Comics Daze

Oops! I got a ton of comics! What a surprise. Just because I ordered a bunch — now I have to read them!?

OK, let’s get started. With 90s music.

Electrelane: No Shouts No Calls

14:49: Aurora Borealice by Joan Steacy (Conundrum Press)

Yeah, I ordered a ton of books from Conundrum… Hm… this looks quite familiar? Perhaps I’ve read something else by Steacy? Or perhaps it just looks a lot like… uhm… can’t quite put my finger on it.

I guess it’s kinda influenced by Roberta Gregory, in a strange way? Hm, no… Lee Marrs? No… Oh, I know! Terry Laban! It’s quite Terry Labanish.

It’s a quite interesting book, but the storytelling is rather choppy. It’s all told chronologically, but things have a way of lurching forward, and then stopping and then lurching again, and it’s hard to get into the rhythm..

Ken… nuns in space… Is that Ken Steacy!? Is this book by Ken & Alice’s son? *looks at cover again* Oh! I totally read “John”. But it’s “Joan Steacy”. So this is written by Ken and Alice’s daughter?

*time passes*

I didn’t get that Joan and Alice was the same person until the end — this is autobio! D’uh! Now it all makes more sense, because I some of the scenes read very oddly when considered as having been written by Alice’s daughter.

(And she doesn’t have one.)

But I guess most people wouldn’t have that problem, because they read about books before reading them, so the reading is over-determined: People know what the books is going to be about etc and that informs the reading. I never do, so my reading experience is somewhat abnormal.

Electrelane: The Power Out

16:20: G.T.O.E.T. (Deadcrow)

I bought some stuff from Floyd Tangeman, and I think that this is one of those, so I guess it’s by him? Possibly?

It’s pretty cool.

16:29: Disco Lavante (Garresh)

This might also be from the Tangeman package… Doesn’t say who made it, unless Garresh is the name of the artist and not the publisher.

I really like the artwork. It’s like a 70s European version of Katsuhiro Otomo?

Oval: 94diskont

16:43: Miss Endicott 1 by Fourquemin / Derrien (Cinebook)

This colour palette is apparently extremely popular in French comics these days? All browns and greens and muted. Coupled with Cinebook’s indifferent printing, it’s not exactly a joy to look at.

But the book is a somewhat surprising read, in a good way. It mixes a lot of familiar tropes in a weird, almost dream-like way, and the result is quite readable.

Bundy K. Brown, Doug Scharin, James Warden: Directions In Music

17:16: Miss Endicott 2 by Fourquemin / Derrien (Cinebook)

Oh, I have another volume of this here…

The second album is all about running around, bringing a resolution to the story.

I kinda feel like this thing was a squandered opportunity: They set up a world with lots of interesting stuff, and the first half of the first album seemed like the perfect springboard for an amusing series about a nanny by day/detective at night, with lots of mysteries in the margins. But then they go straight ahead to the Götterdammerung, and reveals all the mysteries, and then “the end”.

Very odd. Perhaps they wrote this with a movie adaptation in mind.

Coil vs ELpH: Protection

17:47: The Green Hand and Other Stories by Nicole Claveloux (New York Review Comics)

This is absolutely gorgeous. Fantastic colours.

The stories are somewhere in the middle between symbolic and surreal, I guess? Very entertaining, anyway.

Coil vs ELpH: Protection

18:10: Next Time Around by Billy Mavreas (Conundrum Press)

Conundrum are apparently publishing 25 small books to celebrate Conundrum’s 25th anniversary?

This is pretty cool. Love the er charcoal? artwork.

Heidi Berry: Miracle

18:16: Eye Cue 2 by Gabriel Alcala (Tan & Loose)

This is a series of illustrations, and I think it might be screenprinted? Doesn’t look like riso, and feels kinda hand-made to the touch…

And it includes a little poster. Nice.

Heidi Berry: Miracle

18:19: Steal it An’ Deal It by Jiro Beavis (Tan & Loose)

This looks more like riso?

And is another book of illustrations. Nice.

Heidi Berry: Miracle

18:21: Keeping Two 7 by Jordan Crane

Oh, this is finally being published in a collected edition by Fantagraphics this summer. I think I have most of the issues, but I stumbled across this while looking for a copy of the latest Crickets issue. Hm… Oh, I see that he’s published the eight and final issue of Keeping Two now, too. Timing, timing.

