Random Thoughts

Paradise Sucks (1997) by James Kochalka

This is another book that’s somewhat unusual for Black Eye to have been publishing. I bought it at the time, but it’s not until I got prepared to do this blog series that I realised that it wasn’t an Alternative Comics (or something) book.

It’s printed on pleasingly off-white paper in a cute, small format.

The book is pretty oddly structured — we start off following this dumpster diver that finds a bible…

… and then some rich guys stop by to buy his geometrical artwork. I thought that this was going to lead off into yet another rant against modern art (the traditional bête noires or comics artists), but that didn’t really go anywhere, because…

… the rest of the book is about Adam and Eve and stuff (and the artist wanders into that story).

I’m not sure at all what Kochalka meant to achieve with this book — perhaps it’s more fun if you’re religious (and then perhaps these depictions of Adam and Eve would be all sacrilegious and stuff)? — but for me it’s just an “uhm?” I mean, I like Kochalka, and I have at least a couple dozen of his books. But this one doesn’t really go anywhere.

Kochalka’s artwork is fun, though.

Christopher Brayshaw writes in The Comics Journal #198, page #42:

Last year when I reviewed one Of James
Kochalka’s contributions to an eminently
forgettable small press anthology, I had
some harsh criticisms of his unpolished
art, non-stop sentimentalization, and ob-
noxious self-promotion. These tendencies
are still pronounced in the self-acclaimed
superstar’s most recent major work, but
along with them comes much subtler char-
acterization, more refined drawing, and
some surprisingly mature pacing. While
these new-found improvements aren’t
enough to convert me to Kochalka any
time soon, they do indicate that, despite
his witless refrain of “Who needs craft?” in
the Journars letters pages, Kochalka’s
aware ofhis shortcomings and consciously
tries to overcome them.

[…]

That said, Kochalka’s own messy line
works well, not because it’s “expressive,”
but because it clearly defines form, and
adds visual contrast to his pages. His pie
tures’ swelling curves also work well. For
example, when Kochalka’s cartoon God,
with his wizard’s cap and wand and robe,
makes the world, the curves of his hat,
robe, and beard echo the organic shapes of
the grass, herbs, and mud that constitute
his brand-new world. This sequence in
particular shows Kochalka to be a much
better cartoonist than l, or any of his other
detractors, has previously acknowledged.
Further, this scene, along with another
where Adam and Eve name the garden’s
inhabitants, are paced slowly and reflec-
tively, like poems absorbed in articulating
thejoyful task ofnaming the not-yetknown.
But there are still problems. Kochalka
doesn’tedit, soa lot of things get thrown in
to distract us from the rhythms he works so
hard to set up (and pulls off so well) else•
where. His love Of childish things like
monkey poo and pink bottoms are a long
way from his wonderfully evocative de-
scriptions of Eden. And his dialogue, never
one of his strong points, is still exquisitely
painful. “My old, shaking hands. I can’t
fucking paint straight. My life is nothing.
Wasted away.” Excluding the fact that any-
one can “paint straight” with masking tape
and a roller, this verbal gem could have just
as easily come from the pages of Gen 13.
Still, despite all these problems, Para-
dise Sucks commands attention. Like all
Black Eye titles, it’s wonderfully designed,
resembling a cross between a CD booklet
and a Big Little Book. And Kochalka’s oddly
poetic storytelling is, for the most part,
honestly felt and moving, a clear indica-
tion that, however unwilling he might be
to admit it, craft is unquestionably present
in the self-proclaimed superstar’s bag of
tricks.

Wizard Magazine #69, page #85:

It’s almost impossible to be bored read-
ing Kochalka’s books. Take his latest pro-
ject, for example. It’s a graphic novel called
Paradise Sucks, and it features two distinct
stories that intersect at various points.
Kochalka’s sometimes stand-in, Magic Boy,
stars in one of the stories as a geometric
painter struggling to find the spark of cre-
ativity in his work that he’s long since lost.
The other half of the story is Kochalka’s
distinctive take on the creation story with
Adam and Eve. “You get a little bit of one
story and a little bit of another, [going] back
and forth for a while until eventually they
merge into one story.”

It doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention:

It’s not a bad comic book but if you’re a James Kochalka fan, chances are you’ve read some of his better works – American Elf, Monkey Vs Robot, Fantastic Butterflys – so “Paradise Sucks”, while familiar, will look a bit weak in comparison.

But then again, Black Eye was starting to shut down around this time, so perhaps it didn’t get full distribution? I’ll be covering that more in the next blog post, which is the final blog post about the 90s incarnation of Black Eye.

I think this person liked it:

Now I’m not real big on the whole religion thing, as most of you know, but seeing God with a magic wand tapping things into being with the sound effects of “shzing!” “ping!” and “phooo” is just brain-meltingly cute.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

A Complete Lowlife (1997) by Ed Brubaker

This is an odd book for Black Eye to be publishing. First of all, it a (partial?) reprint of a series published by Mu and Caliber, which isn’t something Black Eye used to do. But more importantly, this is autobio comics, which Black Eye had shied away from doing.

Ed Brubaker, though, had gotten pretty famous since these comics were originally published — he was now a writer at DC Comics, and presumably had a larger following. So perhaps that explains it?

I haven’t read this collection before, but I had the Mu issues at the time, and I remember enjoying them quite a bit? But they didn’t exactly revolutionise the comics world, either.

We start with a note that’s both aggressive and defensive — he sort of apologises to the people he depicted here who were hurt, and then he lashes out at stupid, moronic readers who can’t seem to fathom that when he depicted himself (i.e., “Tommy”) as an asshole, that was a deliberate artistic choice.

So… I’m guessing there had been some push back on these comics?

Tom Hart illustrates an anecdote as another introduction, sort of.

All the other stories are about this guy called Tommy, who’s apparently the author’s stand in. We start off with some youthful hi-jinx…

… that grow progressively less fun…

… and then Tommy holds a guy up a gun point? And then later his buddy shoots a redneck.

So what are we to make of this? My guess at the time was that Brubaker had punched up a duller story, and none of the “serious” stuff had happened. I mean, he’s saying he robbed a guy. Using a gun. So that’s still my guess — that this didn’t happen.

As for the artwork, it seems like he’s taken quite a bit from Chester Brown, doesn’t it? I think he’s also been looking at the Hernandez brothers, but he doesn’t really have the talent of either of those people, so everything looks pretty unappealing.

And this is just a personal quirk: I loathe bobble heads. But that’s just me! Most people love them!

But what about his defence in his opening notes? Is he depicting Tommy as an asshole, or does wink at us an want us to understand that he’s really a swell guy, despite everything? Well, the opening story ends with him getting the girl of his dreams, and a wink. So…

And this is him hitting his girlfriend — but it’s apparently because she really wanted him to.

As for how he depicts people around him — I hope he made up most of them, because they’re mostly morons and sleazeballs. (Although this story has a nice ironic twist.)

Black Eye chose to print this at a smaller size than the original comic books. And it’s a cute format, but it makes some of these pages an absolute chore to read. If there had been anything interesting in those speech balloons, it would have been better, of course, but having to strain to read this twaddle is like *chef’s kiss*.

It was a chore to get through this book. As individual comics, it’s probably fine, but page after page after page of this guy you’d like to strangle… it’s a lot.

