Nursery Rhyme Comics: It's what it says on the tin

Nursery Rhyme Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy

As one would expect, this is pretty much a collection of straight comics versions of well-known nursery rhymes (and a few obscure ones), so rather than trying to make any sweeping statements covering such a diverse mix of talent, here is one sentence (or sentence fragment) for each entry:

"Hey, Diddle Diddle", by Nick Abadzis: This is mostly a straight illustration job, rather than any sort of attempt to wrap a story around the nonsensical words, but it handles the depictions of stuff like a jumping cow and a dog having a fit of laughter quite well; nothing mind-blowing, but still pretty pleasant.

"Hot Cross Buns", by Andrew Arnold: A simple one-pager, with a bit of a surprise at the end regarding a narrating pigeon.

"The Grand Old Duke of York", by Kate Beaton: This fits Beaton's usual historical milieu, with the crazy duke riding on his men's shoulders and ordering them about; it's pretty funny.

"There Was a Little Girl", by Vera Brosgol: Brosgol's little girl is cute and believable, whether she's good or horrid.

"Three Little Kittens", by Nick Bruel: This one is pretty literal, but it's funny to see the kittens' pie-covered mittens at the end.

"Pop Goes the Weasel", by Scott Campbell: Campbell amusingly highlights the goofy randomness of this rhyme by treating the weasel as a chaos-causing agent, suddenly scattering the subjects of each of the various verses whenever it's time for his preferred action.

"Sing a Song of Sixpence", by Lilli Carre: This one is kind of surreal, with elongated characters and a stolen nose, and also an amusingly high stack of toast slices.

"There Was a Crooked Man", by Roz Chast: Chast turns in one of the more crooked men (along with mile, sixpence, stile, cat, mouse, and house) that I've ever seen, but he sure doesn't seem to mind.

"Old King Cole", by JP Coovert: This king is a lion heading up a band consisting of a hippo, a monkey, and a giraffe, which is pretty great, a rockin' jungle dance scene.

"Old Mother Hubbard", by Jordan Crane: There are a lot more verses in this version of the poem than I was aware of, but Crane makes them really fun, turning the dog into a pretty great cartoon visual.

"If All the Seas Were One Sea", by Rebecca Dart: This is one of the more impressive illustration jobs in the book, a beautifully-colored depiction of a giant man standing atop a planet, an enjoyably exaggerated literalization of the poem.

"The Queen of Hearts", by Eleanor Davis: There's lots of extra detail and word balloon dialogue in this one, turning the story into a tale of a people's hero striking at the crown, all in a neat, Nancy-ish style.

"Cindereller", by Vanessa Davis: I always thought this was just "Cinderella, dressed in yella'", but pronunciation aside, Davis illustrates it quite ably, even the snake-kissing.

"As I Was Going to St. Ives", by Theo Ellsworth: While there was really only one guy going to St. Ives, the opportunity for Ellsworth to illustrate a lively explosion of sacks, cats, and kittens is not to be missed.

"Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play", by Jules Feiffer: Old-school marker art of a bunch of kids playing, nicely laid out to act out the words of the poem across a double page spread.

"Little Boy Blue", by Bob Flynn: A cutely cartoony enactment of the poem, although the antics the animals get up to while Boy Blue is sleeping are pretty funny.

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee", by Matt Forsythe: I like this depiction of the titular pair, with them seeming more like Napoleonic generals than rotund overgrown children, and the resolution to their "battle" is nicely understated.

"The North Wind Doth Blow", by Alexis Frederick-Frost: Pretty standard stuff here, with a robin being seeking shelter from the wind, and that's about it.

"Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been?", by Ben Hatke: A fun interpretation of this poem as a conversation between two nicely-realized cats, one of whom is revealed to be a definite boaster.

"Humpty Dumpty", by Gilbert Hernandez: I like the surreality of this one, with its standalone pink wall and hobby horses, plus there's kind of a twist ending, of a less gruesome sort than this poem usually leads to.

"Jack and Jill", by Jaime Hernandez: Jaime's ultra-cartoony style is always nice, and I love his depiction of the large lady who patches up the kid's head.

