Random Thoughts

Jar of Fools (1995) #1-2 by Jason Lutes

Lutes had had a few appearances in a few anthologies before Jar of Fools was published, but the book took people by surprise: He self-published (using a Xeric Foundation grant; i.e. Teenage Mutant Turtle money) the first volume — and it was a 70 page book, which was very unusual at the time. People used to serialise things in smaller instalments before publishing a “book”.

I guess Lutes found self publishing to be too much work, because Black Eye reprinted the first volume, and then published the second and final volume a year later.

Let’s see how it starts:

Yeah, they’re using all the signifiers of “serious work” possible — French flaps, end papers, title pages, indicia pages etc etc. It’s like they’re trying to entice the reader looking at the book in the bookstore: “Look! I’m just like a Penguin book! Serious and stuff!”

Which I quite enjoy, but it’s a bit… excessive? When the book is just 70 pages long.

For a first work (ish) it’s a remarkably assured work. Lutes has got the pacing down perfectly, and his artwork is so clear that it’s almost transparent.

(And I’m not sure that’s really a compliment.)

Structurally, it’s a bit odd. The first half we’re introduced to the five main characters, and they move around the city a lot. In the second half, most of it takes place in one location, and the book starts feeling like it started off as a play for a stage?

If I remember correctly, this was Lutes’ most controversial thing: When faces would get too small, he’d just avoid drawing in the features. It’s pretty distracting — you start wondering whether it has some meaning or not, but I guess not.

It’s got a proper mood going on. Especially on the pages where there’s less talk, you get into the rhythm of the panels, and it just flows so well.

The dialogue, though, isn’t always convincing, but then on the other hand, I’m not sure whether it’s meant to be naturalistic, anyway.

I think the book made quite an impression at the time, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it mentioned even once the last couple decades? Was it ever reprinted?

Black Eye did a single volume edition in 1997, and then Drawn & Quarterly reprinted it in 2003, but it doesn’t look like it’s been reprinted after that? (Man, what a terrible cover on the D&Q edition.)

Comics Scene Volume 2 #56, page #57:

Lutes originally published Jar
of Fools a page at a time in a
weekly Seattle paper, The
Stranger. He was awarded a
Xeric Foundation grant, which
allowed him to collect the strips
and publish the first part of Jar
of Fools on his own. That volume
garnered much critical praise and
both Part One and Part Two are
now available from Black Eye Pub-
lications.
Though he both wrote and illustrat-
ed Jar of Fools, Lutes’ view of the comic
book form is more organic. “I would
consider myself more of a cartoonist,”
he reveals. “That’s kind of the peculiar
thing about comics. It’s pretty easy to
think that writing and drawing are the
two separate disciplines that together
make comics. The way that I conceive
of the form, the way that I use its I think
about them both together. That’s how I
write my scripts. That’s how I conceive
of the whole thing. ”
Indeed, Lutes “wrote” Jar of Fools
using thumbnail drawings and dia-
logue. The opportunity to do a weekly
strip presented itself while he was
working in the production department
of The Stranger. And from that oppor-
tunity, Jar of Fools started with a sim-
ple image, as Lutes explains: “I started
out with the image of a melting woman.
I think I was looking through some old
Golden Age comic, or maybe a romance
comic, and there was a man holding a
woman’s head. I re-drew the picture,
only I made her melting through his
hands. That was the beginning of the
whole thing, just that image.”

Oh, it was indeed serialised first! But in a magazine.

The Comics Journal #228, page #60:

The kind of comics we’re talking about are financially — whatk the
word — unfeasible; [Stump laughs] there are no immediate rewards; itk an
incredibly medium, because you’re doing it all yourself. All
of these things, and the things you mention, contribute to the fact that
been very limited. The whole time I We been excited about comics and pur-
suing them and being into them, I feel like there’s something there I’m try-
ing to get at it, that I know is there. I glimpse it in other cartoonists’ work,
and occasionally I’ll experience the satisfaction of touching it myself. I don’t
know if anybody else gets that on the receiving end… but itk tremendous-
ly exciting to know that the potential is there. At this point, confident
that the potential is there. It’s just a matter of getting at it and making use
of it.
But it’s a bastard little medium. I guess we’re actually better off than
the poetry market, possibly [laughs] but in terms of processing and under-
standing comics, people have been completely poisoned by the newspaper
strip. My best experiences with readers have been from people who have
come to my work wi thout any preconceptions, because they were not comics
readers. The whole reason I tried to make Jar of Fools “go down easy” was
not because I didn’t want the content to be affecting, but because I wanted
anybody to be able to pick it up and read it.

