Rip-Off Theatre presents: Special Guest Star: Enjoyment of manga apparently runs in the family

I always enjoy when bloggers interview people who either don't normally read comics or aren't really into the blogging and the criticism and the hey hey. So here's my stab at it.

The test subject: My brother Noah Brady, a teenager from the wilds of Oregon.

The review material: My stack of manga volumes that I've received for review (including a few other books from my shelf), many of which I haven't had a chance to read yet.

MJB: What's your experience with manga and anime? Have you read/watched much of it? What are your favorite series?

Noah: I wouldn't say I've read/watched a lot, but I have read a fair amount, and I'd have to say I guess some of my favorites would be anything by Osamu Tezuka.

MJB: How much of Tezuka's work have you read or are familiar with?

Noah: I've read some of Dororo as well as the first two volumes of Black Jack, and I've seen a fair deal of Astro Boy episodes.

MJB: And those would be the black and white cartoon from back in the 60s (I think)?

Noah: No. It was colored and animated and happy and joyful. [Editor's Note: It appears to be the 1980 remake]

MJB: So it seems to mostly be the stuff I've given you to read.

Noah: Yeah.

MJB: Cool, I love that stuff. Tezuka is one of my favorites as well. Let's talk about Black Jack. I've read a little bit of the series, but not these two volumes yet. What would you say you like about them so much?

Noah: Well, I'd have to say that I like the character Tezuka created; he's very mysterious, and he doesn't reveal al lot about his feelings, but thorugh the course of the volumes, you kind of see his character come out and develop, and a lot of different things happen and it just shows you a depth to his character.

MJB: Yeah, Tezuka is good at defining characters through their actions. And he also comes up with some really off-the-wall stories. There are some pretty goofy examples of crazy medicine and surgery here, wouldn't you say?

Noah: Yeah.

MJB: Any that you liked in particular?

Noah: I lked a certains tory about how he operated on a killer whale multiple times, and they became friends, because it seemed kind of really random.

MJB: In what way? Because he just randomly happened upon a whale that needed surgery, or because it's weird that he became friends with a whale?

Noah: Well, it was kjust kind of odd because you have a bunch of stories about him saving rich people who gave him a bunch of money and then out of the blue it's like, "Oh, look, it's a whale, and I'll save his life, and we'll become friends, yay!"

MJB: So it was kind of an odd departure from the formula of the other stories.

Noah: Yeah.

MJB: So, how about the artwork? I like the way Tezuka uses a really cartoony style, but manages to do some serious stuff with it. And he's pretty dynamic too, coming up with really cool action, don't you think? [Editor's Note: This was a poor question. Objection, Your Honor, the interviewer is leading the witness!]

Noah: Yes, I would have to agree with that.

MJB: Did you see any examples of that sort of thing in this series?

Noah: Multiple times. In fact, all the time. I mean, for every one frame of peaceful, not-action-intense situations, he has about 32 frames of dramatic action-packed, um, drama.

MJB: Yeah, I love that sort of thing. How about the surgery scenes? Did you find them suitably grotesque?

Noah: Yes, in fact there's quite a few moments of intense gut-ripping found throughout.

MJB: What did you think about the sidekick/wife character? Was she a good addition, or just an annoyance?

Noah: Well, she was kind of pointless, because every once in a while she would come in and actually be part of the story, but for the most part it was, Black Jack, go save somebody; Black Jack, go defuse this bomb; Black Jack, go stop the army of invading aliens, and then she would show up and it was like, "Oh, hey, let's talk about me going to school!"

MJB: So you thought she detracted from the action?

Noah: Pretty much.

MJB: Do you think she helped develop his character, since you mentioned that he was kind of mysterious?

Noah: She did a little bit, because multiple stories that she's in she'll ask a simple question that leads to a humongous story about his past, and it'll be like oh, geez, she's actually worth something! Good thing she asks questions.

MJB: What about her origin story? That was pretty weird, right?

Noah: Yeah, it was.

MJB: But the series might have been better without her?

Noah: It probably could have been.

MJB: Anything else you want to mention about Black Jack before we move on?

Noah: Not really.

MJB: Okay, how about Dororo? I myself really like the series, but what did you think about the volume that you read?

Noah: I thought it was good.

MJB: Compared to Black Jack, did you like the action and adventure?

Noah: Yeah, I did. Where Black Jack offers kind of a suspenseful, "oh my god, what's going to happen?" outlook, Dororo puts more of a, I don't know, I just feel it's more fun to kill people with swords than scalpels (although Black Jack doesn't really kill anybody, but whatever).

MJB: Yeah, swords are cool. Speaking of weird origin stories, what did you think about Hyakkimaru's? [Editor's Note: See more about said origin here]

Noah: Craziness.

MJB: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Tezuka was great at coming up with insane ideas and making them work to tell cool stories. Did you like the idea of the guy hunting demons to regain his body parts?

Noah: Yeah, it was pretty cool.

MJB: And how about the goofy prosthetics that he had?

Noah: They were pretty goofy, but there's nothing much cooler than watching a guy throw off his arms to reveal swords and slash people. I mean, come on, how's that not fun?

MJB: I certainly agree. And on another similar note to Black Jack, how did you like the sidekick in this series?

Noah: Um, he was much more helpful, instead of being just the character that kind of just illuminated the past of the main character. Even thosugh he did that as well, he added his own conflict into the story and gave it some depth, while the sideckik in Black Jack was just "Oh well, my background's pretty lame."