"There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe", by Lucy Knisley: While the interpretation of "whipped them all soundly" is a bit of a stretch, reimagining this one as a story about a rock-and-roll day care is pretty fun.

"London Bridge is Falling Down", by David Macaulay: Lots more verses than are usually recited here, depicted in tall, narrow panels, each showing London Bridge either collapsing or being rebuilt with various materials; kinda weird.

"Little Miss Muffet", by Mark Martin: Pretty basic, although depicting the spider as a sort of shabby lothario is pretty funny, as is Miss Muffet's last-panel freakout.

"The Donkey", by Patrick McDonnell: If you're going to have somebody draw a donkey playing a saxophone, Patrick McDonnell is your man.

"Solomon Grundy", by Mike Mignola: This is exactly the rhyme you would expect Mignola to illustrate, and he makes it creepy and ominous, turning the character into a Pinocchio-like figure and suggesting much in between the panels.

"Rub-a-Dub-Dub", by Tony Millionaire: While there's not a lot to work with in this short poem, Tony Millionaire manages to make it extra weird and lively.

"Rock-a-Bye Baby", by Tao Nyeu: While the illustration style is simple (and neon-shaded), the depiction of the not-exactly-helpless baby here is pretty great.

"For Want of a Nail", by George O’Connor: Pretty simple and literal, but the gradual zoom out from the initial panel depicting a nail is nice.

"Hush, Little Baby", by Mo Oh: This might be the highlight of the entire book, turning the poem/song into a call-and-response between a father and his young, less-than-impressed daughter, with panels snaking organically across the pages, the adorable characters interacting with the objects of their summoned imagination wonderfully.

"Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater", by Eric Orchard: Maybe it's just familiarity, but the first verse of this poem seems to work better than the second one (or maybe it's just distaste at the idea of Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater having two wives), and Orchard's goofy pumpkin on wheels would have been a preferable image to end on, if you ask me.

"'Croak', Said the Toad", by Laura Park: I like Park's versions of the toad's (and his frog acquaintance's) meals, fancily prepared dishes made out of slugs and worms.

"This Little Piggy", by Cyril Pedrosa: Pedrosa turns this one into a series of strips about the travails of a wolf family and the multiple pigs they prey upon, all depicted in a gorgeously drawn forest with a funny twist of an ending.

Lark Pien: I hadn't heard this one before, and it really doesn't make any sense, but I do like Pien's cute artwork, with its anthropomorphic nuts, comely maiden, and bizarre ending.

"The Lion and the Unicorn", by Aaron Renier: This poem makes little sense, but Renier's fairly literal illustration of it is lush, lively, and beautifully colored.

"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe", by Dave Roman: Roman turns this simple collection of words into a story about a mad scientist and his numbered clones, making for a cute, hilarious romp.

"Yon Yonson", by Marc Rosenthal: This is apparently one of those never-ending rhymes, which Rosenthal turns into a crazed attack on an innocent pedestrian by the title character.

"Hector Protector", by Stan Sakai: I don't know this poem at all, but I like the way Sakai fleshes it out through word balloons filled with sequential imagery, a sort of neat, multi-level story.

"Three Blind Mice", by Richard Sala: Pretty simple and literal, but Sala makes it work with minimalistic flair.

"Wee Willie Winkie", by Mark Siegel: A great book-closing strip, turning the title character into a sort of Sandman who coats children in golden slumber-stuff.

"Jack Be Nimble", by James Sturm: A hilarious indictment of the reader by the title character, who can't believe anyone would encourage him to do something so dangerous (again).

"Georgie Porgie", by Raina Telgemeier: As cute as you would expect, but setting the action at a modern birthday party and making Georgie upset girls by kissing them and getting their faces messy, then run away while being pelted with food by the other boys doesn't make for the most satisfying plot, not that it really matters.

"The Owl and the Pussycat", by Craig Thompson: This one is gorgeous, with pages full of densely-detailed, beautifully-colored imagery, and it's tons of fun to read out loud too.

