Random Thoughts

It’s day two of the comics reading marathon, and today I hope to put in more hours than yesterday. The rules are the same, though: No reviewing.

Nocturne by Tara Booth (2d cloud)

This is amazing! It’s a hilarious but simultaneously moving look at an encounter gone wrong and the aftermath.

Booth’s artwork is so fresh and expressive: This is exactly what not being able to sleep is, in one single piece.

It’s wordless, but it’s a very clear, extremely readable narrative.

Masterful. And yet another beautiful 2d cloud production job; as an object it’s totally appealing.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe! by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Marvel)

Squirrel Girl has been a monthly delight for years now, but it’s unfortunately shutting down now. So I got this 2016 graphic novel that I somehow missed at the time.

The good thing is that it’s just as silly as the normal issues are.

But… it’s… not actually hilarious. Perhaps they got too caught up in making a good story to allow for good gags? I mean, it’s perfectly fine, and the story is good — really good — but I’m still disappointed. I guess I was perhaps just looking forward to reading this too much.

It’s got an epic feel.

Pope Hats by Hartley Lin (Adhouse Books)

Hey… didn’t he used to be named something else? Ethan… not Van Sciver… er… Rilly? Ethan Rilly? Well, something like that.

I’m guessing this is his real name, because (unlike the previous five issues of this series), these are short vignettes about his own life, apparently.

I’m not going to make the usual comparison to a certain other cartoonist (oops!), but this is even more like that than usual. It makes for a perfect comic book, though: Lin must be just about the only alternative comic book person to still have a comic in this format. (There’s Love and Rockets and… uhm… uhm…)

Half of the vignettes here are great, but the rest didn’t really do much for me.

Escape Journey 3 by Ogeretsu Tanaka (Sublime)

Hm… How did I end up with this? I haven’t read the first two volumes, so it was initially rather hard to follow.

But then it turns out that there’s basically no plot to speak of beyond the two main characters coming out to everybody, and that’s it. No intrigue or storyline.

Adult adoption!? The Japanese are weird.

But they sure know their science facts.

Blame This on the Boogie by Rina Ayuyang (Drawn & Quarterly).

Well, this is a structurally odd book, but let’s read the first-ish four pages:

Yes, that’s very typical of what’s to follow: Ayuyang has a chatty style where she talks directly to the reader, which is a pretty charming thing.

The first half of the book is a traditional retelling of her childhood (well, up until high school), and nothing really dramatic happens. It’s a typical sensitive child story: The horror of school and the fantasy life at home.

The most vivid bit is when she discovers musicals. That sequence is absolutely brilliant.

And while the art style is… simple… she does manage to convey a lot of emotion.

But then the second half of the book is just random things from her life without much theme or anything. It’s such a weird thing to do in a book. And it’s just hard to understand what she wants to make here; it’s like looking in on somebody that’s convinced that everybody else is the same as her and thinks the same as her.

So there’s a lot of sports talk.

And a long long sequence about a reality TV game show or something. Why would anybody…

>

NO I DON”T KNOW THE ONE YOU”RE TALKING ABOUT.

Poochytown by Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics)

Hm… so is this the last Frank book?

Anyway, I love Woodring, and this is very much in the same vein as those earlier books. The style is even more perfect than before, and the storytelling is magic.

This time Frank (sort of) befriends Man-Pig and gets to heroically rescue his real valise creature friends, so it’s… the gentlest of all Frank adventures.

Still lots of killing and maiming, of course. It’s Woodring.

An Honest Performance by Will Dinski (2d cloud)

This is a little rumination on being in a documentary movie. Eerie.

Comets Comets by Blaise Larmee (2d cloud)

There was some big controversy over Larmee last years that I don’t quite recall what was about, but one of the more puzzling things about the coverage was that several news outlets were treating Larmee’s fictions as non-fiction. I mean, some of that’s understandable, because he went to some lengths to establish web sites and stuff to “document” the reality behind his stories. And I love that stuff, but it’s fiction.

Part of the fun is decoding what Larmee is having performing, and in this older little comic, he seems to be documenting a podcast? “Comets Comets”? Is that a reference to the “Comics Comics” podcast? Was that a podcast?

In any case, this is a fascinating little booklet, and Larmee does all the fun tricks like obscuring part of the text and stuff.

And I love his artwork.