MJB: I liked the relationship between Hyakkimaru and Dororo as well, the way they were kind of antaogonistic, but still seemed to like having each other around.

Noah: Yeah. They seemed to be like foils for each other.

MJB: And how about the action in this one? Even cooler, right?

Noah: Yeah, definitely. Demons are much more fun to kill than tumors.

MJB: And the demons were all weird and strange too.

Noah: Yep.

MJB: One thing I like about Tezuka is the way he puts some goofy jokes and gags into the manga, like having characters make funny faces, or talk to the reader, or make anachronistic references. Did you like that sort of thing, or did you think that it detracted from the story?

Noah: I enjoy when he does that kind of thing. For example, in the front couple pages of the second volume of Dororo, they encounter a mysterious wall, and the sideckik is like, "It's the back side of a medicine billboard", and the main guy says "What?!", and he responds, "I'm just kidding, it's blank."

MJB: Maybe you have a similar sense of humor to mine, because I love that sort of thing, but I've read reviews where people complain about it. I think it's a good way to balance out the heavy drama. Plus, it's just something Tezuka liked to do, and it makes his personality shine through.

Noah: Yeah, it'd have to agree with you; I can see where some people would be more into the book for the action and would want to read it for the samurai, not for the jokes and fun. Some of us just need a little comic relief once in a while.

MJB: Well said. Anything else you want to mention about Dororo?

Noah: Not so much.

MJB: Okay, I saw that you read volumes 33 and 34 of Naruto. How familiar are you with the series?

Noah: I haven't read very much of the manga series, but I've watched a crap ton of the anime. I mean, I've watched the whole thing and all the filler season, and I started watching the new series and got bored with it, and I noticed that you had these two that seemed to jump in right were I left off, so I thought, what the hell, might as well.

MJB: Now, I have very little experience with the series, having read only the first chapter of the manga and watched a couple episodes of the anime. Would I have any idea what is going on in these if I tried to read them?

Noah: Only barely. The common premise of these two is that the main group of characters are trying to rescue their friend, who doesn't really want to be rescued from the bad guys, having gone to join them. That's basically been the premise for a lot of the series.

MJB: But given a brief summary, like the two-paragraph one that is on an early page of volume 33, would I be able to jump in and give it a go? Or would it be better to go to Wikipedia and read the entire plotline up to this point?

Noah: You probably could get by from where it's at reading just the summary, but if you really want to know what's happened, you should probably wiki it.

MJB: All right, I was curious if I should try it out. But how about you, did you dig the story here?

Noah: It's a pretty all right story. It's just it seems kind of repetitive after a while. The first 100 or so chapters do show character developments as all the people learn new skills and become stronger, but by the time you've gone through all of them they just seem to do the same thing over and over, but the main character never changes, and he always seems to do the same things, and it's like come on, really?

MJB: So the series seems to have stretched past the breaking point. That seems to happen with some of the really successful series, since the creators (or editors) try to keep them going. Do you think this series could have ended at some point, or should it have gone onto a different type of storyline or something?

Noah: I think that there wasn't really much of a point in the story where you could have just cut it off and be done, but I feel that the way that they've taken it is just boring. They don't add much new content. They add new characters every once in w a while, but once they do their new stuff, they all just pull the same moves over and over again, and it gets old.

MJB: Is the action still dynamic and exciting, or is it just more of what you've seen before?

Noah: It can be pretty deynamic and exciting, some of the time. Other times, it's just, once again, he seems to follow the same sequence of events.

MJB: So it sounds like the earlier volumes of the series (or anime) might be worth checking out, but it does suffer a drop-off in quality.

Noah: Yeah.

MJB: Anything else to add about Naruto?

Noah: No.

MJB: I guess I shouldn't bother asking that question. Here's one that I haven't read, although I did read the first chapter at some point: Heaven's Will. Can you explain what that one's about?

Noah: It's about a girl who can see ghosts, and she's afraid of everything that she doesn't understand, so she freaks out and runs away, and she meets this cross-dresser guy who can exorcise ghosts, and they go on adventures, and she finds out that he cross-dresses so his sister's spirit can come back and enter his body, because she died because of him and he feels really bad about it.

MJB: Weird. So was it worth reading?

Noah: I didn't really think so.

MJB: This is in the shojo genre, aimed at girls. Do you think that's why you didn't like it that much?

Noah: Probably.

MJB: Shojo is usually about drama and emotion, with lots of panels of characters faces and less in the way of dynamic action. Would you say that description fits this volume?

Noah: Yeah, pretty much.

MJB: It's only one volume long; do you think it could have lasted longer, or did it tell it's story and end at the right time?

Noah: It didn't tell it's story. It had a letter from the author saying, "Sorry I couldn't finish this, nothing I really wanted to happen happened, my bad." It kind of dropped off in the middle of the story.

MJB: Oh, huh. I was going to ask if you thought girls might like it, but given an ending like that, it might not be worth recommending to anyone. Do you think the sudden ending was the major fault, or did you just not like the story anyway?

Noah: I think the sudden ending was the major fault. There was a lot of character development that needed doing.

MJB: Okay, well that's probably all we needed to know about that one. Next : Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom. This one might be more up your alley. Is it any good?

Noah: It's all right. I mean, it's kind of dorky. It's about this demon guy who ends up being forced into a contract with a human guy, and they have to fight off rebel demons and outcast demons, and all this stuff.

