Today we're looking at the collection of Rick Lacy, who with Phillip Gelatt is the co-creator of the Oni Press series Labor Days.

Before we begin, however, let me do my usual plug and encourage -- nay, implore -- you to send your collection pics to me at cmautnerATcomcastDOTnet. The Shelf Porn well seems to be drying up very rapidly and may hit bottom soon unless a few brave souls out there opt to contribute.

But enough with the sob story. Let's check out Rick's shelves:

I've just moved into a new apt so a lot of things are still in boxes and beg to be shelved. The rest is stacked on my drift wood cabinet, adorned with my Venture Bros. poster trophy for working on two seasons at the time. Most of my comic collection nowadays seems to be made up of Oni press comics, the publisher that puts out my OGN, Labor Days.

Murphy and Bernier

Back on October 23-25, the Sequential Art Department at the Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD Atlanta) hosted a comics art forum with Sean Murphy (2003 SCAD Savannah graduate and artist on the upcoming Grant Morrison-written Joe the Barbarian for Vertigo) and Matthew Bernier (School of Visual Arts in Manhattan graduate and currently at work on a book for First Second). Since I'm a Georgia-based member of the Robot 6 crew, Chris Schweizer, a SCAD Atlanta professor and creator of Crogan's Vengeance, invited me to the forum.

According to Shawn Crystal, SCAD Professor (as well as one of the artists on last month's Deadpool 900 [Marvel]), SCAD's Comics Art Forum tradition started in Savannah years ago. Crystal selects the guests that are invited to the forum. "Every year, when I pick guests, I look to pick progressive/passionate artists. Artists who are doing new and exciting things, helping to move the medium forward," he said. "Our Atlanta Faculty throw names around until we settle on the best choice for that year."

Schweizer echoed Crystal's thinking. "When we arrange these events, we try hard to pick guests whose work (and approaches to their work) varies from ours, because it opens our eyes to new ideas, and it does the same for our students," he said.

According to Nolan Woodard, another of the SCAD Atlanta professors (and who also took the photos included in this article), there is a variety of lessons that the students take away from these forums. "They always walk away in awe of some aspect our guests bring whether it be tangible, like a technique or tool, or otherwise," he said. "However, the one [lesson] I personally hope they take away is that evolution doesn't stop for any successful artist. Our guests were once in their shoes but they worked hard, focused, and prevailed. They all bring stories of how they've grown and the investment of time and energy they've made to see this happen is inspiring and informative. It shows our students that their own work won't be done just because they wear a cap and gown and received a piece of paper. This is just the beginning of a larger trek where they'll continue to evolve and learn. As professors, we simply try to help them off on the right foot."

The students clearly get a great deal of insight from the forums, as evidenced by the comments from grad student Pat Bollin (who was recently tapped to draw an unannounced graphic novel for Oni). "Every forum I've been to at SCAD in the 2 years I've been in grad school have been amazing," he said. "I've learned something new or gotten some piece of info or inspiration that filled in a missing puzzle piece in my own process. Not to mention geeking out over all the top talent that comes here to give lectures and review portfolios. My expectations for this particular forum were to get more of the same. Also, I've been working on breaking new ground in my inking technique, and was hoping to learn something new from Sean Murphy who is one of a few artists that inspired me to move in the direction I'm currently heading."

The Comic Arts Forum is just one part of SCAD's effort to provide practical industry advice to its students. According to Crystal, SCAD also hosts:
-- The Atlanta Publishers Forum, where editors and publishers come in to educate students on the industry they are seeking to join.
-- The Atlanta Writers workshop, along the lines of the Comic Arts Forum, but with writers
-- A variety of single guest events (In fact, the week after the Comics Arts Forum, Laura Martin conducted a one-day color workshop for SCAD Atlanta)

The SCAD Atlanta sequential art program has a total of around 50 students.(around 6 Grad students and 44 Undergrad students).

Murphy and Bernier opened the weekend-long forum with a Friday night discussion of their respective careers to date.

Murphy

In Murphy's opening presentation, he shared a variety of projects that he had worked on, being sure to point out that while some projects never were published, the work led to other projects or opportunities. After the forum, I sought additional insight from Murphy and got him to elaborate on this particular point. "Being a freelancer means a lot of odd jobs and career fluctuations," Murphy said. "Some gigs can seem like a nightmare and can blow up in your face. Instead of getting upset at those gigs, I try my best to flip the situation to some sort of advantage. Sure, I might not have been paid for this or that, but at least I have more work experience and something new to put into my portfolio for future clients"

"Over the years I've tried to stay positive and to continue planting seeds that might bear no fruit at all, " he added. "But once in a while, just when you've forgotten about a certain seed, it'll start bearing fruit. And suddenly you can pay bills again. I've had job offers from clients that have come from left field. And I'll go, 'I'd love to work on your project, but I have to ask: how the HELL did you hear about me?' I get the weirdest answers sometimes."

On Saturday, the morning was spent with both artists presenting workshops on technique, followed by an afternoon of portfolio reviews. With Murphy, he showed the students a number of methods he employs to attain certain effects and elements on his pages. One warm-up exercise he shared with the students was exploring the lights and darks of a portrait (working from a black and white photo of Clint Eastwood). He also revealed a variety of storytelling devices to the students, many too complex and visual for me to capture while observing his session.

"There are usually a handful of points that I try to make when I teach," Murphy shared. While this was his first time lecturing at SCAD Atlanta, he lectures at the Kubert School on an annual basis. In his lectures, he aims to convey "stuff like ALWAYS KEEP PRACTICING, LEARN HOW TO WRITE, GO OUT AND MEET OTHER ARTISTS BECAUSE WE ALL NEED SUPPORT, DON'T GO BACK HOME AND LIVE WITH YOUR MOM, MOVE TO A CITY, FOLLOW UP ON YOUR CONTACTS, LEARN WHAT A WRITE-OFF IS, etc..."

In addition to sharing his perspective, Murphy clearly gained a larger perspective from the students. He noted that "it's been more interesting lately because I've been getting something else from people at shows: they love drawing and storytelling, but they don't like most comics. And they're worried about surviving and paying bills. And they're also worried that they won't find a place for themselves in an industry built on superheroes."

Murphy is unsure why he attracts people with opinions along those lines. "I'm told it's because I'm somehow skirting the line between indy and mainstream," he conceded. "And I don't always know how to respond. But I try my best to tell them that I understand their concerns and that I live it everyday. And even though we're all going to fall into darker moments of self-doubt and depression from time to time, there are ways of preparing for a more stable career where you can write what you want and pay your bills by being a one-man show. That way you're not reliant on men in tights."

For Bernier this was his first opportunity to present live versions of lessons from his blog, Comic Tools. For the first day, Bernier focused his workshop upon habits (stripping you of bad habits; how to execute dark hair on a dark background; effective scanning; and building the ideal word balloon) and "tools that you may not be aware of", according to the artist. On the second day, Bernier conducted a workshop on anatomy in cartooning.

If the number of students' comments and follow-up questions (there were many) is a gauge of the effectiveness of Bernier's workshops, it's safe to say he was quite successful. Asked to share his expectations going in versus how effectively he thought he presented, Bernier confided: "I mainly hoped not to vomit on my feet or be met with sighs and rolling eyes, so yes. I'm not being nearly as glib as I sound when I say that. I think I can tweak it and do things better next time, make it more involving and interactive, but overall the students all liked it and told me so, which is fantastic. I want to do it again."

Both artists also were able to glean lessons from each other, as well as learning from the SCAD Atlanta faculty and students. "It was interesting hearing Sean (Murphy) talk to Shawn (Crystal) about their jobs, because the sort of business they have to deal with is so different from mine," said Bernier. "I'm very much from a self-publish first and MAYBE get a publisher later model, and they're from a work for hire and MAYBE get a publisher for a personal project model. The more I learn about the other world the more thankful I am for the one I work in. I learned some tool tricks from the students while giving one of my lectures, and I learned new things about scanning and coloring from Nolan ([Woodard] The faculty member who teaches coloring.) I plan on drawing from Nolan's knowledge base a LOT for Comic Tools in the future."

