Random Thoughts

Dear Julia (1996) #1-4 by Brian Biggs

When reading comics from the 90s, it’s striking how many talented creators did basically a handful of books and then left comics forever. Biggs is a case in point: He did Frederick & Eloise over at Fantagraphics, and then a few appearances in anthologies, and then he shifted over to children’s books.

Especially in the 90s, it was basically impossible to survive doing comics.

Anyway, let’s look at this series (four issues of 24 pages each) which I remember fondly from back then. That is, I remember absolutely zilch about it, but I do remember that I liked it.

Oh yeah, those odd figures and blank, somewhat unnerving expressions. I really like what he’s doing with the grey washes… it feels very organic.

The story is basically a guy who writes a letter his ex… and at first everything is extremely mysterious. All these strange objects and skewed angles. Was Rick Geary an influence, I wonder? Anyway, it really works.

I guess the plot is kinda high concept? I could totally see somebody making a short movie from this (derogatory), but it also has a strong identity as being a comic book; not an outline for a movie.

I love the non-flapp flappy arms in the upper right-hand corner.

At four panels a page, and the decompressed storytelling style, it’s an extremely quick read. But a satisfying one.

It was collected by Top Shelf in 2000, and:

The book has twice been adapted as a short film. The first was by a film student at RISD in 2001, and the second was by a filmmaker in Belgium in 2003.

Heh.

Indy Magazine #17, page #41:

he’s done it again. Dear Julia part two is,
once more, cryptically beautiful and reads like
a drearn I don’t want to wake up frotn. Boyd’s
letter to Julia continues and again Brian Biggs
leaves us wanting, keeps us reading, teasing us
with Leopold Légyscapo’s appearances and
purpose. Dear Julia part two nmakes room for
more intrigue than I thought ‘.vas possible after
part one. Biggs shows and tells more of Boyd’s
story, but in doing so encourages us to imagine
the untold—and anticipate the unexpected in
parts three and four.

The Comics Journal #189, page #142:

DEAR JULIA, #1
Dear Julia is an engrossing.
darkly comic mystery
from the creator of the —
excellent Frederick &
Flojse. Boyd Solomon is
standing atop of a San Francisco apartment building,
intent upon proving to the world he can fly. As the back
cover States, ” Dear Julia is the Story of how {hel got
there.
Biggs engages the reader immediately with his
absolutely stunning pen and ink work, putting
remark*le detail into each panel — necessary detail
which actually furthers the plot
and warrants scrutiny. The way
Biggs delivers almost everything
through Boyd’s shaky state-of-
mind makes for a fascinating
narrative. Chunks Of the past
(centering around a trip to
Tucson, Arizona) and glimmers of
the present blend comfortably.
revear.ng fiast enough to spark tip
readers curiosity while not giving
too much away.
Biggs is becoming one Of
contemporary comics’ best and
most overlooked cartoonists.
Hopefulhy, DearJu[ia, will put him
On the map. Check it out —you van’t be disappointed.
ERIC REYNOLDS

The Comics Journal #205, page #118:

RAPHAEL: are you up to now, Brian?
BIGGS: The last Dear Julia, was pub-
lished in July (19971 and Black Eye
keeps threatening to publish it in a
collection, which I’m hoping will hap-
pen. I’ve been doinglitde mini-comics.
The one Interim there is actually Steve’s
fault. We were on our way back from
San Diego and I peas looking for some-
thing new to do. After Dear Julia, I was
kind Of lost and drifting and Steve said,
“Well, that beinglost and driftingsounds
like your next project right there. So I
went home and did Interim. I want to
keep that one going, but as far as next
projects, I’ve got one in my head, and
I’m filling up a sketchbook that looks
like it’s going to be a big one. It’s dealing
with a lot ofissues dealing with death. I
have a grandfather who died about two
weeks ago. Essentially, the getting sick
part was the bad part; the dying vvæ
actually a relief. I’m really fiscinated by
how people are dealing with death in
the family, and lost loved ones. I broke
up a year ago with a five-year relation-
ship. The senses of loss in these two
are profoundly different but still
fascinating to me. I’m kind ofexploring
that in a sense, Essentially, people have
complained a lot that I don’t have any
strong female characters, and basically, I
don’t have any female characters in my
stories. So the next one is going to have
five elderly women who are sisters, as
kind of the whole central theme to
revolve around them. I’m really inter-
ested now in writing dialogue for
women.
RAPHAEL: How are you preparingfor that?
BIGGS: I’m having a lot oflong conver-
sations with my mother, my sister, and
my grandmother. And especially now
that my grandmother is widowed, I’m
planning on going up for a few months
this spring to Arkansas, or at least for a
month, and just looking at 6mily pho-
tographs and talking to grandma a lot,
and kind of getting in touch with that
family that I lost touch with when I
moved to California. It’s going to be a
journey through nostalgia and senti-
mentality, but without trying to get too
trite. So it’s going to be a pretty big
book. I don’t know where it’s going
yet, or the name of it or anything, but
the themes are all falling into place.
I hope to start drawing it by late
Spring. I’d like to have a story down by
the end of Spring. Dear Julia, I began
drawing before I ever knew where it
was going. This one, I’m not going to
make that mistake; I’m going to have
the script down before I begin drawing

