Random Thoughts

Jacques Boivin’s Love Fantasy (1987) #1 by Jacques Boivin and others

This comic has three short stories, all with artwork by Boivin, but with different writers, which is a somewhat unusual approach.

The first one is written by Mike Baron (of Nexus fame, presumably). It’s a vignette about a guy without any particular qualities (except being a “nice guy”)…

… who creeps on a cashier, but then (by sheer coinkidink) meets her in a different context, and Woody Allen movies (and fucking) ensues. It’s a very slight, somewhat creepy story.

The second story is written by Arn Saba (of Neil the Horse fame) and is inked by Bernie Mireault (of The Jam fame). It’s an actual story! It’s part of the general Eureka Street story Saba had dabbled with before, and the characters have some depth. Saba manages to squeeze a lot of stuff into these pages, and it’s a fun, brisk read.

The final story is written by Mark Shainblum (of… er… fame?), with artwork by Boivin and Gabriel Morrisette (of mainstream fame), and it’s a very nerdy fantasy story.

The depiction of comics fans at a convention seems very accurate, though!

Boivin would go on to illustrate Melody:

Jacques Boivin is the artist of the erotic comic ‘Mélody’, that appeared at Kitchen Sink Press from 1988. The comic was created three years earlier, when exotic dancer Sylvie Rancourt created a comics alter-ego for herself. The Boivin version of the comic was a big hit.

I remember liking Melody a lot, but it’s probably mostly forgotten these days — Sylvie Rancourt’s own version of her story was reprinted by Drawn & Quarterly, and it’s excellent. And very different.

Amazing Heroes #124, page 58:

Romance is back. Tentatively, in-
deed. Not in the same forms we
knew it before, but isn’t that always
the way? But, with this and the
forthcoming Renegade Romance
(and with California Girls in a
slightly different genre), romance
has unquestionably found its way
back to comics. And, to borrow a
phrase, “It’s about damn time.”

[…]

Love Famasy isn’t what it might
have been. but it’s a good start. The
highlight of the issue is “The Perfect
Guy,”
written by Saba, with
Mireault inking Boivin. It’s just a
funny. bittersweet little story about
a female artist nearing her “middle
years” who become infatuated with
a charming young guy who proves
to be a bigger and bigger jerk as the
story progresses. It sparkles with
little details of humor and humanity,
as the artist’s agents, punky
neighbor, teenaged daughter. and an
old hippie named Meatball who’s
fixing the plumbing troop through
the house tossing out different
perspectives on the woman, her
man. and her predicament. The
team of Boivin and Mireault bring
it to life with a pleasant mixture of
everyday reality and cartoon clarity.
The story written by Baron,
“Check-Out Girl,” disappointed me.
The concept had promise: A man
finds that a ‘Aoman who turns down
his advances in one context is much
more receptive in another, and
wonders why; he tries to interpret
the situation in tertns of power and
prestige, while she puts it on an
interpersonal, emotional footing.
The trouble is. the plot feels like just
an exposition of that concept, as the
characters talk out their perceptions
in a singularly undramatic resolu-
tion. This seems like just the kind
of trap that “relationship comics”
are going to have to sidestep.
And then there’s “Royal Con
Interlude (Introducing Magic-
stone),” written by Mark Shainblum
and drawn by Morrissette and
Boivin. It’s a nicely turned little tale,
a fantasy with some super-heroish
elements, set in the milieu of a
comic book convention. I can’t say.
though, whether I like it or not,
because my reactions to the work
itself are colored by my disappoint-
ment at finding a story in this comic,
of all comics, which relies on fan-
nish references and seems to require
of its readers some familiarity with
the super-hero scene. But I may be
overreacting. Maybe stories like this
can be useful bridges between the
realm of super-heroes and that of
“off genre” comics. Maybe this will
draw people into romance stories
who might otherwise have ignored
them.
Whatever its drawbacks, Love
Fantasy is good enough to show that
love stories can-be made to work in
modern comic books with an adult
orientation. I hope this is only the
beginning.

Hey! I agree with everything there, which doesn’t happen a lot.

