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The best surprise of 2010’s ongoing orgy of comics history is Tom De Haven’s Our Hero: Superman on Earth. De Haven, already notable in comics for his Derby Dugan trilogy, which tracked a fictional character and his creator(s) through 20th century comics history, as well as for some excellent writing on Chester Gould, among other topics, has constructed a funny, incisive and warm account of Superman-the-character, and the men who made him in comics, film and television. The central question here is, “What, if anything, has Superman meant, and does the character still mean?” This could be a weight around the narrative, but instead allows De Haven plenty of room to nimbly explore all the facets of the character. De Haven is a wise and self-effacing guide, admitting to a childhood love of Superman, an adult disinterest, and that mortifying moment in 1992 when he stood in line to buy the “Death of Superman” comic book.  (more…)

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The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis no. 22, page 1, 1963

Boy, when Bob Oksner wanted you to know something he just came right out and told you, huh? jpeg mercilessly swiped from Romitaman. If I was a rich man I would buy, frame and stare at this all day while thinking about the meaning of manhood, femininity and comic books.

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Well here we are in 2010 and there is a new book called The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker, by Robert L. Bryant, Jr. One hundred and twenty-eight pages full of decent black-and-white reproductions of Colletta-inked artwork, a good bit of Kirby pencils, and some very astute before-and-after comparisons.

For the uninitiated: In the wondrous world of superhero, etc., comic books there were and are pencillers and inkers. The pencillers drew the story in pencil, rendering to greater or lesser degrees. The inkers would then draw on top of those pencils in ink, thus preparing the page for photography. Inkers overlaid their own drawing style on whomever they were working over. Some inkers faithfully executed, in ink, the intentions of the penciller; others rendered those intentions in their own style. And still others just drew what they viewed as most essential and moved on as quickly as possible. Inking is no mean feat. (more…)

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Dark Horse has recently published two fine and nicely obscure reprint volumes. The first I’ve been neglecting for a while, but not for lack of love. It’s the complete John Carter of Mars by Jesse Marsh. Yep, 114 pages of Mars action by the Dell master himself. The three 1952-3 comic books reprinted within are among my favorite Marsh works, since the material so readily lent itself to Marsh’s obsessions with modernist forms and contemporary art. (more…)

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Young Lions, by Blaise Larmee, is the story of a three-artist performance group comprised of Alice, a wealthy snob, Wilson, a didactic leader, and Cody, who is dreamy and less ambitious. The book opens with Cody saying, “Our conceptual art group is not going as planned.” Later, there’s a party. Cody and Alice go to “The New Museum” and enjoy it. At a performance the trio meets Holly, who is presumably a non-institutional being who nearly becomes a fourth member, but serves to illuminate to character and audience the inner lives of the three primary members. She is an ethereal muse. The crew travels to Florida; they fail at a quasi-Spiritual act; on a walk, Alice remarks how much better her experience would be if it were in a museum; Holly is left behind; they return to normal life. The book is well paced and nicely drawn in pencil, smudges and detritus left in, rendered somewhere between CF and Jockum Nordstrom (the topic of another debate: right down to the lettering style, it’s a lot of CF, but who cares? Influence is inevitable. Four years ago it was Brinkman. There will be others.); it is frequently beautiful, especially when Larmee allows himself to render a detail: a lamp on page 25, or Cody and Alice languid and relaxed on page 51. (more…)

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Lo! It has come to pass. We are pleased to announce the winners of our fierce Comics Comics Thor Know Prize Contest. As you will remember, the job was to re-color this pathetic little jpeg. The Comics Comics faithful poured forth with a fervency rarely seen on these servers. We present you with the ten best of the best, in no particular order (because that would be an epic task unworthy of Asgardians). After some dithering, we declare Jim Rugg the winner, and recipient of his very own Thor comic of dubious vintage!

Jim Rugg

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Here’s your official reminder about the first ever Comics Comics “Know Prize”, with a harsh deadline of Wednesday, July 21, 11:59 pm PST!

