Revisiting the 2009 TCAF Mainstream/Alternative Comics Panel
by Dash Shaw
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Robin at Inkstuds was kind enough to have the TCAF panel Frank, Robin, Robert Dayton, Dustin Harbin and I participated in transcribed by Squally Showers. He sent me the transcription a few weeks ago and I finally got around to reading it.
Frankly, I thought this panel sucked, due to nobody in particular’s fault. But I think most panels are meandering and boring despite having intelligent moderators and participants. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations. Anyway, I’m just going to excerpt sections of it here and intersperse it with some new commentary.
I wasn’t sure what the point of the panel was and, reading the transcription now, I don’t think anybody knew what the point was. If the point was to hear Frank speak enthusiastically about Kirby and Steranko, it succeeded and that’s definitely an enjoyable, worthy reason to attend a panel. No joke.
But I fear that the panel was interpreted as a statement that “alternative” cartoonists having affection for “mainstream” comics is noteworthy or unusual or “new” somehow. It’s not. “Alternative” cartoonists bemoaning the abundance of boring, mundane mostly-autobio work is a false feeling to me. There are a lot of autobio “real life” stories, but they’ve always been dwarfed by the pseudo-“mainstream” genre work, even outside of Marvel and DC. Look at Oni Press and Slave Labor Graphics and Antarctic Press and Caliber Comics and Tundra and on and on. Look at the Hernandez Brothers. Look at the wave of alternative comics in the nineties… Zot (which somehow looks both really dated and also pre-Tezuka reprint boom ahead-of-its-time), Bone, Kabuki (don’t forget that Scarab spin-off series!), Madman, THB (fucking Escapo! still lookin good a decade later,) etc.
When I was a student at SVA in the early ’00s I was mostly hanging out with the Meathaus guys and almost all of them were doing “alternative” sci-fi/fantasy/horror/whatever genre comics. Some later did more “alternative”-leaning books for DC or Vertigo. Tomer Hanuka did Bipolar (the last issue of which was essentially a Bizzaro World Aquaman story) and later did the Midnight Mass covers for Vertigo. And, of course, Farel Dalrymple did the great Omega Man the Unknown series after doing his solo, surreal Pop Gun War series that, aesthetically, is in the post-Marvel House Style world similar to Jim Rugg (Street Angel from Slave Labor). Even Thomas Herpich’s (who I adore) second book was mostly science fiction short stories. Meanwhile the amerimanga artists at Tokyopop and Oni were doing sci-fi/romance/fantasy comics.
There’s been wave after wave of “alternative” comics with ties to “mainstream” comics from the ’80s to today, unaffected by some horrible glut of boring real-life comics that people complain about. I’m not saying that those books don’t exist (they do). I’m saying that I don’t think there’s been a point where one genre was threatening to extinguish the other.
Frank Santoro: Is everyone … I’m going to talk as if everybody knows what I‘m talking about. If you don’t know what I‘m talking about, please interject at any time. But basically, it’s like Kirby of course created Captain America, the Fantastic Four, but then in the ‘70s, when he went back to Marvel, he was doing these really crazy books like 2001, which was essentially based on the movie. But by issue 5 it had nothing to do with the movie. [laughter] What’s really interesting about this comic is … can you scroll ahead a couple of things … it starts off as this crazy battle and—couple of more?—and he goes to The Source which is, if you remember 2001, the black monolith. I call it The Source. [Robin laughs] Can you scroll ahead one more time? He’s coming out of this battle—one more, one more—and then it’s just like it’s all—keep going one more, a little more, a little more. [murmurs of dissent.] Where’s the locker room?
Robin McConnell: Oh, it didn’t make it in.
Frank: Oh bummer. Well, anyway, it’s like a game. It’s basically like, was it Heroesville?
Dash Shaw: Comicsville.