And I think it succeeds in that.

Ng Suat Tong writes in The Comics Journal #187, page #50:

[…]

What has this got to do with Jason Lutes and
Jar of Fools? Well, storytelling Of course. Hav-
ing taken the time to read some of the glowing
reviews of Jar of Fools, I have gained the
impression that there is some sort of indefin-
able excellence about the work. Yet the same
book left me utterly cold and dissatisfied. Have
you ever wondered why Jar Of Fools is consid-
ered “one of the more satisfying works of the
last five years” (Crash), or “instantly and un-
doubtedly recognizable as one of the year’s
best” (The Comics Journal)? Or is it just a
vague feeling ofquality you have after reading
it? I wanted to understand why so many people
liked this book.
Scott McCloud calls Jason Lutes a “world
class storyteller” and many people seem to
agree with him. Lutes has certainly written a
book which can be easily read through. It should
be obvious, however, that the ease with which
a comic book is read is not only a matter Of
choice but also relates directly to the subject
matter. Should it also be equated with some
form of merit? A pointl acknowledge about Jar
of Fools is the beauty with which a story un-
folds. But why shouldLutes’ style be so appeal-
ing?

[…]

The technical skill involved in constructing
the narrative and structure Of Jar Of Fools is
outstanding for a relative newcomer, but I have
the impression that the reason people feel so
drawn to books like JarofF001s is the intimacy
created by the ease with which the book is read
and the refinement of the drawing. It’s prob-
ably the same reason why books like Bone have
succeeded so well. But we shouldn’t delude
ourselves. Skill in narrative is well and good,
the story however, is all-important.
At all events i! is safe to say that it is only
greatest stories that can be told in simple prose; ir
is only where the stuff itself does the work thal
prose had better do as little as possible, though
that little it must do effectively. If prose has to do
more. and after all some lesser stories are well
worth telling, it should do only So much more as is
necessary…

[…]

Reading Jar of Fools made me think of
Eduardo Phillipo’ s ln Gran Magia, a play about
a man whose wife leaves him and the fabric of
lies and illusions which are constructed for him
(and which he finally comes to believe in) to help
him deal with his grief. The magic here is man-
made and instigated by a charlatan; consolatory
in the short term, but ultimately damning. In the
world of Jar of Fools. the magic of existence is
as imperfect as the sleight of hand practiced by
its protagonists. The magic is flawed, temporal
and mixed in with the biliousness of life. I remain
unmoved by Lutes’ constructs but it would be
perverse to deny the coherence ofhis themes and
the conviction Of his writing.

The Comics Journal #170, page #120:

It’s extremely rare to come across a comic ülat is in-
stantly, undoubtedly recognizable as one of the
year’s best, but that’s exactly what part one of Jason
Lutes’ Jar of Fools is. The Xeric award-winning
Lutes (his last comic was the self-published, quasi-
anthology title Catchpenny Comics) has spent the
last 16 months laboriously producing Jar at the rate
of •one page per week, each page appearing as a
panel cartoon in the Seattle weekly paper The
Stranger. This 80-page issue is the first half of the
complete Jar (the second half will presumably ap-
pear 16 months from now), and it tells the story of
Ernie, a young, small-time magician (stage name:
ne Amazing Ernesto). Ernie seems pretty washed-
up; he’s been going downhill since his older brother
Howard, an escape artist, went to
the bottom of a river in a strait-
jacket. chained to an iron ball. He
hasn’t gotten a gig in months, he’s
broke and Owes back rent, and he’s
lost his girlfriend Esther — her
story forms the second half of the
split narrative. Ernie’s slide into
drink and debt is interrupted, how-
ever, by the appearance of his men-
tor, Albert Flosso (Flosscv the
Magnificent), who has escaped
from his nursing home, and Nathan Lender, a myste-
rious, down-on-his-luck confidence man who lives
in his car and pulls nickle-and-dime cons to take
care of his youthful charge, Claire.
Lutes is by far the best cartoonist of the Xeric
gang, and this book is a tribute to his talent. Layout,
composition, rendering, camera angle, timing, narra-
tive structure, and especially the perfectly-captured
urban environment — every part is flawless and
seamlessly integrated into the whole. Jar of Fools is
a beautifully realized creation, and no one who pro-
fesses a love of comics should be without it.