"There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket", by Richard Thompson: As good as one would expect from Thompson, with a silly contraption to fire a lady up in the air on the first page, leading to beautiful watercolors as she sweeps the night sky clean on the second.

"Mary Had a Little Lamb", by Sara Varon: Varon's art isn't terrible or anything, but it's somewhat less appealing than most of what's in the book, just rabbit-people acting out the basic story.

"Little Bo Peep", by Jen Wang: Another contender for best art in the book, two beautifully composed and colored pages that interpret the poem as a young woman trying to fall asleep, and then entering a lovely, sheepy dreamscape.

"Baa-Baa, Black Sheep", by Drew Weing: A nicely cartoony take on the poem that turns it into a cute story about a sheep finding a friend.

"The Itsy Bitsy Spider", by Gahan Wilson: Old-school quirkiness, with the spider trying to drag several pieces of luggage up the waterspout.

"Pat-a-Cake", by Gene Luen Yang: A fun sci-fi version of the poem starring an alien family, because why not?

"Hickory Dickory Dock", by Stephanie Yue: A cute mouse runs up a clock tower and rings the bell, which, given the lack of material to work with, works pretty well.

Now, adult analysis and appreciation is all well and good, but nursery rhymes are directed toward children first and foremost. How well does the volume work for its target audience? Well, a photo says more than any number of words can:



Nursery Rhyme Comics comes out on October 11, 2011 from First Second.

A Bride's Story: I'd marry her

Elsewhere: If you're curious as to what choices I submitted to The Hooded Utilitarian's Best Comics Poll, they can be seen here. Check the comments there for some thoughts from me about those choices. That whole affair has been a really fun exercise; I love seeing all the stuff that people voted for.

One link: I really liked this comic about Nirvana's Nevermind by Jonathan Bennett.

A Bride's Story, volume 1
By Kaoru Mori

One wouldn't necessarily expect a story about an arranged marriage to be a showcase for a strong female character (no, not one of those Strong Female Characters), but that's exactly what Kaoru Mori's latest manga series is. It follows Amir, a young woman living in central Asia in the nineteenth century, as she adjusts to her new life following her marriage into a neighboring clan of her family's. Mori quickly establishes her as spunky and competent in household duties, and before long we are marveling at how well she handles her strange situation, both as an outsider and as a twenty year old married to someone eight years her junior. While the reason for her late marriage (which would normally have come several years earlier, the better to start a family as young as possible) has yet to be revealed, it provides another level of interest, as both she and Karluk, her young husband, are still figuring out how their relationship works.

Maybe it's her impulsive, take-charge nature that made Amir a poor bridal candidate, but that aspect of her personality, along with the joy that she takes in life, that makes her absolutely enchanting to readers. In the first chapter, the idea of cooking her family's traditional rabbit soup leads her to grab her bow and rush out to do some hunting, and later, when she and Karluk take a trip to meet some of his nomadic relatives, she excitedly munches on some found pomegranates and demonstrates skill at herding sheep, all in a way that makes the reader marvel at her along with her husband. One can see why people would want her to be a part of their family.



Readers will love to spend time with her, but Mori has fleshed out far more of this setting than just Amir's character. She fills the story with detail upon detail of the era, lingering lovingly on clothing, household decorations, food, animals, and social interactions. It all seems to be very well-researched, but comes from a genuine fascination with the time and place, a passion that is beautifully communicated to the reader. In fact, that attention to detail provides what might be the most exhilarating sequence in the volume, in which one of the younger members of the family becomes obsessed with the work of a decorative woodcarver, providing the opportunity for page upon page of panels filled with intricate woodwork, both finished and in progress, with an emphasis on the tactile nature of the carvings and the work that goes into making them:




In a book filled with brisk-moving family drama, it's surprising that the most exciting thing is an old man with a hammer and chisel, but that's a testament to Mori's skill, especially in conveying her enthusiasm to the reader.