This book has never been reprinted, but it’s easily available.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Friends (1987) #1-3 by Bill Dinardo

When I was considering doing a blog series about Renegade, the first thing that popped into my mind was “Yeah! Friends! I get to read Friends again!” Which is pretty odd, since I could just re-read it anyway, but…

I remember Friends well from when I was a teenager. That is, I remember reading it, and going totally “this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever read”. I remember showing it to a friend saying “look! how weird this is!” I don’t quite remember if he then backed away while nodding slowly…

But I don’t actually remember anything much about the contents, other than it all being like… tableauxes… (That’s a word.)

I may be misremembering — it’s been a while. Let’s read the first three pages together:

See? I told you so! It’s so weird! It’s like from an alternate dimension where Windsor McCay was the dominant comics paradigm, but it’s more than that: Everything is laid out as if a stage play, with full figure panels most of the time, but zooming in to half figure characters sometimes.

The balloon placement makes everything very horizontal, very left to right… and everybody is of identical height and body build, with essentially the same faces and hairdos. And their heads mostly poke out of the top of the panels.

There’s also a lot of walking… and they all walk in step, very close to each other.

It’s so weird! I mean, it’s weirder than most experimental comics, and it’s kinda not — the plot (as it is) is straightforward and simple, with low stakes drama.

The first issue is about these two guys throwing mud at some beehives, because… because… that’s what kids do? We get no explanation… but the tough guy (with the interestingly white-stippled black sweater) tells us that his older brother is a marine stationed in Beirut.

The storytelling isn’t dreamlike, and it isn’t nostalgic — it’s something that’s adjacent to both, but without hitting either. Here’s the dramatic beehive scene, and the excerpt from Will’s diary is about another incident altogether.

So the tough guys saves “viewpoint” character by throwing mud at him… while crying…

OK, while typing this, my normal scepticism rears its head, and I’m starting to think “is it possible that this is supposed to be a parody of something?” This didn’t occur at all to me while reading this, because I was sitting there, slack-jawed; amazed at what’s going on.

And then the Marine brother dies! Like that! Totally abruptly.

So on the left, we get into semantics about what happened in Watts in the 60s… and then on the right we get the only time the characters laugh, I think?

Hard guys! Untucked shirts! Jeans!

This is how to be a hard guy: This swagger, this strut. It’s a pretty subtle variation from how Dinardo’s other characters walk, but it’s still palpable. It’s like Dinardo is challenging himself to create a comic with only the most minuscule variations possible between the characters and still have it possible to read the differences — and he’s successful.

Epic fight scene!

The first issue is 24 pages long, while the other two are 32, so we get a back-up story in those two issues. First out is a Walking Man Comics thing… I really like these? Is he using rubber stamps to create these comics? They’ve got a nice flow.

I guess some of the beats in this comic are reminiscent of sitcom abruptness.

Most of the characters cry at one point or another, which isn’t very sitcom-like.

I love the posture on the guy on the ground in the top panel.

And then it ends. This is the final two panels. (Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that one of the guys is from another panel. It’s really not given much attention in the comic (I mean, aside from him being able to make things float), and it’s perhaps another sitcom-like thing. (Shades of Mork and Mindy.)

So there you have it: It’s just as odd as I remembered from when I read it as a teenager. Those short ankles, long thighs; the affectless faces; the gentle but weirdly affecting storylines…

It’s like nothing else, and it’s hard to even make a value judgement about this, because… what do you compere it with?

It’s a reading experience like nothing else, and I found it hugely enjoyable.

*gasp* A girl! I don’t think there was a single other girl (or woman) in the rest of the book?

Phil Yeh (there’s another blast from the past) does the final back-up story.

Dinardo has apparently published no other comics besides this one and appearing in two of the Penguin and Pencilguin issues. (Two six page Friends strips, apparently — I don’t have those issues.)

Googling around led me to this Bill Dinardo, who I wasn’t sure was the right one… until I followed the link to his etsy page.

Yup, that’s the same Dinardo all right.

Friends has never been reprinted, but you can still pick up the series cheaply:

Renegade got quotes from some very appropriate creators — Rick Geary is super quirky, and Chadwick was going for some gentle storytelling…

Heh:

Oh, Dinardo was also in an issue of Patrick Rabbit.