Looking Good by Will Dinski (2d cloud)

Oh, yeah, I bought a lot of older 2d cloud stuff.

This is a pretty non-consequential mini, but it’s cute. It folds out, and it’s rather… bemusing.

Ablatio Penis by Will Dinski (2d cloud)

What? Another Dinski think? Yes. But this is no mini, but instead a full-sized comic. Sort of.

Dinski is trying out something here in the layouts, and I think it kinda works? It makes things feel a bit like a TV show, though. I’m not sure why — the laboured pacing…

The story is just bizarre. It’s like an extended shaggy dog tale, but told with a weird gravitas.

Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls by … lots of people:

But mostly Kevin Eastman? And a lot of different covers.

I bought this because I was just curious. I was never a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (although I bought issue #1 when it was published, because I was curious back then too. Most curious), but it just seemed to weird for Eastman to return to this stuff after all these years.

It’s about three ninja cats or something. As these things go, I’ve read a lot worse, but that doesn’t mean that this was worth the time spent reading it.

Well, that’s cute.

Shit is Real by Aisha Franz (Drawn & Quarterly)

This is really special. The largely unexplained shifts between reality and fantasy are so fluid that after a while you stop to try to even decode what’s what, and whether things are dreams or hallucinations or just idle thoughts. (All of them may be represented here.)

It really works. The story being told isn’t very… unusual (it’s about young people trying to figure out their lives (and going to parties)), but Franz makes it feel like it matters.

And the artwork’s nice. I guess you could call it Post-Hanselmann or something.

Tegneserier by Tim Ng Tvedt (Jippi)

The title of this slim book means “Comics”, which is amusing. Tvedt’s previous book was absolutely fantastic; a tour de france I mean force of comics stylisation, reducing the form down to an irresistible hypnotic rhythm. So I was wondering what he was going to follow that up with, and I think he’s moved more into visual poetry territory.

There’s still some recognisable comics elements here, and the book is pretty amusing: It’s based on well-known phrases cut up and rearranged, sometimes to humorous effect.

It’s pretty unique.

And not to spoil the ending, but here’s a spoiler for the ending: “ERASING IT”.

Oops!

Tim & Thomas 37 by Will & Desberg (Zoom)

This is an album in the less than celebrated series about Tif et Tondu. As you can see, it’s in the very stiff pre-Franquin Spirou style. Apparently they didn’t even bother to issue some of the earliest adventures in album for in France, but now they’re gearing up for an Integrale, which means that they’ve gotten scanning… and which also means that other countries can translate and print them up cheaply. And so, suddenly, a Danish company is dumping a huge number of them on the market, and I’m sufficiently on board to pick up a couple of them.

I have no nostalgia towards these characters, but I do find this style very appealing. I mean, just look a that attempt at 50s high class furniture.

Too bad the computer lettering is so awful.

This album is, incongruously enough, from the late 80s, and it’s a depressing read. Tif et Tondu have lost all their money and have to take crappy jobs… and the plot of the album involves racist cops that have a plan to make France French again…

… by killing or deporting all immigrants. (That was “self defence”.)

I can totally understand them wanting to bring this comic up to date, but it’s just so weird reading a comic book in this style about racist cops murdering immigrants.

Rudy by Mark Connery

This is a cute little mini of more Rudy stuff. And… That’s it.

Ink Brick: A Journal of Comics Poetry no. 3

Wow. This has a dust jacket that folds out into this huge Prince Valiant-like Sunday page thing. Nice.

And the selection is really strong. I don’t think there was a single piece in here I though was bad, but the question is with “comics poetry” just what that is, and some go for illustrated text, really.

But most are more integrated.

And I loved this thing. En excavation of poetry.

Strong Eye Contact by Christopher Adams (2d cloud)

This is a series of tiny stories about a sad sack unlucky character…

… but is there more? I don’t really get it. Me dunce.

And then it shifts to this format. Admirably huge gutters.

And then there’s this style.

OK, that’s enough comics for today. I’m woozy.

See you tomorrow.

I love comics. I mean, as a medium: Most comics suck, but when the comics are good, they’re better than anything. They connect to something in my brain like nothing else.

To this day, my most intense dreams are of me stumbling into an unknown back room or cellar of a well-known comics store and finding the section where they have all the comics by Tardi that I haven’t read. I get even more frantic in dreams at that thought than I would in real life, and I’d get pretty short of breath if that happened in reality.