That's far from the extent of the appeal, however; the family dynamics that Mori establishes are really interesting, with conflicts and complications both light (a disobedient child) and heavy (a life-threatening illness). As of the end of this first volume, the big continuing plot involves Amir's family deciding they made a mistake in marrying her to Karluk and choosing to take her back, which should lead to some big moments in the next installment, but for now, we mostly get to watch as she continues to settle in to her new life. And that's fine; as satisfying as big, dramatic confrontations can be (this volume sees a good one, when the family's grandmother, who entered the family in a similar manner to Amir, chases off the interlopers who intend to reclaim their bride), the real pleasure of this series is in the small details, the interactions between brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, the conversations over the dinner table, the intricate detail of the clothing and wall hangings, the emotion so plain on people's faces. Mori handles all of this so well that one is content to just bask in the world she has (re-)created here. While life's complications, as ever, will have to intrude, any time spent among these pages is a true pleasure.

Sweet Tooth: It has turned sour

Sweet Tooth, Volume 3: Animal Armies
By Jeff Lemire

I hate to complain about creators that I like, but this volume of Jeff Lemire's ongoing Vertigo series left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had to say (that is, write) something, at least to clear my head of the negative vibes. I had some reservations about the series in the first volume, and the second, while readable, didn't really get me excited, but this third volume was when I tipped into outright, eye-rolling negativity. While Lemire did an excellent job with his withdrawn characters in the Essex County Trilogy, he continues to display a lack of imagination here with his post-apocalyptic world, filling it with the standard ruined buildings, empty landscapes, and protective authority figures. The wispy art that worked so well on the empty vistas of rural Canada often seems hastily sketched here, and Lemire still has a problem depicting coherent action.

None of that has really changed since the beginning of the series, but what ends up being especially distasteful here are the attempts to shock, which seem ham-fisted and manipulative; The Road this ain't. The worst and most laughable involves a cult leader who keeps his five vicious dog-children on leashes. How he managed to build a city-conquering following of mask-wearing animal-worshipers is unexplained, but he's the type of cackling, violently crazy villain that shows up in B-grade action movies. We get to see how terrible he is when he explains that his wife died giving birth to her litter, so he let the babies eat her corpse. This is supposed to be repulsive, but all I could do was express disbelief at the thought that human, canine, or human/canine newborns would be eating meat. That's how well thought-through this world seems as a whole, really.

This volume's attempt at tragic poignancy in the climax is another bit that just seems manipulative (I'm going to spoil a big reveal from the ending of the volume here, so skip to the next paragraph if you really don't want to be surprised). The brutish Jepperd, who leads a rescue attack on the compound where deer-boy Gus is being held, finds out during a fight that his son, who he was told died in childbirth along with his mother, actually survived. Then, as he is rescuing Gus and some others, one of the kids, a horse-boy, gets caught by the evil dog-boys, and Jepperd forces everyone to leave him behind, but not before the boy (who hadn't spoken before this point) lets out a plaintive "Da?" Why, could this be Jepperd's long-lost son, which he just left for dead? Yes, it is, and we're all supposed to be so devastated. But we're not, we just sigh at the tiresome attempt at tear-jerking, which started with a sneering villain announcing the long-kept secret in the middle of a knife fight (which contains a page with an awkward panel arrangement that is read clockwise, stranding the reader's eye on the left side of the page) and ended with an escape that makes little sense in terms of where characters are situated in relation to each other. It's clumsy and poorly executed all around, and Lemire should be much better than this.

That's not the full extent of his ineptitude, however; much of the art and storytelling in general is poorly done. Action is often amateurishly done, with characters not moving or interacting believably. Take, for instance, this two-panel sequence from the middle of a fight scene, in which Jepperd is being held to the ground by a boot on his head:

That's a hell of an arm motion that can send a man flying like that. While not everything is so poorly done, Lemire does seem to struggle in the attempts to depict the violence that should be so essential to the series. Bad superhero artists often get made fun of for this sort of thing, and just because Lemire draws in a rougher style, he shouldn't get away with it.

The character work isn't much better, but it's fairly consistent, fitting in Lemire's standard style. However, the  cult leader once again provides an example of ugliness, being depicted with a more rendered, shaded face than the others:



It's a weird effect, like a Benjamin Marra version of an evil villain.

