Random Thoughts

Big Fat Little Lit edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly (225x280mm)

I’m not quite sure how I ended up with this book — I probably bought it not knowing that it was a reprint of the three Little Lit volumes?

Two of the Little Lit books had themes (fairy tales and “silly night”), but the order in this collection is pretty random. They open with the Kaz story, which is a pretty odd thing to start with, because it’s a somewhat harsh story…

The oldee tymey stories that were reprinted in the three books are included here, too…

Even the endpapers are included! So I wondered — does this reprint everything, just in a slightly smaller format (this is more normal album-sized, while the three books were larger).

But no. This leaves out at least 30 pages from the original books? I have not done a survey of what’s left out, because… er… you know… that’s like work, but I do note that the Loustal/Paul Auster story (which was good, but had nothing to do with anything) isn’t included.

So perhaps they edited out the stuff that just… wasn’t totally right? Or perhaps they just had a 144 page limit and they started chopping away. Or… contractual reasons…?

I can only guess.

Hm… Oh! They Posy Simmonds story isn’t here, either? But that one was quite good! And perfect in this context!

Now I’m really guessing it was for contractual reasons.

Art Spiegelman writes in the year-end summary thing in The Comics Journal #279, page 21:

And for the young
folks, might I humbly
call your attention to
our shiny new Big Fat
Little Lit, as the book has
just been more “priv-
ished” than published
by Puffin/Pen-
guin. Edited by Fran-
goise Mouly and myself,
this handsome 144-page
paperback serves up
most of the contents of
our three $20 hardcover
Little Lit anthologies for
only $14-99. The NY
Times bestsellers have
been lauded as classics
by librarians, educa-
tors and in the press.
On book tours, we’ve
witnessed that the series
is cherished, read and
reread by kids and their
parents. Comics by Kaz,
Kim Deitch, Ian Fal-
coner & David Sedaris,
Richard Sala & Lemony
Snicket — to name a few
Of the 33 A-list cartoon-
ists, writers and children’s-book artists play-
ing an A game in this collection — offer up
labors Of love in a very generous package.

“Privished”? I guess he wasn’t happy with the publicity or something?

Most people seemed to like it, but:

This was horrifying. I’m glad no one gave this to me when I was little, because I wouldn’t have been able to be by myself for a long time afterwards. “Sick Comics for Parents Who Want Their Kids to be as Neurotic as They Are.” Thanks a lot, Spiegelman!

Mm-hm:

The artwork is gorgeous and the stories are a great deal of fun, and I am not sure that this book is entirely for five and up – as an adult, I had a great time with it.

I guess:

This should be a sure hit with smart kids, and a quick way to be the coolest Aunt or Uncle. For adults it’s simply a collection of some fine artists being as witty, hip and subversive as ever.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly (242x340mm)

This is the third and final book in this series, and it’s a bit shorter than the previous two: 48 pages instead of 64.

Martin Hanford does the endpapers, and they’re great. He’s the guy that does Where’s Waldo, as if you couldn’t tell.

They’ve got some pretty big names in here, like Lemony Snicket and Neil Gaiman… but there’s a palpable atmosphere of just not caring that much any more. You could really feel the enthusiasm in the first two books, and now it’s just “eh”.

And the “theme” thing is back: All the stories start with “it was a dark and silly night”…

Spiegelman doesn’t contribute anything except the cover, for instance. Instead we open with Lemony Snicket and Richard Sala… and it may be the best piece in the entire series. It’s a proper story with twists and turns and an ending that you can ponder for a while.

But it’s mostly things that are ineffably annoying. J. Otto Siebold and Vivian Walsh’s thing, for instance, was pretty painful to get through. The pages just have zero flow.

The first two books also reprinted older comics, but Basil Wolverton feels so out of step with the rest of the stuff in this book it’s not even funny.

OK, the Kaz thing here was absolutely perfect, and there’s some good illustration here (Barbara McClintock), but the book feels aimless and doesn’t cohere in any way.

