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The Comics Comics and PictureBox advance team has arrived in Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con. Frank and I are lounging in our hotel room, high above the convention center. So far it looks like a fun show and damn fine for back issues. Why, there’s an entire Fangoria section at one table! Anyhow, Tim will be joining us tomorrow and then we have some fun panels:

Friday, 3 pm:

CAGE MATCH: Comics Comics Vs Comics Comics! | Room 208
A live critique session with the editors of Comics Comics. Timothy Hodler, Dan Nadel and Frank Santoro will conduct a no-holds-barred argument about a comic book or graphic novel of their choice. Audience participation is encouraged. Chairs might be thrown.
Topics:
John Byrne’s FX
Kirby’s OMAC
The new issue of Mome
Kick-Ass 1-3

Saturday, 12:30 pm:

THE NEW ART COMICS
From critical favorite hits like MAGGOTS and POWR MASTRS, to prominence in influential anthologies like KRAMER’S ERGOT, “art” or “abstract” or “out” comics are pushing the boundaries of the avant garde in comics. Join Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter as he sits down with Picturebox publisher Dan Nadel, KRAMER’S ERGOT editor Sammy Harkham and publisher Alvin Buenaventura for a frank discussion of this leading edge of art in comics!

Sunday, 1 pm:

CRAFT IN COMICS: Jaime Hernandez, Jim Rugg, and Frank Santoro in Conversation | 213A
Less a conversation on materials and techniques and more a conversation on ideas and beliefs, this panel will focus on tradition and innovation in composition and drawing for comics. From Jaime’s insistence on not using photographs as reference in his comics to Jim’s clarity of composition and Frank’s careful color choices, there are countless tenets of craft that are largely underappreciated by readers. This panel will investigate these ideas and attempt to illuminate and outline them in a lively conversation led by Frank Santoro.

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I found this convention sketch in a box at my mom’s house the other day. I’d forgotten all about it. I paid 15 bucks for it back in ’87, and I remember thinking that was a fortune. Too bad I barely remember anything about my interaction with Marshall Rogers himself. I only remember watching in amazement as he made these little marks on the paper when he started, little dashes that I quickly realized were for figuring out proportion. As soon as he had those marks down he was off to the races, and the drawing came to life literally in a matter of minutes. When he tore it out of the pad and handed it over to me, I do remember feeling a little gypped — but looking at it now, I think, good grief, it’s awesome, how did he knock it out that fast?

I showed this drawing to my friend Jim Rugg and we started talking about the sort of stylized naturalism that Rogers was known for. And then Jim said, “Y’know, the hackiest hack who worked for Marvel in the early ’60s had a better sense of basic figure drawing and naturalism than almost any contemporary cartoonist.” We both wracked our brains trying to come up with a modern equivalent to, say, Don Heck. And we couldn’t! Who draws in a non-photo-referenced, natural, realistic style? Okay, Jaime Hernandez. But who else? Everyone we came up with didn’t seem to fit. Michael Golden? No, too stylized. Beto? No, too cartoony. Jason Lutes? No, too stiff. There isn’t this sort of basic non-photo-ref’d style that’s in widespread use anymore. I’m sure if I really thought about it I could find an artist and point to their work and say, “Here, this guy.” But the fact is styles change, tastes change, and so do abilities and schools of thought. Photo-referencing rules the roost these days in “realistic-looking” comics, and I hate it. Gimme Don Heck instead. Or Rogers. He might’ve used some photo-referencing here and there, but he had it down and didn’t have to take photo after photo of his friends posing and then thinly disguise it as comics. I mean, have you read Coyote? What? You haven’t? What are you waiting for?

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Speak of the Devil #1-2
Gilbert Hernandez
Dark Horse, 2007

Maybe the real heir to Jack Kirby is Gilbert Hernandez. It can’t be Steve Rude; I was wrong. Kirby drew everything from romances to crime stories to classical Greek epics — and I’d say only Gilbert Hernandez shows comparable depth. He might not have the same chops as Kirby or even of his own brother Jaime — but Beto can keep up with ANYONE. And he delivers on time. Sorry, Steve.