What!? Dear Julia doesn’t seem improvised at all, but it was, apparently.

The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide #2, page #180:

DEAR JULIA
Black Eye: 4 issue miniseries 1996-1998*
Boyd Soloman stands on a window ledge about to throw
himself off in an attempt to fly. How he arrived there is
related in largely epistolary fashion, reviewing past events to
explain his present situation. The first impression of Dear
Julia is unsettling, with Brian Biggs’ art imparting loneliness
and isolation, and although the pace is occasionally only a
notch above static there’s enough atmosphere to
compensate. The works of David Lynch come to mind in
comparison, with significant detail concealed in small
moments, and as such Dear Julia is best read via the Top Shelf
collection—WJ

Overstreet’s FAN #16, page #107:

With one of the tightest, most absorbing introductions to a story I’ve seen
in some time, Brian Biggs has created something very memorable here. Our
narrator begins his story, in a letter to the never-seen Julia of the title, by
explaining, 01 have a suspicion…l think I’m going crazy, Julia.” Meanwhile,
Biggs’ visuals are giving us a tour of the main characteris apartment, which is
littered with paper airplanes, drawings of birds, and feathers. In every room,
feathers dot the scene like chalk dust on a blackboard. It isn’t until page
eleven that we get our first picture of the narrator, standing on a window
ledge, many stories up, with a large, obviously home-made pair of wings
strapped to his body.
From there Biggs begins to tell the story of his character through flash-
backs, including snapshots in which one person’s face is repeatedly scribbled
over with what appears to be crayon. Biggs’s art throughout all of this is
strangely haunting in a Dave McKean-like vein, while the snapshot pages are
comically disturbing in the way that a lot of actual snapshots turn out to be.
The black and white work here blends excellent shading with sharp pencils,
and Biggs’ style, while possibly reminiscent of McKean, is all his own and
already very striking.
This will only be going four issues, but the characters are already engaging
enough for me to wish it were longer (even ongoing), and Biggs’ pacing of
the story is quick and jerky but casual, the way a lot of small, independent
films of late use a hand-held camera to shoot a deliberate, cognitive sort of
movie. From Black Eye Productions, at $3.50, and in a non-traditional format
that feels good in your hands, this is one to bug your retailer about.

Nice. You don’t expect a review like that from an Overstreet publication, do you?

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

A World of Trouble (1995) #1-3 by Jeremy Eaton

Oops! I claimed in a previous entry in this blog series that Black Eye (after a certain date) didn’t publish anything in the standard US comics format, but I’d forgotten about this series. Sorry for the fake news!

Anyway, I’ve read quite a few books by Jeremy Eaton over the years, like Whotnot and what not, and he’s certainly a talented artist, but I’ve never really connected with his comics.

This starts off with a series of unrelated one page strips, so I assumed it was going to continue like that. And they’re pretty successful — like the change between black and white background on the left hand page (but a kinda bad joke), and the pensive mood on the right hand page.

But then all that stops, and most of the rest of the issue is one long story…

… about a guy who comes up with the idea of bludgeoning people to death using rubber ducks, because that’s such an original thing to do that he finally ends up in the newspaper.

So it’s a pretty trite media critique, but it’s told in an interesting way.

And we get an er manifesto.

The two remaining issues are dominated by this story — about a guy who used to play Tarzan in the movies who’s in love with a woman called Jane. (Such irony.)