The odd pacing is another area of concern; Lemire can't seem to decide if he's going for propulsive action or slow contemplation. He wastes pages with pointless bits like a helicopter blade spinning:



Or a fly buzzing around a room:



Or, in an especially banal attempt at an Eisner-style title page, a scene that just makes one wonder why somebody would set up big letters in a field like that, and why the characters wander by them without noticing:



Other bits make one question the "reality" of the book as well; in one scene, a TV monitor displays an attacking horde of characters, but the image shown is obviously an image from the comic, and sure enough, it shows up a few pages later on what should be a big spread whose impact is dulled since we've already seen it (and also has the odd effect of making it seem like the attackers have been frozen in mid-charge for several pages).

The series seemed like it had some promise at the beginning, but this installment reveals that Lemire is well out of his depth here, and while it is admirable that he wants to stretch himself, the results definitely aren't worthwhile reading. It's surprising; Vertigo usually has better quality control than this. Maybe Lemire's attention has been drawn elsewhere by his work writing DC superhero comics; hopefully he'll finish this up soon and move on to something that is more his speed, but after this debacle, he's going to have to do something pretty good to get me back on his side.

Groo watch: Sergio Aragones Funnies #1

As a certified Groo fanatic, I scour every new Sergio Aragones comic I read for appearances by the mindless mendicant, and the first issue of Aragones' new ongoing one-man anthology series yielded two results (that I saw). First, in a puzzle page taking place in a comics store, somebody has brought in one of the surely worthless issues of the series for Sergio to deface:

And on the back cover, he makes an appearance in the background of a costume party:



Yup, good Groo times. So when is the next miniseries coming out?

Art What I Like (even if it makes me want to puke): Jim Woodring freaks me RIGHT THE FUCK OUT

While I continue to be somewhat stymied in my attempts to interpret Jim Woodring's Frank comics (he claims that they, or at least his previous book, Weathercraft, are explicable, but I'm often kind of clueless, although his latest, Congress of the Animals, does seem to be about unfulfilling work, attempts to "find oneself", more unfulfillment among bad influences (possibly due to drugs and over-indulgent art), and eventual peace due to finding one's soulmate), I don't think I'll ever stop marveling at the amazing artwork he fills his books with. It contains some of the most solid and tangible representations of fantastical objects and events I've ever seen, along with a deeply unsettling atmosphere, something that either creeps me out or turns my stomach to look at it. There's something about the plantlike growths on animal creatures, the gaping orifices, and the plentiful eyeballs that, while obviously unnatural, goes a step further into a visceral gut-punch, somehow keying into a subconscious urge to look away.

This aspect of the work has been present in other Frank stories I've seen, but Woodring seems to crank it up to near-unbearable levels here, as Frank travels away from the comforts of home and into a strange land, encountering strange (even for him) creatures and weird landscapes. Probably most horrifying of all are some men who have no faces, but rather gaping holes in their heads with a spherical object rolling around inside, a sight which seems to sicken even Frank himself:

Later, Frank gets sent on a crazy hallucinatory trip, giving Woodring a chance to break out of his usual grid for some more creepiness:



The final panel there seems especially awful to me; the distortion of Frank's mouth and lips is something that strikes me as terribly painful and nasty.

Later, Frank comes across a constantly-morphing beastie that tries to swallow him up into its conglomerated structure, and it's another unnerving Woodring creation that really grosses me out. What's especially impressive is the way he communicates its shape-shifting nature, never depicting it the same way twice, as if it is a roiling mass of mouths and eyeballs, tentacles and protrusions:

But no matter what the freakiness that Woodring delivers in these pages, they all fit right into the world, seeming like solid objects and beings interacting with one another. The signature wiggly-line shading gives everything a real volume and heft, and maybe that's why it's all so creepy. As obviously unnatural as everything is, it's all so well-drawn, it looks like it could leap right off the page. If that's not a frightening thought, I don't know what is.

Random recent reading: I like a lot of things

Elsewhere: The Team Cul de Sac Favorites zine which I contributed to (along with numerous other comics criticism luminaries) is now available for mail order here. It's for a good cause, so please check it out!