We ask you, the Comics Comics readership, to re-color this picture (above) from the Thor movie. Just click on the image for a larger version. Put your Photoshop skills to the test!

Here again are the rules:

-All submissions are due by Wednesday, July 21 at 11:59 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

-72 dpi RGB jpegs only.

-Email to: knowprize (at) comicscomicsmag (dot) com, subject line: Know Prize; please include your full name and mailing address.

-Selection process will be based on strictly frivolous opinions.

-The winners receive: Vast exposure on this, the internet, AND a Thor comic book of variable quality mailed directly to you by Frank Santoro.

-On Friday morning, July 23, the day of our sure-fire Eisner Award win, we will post the top 10 submissions.

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Every now and then I feel compelled to make sure you, the CC faithful, are aware of what’s going on over at PictureBox. This is one of those times. You want fusion? Criticism? Porn? We have it all.

Dig this, and don’t go crying to Santoro if you miss it all:

–Comics by Carlos Zefiro, a mid-century Brazilian cartoonist who makes Raymond Pettibon look like a wussy.

-Deeply underground material from the 1970s, like Book of Dreams by John Thompson (signed with drawings!) and Inner City Romance by Guy Colwell.

-Evidence of a burgeoning obsession with Italian comics maestro Magnus, in the form of a jaw dropping retrospective book and a very cool edition of Necron.

–Graphic novels from the golden 80s.

-And of course, a gorgeous silkscreen and flocked print by Sir Tim Hensley and a new Jimmy Corrigan story by Chris Ware.

It’s like our very own Comic-Con! But less crowded and more fun. Don’t forget our comic strip, True Chubbo, multiple blogs, and the enchanting “Daily Yokoyama”.

Now back to your regularly scheduled reading.

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For most of Jacques Tardi’s newly translated book, It Was the War of the Trenches, I was stuck thinking “it is what it is,” while moving from one deadly stack of horizontal panels to another. It’s a book that pounds on those stacks with such blunt force – such unbelievable seriousness – that all you can really do is recognize that Tardi knows that, yes, it was what it was. That war – it was horror.

While matter-of-fact about the regularity and objectivity of the gore, Tardi does not fetishize the “common.”  He never goes in for the dramatic “gravitas” of my paragraph above: It’s a simple fact for him, but one shot through with a million stories of young men stumbling into death. We hardly learn what is being fought for, or who is even fighting, as It Was the War of the Trenches is comprised of a series of short stories, each focusing on relatively microscopic and isolated events in time during World War I. The soldiers are French and German, mostly, though it hardly matters. Replacing the usual macro-war narrative is the fight and the death. Tardi quite literally inflicts tunnel vision here: every panel is composed as though we’re moving right into it with blinders on – a face in profile framing a view, sad-eyed soldiers staring out from the page, an explosion demolishing the foreground. It’s a deceptive style as well, since the panels at first appear static – too resolutely composed – but then details emerge (a torn trouser and raised foot signaling the demise of Pierre on page 96, for example) to humanize the conflict and wipe away the filter between you and it. (more…)

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That’s right, this is the first ever Comics Comics “Know Prize.” We ask you, the Comics Comics readership, to re-color this picture (also below) from the Thor movie. Just click on the image for a larger version. Put your Photoshop skills to the test! Or be like Frank and hand-color 17 layers of color separations and have some poor guy scan them for you. Whatever. Not just for Thor fans! Professional artists: We are calling you out. That means you and you and you!

Here are the rules:

-All submissions are due by Wednesday, July 21.

-72 dpi RGB jpegs only.

-Email to: knowprize (at) comicscomicsmag (dot) com, subject line: Know Prize; please include your full name and mailing address.

-Selection process will be based on strictly frivolous opinions.

-The winners receive: Vast exposure on this, the internet, AND a Thor comic book of variable quality mailed directly to you by Frank Santoro.

-On Friday morning, July 23, the day of our sure-fire Eisner Award win, we will post the top 10 submissions.