Heidi MacDonald writes in Amazing Heroes Preview Special #5, page 51:

Will and his alien friend Miles continue to
learn about different types of courage in
Bill Dinardo’s whimsical Friends.
Courage, he says, is one. of the main
ideas behind the series. For instance, the
first issue dealt with Brian, Will’s physic-
ally strong friend. Subsequent issues will
similarly spotlight Will’s other friends (hey,
dat’s de name of the book, gang), while
gradually revealing more of the story of
why Miles was forced to leave his home
Planet.
The second issue spotlights ßialos.
‘ “He’s brave, but he’s not physically
strong, like Brian,” Dinardo explains. “But
he’ll never back down from what he thinks
is true.” This determination gets Bialos,
Will and Miles in trouble with some tough
kids known as the Hard Boys.
There’s also Cliff, who’s a bit of a bully,
and Steve, the class clown. In the second
issue we’ll see one of the Pags, the alien
race who devastated Miles’ home. In fact,
the Pags will play a more important role
as the series progresses. Still, Dinardo
shies away from the term “science fiction”
for the book. “It’s more of a day-in-the-life
sort of thing. It’s basically Miles showing
something to Will that will help him to
become a more complete human being.”
The book will probably have a back-up
series. Matt Levin’s idiosyncratic “Walking
Man” will be featured in several issues.

Heidi MacDonald writes in Amazing Heroes #133, page 133:

PENGUIN AND
PENCILGUIN

[…]

Bill Dinardo’s whimsical “Friends”
continues as the back-up strip. Though
the regular series from Renegade has
been cancelled, Dinardo still plans on
finishing up the story of Bialos and the
mystery of Miles and the Pags some
place and some time.

I’m unable to find anybody talking about Friends on the intertubes. Dinardo has a strip about grammer, though. Here’s a sample:

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Wimmen’s Comix (1987) #11-13

The first ten issues of Wimmen’s Comix were published by Last Gasp. I’ve got them here in some shortbox somewhere, but since this is a blog series about Renegade, I’m gonna skip re-reading them now.

Besides, I re-read it all somewhat recently when I got the box set collecting the entire series (and more). (By the way, I wish there were more reprint projects like this — I love reading anthologies: There’s a bunch out there that are really solid and have exciting work that’s never been reprinted. But I know I’m in a minority here…)

Anyway, after a decade and a half with the decidedly underground Last Gasp, Wimmen’s Comix is now with the decidedly direct market Renegade Press. So I wondered whether this would affect the talent pool. Issue eleven is edited by Dori Seda and Krystine Kryttre, both of whom a underground-affiliated artists…

As usual, there’s a theme to the issues, and this one is about fashion. So here we have Trina Robbins does a fun horror/shoe story.

Mary Fleener in prime cubismo mode…

Leslie Sternbergh doing an amazingly cluttered thing about the joys of buying shoes…

Krystine Kryttre’s artwork is stunning as usual. I love how the scratchy lines continue all the way to the edges of the page.

Dori Seda does a really sedate strip (well, sedate for Dori Seda)…

Barb Rausch and… Carel Moiseiwitch! She’s flabbergastingly awesome. Which reminds me — I wanted to check whether the box set was reproduced from originals or just shot from the printed comics.

Here’s the same panel from the box set, and it… looks pretty much identical? All the same printing defects? So I think the box set was shot from the printed comics.

A whole bunch of paper dolls, as is appropriate.

Underground comix royalty Aline Kominsky with a story about clothes sales psychosis…

So — this issue is jam packed (few stories are longer than two pages), and it almost all underground artists. So I guess the reason for moving to Renegade wasn’t necessarily to go more “mainstream”? Although the stories here are pretty slight… but funny.

The only story that’s in any way “edgy” is this one by Melinda Gebbie. I love her oddball storytelling rhythms — the story flows in a kinda magical way, and then ends with a great gag.

Happening upon a Gebbie story in an old anthology is always a delight. Somebody should publish a Gebbie career retrospective already.

The twelfth issue (edited by Angela Bocage and Rebecka Wright) is a 3D issue — and this is more of a direct market thing (Renegade had done several 3D publications by this time). The 3D is by Ray Zone, as usual, but… I don’t think it quite pops the way it should? I may have slightly off 3D glasses… the blue doesn’t quite nix out the red.

But this Dori Seda Page did really pop.