Portfolio Review with Bernier

According to Murphy, Bernier "taught me a lot about the growing interest in comics coming from book publishers. Usually I'm used to dealing with comic book publishers--whole different game. The possibility of having more places to take OGNs makes our future look brighter." In terms what the students offered Murphy, he said "I got a lot of questions that made me think about aspects of my own art that I hadn't considered. Spending a lot of time alone in a studio means that an artist runs the risk of becoming the king of his own little kingdom, but by describing your processes to other people you're forced to hear yourself out loud. It helps me to either reinforce my ideas or discard them for being frivolous, weird, or narcissistic."

The students and visiting artists were not the only one's learning, so were the faculty. "I always leave these events questioning my work...what's working, why, what's not working, why, etc, " said Crystal. "Sean really cleared up some of the questions i had in my head, about the role of black, white, and grey in my inked work. Matt opened my eyes to the new frontier of comic book publishing, and the opportunities that lie for the next generations. Opportunities that didn't exist when I was coming up."

"Being an artist is synonymous with being a student of life so, no matter what label this world calls you by, everything is a learning experience," said Woodard. "In our department we try to instill this philosophy of learning with our students and promote the exchange of ideas and concepts to further their growth as artists and, hopefully, people. Our events simply bring this to the immediate surface but it's always there. Regardless of whether our guests work in independent or mainstream publication, the myriad of experiences they share enrich anyone with an open mind. Often, I personally find myself coming away from our forums energized and excited about the medium all over again!"

"While there were a lot of things that I felt will benefit me as both an artist and a teacher – Matt’s simplified anatomy workshop, Sean’s career breakdown – what interested me most was Matt’s approach to collaboration," said Schweizer.

"I work solo about 95% of the time, mostly because I feel that the way that comics collaborations are executed is an inherently flawed process," he said. "It’s a steady source of debate and discussion here, and my stance is that the artist should be the interpreter of how the story is told."

"I think that comics would benefit greatly from using more of a screenwriter/director approach to the writer/artist breakdowns, with no panel descriptions, only a notation of what needs to be seen," Schweizer said. "HOW it should be seen should, in my view, be left to the artist (I’m operating under the assumption that the artist is a competent visual storyteller; if he or she isn’t, the he or she shouldn’t be getting comics work). This is ESPECIALLY true in cases in which a predetermined page count is not a factor, such as webcomics or graphic novels, but even in the case of a monthly floppy an artist should be able to determine appropriate pacing for page count."

"To find out that Matt is actively working within this collaborative approach was exciting – it’s one thing to have a theory, another to see it play out in the real world," he concluded. "Picking his brain about his collaborative process was very fulfilling."

Most of Saturday afternoon was devoted to portfolio reviews by Murphy and Bernier. "I was impressed by the amount of students who had a strong hold on storytelling--something often described in comics but something we don't see a whole lot of at the professional level," said Murphy. "The other thing I noticed was that no one was drawing in a DC/Marvel house style. There are a few major hubs where comic book artists are being groomed in the US, and this hub was by far the most impressive in terms of drawing ability, style and portfolios. If these students are the future of comics in the US, then I don't know who's going to be drawing house styles in the next 20 years. And that struck me as a very interesting clue about a future where American, European, South American, manga, etc will all be competing in the same digital, downloadable coliseum."

Bernier, who seemed equally impressed with the portfolios, was pleased to have been helpful to one student in particular: "I totally gave someone an epiphany moment in a portfolio review. Doesn't get better than that."

But at the end of the experience, understandably the students most benefited from the forum and get the last word on the experience. "This time out Sean Murphy talked to us about using a brush and nib in a loose and economic way to produce comic pages with more life to them," said SCAD Grad Student Bollin. "It seemed like magic when he demoed his own technique. I went home immediately and rediscovered the use of Brush and Nib in my work, and finished a tryout for Oni Press using some of his advice."

Cat Burglar Black

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is scholar and critic par excellance Craig Fischer, whose musings on comics can be regularly read on Thought Balloonists, the blog he shares with  Charles Hatfield.

To see what Craig and everyone else is currently reading, click on the link. And don't forget to let us know what you're reading this week as well.

Stumptown #1

Michael May: I enjoyed Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's Stumptown #1 this week. It feels familiar in a couple of ways, but familiar can be good. Rucka is obviously fond of strong, but broken, women detectives and Dex certainly fits that description here. But I'm also fond of reading about that kind of character. It's one of the reasons I like Rucka's stuff.

But he hasn't exactly just renamed Renee Montoya or Carrie Stetko for this story. Stumptown doesn't feel as weighty and serious as those comics do. It's got a fun, Rockford Files/Magnum PI vibe to it that I didn't realize I'd been missing. Even down to Dex's relative whom she obviously loves, but is also exasperated by.

Reading it, I also realized that a well-drawn comic is my preferred way to take in a mystery story. Unlike books, where only the important details are described, or movies, where pictures move too fast for me to look for my own clues, comics allow me to explore the crime scene with the detective, pausing to stare at whatever I want; finding all sorts of things that may or may not be vital to the solution. I haven't had this much fun with a mystery story since the first arc of Fables.

Omega the Unknown

Matt Maxwell: OMEGA THE UNKNOWN: CLASSIC
Yes, I started reading this after buying it at SDCC. No, I didn't finish it. Got sidetracked. Picked it up again and marveled at how this book actually got published. 'Cause even for Bronze Age Marvel, this stuff is pretty out there. Gerber/Skyrene's caped superhero lives in Hell's Kitchen (long before Daredevil found it fashionable to do so) in a tenement storefront, occasionally crossing paths with villains like Electro (who's defused by a handicapped child) and El Gato (witch-man of the barrio), fighting for no reason other than to fight and generally questioning a lot of the assumptions that you have about superheroes. Oh, and there's a kid that Omega may or may not be. A kid raised by robots. The story here doesn't end so much as it concludes, written in another book by another writer altogether (though Steven Grant might've been working from notes/conversations with Steve Gerber, not sure on that) in an unsatisfactory manner, given the time that things had taken to get started. Still, for fans of Steve Gerber (and those who might want to get an inside glimpse into Gerber's HARD TIME, which had some relation to OMEGA, if not only obliquely), worth a read, though perhaps not the twenty five dollar cover price.

Also read BOB DYLAN REVISITED for the purposes of review. I'll just say there's a lot of very pretty and engaging art and leave it at that here. Finishing my re-reading of the remastered REBEL by Pepe Moreno. Some of the script revisions jump right out (but that's always the case when an older work is 'updated'), and I'm not in love with the remastered color, as part of the original's charm for me was the hyper-garish coloring, making the look unique (at least in comparison.)

Moyasimon

Brigid Alverson: Sometimes, it is good to be a comics journalist.

For instance, this week I am holding in my hot little hands an advance copy of the first volume of Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, which will be released later this month. The premise is at once familiar and original: A young man has the power to see bacteria and other microorganisms. Happily, he has decided to go to agricultural school with his friend, who is the son of a brewer. The two of them quickly hook up with an eccentric professor who is probably up to no good, his hard-edged female assistant, and a pair of sophomores who start a rogue sake brewery that ends badly early into the story. Sawaki, the main character, uses his powers to figure out all kinds of things, and there’s a lot of talk of fermentation and rot in this book, which is educational in an icky-science sort of way. Also, it’s a little more hyperactive than most manga because the editors left in creator Masayuki Ishakawa’s marginalia and doodles.

I’m also reading Garen Ewing’s The Rainbow Orchid, a Tintinesque adventure comic drawn in the ligne claire style. This one is set in the 1920s and has the lead character, an adventurous young man named Julius Chancer, heading off to find a rare orchid in the company of a movie star, in order to preserve her family estate. It’s cheerily old-fashioned stuff, and the story moves along nicely with lots of complications. Ewing’s style is a touch more realistic than Herge’s and appears stiff in places, but his palette is spot-on, and he really creates a sense of place. You can read a large chunk of the comic online, but it’s only being published in the UK; happily, when I expressed interest, Ewing sent me a copy. The book is beautifully produced, with rich color tones, and worth seeking out if you’re a fan of period adventures.

Stuffed arrived with a set of almost random review copies, and I read it in one sitting. It’s like Driving Mr. Albert meets Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The main character, Tim, is an ordinary suburban guy who has put an unhappy childhood behind him, until his father dies and leaves him a homemade museum of curiosities. One of the objects on display is a stuffed African warrior, and Tim has to figure out how to deal with that, both physically and mentally. It’s an interesting exploration of family dynamics and racial attitudes on both sides of the color line, as Tim negotiates his situation with both his aging-hippie brother and an African-American anthropologist. Happily, the outlandishness of the story keeps it from being too heavy, and the characters all ring true.