I heard Beto himself say “I can’t draw” at the San Diego Comic-Con this year. “I can’t draw streetlights, door jambs, houses — you can see that in twenty-five years those parts of my drawing have basically stayed the same.” What has improved is his range. Beto’s able to craft a perfect comic book story. Shit, he could do that in 1981, but other than 1996’s Girl Crazy and 2002’s Grip, he hasn’t had much of a chance to stretch out, narratively speaking, in a non-Love & Rockets comic book series. (New Love from ’96 was short strips, natch.) His newest effort, Speak of the Devil, may just be his finest offering in this vein.

Freed of the Love & Rockets/Palomar continuity, he first unleashed (twenty-five years worth of) his pent up “weltschmerz” (world-pain) with Sloth and Chance in Hell — two genre-defying graphic novels that disintegrated this reader’s mind with the force of a cosmic black hole. Next up, Speak of the Devil, a six-issue comic-book mini-series. Bound now by twenty-page episodic chapters and a PG-13 style for the “mainstream” comics market, Speak of the Devil reins in Beto’s multi-faceted approach and broad abilities. The chaotic white hot rage of Chance in Hell is now a focused low simmer. Like Sloth, one can feel the pressure under the surface, veiled. And also like Sloth, the suburban tract house setting creates a fitting counterpoint to the tension. Where it differs from Sloth is in its pace; here Beto swiftly builds a deliberate narrative of nearly silent action without voice-over or introduction. The “hook” of the action sets the stage for intrigue that begins immediately and there are honestly passages that made my heart pound in expectation. Like a Steve Ditko Amazing Adult Fantasy story, the comic is imbued with a mystical air that is difficult to describe because so much of it relies on his masterful and subtle stage direction. Beto’s compositional and storytelling skills are so strong now — he’s at the height of his abilities, like Kirby was in the early ’70s. In fact, because of the pace with which it unfolds, Speak of the Devil reads like an issue of Kamandi or Mister Miracle. Beto has his own set of signs now — he crafts solid pages and imbues his drawings with joy — and like Kirby did, he uses those signs to unleash fantasies that are just so much fucking fun to read. It’s incredible. And again because he’s freed from his Love & Rockets continuity, he’s able to accentuate moments and details that I would think are more difficult to focus on in, say, a Palomar story with its large cast of characters and divergent storylines.

The plot of Speak of the Devil is similar to that of a black-and-white B-movie that one might come across on TV late at night. Val is a hot, athletic teenager with a hot bosomy stepmom. There’s a peeping tom in the neighborhood, and Val’s stepmom sort of gets off on the fact that the peeping tom is around. If it sounds simple, or clichéd, then good: Beto has you right where he wants you. Against such suburban ennui, the story is allowed to flutter and move like the curtains of the bedroom window behind which Val’s mom lies half-naked, waiting. It’s as though Beto has corralled all his obsessions and created a vehicle that permits him the freedom to put it all into one story. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t feel forced; it’s right on target. The tone, the mood, the drawing, the narrative flow — it all falls like dominoes.

And it’s a whole helluva lotta fun to read. Comics, for me, aren’t often much fun any more, because so many titles are either striving to be considered serious literature, or to be adult versions of adolescent king-of-the-hill games. Both of these approaches neglect the form’s raw power. Think Ditko sci-fi or Kirby monster stories — where is that sort of precision these days? Better yet, where are the creators that can do quality short genre pieces AND long-form continuity? And interestingly enough, Beto figures prominently into WHY comics are now being viewed by some as serious literature in the first place. What’s remarkable is that an artist with the ability to do something on the scale of Palomar is also capable of switching gears and doing something so direct and clear, and that still channels the form’s raw visual power.