And we do get a whole lot more artists that aren’t totally underground affiliated, like Cynthia Martin above.

The best page here is this one by Krystine Kryttre, and I can’t recall anybody else doing a 3D page like this, where the figures are sort of hovering into the void. It’s a great idea.

As you’d expect with a 3D issue, it’s pretty light in content. Angela Bocage does the most memorable piece — “Why We Do It” — which is about cutting.

And this sort of effect, where you only see things through one eye, is pretty painful to read, which is on purpose, I guess.

The final Renegade issue doesn’t actually mention “Renegade” anywhere — Renegade was shutting down around this time, so I guess it might make sense to go “stealth”.

Lee Binswanger and Caryn Leschen are the editors.

Carol Tyler!

The longest thing here is this one by some Italian creators (credits above). It doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the pieces…

The funniest bit here is this one by Judy Becker… which is also the least occult piece, probably. (Oh, yeah, that’s the theme for the issue.)

A Moiseiwitch back cover!

Anyway, those were the three issues… and you can perhaps see a shift from less harsh subject matters in the previous issues? But it’s not a radical shift, I think.

After Renegade’s collapse, Wimmen’s Comix moved over to Rip Off Press for the final few issues.

The Fantagraphics box set was generally positively received:

On a much more positive note Wimmen’s Comix should take its share of the credit for nurturing so many now-celebrated women comix artists who have eased the genre out of the underground and into the mainstream of comics and graphic novels—and for providing a lot of raucous laughs to themselves and their readers on the way.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Kafka (1987) #1-6 by Steven T. Seagle & Stefano Gaudiano

(I will be discussing the plot of this 35 year old comic here (which I usually don’t much), so if you don’t want spoilers, skip this one.)

This was a series I had when I was a teenager — and I remember really liking it, but… that’s all I remember. Let’s read the first few pages:

This is during the black and white boom, and it sounds from Deni Loubert’s editorial that it’s starting to bust, right?

Anyway, we seem to be off to a very moody start…

… involving a guy in a witness protection programme, and things are very mysterious indeed. The artwork is quite rough-hewn, which fits the pacing very well — the storytelling is what they’d call “decompressed” a few years later. That is, things take a lot of pages to happen, with lots of little beats.

I wonder whether the artwork was done only vaguely larger than the printed size — it’s got that organic look to the linework… Can’t find any pages of Kafka on Heritage, though, so I guess it’ll have to remain a guess.

Hey! Corto Martese on the wall! Oh, yeah, Gaudiano is Italian…

Anyway, I’m totally in: This is so moody and interesting, and it can go in any direction.

Seagle asks the reader to slow down while reading, even if there isn’t much text on these pages. I think that’s pretty futile: People will read in the tempo set by the pages, and it’s a brisk read.

The recap in the second issue takes longer to read than the first issue.

JUST KIDDING.

It turns out that the protagonist can cloud people’s minds… yes, kinda like Doctor Who with his special warrant card, but not quite. But the way this is introduced (there’s some in a previous sequence, and then there’s this) feels very fresh: No explanations, it’s just shown. It’s fun!

Seagle explains that there are no mistakes in Kafka. He does sound a bit full of himself, doesn’t he?

There’s a painted back cover on each issue, and there’s about 28 story pages, so it feels like a pretty generous package.

The paintings look rough in less pleasing ways than the interior artwork, though.

And then… booo! It turns out that the protagonist was a secret gummint experiment, and you’ve got things like the guy not even asking what the experiment was supposed to achieve before participating.

Over a few pages, the creators manage to pretty much disrupt any interest I had in the plot: We’re talking Wolverine here; a super-hero created by a shadowy organisation.

It’s a shame, because everything was going so well.

It’s not that the remainder of the series is bad — it’s tense and taut and all those good things, but we’ve seen all this stuff before.

I’m still not sure what the concentration camps with the people saying “Kafka” was supposed to be about. But that’s probably on me!

So there you have it: A really intriguing reading experience… up to a point.

