Random Thoughts

Dog Boy #1-10 by Steve Lafler.

Lafler had (self-published, I think?) Dog Boy under the Cat-Head Comics moniker for a few years, but moved to Fantagraphics in 1987, and restarted the numbering.

I didn’t read Dog Boy back in the 80s. That is, I had the first issue, and I vaguely remember being vaguely puzzled. Vaguely. I liked serious comics, and I liked funny comics, and I loathed “spiritual” stuff, and I can see why I wouldn’t find Dog Boy appealing.

But I got all the issues now, so let’s read.

Ah, yes. Very undergroundish: Bikers, werewolves, werewolf bikers and super-exaggerated cartooning.

This page is rather representative. Dog Girl has a machine gun, Dog Boy tries to break in, violence ensues, and then you have a non sequitur. It’s amusing… The Dixie cup telephone is Zippy-ish, but the violence isn’t. It’s a bratty, drunken, druggy update on 60s underground tropes, I think?

I kinda like the tension between the cartoony Dog Boy head and the more non-cartoony figure work.

That is pretty funny, I have to admit. But vaguely. I only admit it vaguely.

The third issue is the “How To Publish Comics Books: The Direct Market.” issue. It’s mostly just jokes about Dog Boy wanting to start his own comic book, but there’s one pretty incongruous page:

That sounds like actual advice. Reading Dog Boy I get the feeling that he has less of a plan on how a story is going to unfold than most cartoonists.

Lafler vaguely apologises for getting very political this issue, but I think there’s like three pages of overtly political stuff here, and the rest is the normal goofiness.

Lafler explains his technique, and I think he was accelerated here:

Much cosmic.

And very political, too!

I’ve been wondering who Lafler’s art reminds me of, but I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on it. But this drawing from a late issue, at least, looks quite a bit like Kim Deitch…

After ten issues, Dog Boy was cancelled due to low sales. Lafler has continued to do comics, and is still active today.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

The Miracle Squad #1-4 by John Wooley and Terry Tidwell.

This comic book was part of the Jan Strnad-edited Upshot line of comics, which didn’t last very long. And this was, I think, the only one that Strnad didn’t write himself.

It’s in colour, which I guess means that Fantagraphics thought that this 30s B-movie inspired series would sell. Reading it now, it’s difficult to understand why that is: The story (about gangsters inexplicably trying to take over a movie studio) isn’t very exciting, and the artwork is… basic? I think that’s the right word.

The colouring, by Tom Luth (who’s been colouring Groo the Wanderer all these years) isn’t as trippy as some comics Fantagraphics were publishing around this time, but it’s still slightly odd. Perhaps it’s the work of the colour separators, S*M Graphics?

Oh, yeah, the people who work at the studio help protecting the studio. Frankly, the storyline doesn’t make much sense, but, then again, as Wooley writes in the essays on b-movies in the back of each issue, that’s what those films were like.

But I bet you they weren’t this boring.

The essays are kinda interesting, but there’s too much of the stuff above. C’mon.

The last two issues were printed in black and white, so I guess the series didn’t sell after all. Whoda thunk. Gary Dumm (of American Splendor fame) took over the inking, which beefed up the art considerably.

A second series of this stuff was published by Apple Press. Tidwell seems to have done quite a bit of work for adjacent publishers, like Eternity, but apparently stopped doing comics after a while. And the same with Wooley, but he’s now a writer.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Itchy Planet #1-3 edited by Leonard Rifas.

Leonard Rifas published a number of comics in the 70s under the Edu Comics banner, and Itchy Planet continues pretty much in that vein: Informative pieces and political agitation.

There’s even a motto.

So you have reviews, text pieces and things like this page: A survey of comics about AIDS.

But most of the pieces are traditional comics about the issues at hand. The first issue is about nuclear war, mostly, and Larry Gonick (of A Cartoon History of the Universe fame) does an energetically drawn piece on the paradox of mutually assured destruction.

Rifas himself does one on nuclear winter, and includes text that you may be surprised by.

The second issue is about comics, and Joyce Farmer does a really good five page piece on when a bookstore in Orange County, California was busted for selling (among other things) Tits & Clits. (A comic book Farmer had co-created.)

Mary Fleener does a pretty atypical (for her) one-page comic on superheroes.

The third issue is about US politics. Do you remember those good old days when we were incredulous about how stupid George Bush the Elder was? Oh, I remember them fondly. Reading 80s angry polemics about internal politics now feels like escapism.

Piece by Steve Ross and Peter Kuper.

But then we have Spain to bring us back to Earth again with a comic about El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Oh, well.

A fourth issue, on the environment, was announced, but was never released.

Rifas didn’t publish many comics after this series, I think, but went into education.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Castle Waiting #1-18 by Linda Medley

I haven’t done this series of postings in anything resembling chronological order, but I did decide to try to do the remaining ones in an orderly… order… But then I flipped past Castle Waiting in the boxes once again, and I just had to re-read it. Again.