It’s not a surprise, of course — Beto’s been doing short pieces for twenty-five years — but it’s still remarkable. Like a distillation of all of his influences, Speak of the Devil showcases the talents of a master well versed in comics language, all deployed in the service of a crazy Twilight Zone-esque genre story. That’s Kirby, that’s Ditko; that’s Ogden Whitney and Harry Lucey. And that’s Beto, one of the only contemporary cartoonists out there who can do it all. High, Low, and everything in between.

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With all the talk about how some people think comics are too influenced by literature, it may be worth remembering that there are people in the literary world who think contemporary fiction is becoming too influenced by comics. No big point here — just that these things get kind of complicated. Personally speaking, as long as the comics work as comics and the prose works as prose, I don’t care what influences whom.

Recently, I’ve read two pretty terrific comics-inflected novels that I thought might be worth pointing out to those interested in such things.

First, Junot Díaz of Drown fame just published his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It’s been getting tons of great press, but I’ve been surprised that it hasn’t come up for discussion more in comics circles, because it’s probably the most comics-friendly novel I’ve ever read. There are constant references to comics past, from Clowes (one character is described as looking like he walked straight out of the pages of Eightball) to Kirby (the novel’s epigraph is right from Fantastic Four 49: “Of what import are brief, nameless lives … to Galactus??” [bold case and double-punctuation in the original!]).

Díaz has been fairly vocal about his regard for Gilbert Hernandez, recently saying in a Los Angeles Times profile of Hernandez, “For those of us who are writing across or on borders, I honestly think he was, for me, more important than anyone else.” That becomes readily apparent on reading the book, as allusions to Love & Rockets recur at a steady clip. The title character’s Dominican mother is repeatedly compared to Luba, both in terms of physique and personality, and her storyline (complete with gangster boyfriend and political terrorism) is obviously an extended homage to Poison River, among other Beto tales.

But it’s not just in his references that Díaz demonstrates his influence, but in the very structure of his novel, which meanders and jumps in time and circles back to fill in backstory in almost exactly the same way that the Hernandez brothers have done for so long in their Palomor and Locas sagas. Some day, a grad student’s going to have a very easy time writing a thesis about all of this.

It’s also a great, tremendously funny (and sad) novel, and Díaz runs rings around most of his contemporaries with his prose style. Anyone who loves Love & Rockets (actually anyone period) should really read this book.

The other comics-saturated novel I read this summer, Jack Womack‘s Ambient, probably doesn’t possess quite as wide an appeal, though I liked it a lot. It’s a cartoonishly violent, satirical capitalism-run-amok dystopia, sort of like Mad Max-meets-the-corporate-boardroom; Long Island has become the location of a decades-long Vietnam-style military quagmire, and lower Manhattan is filled with a punkish underclass, many of whom have mutilated themselves in a kind of impotent social protest.

Much of the imagery and tone reminds me of Gary Panter, though Womack never refers to him directly. The cartoonists Womack admits to following are Chester Gould (one of the main bad guys has a framed Dick Tracy panel on his wall), George Herriman, and Walt Kelly (the aforementioned “ambient” underclass has developed a patois-like language nearly Elizabethan in its complexity that Womack has said was inspired by the dialogue in Krazy Kat and Pogo).

Some of the elements of this novel feel a little dated now, such as a religion that worships Elvis Presley, though they undoubtedly seemed fresher when the novel was first published twenty years ago. Still I enjoyed it, and plan on checking out the rest of the series. You can probably tell based on the description whether or not this is your cup of tea moonshine.

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I was kinda bummed to see the PW Best of 2006 critics poll. I contributed to it, thinking that we’d each have our own lists in there as well. Maybe I didn’t read the instructions close enough. No big deal, but I feel totally disconnected from it as it stands, so I thought I’d post the list I made in a slightly revised form, at the very least to promote the books I really believe in. As for their list, I just don’t get it. The Bechdel book I found pretentious, overwrought, and really poorly drawn, and Scott Pilgrim is cute teen stuff, that I guess cute teenagers like, but…huh? McCloud? Lost Girls? Ugh, don’t get me started.