But when it comes to the actual reading of comics, I sometimes have problems finding the time:

So unread comics pile up. That’s not even all of them at that window sill; the larger-format comics don’t fit there.

Perhaps because of my emotional investment in comics reading, I get a bit exhausted by the thought of actually reading them? Or perhaps I just buy more than I could possibly find time to read? And that gives me a sort of strange anxiety that I don’t have with books: I’ve got more unread books than I’ll find time to read before I die, and that’s fine, but this pile is getting out of hand, so I thought I’d try something new: Just read comics for a few days and write a few lines about each of them.

Not reviews or anything. Ain’t nobody got time for that. But just read, snap a couple of pics, and write a couple of lines.

OK?

This is day one. We’ll see how this goes.

I’ve got candy to guide me.

ITDN by Andrew Burkholder (2d cloud)

It’s conceptual.

It’s a fascinating book. The production by 2d cloud is impeccable, as always, and the ten comics in this book vary from the very conceptual to the…

… er… less? Conceptual? I’d say all these comics are… brutal. There’s a palpable desperation.

It’s a great book. It’s really … I don’t know whether “enjoyable” is the right word, but it’s so stuffed with ideas and flows so well.

Nice cover flap.

Duck Avenger Strikes Again by Romano Scarpa (Fantagraphics)

I’m a Barks fan, and as a child I thought these Italian Duck comics were totally lame. But this book collects three long Romano Scarpa stories, and I thought I’d give it a try.

As you can see above, Scarpo’s artwork is really lively and pretty. It has the usual Italian Duck rubberiness, but it’s… a bit like Gottfredson, perhaps? It’s appealing, anyway, even if the gags are really, really simple. I’m guessing they aimed this at very young children?

The translations are great.

Unfortunately, I guess I have to go with my reaction to this stuff from when I was a child: It’s kinda lame.

The final story is partly based on some concepts that Barks came up with for Scarpa.

It’s not bad, but not really worth the time, either. It’s got some good gags, but the pacing feels way off.

Nature and Shit by Tom O’Hern (Mini Comic Club)

I’m subscribing to a monthly Australian mini comic club thing, so once a month I get these little minis in the mail. It’s fun.

This one is less narrative than most of them, but still pretty WTF, which I like.

Pickle #11 by Dylan Horrocks (Black Eye)

This is a curious artefact, but it’s very apropos both of the story being told in Pickle, and being obsessed with comics and the idea of finding lost works: So some scenes are a bit like reading my own dreams.

I think what’s they’re saying up there is that ten issues of Pickle were published in the 90s, and then a collected edition was published. But that collected edition (“Hicksville”) included an ending that was never published in the individual floppies. So now, twenty years later, we get a floppy that reprints the final pages of he collected edition.

And this all makes sense because this sort of meta level in comics is what Hicksville is all about, and reading this single comic now is a strange, eerie callback to the memory of reading this decades ago.

Well done.

Chi’s Sweet Adventures 4 by Kinoko Natsume (Vertical)

I adore Chi’s Sweet Home, but this isn’t that. I’m wondering whether these are adaptations of an animated show for really, really young children? Like three-year-olds? (If you’re confused, read the panels downwards, from left to right.)

These are sweet adventures, but I grow impatient with them after reading a couple, so I think I’m going to stop buying these now. But I think I’d have loved them when I was a child.

House of the Black Spot by Ben Sears (Koyama)

I assumed that this was going to be another video game derived comic book, but I bought it anyway, because it’s Koyama and how bad can it be? I mean, there’s nothing I loathe as much as video game influenced comics (other than role playing games comics, or perhaps it’s any games?), but there’s always the Recycle/Reuse spot (where I can just drop off books and comics I don’t want to have and people can pick them up).

But this isn’t that! Just read the first four pages:

It’s great! It’s got an old-fashioned classic European album vibe to the pacing, while the artwork is new and fresh and cute.

Reading this was a real pleasure. The characters are interesting, the plot is fun, and it’s just so readable: Sears has got all the storytelling chops, and it all just goes down so well.

But as good as it is, it’s not perfect. I felt that some of the investigative bits in the last half went on a bit too long. While every scene in itself was enjoyable, it felt like there wasn’t much of a progression.