Castle Waiting has a somewhat complicated publishing history. Let’s recap:

Linda Medley got a Xerix Foundation grant and started publishing Castle Waiting herself in 1996. After seven issues, due to having to make a living, she spent a year at DC, and then came back, published by Cartoon Books, starting with a new issue number one. This is where I started reading the book. After four issues she left Cartoon Books and started self-publishing again, and reverted to the old numbering. That’s issues 12 to 16, where the two final issues started a new story.

*phew*

Then there was a three year hiatus, and Fantagraphics picked it up with a new issue number one… that reprinted the last two issues of the previous series, and had eleven new story pages. Then everything went smoothly until 2008, when there was a four year hiatus, before issues 16 to 18 were published. And in the meantime Fantagraphics had published the first fifteen issues in a hardcover.

Are you with me here?

No, OK. I’m just saying… it’s complicated.

Oh! What’s it about? Er… mostly Jain moving into the castle…

And it’s wonderfully drawn, and supremely humane, sweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and there’s nothing like it. It’s something I want to read and re-read again and again. It’s just such a great and exciting place to spend a few hours.

The pre-Fantagraphics issues were reissued by Fantagraphics in a five hundred page hardback edition, and it’s printed quite a bit smaller than the original standard-comic-book size.

It suits the material quite well, but for this re-read I read the original issues where I had them.

As a single entity, this book is pretty structurally weird.

It starts off with a prologue, which is (basically) a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Only funny. Then she started on the main story, about Jain Whatserface [NOTE: CORRECT BEFORE PUBLISHING] arriving at Castle Waiting and moving in. This is where all the world building really starts: There’s a sense that all the people who live in the castle have stories that make up and flesh out a fully consistent and interesting world. We’re not getting any infodumps about anything, but we’re getting a steady stream of information about these people and what it’s all about.

There are some short flashbacks, too, and it’s all rather riveting.

Then, about two thirds in, it’s a very rainy day at the Castle, and Sister Peace starts telling the others about her adventures before she came to the castle. It’s a fun and riveting and sad and happy and wonderful story (I laughed, I cried), but that’s the rest of the book!

It’s like… whaaa? What happened to Jain moving in? That was leading somewhere, right? Why just leave that hanging? That was riveting, too? Why go to a different storyline suddenly?

Oh. The publisher, Cartoon Books, made her. Fucking editorial interference. And if they would meddle to that extent, it’s no wonder she left the company after just four issues. Although I have no idea whether she left or was dropped. But… geez.

As wonderful as each and every page in the first Castle Waiting collection is, I think it would have made for a more satisfying reading experience if it had been released in two books: One for the prequel and the start of the main storyline, and one for the Solicitine story.

Anyway! That’s brings us to the Fantagraphics issues, which is what this blog series is supposed to be about.

The first issue has a nice full-size drawing of Jain and her baby, Pindar, and is the only issue that’ll have a cover in that style.

One very noticeable difference in the first Fantagraphics chapter is new, very computerey lettering. Compare above the last self-published issue…

… to the first Fantagraphics chapter. Now that’s what I call quite 2006 computer lettering.

I guess this is what the people in Castle Waiting would look like if they were contemporary. And human. So that’s Henry and Pindar, and the doctor, and Jain and Chess…

In the second issue, the artwork changes somewhat dramatically. Yeah. Somewhat dramatically. That’s what I meant to write.

It’s as if Medley had looked closely at the collected edition (which was in a smaller size) and decided to adapt her drawing to a style that would be more suited for reprinting in that format.

So the panel borders become heavier, and figure lines become thicker, the lettering is larger, and there are fewer panels per page. And this does look rather nice in the collected edition; it’s true. But it makes the pamphlet edition look rather odd. I found myself holding the pages further away just to get a proper scale to them…

Or perhaps it’s just a way to try to get the issues out faster. Issues 2-4 all have covers in this style: Just some text and then an excerpt from an internal page:

That is a very weird way to sell a comic book.

The remaining issues used this format: A small inset colour drawing inside a lot of framing. It looks rather nice, and it’s certainly distinctive…

Well, I laughed.

The Fantagraphics issues are a very quick read compared to the ones that preceded them. Not only are there fewer story pages (around 20 per issue), there’s no supplemental material at all. The self published issues used to have lots of letters, research material and general musing from Medley, but there’s nothing of the sort here. It feels oddly muted…

Then there was that hiatus… and what “The Publisher” says about the main story being finished, so they published the collection is rather weird. Nothing at all finished in issue 15.

But the artwork changed quite a bit during the hiatus. Now Medley was back again to her previous detailed style. Yes, that page is meant to be cluttered, but it’s a very well-drawn, detailed clutter.

About that lettering the publisher mentions up there. Here’s how it was originally…

And here’s how it is in the reprint. That is a lot better, yes.

And while being recognisably Linda Medley, some panels feature a somewhat different, and darker rendering than she’d done before.

Compared to the pre-Fantagraphics issues, virtually nothing happens in the Fantagraphics series, but it’s structurally a much more solid work. It’s a real book. And it’s wonderful.

Linda Medley is currently working on the next Castle Waiting volume, and needs your help to get it done.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.