Russell Freund writes in The Comics Journal #116, page 67:

Another way might be simply to
declare “Look at me, I’m dif-
ferent,” to yell “Theater” at a
crowded fire, to yell “Kafka!”
from a jam-packed comic book
rack.
The creators of Kafka eschew
standard artist/writer credits, but
the editorial makes it clear that
Steven T. Seagle did the writing
and Stefano Gaudiano the art. It’s
quite a little editorial. In it Seagle
invites comparison to, of all
people, Samuel Beckett, and sug-
gests that the reader approach this
comic book in the same spirit in
which he would approach one of
the Absurdist master’s texts.
We’re not perhaps smitten with
ourselves just a bit, are we Mr.
Seagle?
For Pete’s sake, this is only a
thriller, folks, although actually a
pretty entertaining one. Don’t be
over-awed. Gaudiano’s artwork is
a little gawky but it gets the job
done. There’s a neat plot twist in
the first issue that lets the story take
off at a nicely urgent pace. I won’t
describe what because you
could read the first issue of Kafta
in the time it would take you to
read my synopsis of it. There’s
about as much text in this whole
issue as there is on a typical page
Of Fantastic Four. You could read
it in a wink, but be warned: in so
doing, you would be flying in the
face of Mr. Seagle’s sincere admo-
nition. “Rather than glancing at a
panel and mcwing on,” he suggests,
“consider the panel. There is a lot
of intentional silence in
Okay. But to this reader, the
aural accompaniment to isn’t
so much an absurd silence, laden
with angst and despair, but that
something more along the lines of
the theme of “Mission: Impos-
sible.••

Heh heh.

It was nominated for the 1988 Will Eisner Awards, but I’m guessing it didn’t win, since that was the year of Watchmen.

Huh. Valkyrie, the Airboy spinoff, was one of the other nominees. Didn’t expect that.

A collected edition was released in 1990 by Caliber, and again in 2006 by Active Images, and again again in 2013 (by Image).

The reviews are mixed:

The arrival of two sets of pickup team at the beginning really captured my attention.
After that, I lost all interest.

Uhm uhm:

I am not much of a reader I don’t like reading at all and this book that I read was interesting and it was called Kafka and it was very suspenseful and you really wanted to know what was gonna happen next.

Uhm:

Although I do enjoy noir thrillers, I hardly find myself enjoying the novel as I should. The comic-style art is raw and darkly uninviting like the noir environment it thrive and it have its cheesy predictable moments associated with man-on-the-run trope to keep up the pace while sacrificing on plot and character substance.

It doesn’t, that’s true:

Seagle supposedly came across the word as Polish slang spoken in concentration camps that was used to describe someone taken in the night. His hero, Daniel Hutton, has repeated flashbacks to his own time in such a camp, though the timeline doesn’t quite seem to work.

Oh! The Image edition has toning very reminiscent of Varenne. Looks cool.

Looks like everybody agrees with me, so I’m starting to wonder whether I was wrong:

Despite Seagle’s reworking of Kafka, the ending still feels rushed and difficult to believe. Hutton’s final escape is so obvious, I almost shouted at the page.

Both Seagle and Gaudiano have had long, successful careers in comics after Kafka, which I think perhaps explains that it’s been reprinted so many times.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Holiday Out (1987) #1-3 by Michael Vance and an unknown number of other people

Content Warning: I’ve tried to keep this blog series polite, because 1) shouting at forty year old comics isn’t cute, and 2) I chose to read these comics of my own volition, and 3) there should probably be a 3). So, while I’ve written some snide stuff about some of these comics, I’ve edited it out.

It’s not interesting.

But the sheer horridness of this comic is the only thing that’s even vaguely interesting, so if I’m to remove all that text, there won’t be anything left.

So. Let’s look at the first three pages:

OH DEAR LORD NOOOOOOO!

Well, OK, first of all: As is a common thing with Renegade comics, it’s somewhat unclear what the “credits” here actually are. Michael Vance is the writer (and copyright holder, according to the indicia), but few of the strips spell out who the writer is. The title here mentions “Trugrass”, and since Grass Green did the colours of the cover, and there’s an interview with Wayne Truman later in the issue, it’s probably those two?

It’s also unclear what this is, exactly — is this a reprint from Comics Buyers Guide? Holiday Out had apparently been running there.

It’s also really lame.

I guess the artwork is vaguely professional-looking, but the writing is so dire. This joke is dependant on the reader knowing that her name is “Plastic Mam” (ouch), and her sidekick is therefore calling her “P. M.”. Hilarity ensues? No?