Frank: Comicsville. So it’s like a game. It’s like a virtual reality game. So this whole episode in the beginning is just this game but it’s like to me, it was this treatise on Kirby’s idea of what being a hero is or was. It’s a game. It’s like a sport. I think it was transparent about what all his comics are about. To me, this particular comic wraps it all up, I horde this comic whenever I see it in the bargain bins. A lot of people don’t like this late style, but I think this is the kind of style that I think is carrying on. It’s still, I think, very fresh. It’s not like his old stuff. It’s really different. I think it’s really ahead of the curve and I’m running out of steam.
Robin: When did this come out in comparison to the New Gods stuff?
Frank: This was after the New Gods stuff. So this is post-DC. He got canned from DC. All of his DC books got canceled. Then he went back to Marvel. This was around the time he was doing The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, the Captain America/Black Panther stuff. Anybody who read that Captain America—Madbomb, those issues. Those are really great. Anybody else want to riff on [inaudible, 2:47]
Robert Dayton: You know what I find really interesting about his 2001 stuff is it’s almost like a mantra. You buy every issue and as a kid you probably feel ripped off, because every issue goes exactly the same. At the end of the issue, a caveman or someone back in time, meets the monolith. The End. Next issue: Same thing. It’s almost like reading Gerald Jablonski’s comics. It becomes like a mantra. It’s just repetition. It’s kind of fascinating reading each and every issue, because even the series, like basically he did a Treasury edition of 2001.
Dash: Yeah, it’s insane.
Robert: Which is insane. It’s massive. It’s huge. It’s gorgeous.
Frank: It’s beautiful. You know those oversized treasuries? Remember those things from the ‘70s? It’s an adaptation of the movie, right?
Robert: Yeah.
Frank: But it’s totally different. It’s Kirby-style. It makes no sense.
Dash: He got some production stills from the movie that you can see that he directly swiped from.
Frank: Yeah!
Dash: And then he just connected it with like just Kirby stuff.
Frank: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert: And Kirby was such a collage artist, too. So in the Treasury edition, there’s all these crazy collages.
Dash: The sequence right after this where it moves into the reality is really nice, too, because the reality turns out to not … I don’t know if …
Frank: Yeah, well see, he’s playing this game.
Dash: This isn’t real. Like sometimes when I …
Frank: Like self-heat chicken dinner? He lives in this giant apartment complex and then it’s just this thing. It’s Mountain Air.
Dash: But that beach scene isn’t real.
Frank: So it’s all Matrix! It’s like Matrix. It’s all … but like pre- … whatever, go ahead. [laughter] Go ahead. Go ahead.
Dash: I was going to say when you flip through a lot of these comics, my first reaction is these are way too wordy. I don’t know. Do you have that feeling?
Robin: They’re wordy, but …
Dash: But then in this sequence, you flip through it and you think that “This is actually real,” but all of the text is about how none of this, “This isn’t a real seascape” and everything like that. It’s a juxtaposition.
Robin: Do you find this is one of the more Kirby doing a better job of mixing the two.
Dash: Well, he wrote these, too.
Robin: Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying. Sometimes the story isn’t as strong as the art.
Frank: Well, I think the story is equally as strong as the art. I mean … go ahead.
Dash: Well, I don’t think he would do this the Marvel style if he was doing it for himself. Right?
Frank: Right.
Dustin Harbin: I would have thought with the wordiness that this was in the Marvel style. Because the story looks so clear with that page layout and then all these words were kind of scotch taped on top of it. Which is kind of the Marvel style …
Frank: Well, he wrote, all of Kirby’s stuff, you look at the originals in like the Kirby Collector or whatever, all of his stuff, he has all of the dialogue written in the sides or the back and then Stan or whomever just kind of cleaned it up a little bit. So I think that he’s still doing it in that style, in that way, because I think Mike Royer edited these also, so he helped clean them up. But for me, this was a real gateway comic—just to go back to the main thrust of the panel. It’s like, I was really into Kirby but this was way out there. I didn’t like his ‘70s style. I thought it was really wack and I hated it for a long time. It took me a long time to get into it. But to me, this starts heading into this alternate world. I don’t want to say alternative comics, but it’s just so different from what he had been doing for the 20 years previous that, like I feel like this is what ends up influencing the current generation. So …
It’s hard to read this and not think of Mazzucchelli, both since Asterios Polyp came out recently and he’s one of the kings of the “mainstream”/”alternative” fusion artists. Polyp has some stellar examples of this. My favorite sequence in the book is when Polyp, the “paper architect,” builds a tree house. I told Mazz I loved this scene and he said: “Kirby.”