Darcy Sullivan writes in The Comics Journal #258, page 43:

Nothing quite irks the critic like being
asked to render reasoned comment
on something that is both a) popular and
b) good. To pass a positive judgment on
something that everyone already deems to
be of high quality is to render oneself and
one’s decisive opinions useless. Most practi-
tioners of the reviewing arts would prefer to
illuminate their critical electron microscope
in order to detect flaws in what, to the
naked eye, might appear to be perfect.
Alternatively, one can increase one’s scope
to such fantastical proportions that, in the
context of political change, human evolu-
tion or continental drift, one can dismiss
the artistic endeavors in question as piffling
irrelevancies. Reliable as these approaches
are, they still mark the critic as something
of a cad. Barring them, one has but two
other courses available: to transform the
review into an autobiographical digression
that barely touches on the piece under con-
sideration, or to review something else
entirely and tell remonstrating editor
that he was unclear about the assignment.

[…]

Despite some 15
years of authorship
within these pages,
I can do little more
than applaud this
volume, and the
two that preceded
it. These are good
books, and those
with ready money
should purchase
them.
My long career in the paid-by-the-
word trade has taught me that more will be
required here. first, it should be noted that
the Little Lit series addresses a problem
much mooted in this and sundry other
comics-related journals, most of them
defunct, which is that children no longer
read comics. Volumes such as these, crafted
to appeal to parents, designed to look like
children’s books and invested With enough
quality to overcome the prejudices Of the
public, represent a positive step. Ironically,
whereas comics were once considered the
first rung on the ladder to real reading, one
suspects that Little Lit appeals to children
who are already avid readers, and demon-
strates to them that comics need not reverse
the literacy gains they have already made. It
is also ironic that this mission of wooing
children back to comics should fall to so
many artists whose principal oeuvre in the
medium is decidedly not for children.

[…]

As for the stories contained within
this volume, I must express a particular
fondness for the collaborations between
Snicket and Sala, and between Wilson
and Neil Gairnan. There is considerably
more silly than dark offered throughout
this book, and the stories by these gentle-
men most agreeably combine these two
eponymous elements.

The Snicket/Sala story was nominated for Best Short Story in the 2004 Eisners.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly (242x340mm)

The first Little Lit book wasn’t… very good, and this one doesn’t even have Chip Kidd as a co-designer. So let’s have a look.

Heh, that’s pretty good… (Kaz.)

That’s not bad, either. (Art Spiegelman.)

There were quite a few of these activities pages in the first book, but only one here. (Martin Handford.)

OK, this is much better than the first book. (Ian Falconer and David Sedaris.) The pieces here are generally longer, more inventive, and things that I can see actual kids would actually enjoy. And that makes for a better experience for us childish adults, too.

Perhaps it was the fairy tale theme that messed up the first book?

It was difficult to find anything in the first book that actually worked well, but basically everything here’s either fine or very good indeed. (Claude Ponti.) There’s a great variety in the approaches, from the formal play here…

… to the straightforward storytelling in Posy Simmond’s story.

The book reprints a bunch of oldee things from famous illustrators, like Jules Feiffer here, as well as Maurice Sendak and Crockett Johnson. I guess these are just things Spiegelman really enjoyed… but they’re not the strongest pieces in the book.

Nice. (Kim Deitch.)

The Crocket Johnson thing is pretty cool. Gotta love the Futura.

Lewis Trondheim does a very playful thing where you have to choose your way among branches.

And finally, Loustal and Paul Auster does… er… uhm… Well, it’s a good story, but it feels very out of place in this book.

So! That was a really good book, which I didn’t expect after suffering through the first one.