Captain America Reborn #4

Tim O'Shea: First off, I'll start with Paul Cornell's Black Widow. Why? Because I wished I had read it this week, but forgot to pick it up at the store. Saw it on the shelf, got distracted, did not snag it. I would love to hear if anyone read it among our readers? Should I be running out to get my copy?

There is a panel toward the end of Captain America Reborn 4 that I could have sworn Gene Colan stepped in do to a Cap facial reaction shot. I never notice that about Bryan Hitch or Butch Guice before. Maybe a little bit in Guice -- either way the art is the real asset to this story. I grow tire of Brubaker usig Sharon Carter merely as a prop to be bandied about in this story. Given how critical she is to the story's outcome, her perpetual victimhood undermines the appeal of the character and the strength of the story for me.

John Ostrander writing an issue of Secret Six? Interested. Story set in Gotham? More interested. The return of a great Ostrander character -- Father/Reverend (read the story it makes sense) Richard Craemer? Sold.

Assault on New Olympus One-shot with Hercules and Spider-Man is a fun story to me. I enjoy Van Lente's use of Spider-Man here -- and most notably the comedic homage to the Ditko/Spidey heavy machinery lifting scene of years ago.

Stumptown had me damn curious when I heard the Rockford Files comparison. And it is an apt one. I love reading Greg Rucka when he's unrestricted from corporate continuity. Dex lives in a rougher world than Rockford did, though--and fortunately she's smart enough to survive. Comics can always use more strong female leads and I'm grateful to Rucka for creating the character.

Secret Six

Tom Bondurant: One of my not-so-secret shames as a DC fan is that I'm woefully unfamiliar with the details of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad. I read a few issues here and there, but it was never a mainstay for me, and I didn't read his Deadshot miniseries from several years back. Therefore, I liked Secret Six #15 (drawn by Jim Calafiiore) for its standalone value: Deadshot's an antihero who used to be a Batman villain, and while he might not seem to care whether he murders everyone in a room, on the inside it's a constant struggle not to. (That reminds me -- I always think of Catman as the Secret Sixer who wants to be "good," but as this issue shows, Deadshot's actually had a taste of superherodom.) Given the people in his life, spotlighted herein, I can understand why he has these control issues. The Secret Sixers are each pretty fascinating on their own, and this issue shows why. Calafiore's art isn't a perfect match -- his faces and figures are sometimes a bit too stylized -- but it's helped mightily by Gregory Wright's colors. Still, if I weren't already reading the book, this issue would hook me pretty effectively.

Justiniano comes in as guest penciller of Doom Patrol #4, the Blackest Night tie-in (written by Keith Giffen and inked by Livesay), and I think he does a decent job. The book doesn't look terribly different, so I'd say Livesay and colorist Guy Major have a lot to do with that. The story is clever too: in what I thought was a darkly funny inversion of the DP's history, the "New Doom Patrol" of the '70s and '80s are all dead, and the formerly-martyred original DPers have to fight the new Black Lanterns. There's also a very clever Black Lantern who I really didn't see coming, so nicely done, Mr. Giffen. (When did Val Vostok die, though? I thought she was part of Checkmate.) It has a good capsule history of both teams, and the stars of the book react to Blackest Night with their by-now-
familiar jaded attitude. As always, the "Metal Men" co-feature is a joy, and I hope Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire hold those Old Navy mannequins in the same amount of contempt I do.

As with the Thanagarian "menace" of the past couple of issues, Superman: World Of New Krypton #9 (written by Greg Rucka and James Robinson, drawn by Pete Woods and Ron Randall) seems to promise a huge throwdown between the Kryptonians and the Saturnians -- including a couple of Faceless Hunters From Saturn (TM) -- but then Superman has to step in and be all diplomatic. However, there's more intrigue on Krypton and a locked-room mystery to boot, so it's not like the issue is dull. I can't tell, though, what the division of labor is with regard to the art. There didn't seem to be too many solo-Randall pages ... or maybe my eye's just not that discriminating. ("You got Woods in my Randall!" "You got Randall in my Woods!")

Finally, I've been enjoying the Let's Be Friends Again collection, which is basically fifty-odd pages of annotated strips and over a dozen pages of sketches, bonus material, and tributes from other cartoonists. Buy it just so you can have a print version of Kim Jong-Il in a Luthor battlesuit.

Zero Zero #2

Chris Mautner: Working on that big Collect This Now column on Al Columbia the other week had me rummaging through my back issues of Fantagraphics' late, lamented Zero Zero anthology. That in turn had me running to the company's Web site, where, lo and behold, the entire series was on sale for .99 cents an issue! I snatched up as many issues I was missing as I could and am only just now starting to delve into them. Re-reading this stuff, it really startles me just how good and how ignored this series was and continues to be. I mean, the level of talent in these pages is staggering. Kim Deitch's Search for Smilin' Ed! Dave Cooper's Crumple! Richard Sala's The Chuckling Whatsit! Joe Sacco's Christmas with Karadsic! Not to mention Max Andersson, Skip Williamson, Mack White, Sam Henderson, Michael Kupperman, David Mazzuchelli and so many more. This really was the best anthology of the 90s, bar none.

Children's author Michael Rosen pretty much gets a pass from me no matter what he does, having writing one of the most agonizing, astonishing and bittersweet picture books, Michael Rosen's Sad Book. His latest, Red Ted and the Lost Things, is nowhere near as impressive, but that doesn't mean it isn't amusing. Illustrated by Joel Stewart, it's a cute tale of a lost teddy bear who tries to find his owner again and succeeds, thanks to the help of a cat and a stuffed alligator. It's an amusing kids' comic; one I think small children will like. It's no Sad Book, but then I'm not sure any writer is capable of something like that twice in a lifetime.

The Summit of the Gods

Craig Fischer: So what am I reading?

Last night I finished Richard Sala's Cat Burglar Black (First Second). For the past week, I'd been limiting myself to only a few pages of Cat at bedtime, trying to stretch it out into serial-like installments. Which is only appropriate: Sala's story -- his signature mélange of creepy houses, suspicious characters, narrative double-crosses and cute girls (a cadre dressed in black, the cat burglars of the title) -- reads like it should've been produced as a zero-budget serial by a Poverty Row studio like Republic or PRC in the mid-'40s. Great fun, and Sala's art looks lurid and purple in the paperback-sized, full-color First Second format.

As soon as I polished off Cat Burglar Black, I started the first volume of Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Summit of the Gods (Fanfare/Ponent Mon). I’m still in the early pages of the book (Fukamachi just bought the camera), and again I’m forcing myself to read slowly; I want to properly savor Taniguchi’s flabbergastingly detailed depictions of mountain vistas and Kathmandu streets.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve also read and enjoyed a few floppies: Astro City Astra Special #2 (Homage/Image), Citizen Rex #4 (Dark Horse), The Eternal Conflicts of the Cosmic Warrior (Image) and Strange Tales #3 (Marvel). And I’m not even counting the comics I bought for my kids, Simpsons Comics #158 (Bongo) and Archie #602 (Archie, duh). Did you know that Archie and Veronica have twins named Lil Archie and Lil Veronica?

The funniest book I've read recently is Alan Aldridge’s The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes (Abrams). Aldridge is an artist and graphic designer who began his career with book covers for Penguin UK -- I own a copy of J.G. Ballard’s The Wind from Nowhere (1961) with an Aldridge cover illustration of psychedelically undulating ocean waves and bending buildings. Then Aldridge helmed several landmark hippie-era projects: he snapped the picture of the band in silver suits for Cream’s Goodbye record sleeve (1968), he drew album covers for The Who (A Quick One, 1966) and Elton John (Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975), and (maybe of greatest interest to Robot 6 readers) co-edited The Penguin Book of Comics (1967) with George Perry. Kaleidoscope Eyes is primarily a showcase for Aldridge’s art, but it also features Aldridge’s rambling, episodic, eccentric autobiography in prose between the pictures. He knew everyone, and has hilarious tales to tell. Maybe someday I’ll meet Aldridge in a dive pub in Wales, where I’ll ply him with Jameson and persuade him to give me more details about his inadvertently embarrassing interview with Paul McCartney and his drawing duel with Dalí.

