

Having come from the minicomics world, Huizenga has actively kept a toe or two dipped in that culture, with books like New Construction, which offers a loose collection of sketches and preliminary drawings, and Rumbling 2, which continues a story he started in Or Else #5 (and which you can read for free at What Things Do).

Huizenga collaborates regularly with a number of his fellow cartoonists, most notably on the Ripley’s Believe It or Not parody Amazing Facts … and Beyond, which he does with Ted May and Dan Zettwoch. A couple of published mini-comics collecting the strip are easily available via Huizenga’s online store.

Fight or Run

Huizenga has actually quite the online presence. In addition to the above-linked sites, there’s also his regularly updated blogs The Balloonist and New Construction.

Avoid

Huizenga’s most recent book, The Wild Kingdom, is by no means to be avoided — it’s a stellar work, examining man’s relationship to nature and consumerism in a invigorating left-of-center fashion, but it’s not the best place for newcomers to begin as it’s a highly experimental work that eschews narrative in favor of quick asides and impressions (or, rather, it jumbles several narratives and moments together to create an effect that’s not unlike zipping past several cable TV stations via remote). I heartily recommend reading it, but only after you’ve explored his other offerings.

Next month: Herge

Blood's a Rover

Hello and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 crew talk about the comics and graphic novels that they’ve been enjoying lately. Our special guest this week is comics journalist and critic Dirk Deppey of Journalista and The Comics Journal fame.

To see what Dirk and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, read on …

*****

Sean T. Collins

Fallen Angel

A couple of let-downs bookended a pleasantly unpleasant surprise for me this week. Click the links for full reviews…

Fallen Angel by Nicolas Robel (Drawn & Quarterly): This modern-day fairy tale never quite makes the leap from the personal to the universal.

Kaspar by Diane Obamsawin (Drawn & Quarterly): I’m not necessarily nuts about some of the lo-fi visual choices here, but this true story of a young man who may or may not have spent his first 17 years kept in a dungeon in total isolation hit me hard.

Rambo 3.5 by Jim Rugg (self-published): A disappointingly one-note Dubya parody from the talented artist behind Afrodisiac.

Brigid Alverson

I’m used to Osamu Tezuka’s peculiarities by now—the juxtaposition of the cute and the brutal, his oddly sociopathic main characters and his simplistic psychological explanations for their behavior, even his splintered layouts. And Apollo’s Song still struck me as the oddest Tezuka manga I have ever read. It starts with a young man, Shogo Chikaishi, who kills animals for fun, because, apparently, his promiscuous mother rejected him (and he walked in on her with a guy). His psychiatrist subjects him, with grim relish, to shock treatment, during which he hallucinates a goddess who tells him he is condemned to fall in love with the same woman over and over, but each time, one of them will die. This seems kind of harsh when we have just learned that poor Shogo isn’t really responsible for his condition, but that’s Tezuka for you. Anyway, he starts cycling through these new lives, but after two, the story takes a different turn altogether. It’s almost like Tezuka was making it up as he went along. Still, it’s entertaining enough to keep me reading (and guessing) all the way to the end of this first volume, and anxious to see the conclusion in volume 2.

I haven’t gotten too far into Eric Hobbs and Noel Tuazon’s Broadcast yet, but I’m impressed with Tuazon’s loose style and the care with which Hobbs is setting up his story. The characters have all emerged as individuals with strong personalities, and good and evil are sharply delineated. Tuazon’s art is washy and atmospheric, and he does a great job of setting the scene, including small details such as a set table or a scarecrow on a rainy night. Sometimes his art is too loose, and it’s like looking at the drawings through a rain-streaked windshield. I was afraid I would have trouble telling the characters apart, but somehow distinct sets of features emerge from the haze for each one. It’s a book to linger over, not one to read in a hurry, so I’m enjoying taking it slow.

JK Parkin

I’ve started reading a collection of superhero short stories called Masked, edited by Lou Anders and featuring prose by Matthew Sturges, Paul Cornell, Gail Simone, Mike Carey, Bill Willingham, Peter and Kathleen David, Chris Roberson and many others. I downloaded a sample of it to my iPad a few weeks ago and became so engrossed in Sturges’ fun-yet-kind-of-gruesome story that I ended up downloading the whole thing so I could finish it.