Indy Magazine #7, page #35:

Wow: Let me say that again. Wow! The folks
at the Xeric Foundation certainly know what they
are doing when they are giving grants for cartoon-
ists to help them publish their work Jar of Fools,
by Jason Lutes, is one of the handful of wonclerful
cornies that have been helped by the support of the
Xeric Founclation, established by Peter laird, co-cre-
ator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jar of
Fools may have a high price tag at $5.95, but
believe me, it is well worth it. It IS the stotv of
Ernie Weiss a street magician whose life has lost its
magic. Jason Lutes has imbued each character with
such depth that they cease to appear•to be just
characters, they become real to the reader. Jar of
Fools is an example of why I still read comics
today.

The Comics Journal #187, page #43:

BERLIN IS JASON LUTES’ followup
to his unmistakably ambitious two-volume
graphic novel, Jar of Fools. While Ja,r’s first
volume evoked widespread, and well-deserved,
critical acclaim, the second volume was met
with puzzling (and for Lutes, undoubtedly
frustrating) silence. The indifferent response to
Jar’s second volume seemed to indicate a
falling-off. or relaxation of the formidable
cartooning skills Lutes brought to bear in the
first volume, which still stands as a benchmark
ofLutes’ achievement.

Yeah, people didn’t have a lot to say about the second volume, did they?

This person didn’t like it:

Maybe if the novel hard a clear plot and a clear destination there would be some sense of enjoyment and pace for this work. But no, the author decides to fuck with us, and we, the poor readers, are given a work with no real cohesion or plot at all.

What a douche.

This person did:

Because Lutes relies on sparse dialogue and keeps the visual language simple, the intricacy and craftsmanship are only revealed near the end. Even more satisfying on rereading, this work emphasises the second word in the term “graphic novel”.

Well OK:

Jar of Fools is the book that makes me believe that the graphic novel has more potential to move people than does any form of traditional literature. It’s convinced me that in modern times the combination of image and word holds more power than the word alone.

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

The Land of Nod Treasury (1994),
The Land of Nod (1996) #1-3 by Jay Stephens

Up until now, Black Eye had published all their comics in standard US comics size (except for the two magazine-sized issues of Sputnik). So the Land of Nod Treasury represented something of a rupture in Black Eye’s publishing, because from now on, I don’t think they published a single thing in standard formats? (I’m just fondling the little stack of comics to be read, so I may be somewhat off here, but not by much.)

Instead Black Eye would publish their pamphlets in a slightly smaller size than normal — in the size that was pioneered by Chester Brown’s Underwater, perhaps? Or did the final issues of Yummy Fur also use this format? I forget. Perhaps they used the same printer? They’re both publishers in Canada…

The thicker books that Black Eye would publish came with French flaps, I think they’re called. So this gives the lineup a quite distinctive and higher class look — they’ve always had a good design sense, and this new format is a good thing.

Anyway, first out in this new design direction is this collection of comics from Jay Stephens — the Land of Nod strips that were originally published in Reactor Girl, Sin and Sin Comics (plus some other odds and ends).

Evan Dorkin does the introduction.

Sin was a very chaotic series that read wonderfully — it was one loopy thing after another.

(While the book is a very nice format, the paper chosen here isn’t ideal — there’s a lot of bleed through. Paper selection was such a big deal back in the 80s and 90s — people never seem to have these problems these days… but perhaps that’s because all comics are printed in China and the paper weight isn’t something that affects the price noticeably, so everybody goes for better paper?)

Sometimes when you collect stuff like that in a thicker book, it doesn’t really survive the transition, because what can seem fun and whimsical in a pamphlet can become twee and annoying in a collection.

That’s not the case at all here — it’s like these comics were made to be collected. There’s definitely a cumulative effect where all these nonsensical bits become funnier and funnier.

There wasn’t a clear line between the Land of Nod strips and the rest in Sin, so you have to decide whether to include things like this Badman strip that leads into a Land of Nod thing — but I think it works well. Even if you don’t know that Badman is a continuing character, this just feels like one more random gag in this book.

Is this autobio!?

This book also collects the Land of Nod bits that were slated for Sin #6, and which had never been published before (because Tragedy Strikes Press kinda dissolved). It’s a bit of a downer of an ending — most everybody dies, so it seems like Stephens was aiming for Sin #6 to be the end of the series anyway.

And then we get some sketchbook stuff.