MJB: It looks like an action series; is that the case?

Noah: Yeah.

MJB: Cool action?

Noah: Kind of cool action.

MJB: So what's the dorky part?

Noah: It's just, I don't know, I suppose it kind of reminds me of Inuyasha, just lamer.

MJB: What's lame about it?

Noah: Well, where Inuyasha was kind of, the character developed along the line and became stronger and more powerful, and over time he grew, this one just seems like, Mr. Demon Guy says I want to get into a fight, now I'll just turn into a humongous monster and just kill everybody, yeah, that was really hard.

MJB: So it starts out at too high a level, and there's probably no room to develop.

Noah: Yeah, pretty much.

MJB: Is it funny, or are the characters interesting? Or is it just kind of bland?

Noah: Kind of bland.

MJB: I see that the rating is "Older Teen". Do you think that's because it's violent, or is there some naughtiness or something?

Noah: Probably violence. There's a supreme lack of naughtiness.

MJB: Maybe some panty shots would have livened it up or something.

Noah: Perhaps.

MJB: So it sounds kind of generic, at least judging by this first volume.

Noah: Yeah, pretty much.

MJB: Okay, I guess that's enough for that one. One final book: Death Note. How did you like this one?

Noah: I enjoyed this.

MJB: It's a series that I really dig, although it reaches a peak around volume 7, and the rest of the series is only okay. Did the first volume make you want to read more?

Noah: Yeah, it did.

MJB: What did you like about it?

Noah: Um, I liked that it made you think. It wasn't just, here, let's go bash everything in sight.

MJB: So the plot conflict was interesting and unique. How did you like the characters?

Noah: They're pretty cool. Everyone seems to be slightly eccentric. And by eccentric I mean crazy.

MJB: So do you mean just Light, or other characters too?

Noah: No, pretty much all of the main characters. For example, Light is crazy, Ryuk is crazy, L is crazy. Most of the other charaecters are not as crazy, but everyone seems to have delusions of righteousness. Well, almost everybody.

MJB: Who doesn't?

Noah: Ryuk is crazy in that instead of trying to be righteous, he's causing chaos for the hell of it.

MJB: I like that the plots and schemes are so dense and convoluted, even in this first volume.

Noah: Yep.

MJB: Just wait until you read more of the series. I also thought that it was exciting, even though so much of it was just characters talking or thinking to themselves. Do you think that was mostly due to the art?

Noah: No, I think I was more interested in the plot itself than the art. I'm trying to think of a movie that would be similar, but I can't think of anything. The manga is just so unique.

MJB: Yeah, it is. Me, I think the art helps, and the panel-to-panel pacing really amps up the tension.

Noah: [nods]

MJB: So, yeah, it's pretty cool. Anything else you liked about it?

Noah: The artwork was good.

MJB: Okay, I guess that's the last book. Any other comments on manga, or comics in general, or what you want to read next?

Noah: I think I want to read the rest of the Dororo series next.

MJB: All right, I'll let you get to it. Enjoy.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! Jones squeaks in under the wire

I thought I was all done with the guest posts, but I received one more, from good old Jones (one of the Jones boys). Take it away, Jonesy!
-----

No, no, you're thinking of the other guy. The name's Jones, one of the Jones boys. I'm just subbing for the hardest-working man in the comic book reviewing business. You should come over for a duck dinner some time.

You bring the ducks.

So, sorry, kids, but you'll get none of that squeeing starry-eyed heroine stuff today. Instead, have a two-fisted, rambling "review" of Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps.

...if you think you're ready for the world that's coming!

***

If aliens were real, what kind of comics would they read?

English readers have recently seen two very different answers to that question. The first is A.L.I.E.E.E.N. (First Second, 2006), which purports to be an actual alien comic book discovered by prolific French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. In the foreword, Trondheim claims to have done no more than hand the book over to the publishers, but it looks suspiciously like his work, viz. surreal, cartoony and with a liberal dose of cruel black humour. Seems like aliens eat that shit up.

(Tony Millionaire? Have your people call Mars, pronto.)




Then, in 2007, Picturebox released an English language version of New Engineering, by manga-ka Yuichi Yokoyama. In some ways, New Engineering is exactly what you'd expect from a Picturebox manga -- deliberately obscure, with little to no narrative, relying entirely on unconventional visuals to do the aesthetic heavy lifting.* At the same time, it's like nothing else you've probably ever seen, either. In an interview at the end of the book, Yokoyama explains how he wants to erase "the human trace" from his work, and that's as good a description of his work as any. Yokoyama shows us page after page of puzzling scene, where peculiar agents perform baffling actions, for reasons unknown and to mysterious ends. Even more than A.L.I.E.E.E.N., New Engineering shows us that comics not designed for humans are really, really fucking weird.

But frankly, Trondheim and and Yokoyama needn't have bothered. For one cartoonist got there ahead of them -- thirty years ahead, in fact -- and already gave us a vision of alien entertainments designed for strange, unearthly eyes. I'm talking about Jack "King" Kirby and what is surely one of the oddest comic books ever made, OMAC One Man Army.



Lasting just 8 issues, OMAC came at the tail end of Kirby's second stint at DC, in the 70s, after the success of Kamandi, and the (perceived) failures of The Demon and his Fourth World saga.