Heeding the recommendations of Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke, I've been plowing through Donald Westlake's novels, most recently Cops and Robbers (1972, though I read the Mysterious Press paperback from 1993). The blurb on the cover of Cops hypes Westlake as the king of “comic mystery novelists,” but I didn't find the book funny at all. Rather, it's a satisfyingly dour study of two NYC police detectives who turn to crime because they're fed up with their boring domestic lives and the carnage they see in their jobs. Here's a representative passage, told from the first-person POV of one of the detectives, Joe:

For a long time, it seemed as though there was always something else to take up the slack, keep me interested in life even when the job was dull. Getting married, for instance. Having kids. Moving out of the apartment out to Long Island. Those are like the mountains, and the valley is your dull everyday life.

It had been a long time between mountains.

Holy cow, is this a book for guys in mid-life crises ... which explains why I enjoyed it so much.

Finally, like everybody else, I have batters-up in a stack by my bedside table. Prose on deck includes Lucas Powe Jr.'s The Supreme Court and the American Elite and Stephen Prince's Firestorm: American Film in the Age of Terrorism. The new book on graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister (Made You Look by Peter Hall) looks insanely lavish. And my forthcoming GNs? The Brendan Burford-edited Syncopated collection, and Hannah Berry's Britten and Brülighty. Of the making of books there is no end...

You Have Killed Me

Back in late July/early August, Robot 6 was fortunate enough to feature independent comics industry veteran writer Jamie S. Rich guest-blogging with the group--partially in promotion of his and artist Joëlle Jones' You Have Killed Me, the 184-page hardboiled crime graphic novel released by Oni Press in mid-July. Rich, an established writer of prose and comics, recently ran circles (in a good way) around some questions I shot his way recently about his latest book. Enjoy, hopefully as much as I did.

Tim O'Shea: Back in 2006 in an interview with Tom Spurgeon you told him (about You Have Killed Me) "12 Reasons was going so well, I think we had only been working on it a couple of months, but I didn't want to lose her to anyone else, so I asked her if she would work with me again and what she would want to do, I'd write her anything. She said she wanted to do hardboiled crime, and since I had the same passion for it she did, I jumped at it, even though it scared me because it was so different from what I'm known for. She's challenging me in incredible ways I would never challenge myself." Can you discuss what ways this story challenged you?

Jamie S. Rich: Well, most immediately, it required some real plotting. Relationship stories like what I had previously been known for don't require as much careful planning, they have a natural flow, peaks and valleys that are tied to the rhythm of real life. It's often unpredictable, less structured, and there is no definite resolution beyond whether or not these people stay together. In a crime story, you have something that happened, and the discovery of how it happened has to be detailed and lead to the revelation of the truth or the punishment of the criminal. You can't just have a random stranger suddenly emerge and say, "Oh, yeah, this homeless drifter did it." I mean, you could, but a lot of people would call you out for cheating, that's not a good story. For You Have Killed Me, I had to concoct a trail for Antonio Mercer, the private detective, to folloq, and each step had to kick up new dirt and I had to keep all of that dirt ordered, even when false or a red herring. There are expectations of that kind of plot. Just as Chekhov said if there is a gun in the first act, it will go off in the third, if you need a gun to go off in the third, you might have to think about having it show up in the first. There is far less left to chance.

The other is just the notion that one must approach a thing he or she loves with a healthy respect. It's hubris tempered with humility. I look at the tradition of great crime stories, and I have to think I can somehow be a part of that tradition, and yet, it wouldn't suit me to denigrate it. To succeed at that bold bid to join the ranks, we had to rise to meet the quality of the pioneers who led the way. There are plenty of examples of mistagged so-called noir movies, for instance, that don't do that. Last year there was this film called Dark Streets that was a lot of empty style, operating with just a surface notion of a jazz-age tale. Or you see these things come out, I can think of a couple of recent comic book examples but shouldn't name any names, that are jokey about it. As a lifelong smartass, I can tell you for a fact that using ironic winks as the building blocks for your story is about the easiest thing you can do. It takes no skill, and it's easy to get by doing it. It's also very hard to be memorable, and that kind of material fades. We wanted to make a book that sticks around.

O'Shea: Do you have some dialogue lines just pop in your head and you store them to use down the road, or do lines like "You homicide cops, you have it lucky." just pop up naturally in the creation of the story?

Rich: It's a little bit of both. My brain is often working ahead of what is on the page, anticipating what is coming. I know, for instance, there is a line about lollipops that I wrote long before I got to the part in the story where it would fit. It came to me while I was thinking about other things and I had to write it down and file it away. Often, I either have a separate documents of random notes like that, or I might even have pages at the end of the manuscript where notes are laid out in a certain order, and when I reach them, I join those pages into the larger script. In fact, I have a leftover file from You Have Killed Me, the stuff that I never joined up with.

Other times it just comes from being in the scene. I feel a writer has to be willing to let things happen. Sometimes the worst lines are the ones I force, where I plug a hole where I know something snappy will do the trick. In the romance stuff, it actually comes when a character first meets his or her love, and trying to find something to describe that feeling. In Cut My Hair, it was something like how Mason wanted to jump in the air and bounce the moon off his head like a soccer ball. I remember that coming very easy, and some of the lines that came in later books landed with just as much ease, but sometimes it was a tough thing, trying to find something like the moon and the soccer ball, and it ends up like one of those millions of TV shows where the pilot is passed out and a person with no experience has to land the plane. I am the guy in the control tower trying to talk the line into existence, bring the metaphor in for a landing, step by step.

I don't specifically recall writing Mercer's line about homicide cops, but I think that's just one that came with the scene. It's late in the book, so by then I could really "hear" the voices of all the characters, and the writing had become like a conversation between them and me. Most of Spell Checkers is written that way. Like a good conversation in real life, one statement prompts a logical response.

O'Shea: Of the characters you wrote for this story, can you think of one or two characters who had a role that expanded beyond your original expectations when you first started building the tale?

Rich: The bartender was originally a one scene guy, then it became two, he was the natural person to give Kane a heads up that someone was looking for him and so he stuck around for that. Then he re-emerged again when I needed some kind of transition, and it felt right to have him both advocate a certain humanity on behalf of the crook, but also to ask Mercer to retain some of his own. It serves a very good purpose, I think, in that it shows Mercer making a tough choice. It also fit the emerging themes of family and the ties that bind, and Mercer's hard reaction to the same.

The doctor is the only other one, even though like most of the side characters, he only gets one scene. That scene became more meaningful than I had anticipated, both for myself and Joëlle, whose reaction to it was what actually made me realize there was something deeper there. She said she took special care in how she designed his look, because for her that scene was rather tender. She viewed Doc as Mercer's only real friend, he was lonely except for that. He might get along with Tynan, the head police detective, but it's adversarial and Tynan expects something from it. Doc comes to Mercer to help him because he believes Mercer deserves some compassion.

O'Shea: In terms of the structure, you and Jones utilize chapters for the story. You rarely see that in graphic novels. What motivated this choice?

Rich: Honestly, it's just the way I think. Just about everything I've done, be it prose or comics, has had chapters, including Love the Way You Love, which had the issues of the series but also chapters in each issue. I just think that using a chapter-based structures causes the authors to think more in terms of units and natural breaks in the story. It also gives the reader a moment to pause and adds impact to a scene. Like when a chapter ends with Mercer being knocked unconscious, it's much nicer to then have a page of nothing after, and we pick up with him when he returns home, having come out of the blackout. It's another tool we can use.

O'Shea: What is the advantage of writing a period piece--and on the flip side what are the challenges to writing a story in a different era and making sure you don't slip in modern day elements by accident?

Rich: I suppose the advantage is you don't have to worry about being current. You don't have to fear your story becoming outdated really fast. If you think about movies from the 1980s and 1990s that dealt with emergent computer technology and virtual reality and the like, they look hokey now, we can't imagine how anyone ever thought that tech would take such turns. Whereas at the time, they may have seemed cutting edge.