Or how about this Steranko-esque film still-like panel of Asterios and Hana at the beach, pausing in silhouette, below. I like the melodrama of it. It’s ballsy.
Frank: The Escape Artist. Yeah, so Steranko, after Kirby—Kirby was a big deal in the ’60s, but then in the late ‘60s, there was this guy who was really kind of like the new regime was Jim Steranko, James Steranko. He took Kirby’s style and made it really design-y and really modern.
Robin: Deco pop, almost.
Frank: Deco pop is a good way of describing it. This particular story on the right, this is Bernie Krigstein from the late ‘50s and this is a Steranko story from the early ‘70s and a horror comic from Marvel. Can we click ahead one? And you can see he’s doing all these really wacky layouts and stuff like that. It’s not very … like this face is very Kirby to me and a lot of the figures are very Kirby, but as Dash likes to point out if you think Kirby’s anatomy is messed up, Steranko’s is even more messed up. He’s just doing it. So a lot of these figures are really cut-out figures and stuff. But he’s doing a lot of things with time that hearken back to what Krigstein was doing in the ‘50s.
Dash: The Krigstein comic is “The Master Race,” that Spiegelman likes so much to talk about. He did an article in The New Yorker about it.
Robin: Yeah. I think he first did an essay back in [inaudible, 11:14]
Frank: See, this is the subway going by and all the figures going by fast. He’s breaking up the time like way differently. I mean, this is ’59 …
Robin: This is earlier than that.
Frank: Really?
Dash: I want to hear Frank … you called this cinematic before, those panels. I’ve heard that used a lot. I don’t know if you used it.
Frank: Did I say that?
Dash: Why do you think people call those kind of panels, tall …
Frank: Oh, the tall panels. Because it breaks up the time differently. I think it’s a way of like Kirby is all about it’s not instantaneous moment to moment. It’s more like every ten seconds or something. You see the punch, then you see the reaction. But he’s doing every … this is like five seconds or whatever. This is like an instantaneous thing. Cinematic … I think so, but it’s just more like … Steranko’s cinematic in the sense of his framing, I think. His framing is way more …
Dash: If you scrolled, those long horizontal things like this.
Frank: Oh this. Yeah. Well, I think that’s cinematic because in the late ‘60s, everybody went panorama in the ‘60s, so it’s like your eye, I think, is going across these panels.
Robin: It’s kind of like the whole Orson Welles …
Frank: Deep focus.
Robin: That long …
Robert: The pan. You know what I was thinking? I was looking at these and speaking of cinematic, I was really thinking that Steranko’s a lot like Brian De Palma. That’s because both De Palma and both Steranko, for a lot of reasons, actually, they both use a lot of genre tropes. Like this is an old dark house kind of story. Also, De Palma would always make you conscious that you were watching a film and I think Steranko makes you really conscious that you were reading a comic. That’s what the framing—I mean, De Palma would use a lot of split screen and you see the way things are divided up here. Also, the way that they acknowledged the old masters: Steranko acknowledging Krigstein and Kirby and De Palma acknowledging Hitchcock, most especially.
Something that Jeet Heer touched on previously on CC, and was also asked at the TCAF panel, was how necessary it is for readers to track or be interested in artist’s influences.
Audience member: [inaudible, 45:45-] I mean, there is value to knowing stuff. It’s okay, but if you just want pleasure and it doesn’t matter to you and you’re getting the pleasure and something’s hitting the pleasure button and you don’t know that it’s just a third generation knockoff, then it’s okay. At the same time, if you want to be an informed reader … [continues]
Dash: I think if you’re coming to this panel, you want to be an informed reader.