With the exception of Kamandi, most of Kirby's 70s work isn't as accessible or, let's face it, as fun as his more famous collaborations with Stan Lee at Marvel. Throughout the 60s, Lee really did humanise Kirby's work, bringing it down to earth with the bickering of the Fantastic Four or the soap-operatic secret identities of Thor, Hulk, et al. These may have been god-like figures (or, in some cases, actual gods) but, as Lee scripted them, they were also all too human, and eminently relatable.

But even in the 60s, you can see Kirby straining against the human and reaching towards the inhuman, the monstrous, the alien. It's there from the start in the character design of the Fantastic Four, three sideshow freaks and one flat out monster. It emerges again, around FF # 60 or so, when Kirby seems to grow bored of the world's greatest family, and just starts drawing issue after issue focussing on the Inhumans (note the name!) or the alien Silver Surfer. And you can see it in Thor, where the mythological stuff gradually takes over and the hero is eventually revealed to be, not a man who becomes a god, but a god who has been disguised as a man.

When Kirby went solo in the 70s, then, he was free to do what he wanted. Which, for the most part, meant putting the emphasis on Superman, not Superman. The Eternals, for instance, was Chariots of the Gods on LSD, telling of alien creatures mistaken for gods, locked in a Manichaean struggle with vicious, subhuman counterparts. The Fourth World saga also told of alien creatures mistaken for gods, locked in a Manichaean struggle with vicious, subhuman counterparts - Kirby liked a good Manichaean struggle. The eponymous hero of Machine Man isn't even alive, much less human. And Devil Dinosaur, perhaps the most 70s-Kirby of all 70s-Kirby productions, is a big red dinosaur that goes around beating up other dinosaurs.

OMAC fits neatly into the overall pattern of 70s Kirby: explosive action stories with nothing remotely resembling human emotion or motivation. It tells of "the world that's coming", a science-fiction future ruled by the Global Peace Corps, a sort of uber-UN. The Global Peace Corps is "non-partisan" and "represents every nation"; accordingly (?) its agents wear identical uniforms and faceless orange masks to hide their features. Since "large armies are outlawed", the Corps relies on one man to enforce the peace -- a super-soldier who can serve as a "one-man army corps", or OMAC for short.

Although the nominal hero of the series, OMAC is barely-there as a character. He starts the series as the aptly named Buddy Blank, a weedy nebbish straight out of alter-ego central casting, transformed by "a computer hormone operation ... done by remote control!!" into the super-human OMAC. He takes this transformation in his stride and goes along with whatever missions the Corps sends him on, without asking any questions or, indeed, showing any sort of character beyond what is required to carry the action forward. The only distinctive thing about the character is his thick black mohawk.

Well, I guess his ever-lovin' sidekick, Brother Eye is pretty distinctive, too. I mean, he (?) is a computerized satellite, floating in the Earth's orbit, that looks like a giant eyeball and helps OMAC out by sending him power-boosting beams, whenever and however required by the plot.

I gather that DC recently revamped the concept of OMAC as a sinister army of cyborgs, with Brother Eye their Orwellian overlord. Truth be told, turning them into bad guys isn't much of a stretch; they already seem like bad guys, even if Kirby doesn't seem to realise it. The Global Peace Corps, OMAC's employers, look like the sort of faceless, nameless organization that Kirby created at Marvel as super-villain cannon fodder -- think of HYDRA or A.I.M.. And the Sauron-esque Brother Eye, hovering above us and seeing all, is downright creepy. Kirby's OMAC reads like the propaganda comic that Big Brother might have commissioned in 1984, to convince us that war is peace (and I say this as a fully-fledged, wants-to-take-your-guns-away, UN-loving internationalist who would probably support the Global Peace Corps in real life).

If Kirby's writing got less human in the 70s, then his art developed (some might say "degenerated") in that direction, too. More explosions! More action! In every single panel! And OMAC doesn't disappoint on that front. Kirby's figure art in the 70s was often stocky, figures drawn short and squat; with OMAC himself this tendency is exaggerated by the need to squeeze his mohawk into the panel.

Also on display is the Kirby squiggle that came to dominate his 70s style. Every surface -- organic, artificial and, above all, sartorial -- is decorated with those ubiquitous squiggly black splotches. The effect is disorienting; this isn't just the future, it's an alternate visual reality, the world through alien eyes. Just as no one in OMAC behaves like a real person, nothing in OMAC looks like the real world either. The squiggles make the world a battleground, everything, everywhere, ever-ready to burst forth in combat.**

This abstraction culminates in an amazing final two pages. The series was, apparently, cancelled abruptly, and the story certainly doesn't provide a satisfying resolution. But those last two pages are a fitting visual testament to what Kirby was doing in OMAC. Only the first two panels contain a human figure, the villainous Dr Skuba who is battling OMAC and his ally, Brother Eye. The rest, well, since I don't have a scanner, I'll have to let Kirby's own panel captions describe how he ended this strange and unworldly series. This isn't really a SPOILER as such, but the sensitive might want to skip past the bolded text:

Three powerful beams suddenly lash out into space!

Meteors and space debris are diverted in flight and flung at Brother Eye!

The huge satellite is subjected to a murderous bombardment...

Swarms of space rock gather and fly in a continuous rain!

Brother Eye has become a gigantic magnet which is attracting its own destruction!

The satellite is soon covered by crushing rock! It is blind and fighting to survive...

Suddenly, a beam of solar intensity roars out from Earth -- it heats the stones which cover Brother Eye ...

What was space rock becomes a molten, seething, fiery mass ...