When it came to slang and things, I had to keep myself in check, had to consider what the characters were saying. I also had to consider certain social issues, some of which I decided to not get into, like Kane being black. I let that just be an unspoken part of the story, as this wasn't the right place to examine it without derailing what was happening. Given Mercer's background, though, as a child of immigrants and new money, I could see it being more important later. But even that we only hint at for Mercer in You Have Killed Me. A writer has to pick his battles and know what suits this outing, maybe let the reader fill in more. In some ways, I like the imposed structure of the time period, it makes me think in ways I might not otherwise, keeps me from falling back on my own tricks. One of the more disappointing scenes in Inglourious Basterds was the big preparation for the climax when Tarantino tosses in a David Bowie song, and it completely destroyed the mood he had otherwise created. He had been doing so well, he had gotten out of his box, and then he climbed right back in. Hell, I remember arguing with Chynna Clugston about her soundtrack choices for Blue Monday. She had a specific time frame in mind for the series, but then she'd toss in a Supergrass song that wasn't even recorded when she was in high school, and we had a disagreement over whether or not she could do that. Granted, years later in Love the Way You Love I would steal the same idea of a sort of specific timeframe, since the book allegedly happens at the same time as Cut My Hair, and I ended up breaking that in much the same way she did. But we were also both dealing with the immediate past, whereas Basterds and You Have Killed Me were both much further back.

O'Shea: I agree with you regarding Inglorious Basterds, but the moment that first derailed the storytelling for me was the scene introducing Hugo Stiglitz--complete with 1970s logo. Did that scene bother you as well?

Rich: Hugo Stiglitz was another sequence that bugged me. I liked the sequence itself, but yes, the logo and the voiceover were too self-indulgent. Maybe if we had stories about all the other Basterds in a similar vein, then it could have worked, but it was like an idea he brings up and then drops. The second voiceover sequence was bad, as well, particularly since all the info had kind of been explained in the dialogue immediately prior.

O'Shea: Not every book you work on warrants an art exhibit of its own. How pleased were you when the Art Institute of Portland and Meltdown Comics both hosted an "Art of Joelle Jones" exhibit--and how did that come together?

Rich: Leslie Waara at the Art Institute was fan and she actually got in touch with me for it because they had an open show month and thought maybe it would be interesting to bring a different kind of art into the space. It was very flattering and really neat to see comic art showcased in that context. The Meltdown show came out of that. They saw the news about the gallery display and asked if they could get the show when it was done. Given that they are, of course, one of the best-known and respected stores in the country, and that the shop is in a primary market like Los Angeles, we jumped at the chance. I'm still sad that the arrangement time didn't allow for me to go down there and be there for the opening night, but hopefully we'll get a chance to visit the store some other time.

O'Shea: Speaking of the art, can you select a favorite page? (For me, it's the page in chapter 6 when Mercer is looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, as he draws a bath for himself--and his image slowly disappears over three panels, while steam fills the room)

Rich: I like that page. In my head, I originally saw the next page as even better. Mercer wipes away the steam and in the reflection, the bathroom is the one that Julie disappeared from, and not his own. It was all kind of complicated, though, and when Joëlle thumbnailed it, she saw it wasn't going to work and went for the full-page instead. She was right, it was overly ambitious and cluttered. Comics writers sometimes have to remember that just because they can see something in their head, it doesn't mean it can be effectively communicated in a drawing.

For me it's probably page 63, though. That's the page of original art I kept from the book, it was the turning point page for me in the writing, and Joëlle captured it exactly like I imagined--sometimes what I see in my head can be effectively drawn, and sometimes I can even effectively communicate it. It's the page where Mercer is looking at the race track and amidst the blur of the horses, he sees the woman he is looking for, the missing girl, only to have his gaze diverted when he hears the scream of someone discovering another dead body. It's both a great looking page and an example of writer and artist being in sync.

O'Shea: I love the quirky elements you insert in a story-for instance how (and/or why) did you come up with your use of almonds for this story?

Rich: There wasn't a lot of thought given to that, it shows up in the first couple of pages and is part of a sense memory of the woman that Mercer loved and that he is now being hired to find, though here the sister of that woman is wearing her older sibling's perfume, which was meat to play with his head. I chose almonds because I both liked the smell and it's also got deadly connotations, a similar scent being a signifier of cyanide. So, for the readers who pick up on that, it's meant to make them think of the ex-lover as poison. If it didn't have that connotation for a reader, that was fine, too. I couldn't have Mercer make a point out of it, it would have been too obvious and maybe too self-aware for him, as well. I tried to approach the narration where he describes the smell as a stream-of-consciousness narration, just as it appears in the book. It's like a long monologue, really, and each detail flows into the next and there are themes recalled, clues revisited, a parallel to the mystery itself. I largely thought to do that because it would help me avoid the narrative cliche, and I also thought it was something that you could only do in comics. You can't write that kind of narration in prose, it would be too disjointed in this kind of story. Turns out you can do it in the movies, though. Matt Damon's narration in The Informant! is quite similar, even coming around to enter reality when the monologue runs out.

O'Shea: Given our shared appreciation for film, would you say certain movies helped inform (not necessarily influence per se) the tale?

Rich: Most definitely. Again, it's the nature of genre to look back at the foundation of said genre, to discern the tropes, etc. For me, the movies really influenced the rhythm of the writing as well as the visual thinking. I often suggested the light sources and how we might use shadows based on shot compositions from movies like Laura and Out of the Past and movies by Siodmak and Fritz Lang. At the same time, I thought about crime comics like Sin City and The Spirit and It Rhymes with Lust. I thought about Blacksad and Union Station by Parks and Barreto, The Damned by Bunn and Hurtt and Benkei in New York. Milligan's Human Target is a favorite, particularly for the main character, and of course Sandman Mystery Theatre.

Joëlle was actually the one more schooled in detective fiction, in the prose side of things, and we talked a lot about the expectations of the style. She had specific things she felt were important, such as Mercer getting clocked all the time. Every other chapter or so, someone has to knock him out. That makes him punching that mouthy cop really cathartic. I love how she drew that. POW!

O'Shea: Any chance Jones and you may do another tale with Mercer?

Rich: We'd like to. It's a matter of timing. I actually wrote a script in the months You Have Killed Me was being prepped and printed. I've been sitting on it, only Joëlle has it. It gets into some of those issues of class and race I mention above, gets into Mercer's past, and it also establishes who may be the regular cast, including return players. But nothing is set in stone yet. If Joëlle reads it and decides she hates it...well, if we do another book and it's nothing like what I just said, that's likely what happened. Ideally, I would like to do a series of Mercer books, four or five, but it's going to be at least a year before Joëlle even has time to consider it, so we'll really just have to wait and see.

O'Shea: Is it too early to start teasing folks about your upcoming Oni project, Spell Checkers (which has you working with Jones and Nicolas Hitori de)?

Rich: No, the cat's pretty much out of the bag on that. In fact, I'm actually writing the second volume of it right now. A good writer is always one step ahead of his artists, so I can't let Nico finish volume 1 without a script for volume 2 waiting for him. We have mapped out three books with Oni, and the first will come out in April, likely debuting at the time of the Chicago Comic Book and Entertainment Expo, which we all have tentative plans to attend, including Nico flying over from France. We're all really excited about the book. It's a rude high school comedy with magic, about three teenage witches who quite literally rule their school. They are mean girls with actual power, even if no one actually knows that they are using magic. Kimmie, Cynthia, and Jesse are wild children with abilities that exceed their learned social behavior, who have been able to do whatever they wanted since elementary school, and so they know how to manipulate the system and have a good time. In the first book, however, someone challenges their rule by spreading dirty graffiti about them, and it may be part of a magical curse.

Joëlle is drawing flashbacks that will give us the back story to these girls, while Nico draws the here and now. He's really talented, and though Joëlle and I came up with the central characters, he's really a full partner. We didn't want to go ahead with the book without her drawing it unless we found just the right person, and he is it.

His coming on board has given Joëlle the space to draw the Dr. Horrible one-shot from Dark Horse and do two issues of Madame Xanadu, which I believe are #19 and #20, January and February, so there will be lots of work from her leading up to Spell Checkers. I'm also in the planning stages with Mike Allred for a Madman special next year, featuring a new story by him and three short stories with talent we're excited by doing their fresh takes on the character. I have already recruited two awesome people. That should be on its way in the summer or thereabouts.