Oh! And I’ve got a guest!

Can’t read while he’s staring at me.

Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on Ben Sears. I’m very impressed.

Architecture of an Atom by Juliacks (2d cloud)

Yes I did!

Anyway, this book is somewhat abstract, but it’s a narrative work.

And 2d cloud are probably the only ones who could have published it. As usual, it looks great, but the only annoying thing is that quite often the words disappear into the gutters of the book, making things even harder to read than they would otherwise be.

I liked the book: It held my interest. The narrative is kinda minimal, though.

The artwork’s pretty spiffy, though.

Clue: Candlestick #1-2 by Dash Shaw (IDW)

Hey, didn’t I talk about hating comics for gamers? And this is a comic based on a board game? Whaaa?

Well, it’s Dash Shaw, and I’ll buy anything he does.

I’ve never played the board game, so reading the first issue was a puzzling experience… but it’s good. It’s got real tension, and I like mysteries, so while I ignored what I’m assuming are the “clue” bits up there, it’s a fun read.

And then Tim Hodler explains everything about Clue: How the game works and stuff, which is something of a let-down.

The second issue is very, very different, and we mostly follow on of the characters on her murderous back-story, and… I mean, it’s good, but it’s a strange thing to do. The plot introduced in the first issue barely progresses at all, but there’s some satisfying call-backs to various scenes.

And some… puzzles… That I skipped.

That’s a very Dash Shaw page, and there’s one more issue to go before the solution.

We’ll, I’ll be buying it. This reviewer is perhaps less bemused than I am with the book, but he’s got some good points.

John, Dear by Laura Lannes (Retrofit/Big Planet)

This is a horrifying little book.

But either what it’s saying is a bit on the obvious side, or what it’s saying is completely obscure, which is a strange place for a work to be.

It’s got a great tension, though.

I Love You by Sara Lautman (Retrofit/Big Planet)

This book is a little gem. Lautman’s scratchy artwork (perhaps reminiscent of many French late-70s cartoonists) is so lively and on the mark.

Everything is well-observed and has a resonance.

And it’s funny. What more do you want?

I don’t think I’ve happened upon her work before, so I guess I’ll have to get searching…

Bear’s Tooth v3 by Yann & Henriet (Cinebook)

I remember the first two albums in this series to be … OK? Not great, but good enough to keep reading. It’s a rather dull story about WWII and mixed identities and all that stuff, but the artwork’s nice. I’m a sucker for artists that can draw proper interiors.

Of which there are none in this album, but there’s some nice aerial shots. And, since this is a Cinebook release, it doesn’t really look very good. They use the least impressive printers in Europe, and the colours never pop.

The main problem with reading this is perhaps that I’ve almost completely forgotten the previous parts, and this part doesn’t cater to forgetful people all, so there’s just a bunch of people I don’t really remember nattering on about stuff I can’t recall.

Bäbis 2000 by Caroline Sury (Lystring)

This is a Swedish translation of a French comic, and it’s about having a baby. But it’s not a sweet and romantic book, but instead it’s a funny and harsh look at the process.

Especially since the father doesn’t want any children.

I normally like scratchy artwork, but this doesn’t do anything for me. It’s like nothing has more weight than anything else, and my eyes skid around the page without finding purchase.

Still, there’s great scenes like this that you can’t help enjoy.

Nulteliv 2 by Friberg & Larsen (No Comprendo)

The first volume of this thing was absolutely hilarious. I wonder whether the praise has gone to their heads, because the first half of this one is pretty much devoid of real laughs.

The second half has much better stories, and more than a few gags that lands. The artwork is super basic, but probably so on purpose.

I kinda doubt that this’ll be something that publishers abroad will be excited to translate and publish, because it’s almost all references to 80s Norwegian life, and there’s so many super-specific references that’ll pretty much be lost on anybody else.

Rudy by Mark Connery (2d cloud)

This is edited and has an introduction by Marc Bell, which makes sense, but I’m afraid this collection of comics (mostly reprints from minis, apparently) doesn’t do much for me.

Perhaps in shorter bursts it would have been more effective, but with 230 pages of non-sense it all starts to become a blur.

On the other hand, I’ve been reading comics all day, and I’m kinda woozy, anyway, so perhaps that’s the explanation.

So let’s call it a day, and continue tomorrow. Right? Right.