And most of the pages are like this — with some intriguing, but often vague, panels above, and a text below. The combined effect is something that’s perhaps meant to be Raw adjacent, but for me, it didn’t really work: The text just didn’t hold my interest.

And if you’re asking the reader to work at it like this, you have to convince the reader that it’ll be worth it, and I rapidly lost confidence.

The final issue helpfully has a recap of what happened in the second issue.

And then it’s over — I’m guessing they lost money on this book?

Whit Spurgeon writes in The Comics Journal #180, page #88:

BEFORE READING the material ass-
embled for this review, my only exposure to
Jeremy Eaton was A Sleepyhead Tale,
Fantagraphics’ 1992 collection of one-page
strips originally published for the most part in
alternative newspapers in 1990-92. Having read
that cover’s rave reviews from people like Jim
Woodring, I purchased Sleepyhead expecting
Eaton’s strips to bowl me over.
They didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. Eaton’s art made an
impression. His clean, stylized work perfectly
conveyed his sense Of humor, while his atten-
tion to tiny details provided visual entertain-
menton every page in much the same manner as
Will Elder. In addition, Eaton’s dialogue was
very clever and choice of subject matter amus-
ing, if somewhat pedestrian.
What was stifling about Sleepyhead Tale
was the format. As individual one-pagers,
Eaton’s strips made their points quickly and
clearly. Collected in book form, what was amus-
ing and incisive became decidedly less so. Be-
cause Eaton’ s work engaged a select number Of
topics, reading Sleepyhead en masse felt like
getting hit repeatedly in the head with an anti-
establishment frying pan (“Government bad.”
Clang! “Police cormpt.” Clang! “People stu-
pid.” Clang! Clang! Clang!) Still the verbal and
visual talent on display in these strips was
impressive. and made me wonder how the car-
toonist would approach lengthier, more com-
plex material.
In A World of Trouble #2, the latest issue Of
Eaton’s new series from Black Eye, I got my
answer. Unlike the backlog of material which
saw print in , A World of Trouble #2 contains
two new stories. What is remarkable is that
given the freedom of the larger comic book
format, Eaton makes severely limiting formal,
structural choices. Unlike his earliest work,
however, Eaton uses these limitations to set the
tone and aid the narrative force of his comics.

[…]

If this sounds a bit overwhelming and some-
what confusing. well, occasionally it is. There’ s
so much to process, both visually and textually,
that one runs the risk of t*ing bogged down in
the story. The prose also has a tendency to turn
a bit purple, as in “His flippancy had less effect
than a fly in the gears of all fate’ s machinery,”
or “I was a fool, the lord of all fools.” But most
of this works, and works well. And the art is
hauntingly beautiful, using simple, spare lines
to communicate minute details.

Wizard Magazine #58, page #85:

A World of Trouble Jeremy Eaton is breaking new ground with recent stories in his comic A Worldof Trouble. Most notable of these is DQUiet Charlie/’
where he tells the tale of Charles Gleason, an actorwho played Tarzan in silent films and was forced out of his job with the advent of movies with synchro-
nized sound. Gleason’s silent world istold through o series of fake newspaper clippings, and a comic story supplemented by a text storye With itsinteresting
combination of different techniques, -“Quiet Charlie” is one of the few stories that can only be told effectively in comics.

It doesn’t look like these issues have been collected.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

New Hat (1995) by Tom Hart

I’ve always loved Tom Hart’s comics, but like many of his cohort, they’ve been frustratingly rare. He burst on the scene with Hutch Owen’s Working Hard, I think? (A Xeric grant winner.) I always thought of him as coming from a similar place as, say, Jon Lewis and Megan Kelso — original, ruminative comics — and I guess they were all Xeric winners? Yup. Hmm, doing a blog series about all the Xeric winners might be fun, but many of those books are pretty hard to track down.

And looking at that list, it’s striking how many of those people stopped doing comics pretty quickly, or has (like) only done one book the last 20 years? The Xeric award meant that they had to self publish their comics, and that turned out to be really discouraging for many people.

Dave Sim, so much to answer for.

Anyway! New Hat! Let’s read it.

Yeah, it’s classic Hart — lively artwork, and some guy ranting at others. But in a way that’s both obscure and immediate at the same time.