Dirk Deppey

The Cold Six Thousand

For the past few years, most of what I’ve read has come from a computer monitor, so I’ve lately been forcing myself to return to printed books. I began with James Ellroy’s Underworld trilogy — American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood’s a Rover. They’re basically crime-noir novels, except that the setting is the turbulent events of the 1960s political stage, and the cast of characters includes JFK, RFK, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Martin Luther King, Howard Hughes and a violent blend of mobsters, Cuban exiles and semi-rogue FBI and CIA agents. It’s trashy, politically dubious and utterly gripping work, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’m now digging into the first volume of William Patterson’s Robert Heinlein biography, after which I’ll probably go back and dig up some Christopher Hitchens to hold me over until the end of the year, when the first volume of Mark Twain’s unexpurgated autobiography finally hits bookstore shelves (after an author-imposed, century-long embargo). Twain is one of my favorite writers, so this new book is going to make for a really good Christmas present to myself.

Comics: I was happy to finally get a chance to read Daren White and Eddie Campbell’s The Playwright, a droll sex comedy about not getting laid. It’s brilliant stuff. There’s a stack of manga sitting several feet high next to my desk, which I’m slowly working my way through — new volumes of Suppli, Mushishi, Nana, Twin Spica and Black Jack, as well as several Jiro Taniguchi books that I’ve been putting off until I can go back and re-acquaint myself with the story in previous volumes. (This is particularly necessary with The Times of Botchan, which is a dense and complex read even without the delay between books.) Also sitting in the stack is a reprint of Dino Buzzati’s 1969 proto-graphic novel, Poem Strip. I’ll be damned if I can remember where I first heard about it, but the New York Review of Books translated and reprinted it last year, and just flipping through the pages, I can tell it’s going to be interesting stuff. I ordered Kevin Huizenga’s The Wild Kingdom before realizing that it was essentially a reprint of Or Else #4 (which I already own), but the larger size and excellent production values are a gold-ticket invitation to read it again, so I can’t get too worked up about buying the same book twice. Finally, I recently ordered a copy of Howard Cruse’s collection of gay-themed comics, From Headrack to Claude, from the author’s website. It’s a print-on-demand softcover — one of the first I’ve ordered — and I’m almost as impressed with the quality of the printing as I am with Cruse’s daring, trailblazing work. This’ll be a fun one to read, I’m sure.

Oh, and someone at Fantagraphics finally got around to sending me a copy of Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, a week ago. I’m an employee of the publisher and played a minor role in bringing it to print, so I’ll spare you yet another round of Dirk’s Company-Shill Ego Cavalcade… but I would like to note that just holding the damned thing in my hands is by and of itself a deeply satisfying experience. Thanks, Matt! So when are you going to start translating the next one…?

On his blog, the great cartoonist Kevin Huizenga has posted some shots of The Wild Kingdom, his upcoming (and overdue) collection from Drawn & Quarterly starring his trademark everyman character Glenn Ganges. Okay, it’s not Wonder Woman in ’90s-Superboy’s jacket, but I for one am pretty darn excited.

from Dance of Doom by Leonard Starr, found at USSCatastrophe.com

Ever stumble across a comics treasure trove when you least expected it?

The other day I was looking around for the websites of artists associated with the late, lamented Buenaventura Press when I clicked a random link USSCatastrophe, the site of cartoonist Kevin Huizenga. Suddenly I found myself looking at a hidden repository of out-of-print comics by an astonishing range of cartoonists from throughout the history of the medium. An entire book of dog cartoons by Barnaby artist Crockett Johnson … early minicomics by two of my favorite altcomix artists, Dave Kiersh and John Hankiewicz … crazy-gorgeous strips and cartoons by C.C. Beck, Abner Dean, and Garret Price … links to, samples from, and miniature reviews of dozens more titles … sure, some of the links are broken — it’s been years since the stuff was updated, it seems — but what’s there is more than enough to keep me blissed out on hidden gems for hours on end.

Have you ever wandered into a similar motherlode of comics goodness online? Superheroes or scanned minicomics, a killer collection of original art or a webcomic you never knew existed, a site full of classic strips or a gallery of stunning covers — whatever it is, post your links in the comments. Face it, tiger — you’ve just helped thousands of readers kill an afternoon!