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

*****

Underground

Tim O'Shea: The first issue of Underground by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber hit the shelves this week. There's so much to like about this first installment of a five-part miniseries. But I find myself focusing one element of Parker's writing--his ear for dialogue. The core of the story has people of opposing views conflicting quite frequently and I love how the storytellers allow the word balloons to overlap and interrupt characters in mid-sentence.

I rarely read Bongo Comics, despite the fact I enjoy the show and typically respect the writers that work on the comics. But with the release this week of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror 15 (edited by Sammy "Damn Wasn't the Last Book He Edited Huge?" Harkham) features an amazing collection of indy creators (including Jeffrey Brown, Jordan Crane, C.F., Tim Hensley, Ben Jones, John Kerschbaum, Ted May, Will Sweeney, Matthew Thurber, and John Vermilyea). Each creator takes a unique take on the characters, but for me the strongest off-the-grid comedic horror vibe is captured (not surprisingly) by Kerschbaum in a straightforward two-pager "Three Little Kids."

I'm struggling to fully enjoy Hickman and Eaglesham's Fantastic Four. In the positive column is getting to see a world of many Reed Richards (even one that's fully bald/half doom and half ZZ Top; another that looks like he's 1980s Atari logo Reed; and Reed as Morrison's Seaguy) and Eaglesham's ability to convey emotion in Ben Grimm's rocky face. In the negative column, the tagline on the front cover: "...This morning, I helped kill a Galactus on Earth 2012." Has the status quo of Reed Richards been made so "modern" he takes pleasure, or at least seeming indifference, in killing villains?

I've really appreciated Matt Fraction's take on many of Marvel's characters, and he's really seemed to hit his stride with Dark Reign:The List--X-Men (Lord that title is a mouthful though). There's three or four pages of the team in battle that is the closest to recapturing the finest rhythm and kineticism of Claremont and Byrne's definitive X-run (the kineticism is thanks to the never-disappointing art of Alan Davis [inked by Mark Farmer]). That being said, as great as Fraction is with the X-team, his Namor is cracking snide lines in the midst of a fight. A few WAYRs back I spoke highly of Jeff Parker's approach toward Namor. So, if anybody at Marvel is reading this, you're seemingly leading toward giving Namor his own book again, please consider Parker and Davis teaming up for it.

Wednesday Comics #1

With Wednesday Comics having finished this week, I have to go back and read them again. And that's not going to be easy, as my son took a liking to the Metal Men arc. And when I say take a liking, I mean he took the issues apart, as he read and reread them (leaving the pages he did not like behind) --leaving me with a disorganized mess. It was only when I started trying to reconnect the issues that I realized, after the cover pages--there are no page numbers or issue number identifications on the interior pages. But I have a newfound desire to reread Paul Pope's pages in particular after finding out through CBR's interview that he was aiming for something Ditko-esque--rooted in Jungian influence and inspired by McCay’s Little Nemo pages.

In terms of music, I've got Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers' Levitate in heavy rotation on my CD player, along with Death Cab for Cutie's The Open Door EP.

Dark Reign: Ms. Marvel

Carla Hoffman: Believe it or not, I'm reading things. I bought the Dark Reign: Ms. Marvel HC on a dare from a customer who wasn't sure if it was going to be good and I honestly couldn't give him an answer. But seeing how hard Mr. Reed has been working on the character, I thought I'd give the book that switched main 'heroine' thanks to the new status quo. First part of the book, we're thrown into a Alias-esque super spy style story in which we lose Carol Danvers due to the theme of Brian Reed's run of 'I can't control my wacky powers'. The middle of the book is Karla Soften dealing with her new role within the Avengers and actually gets to be kind of entertaining, watching her deal with the public, her crazy boss and the fact she might have the psychological edge on them all.

And then we get reality-altering MODOK babies.

Any sort of seriousness I had given the book was lost. The rather deux-ex-mutant of 'Storyteller' (seen in the Ms. Marvel annuals) was fused with MODOK's giant brain DNA and now 25 or so babies in jars can warp reality to AIM's will.Everything had been so personal until then, a really good read and clever character development for Karla that her sudden need to 'save the babies' just lost me. The New Avengers show up, hell, Deadpool shows up, everyone fights for the babies and in the end, Carol Danvers can't be kept dead for too long. Yeah, I'd say skip this aside from a couple issues in the middle, or at least don't buy it in hardcover like I did

Fantastic Four 571

Unlike My Pal Tim(tm), I adored the horizonless Reed Richards consortium of geniuses ( I swear one of them was in Starfleet) and could have easily read this issue spread out better into a couple more installments of the weird cross-time-caper Reeds and all their kooky high science plans plus some more with the family who almost always get wasted in the face of the super sci-fi. I hope this high adventure grounds Reed once and for all on this whole 'fix everything' kick he's been on since Civil War because I'm tired of him lording his big ol' brain around and Hickman might just blow the lid of this thing once and for all.

Dark X-Men: the Confession as the weirdest Gift of the Magi as guilt trip seen yet. Or ever. Yes, Scott now knows that Emma worked with the Cabal! Yes, Emma now knows that Scott has a kill-death squad led by Wolverine and has generally been unsavory. "I ruied the Dream!" "No, I ruined the Dream!" "Oh, kiss me you fool!" The end. Playing fair, this is actually a pretty good intro comic for anyone wanting to jump into the main X-Men storyline right now as they recap a lot of the past year. So... there's that for $3.99.

Superman: Secret Origins

Tom Bondurant: Some prominent commentators (including Chris Sims and our own Chris Mautner) have called Superman: Secret Origin #1 "unnecessary," or something similar. That was also my reaction at first. However, it got me thinking: so far this is the third, or perhaps fourth, account of Superman's post-Crisis origin, and that's getting into Gospel territory. (Think of the slipcased-hardcover possibilities!) I mean, we started with the Book of John (Byrne), and a while back we had the Book of Mark (Waid). If you count Superman For All Seasons, I suppose there's a Book of Jeph too. Now, though, here's the Book of Geoff, which apparently aims to be definitive.

And so far, it's executed well. I've always liked Gary Frank's Christopher Reeve-inspired Clark/Superman, both because it's a fitting tribute to another "definitive" interpretation and because it's a good mix of the character's power and humanity. In fact, this issue is a very pleasant contrast to Frank (and inker Jon Sibal)'s work on Supreme Power's Dark Smallville. I found that book sterile and calculating, but here Frank and Sibal are warm and pastoral. For his part, Geoff Johns obviously intends to show how Clark overcomes this issue's discomfort with his powers, especially those heat-vision "eyejaculations" (tm Television Without Pity). That was a nice lift from the "Smallville" series, and I also liked how Johns handled Clark's nascent football ability. Still, that tornado was awfully convenient.

Secret Origin's larger story remains somewhat unclear, though, and that I think is where the true measure of necessity lies. I tend to prefer Waid (and artist Leinil Yu)'s Superman: Birthright to Byrne's Man of Steel because the former actually tells its own story while the latter is more a collection of vignettes. Ironically, Secret Origin's purpose may vary inversely with its necessity. If it's meant to stand alone on the bookshelf, it must tell us something about Superman we don't already know. However, if it's just another part of the great Superman plot-puzzle (as the "Secret Origin" arc in Green Lantern was), then I'll wonder why this needed to be its own miniseries.

Planetary

Earlier last week, I stayed up for about two hours Sunday night reading all of Planetary. I don't have anything insightful to say about the series as a whole, mostly because I'm waiting for Ellis and Cassaday's final issue. However, I stayed up for those two hours because each issue practically dared me to read the next one. Now I can't imagine waiting months or years between issues, because the thing moves so quickly.

On a completely different note, I finished Essential Spider-Woman Volume 2 a few hours before picking up Planetary. ESW Vol. 1 started off on very shaky ground, thanks to the character's scattershot background: she's a freak of evolution! She's a HYDRA agent! She's got a Camelot connection! To his credit, once writer Chris Claremont came aboard for most of the series' last quarter, he tried to pull these threads together; and those issues (drawn with quirky charm by Steve Leialoha) are probably the series' high point. Writer Ann Nocenti then wrote the series' final few issues, including a fourth-wall-breaking goodbye to the reader. Those issues weren't bad, but I've read enough middle-of-the-road superhero books to know when a writer is just wrapping things up. I don't dislike Spider-Woman, although the series (thanks to its eventual SoCal private-eye premise) seems firmly rooted in the 1970s, and I'm content to leave it there.