So — it’s a very good book indeed. Collected like this, the storyline (for some values of) becomes clearer, and the gags land even better.

Then, a couple years later, while Stephens was also doing Atomic City Tales, we get a Land of Nod series.

These are in the new, smaller format, and are only 24 pages long, and are printed on newsprint-ey paper. This makes these books very, very light indeed, and I’m guessing comics nerds (notoriously cheap as they are) were standing in the comics shop going “I could buy this book… but this issue of Spawn masses 200% more and has 33% more pages! And only a quarter of them are ads! I’m buying Spawn instead of Land of Nod!”

The inside front cover explains that each issue would focus on one character (from Sin/Sin Comics, I guess). And they do, kind of, but:

Stephens can’t help himself, and drops in a few pages of a comic book one of the characters are reading.

Super sharp cartooning.

The second issue is all like this — it’s 288 panels of horrible things happening to this guy.

The third and final issue uses a ligne grasse style — I don’t think I’ve seen this style from Stephens before?

So he’s developing a lot as an artist, but I can’t say that I was really gripped by any of these issues.

The Comics Journal #176, page #120:

When Jay Stephens first
burst On the scene with Sin,
confusion reigned. This is not to suggest that Sin
was incomprehensible. but a reader had to pay very
close attention to realize what was going on. (This
reader will cheerfully confess to being totally mys-
tified.)
If you Were confused and mystified by Sin (and
perhaps therefore stopped reading it), please pick
up The Land of Nod Treasury. Everything that was
in Sin, including the bizarre interruptions in the
plot, seemingly unrelated stories (often drawn in
strikingly different drawing styles), and its
fundamentally bizarre
premise, all make sense
read it in one go. Tired
neologisms like
modern” and “meta-
fiction” were invented
to books like
The Land of Nod, but don’t let that frighten you
away. The Land of Nod Treasury is a delightful
book.
The Land of Nod is a place where stories read
in comic books eventually become part Of the read.
ers’ reality. This blending of the books within a
book may remind readers of “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis
Tertius” and If 0m a Winter’s Night a Traveler, but
you won’t recall those fine literary works being
quite as goofy as The land of Nod Treasury. With
the well-meaning but ineffectual Dave. the reckless
Merv, and various other funny animal characters
(including numerous insects who would like every.
one to take their concerns just a little more seri-
ously), the Land of Nod is a place where every
character is a potential plot, all of which go off in
various directions. occasionally resolving them-
selves long after you’ve forgotten them.
The land of Nod Treasury is the freshest take
on funny animals in a long time. Forget Disney Ad.
ventures — this is the shit!
ROBERT BOYD

Darcy Sullivan writes in The Comics Journal #179, page #45:

AT THE RIPE OLD AGE of 24, Jay
Stephens is already getting hassled by people
who say his older comics were better.
Considering thatStephens only stopped doing
his “older” comics last year, this seems a bit
perverse. Until you read The I-and of Nod
Treasury.
This book, which Black Eye Productions
published at the end of last year, compiles
Stephens’ comics from two series Of his book
Sin (1992-94). It’s quite simply one of the
most wonderful comics of the last year. Mix-
ing abundant charm with cartooning chops,
Stephens makes The Land of Nod Treasury
into a real anomaly: a kiddie comic for adults.
In a sense, Stephens’ Nod stories are to
Walt Disney comics what Bone is to Pogo.
But Stephens reworks the funny-ani mal genre
more radically than Smith does, managing to
be both Cute and Obscene at once. In another
sense, these stories of slapabout characters whose
moods and plots change panel-to-panel are like
the best cartoons your kid brother ever drew to
amuse you on a family road trip. There’s even a
monster who gobbles up the other characters
when the ostensible story starts thinning out.
Pages later, an equally sudden lottery win has the
book’s survivors casting off the tragedy and
sunning themselves by a pool. Stephens seem to
have been making it up as he went along, without
running out of steam.

Wizard Magazine #56, page #75:

Stephens’ two new series separate the
parts of his earlier work into different
comics. “I’m interested in a lot of different
styles of storytelling and cartooning,”
Stephens explains. “l used to think mixing
it up in one comic like Sin was cool, but I
wasn’t getting enough room to play with
each of those techniques. Now I have two
different comic books, each with quite dif-
ferent styles. If you know my work, you can
tell it’s all by the same guy, but both comics
really cover a lot of ground for me. Maybe
I’m too ambitious, but I think I can do it.”
Aside from the different subject matter
of Land of Nod and Atomic City Tales,
Stephens’ two new series provide him with
new challenges, and the reader with very
entertaining stories. Every issue of Land of
Nod will feature a complete story focusing
on one character from a memorable cast,
including Space Ape Number Eight, Cap-
tain Rightful, Tutenstein the Mummy Boy,
and Irwin.