It finally cools ... Brother Eye is now helpless and silent, in a prison of slag...

But below, the effort has caused an overload in Dr. Skuba's equipment. The island explodes in a gigantic fireball... ...and his very success brings destruction to the evil Skuba!

Now, that's about as pure an expression of Kirby's 70s inhumanism as you could get: rocks clash into a machine floating in space, and then there's an explosion. The end. OMAC himself, our supposed human hero, is nowhere in sight. Like the series itself, the ending is forbidding, abstract and nearly inaccessible.

In OMAC, Kirby no longer saw the world as made up of people and things, some placed here, some placed there. Instead, he saw a world of energy, savage, crackling, rippling and, above all, alien. If aliens read comic books, OMAC is the book they'd read.

As for humans? To quote the King himself: don't ask! Just buy it!

* For what it's worth, I found Yokoyama's visual style too flat and banal to really maintain my interest. But, as the Bard said, your mileage may vary.

** h/t to Craig Fischer for the phrase "Kirby squiggle". His post here first got me thinking about the inhuman in Kirby.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! Scott Cederlund looks at some mini-Tales

Scott Cederlund is a comics blogger that I actually know offline, so I have a face and voice to go with the stuff he writes. His blog, Wednesday's Haul, features commentary on comics and other media, along with a regular podcast. He also writes for Popsyndicate.com. His contribution makes me think I really need to check out Jeff Lemire's comics:

Tales from Mini Comics

Jeff Lemire's two Essex County graphic novels have been haunting books, showing how we can be disconnected from the very people we should love and cherish. They're powerful but ultimately depressing reads that show the gulfs that can exist between brothers or between people who should be as close as father and son. It won't be until October when we see Lemire's third part of his trilogy, The Country Nurse, but as a treat, he's recently put out two minicomics taking place in Essex County-- The Essex County Boxing Club and Eddie Elephant Ears.

Eddie Elephant Ears introduces us to Eddie, another of the many residents of Essex County. He has only four memories-- collecting beer bottles, enjoying maple leaf cookies, reading a series of choose-your-own-adventure books and going on an ice-fishing trip with his father. There are reasons it's only four but we'll avoid those spoilers for the review.



The second mini, The Essex County Boxing Club tells of the rise and fall of the club, how success was achieved and then lost, and how at the end of the day, it was more about friendship than boxing. Two life-long friends, Punchin' Patty Papineau and Ted "Thunderpunch" Diemer, started the club in 1976 as a way for manly men to have something to do with their time. It was comprised of a group of farmers who boxed at small town festivals. They even donned costumes, took on silly names and performed for a lot of people, including many of their own "beer-sogged friends, family and co-workers." Along the way, one died and the other lost his way but in the end, the boxing club survived and gave Papineau the outlet to remember and honor his friend.



These two minicomics don't tie in directly with the graphic novels but provide some enjoyable color to the background of Essex County and its citizens. Like the graphic novels, both show the distinct loss and disconnect of their main characters but they both end on an up beat as they end up being the story of the gift of memory. Eddie, facing a loss of memory and more, is able to hold onto his four memories and cherish them. Punchin' Patty's story is a similar one as memories enable Patty to continue the club and continue to box even after the loss of his dear friend.



Since Tales From The Farm, Lemire's artwork has amazed me. Maybe unfairly to an entire Canadian county, his characters have become what I imagine all Essex citizens look like in real life. From their misshapen heads to their flabby bodies, Lemire characters could only be indigenous to a farm land that's always trapped in some kind of perpetual autumn (at least, that's when I imagine most of Lemire's stories taking place.) They happen in a small little pocket of Ontario, CA where a boxing club can exist or where two brothers will fight and argue until their last days (see his Ghost Stories for that story.)



His characters all have one characteristic that they share-- their walking through life on their way to death. Through a wonderful blending of art and story, you're always aware of these characters mortality. That may sound morbid and depressing but the sense of mortality acts more as a memento mori for the readers as we see Lemire's characters fail at life in ways that, from the outside, are obvious and avoidable. But if you put yourself in the characters' place, you can understand the characters' weaknesses and blindness to the obvious pitfalls of life around them. And in these minis, more than in the graphic novels, Lemire projects memory as a good and positive thing that helps us move ahead even after tragedy.

These two minicomics aren't essential reading if you're following the Essex County series but they are fun side-tracks until we get The Country Nurse. They contain the themes and emotions of the graphic novels condensed down into 16 page minicomics. You can purchase the minicomics through Lemire's online store, http://www.jefflemire.com/store.htm.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! Jason Powell indulges Dave Sim

Here's another piece from Jason Powell:

Glamourpuss #1
By Dave Sim



When Paul O'Brien used to do a monthly capsule review for every issue of Cerebus during the series' last two or three years of existence, he acknowledged every so often that writer/artist Dave Sim's artistic predilections and obsessions had become so rarefied that the series was now more or less for "completists only."

Alas, the same complaint is probably true of "Glamourpuss," Dave Sim's new series, only more so. Whereas Cerebus contained -- even during some of its most opaque and impenetrable phases of existence -- on ongoing narrative that always was engaging enough to take readers over the rough spots. The sheer momentum and sweep of Sim's storytelling remained even though Cerebus' turbulent final years.

Glamourpuss doesn't have that momentum stored up; nor does it have any kind of coherent narrative. It's a hard sell, by any standard.