Kickstarter link: Eliza Frye's Regalia looks really good, and the incentives are pretty reasonably-priced. Cheap, that is.


And here's some shorter stuff, since I did want to talk about these but can't be bothered to flesh out my thoughts sufficiently:


Anya's Ghost
By Vera Brosgol



Sometimes a YA book comes along that smashes boundaries, attracts readers of all ages and stripes, and gives the descriptor "all ages" true resonance. Unfortunately, this graphic novel probably isn't it, but it's still pretty darn good. Vera Brosgol turns in a nice story about Anya, a girl who befriends a ghost, starting out as a fun supernatural friendship but devolving into a tense showdown as the spirit begins to exert her own twisted personality. What's most interesting though is how the plot conflict manages to expose the worst aspects of Anya's personality, especially her emphasis on outward appearance, adoption of antisocial attitude in order to seem "cool", and rejection of her family's ethnic heritage. Anya ends up being a really well-drawn character, believable as a normal girl faced with both the mundane travails of teenagerhood and a sudden need to defend herself and her loved ones from a threat that only she can understand. Brosgol's art is perfect for the story, with thick, nicely rounded brushstrokes detailing Anya and her friends and family, and a dead-eyed creepiness infusing the ghost from the beginning and eventually turning into a terrifying air of menace. It might not be setting the world on fire, but it's fun, exciting, gorgeously-drawn, and meatier than it seems at first glance, exploring the world of teenagers in a frank, interesting manner, demonstrating how the darkness within us all can break free if we're not careful. Hopefully readers will recognize their own ghosts along with Anya, and the world will become a better place. Or maybe they'll just experience an enjoyable read; that result is also acceptable.
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Wonton Soup 2: Hyper Wonton Soup 2 Twoton Soup: The Quickening 2...Soup
By James Stokoe



It might seem odd to praise a book for its lack of cohesiveness, but somehow James Stokoe managed to turn that into a virtue in this second volume of the adventures of Johnny Boyo, space trucker and sci-fi chef extraordinaire. While the first installment was a fairly straightforward shonen-manga-style competition story with a bit of romance, this one sees Boyo and his cohort Deacon set off on a transport job, get ridiculously high off an alien drug, crash land on a jungle planet, then set off in search of fuel so they can get back to work. That might work well enough as an adventure plot, but Stokoe takes every opportunity to get sidetracked, whether on a wildly psychedelic drug trip, a flashback to Deacon's history of Sex Bear husbandry, or even a scene of political uprising taking place among the microbial life forms in Boyo's stomach lining. Stokoe's imagination is one of his greatest strengths, and he puts it to full use here, detailing all manner of wackiness in his inimitable style and keeping readers highly entertained throughout, such that you don't care what's coming next, you just want to see Stokoe detail it with high energy, dynamic action, and a lighthearted touch. Between this series and his current Orc Stain, he's really demonstrating his essentiality to the comics landscape.
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Psychiatric Tales
By Darryl Cunningham



It can seem pretentious to dub a book "important", but for people with personal investments in mental health issues, anything that might change people's attitudes and educate people in the oft-misunderstood subject is essential, something to be recommended highly. That's exactly what Darryl Cunningham has created here, a collection of stories either culled from or inspired by his time working as a nurse in a mental health facility, covering subjects like dementia, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, as well as discussing famous sufferers of mental illness, the effects of suicide on patients as well as their relatives and caregivers, and Cunningham's own struggles with depression. As an informational book, it's related in a simple and easy to understand manner; Cunningham's experiences were obviously an essential resource for him. The art takes on a simplistic, semi-abstracted style, perfectly capturing the off-kilter, just removed from normalcy struggles of the mentally ill, emphasizing this through the use of altered photographs that are often zoomed in and pixellated. But what's probably best of all is the entreaty to end the stigma that surrounds mental illness, since it is an affliction affecting a part of the body, no different than something like heart disease. Anything that can sway people in the name of this cause is worthwhile, and worth annoying somebody with the aforementioned label. Important? Yes, it certainly is.
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Empowered: Ten Questions for the Maidman
By Adam Warren and Emily Warren