This is a lovely little object — screenprinted covers and just the perfect size.

I love Crane’s storytelling — it’s a bit slippery and you have to pay attention, but it feels so rick.

This is the climax of the story (I think?), and I guess the final issue will be the denouement. I guess I’ll be getting the final issue, even though I’ll be getting the collection, too.

Heidi Berry: Miracle

18:31: Heaven’s Door by Keiichi Koike (Last Gasp)

This looks very Moebius-influenced? It’s got a very strong 70s vibe to it — the first story ends with the shocking revelation that it’s all a dream, and we’re in a sci-fi future. Which explains why Last Gasp is publishing it, I guess?

And the second story is about these mysterious kids that are having this philosophical talk…

… and then it turns out that we’re in a sci-fi future and the kids are robots.

Are all the stories going to have essentially the same twist? It’s all very 70s Métal hurlant.

And the answer is “no”, but they’re all have similar themes.

Love the artwork and storytelling, though.

Nicolette: Let No-One Live Rent Free In Your Head (1)

19:16: Swan Song by Sonja Ahlers (Conundrum Press)

So this is a collection of found pieces that have been somewhat modified, with some added text?

It makes sense in a kind of vague, associative manner.

Nicolette: Let No-One Live Rent Free In Your Head (1)

19:44: Bernard Prince 16 by Aidans & Greg (E-Voke)

E-Voke seem to specialise in publishing translations of French(ey) comics of the margins — comics that remind you of other comics; comics by assistants to famous people; or as here: a series that has lost the marquee artist name (who was 97% of the attraction of the series). I.e., Hermann. But it still has the author attached — Greg and Hermann started up this series (for uhm… younger teens?) in the mid-60s.

Which I think is nice, because these comics would otherwise not be available.

Not that I’m holding out much hope that it’s going to be actually any good.

Aidans is no Hermann, but he does a pretty good job at emulating his characters and his storytelling, if not his line.

*ding dong* Dinner time. Can’t make food myself when I’m reading comics.

This is a surprisingly entertaining book. I mean, it’s a standard Bernard Prince story, but it has great storytelling velocity.

And the back cover explains how E-voke ended up with the rights to this album: Aidans’ original artwork was lost (and apparently the plates, too?), so nobody could print it for decades. But they found them? (The back cover is vague.) So here we are.

Lamb: Lamb

20:33: Old Ground by Noel Freibert (Koyama Press)

For half a decade, it seemed like there were new Michael DeForge-inspired books popping up all the time, but that’s subsided now. This was drawn in 2014-16, so it’s from smack in the middle of The DeForge Time.

But this is really good. It’s a pretty simple story of two buried (and dead) people discussing things, and then there’s some guys that are going to demolish their graveyard.

See? Simple.

There’s these wonderful long sequences of them talking (on the left side of the page) and then we get what one of the people are imagining (based on what they’re talking about) on the right. It really works.

The ending is surprisingly moving. Class job.

Chris Watson: Stepping Into the Dark

21:20: Quay d’Orsay by Blain & Lanzac (Fahrenheit)

This is very inside baseballish — this huge book is about the travails of a speech writer for the French foreign dept — written by a guy who used to be a speech writer for the French foreign dept.

Blain’s artwork’s great, but the plots are all OH HOW STRESSFUL IT IS and it’s kinda… well… sure? But… do I care? I do not.

The Danish translation was done with support from Institut Francais, which I take to mean that they shovelled money at the publisher to make them take it.

On the other hand, West Wing and Borgen are insanely popular, and this is basically another iteration of that, so I’m not surprised that it won a bunch of awards and stuff, and was made into a movie.

There’s a… smugness… to the proceedings that’s hard not to get annoyed by. And as the book is insanely tedious, I ditched it after 100 pages.

Yoko Ono & IMA: Rising Mixes

22:36: Petrozavodsk by Alison McCreesh (Conundrum Press)

This is an excerpt from a forthcoming graphic novel?

In any case, this chapter (or what it is) works great as a standalone story. Such a fresh breath of air after the claustrophobic Blain book.

It’s really good.

Yoko Ono & IMA: Rising Mixes

22:46: North Start by Tom Herpich (Adhouse Books)

This is a collection of poems and illustrations.