We get a long (six page?) interview with Truman for some reason. (Spoilers: There’s nothing of interest here.)

And then we get pages and pages of these strips that seem to be talking about the classifieds a lot… so were these designed to be sold to newspapers for them to run them on the classifieds pages?

There’s no credits whatsoever for these, and they’re so horribly unfunny that I had to stop reading them just for mental health reasons.

Since (some?) of these things are reprints, we get a letters page of sorts even in the first issue.

Then things go from horrible to awful: We get an O. Henry horror story that I didn’t realise wasn’t a parody of a horror story until I was a few pages in. “Shelley! It grows late and I hunger! Shelley!” That’s what I shout when I get home to my shack in the woods.

They forgot to ink one page?

Much of the second issue is in this format… so these are probably reprints? You can see the very, very best gag above. I’m not trying to select the worst bits, I promise!

The interview with Truman continues, and this seems to say that he wasn’t the original artist on Holiday Out? “I also got used to your writing style.” He seems to be saying that he thinks that Vance is pure garbage, but perhaps he’ll strike it lucky anyway, so that’s why he’s sticking with Vance. But that’s just my interpretation; read it yourself.

No, I don’t think this story is a parody, either, and I don’t know who the artist is. It’s totally Black and White Boom artwork — it’s amateurish and charmless.

I think the serial from the second issue continued in the final issue, but it’s hard to tell, even if the third issue started with a repeat of a page from the first issue, and then a three page… recap? It’s so ineptly done that it’s hard to tell.

And I guess they got tired of the sideways strips, so instead they’re cutting them up and rearranging, leaving just one single sideways page.

Joshua Quagmire says the writing sucks, and he’s right. But the most amazing thing here is that Michael Lail is the editor. I mean, that there is an editor. Somebody edited this!?!? How? Where? Where’s the editing!

Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse… they don’t: It’s just as bad as the rest, though. “Julia Chives” and “Oarson Wells”.

Hey! I got through writing this without using any swear words. Fuck it, I’m suave.

Somebody who’d taken their book from Renegade (and published it somewhere else) said that 1988 was a hard year for publishing alternative comics… but also that being published under the Renegade banner was the kiss of death. And I didn’t quite understand why — sure, Renegade had published some quirky stuff, and some amateurish fanzine stuff (I’m looking at you, Scott Snyder’s Revolver), but it’s mostly books that you can see somebody wanting to publish.

This is pure manure.

Now, Renegade was undercapitalised and stuff, and keeping the boat afloat by publishing things is no sin. But publishing unreadable, ugly pap like this will erode people’s confidence in the brand, and I can totally see somebody who happened to buy this swearing to themselves “Never Renegade Again”.

But things could have been worse: Renegade may have published more Holiday Out:

Amazing Heroes Preview Special #5, page 60:

Issue #4 will have a Richard “Grass”
Green front cover and a back cover by C
T. Green. “To Air is Human” is the title of
the story featuring Plastic Mam and Rok.
It is the story of a man who falls into a vat
of carbonation and winds up being able
to sell anything to anyone. This issue will
also reprint one of the original Holiday
Out stripe As you will recall, Holiday Out
is a locally-syndicated newspaper strip in
California (about 10-plus papers). The
strip that is to be reprintd is by C.T* Smith
and Duane Hanson and is titled “A Crack
in Space.” The story is a parody of New
Wave music and fantasy literature.
In the following issue (due out in
December) will have a Christmas theme
and a Wayne Truman story entitled
“Wholly Night,” Wayne will also do the
front cover. The second story wil be titled
“No Noose is Good Noose.” The back
cover will be by Duane Hanson. Several
of the characters from Holiday Out—in-
cluding Platter Pus and Plastic Mam—
become involved in, and must solve, a
robbery. There will also be a Plastic Mam
and Rok that will be almost an origin
story; this story will also involve the super-
villain Tapemam. Issues #4 and 5 will also
contain a two-part Forest Ackerman
interview.

You will be shocked to hear that these comics have never been reprinted, but if you’re a masochist, you can probably pick them up very cheaply:

I was unable to find any reviews of Holiday Out.

Vance is apparently still working.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.