What it does have is 20 pages of gorgeous artwork by Dave Sim. That is probably not enough to attract most of the comics-buying audience, but I'm happy to acknowledge that it's enough for me. Sim is truly a master of comic book art. Cerebus will always stand as his masterwork, a series that -- over its 26 years of existence -- boasted innovative storytelling techniques that were so often ahead of their time.

Glamourpuss, by contrast, is more backward looking. It is less about breaking new ground and more about exploring some of the previous generation's pioneers of comics art. Since Sim himself is a pioneer of this generation (I'd even say he's on the top of the heap, the greatest visual innovator of his day), what better person to guide readers through the work of his precursors?
True, it's a little bit stream-of-consciousness in its delivery; it's somewhat scattered and unsteady as it tilts back and forth among critique and personal rumination. Sim also wraps his entire tutorial in a gloss of fashion-magazine parody. It's far from the refined, focused writing that characterized Cerebus at its peak.

Yet, at the same time, there is an attractive kind of dreamy logic to it all. "Self-indulgent" is often used as a pejorative, but certain artists are just so fascinatingly idiosyncratic that -- in my opinion -- they become more entrancing the more self-indulgent they get. Sim falls into that category. Glamourpuss is Sim indulging his own fascinations to the Nth degree -- the entire thing feels like an uncensored, undiluted, unapologetic first draft. And while it's certainly a strange amalgam (glamour magazine meets comics-art tutorial?), Sim's sense of purpose is so strong, and his artistic talents so monumental, that it hangs together quite well. There is no logical reason why it should, but it does, thanks to Sim's sheer visual genius.

Also, while his writing can be a bit fussy, I have to say I still think Sim's sense of humor has got some real chops. I recall reading a bit somewhere in which Sim lamented critics who slammed Cerebus when it "stopped being funny." Glamourpuss showcases Sim's biting sense of humor as well as some of Cerebus' best comedic moments. His "Skanko" bit at the end -- basically an advice column encouraging women to behave like sitcom caricatures -- is a fantastic send-up of pop culture's pervasively brainless gender politics. (Ironic, considering that Sim's own have come under major fire for years.)

Glamourpuss also features some extended, Andy-Kaufman-esque conceptual bits; not as biting as the "Skanko" parody, but compellingly bizarre in their own right.

The whole package is probably too bizarre to appeal to most, but I'd still encourage people to check out the first issue anyway. Many may find it incredibly inaccessible -- but a few might, in spite of themselves, become hooked. I certainly have.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! Caleb Mozzocco rhapsodizes bohemianly

Caleb takes care of his own introduction, so I'll just turn things over to him:

Freddie, Mike & Me

Hiya there, Warren Peace Sings the Blues readers! This is Caleb Mozzocco of Every Day Is Like Wednesday, not Matthew J. Brady. You see, Matt lost his blog to me in a poker game, so from now on, Warren Peace Sings the Blues is going to be nothing more than EDILW II.

No actually, as Matt no doubt explained already, he's going on vacation, and didn't want to leave his blog fallow, so invited some other folks to contribute while he's taking it easy. He got me to do
so simply by flattering me, and telling me I was one of his favorite comics bloggers (Now that I think about it, that actually makes me call into question all of his comics criticism; I thought he had pretty decent taste in comics, but man, if he actually thinks EDILW is a good blog, well then, maybe I have to reevaluate my esteem of his opinion).

Anyway, after I agreed to contribute a review of some sort, I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Should I write a post of the sort that Matt himself might write, like a review of some manga series intended for little Japanese girls? Should I write the sort that I would usually do at Every Day Is Like Wednesday, like 4,000 words about why Martian Manhunter's costuming choices? Or should I mix the two approaches, and write a post about whether Nana Komatsu or Nana Osaki would be a better girlfriend for Dick Grayson?

Well, I've opted to a pretty straight review of a new graphic novel, one that's black and white and mostly set in another country, like manga, but deals with the subject of hero worship, like superhero comics.

Freddie & Me: A Coming-Of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody
By Mike Dawson



You might not recognize Mike Dawson's name, but you'll probably recognize his art—he's had pieces in several rather high-profile anthologies, like Alternative Comics' True Porn 2 and AdHouse's Project: Superior. At least, I didn't recognize his name, but did recognize his art, and looking at his website just now, I see he's also worked on a book called Gabagool!.

His new(-ish) book is Freddie & Me: A Coming-Of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody, and its title and cover seem to imply that its about a life of Queen fandom. Which, of course, it sort of is, but Queen fandom is more of a hook than the actual subject matter.

This is yet another cartoonist autobiography in graphic novel format (can we call them graphic autobiographies? Or graphic memoirs?), an understandably hot genre in the publishing industry (both prose memoirs in general and graphic novels in general have been on the ascendancy for a while) that has seen a great deal of mainstream success these past few years.

Beyond the acceptance of the current book market, there's a good creative reason for the deluge of such books, however, a reason that Dawson himself says in his book, he believes "comics are especially well suited to autobiography."

I would definitely agree with that, and its something Dawson repeatedly demonstrates. This is essentially his own life's story up until the point that this book was published, and it just so happens that Queen figures quite prominently into many of the milestone moments of his life: the earliest memories of his family, his angstier teenage moments, the maturation of his relationship with his sister, the mourning of his grandmother, his thoughts on fame, success and
mortality.