The Comics Journal #263, page #73:

laughs.] Were you happy the later auto-
biographical stuff Dissatisfied? Because pret-
soon stopped.
BRUBAKER: I think I was happy with it.
That last issue of Lowlife was the best One.
But I knew when I finished it that I was
done with autobiography for a while. I was
just tired Of writing about myself. I was
getting more into different kinds of fic-
tion, and starting to write more for other
artists, so it was kind of a natural slide.
Then I had this year where I started to
get more writing work and able to
focus on drawing at all, and I had this ter-
rible personal stuff going On at the same
time. so I went on this break where I trav-
eled around the country on the train and
visited people. When I settled back down
I had a bunch writing deadlines, and just
started writing and suddenly I was making
a good living as a writer.
I think I was always a frustrated car-
toonist, in that I was never good enough
for my own standards. And I started to
enjoy writing about stuff outside of
myself, Started to actually look at it as a
craft, and think Of myself more as a writer
and less as an artist. But I still think very
visually, and when I write comics I still see
the pictures in my head most Of the time,
the panel compositions.
Changes

Darcy Sullivan writes in The Comics Journal #144, page #48:

As revealed in Lowlife, Brubaker lives like
a pig, hates his job, spats with his roommates,
and is unlucky in love. All of these read more
like boasts than complaints. Without a Story to
tell, Brubaker can only parade his afflictions,
which wear thin fast — he just carft be as much
of a stereotype as he makes himself sound.
For audacity alone, “You’re a Good Man,
Chester Brown” stands apart from the rest of
lowlife #1. Brubaker argues that his work isn’t
a copy of Chester Brown’s, as Fanta-graphics’
Kim Thompson apparently suggested. Brubaker
reproduces bits of Brown art to prove his point,
delineates long conversations he’s had with
Brown about how different their styles are, and
even draws himself standing next to Brmvn, say-
ing “Do I look like Chester Brown to you?”
This is a one-sided invective, and it doesrft
really advance Brubaker’s “am not!” protest
much — he’s way, way too defensive. But the
story is perversely captivating, because
Brubaker doesn’t rein himself in. He’s pissed
Off enough to rail in an unflattering, embarrass-
ing, and thoroughly honest way. He’s showing
off with his “here’s what Chester said” argu-
ments, but the very lack of artistry and delicacy
gives this Story the primitive appeal of a train
wreck.

Ah, perhaps that’s why I remember Lowlife as being better than this book — this book only collects the “Tommy” stuff, but leaves out the more entertaining material. So “A Complete Lowlife” isn’t really an accurate title (in one sense of the word “complete”).

Chris McCubbin writes in Amazing Heroes #196, page #80:

Next up, Ed Brubaker’s I.nwlife. All
of the protagonists in these books are,
to some extent, slackers, but Brubaker
is the only one who revels in it. He’s
also the artist who gives us the most
unflattering portrait of himself. Is he
really that callous and obnoxious, or
is he just trying to make credibility
points by being more confessional
than thou? I suspect the latter.
Two stories in Lowlife are pretty
standard urban descents into hell, both
several years old (the issue seems to
be sort of a clearing house for
Brubaker stories that hadn’t seen
mass-distribution before). In the first,
Brubaker’s job gets threatened, and he
gets menaced by a large neighborhood
dog that he fantasizes about killing.
Finally, he gets into an argument with
his roommate and discovers the gar-
bage is breeding maggots. In the other,
he gets thrown out of a trendy
nightclub and beat up after being
excessively drunk and obnoxious.
The middle story is newer and more
interesting. It’s about Fantagraphics
Books’ rejection of Brubaker because
his work is too much like Chester
Brown’s, and Brubaker’s bewilder-
ment and anger over this comparison,
which he can’t see at all. (For the
record, Brubaker is to Brown, both
physically and artistically, approx-
imately as Steve Tyler is to Mick
Jagger: the resemblance is certainly
coincidental, but it’s definitely there.)
In addition to Brown and Brubaker,
the issue features Kim Thompson in
an unflattering, but not unsympathetic
role as the publisher who has to be
painfully honest because no one else
will.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.

The Sands (1996) #1-3,
The Sands (1998) by Tom Hart

I read the first three issues back in the 90s, but I have not read the collected edition before. I have fond memories of the issues, though, so I’m looking forward to finally reading the whole thing.

