Random Thoughts

An Accidental Death by Eric Shanower and Ed Brubaker.

On the face of it, this seems like a rather unlikely thing for Fantagraphics to have published: A standalone story about a psycho teenager murdering a girl on Guantanamo, and then his non-psycho friend helping him, created by two people well ensconced within mainstream US comics.

But this comic was created after Brubaker had done his autobiographical alternative comic Lowlife and before the large number of crime and super-hero comics that would follow, so it’s perhaps not such a stretch.

Psycho alert!

Still, it’s pretty much outside Fantagraphics’ remit, so it’s still rather odd. Hm, perhaps I should do some research…

Oh! It was originally serialised in Dark Horse Presents! That makes a ton of sense, because it’s exactly something that would have been published there. That is, it’s a professional, well-drawn, plodding and rather boring story you’ve read and seen variations of a million times before.

Shanower’s artwork is rather stiff and awkward in places, but I do love his shading technique.

The story was nominated for an Eisner award the same year, which may also help explain why a collected edition was published.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Storylines: An Anthology of Emerging Cartoonists #1 edited by James Sturm.

As anthologies go, this is unassuming physically: Standard size comic book, thin paper, a slightly vague cover. Most of the pieces are obviously not drawn with a comic book format in mind: Most leave a wide border at the top and the bottom, which makes it look rather slapdash package overall.

But it’s printed with an ink that has a blue tinge, which is rather pleasing.

Anyway, it’s very cohesive. All the stories deal with Young People Stuff, like this one about depression (by Michael Bonfiglio).

Jonathan T. Russell acts stalkerish in Barcelona.

Most of the stories seem autobiographical.

There’s even a diary comic selection (by Drew Weing).

There’s a couple of pieces that are drawn cartoonishly, but most are realistic with strong figure work and sometimes inventive layouts (Ben Phillips here).

So even though it looks kinda slap-dash, it’s a rather strong anthology, with a clear vision. But it has a slightly studentish vibe, so I started wondering whether it’s really a school assignment or something.

Aha! It’s financed by the National Association of Comic Art Educators. So does that mean… that this is a student book, like I guessed? Or something else? It’s not explained anywhere.

It’s announced to be “biannual”, but no further issues were published.  Ng Suat Tong provides a savage beatdown in The Comics Journal.

None of the artists featured here are familiar to me, but I googled a couple I found intriguing.  Jonathan T. Russell has a book via a print on demand (which I’ve bought now [edit: since I’m writing these things months before publishing, I’ve now gotten his collection, and it’s fascinating to read somebody who consistently portrays his seemingly autobiographical protagonists as super-creepy]), while the others seem to have released nothing.

The editor, James Sturm, seems to have worked in education the last decade, but he’s also released a number of books. And I’ll be covering his Fantagraphics pamphlets later when I can find that fucking last issue of Cereal Killings.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Ape by Theodoros Nikos Jouflas.

Jouflas appeared in various anthologies (like Pictopia) throughout the 90s, and published two books, both of which I vaguely remember as being collections of shorter pieces (Scary and Filthy). But I may be misremembering; it’s a long time since I’ve read those.

This 32 page magazine (with stiff covers) is basically one long illustrated poem. With end rhymes.

Jouflas illustrates the poem (which is about politics and stuff) by painting with white over black, apparently. It doesn’t look like scratchboard or anything, but has the texture of (perhaps) acrylics on canvas? Or perhaps it’s been inverted photographically…

That’s George W. Bush. The little prince.

It looks like this was Jouflas’ final comic book, but he’s still working as a painter and illustrator.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Tattoo Man Special #1 by Dave Hodson and Greg Gates.
Walking Wounded #1, True Confusions #1 by Dave Hodson.

These comics were part of the attempt by the Australian Fox Comics to get wider distribution by co-publishing with Fantagraphics. The Fox Comics anthology was being published somewhat concurrently with these comics.

Tattoo Man reprints the serial from the Fox Comics anthology, and adds a final chapter to give a resolution to the somewhat dreamlike story.

I really enjoy Gates’ hatching technique. Also note the border at the bottom to fill the space due to originally being drawn for magazine ratios.

I guess fate didn’t allow, because I can’t find anything about any further issues being published.

Apparently Hodson also did a series for Eros? I haven’t read it. Somebody should really do a write-up of Eros comics. I haven’t read all that many of them… It’s not that I don’t like porn; it’s just that the ones I’ve read from Eros have been pretty horrible. Still, there’s quality stuff hidden between all the dross (I seem to remember Molly Kiely doing a rather good one, for instance), but I don’t want to wade through all the horrible ones to get to the few good ones.

Take the Eros challenge! Please!

Anyway, Walking Wounded is a solo Hodson book, and includes a flexi from his band by the same name. (I haven’t listened to it.)

I really like Hodson’s storytelling approach. The drawings are usually somewhat oblique: Lots of drawings of random body parts instead of showing complete figures. The short captions create a very specific rhythm pulling you through the pages.

However, 48 pages of these rather light-weight stories is a bit much. I found myself growing rather impatient after a while. The storytelling technique seems to hint at depths while the content seldom seems to rise above simple jokes.

So I was completely unprepared for True Confusions, the third of these Fox Comics, and also by Hodson. I was expecting more of these lightweight one-pagers, and instead it’s a harrowing autobiographical story involving death of a child, divorce and childhood remembrances.

Interspersed seemingly at random are these nonsensical stories apparently springing out of childhood remembrances of an Australian radio show about some astronauts.

It feels like our minds slip into these astronaut stories to escape the intensity of the surrounding autobio comics. A breather of sorts or a chance to recover.

It’s a remarkable comic book.

It seems like Hodson is still active in Australian comics circles, contributing to various anthologies, but no further books have been published outside Australia, as far as I can google.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Steven Presents Dumpy, Steven Comix #2: Steven at Sea by Doug Allen.

Steven is a long-running weekly strip that’s mostly featured in alternative magazines and newspapers.

While these two comics have titles that seem to hint at more focussed tales, they turn out to just reprint a bunch of Steven strips. Eight issues had previously been published by Kitchen Sink, I think, and they went bankrupt around this time, which might explain why it moved to Fantagraphics.

I guess the obvious comparison to make is to Bill Griffith’s Zippy, so I won’t do that.

Allen’s art is satisfyingly cartoony.

And the stories don’t really go anywhere, but not getting anywhere is half the fun, isn’t it?

I’ve spent five minutes Googling whatever happened to Steven after this, but I’m coming up short.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.