The book has three interconnected story, where each story sheds more light on the preceding ones — it rewards rereading.

It’s a really compelling read.

Yes! No time for poetry! Asses to be kicked!

It’s a brilliant little book.

I’m not sure whether this has ever been reprinted or collected?

The Comics Journal spent a page announcing its arrival.

Bart Beatty writes in The Comics Journal #185, page #41:

YOU WOULD THINK that coming to
terms with the few comics we’ve seen from
Tom Hart would be a simple matter. First
mumble a few words about isolated loners,
revolutionary poets and the nature of violence.
Then take a moment to mention the directness
of the art, the high production values of the
books and the unusual drive of the narrative.
Throw in a comment or two about his original
and distinctive voice and remember to mention
the great potential that the still young cartoonist
displays. Simple. Right?
In reality, however, it’ s not really that simple
at all. What Tom Hart has given us in the two
comics for which he is best known — 1994’s
Xeric-winning mini Hutch Owen’s Working
Hard and the more recently published New Hat
— indicates that he is a cartoonist who can’t be
dismissed with a few pithy phrases and apat on
the head. Expanding on the foundations laid
down in earlier mini-comics like The Angry
Criminal and Prince Fredrick’s Feet, Hart’s
more extensive efforts present a picture of a
cartoonist making great strides both artistically
and thematically. Hart’s most recent work pre-
sents us with a great deal to ponder and, more
importantly, each suggests more than it is will-
ing to reveal at first glance.

[…]

In an era in which the worst comics are
mired in endless complication for
complication’s sake and many of the best
contemporary cartoonists continue to struggle
towards increasingly baroque articulations of
meaning, Tom Hart’s work stands out for its
willingness to take chances in reconciling
subtle reflection and dynamic thought. It’s
that simple.

Aha, this book was collected in She’s Not Into Poetry, published by Alternative Comics in 2016. Nice. And I do think I have that book here somewhere…

The Comics Journal #180, page #60:

NEW HAT
Tan Hat
Tom Hart’s art-
work doesn’t
crarn the page. It
doesn •t leap out
hypnotize you slowly with precise, rhythmic line
Structure. In fact, Tom Hart’s art is nearly infantile
— myopic, even — like James Thurber on a
zipatone binge. But beware the Trojan Horse!!!
nis dude couples childlike drawings with complex
fables presented with storytelling techniques that
bring to mind at Once Frank Capra (the self-pub-
lished Hutch Owens Working Harco and in the case
of his fine new opus New Hat, Akira Kurosawa.
New Hat is structured rather like Kurosawa’s
Rashomon. •nlree achronologic vignettes take us to
a country on the brink Of war hundreds Of years
ago.

[…]

‘Ihat’s it in a nutshell, but the nut’s tir thing —
and in this case the nut is Tom Hart: activist. Car-
toonist. and (here it comes) poet A veritable Walt
Whitman in high top tennis shoes. We truly are
lucky that our friend Tom Hart is Out there
these comic books to us just when we really need
them. Get off your asses and buy New Hat!!! Buy
Hutch Owens Working Buy two of each. Give
them to your friends, or better yet, give them to
your enemies.

Oh, I guess this was the original cover design?

The Comics Journal #228, page #85:

STUMP: It has nothing to do with film, it has nothing to do with literature, it’s
ComtcS.
LUTES: Exactly. There’s no equivalent to this in film. That movie Time Code
broke the screen up into four different pieces, but the end result is utterly dif-
ferent; the quadrants can’t each be explored unless you watch the movie four
times. The architecture of the page, and it really is like an architecture, with
each of its little rooms, the way that you pass through those rooms is entire-
ly specific to the page and the number of tiers on it, and the fact that we read
from left to right, top to bottom.
Back to what you were saying about the perception that there didlft
seem to be anything really uni$’ing our generation of cartoonists: There was
a point at which Ed and Tom Hart —
primarily Ed, I think — were trying to
start a little “movement” he called New
Hat.
STUMP: He teas going to call it Neu Hat?
LUTES: It was partly tongue in cheek,
but they were also partly serious. And I
think that the desire was to say, “Look,
we are doing something different.” And
they recognizæd, to their credit —
before anybody really put their finger
on it — that there was something dif-
ferent happening in our circle of car-
toonist friends.

Yup.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.