And while I’m bumming your trip, I heartily suggest everyone read Gary Groth’s essay on the book Eisner/Miller in the current Comics Journal. It’s an excellent piece of criticism that goes to the heart of the problems with contemporary comics criticism and historical writing (and dimly relates to how, in any sort of sane world, Fun Home and Scott Pilgrim could rank above Kim Deitch and Carol Tyler). It also pokes further holes in the Eisner legend, which is an ongoing “hobby” of Gary’s, and one which I fully support.

My faintly revised list:

1. Shadowland by Kim Deitch (Fantagraphics)
Another masterpiece from Deitch, who, more than any other cartoonist working today, is in full control of the medium. This tragi-comic yarn is moving, terrifying and deeply deeply awe-inspiring. The man is a national treasure.

2. Late Bloomer by Carol Tyler (Fantagraphics)
Released at the very end of 2005, too late for best-of lists, Late Bloomer towers over 2006. Tyler’s timeworn but eloquent voice is much needed in comics. Late Bloomer is that rare thing: a wise book. Neither pretentious nor showy, it is full of insight, perfectly drawn, and one of the few to insist on truth above all else. A risky, bold work of art and indisputably the best book of 2006.

3. Or Else 4 by Kevin Huizenga (Drawn and Quarterly)
Kevin’s epic attempt to explain the universe on a micro level was a moving and humbling comic—expansive in scope and filled with the good-natured love and nimble curiosity that marks his work.

4. Girl Stories by Lauren Weinstein (Henry Holt)
Weinstein’s book is perhaps the most important of the year for widely introducing a unique voice. Like Tyler, Weinstein comes at comics from the outside and has none of the baggage and stylistic tics that plague so many others. Hers is a clear, funny and humane voice and together with her gorgeous, evocative linework, it makes her a compelling talent.

5. The Squirrel Mother by Megan Kelso (Fantagraphics)
A wonderful collection of short stories by Megan Kelso. Pitch-perfect cartooning and closely observed tales of family, history and America make this a gem-like volume. Kelso is certainly one of our finest cartoonists.

6. Lucky by Gabrielle Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
Bell has a wicked ear for dialogue and draws some of the most nuanced body language in comics. Her first book of mature work displays her talents to great effect. Despite the familiarity of the subject matter—20-something ennui—Bell makes it all new again with her eye for detail.

7. A Last Cry for Help by Dave Kiersh (Bodega)
This is a hilarious comic book version of a 1970s teen sex romp. Genuinely erotic in parts and always funny, Kiersh’s book is a delight.

8. Ghost of Hoppers by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
Jaime remains the king of understated emotions and concise cartoon language. This wonderful book about hitting middle age and letting go of old memories is one of his finest works.

9. Ed the Happy Clown by Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly), even in reprint form, demands respect. His liner notes and stellar covers make this re-serializing qualify as a “new book”. It provides an unparalleled insight into one of our most important artist’s feelings about his crucial work both then and now. More than just history, it feels like Brown asserting and reconstructing his identity as a cartoonist.

Reprints:

It’s been a great year for them. My favorites are Jeet Heer and Chris Ware’s superlative Gasoline Alley series and Dark Horse Comics’ Magnus Robot Fighter. About as far apart on the spectrum as you can go, but why not? Frank King and Russ Manning both understood body language and space extremely well, but put it in service to, um, very different content. Drawn and Quarterly’s Moomin book and Tatsumi series are also favorites, as well as Fantagraphics’ Popeye book.

Notes:

Despite all the interest and activity from major publishers, this year once again demonstrates the virtues of small, brilliant publishers like Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics. Nurturing unique artists, growing with them, and releasing quality work remains the best (and oddly unique to these two companies!) business model. All the hype and money in the world can’t beat it.