While the bulk of the book deals with his own life story in more or less linear fashion, he diverges from it a few times for a fantasized history of Wham! (his little sister loved Wham! as much as he loved Queen, to the point that they argued over whether the family cat should be named Queenie or Whammy):



And, in some of the narrative's more insightful passages, to talk about the nature of memory itself:



Here's where Dawson's assertion about the power of the medium is especially astute. Because memory is so visual, comics provide the sort of immediacy that prose can't…or at least most prose can't. The very best prose writers can make a reader see things almost as if they were looking at pictures, whereas even the worst comics artist can create visual images with which to confront the reader.

Additionally, it allows Dawson to capture himself, his friends and his families at different periods of their lives, really underscoring the wince-inducing nature of many of his memories, particularly in the passages about his youth and high school. Hearing him describe the
embarrassment he feels over certain aspects just isn't as powerful as seeing the big-nosed, huge-headed, goon-ish looking teen Dawson with his hair combed over his left eyes, wearing braces and a top hat, you know?



His life story isn't quite so dramatic or tied into major hot-button issues the way Marjane Satrapi's or Alison Bechdel's were. He, his little sister, and his older brother grew up with their parents in England, and then moved to the United States in grade school (his older brother
staying behind for a while). In high school, he became very interested in music, art and girls. He went to college. He got a job. He met a woman and married her. Pretty basic stuff, but no less dramatic because of it (It's certainly easy to relate to).

Throughout it all, there's Queen and Freddie Mercury, a constant touchstone for Dawson's mental life, the story he tells himself of himself, in the phraseology he hears in a discussion about
self on the radio while drawing comics one day.

Queen figures most prominently in the most amusing parts of the narrative—Dawsons' boyhood fantasy of meeting them backstage before a show, his drawings of his own music videos, his fantasies of singing in the high school lunch room, a comic book adaptation of "Bohemian Rhapsody"—essentially providing context and color to the various rites of passages in his young life.



The very same way that anything that particularly dedicated fans of particular things that people are fans of—music, sports, comics—provide context and color to their own lives. Even lacking a deep knowledge or above-average affection for Queen (prior to read this, I could have counted the Queen songs I knew on one hand), I understood the experience of being a fan Dawson so beautifully communicates.



Now I think I'm going to get off Matt's blog and head to the library to look for some Queen albums. Dawson's sold me on the fact that maybe I ought to listen to some more, if only to see why he loves them so much.

If you'd like to see some of Freddie & Me, Publisher's Weekly has a ten-page preview here,
and Dawson's own site has a 12-page preview here.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! David Welsh brings the girliness

David Welsh is one of the preeminent manga critics around the comics blog-o-tubes, regularly posting to his blog, Precocious Curmudgeon, and contributing a weekly column to The Comics Reporter. I'm pleased to present his guest contribution to my plea for content:

Surrender to the Pink

I’m always heartened to see other old people express affection for shôjo manga. (By “old people” I mean anyone above the age of twelve not found decamped on the floor of Barnes & Noble.) So Matthew’s regular strolls through the pages of Viz’s Shojo Beat magazine are always highlights of my visits to this blog. While there’s a lot of fine shôjo currently in release, there are plenty of completed series that are worth a look. Here are four you might have missed:

Othello, by Satomi Ikezawa, seven volumes from Del Rey: Poor Yaya. All she wanted was a high-school experience away from the awful bitches who’ve used and abused her since kindergarten. Alas, the sadistic gods of classroom assignments have different ideas. While I wouldn’t normally recommend a complete psychotic break as a coping mechanism, it works out pretty well for Yaya when a two-fisted alternate personality, Nana, emerges. A lot of my favorite shôjo series are about the evolution of identity, and this one stands out by focusing on the reconciliation of extremes. There’s real angst in watching doormat Yaya try to figure out what’s going on, and Nana has her own problems. Nana’s extreme measures are often out of proportion to the situation, which Ikezawa smartly portrays as being just as bad as Yaya’s passivity. With plenty of twists and turns along the way, the pace never flags.

Paradise Kiss, by Ai Yazawa, five volumes from Tokyopop: One of the things I’ve never understood is why Tokyopop hasn’t released a handsome omnibus edition of this series with a great big “From the creator of Nana!” blurb on the front. Aside from the marketing possibilities, this gorgeous story deserves the prestige treatment. Gawky, uptight Yukari meets a group of fashion design students from an arts high school who want her to model for them in an upcoming show. College entrance exams go by the wayside as she’s drawn into their glamorous, creative circle. The art is predictably gorgeous, and every character is great, from serenly beautiful Isabella to snarky punk Arashi to hot-but-smug bisexual George. The book’s primary pleasure is watching Yukari evolve from a tight-ass on an unsatisfying treadmill to a funny, generous young woman who’s open to life’s possibilities.

Tenshi Ja Nai!!, by Takako Shigematsu, eight volumes from Go! Comi: After some nasty bullying following an early experience as a child actress, sullen Hikaru has devoted her adolescence to not being noticed. Her hunger for anonymity is thwarted when she enrolls in a boarding school and is forced to room with up-and-coming starlet Izumi. Beyond the unwanted attention that yields, Izumi’s got a secret: she’s a he, and a conniving bastard to boot. He blackmails Hikaru into helping him keep his secret, and satisfyingly nasty screwball complications ensue. The edge wanes as the series progresses, and it’s by no means perfect, but there’s an awful lot to like overall. The chemistry between Hikaru and Izumi is particularly satisfying and stays strong as their characters evolve, and their comedic mishaps work far more often than not.

