Random Thoughts

That Distant Fire (2022) by JR Hughto and Curt Merlo

This is the first non-Jay Stephens book the resurrected Black Eye published, so I was really curious to read this — I haven’t read it before. It’s a very handsome hardcover book.

And we get an introduction (in Futura) that explains that this started as an unproduced movie script, and if there’s one thing to give me a sinking feeling it’s exactly that. Movie scripts (in my experience) rarely translate well to comics.

But let’s read on…

Well, OK, this is plenty “cinematic” (derogatory), but it’s also comicsey (complimentary). And the green is very close to the green on my couch, so that’s a plus.

It also feels a bit clunky — like that footnote to one of the panels that explain something that 1) probably doesn’t need to be explained and 2) what’s the point of those cochlear things, anyway? And no, they’re not a plot point — these cochlear devices introduced in the first act do not end up killing somebody in the third act. Chekhov would disapprove.

And pages like this: I honestly thought he was flossing his teeth, and that he had some kind of illness, and that’s why she came to console him (in panels three to five). I didn’t guess that he’d swallowed that red pipe until I was almost done with this spread and then had to backtrack.

Now, I love comics that are unclear and mysterious. It’s a device that can be used extremely effectively, especially in comics — make the reader work more and make them invest in the comic. This doesn’t feel like that, though. It just feels like it’s badly done.

This takes place in a pretty plausible near future, except that there’s things like these guys running around and… stealing gas? And that’s a thing that happens regularly… and those are trucks that don’t all have cameras? Can you even imagine a car made even ten years from now that doesn’t come with full always-on surveillance?

The book had been admirably restrained for the first act — nothing over-explained and few infodumps. So the transition to this kind of comic was pretty jarring.

And unfortunately, the dialogue isn’t very convincing. But a much bigger problem is that there are (I think?) about two dozen characters, and none of them have character. The artist bravely tries to allow the reader to tell them apart purely by giving them all different combinations of hairdos, facial hair and glasses, but it doesn’t help much when they’re all so interchangeable anyway.

One of the two main characters were fired from the research institute where they were inventing part of this thing above. And yes, it is indeed a Star Trek tricorder, but more confusing about all of this is why they fired him in the first place when the two of them (as a team) were ingenious enough to come up with this Miracle Technology McGuffin.

This is the kind of blog article I hate to write, and it can’t be any fun to read either — but I just didn’t like this book at all, on any level, really. Sorry!

Because the creators seem to have their hearts in the right place, and many of the ideas in the book are pretty good.

And by sheer coinkidink I’m drinking water from a Wobbly glass while typing this.

Finally, there’s a sketchbook section.

It looks like the book is sold out from Black Eye, but you can read it here. It was crowdfunded very quickly.

It’s well-reviewed on Goodreads:

That Distant Fire is a triumph of synthesis – the commixture of disparate ingredients in deliberate weights to concoct something new and raw yet intimate and familiar.

And here’s another review:

Hughto’s story is solid to begin with, but he’s got a really solid handle on how different people react under different situations. Paul doesn’t make the same choices his brother does, and neither make the same choices their sister does.

[…]

Further, this is really enhanced by Merlo’s art. His illustrations drive much of the story, such that there’s almost no dialogue until the end of the first chapter. Every panel seems very considered and deliberate, telling readers precisely what it needs to. Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve read a comic where the script and art worked so harmoniously with one another, even longer since I’ve read one like that where the writer and artist weren’t the same person!

Here’s one that had similar problems that I had with it:

Unfortunately, this particular one didn’t live up to my hopes. I had a few problems with it, including some small but basic composition choices that interfered with the narrative flow. But my main frustration is that it tells a story that hinges on characters and their decisions but never spends enough time with them to let us truly understand those decisions.

But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of reviews out there.

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

Jetcat & Friends (2021) by Jay Stephens

Nice endpapers.

When I read a contents page like this, my heart sinks a bit — “so this is just gonna be a random collection of random stuff!?!?”

But nothing could be further from the truth. This book is a masterclass in smart sequencing — while many of the pieces weren’t originally meant to be part of the same “thing”, they fit together so well here.

It’s mostly shorter pieces, but there’s a couple longer things, and the above is the centrepiece: It’s a substantial story about how Jetcat (and friend) gets stuck in an alternate dimension. It gives the whole book a sort of narrative arc, even if many of the shorter pieces are really pretty random.

I have just one gripe about the book: It’s how tight the spine is. I’m sitting here fighting the book all the time to be able to read the bits in the centre.

It’s gags gags gags all the time, and they’re good gags. And because the book is sequenced so well, you get that cumulative effect where things just get funnier and funnier the more you read.

But there’s also variety, like this longer Tutenstein story reprinted from the original Land of Nod series.

But it’s mostly just one gloriously stupid gag (with on point cartooning) after another. It’s wonderful.

So: It’s a collection of very funny strips that also feels extremely satisfying as a book. It’s a marvel.

Draw! #16, page #35:

What percentage of your income were you making
from, let’s say, cartooning, from comic books? You’re doing a
comic strip, and you’re still doing stuff for Nick Magazine?
JS 100% of my income has been cartooning for years, whether I
was making ends meet or not. I haven’t had a day job since art
school. Thc last real job I had was, like, greasy spoon manager. I
had zero qualifications to do anything else! And I had to scram-
ble. Also, during all this time—most starving cartoonists will
identify—I’m doing people’s business cards, and business
brochures, and medical illustrations for your local doctor’s office.
J was doing anything to make ends meet,
so I was working constantly. But that
strip, Oddville!, had a character called
Jetcat in it, and Fred Schaefer saw that
after he’d optioned Tulenstein, and
optioned Jetcat, too. So I started to see,
“Hint, hint. These characters that you’re
creating that people in comics don’t
appreciate, they have legs elsewhere.”
It’s funny, though, because
Jetcat was actually on TV before
Tutenstein.
JS: Yup, it went further, faster. We got
Jefcat picked up as shorts on
Nickelodeon really quickly, and then
Tutenstein took a lot longer. I mean,
from the time he optioned it to the time
it aired, it was seven years.
DRAWI: Wow. So they had to keep
renewing the option, I take it?
JS Yeah, which is great. [laughs] But
we developed the hell out of that show,
too. Because the original concept was so
basic, you could really push that charac-
ter and that setup in so many different
ways, so we really worked hard on get-
ting it right for Discovery Kids, who was
the eventual client. And it turned out
very differently than I conceived it.

The print edition seems to be sold out, but you can buy the ebook version here.

I’m unable to find any reviews, which is odd.

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