That may or may not have a connection.

The book didn’t really grab me.

The Virgin-Whore Complex: Stay Away From My Mother

22:54: Project: Romantic edited by Chris Pitzer (Adhouse Books)

This is ostensibly a collection of romance comics, but virtually all of the contributors go for humour instead.

Some of it’s funny, but there’s so much in here that just doesn’t work. Reading story after story of things that just aren’t that good, I just lost all faith in the editor and it was hard to actually pay attention and read the stories.

It doesn’t help that virtually all of the stories are two to eight pages long — no variety in length. There’s only one longer story, but it’s this wordless one, so it reads as long as all the rest.

This one is probably the best story in the book, just because it’s kinda mean and funny.

Heh. Future publishing mogul Austin English.

Anyway, I wish the editor had done some editing here.

The Virgin-Whore Complex: Stay Away From My Mother

23:31: Spells by Graeme Shorten Adams (Conundrum Press)

Oh, this is great. It’s got a wonderfully odd flow — it’s a mysterious little book that doesn’t really try to reveal the mysteries. Lovely artwork, too.

It’s great.

The Virgin-Whore Complex: Stay Away From My Mother

23:40: The Peanutbutter Sisters by Rumi Hara (Drawn & Quarterly)

This is gonna sound like nitpicking, but I really hate the font they’ve chosen for the lettering here. Certain letters have so thin er stems that they disintegrate, and that makes my eyes think they’re not quite in focus, so my eyes are kinda skidding across the pages here without finding purchase.

So it might just be that these pages are physically uncomfortable (for me) to look at, but I’m having a hard time concentrating on these stories. Because they seem like they’re kinda awesome? The first one was so weird and wonderful (I think) and the second is so down to earth — I think this is probably a really good book?

But uncomfortable for me to read.

And I’m fading, but perhaps just one more comic book…

Oval: Systemisch

00:11: Letter to Survivors by Gébé (New York Review Comics)

Wow, this is an extraordinary book — it’s such a weird premise, but it’s carried off brilliantly. Gébé tells these stories with such aplomb, lulling the reader into believing everything. It’s magical.

Just amazing. And it’s funny, too.

Oval: Systemisch

00:35: The End

And now I think it’s time to go to bed.

17×10%

Whaa… it was less than a month ago I did one of these last time?

Down to 2141 from 2260.

Er… what to talk about this time… Uhm… (Oh, for new readers, this is a blog post series where I look at Emacs development through the lens of doing bug triage and fixing and closing and stuff.)

OK, let’s look at this:

That’s the debbugs-gnu overview of about one week’s worth of bug reports (the newest one when I screenshotted this). The second column has the status — the red ones have gotten no response, the grey ones have been closed, and the green ones have had some response (but haven’t been closed).

So, looks like we’re getting most new reports handled. It’s about 45 reports, and about ten of them are patch submissions, and only two of the patches haven’t been applied yet. So that’s nice.

And… they all have importance “normal”?

I wondered whether anybody was ever going to ask about what’s up with this chart, since it does seem that we’re basically only closing minor/wishlist items, right?

Up until a couple years ago, there was a (small) handful of people that were quite active in setting bug levels — skimming quickly, it seems like we ended up with about one third each of normal/minor/wishlist (with a smattering of important and critical). But it seems like those people grew bored with doing that (literally) thankless task, and nobody else has stepped up, so 97% of all bugs the last few years land at the default “normal” level. And as we’re fixing old bugs (which are diversely tagged), the chart seems to indicate that “normal” is constant while the rest are trending downward.

Statistics, eh? Such fun.

Anyway, this time around I’ve also been poking at the Emacs build machinery. It’s not a very unusual one — it’s a GNU Make thing with some autotools sprinkling. But while it supports parallel makes in the normal way, there’s also some things that are implemented as single-threaded jobs, and the Make scheduling unfortunately makes some of these things run when there’s nothing else to do. If you’ve ever said make -j32 to sit staring at this for 30 seconds:

Then I have good news: I reimplemented that algorithm (which took 30 seconds during the make bootstrap process, scheduled on its own with -j32 on a fast machine, interleaved with some other jobs on machines with fewer CPUs).

And it now takes two (2) seconds.

I’m not a maths person, but that’s an improvement of a lot of them there percentages.

