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I just sat down and re-read thru the new Love and Rockets issue. Shame on you, True Believer, if you haven’t already dog-eared this one. Please, please order this one today and thank me for urging you to do so. As Mr. Heer has already pointed out on this site – Jaime Hernandez has outdone himself. I mean, I’m a cynical super fan at times who often believes he’s “seen it all” and then something like L ‘n R New Stories #3 comes out and just slays me. And like I said, if you haven’t read this one yet – shame on you. I’m talking to you in your pajamas in the front row. Go click around the internet or put some clothes on and hoof it down to ye olde comics shoppe and buy this one. Do it now!

I’m struck by how Jaime lets the story dictate the layout and the pace. I’m gonna try and walk you through, so follow along with me… if you haven’t read the new issue, stop here. I may possibly ruin some plot points for you. Fair warning. (more…)

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Hey there. I am traveling this week and do not have access to a scanner. So that means I can’t really continue my grid talks. Forgive the interruption, True Believers. However, while driving, I pondered many topical goings on in comics. Here are my notes:

-I really liked Seth’s new Palookaville comic book. The story in the back is an interesting example of grid layout. It feels very natural and unaffected. I also liked the story because it seems to me that he is purposely playing around with public assumptions about himself and the genre of autobiographical comics. (Yes, indeed, I believe that autobio comics are a genre with their own conventions and tropes). (more…)

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IF 6 WAS 9

Let’s look at 9-panel grids in North American comics. When I think of the 9-panel grid I invariably see Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man page layouts in my mind. Then I see Watchmen. Both stuck to 9-panel grids for the most part. And I think the center panel – the panel that doesn’t exist in a 6-panel grid – is where some of the power comes from in these works.

If I flip randomly to a page of Watchmen and let my eyes scan the page, usually I look straight at the center – and often that center panel is representative of the whole page. It’s like an anchor. Also, the artist (Dave Gibbons) never gives up the center of the page when he uses a different layout. Never! He never has a center tier that has a vertical gutter in the direct center of the page. I really think this is part of Watchmen‘s visual power. When I flip through the book, my eyes just go from center of page to center of page and I feel more enveloped by the story and by the world created. (more…)

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DOIN’ THE CHESTER
Howzitgoin’ CC faithful!? Good? Good. This week we are studying the evolution of Chester Brown’s grid layouts in Yummy Fur issues 19, 20, and 21. Seriously. What? You don’t have these comic books in your collection? What? How old are you? It’s okay. I know it’s hard to collect comics. But you gotta try. For me. You can have a better sense of the maker’s intent if you dig up the original issues. Track these comics down. They are essential reading. Yummy Fur #19 contains “Helder” and issue #20 contains “Showing Helder” both of which are collected in The Little Man from Drawn and Quarterly. We will also be looking at Yummy Fur #21 which contains the first chapter of The Playboy (originally called Disgust). FYI comparing Chet’s original comics with the eventual collection is a sport in and of itself. Things change and rearrange. (more…)

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PITTSBURGH SCENE REPORT
This weekend! If you are within driving distance of this show, you are commanded to attend.

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BREAKING NEWS DEPARTMENT

According to Bill Boichel of Copacetic Comics, this new comic – Archie 1 The Dawn of Time – is the first time he has ever seen Harry Lucey credited by Archie Comics. I think he may be correct. Even the 60’s collection published recently did not credit Lucey (See Bill’s listing of the collection at his store’s site for details). Could Archie Comics be waking up to the fact that there has been some sort of outcry about this?

Things that make you go “hmmm”.

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Welcome to CC’s weekend edition with yours truly, Frankie the Wop. This week I’m gonna walk you through my pickled brain. Below is something I wrote in my notebook. I’m obsessed with comic book layouts.

GIVING UP THE CENTER
I’m a big fan of the grid in comics. Meaning, I like to read comics that employ a fixed grid of some sort to sequence the panels. Grids in North American comics usually look like this:

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I found this list written in my notebook. It was a cheat sheet for an interview on Inkstuds. We ran out of time before I could get to these riffs, so I am posting them here before they become too stale.

-Webcomics are good for gags only/contained stories for that screen, that day. They work like one pagers essentially; serialized stuff does work in theory but I’ve only read a few I actually like.

–Jim Rugg discussion about imaginary audiences. Jim’s always talking about finding the audience who would read zombie comics or something popular and trying to devise schemes to get them to be his readers “How do you tap into these people cuz you know they would love this kind of story I’m doing” – Ed Piskor does same and finds that real/imaginary audience.

-Jesse Moynihan did the most amazing comic online but no one talks about it – if it was a book and laying around in the store, maybe people would write/talk about it more? (more…)

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Howdy folks! Welcome to CC‘s weekend edition. So, I bet you’re wonderin’ how can I transition back to riffing on romance comics after two weeks of SPX tunes? Well, see at SPX, me and Heidi MacDonald were talking about Marie Severin. We were looking at a Tales to Astonish cover (#98) and trying to figure out who inked it. Bill Boichel said Severin inked it. And then Jaime Hernandez said Dan Adkins inked it. Heidi looked it up on her phone. It was a fun little game. One that we used to play at comics conventions in days of yore. Try it – you might like it and hey! if it ain’t your thing, that’s fine! I’ll be right here. Talkin’ to Jaime. (more…)

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Well, well, well, looky what I found in the quarter bin at the secret comics warehouse in western Pennsylvania. This is the first ever SPX anthology from 1997. Remember when they did these for each SPX from ’97 to, what, 2005? I remember when this book was being organized. I was living in San Francisco at the time. Out there we had APE, which had just started up a couple years earlier (still going as a Comic-Con event). Is the cover of this SPX comic making fun of APE? I thought that back then. I also remember that I wanted to go to SPX but it was too far – and being in the comic seemed weird if I wasn’t going to go. That was the year, 1997, when I really felt like SPX was taking off. It was exciting back then to think of like minded folks in comics getting together outside of San Diego and outside of longbox conventions. Boy, times have changed. I still get excited by small press fests, but now there’s one every month somewhere it seems, right? (more…)