Ah, this is explicitly presented as a work in progress. So I guess it means that Hart did this improvisationally, perhaps?

I like this way of arranging the panels, and I wonder whether he’s using the same technique that Chester Brown uses: Drawing each panel on a separate piece of paper, so that he can edit and rearrange things (which is normally next to impossible when you’re drawing complete pages — sure, you can edit details or swap a panel out, but if you’re doing larger changes, you have to throw the entire page out, which people are naturally loath to do).

Anyway, I’m loving this all over again — it’s got a kind of natural whimsy going on. OK, perhaps the magic pixie dream wife is a bit of a stock character, but even that fits perfectly.

For some reason or other, that’s a very funny panel.

As is often the case with a Hart book, we’re in some kind of strange foreign land, with people behaving more or less oddly.

Oh — this was published on a quarterly schedule? It’s such a breezy read — it’s just 24 pages with few panels per page — that that feels like a pretty odd decision. As a monthly it would have made more sense, perhaps?

In the second issue, Hart notes that he’s decided to tweak the designs or some people, and change how they act a bit…

Hart also plugs his cohort, and it’s all good artists — most of whom stopped doing comics pretty quickly.

With the third issue, they announce that they’re cancelling the series, because of low sales. I mean, because “the format isn’t doing the work justice”. What’s strange is that they published the third issue at all, then, but perhaps they made the decision so late that they’d already got the thing in the works…

So then, the next year, we get the book, which collects the first 72 pages, and adds another 100 pages. Let’s compare some pages…

Here’s an original spread from the first issue…

… and here’s the same-ish spread from the book. And Hart seems to have redrawn completely most panels, or at least tweaked them quite a bit. There also quite a big change in tone — while the original version felt kinda whimsical, in the second version it’s clear that the guy is quite scared or the soldiers, and does a major jump when the guy addresses him.

Hart also takes the opportunity to clarify things. When I read the original version of this spread, I was going “huh?” at the “Is this going to light?” I didn’t understand what that was about.

In the second version, Hart has added “It’s got all this drool on it”, so now it’s clear what he means. The artwork hasn’t been altered, though.

In issue two, Hart mentioned that he wasn’t satisfied with that grin…

And indeed, in the new version, he’s wiped that smirk off his face, so instead of being a scene where that guy is thinking about how much he adores his wife, it’s more about regretting being here (possibly).

So — there’s a big tonal shift, and I think I’m just going to read the entire book starting from page one again.

One thing that’s not straightened out at all in the book is how old these people are supposed to be. The guy acts like a kid, and people call him kid, but he’s a grown-up married man.

And we’ve had glimpses in the book about a guy crashing a rocket ship, but this is basically all the explanation we get for that bit.

I really loved the first three issues, but along with the harsher tone, there’s also a palpable feel of “I gotta get this thing finished” going on here. Instead of telling the story and getting the reader to come to their own conclusions, we start getting characters infodumping at each other instead. That’s a lot less work, right?

However, it’s not all bad — we get a spiralling, increasing intensity from these recurring fantasy/memory scenes, and it’s both gripping and heart wrenching.

The book is a strong book, but I’m wondering what changed precisely between doing the first issue and the rest, because it seems like Hart was going somewhere totally different than where he ended up.

That’s a kinda fascinating thing with serialised comics — readers get to see “draft versions” of the story in addition to the finished work.