Ng Suat Tong writes in The Comics Journal #244, page 38:

With the success of the first Little Lit
volume, immaculate reputations, money,
a good publisher and a sizeable contact
list, Spiegelman and Mouly had one
potential stumbling block when it came
to editing the second volume of their
children’s comics anthology. The ability
to truly “edit,” to chop and to cut and to
refuse without severely offending. In
essence, do you ask Paul Auster and
Jacques de [nustal to contribute some-
thing and proceed to tell them that their
story is average and really not a very good
children’s story? Do you ask an old
friend, a distant contact or an artist
whose merits equal or exceed your own
to remove, redraw or otherwise com-
pletely alter a story which he has worked
long and hard on? Was it within the abil-
ities of Spiegelman and Mouly to edit,
strongly direct and advise on their con-
tributor’s works? Did they even the
chance to exercise this ability? I
know. If they have had this opportunity,
then their collective “taste” is wholly cul-
pable in the debacle that is L;ttle Lit:
Strange Stories for Strange Kids. If not,
they have knowingly succumbed to the
pitfalls of the “strong” contributor list.
The latter is the lesser of the two evils but
the editors remain guilty of producing a
very mediocre book in what can only be
described as the optimum conditions.
Let us begin with Spiegelman’s story,
“The Several Selves of Shelby Sheldrake, ”
a clear indicator that he is ill-suited to the
production of children’s comics.

[…]

Any semblance Of an engaging plot is
suffocated by Spiegelman’s rough, unfin-
ished line and flat, frigid narration. His
desire to amuse his young readers With a
repetitive, claustrophobic explosion Of
imagery is both ill-judged and tedious.
Our eyes glaze over with disinterest upon
encountering each monotonous page of
this four-page offering.
Where Open Me — A Dog suc-
ceeded to a certain extent as an amusing
novelty book, Spiegelman’s children’s
comics are hampered by overportentous-
ness and his unwillingness or inability to
change his drawing style to suit his pur-
pose. His story in the first Little Lit
(“Prince Rooster”), for example, replaced
fun and excitement With unleavened les-
sons for the day. One does not question
the right of an editor to include his own
stories in his own book, but I do wonder
what hidden forces compelled him to
place his middling stories at the forefront
Of his collections not once but twice. The
utter lack of insight in this respect from
someone so experienced is astonishing.
More importantly, Spiegelman
should eradicate his delusions of
grandeur about producing comics for
children in a day and age when no one is
producing comics for children.
Spiegelman and Mouly appear to have so
distanced themselves from comics in the
intervening years since the publications
Of Raw and Maus that they no longer
have a feeling for or knowledge of the
various delightful children’s comics that
have surfaced in recent years.
As if to prove my point, the pair of
tales that bookend Little Lit II are an
example of the worst kind of children’s
comics. The calamitous closing tale
(“The Day Disappeared”) is by two
otherwise exceptional talents, Paul
Auster and Jacques de Loustal. It is a
metaphorical tale of how a man loses and
then finds and saves himself in the course
of a day. Auster stubbornly refuses to
abandon his roots in existentialism and
adult fables for the sake Of a “mere” chil-
dren’s comic and Loustal, for his part,
struggles gamely along, creating art per-
fectly compatible with Auster’s very dour
purpose. In truth, Loustal cannot be
blamed for his writer’s ultimately disas-
trous foray into the realm Of the gravity
laden children’s Story. As a fairy tale for
adults, “The Day I Disappeared” is
remarkably shallow compared to any of
Auster’s existentialist tales in The New
York Trilogy and yet almost certainly
beyond the comprehension of young
children. It lacks the swift movement of
plot requisite of childretfi stories and fails
at every turn to produce the careful and
uncluttered delineation of emotions,
replacing this with drawn out, silent,
morose exposition.
In truth, the distinguished contribu-
tor list of Little Lit II is nothing more than
a mirage; a whispered hope and a ceaseless
dirge that masks the tepid quality of the
book. Jules Feiffer, a wonderful writer and
artist, produces a story that I would not
put beyond the worst Of Mantel hacks.
One does not suspect some sudden emas-
culation of his artistic prowess but a fail-
ure to undertake a proper and recent
review of children’s comics and literature.
“Trapped in a Comic Book” is about a
child who encounters and annoys a car-
toonist only to be sucked into the very
comic the cartoonist is drawing. Feiffer
adopts a tonal dot pattern to indicate that
we are deep within a comic page, blowing
up the printing deficiencies of the four-
color world of comics. It is a deadly com-
mon trick — which is not a criticism in
itself, since it •would be too much to ask
every artist to create elements of daring
innovation every time they produce a
new comic. Yet Feiffer’s art is inadequate
to the job Of conveying the fantasy he
means to communicate. His harried
linework (so essential to the meter Of his
cartoon strips) has a severe distancing
effect here in view Of its lack Of clarity
both narratively and figuratively. It is a
defect further exacerbated by the flavor-
less narration ofa trite plot.