“Ice man” by Chris Eliopoulos

Spider-Man: Unemployed by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks

“Reggie 12” by Brian Ralph

“A reminder, Genesis 22:1-24” by Anders Brekhus Nilsen

“Rumbling” by Kevin Huizenga

“Levittown” by Bill Griffith

Hat tip: Tom Spurgeon, Flog

“Lunch” by Kevin Huizenga

“NOW! Is the time…” by Dave K

beanbots by Kevin Kobasic

Cow-Boy Chronicles by Jay Hosler

Nawlz by Stu Campbell

I know, I know; that’s not exactly the most popular opinion to hold, never mind share on a website devoted to comics and the worship thereof, but we all know it’s true. I’m far from the only one who sees solicitations for months ahead, or lists of that week’s new releases, and has at least one “Seriously? There’s really enough of a market for that?” moment. It’s easiest to do when looking at, say, Marvel’s upcoming releases and counting what’re essentially seven monthly Avengers books (Adjectiveless, New, Secret, Academy, alternating bi-monthlies Children’s Crusade and Prime and, of course, New Ultimates and Ultimate Avengers, for those who were wondering about my math), but all it takes is one step inside the non-premier publishers section of Diamond’s Previews to realize that there’s a lot of noise hiding the signal in the world of indie publishers, as well.

Now, I know that I’ve touched a sore spot by mentioning the much-maligned Previews. I mean, I think we can all agree that it’s a blight on humanity, never mind just the comic book biz, right? There are times – Let’s call them “Every month when I see the new catalogue” – when the very thought of Previews is enough to drive me toward a deep depression and despair about that month’s state of comics, in that it almost seems designed to hide all manner of wonderful things contained within from all but the most dedicated of readers at times. But Previews, as badly designed as it may be, is pretty much the definition of a necessary evil when it comes to comic distribution: The industry needs a catalog of everything that’s being released. Retailers and readers need to know what is going to be available, in order to get excited and plan and save up for, as much as bitch and moan and roll our eyes.

The problem isn’t Previews itself, but the amount of books therein, really. Every single month, there is a lot of amazing work solicited in the “back half” of any given issue of Previews, but you have to work to find it amongst all of… well, everything else that’s in there. I know that I’m excited about the new Kevin Huizenga book that’s coming this summer, but it took me looking through solicits for Tarot and Zenescope and literally hundreds of other books I have no interest in to find out about it. That’s not necessarily a slam on those books – Somehow, I doubt there’s a large crossover between those eagerly awaiting the next issue of Return To Wonderland and fans of Scott Morse’s work, to go the reverse route – but an obvious complaint about a really, really obvious problem: Why hasn’t anyone come up with – or, perhaps, implemented – a way to make it easier for people to discover new things that they might enjoy reading without making it such an ordeal?

I think back to things like Warren Ellis’ Artbomb, which was pretty much a review website that operated as tastemaker, but also just the basic idea of organizing comics by genre instead of publisher – More work for Diamond, perhaps, but think of the benefit for readers – or something, anything, that makes each month’s releases seem less like a deluge without rhyme, reason or quality control. Complaining that there’s too many comics coming out doesn’t make sense; there’s no set number of comics allowed per month. But can’t someone do something that makes the back of the catalog less overwhelming every month to make it feel less unnecessarily crowded?

Nevermind The Bollocks, Here’s a Comic! by Nomi Kane

“Sleezball” by Peter Bagge (NSFW)

Panda Force by Sean Causley

… by Kevin Huizenga

Insomnia by Dan White

True Swamp by Jon Lewis

Kevin Huizenga draws Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&!

Critically acclaimed comics creators: They’re just like us! Take Kevin Huizenga, for example. Sure, his work in his series Or Else and Ganges has gotten him labeled the best cartoonist of his generation. But he geeks out over other people’s comics just like you and me — and even draws their characters as a tip o’ the fanboy cap.

Check out the STL Drawing Club blog for Huizenga’s renditions of characters by Osamu Tezuka, Richard Scarry, Alain Saint-Ogan, Jim Woodring, Kiyohiko Azuma (see Yotsuba Koiwai at right) and probably even more I’m not recognizing. (There’s a pretty badass Dan Zettwoch drawing of the biker gang from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure in there, too.)

And don’t forget the killer fan art drawings he posted on his own blog, including characters from Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit, CF’s Powr Mastrs, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Fandom can be fun!

“Postcard from Fielder 2″ by Kevin Huizenga

“The Miracle” by Johnny Ryan

“Money Can’t Buy Jappiness” by Vanessa Davis

“The Haunted High School” by Dash Shaw

“The New Yorker Story” by Sammy Harkham

Ectopiary by Hans Rickheit

“Sale, extended” by Anders Nilsen

“Portrait of Bob Flanagan” by Elijah J. Brubaker

The Trials of Sir Christopher by Colleen Frakes

“A Decision in Love” by Bill Boichel and Tom Grindberg