Matt Maxwell:

Elric of Melniboné

Elric of Melniboné
Roy Thomas, P. Craig Russell and Michael Gilbert, Tom Orzechowski
Based on the books by Michael Moorcock

I'll admit to not having read the original books, which I should rectify, if they're half as good as this adaptation. The real star is the artwork, by both P. Craig Russell and Michael Gilbert. It's perfectly stylized, yet not sacrificing style for expression. There's a lot of fear and uncertainty, gloating and triumph on these pages, and the linework doesn't miss a step in relaying it to the reader. You could easily skip the text altogether and still follow the story clearly, perhaps leaving out only a few subtleties.

Before this, I hadn't realized exactly how influential Moorcock's take on fantasy had become. Certainly, Tolkien reigns supreme as high lord of fantasy. But Moorcock, with his blend of treachery and addiction, of magic that takes more than it gives, of graceful empires that are doomed by their very design, his dark vision has its fingers deep in modern fantasy (particularly influential in what is debatably the most popular fantasy today, that being World of Warcraft, though not strictly a book, but has a subscriber base that most books would kill for).

Elric presents a compelling story, last in the line of fabled sorcerer kings, ruling over a civilization slipping into slow decline, never brighter than the day that Elric takes the throne. Fighting off the schemes of his ruthless cousin Yrrkoon and becoming a pawn of the Lords of Chaos, Elric only barely begins to understand the powers at play in Melniboné, and will not fully grasp them in time.

Recommended, though I'm not sure of its status in print now, the graphic novel that is. I read it in the edition published by First Comics in the middle eighties (making it one of the first collected graphic novels, well before The Sandman and the like). Someone may have picked up the reprint rights to this, but it might require some sifting through the used bins as well.

Other reads this week, Batman and Robin #3 (I await the return of Pyg), Agents of Atlas #10 and #11 (M-11 is THE GREATEST) and the first issue of the new Dominic Fortune miniseries (Howard Chaykin is a very bad man.)

Far Arden

JK Parkin: Far Arden by Kevin Cannon starts off as a zany fun adventure comic, and at some point morphs into something a bit more serious. And somehow, it works really well, I've decided, after contemplating it for a couple of weeks. It's actually kind of shocking how well it works, too, and how much emotional investment you realize you have in the characters when, well, stuff happens. I should probably read it again.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I was reading Peter & Max, the Fables novel by Bill Willingham. Despite the ending being a little bit telegraphed (at least if you're paying attention), I thought this was an excellent outing for Willingham and the Fables characters into the world of prose. I recommend it for anyone who is a fan of the comic or just likes new twists on old fairy tales, and I hope to see more of these in the future. I've also started re-reading the first couple of Fables arcs, which are being issued as a hardcover, and it's interesting to see how far the book has come, both in terms of the plot and how the characters have developed. And the first Farm story, which was the second story arc, is still one of the book's best.

And finally, the second Guardians of the Galaxy trade was every bit as fun as the first. Although it's billed as being part of War of Kings, there were no appearances by Inhumans or Shi'ar ... just more zany fun cosmic adventures.

On Stranger Tides

Philip Gelatt: I made a promise to myself that I was going to read butt-loads of science-fiction and fantasy novels during 2009. Sadly, with the year wrapping up, "butt-loads" has kind of turned into the far less impressive "half-butt loads." But this quest of mine has introduced me to an author named Tim Powers and he is swiftly becoming a personal favorite. He specializes in well-researched historical action-fantasy-sci-fi pieces, that include a big dosages of both the surreal and the mad cap.

Yeah, that's right: his books use every cool genre ever, mixed into one. And somehow he makes it all work.

Currently, I'm reading his On Stranger Tides. It is a pirate tale filled with Caribbean magic, large-scale ship-to-ship combat and so much swashbuckling. It focuses on a young pirate named Jack Shandy as he is caught between the plots of three powerful pirate captains, each possessing strong voodoo magic and nefarious intentions.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean (the movie) are both said to be loosely inspired by its heady mix of adventure, fantasy and high seas chicanery. Plus I'm getting an actual overview of the end of the pirate era in the Caribbean.

Oh and it has Blackbeard in it. And at one point he says "More blood salt than sea salt in the water tonight." And that alone, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

King City #1

On the comic book front, I just took my sweet time savoring every last panel of Brandon Graham's first issue of King City. I didn't read this title in its previous previous printing, so this is my first exposure to this strange sci-fi world. The larger format really suits Graham's artwork and he's made excellent usage of every square inch of this book, filling it with amusing extras and add-ons.

I've been a fan of Graham's work for awhile (via Multiple Warheads and his amazing blog), and the first issue of King City is not disappointing me in the slightest. It is, to my mind, exactly what science-fiction should be: bizarre, charming, visually stunning and chock full of wild ideas that need not be fully explained. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Also I want a cat like that, god damn it.

Rick Lacy:

Mouse Guard #1

Mouse Guard: This is the book that's currently on my nightstand. I fell for this book like a hot girl on Facebook I never met. It 's exactly the type of book I want to create… only with more Conan's and Madmartigan's. Not that mice aren't dauntless and bold, it's just not where my mind dwells. That being said, David Peterson has really created some interesting and compelling characters that are only a few inches high. My favorite parts of these books are the world building elements he uses. Everything from the mouse city of Lockhaven to the myth of the black axe to the "Moria" like caverns of Darkheather are all fully realized places. Places that I believe actually lurked under the roots of the woods in my old backyard. The supplemental work in this book is also very fascinating. It outlines the different roles of mice in the kingdom. The apothecaries! The medicines and armories! The working mouse elevators and the hierarchy. All well put together and creative. WITH MICE!

The City and The City: This is the latest novel from one of my favorite authors, China Mieville, It's a departure (somewhat) from his normal genre of "new weird" and focuses on crime drama. Though it is mixed with a good hearty amount of fantastic creativity, by building a realm in a modern time that's dotted with an alternate world of mystery. By that I mean, the crosshatched existence of two symbiotic cities Beszel and Ul Qoma that live side by side, but hold a very prejudice but checked border. To describe the elements within would take pages on pages! In my opinion, The City and the City is a fairly exhausting read, but Mieville proves yet again that he's a master of word-smithing by dictating a slew of different dialects, personas and interspersed societal agendas. For more of his work I highly suggest his Bas Lag series. Start with The Scar!

Joan

Joan: I picked up this manga series for wicked cheap at my local comic shop on a whim. It's gorgeously illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko in pen ink and watercolor, which was the initial reason I bought it. The story is a retelling of the Joan of Arc saga only with a different woman in the lead role reliving the same experience. I don’t entirely understand why the author didn’t just retell Joan of Arc, herself. Perhaps he wanted to have his own voice. The story is a variation on standard faire with uman rights, religion and loyalty to country taking the main stage. The huge draw, as I mentioned, is the art. The vistas and use of water coloring are beautiful. E very page is a masterpiece. I'll definitely seek out more of Yasuhiko's art.

Labor Days Volume 2: Just Another Damn Day: Yes, I know this is my own book! BUT! we just released this edition this weekend and I haven't seen a copy until now. So this one just got bumped up to the top of the list. I hope it holds up! We definitely pushed the boundaries on our own title in the pages of Volume Two and it's become closer, I believe, to what we wanted in our initial design. Volume three should be the coup de gras!

"CulturePulp," by Mike Russell

Mike Russell talks at length with artist Steve Lieber about collaborating with Greg Rucka on Whiteout, the just-released film adaptation -- it didn't fare well at the box office -- and what went into making the 11-year-old Oni Press miniseries: "I was a damned troll under a bridge. [laughs] I was just really unpleasant. I was solving new problems, and rather than feeling satisfied that I was solving new problems, I was getting angry because everything wasn't coming out perfect the first time I put a line down. I would spend 10 hours, 11 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours. I wasn't sleeping right. I wasn't treating myself right. But in the end, one decent page after another was coming off my table -- and it was the first time that I could really say that about my career."

Russell also transforms part of the interview into an entertaining comic.

by Annie Wu

Artist Annie Wu's mash-up of the Venture Bros. and Scott Pilgrim is just one of many pieces of fun artwork you can find on her blog.