[…]

Some of the other editorial choices
also help to lift Little Lit II beyond the
zone Of death. Richard Maguire produces
a technically interesting “Can You find”
activity page filled with twisted shapes
and unusual perspectives. Lewis
Trondheimk amusing cartoon maze is a
few minutes of harmless entertainment
Which is bound to generate more neural
connections in the minds Of young chil-
dren, and Roca makes a good, if
somewhat traditional, account Of himself
With a surreal “Can you Spot the
Mistakes” page. Claude ponti also deliv-
ers the goods in his pleasantly related
story of “The Little House That Ran
Away From Home,” a tale filled with
touching pictures ofa house weeping and
other worldly Dr. Seuss-like creatures
collecting “happy sounds” and “smoke-
plumes-that-rise-in-the-distance. ” To cap
all this Off there is a well known intro-
ductory tale from Barnaby which appears
to be slightly edited When compared to
the first Barnaby collection published by
Henry Holt and Company.
Only time will tell if the series has
sufficient weight to generate the clouds
of nostalgia that inform an appreciation
of a Barks Duck story, a Stanley Little
Lulu or a Lee and Kirby story from the
Silver Age. I would suggest, however,
that one hardly needs to journey to the
island Of Patmos to discern that Little Lit
Will not be looked upon (if at all) With
kindness in ten years’ time.
Children are not a very demanding
audience but they are terribly exacting in
their requirements. In the case Of Little Lit,
Spiegelman and Mouly have subscribed to
the ultimately false and Kitile values of
choosing the most “name” artists they
could muster in order to produce a chil-
drenk book Which is, simply put, merely
lukewarm water meant to be spat out.
They have declined to look beyond an
artises past laurels and hence blinded
themselves to those with less prestige but
proven abilities in a combination of both
comics narrative and the childrer* story.
This is ultimately the path of safety. There
is a sense of security inherent in such a
position; a feeling of warmth and comfort
in the nebulous cloud of quality inherent
in the flock of “names” surrounding your
project. But it is not necessarily the path
to artistic success. With all the resources
eminently at Spiegelmank and Moulis
disposal, no excuses are sufficient to justi-
6′ such a failure.

I think he didn’t like it? But he did like the first book?

Well, OK!

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Little Lit: Folklore & Fairy Tales edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly (242x340mm)

I didn’t originally plan on including anything from the Raw Junior, LLC line of books… but I thought it might be interesting to at least talk about the first spate of Little Lit books.

These are published by HarperCollins, but apparently put together by Spiegelman and Mouly (with Chip Kidd co-designing). The selling point, I think, is what’s in the orange line at the bottom there.

“Comics: They’re not just for grown-ups anymore!” the back cover tells us. Which is a hackneyed joke today, but twenty years ago, it was a pretty novel idea in the US (before all the Raina Telgemeiers and the Dav Pilkeys).

There was a real push to do comics for kids in the late 90s among alternative cartoonists (perhaps because so many of them now had kids). They all had one thing in common: Not a single actual kid would touch those comics with a ten foot pole. It’s instead be older fans of the cartoonists other work that would buy those books and then go “most whimsical! most whimsical!” while stroking their necks beards.

(I should get a shave.)

So… we open with a… most whimsical “Fairy Tale Road Rage”… game from Chris Ware, which has things like “Minor Chest Pain”, something all six-year-olds relate to naturally.

The theme for this handsome book is fairy tales, which I guess should guarantee that no kid would ever want to look at it. (Art Spiegelman.)