On my main build machine, a make -j32 bootstrap is down from 2m21s to 1m52s, and on the laptop where I do most of my Emacs work, is down from 4m35s to 4m15s.

(The reason it was so doggone slow was that the code was geared towards keeping already-generated loaddefs files updated, so it would look for autoload statements in the source code, see whether they were already present, and then gingerly try to insert them in the right place. The larger the loaddefs file, the slower, etc.)

So after doing that, I wondered whether anything could be done about the other major single-threaded thing in the build process — the scanning of the Japanese dictionary to create a data file. And I suspect there might be, but it’s way out of my field of expertise: I don’t really know what it’s doing. However, nothing really depends on it being built, so it can be postponed until we’re doing the main byte compilation run (and being run in parallel).

Changing a handful of Makefile.in lines brought the build machine -j32 build time from 1m52s to 1m28s and the laptop -j8 build time down from 4m15s to 3m33s, so these fixes give us a total build reduction of somewhere between 30% to 20% to… less, depending on how many cores you have and how fast they are.

Which made me wonder: How has Emacs build times changed over the years, anyway? I set my build machine to work with this gorgeous one liner:

while [ $d -lt 1400 ]; do rm -rf bench; cp -a fresh-clone bench; cd bench; dat=`date -u -d "last Monday - $d days"`; git checkout `git rev-list -1 --before="$dat" HEAD`; git status >>/tmp/clog; echo $dat >> /tmp/clog; { time make -j32 2>/dev/null ; } 2>>/tmp/clog; d=$(($d + 7)); cd ..; done;

I.e., build every Monday going back two years. (Hm… writing this, I realise that I should only be logging the data when the build is successful — if it’s failing at some point, the timing data isn’t interesting…)

I ran each build three times and picked the median build time, and presto!

Indeed, things are taking a lot longer now than they did a couple years ago. (And, no, that’s not a glitch at the end there — that’s this week’s build time improvements.)

So I think it would be interesting to look at the places where we had a definite jump in build times (for instance, Jan 2019) and see what happened. (Raw data here.) The changes may well be warranted, but it’d be nice to know, anyway. And why is the build oscillating +-20s over the last month?

Some of the bigger things may be due to making the build more/less parallel, so here’s the chart for CPU usage, too:

It’s less peaky, as expected, but tells basically the same story.

Anyway, did we have any new features in this stretch? Let’s see… Not anything, major, but we’ve gotten support for a whole bunch or scripts: Tai Tham, Brahmi, Kaithi, Tirhuta, Sharada, Siddham, Syloti Nagri, Modi, Baybayin, Hanunoo, Buhid, Tagbanwa, Limbu, Balinese, Javanese, Sundanese, Batak, Rejang, Makasar, Lontara, Hanifi Rohingya, and Grantha, courtesy of समीर सिंह Sameer Singh and others.

It’s otherwise just smaller things all over the place, like M-SPC being bound to (an improved) cycle-space and package-update-all and… well, read the NEWS file diff yourself.

Anyway. Next bug stretch is just 214 bugs. Onwards and downwards. But I might take a holiday this time for real I mean it.

Eclipse 1967: 拳銃は俺のパスポート

Right, the chipmunk guy is back.

As usual with these Nikkatsu movies, it’s quite stylish and well made, with sometimes inventive cinematography and slightly off-kilter plots. But again, it’s just not a very gripping movie, and it’s hard to keep your mind from wandering.

I mean, it’s hard for me to keep your… er…

It’s just hard.

The final scene is wonderful, though, so I’m upping the dice.

A Colt Is My Passport. Takashi Nomura. 1967.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Comics Daze

Oh, deer. I’ve gotten another batch of comics, so I have to read for days. Such a harsh life.

Sophie: Nothing More To Say

06:16: The Secret Voice by Zack Soto (Floating World Comics)

Oops. I seem to have bought both the single issues from Study Group Comics as well as the collection from Floating Worlds…

Speaking of:

While unpacking packages yesterday, I was surprised to find another package from Floating World Comics — containing exactly the same books I got a couple weeks ago? They sent me the books twice? Hey, do you want them back or something? The postage from Norway to the US is probably more than they cost to buy, though… If anybody else wants this stack of comics and can drop by to collect them (I’m in Oslo), drop me a note. (I’m using a forwarding service, so I’m already out of the $$$ for shipping the books from the US to Norway with DHL.)