Ultra Maniac, by Wataru Yoshizumi, five volumes from Viz: It’s fair to be a little frightened of the sparkly adorability of Ultra Maniac. With its vending-machine ready magical accessories and determined sheen of cuteness, it looks utterly, cynically disposable. I assure you that it’s not, as there’s a surprising amount of heart invested in its formulaic set-up. Athletic, intelligent Ayu is poised to have a junior-high social career of dignified popularity. This becomes impossible when she befriends dingy Nina, an underachieving exchange student from a magical dimension. Nina is devoted to Ayu and tries to help her new friend by magical means, which always ends in humiliating disaster. The antics aren’t particularly inspired, but the unlikely but enduring friendship that forms between Nina and Ayu is. In a lot of shôjo manga, romantic relationships are the main course and friendships are the neglected side dish, but the opposite is true here, and it’s really refreshing. The girls’ Lucy-and-Ethel shenanigans may not generate much interest, but their Mary-and-Rhoda loyalty provides a smart, solid core for the series.

Vacation Guestblogstravaganza! Jason Powell critiques some modern Claremont

As I mentioned Monday, I'll be on vacation for the next couple weeks, so I've recruited some internet friends and fellow bloggers to provide content while I'm gone. Enjoy!

For our first guest post, we've got Jason Powell, theater critic, Chris Claremont expert, and general all-around nice guy. He occasionally posts to his Livejournal blog, Ocean Doot, and he also has a regular series on Geoff Klock's blog, Remarkable, in which he is covering Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny X-Men, issue by issue. That series (which is over fifty posts long by this point and still has a good hundred or so to go) has been some great reading, so I'm happy to present his review of Claremont's newest series. Enjoy:

GeNext #1
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Patrick Scherberger



I'll admit, I was hoping for something a little different from GeneXt. When originally announced, the high concept for the series was that Chris Claremont -- godfather of the X-Men -- would write a "What If" story in a universe that saw the X-characters aging in real time (presumably beginning with 1963, the year in which the first issue of X-Men was released).

If it were up to me, I'd like to see this done in a style similar to Alan Moore's Supereme: A main story set in the present, but with occasional flashbacks to earlier decades -- written and drawn in the style of X-Men comics from that era.

The reality is less ambitious. The five-issue miniseries simply follows a new cast of original characters, all of whom (so far as we know) are children or grandchildren of X-Men characters.
Claremont introduces readers to five teenagers (presumably to mirror the fact there were five original X-Men in 1963), and -- in tried and true fashion -- shows them getting their fight on during a Danger Room training exercise.

The scene accounts for half the comic, and essentially allows Claremont to hit all the main points for each character -- their powers, their general attitudes, their feelings about each other. There's a cameo by a grey-haired Hank McCoy (who, assuming the "real-time" rule hasn't been tossed to the wayside, must be about 62 or 63 years old). But other than that, focus is pretty firmly on these new characters.

The second bit of the issue shows the kids in a more relaxed social atmosphere, which -- predictably -- turns ugly when they run into a couple of racist townies.

Overall, the issue is severely low on incident. There's no sense of what the next four issues will be about -- presumably this is going to be very much a character piece, exploring the personalities of the sons, daughters and grandkids of the first mutant generation.

Honored host Matt Brady expressed doubts as to how convincing Claremont's teenager-dialogue would be. True, Claremont is not necessarily a master of "realistic" dialogue -- and never has been. However, he typically writes teenagers in a way that, while not authentically capturing their vernacular, does properly convey the energy and rhythms of youth. (See: the way he wrote Jubilee back in 1989, or even how he wrote Gen-13 in 2002.)

That ability is more or less on display here. It is not Claremont's most efficient dialogue. There are a few glitches -- that perhaps should have been caught by the editor for adjustment -- wherein characters repeat lines of dialogue almost verbatim. (e.g., "I just need some time to myself." "You sure you're all right?" "I'm fine. Just want a little time for myself.") Considering that the whole point of the series is characterization, and that dialogue is Claremont's main tool in getting that across, these moments of redundancy are frustratingly uneconomical.

That glitch aside, though, the cast is likable. There are basically two angles to how they're handled: On the one hand, readers are invited to just enjoy their quirks and speculate on their futures: Will they all follow in their forebears' footsteps, or will some of them give up on the hero game altogether? There's also the requisite amount of sexual tension among the group, reminiscent of Claremont's early issues of New Mutants from the 1980s, when we all were invited to guess who might end up with who.

The other angle is to do with the mystery of the kids' respective pasts. As an example, one of them -- known only as "Rico" -- is described as being "third generation," and has the power to turn things invisible. Is the name "Rico," then, a derivation of "Richards"? Is he the son of Franklin, the grandson of the Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic? Becka -- the putative lead in the series -- is the daughter of Storm, but that's all we are told. What is her relationship to her mother? How and where was she raised?

So, the issue primes readers to look questioningly in both directions: Where did these five kids come from, and where are they going? The success of the remaining four issues will rest largely on how satisfyingly these questions are answered.

The artwork is rather lovely, and appropriate to the story Claremont is telling. Penciller Patrick Scherberger and inker Norman Lee display a heavily cartoony style -- dynamic, energetic, bouncy and easy to look at. There's a sheen of modern-ness to the comic that fits its "new generation" premise.

All in all, a strong issue. A little simple and uneventful perhaps, but in that simplicity lies no small amount of charm. I'm very much hoping that Claremont will keep the good times rolling with this one.