The Comics Journal #212, page #97:

SW-IVAN: — you didn’t have a very happy experience
withyour three-issue Land ofNodfor Black Eye. Didyou
think ofdoing this Dark Horse book with a different title
than The Land of Nod?
STERENS: Yeah, I wanted to call itJet Cat.
SILLIVAN: But… ?
STERENS: Well.. Dark Horse thought that — this
r m sure is going to send chuckles through the alterna-
tive comics crowd — the name recognition would
bring in my fan base. [laughs] Like I had any readers.
Of course it didn’t work. I’ve heard from people who
Were fond of the Black Eye stuff and had no idea that
Dark Horse had done Land of Nod issues.

The Comics Journal #212, page #103:

SULLIVAN: I was thinking ofthe Black Eye Land of Nod
issues. The Captain Rightful co•ver is very nice.
STEPHENS: I actually hate that cover. Thads another
one of those Michel screw-up things.
SULLIVAN: Hou 50?
STERENS: Thads completely his design. He threw out
every suggestion I had, and just went with his own
thing. And it went to press his way. So rm not too
happy with it. I had a whole negative background thing
ing on that was really cool. At least I thought so.
aybe you wouldn’t think so. [both laugh]
My favorite stuff is the recent Land ofNodJet Cat
stuff for Dark Horse. The last thing I did is always
going to be my favorite one. Ifitwasn’t, I’d have to kill
myself. You know, if I really thought that the work I
did fouryears ago was mybestwork… mygod! [laughs]
Who can live like that?
SULLIVAN: But do you everfeel like Woody Allen? Do you
ewer get those people who go, •The original Sins were the
great —
STEPHENS:You know, Darcy, I think thaeswhatmakes
me feel old. That’s what makes me feel like six years
ago was a long time ago. I get that all the time. I did
those five issues in like halfa year. So a year after I
debuted in comics, I had people saying they liked my
older material better.

The Comics Journal #186, page #35:

IF HANNA-BARBARA DEALT with
existential angst and deconstructionalism, the
end result would probably resemble The Innd
of Nod, the new comic from Jay Stephens. I
sincerely doubt, however, that they would do
anywhere near as good a job as he has.
Make no mistake, this book is quite an
achievement. Without ever pausing for breath,
Stephens manages to recreate all the fun of such
goofy saturday morning interstellar operas as
Space Ghost (and their comic book counter-
parts), while adding his own disturbing set of
spices to the recipe. All this without once seem-
ing “hip” or pretentious. The most amazing
thing, considering how the story ends, is how
much fun I had reading it.
The secret, I think, is that Stephens doesn’t
look down on his subject matter the way other
“alternative” artists like Daniel ClowesorTerry
LaBan often do. You can tell just by glancing at
the story that he has a genuine love for funny
animals and silly adventure comics that tran-
scends any possible grown-up disdain. There’ s
no “God, I hate superheroes, and funny ani-
mals, and people in general, so I ‘ m gonna rip all
that shit up right before your very eyes,” atti-
tude going on here at all. No false notes or faux
intellectual comments here, folks. As a result,
it’s impossible not to get swept up in the tide of
his enthusiasm.

writes in The Comics Journal #212, page #94:

SIRLIVAN: The third issue looks like it was printedfom
your pencils —yean
STEHENS: No, ifs actually inked and crayoned.
reproduced from black final art, but i ds much rougher.
a departure in art styles for me, definitely. Those
three books have completely differentvisual approaches,
and I was trying to do that. I think every project I kte
done has had Rs own particular look, including the
Oddville strip.
SULLIVAN: No•w, you mentioned the misprinting of the
third one. They’ve left off words from uord balloons,
they Q done one caption twice Of having the
SALOMEy:•
diffrent caption that’s supposed to be there. What hap-
pened?
STEPHENS: What happened is.. .Michel for some rea-
son decided that even though the artwork’s all messy
and rough, the lettering might have a bit too many
black flecks on it for reproduction. I was in Prague for
all of this. The issue should have been out and on the
stands before I left, and wasn’t, which was another
continuing problem with Black Eye. I mean, poor
Michel — I don’t know why he thinks it has to be a
one-man operation, but you can’t do everything. Any-
way , so first ofall he decided to Scan the lettering, clean
it up and drop it back in. Whatever. Thadshis preroga-
tive, I suppose, as a publisher. So he personally made
the mistake of dropping the same thing in twice, or
forgetting to drop something in. Thads fine. The
tragedy comes when the bluelines, which he’s paying
good money for, come in, and he doesn’t look at them.
He didn ‘t checkover the printer’s blueline copy, and he
had the book printed — the fill run — with errors,
which is a pretty big mistake. And from what I hear, in
the same couple of months that he did that was the
whole Black Eye disaster, which I don’t need to cover
— I mean, it was covered in an earlier Journal article.
There were missing pages in Bnlbakeds book He
printed poor Brian Biggs’ cover upside down — it was
a disaster. He forgot to ship books to a small press
convention — just a disaster. It was a mess. I’m
embarrassed talking about it.
SULLIVAN: It’s unfortunate, because he uas publishing a
lot Of teOrk. He Obviously cared about it. I’m sure he
either not making money or not making Very much
money.
STEPHENS: He was not making money. But that brings
up an interesting point. You say that as ifthaes a good
thing.
SIILIVAN: NO, no, r m not saying that’s a good thing.
saying poor

Indy Magazine #10, page #36:

I’d fcrgcttet’i how much enjoyed these pieces. Since growing a litt e dissatis
fed with Jay Stephens’ work in Atomic City Tales, hadn’t picked up this (Olec-
tion of the “Nod” stories from Sin and other scurces. But as Stephens was
doing a signing here at Chicago (omics, and seeing as hcw he (harmed the
sc«s oii of me (he lccks just ‘ike he draws himself, exa(tly!!) I picked it up.
And it is wonderful. Evan Dorkin describes “Nod” as tja funnybook for adults
who haven’t ‘et adulthood ruin them.” It is simple stories, which are humov
015 with a dark steak. Like Pickle there is a iot of love for comics in the sto-
ries, but here the (haracters love Superhero books. An interesting (hoke is
that none of the “Atomic City; bits from which Stephens’ current bocK leaps,
are reprinted here. Whenever a character cpens a comic the story he reads is
skipped. The emphasis here is on Nod. And love it. The cartoon characters
who live in tGe I-and of Nod are wonderful. Alternately cruel and innocent
they can be capab!e of great evi’ while rct completely understanding ffe
damage they do. The cartccning is simple, stories are simple, yet they have
much treat to them. I was much enheartened when Stephens told me Ncd
be appearing in ACT in the future, that it would nct be ali superheroes.
These stcries have the irnccence that his suoerhero stories lack and work on
a few more levels. Great book Highly recommended.

Man, the Black Eye books got a lot of press at the time… I think that’s enough, because I have to go run some errands.

The Land of Nod series has continued after this series ended.

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

Dance Me Outside: The Illustrated Screenplay (1994) adapted by Nick Craine

I remember seeing this book in the stores at the time, but I didn’t pick it up because I though “eh, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s comics that read as if they’re movie scripts”, and this is presented as an adaptation of a movie script, so I assumed it would be awful. Because if there’s another thing I hate, it’s adaptations.

(OK, the latter bit isn’t quite true — there’s a whole lot of fantastic adaptations, but it’s always caveat emptor.)

So I didn’t buy this until, like, a decade ago? Let’s re-read it now.

Right, this is indeed adapted from the screenplay… which again is an adaptation of a book (a short story collection, apparently).

Right, the voice-over… did the movie have a voice-over, I wonder? On the comics page, it seems rather old fashioned: Having a narrator like this mostly went out of style in the 80s (before making a slight return a decade ago).

Heh, even titles behind the characters.

Craine’s rendering had developed a lot since his last book, Cheese Heads. It’s now more stark and less scratchy, and it’s a quite appealing look. His figures still look kinda the same — like how odd that guy’s head is in the final panel.

Craine tries to make his characters easier to tell apart by giving them different hairdos and having some of them wear hats and stuff, but it can still be pretty difficult to tell what’s actually going on — just basic stuff like who’s talking to who, because there’s so many characters and they all pretty much look the same.

Even with the narration, it can be difficult to understand whatever they’re talking about. I’m assuming this was clearer in the movie, because it seems to be pretty successful:

A television series, The Rez, was spun off from the film in 1996.