It’s an unusual colour scheme — yellows and purples.

Anyway, the story’s so much fun! It feels like a huge fantasy world that we’ve barely scratched the surface of, and I want more. Unfortunately, this was published in 2018, and I don’t think there’s been any further issues of the pamphlet? (Which started publishing in 2005 from Adhouse, I think?) So it’s taken over a decade to get these 140 pages…

The three issues from Study Group has the same material as the collections, and not much in the way of extras. Except this.

Cris Williamson: The Changer and the Changed

06:58: Dear Mother & Other Stories by Bhanu Pratap

This is pretty interesting graphically.

And totally fucked up. (It gets really squicky as it progresses.)

Joe Jackson: Mad At You

07:07: Georgia O’Keeffe by Maria Herreros (Selfmadehero)

What the… I swore I’d never buy another comic book artist biography? But here we are, somehow.

I quite like Herreros’ artwork.

But, as expected, it’s not a very good book. It centres everything upon O’Keeffe’s relationship with Stieglitz, and has an annoying way of insisting that it knows exactly what her intentions and thoughts are.

It’s another one of these books where you feel, after reading it, that perhaps you should have read the Wikipedia article instead, because it being a comic doesn’t really bring anything interesting to the table. But I’m glad these things keep artists gainfully employed; sure.

Dance Chapter: Anonymity

07:27: The Collected Prairie Pothole by John Porcellino (Uncivilized)

This is a collection of Porcellino’s strips from The Reader.

It’s fun to read Porcellino work in a comic strip idiom — i.e., having a sort of punch line (for some values of punch line) — instead of his usual more ruminative mode. (Which is also great.)

Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood

07:41: Hr. Vadim by Gihef & Morgann Tanco (Zoom)

This is pretty high concept — an old ex Foreign Legion guy gets bilked out of his pension (because that’s totally a thing that could happen in France and/or Belgium) and thrown out of the retirement home — and then goes on to, er, become an assassin slash vigilante.

So the storyline’s crappy, and the artwork is totally bog standard, so it’s not a very inspiring read.

David Byrne: 3 Big Songs

It’s not totally without charm, but it’s just so fucking stupid. The only plot device the authors knows about is the one called “total coincidence”, and it turns out, totally coincidentally, that everybody is involved with everybody else, so it turns into a very tangled ball of yarn. So the plot seems geared towards twelve-year-olds, while the violence level (one mobster is choked to death with a dildo) seems a bit over the top for that age segment.

I hope.

Tuxedomoon: Ninotchka

08:37: Cherry by Inéz Estrada (Kilgore Books)

I love this.

It’s so wild and fun. It’s like a proper, perfect strange little comic book.

A Flock of Seagulls: Space Age Love Song

08:47: Me & Night by Angela Fanche (Cram Books)

Heh, fun — I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book printed this way before?

The paper is folded this way, and then stapled at the other end. I love oddly printed books.

Anyway, these are diary comics. I’m quite into diary comics — when they work, they can be really interesting.

And this is pretty fantastic. It never gets into a daily grind, really (some diary comics tend towards repetition, naturally), but is endlessly varied (even if some themes are consistent).

It’s a quite harrowing reading experience, especially towards the end, when things just get more and more depressing.

It’s an amazing reading experience.

Richard Horowitz: Eros in Arabia

10:10: Nap Time

My sleeping is so fucked up these days — it might have something to do with renovations seemingly happening all around me…

Cristina: Cristina

14:01: Children of Mu-Town by Masumara Jushichi (Glacier Bay Books)

That was a long nap. And now apparently the neighbours across the street have started sawing metal pipes or something?

As usual with Glacier Bay, the book itself is just physically pleasant to read — because they use this er “detached spine” kind of thing (I have no idea what it’s called), so that you can open the pages wide. Lovely little detail.

This starts off in a most confusing manner…

… it’s not clear whether we’re in a dream world, or whether there’s “real” scenes and “symbolic” scenes or what, but then it all clicks into place: It’s a quite straightforward story, but with certain absurdist elements.

It’s wonderful! It’s so masterfully told, always on the brink of confusion, but then clarity. It’s an engrossing read, kinda propulsive?