And, I’d be remiss as a publisher and a critic if I didn’t mention Ninja by Brian Chippendale (PictureBox). I know it’s rather rude to put my own book on the list, but it’s how I really feel. In terms of formal daring and drawing, no other book this year has gone further with such success. Chippendale, like Gary Panter before him, uses drawing as a form of expression, turning comic visuals into a multi-layered medium for real mark making. His long form meditation on urban life, gentrification, war, friendship and violence is moving and profound.

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Well, Tim brought up an interesting point in his Monday post. He is quite right that I may have overshot with my comments and is also correct that Barry could stand with Spiegelman and Ware (as could, I would argue on a better day, Aline Kominsky Crumb and easily Julie Doucet). Any converstion about women-in-comics has to basically start with 1968 and move forward. There wasn’t much before then that rises above good, solid cartooning. And nothing on par with the likes of Herriman. But there is a ton after that. Of course, that’s the problem with exhibitions that arbitrarily settle on a number like 15. I understand the desire to want to create a canon (though I disagree with it–canons are so last century.) in order to provide a focus, but I think being a little loosey goosey with the numbers and adding Barry and the Hernandez Bros would have vastly improved the curators’ credibility.

History is a funny thing, yes. Melville and all that. Or Frank King and Tatsumi, for that matter. What’s fascinating about today’s history-making is that so many choces are guided by knowledgable cartoonists, not historians. Ware for King and Tomine for Tatsumi, for example. This has often been the case in other media, but what’s so interesting in this case is that there simply aren’t any historians or critics who command the same respect as Ware, Tomine, et al. I think that is changing, but slowly. And for now, I’m thrilled to have such pro-active (and wise) cartoonists leading the way into the past. And yes, who is to say who will pop up later? I think, for example, that in future years Rory Hayes will emerge as a definitive influence on the 90s and 00s and Gary Panter’s influence on visual culture in general will equal (if not surpass) Crumb’s. And along the way, some long lost female cartoonist from the 50s might emerge. I doubt it, but maybe.

Anyhow, the most interesting thing about the Masters show reaction was found in Sarah Boxer’s Artforum essay, in which she astutely pointed out that it wasn’t only the absence of women in the show but the way women were presented in all of the work in the show. That is, if I remember correctly, women were either absent or villains or cypher, which is an astute observation about comics in general. I wish I could remember a bit more of the argument…Anyhow, it’s an interesting point, and once that should be pondered a bit more.

Ok, over to you, Tim.

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As promised, here I’ll delve into some American and Japanese manga. But first, an aside. Does it seem odd that Tim and I are digging into mostly mainstream titles? It is, a little. For my part, in some ways the obscure stuff seems easy, and I’m more interested at the moment in trying to understand the popular stuff. I really like good genre stories the way I like, say, that new Nelly Furtado song. They do something that nothing else does—it’s very pure entertainment, not to heavy, not too light. Just fun for me. And I’ve had way more fun with this stuff than with my periodic dips into the superhero mainstream. In fact, I’m kind of hooked in the same way I get hooked on shows like “24”. These comics are unvarnished, unpretentious works—they’re very well crafted and, operating on their own scale, very successful. Ultimately that’s the present appeal for me. Underground-or-whatever-we’re-calling-them comics are so often interior affairs (except our beloved Hernandez Bros. and Bagge) all too infrequent (except for Kevin Huizenga’s Or Else series, which thankfully just keeps popping up) and mainstream comics are by and large burdened by untenable ambitions, so Manga is a good middle ground. Also, unhampered by genre constraints, most manga is concerned primarily with telling plot-based stories, which is, believe it or not, rare in this narrative medium.