Audience member: … reading the best work …
Robin: The main thing is you enjoy comics. Let’s see what that person enjoyed.
Robert: If you like this, you might like this.
Robin: That’s exactly it. Without being commercial thing like DC’s, “You like Watchmen, here’s the next thing to read.” You like Brandon Graham? Read Moebius, you’ll love it if you haven’t read Moebius. That’s kind of the conduct of people who love this stuff and reading it is rather important. There are so many comics to read, and people don’t really know that. And good luck at finding this stuff for an affordable except for the horrible Incal reprints that are re-colored.
Personally, I don’t think it’s necessary for readers to be informed about this stuff. It’s only of interest to people who care. But, I think the big “trickle down” effect IS interesting. I care. Not for an “I know who’s ripping off of who! Ha ha!” annoying reason, but because it’s telling a wider story about the psychology of artists. If you’re someone who’s interested in that, it’s worth tracking what was coming out when, or who was reading what when, because the “trickle down” effect over time is more exciting, to me, than holding a romantic belief that everyone’s working in a vacuum devoid of influences. All of the artists struggling to reach that “vacuum”/influence-less state are revealing in their own way.
Obviously, I don’t think people should feel that artists are handed a menu of what came before them and starting ordering things (“I’ll have a little bit of Kirby sprinkled with Sol Lewitt, please”), and I don’t think people should feel artists are necessarily having a conversation with other artists exclusively (“Ware did this, so I went the other way.”) The motivations are a tangled web encompassing a million things. It’s the whole psychology of the person. If you’re happy never reaching a conclusion, just bouncing around reading comics history or whatever, then it’s a journey worth making. Or at least a panel worth attending.
Huge thanks to Robin again and Squally Showers, Robert Dayton, Dustin Harbin and Frank.
Here’s a random Gray Morrow Edge of Chaos spread, because it rules. Show n tell.
Labels: David Mazzucchelli, Farel Dalrymple, Jim Rugg, panels, Paul Pope, TCAF
I think this panel was born out of conversations I had with Robin about younger alt guys not being very aware of certain figures in history like Steranko or even Ditko. Luckily we have a ton of reprints now, so the tide is turning.
hey dash…sol lewitt once wrote that “when an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art”…i spent a long time pondering that one…and i eventually came to the conclusion that it sounds good, but it really doesn’t mean anything…does Ware make slick art?…does Crumb?…i think part of the present quandary is that we’re stuck with these sort of bogus, antiquated labels…“alternative”, “mainstream”…forty years ago those terms were necessary…but i tend to think those sort of narrow definitions have outgrown their use…in the end, there is only comics.
Edge of Chaos!
Wrees, sure. But we use these bogus words for the sake of conversation. I've described drawings as "slick" before, but I should have gone further than that word, I guess. All of these things mean different things to different people. The word "comics" too is unclear and confuses a lot of people.
Anyway: I appreciate your point.
It's part of people not being aware of the past, but also acknowledging the importance that alot of the work referred to, has on modern work like Los Bros Hernandez.
I think I have a bit of an obsession right now with documenting and discussing the literary traditions within comics.
And it should be mentioned that Jim Rugg was in the audience arguing why we are evening discussing this in the first place.
Jim Rugg gets excited and his face goes red. He's not angry but he looks like he'll murder you, haha.
Also, I like labels. I even think there's a difference between "alternative" and "art" comics. It goes back to labels on the comics' bags themselves for ordering in boxes. So if one doesn't care for labels, that's cool, but it helps when one's trying to organize a store's inventory. At least the store's I have worked in.
I've noticed a recent backlash against auto-bio comics. Seems to be a certain taste-making tide happening against those types of stories, which worries me a little bit. It's cool to get excited about genre comics, and come down on emo yarns – but a good story is a good story. I listened to that new action panel at SPX, and wondered why exhibitors such as New Bold Creations weren't represented. From what I've seen, these dudes get shuffled off in the corner at events like SPX, but their heart seems to be in the same place – maybe even more sincere! So where do those guys fit in with the "new action" movement? Because it seems like their kind have been plugging away independently for as long as I've been going to comic stores.