Since the next volume of Adam Warren's "sexy superhero comedy" isn't due until 2012 (sheesh!), it looks like this one-shot will have to tide us over until then, and luckily, it's pretty much the pure stuff, even though half of its contents are drawn by a guest artist. It still works though, because it's all Warren, from his verbose dialogue style, to his goofy ideas, to his loving skewering of superhero tropes, to his exciting action. It's a pure, concentrated dose of Warreny goodness, and I totally dug it, of course. Surprisingly, my favorite parts were probably the section that gives the comic its title, in which the incredibly competent and terrifying Maidman appears for a TV interview, explaining his motives and methods, why he dresses the way he does, and the strategic use of panty-flashing during battle. The latter (and really, the whole character) are a great thumb to the nose of the conventional line when it comes to superheroines and the arguments that are usually trotted out to explain why they dress so skimpily and are drawn to pander to the lingering male gaze. It's a hilarious reversal, one that points out just one aspect of superhero comics' stupidity, and then revels in it.

And Warren isn't just doing a Bendis-style talking head segment intended to infodump his character's motivation; there ends up being a reason behind the interview itself, and it all leads to a satisfying conclusion. Emily Warren (no relation) provides the art for this half of the story, and she ably rises to the challenge, detailing her scenes in a satisfying, yet not slavish, mimicry of the other Warren's style, and fleshing them out with some nice color work. The five o'clock shadow on Maidman's face is the winning touch for me, but the doily-filled backgrounds and emphasis on the hero's package are great touches as well.

And Warren himself does his usual thing on the rest of the book, telling a more straightforward Emp tale in which she suffers self-doubt and learns to use Maidman as an example to live up to; it's as fun as ever, and it's a chance for the regular characters (Ninjette, Thugboy, Caged Demonwolf) to all show up and do their thing (drink, fuck, monologue). Really, this is a combination appetite-whetter and existence-reminder, ensuring that readers don't forget about the series during the long wait in between volumes and getting them excited for that next installment to drop already. More series could stand to follow Warren's example, in that aspect and many, many others.

Art What I Like: Burn, NYC, Burn

The latest collection of DMZ, Collective Punishment, is a good one, but that's not really anything surprising, at least from the standard the series has set for itself. The thing that I really dug about this particular volume was the art, all provided by guests rather than regular artist Riccardo Burchielli, and since this point in the long-running plot is seeing the merciless bombing of New York City by the US military, they all get to show off their own particular takes on the fiery destruction of the most famous city in the world. It's harrowing, arresting, gorgeous stuff (almost) all around, an awful, beautiful spectacle.

The one exception, unfortunately, is Cliff Chiang, who limits his large-scale destruction to a cityscape engulfed by orange clouds:



But everyone else takes the opportunity to dazzle with their destruction. Andrea Mutti eclipses Chiang's idea by rendering the skyline in silhouette and degrading the image to the point that the buildings look like burnt husks of themselves, making for a simple and horrifying image:

David Lapham does something similar in one image, making the whole city seem to be ablaze while death rains down out of the sky:

But he also includes a more visceral, apocalyptic image, including both the cause and effect of all the horrifying destruction in one breathtaking splash page:

Danijel Zezelj provides a long view of the city, and his rough-yet-detailed style takes the aforementioned "burnt out husk" idea and turns it into a city-wide bonfire, with the skyscrapers seeming like the protruding bones of Manhattan turned to smoldering embers:



But for my money, nobody beats Nathan Fox, who turns a birds' eye view of the city into a horrifying inferno, death raining down from above like nonchalantly destructive hailstones:

But he makes the rooftop view even more horrifying, an urban hellscape of flames and explosions:

 

DMZ has often been a harrowing read, bringing the foreign idea of war home to Americans, but rarely has it been so dismally horrifying, so full of widespread death and destruction. These artists have really risen to their task; I doubt I'll ever forget the awful sights they've shown me.