And kudos to Glacier Bay for not including an essay explaining just what we just read, which is the American tradition for Japanese alternative comics — more as a vehicle for writing essays than enthusiasm for actually publishing the darn thing. (You know who.)

I should just go ahead and buy everything Glacier Bay has published already, instead of buying a book here and there via Domino.

*time passes while shopping*

Various: Special Club: Hiver 81-82

15:05: The Airy Tales by Olga Volozova (Sparkplug)

This is a unique reading experience — the panels (with text) are arranged in odd ways, and the stories have a very strange flow.

It feels like unmediated art? The way these tales are told remind me of the way I would spin fantasies when I was like 11: These are narratives, but lurch this way and that, and obsess about certain things.

Very interesting.

Phew: Phew

15:41: Tif et Tondu: Échecs et Match by Will & Desberg (Zoom)

I really have to stop buying these.

This is from 1981, and is still in 50s boys’ comics mode (which I quite like), so it’s better than a decade later, when they attempted being more grown up, but it’s still not… like… good. It’s kinda charmless? I do think I would have enjoyed certain bits of the plot when I was 11, though.

Phew: Phew

16:06: Long Gone #3 & #4 by Samuel Benson

This reminds me of 90s indie single author anthologies — but more heartfelt and less distanced.

It’s a really enjoyable read — these are pretty original little stories, and the artwork is satisfyingly messy.

Alan Vega: Collision Drive

16:27: Likbilen by Nærum / Volle (Cappelen Damm)

I like the artwork.

This is a sci-fi satire sort of thing — it feels like a retread of French 70s comics, in a way. The storytelling is pretty choppy, though, and I found it difficult to not get impatient with the story as it wound its way to the expected conclusion.

OK, I bought a whole bunch of smaller comics from Domino, so let’s put on some singles while reading those…

The Creatures: Right Now

16:46: Blah Blah Blah #2 by Juliette Collet

Love the artwork.

It’s a kind of wistful autobio book? It’s good.

Blaine L. Reininger: Playin’ Your Game

16:57: Good Night Seattle by Julia Gförer

Gförer’s published a whole bunch of these minicomics, but I can never remember which ones I’ve already bought… She should just publish a regular single author anthology already.

This is very funny, and exquisitely drawn as usual.

This Mortal Coil: Kangaroo

17:02: My Sux by Angela Fanche

It’s a lovely little book.

Junie Morrison: Techno-Freqs

17:05: Psychedelic Desert by Mia Gilling

Very tranquil.

Junie Morrison: Techno-Freqs

17:07: Skim Lizard 5 edited by Dylan Williams

This is a mini from 1994, and we open with a lovely letter from Bill Schanes.

The longest piece here is this Dave Cooper er masterpiece.

And Dave Sim writes in, too.

Colourbox: Say You

17:16: Superb Uti by Jack Reese

Wow, love this. Kinda Yokoyamaish? Not in the art style, but somehow anyway.

Colourbox: Punch

17:21: Bunny Bear by Andy Heck Boyd

Very odd (in a good way).

Colourbox: Punch

17:24: The Golem of Gabriol by Olga Volozova (Sparkplug)

This is in some ways more straightforward than that book up there (it’s a retelling of the Lilith story with some added stuff), but it’s told in a somewhat oblique manner. Interesting, though.

Colourbox: Punch

17:31: Becoming by Elif Baysak

This is really cool. It’s a narrative of sorts (on the right-hand pages)…

… but on the left-hand pages, we have top/bottom halves of strange faces, so you can construct your own. It reads really well if you just read it sequentially, flipping half page by half page, but it’s also fun to play with.

The artwork kinda reminds me of Mark Beyer? No higher praise is possible.

Hm… should I eat dinner? I should probably eat dinner. But another book first:

Cocteau Twins: The Spangle Maker

17:38: From This Flame by Oumi Konomi (Glacier Bay Books)

Uh-oh. I hope I didn’t just buy another copy of this book… uhm… yup, I did.

This is very contemplative and calm.

And gorgeous artwork.

Breathless: Waterland

17:47: Dinner

Even with the huge nap in the middle there, I’m fading, so I think I’ll call it a night.

That was a fabulous batch of comics (with a couple of exceptions, like Vadim and Likbilen). But exhausting.