Back to my original point:
Coming down on auto-bio comics for not taking advantage of the medium is like shitting on Sans Soleil for not having enough special effects.
It all comes down to subjective taste I guess. I just get weird feelings when I hear people talking in absolutist terms like, "Yeah we are all sick of these auto-bio comics. They blow ass and have been ruining shit for years." But maybe I was just listening to that panel in the wrong way.
There's no "New Action" movement, dude. That's just the panel that Sean put together. Please don't make that panel into something it wasn't. Sean asked the people he's fans of to do the panel, that's all. No one was "shuffled off" to the corner.
Actually, I didn't even put that panel together. Bill K. did. When he saw that his rough idea about the topic and which creators to include jibed both with some things I'd posted here and there about cartoonists doing that kind of work, he asked me to host it and then asked me for input on who else to invite. I believe he had Frank, Kaz Strzepek, and Ben Marra on his list already, to which I added Shawn Cheng and Brian Ralph (though Brian had to bail). In neither case was it intended to be a comprehensive listing of alternative/art/indie/underground cartoonists doing genre work. I can also say that I don't go in for "The Full Marra" in terms of disliking slice-of-life comics, not by a longshot!
On the other hand: Regarding Dash's point about how there's always been a thriving genre-comic scene in the indie circuit, I think that's true, but I also think that rarely has that material been seen as part of the critical vanguard. I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with an Oni or SLG book that got talked about the way Cold Heat or Powr Mastrs or Body World gets talked about. In the panel, I said that Jaime Hernandez was probably the last high-alternative artist who did unabashed genre work before this current crop. (Although by "this current crop" I tend to also mean Fort Thunder, to which I believe a lot of this current wave of work can be traced. I sure wish Brian had been on that panel!)
For what it's worth, I was just reacting to the "Mainstream/Alternative" panel at TCAF and I wasn't at SPX and am out of loop re: the "New Action" panel. Frank tells me that what I wrote relates to that panel. The focus of the "Mainstream/Alternative" panel was on history and talking about Kirby, Steranko, etc.. Not cartoonists talking about what they're doing now.
"I've noticed a recent backlash against auto-bio comics. Seems to be a certain taste-making tide happening against those types of stories, which worries me a little bit."
Recent? Autobiography has been loathed for over a decade, really ever since the days when Chester Brown and Joe Matt were its most prominent practitioners.
I don't quite understand the dichotomy between genre comics and autobio–there are plenty of comics that are neither. But just like superhero comics are a convenient (and fairly justified) shorthand for genre comics as a whole, autobio has become a handy (but somewhat unfair) synecdoche for all alternative/art comics.
"I think we have a Bingo!"
-Colonel Hans Landa
Jaime Hernandez? Just had a (wonderful) re-reading of his 'Locas' and its so refreshing to see all the 'mainstream' appeal of it – Archie, Peanuts, Ditko, Kirby, Toth etc. etc. all in there. A big popular success with a depth of characterisation, Silver Age storytelling devices and art incredibly 'slick' – and still probably the greatest 'alternative' comic ever made.
I think the backlash against autobio comes from it being a default mode for lack of imagination (or too often talent). Art graduates with shitty jobs unfortunately have very similar experiences (it's the economy, stupid!), which can/have become as cliched as the disturbed, ultraviolent urban avenger. What was fresh and raw in Justin Green or 80s 'Weirdo' (which really did feature genuine 'outsiders') has become a shorthand for 'sensitive arty guy thinks he's the best material'. Got nothing against autobio – but like any genre, its common motifs can get numbing.
Thing about these labels is that you only really have to worry about the use of them influencing idiots in one way or another, and they'd make shitty stuff regardless.
That is to say most people ( I hope) tend to understand that "autobio" when someone like Marra uses it, doesn't mean anything in particular, but speaks to a perceived general trend, like anonymous mentioned.