As usual, the artists lean hard into “whimsy”. (William Joyce and Ever Meulen.) The main problem is that they’re jamming so many things in here — I think there’s 18 pieces over 64 pages. I don’t have my calculator on me, but I think that translates to “not a lot of pages per thing”. Virtually none of these stories have room to develop, so they read like weird non-sequiturs.

Daniel Clowes does his creepiest story ever.

It’s not just that these are bad comics for kids — they’re just bad comics all around. Except this one! It’s, of course, Joost Swarte, and it’s good.

The worst are the ones that just recap a fairy tale kinda straight, like David Macaulay here.

Ooh! Charles Burns!

OK, this Kaz thing is pretty good. Kinda gruesome, but good.

And finally we get the instructions for how to play the Chris Ware game. All the six year olds probably spent hours and hours on this, right?

So what we have here is a classic example of the How Not To Do Comics For Kids genre. (To see what kinds want, go to the nearest bookstore and look at the stacks of Dog Man books.)

The Comics Journal #231, page 52:

I heard Little Lit recently
described (Oh, 0k, I happened to be in the
Fanta offices and overheard one of the phone
guys talking about it, so I eavesdropped, big
whoop) as “A children’s book —well, more of
a book for children with their parents.” That’s
right: t appears to be a childrens’ book but
really isn’t.
As you can already tell, my review of Little
Lit is harsher than a book ostensibly written for
kids probably seems to warrant. This is because
the publishers are trying to do something new
and interesting, which merits closer scrutiny
than standard comic book fare. And the stan-
dards of things for children are different than
the standards of things for parents, which are
much different than the standards of those two
demographics combined. Also, I’ve gotta lot of
rage. But please keep in mind, there is not a
book in the world that couldn ‘t benefit from a
few of Lies basic structural concepts (read:
earnestly intended mistakes).
Let’s start this time with Chris Ware, the
man who, if you lived in a box, you would
probably believe invented comics jut a few
weeks ago. The “story” included here is a mas-
terful game entitled Fairy Tale Road Rage. Mr.
Ware, please note: if you’d really like us to start
constructing these things (and the temptation
is growing to irresistible) please insist on hea’+
ier cardstock Or consider switching to differ-
ent materials altogether. (Who among us
wouldn ‘t blow $14.99 of our next paycheck on
a Ware-and-Kidd-designed board game?)
Please, consider my suggestions. Thanks!
Yet the game itself seems to be a fun cross
between Mad Libs and an actually enjoyable
board game. Seems, I say, because I didn’t put
the thing together. Before we begin to play, we
must read the directions thoroughly. And
that’s when we realize that Ware is taunting us.

[…]

Which seems like a pretty good place to
mention Charles Burns. Burns, who in my
opinion has matured from a damn good
comics artist with Big Baby to one of the better
storytellers today with Black Hole. This being
said, however, he really isn’t appropriate to the
expressed theme of Lit, unless you’re really
pushing the old German fairy tale themes of
death, destruction, terror and bloodletting. In
fact, Burns shouldn’t be even mentioned in
the same room with under-14s until they have
proved themselves worthy, and this from the
same Ms. Penmark who feels we should give
away gay porn in the public schools because
we’ve been neglecting the queer youth of
America for too long. Under no conditions
should even the worst of children be subjected
to Charles Burns. The stuff is too scary.
Yet it just underscores my theory that Lit
isn’t really for kids at all, despite the back of
the book’s proclamation: “Comics. They’re not
just for grown-ups anymore.” The comics and
games, some more traditional than others, are
a good mix of funny, gory and sweet. Some of
the stories will be above children’s heads. Or
rather, the underlying gist of some of the stc»
ries will be (kids will enjoy the book solely
because it’s a fancy book made in part for
them) except for the Burns, by which they will
be scared, and it will make them run away and
hide, and possibly never look at another book
again in their lives for fear there could be
inside more black and white line drawings of
things that should be a little bit funny, but
really are the most terrifying things ever
imaginable. Anyway, the thing of having
adult jokes wedged into kids stuff is real-
ly popular right now, and plus, it
makes the kids feel intelligent when
they get the jokes, which is a nec-
essary confidence-booster for
most kids.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.