First up is the first three volumes of the 10-volume Dragon Head by Minetaro Mochizuki. It’s a pitch black apocalyptic story that begins with a massive underground train disaster which is survived by just three teenagers: Teru, Ako and Nobou. The first two books form a scarily meditative narrative of life underground, as psychological phantoms and physical depravation take hold of the kids. The third finds them wandering out into a blurry, decimated Japanese landscape. Despite it’s disaster-movie trappings, Dragon Head is very much about the interaction between the survivors. It’s essentially a plot-driven character study. And while I sometimes cringe at the cartoon acting here, as well as the overdone anime-style storytelling, what occurs within the story is compelling. Mochzuki manages to make convey the shattering conditions without dipping into gratuity or melodrama. The tone is just right, and it’s quite scary.

Monster by Naoki Urasawa is a wonderfully histrionic murder mystery/soap opera. Pitched somewhere between Days of Our Lifes and Alfred Hitchcock, it follows an ambitious young doctor through his up and down career, which includes sinuous ties to a string of murders and the killer himself. It’s all rather complicated, but, as with Dragon Head, addictive. I’ve only read the first volume but certainly want to continue, if only to find out what happens. Is it great comics? Not really, but it’s extremely proficient. Monster does exactly what it needs to, and the spiraling melodrama (sex, death, doctors, etc etc) is fun. It lifts you up and takes you with it. That may be the secret of this kind of storytelling: it’s insistent and immersive, demanding that you both continue reading and actively empathize with the characters.

Well, that’s it for now. I can’t quite tell how insightful I’m able to be about the stuff. It’s very pleasurable, which as Jules Feiffer made clear in his The Great Comic Book Heroes, is the appeal of so much junk. But it’s summer and junk rules. Next time I’ll try out Scott Pilgrim.

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Not to go on too much about my book, Art Out of Time, but while getting this blog up and running it seems a good source of material. Anyhow, a few major artists were left out of my book because their work was mostly anonymous and for licensed characters. They just didn’t fit. Perhaps my biggest regret is cutting Harry Lucey (1930-1980?), who, like so many of the other men who entertained generations of children, remains as anonymous in death as he did in life. His career in comics began in the late 1930s and he bounced around various companies in the 1940s, drawing such features as Madam Satan, Magno, and Crime Does Not Pay. In the early 1950s he helmed Sam Hill, creating some wonderful stories in the Roy Crane/Milt Caniff/Alex Toth tradition of lush brushwork and cinematic compositions.

He spent most of his life, however, drawing for MLJ, which published Archie, among other characters, and later simply became Archie Publications. Lucey became one of the lead Archie artists, drawing the freckle-faced teenager and his pals throughout the ’50s and ’60s. He took some breaks from the business to work for an advertising agency in St. Louis, but otherwise was dedicated to comics.

Like Ogden Whitney, at first glance Lucey’s work on appears to be generic and undistinguished, but a closer look reveals the artist to be a master of body language, or, in more concrete terms, acting. Every aspect of a Lucey figure is drawn to express what that character is feeling at that moment. Posture, position, and facial expression are all geared towards maximizing that moment in the story. Take a look at this Sam Hill page by Lucey, and note the precision of his character’s movements, particularly Sam Hill’s relaxed smoke rings panel. Lucey was certainly influenced by film, but brings a cartoon economy to the proceedings that can only be accomplished in, well, comics. And, take away the words (as Lucey did in a remarkable Archie story, “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”,) from a Lucey story and readers still know precisely how each character feels and what that means for the plot. In that sense, Lucey’s cartoon characters seem alive on the page like few others.

The only real inheritors of this tradition are Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, whose Love and Rockets stories continue to be among the most eloquent and passionate comics drawn in the world. They, like Lucey, tell their stories through their character’s precise actions on the page, a topic addressed very nicely by Frank Santoro and Bill Boichtel in the debut issue of Comics Comics.

Anyhow, in most years Lucey penciled and inked a page a day, drawing the complete contents of the Archie comic book every month. Towards the’60s, Lucey developed an allergy to graphite, and reportedly wore white gloves while drawing. In the 1970s he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and, sometime later, cancer. He refused treatment for the latter and died in Arizona in the late 1970s or perhaps 1980.