Wizard Magazine #60, page #116:

His new series, The Sands; promises to
be even. more ambitious than his earlier
work’ Hart has planned out almost all Of
the particulars from beginning to end of its
seven- or eight-issue run. Serializing a story
is something new for Hart, and he admits
hd’s a little nervous. ‘iltis pretty weird,
Originally, it was planned as an open-ended
ongoing series, but T can’g seem tp do
anything that way. Everything I do has to
have a beginning, middle and an end,”
The plot of The Sands i; simple enough.
It revolves around a man, Little Hawk Troy,
and a wornan, Margie Fennel, who move co
a Middle Eastern desert. Shéts there to
study bugs, while he spends his days
occupying himself -in various ways, In his
wanderings. he meets up with a young boy
who happens to be king of the area they
live in, as well as Sen, a mysterious, mysticåJ
man who makes his homie ona river.
Hart •is challenging himself with The
Sands by trying new things as he pieces
together all the different parts of along
j Z .an• experiment ‘in
narrative.
composition*’ he explains. ‘”It’s going to be
in three separate parts, all of which are
pretty different The first will be a pretty
basic story, but the next going to be a
tangent. It’ will “involve Little Hawk and a
musician. character iii a different setting
Then the final part will jump around rapidly
todiffer•ent scenes and times from the first
part. butMith various things we haven’t
seen before and new r•evelations about the
situations we’re seeing.”
Like New Hat, this series will present
the reader with few challeriges. You may
reread certain -sequences to pick
up details that eluded you the first tiine.
But it’s all part of Hart’s big plan. want
people ito do a little work and pay
attention; Maybe give in -little and realize
that everything isn’t going to bc laid out
for them, It’s not going to be like a trolley
ride;- it’s more like putting a puzzle
together. For people who are willing to
put in the time, I hope it will be really
entertaining fbr them. But I also hope that
don’t have too many pretensions about
what I’m doing.”

It sounds like not a lot of the original plan survived? Or were the bits I interpreted as fantasy supposed to be what really happened?

The Comics Journal Special #3, page #74:

The Sands featured long meditations on the
nature of love and devotion, and a bouncy, humorous secondary narrative
about the teacher-student relationship between the protagonist Hawk Troy
and a profane boy king. The Sands works most powerfully as a narrative
about isolation and lack of direction. Troy not only lacks the moral com-
pass of earlier Hart creations, he lacks for things to do to fill his time. Even
his exact vocation remains indeterminate. Although Troy loves Margie
enough to follow her to a foreign country in support of insect research, he
seems to find little day-to-day solace in their relationship. Tenuous con-
nections with locals contain undercurrents of contempt or disinterest. The
achingly spare countryside Hart draws also seems to work against Troy
making a meaningful connection. When Troy does manage to triumph
over his ennui, through organizing a child’s tea party or simply fantasizing
about something exciting, it becomes difficult to resist seeing these small
events as minor epiphanies in contrast to the emotional bruising that pre-
cedes and follows. A slightly fragmented narrative only increases the read-
er’s sympathy for Troy’s feelings of disorientation and loneliness. The
ed earlier, more clearly and with greater force.

James Kochalka writes in The Comics Journal #200, page #41:

His current work, The Sands, published
by Black Eye Productions, is the best comic
on the stands today. I read, and reread,
and re-read the published issues.

Indy Magazine #16, page #46:

i have to admit to a certain amount of skepti-
cism about this project. e l’om I lart’s past two
books and his mini-eomics ‘have been so
wonderfully funny and bizarre that I’ll)
reluctant. to judge this svork yet, but the first
issue leaves me kind of cold. Beneath the
extremely attractive and slick cover (that’s one
thing Black Eye booke’ll do; they’ll look nice) is
the first installment of a story about a couple
who have just. moved out to the tniddle of God*
knows-where, where there seems to be
plenty of sand and bugs but little else,
Apparently l+awkie does whatever it takes
to keep his love Margie happy, and if that
means moving to the desert to help her
entomology career, then away they go. This
is hardly a strong start for the first issue ofa
series; it is uneventful and frustratingly
short, but then again, the back cover does
remind us that this is a “challenging” work.
A cop-out? Possibly. But “challenging”
suggests that there be a payoff even if
the ride there is a bumpy one, and given Mr.
Hart’s previous work, I’m willing to give
him the benefit of the doubt for now—
especially since this is the first serialized
work he’s done.

This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.