Garden: I hope this isn't offensive

Links: Ryan Browne, creator of the hilarious God Hates Astronauts, has a new webcomic called Blast Furnace, updated daily seemingly wherever his muse takes him. Check it out, if profane goofiness is your thing (or even if it's not).

Also, Christina Strain, whose color work I've really enjoyed on books like Runaways and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, has a new webcomic called The Fox Sister, apparently based on Korean mythology. It looks really nice.

Garden
By Yuichi Yokoyama

This is completely uninformed speculation, but reading this book makes me wonder if Yuichi Yokoyama is autistic (or, as my wife, an elementary-school educator, would say, "on the autism spectrum"). This is the only one of his books I've read, but from what I've seen and read about him, he seems to try to eliminate any sort of emotion, or even humanity, from his comics altogether, instead focusing on interesting physical constructions, designs, and motions. It makes for some fascinating art, a near-obsessive detailing and exploration of his mental creations, with so little in the way of narrative that at least this book can barely be said to have a plot or characters at all.

Well, that's not really true, since there are dozens of "people" (or human-like figures, at least) populating this book, and the story, such as it is, has a beginning and, if not an ending, at least a stopping point. We follow a group of figures as they wander through the eponymous garden, which is actually an expansive man-made area full of strange buildings, objects, and terrain, all there for unexplained purposes. There seems to be an urge to explore and question everything that is seen, but it's all done completely without affect, as the people describe everything they see in what seems to be a monotone ("We've now arrived at a round pond." "There are jagged objects floating in the water." "This embankment is made of bags of some sort." "There are strange mountains over there."), occasionally asking "What could the purpose of this be?" without ever receiving any answers. And that's the whole book, 300 pages of strange shit that eventually just ends.



As the characters might ask, what could the point of this be? Yokoyama seems to have an urge to delineate the odd geography filling his head, but without any emotional aspect to the presentation, simply conveying information as if it's being recorded from some sort of alien transmission. It's fascinating stuff, often grouped in collections of things that look like other things (structures shaped like houses, artificial trees and mountains decorated in varying patterns, "rivers" full of flowing balls, and so on), detailed from multiple angles, and using the comics format to verbally describe objects, depict motion, and indicate other sensory input through ever-present sound effects.

Then there are the characters, scores of interchangeable (in terms of non-existent personality) figures that take what seems to everyone but Yokoyama to be every conceivable form aside from regular human. There's a man with a coin-shaped head, one made of balls, one whose body looks like an umbrella, one with a pyramid head and a hairy cloak, one made of rocks, one whose body is a board with a human-shaped cutout, and all manner of head shapes, patterned bodies, and other wackiness. As with the landscape itself, these seem like designs clogging up Yokoyama's head which are begging to get out onto the page, and this rudimentary narrative, with its cast of hundreds, provides the opportunity to do so.



Whatever the reasons for the book's existence, the imagery that Yokoyama has managed to pull from the ether and finely explicate on the page is, for the most part, gorgeously bizarre. There's the occasional object or action that doesn't quite read like it is supposed to, but most everything makes sense, from the houses on wheels to the giant wave of photographs, and they provide plenty of opportunities for meticulously detailed scenes, even within the uniform line weights and expansive white space that Yokoyama favors. Scenes such as the one in which everyone falls down a steep, sandy slope:



Are obsessively detailed, with rows of near-identical guys all tumbling in unison. But even more arresting are the occasional bits in which Yokoyama plays with appearances even more, such as when the group is surrounded by soap bubbles:



It's a strange combination of otherworldly and mundane, with the fascinating thing being that the otherworldliness comes from something most everyone has experienced, while the mundanity comes from the inexpressiveness of the impossible characters. Maybe this is Yokoyama's particular artistic genius: that he manages to flip our expectations in such a way that the weirdness seems normal and the normal seems weird.

Whatever the case, it's a strangely compelling read, with the reader turning pages eagerly to find out what will come next, even though they know it won't make much sense. It's an abstract sort of storytelling, even though the words and images are understandable, since Yokoyama manages to use them to create something inexplicable and beautiful. It's weird shit, but of the sort that accumulates in the brain and invites attempts at analysis, even when it's obvious that no explanation will ever come.