However:

Good intentions pave the way to Message Movie Limbo.

Anyway, back to the comic book — many of the scenes are extremely condensed, and I’m not sure the resulting confusion is always intended.

This is an interesting spread. I like how on the right hand page here, after the head butt, the guy falls toward the left, leading the eye that way, and then pandemonium erupts — as if the break in reading direction leads to chaos. It’s cool.

I’m of two (at least) minds about the book. I don’t feel like the voice-overs are necessary all the time — it sometimes feel like we’re been explained at, which is never a comfortable feeling for a reader. The book feels to brief; perhaps with a larger page count the voice-over could have been ditched altogether? But is it a good read? Yeah… there’s lots of good bits, some interesting characters, a plot twist I didn’t see coming.

So it’s… it’s pretty good?

Craine explains himself — he felt that the voice-over is necessary to move the plot forward.

Ah, the movie was directed by the guy that planned on adapting Yummy Fur.

Nick Wyche writes in Overstreet’s FAN #6, page #116:

DANCE ME OUTSIDE: This book
adapts a screenplay which in turn
adapts a novel by W.P. Kinsella
(author of Field of Dreams)about a
group of Amerind teenagers grow-
ing up on a reservation in Canada.
The story
sharply and
succinctly
delineates the
feeling of liv-
ing on the
land of one’s
ancestors while
having no real
connection to
those ances-
tors’ history. It
also, ironically,
shows the
racism of
Amerinds to other Amerinds who try to
take themselves out of the reservation
lifestyle and blend in with European cul-
ture.

Uh — that’s an interpretation for sure!

It’s on the Hit List in The Comics Journal #173, page #129:

This is a peculiar book. Not because it’s an adapta-
tion of a screenplay (by Bruce McDonald), or be-
cause the screenplay is an adaptation of a collection
of short stories (by W.P. Kinsella), making this
graphic novel twice removed
from the original source mate-
rial. Nor is it peculiar because
the graphic novel, which takes
place entirely on an Ojibway
First Nation reserve in Alberta,
is by a white cartoonist adapting
a white filmmaker’s screenplay,
who in turn adapted a white
man’s collection of short stories based on his own
interpretations of life on the Ojibway reserve. It’s
not peculiar because this is one of the first serious
pieces of comics fiction to deal with Native Ameri-
can issues (which, on the flipside, have had a tre-
mendously rich literary tradition), or because the
Native Americans in this case are in Canada, which
has had a similar yet different history of disrespect
and misunderstanding of North American natives
than the United States.
Well, okay, maybe all of these factors contribute
to the peculiarity of Black Eye’s latest graphic
novel, but the true peculiarity lies in the quality of
the book. One would expect, given the poor history
of comics adaptations, that the original vision of
W.P. Kinsella’s stories would have long been filtered
beyond recognition by the time, via McDonald,
Craine took his hand at it.
But it is good. Craine wisely injects his own
voice, through his brush, into the story much in the
same way David Mazzucchelli did in his wildly suc-
cessful adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass.
The story loosely follows the life and friendships of
three young Ojibway adults whose lives are upended
when Illiana. a member of the tribe, brings home her
new white husband for the holidays. Conflicts arise,
though not in an obvious manner, even less so when
a murder takes place on the reservation. The story
also injects some fascinating Canadian history with
regard to Native Americans. Craine strays away
from a literal translation Of events and action, choos-
ing wisely to focus on a reinvention of Kinsella’s
textual stylisms (and/or McDonald’s camera
stylisms) into his own visual voice.
There are inherent disadvantages in adaptations
of any kind, and Craineproperly subverts them by
utilizing the inherent strengths of his medium to cre-
ate a stand-alone body of work, rather than fix-using
on producing a “faithful” adaptation — which is
where. say, Kenneth Branagh went wrong with his
recent Frankenstein film. Craine is a cartoonist to
keep your eye on (his first series, The Cheeseheads.
was published by Tragedy Strikes), as is the film-
maker McDonald: his next film is expected to be
(here we go again) an adaptation of Chester Brown’s
“Ed the Happy Clown” stories.

People seem to like it:

Any fan of independent, super-hero-less comics is likely to enjoy this book; it’s nicely written, so compelling I read it in one sitting and clearly told & drawn.

I’m not able to find any substantial modern reviews of this book, but I guess it’s never been reprinted?

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