But in general, I think these conversations are useful, not only in the ground they cover, but that they illuminate the limitations of these terms we use, and get us thinking about what it means to push past them ( or embrace them, if that's your thing.).
Just as a side note, I'm so fucking sick of hearing cartoonists talk about how "boring" Chris Wares' comics are, that they aren't "comic booky" enough, or whatever. If you're not into his stuff, that's one thing, but to present it like it's upsetting an ideal vision of what comics should be, or really are is stupid.
Comics are still a bastard, either way.
All i wanna know is what comic is the Kirby lifted from at the top of the post…
It's from 2001 #5
I think I'm better at verbal exchange than written exchange. Thoughts get sloppy. Apologies for going somewhat off topic in the comments section.
Thanks Frankie!
Hey Dash!
I pretty much agree with you about there always being mainstream/ genre content in comics continuously through present day, but I do think there's a distinction between work that was produced in the 80s and 90s and work that is being produced today. All of the publishers you mentioned either died or stopped being talked about by anyone 10 years ago, and none of the characters that you mentioned have been introduced within the last decade either. All of that stuff, Madman, Tundra, Kabuki, lived on the bridge that Santoro described a while back. Some managed to escape the collapse of the bridge in good shape, some not so much, but nothing has really been born of that same world since. Pop Gun War? BiPolar? Maybe. But not really, in my opinion. I feel like most new stuff is more substantial and artistic, trying to convey ideas, a feeling or just trying to be smart, while the older work you listed was more entertainment focused. I'm not making a judgment call of one over the other, just stating that they're different.
Street Angel probably comes the closest to being a bridge comic. Maybe Scott Pilgrim too. Comics during the bridge ran a lot more consistently and for longer. The creators found themselves more able to stick to one specific idea, for whatever reason. Maybe there was more money around for them.
What I definitely agree with you on it that the alleged glut of auto-bio work has nothing to do with genre works' alleged disappearance.
That LeWitt quote is pretty snazzy. I wonder how vital the newest CW comics are or the Crumb Genesis book is? The Crumb book looks beautiful, btw – the printing is really nice, but I don't have much interest in reading it. And are the newest stories by Ware about more than craft? What I like about autobio (Uncle Bob's Mid-life crisis, John P, Justin Green, or Chester (the new fucking book influenced by Fletcher Hanks!)) is that the content is often really important to the cartoonist. It's not just a place to drape pretty drawings. Real humanity, man! But those fucking Kirby drawings! Who needs the annoying verbosity!
MrColinP,
I agree that the comics being made now/recently are different than those that I mentioned, and the comics of the 90s were different than those of the 80s, and many of the comics made in the same decade were different from each other. I wasn't trying to make a blanket statement. I was illustrating that "alternative" cartoonists having an interest/affection for "mainstream" cartooning is nothing new.
So, why did I feel the need to point this out regarding this TCAF panel? Because a few "alt" guys talking about Kirby and Steranko shouldn't be a novelty, or particularly noteworthy, which sometimes I fear it's interpreted as.
Anyway, Picturebox books are certainly different than Slave Labor Graphic Books. Dan may chime in to confirm this.
I really doubt Dan will chime in about the difference between Slave Labor Graphics and Picturebox, haha.
I was just fucking around.
I'm going to try to do a CC post on a specific 90s book next. Posts on specific books tend to be more coherent than these kinds of posts, I think.
Right now leaning towards The Maxx. Maybe there's a good post there. All those big feet.
Well, I know The Maxx was big for a lot of folks. I think it was an influence on Taylor McKimens.
Dash,
Yeah, I was already agreeing with you about the amount of genre content in comics (I know the way it was worded made it sound like I was kind of disagreeing with you)- I just wanted to make that distinction as an additional point.