Welcome to Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where the collections are shared and the eyes are dazzled. Our guest this week is Steve Flack of Brooklyn, NY. Steve recently moved into a new apartment, and just finished refurbishing it, comics collection and all. He's eager to take us on a tour of the place, so get your guidebooks and click on the link ...

My name is Steve Flack. I'm a big fan of the Robot 6 Blog, and I love the Shelf Porn installments. When you started them, I had started my move into my new place, and I really hoped they'd still be running when I finished my set up. Luckily, they are, and my apartment is all set up!

There's a little history here. I've been collecting comics and toys for as long as I can remember, and have been focusing on comics since I was 8. I recently decided to move back into my grandmother's place in Brooklyn. My great grandmother lived there until she passed away over ten years ago. Since then, my father used to keep his baseball collection in there, which was impressive shelf porn of it's own.

When I decided to move in there, a lot of work had to be done to the apartment, including heating and electrical work, tearing down walls, and painting. I documented the entire story over at my blog.

Surprisingly, everything was done over the course of a few months, and now, my setup is all done.

This is my living room, on the far wall, you can see the first of my major comic book bookcases.

In this one are my omnibuses, and absolutes. Along the top is a complete set of Marvel Mighty Muggs, and atop all that is a print of an animated style "Goonies" by animator Steve Silver.

Across from the couch is my TV set up, which is flanked by some great pieces I got over the years.

First up is a Mr. Incredible poster by Mike Mignola, that I was lucky enough to have signed by Mike and the film's director, Brad Bird.

To the right of the TV is a page from Local by Ryan Kelly, and a page from Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. In between the two is a great display case I picked up from Ikea, filled with some awesome toys and statues.

And all the way tp the right is an original Evan Dorkin page from his Bill & Ted comics.

And then, I have two signed prints from the first two MoCCA Artfests, and poster from a Neil Diamond concert rounding out my dining area.

Next up is a signed Matt Groening print from the Simpsons movie, that I picked up when I met him at a recent SDCC.

And then finishing up this room are two Muppets, one a replica of Kermit the Frog, and the other is a Muppet version of myself.

As you walk through into the next part of the apartment, you'll see my original David Mazzuchelli Batman head sketch on the door, my favorite piece of art I've ever bought...

In the next room is my major library. I bought way too many bookcases, but that'll be great for the future. For now, I just grabbed some older comics with fantastic covers, and propped them up with plate holders.

The far left bookcase is all graphic novels grouped alphabetically.

The next bookcases are all Essentials and Showcases. The Spidey comic on display is the very first comic book I ever got, a great book about Spidey from the very early 1980's. I got it signed by Stan Lee at the very San Diego Comic Con I ever went to.

Graphic novels continue to the next bookcase, followed by selected display comics.

Next up are anthologies...

And then books on comics and toys.

The next book case is comic strips, and then random books that are too big for other bookcases.

The final bookcase is all art books..

And then the final two shelves are books that I still have to read.

Running along the top are all original comic art I've picked up over the years. From left to right, it's a Detective Comics page by JH Williams, The Sentry by Jae Lee, Ultimate Spider-Man by Mark Bagley, Ex Machina by Tony Harris, Spider-Man's Tangled Web by Darwyn Cooke, and New X-Men by Frank Quitely. Better shots of these pages and all of my original art collection are up at my Comic Art Fan's Gallery.

Across from the bookshelves are two comic pages from my friend, Matthew Loux. Matt and I went to college together, and now he creates books over at Oni Press (F-Stop, Sidescrollers, and the Salt Water Taffy series), Matt and I have a deal, where he puts me in a cameo appearance in all of his books, and I then purchase the page off of him. Here are my cameos in F-Stop and Sidescrollers.

In the next room is my bedroom...

Across from the bed is my lone non-comics bookcase. It's a mixture of prose books, and books on film and television. Also, running across the top is my collection of Muppet action figures.

Now, there's another spare room to the left left of the bookcase...

And in there are all of my single issues!

To the left of the boxes is my misc. filing shelf, filled with books I need to read and file, and boxes of mini-comics. As well as some pieces of art, including original work by Charles Burns and Jim Mahfood.

And across from the comics is my DVD collection.

So, that's my place. I hope this entry wasn't too long (I even left some stuff out, that could all be seen on my blog).

Thanks for listening!

The "Scott Pilgrim" cast, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Bryan Lee O'Malley has unveiled a fantastic poster of the Scott Pilgrim cast -- comic, not movie -- that pays homage to the 1997 flyer for Capcom's Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix.

You Have Killed Me

by Jamie S. Rich, with art by Joëlle Jones

The comic book creative process is a mysterious, fascinating thing to both fans of comics and non-fans alike. People always want to know how a writer/artist team works. What comes first? The images or the words? How much detail does the writer demand in the script? How involved is the artist in plotting?

So, to clear some of this up, I decided to pick a four-page sequence from the middle of You Have Killed Me and show you the script pages side by side with the final art.

When planning a job, there are only a handful of basic steps. We begin with the germ of the idea, which generally gets discussed between Joëlle and I before I move on to Step 2, which is basically laying down notes. I am not a heavy outline guy, nor do I create detailed synopses. Usually I just keep a running computer document full of ideas that I can pull from whenever I need to. That also includes stuff that I might put into my Moleskin and then transfer to the computer. Later notes will usually be put into the script itself, either as a space marker or ahead of the last page I’ve written.

The script is Step 3. I write a pretty detailed page-by-page, working in full script format. With each successive collaboration with Joëlle, my level of description gets less and less exact, and I leave far more open to her. I rarely call out panel size, though I have been known to suggest a layout when I see something clearly. I usually end up thumbnailing 25% of the pages myself, it’s an excellent writing tool if a particular scene is proving troublesome, but I never show those thumbnails to the artist. I prefer to let my partner roam.

If there is a detail that is particularly important, I will emphasize it. I don’t play any cat-and-mouse games in my script. You can’t tell an artist that a shadowy figure is going to attack your private detective and then not tell her the identity of said shadow, because one assumes that this person’s silhouette would be the same shape as they are. Likewise, I have to lay props early, and so as I was writing You Have Killed Me and realized that on page 76 I needed a bottle to konk someone on the head, I double-checked that the first time we saw that room on page 41, the bottle was there, even if the reader isn’t going to notice it. (Hypothetically speaking, of course. Page 76 is actually a flashback.)

These pages from You Have Killed Me, pages 82 through 85, should give a pretty good example for the way, as a writer, I lay the scene, and how as an artist, Joëlle grows the material from there. I give a lot of descriptions of things that we don’t need to see, and stuff that maybe can’t even be drawn. The idea is to create the frame, set the mood, and move the pieces around, but to let Joëlle direct the reader’s eye through a scene as she sees fit. I don’t think I’ve ever made her go back and do something closer to how it was written, even when a change might frustrate me (I don’t even need the fingers on one hand to count those instances, though). I try to forget what was in the manuscript and see her drawings as if it were the first time the story is being told to me. Surprisingly, I’ve never had to rewrite dialogue to fit what she’s done, she never indulges on a flight of fancy that leaves the story behind.

Note when comparing script and finish product that there are moments where Joëlle stays very close to what was written, and moments she goes a different way. The first two pages are pretty close to the original script, though she does edit. Dropping the tray of chips from the third panel of the second page is a good example of deleting an unnecessary detail. Likewise, when she starts to deviate from the script on page 3, she saw correctly how Mercer’s false disguise probably wouldn’t work on the page. Fans of the Howard Hawks’ adaptation of The Big Sleep might see how I am borrowing from the bookstore scenes in that movie, when Bogie puts on glasses and flips the brim on his hat to pose as an effete book collector. The banter between Mercer and the girl is also inspired by that scene, and I would even rip it off again in the very next chapter. When Mercer goes to the hall of records in City Hall, I described the girl working the counter so that she would ultimately look like that lady bookseller. Though I never told Joëlle to reference that, she got it just right.

So, what does Joëlle do to replace Mercer’s hat and collar shenanigans? Makes the scene sexier! You’re not going to hear any complaints from me, that’s for sure.

You Have Killed Me, Page 82

You Have Killed Me, Page 83

You Have Killed Me, Page 84

You Have Killed Me, Page 85