Also, and it's entirely possible that I'm missing something here, was there a lot of people remarking about how unusual it is for alt comics guys to be talking about these mainstream influences? I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure what you're responding to here. I read a good amount of comics journalism on the internet and other than internally from you guys (Frank seems to mention that alt comics people often have no sense of comics history, if I'm interpreting him correctly) I don't know that I heard anyone mention that as being unusual. Were you really responding to Frank?!? I wasn't at the event either though, so maybe there was talk there.
Haha, okay, that time I'm disagreeing with you. Or asking you to clarify.
Good call on The Maxx. Being on the shelf next to WildCATS and Spawn put it in the position to blow a lot of minds back then, mine included.
I've had a million conversations with people who think it's weird, or cute somehow, that an "alt" cartoonist would like Kirby or Steranko or "mainstream" comics. Maybe it's just the people who talk to me or press people outside of the comics world. Maybe I'm off base. But, at least outside of Comics Comics readers there's a perception (or I've felt a perception) that "alt" cartoonists are doing everything they can to distance themselves from "mainstream"/superhero books. In some circles, that's probably true. And the TCAF panel was about the "alternative"/"mainstream" relationship. But it sounds like you've had different experiences with this than me.
Yeah, I haven't been to a lot of shows or interacted socially in that world a lot. So we're talking from two different perspectives.
Regarding a broader perspective; I think the general public is a lot more capable of taking a comic at face value, whether the artist has been influenced by Ditko or not. I mean you still get a lot of people who think that comics = superheroes in general, but I think those same people can look at, say, Love and Rockets or Jeffery Brown and take them for what they are. You'll still catch comics progressive institutions like the AV Club or Vice using "comics" and "superheroes" interchangeably, but they're able to look at Afrodisiac or whatever in a broader way that I think gives more credit to the work than a comics aficionado (an annoying term for an annoying thing) who's going to hold all of comics' fucked up history and development against it.
I still like the Maxx a lot. Sam Keiths' EPICURUS THE SAGE introduced me to alternative comics in maybe 91 or so.
"Jason Overby said…
That LeWitt quote is pretty snazzy. I wonder how vital the newest CW comics are or the Crumb Genesis book is? The Crumb book looks beautiful, btw – the printing is really nice, but I don't have much interest in reading it. And are the newest stories by Ware about more than craft? What I like about autobio (Uncle Bob's Mid-life crisis, John P, Justin Green, or Chester (the new fucking book influenced by Fletcher Hanks!)) is that the content is often really important to the cartoonist. It's not just a place to drape pretty drawings. Real humanity, man! But those fucking Kirby drawings! Who needs the annoying verbosity!"
Jason, I'd say Ware only gets better and better. The last three issues of ACME are unparralleled, as far as I'm concerned — craft and content, flawless yet extraordinarily affecting.
The new Crumb book looks pretty boring to me, but I haven't actually seen more than a few excerpts. Not much of Crumb fan, myself, though I'd be foolish to argue his talent and importance. I think he's sleeping his way through the later years of his career much more than Clowes or Ware, who both keep pushing and challenging themselves.
What Chester Brown book are you talking about?
Oh, and the difference between SLG and Picturebox is the former are made and read by "Goths" (haha) and the latter are made and read by "Hipsters" (haha)
I'm not sure which is worse
Goth girls let you do more things to them in bed than hipster girls.
but hipster girls will do those things to YOU.
Jeffrey – I mentioned Chester B because of I Never Liked You, the Playboy, the Helder stories, Danny, etc, but the book I was parenthetically referring to is the one he's supposedly been working on for a while (autobio, his dealings with prostitutes?). In an interview on Inkstuds Paul Karasik related a story he'd heard about Chet scrapping everything and starting over after he saw the first Fletcher Hanks book. This is awesome…
Regarding Ware, I think I'm just more into work that's harrier and nuttier, feverish, less slick. But his scratchy, crummy autobio pieces are great.
Man, "Seeing Eye Dogs of Mars" in Acme 19 is feverish as FUCK.
I'm behind the curve on that one (last ish I have is number 18) and probably being a little reactionary/devil's advocatey. In other words, I'll check it out!