Corey Marie Parkhill of Scene Language sent a big box o’ comicky goodness to Fleen recently — well, okay, it was about two weeks ago, but it’s taken a while to plow through everything. Given how much was in the box, this was an extraordinarily cool thing to do.

What? You want contents? Check it: you got the Greatest Hits of collection Life’s So Rad, the Big Ol’ Book of BIZMAR anthology (that’s bunnies, insects, zombies, monkeys, aliens, and robots, with contributions from webcomics/indy comics creators), a stack of mini-comics, and more, all from Young American Comics.

The LSRGH collection is strips interspersed with commentary from Parkhill about what was going on in her life at the time, and how it affected the direction of the strip; interesting reading, but it sort of precludes a traditional review — it doesn’t really work to critique a life as it was lived. Likewise, anthologies are tough to put a single handle on when they contain so many contributors (dozens, in the case of BIZMAR), so suffice it to say that some contributions are better than others, and I found Stephen Notley‘s to be particularly funny.

Also, by a peculiar corinsidence, this year’s anthology from Young American, small town/BIG CITY, has open submissions until the 7th of March. Want to get in on the fun? Check out the guidelines. And even if you don’t want to get in on that fun, you can get in on other fun — this being the best bit of shameless self-promotion that we’ve received yet, we at Fleen have decided to share, and hereby announce our first ever contest with an actual prize.

You can win the Big Box o’ Comicky Goodness (books! minicomics! pins! stickers! a t-shirt, adult medium!) by sending the best response, in 25 words or less, to the question:

Send your entries to me (that would be gary), who can be reached at this here website (that would be Fleen), which is of the dot–com variety. Entries must be received by, let’s say, midnight EST (GMT – 5), Tuesday, the 23rd of January. Judges decisions are final, Fleen contributors and Ms Parkhill are not eligible, residents of Canada may be required to answer a skill-testing question, and we’ll contact you if you’re the winner. Good luck, everybody.

Okay, the news of the webcomics world seems to have subsided for a moment, giving me the opportunity to run some reviews that have been delayed. Also, by a peculiar corinsidence, the books in question all belong to members of the Blank Label Comics collective, giving us a handy-dandy-theme for the day.

First up, Howard Tayler offers the complete run of Schlock Mercenary from August 24, 2003 to March 13, 2004 in Schlock Mercenary: The Blackness Between. It ties up the story from the previous collection, sets up story hooks for the next two years, contains more than its share of BLAM, and finishes the Sergeant Schlock backstory bonus pages (featuring space clowns — reader discretion is advised).

As with Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management, Tayler includes all his (at times, extensive) footnotes for his delightfully thought-out futuretech, and somehow continues to print on the heaviest, glossiest color stock this side of … hell, I don’t know. What’s printed on heavy, glossy color stock besides these books? The colors pop right off the page (and your grimy little fingerprints will show up forever, so wash before you read and don’t kill anybody with one of Tayler’s books, or Gary Sinise will have you hunted down by the end of the first commercial break).

Secondly, Dave Kellett delivers up The Good, The Bad, and The Pugly, featuring Sheldon strips from 2005 and 2006. As with his early tome, Pure Ducky Goodness, Kellett eschews the reprint-every-strip model favored by the plotline-intensive Tayler, and graces us with his choicest strips instead.

Does this mean that we don’t get every single strip of Sheldon at summer camp? Sure, but the important storylines — Sheldon missing his parents at Christmas (you made me tear up, Kellett!), and how Oso and Flaco came to join the family — are fully represented in all their glory. Also fully represented: General Zod, who not only features in strips, but was kind enough to pen the forward to the book (you know the drill by now: kneel).

Rounding out the book is The Ballad of Rex Chestington, which is desperately crying out for the full audio treatment. Since it apparently wasn’t practical to include one of those black flexi-records that National Geographic used to such great effect (yeah, I know: I don’t have a record player either, but I still have my flexi of U Stink But I ♥ U), I call upon Kellett to place a recording of Rex Chestington somewhere on the web for all to hear and enjoy.

Finally, we have Kristofer Straub’s A Brief History Of Webcomics, which seeks to be for webcomics what Stephen Hawking is for cosmology, but also apparently acts as a continuation of sorts to the explorations begun in T Campbell’s A History of Webcomics. I had been treating this tome with all the due respect that it deserves (one may recall that I spent nigh on a month reading and rereading Campbell’s work, carefully following his assertions and analyzing his conclusions) and felt that ABHOW was worth no less consideration, but the author has forced my hand:

Well, sir, you may consider my head to be “pulled out”, but perhaps without the time needed to fully consider the nuances of your work. Nevertheless, I will state that Straub’s ABHOW is bold, almost revisionist rethinking of what we “know” about webcomics.

His analysis of “movers” and “shakers” in the early days, his dissection of business models, his insight into the nature of collectives (Blank Label Comics: [Y]ou do exactly what every other collective did, except you issue a press release saying you were the first.), and his recognition of significant milestones in webcomics (up to September 2006, and the acquisition of Drunk Duck by Platinum Studios) are all neatly formatted and contain a minimum of spelling errors.

However, his predictions for the future of webcomics are clearly the product of a diseased mind, and bear no relation to reality. For instance, he states categorically:

Bold! Controversial! HOT! But, unfortunately, completely implausible. For example, Straub completely overlooks the fact that due to supply-chain problems, Rosenberg has yet to deliver any glow-in-the-dark products. A simple examination of shipping schedules would reveal that Rosenberg has at least until 2023 before succumbing to excess rads.

Similarly, an extrapolation of Hollywood Reporter articles clearly lead to the conclusion that Aaron Sorkin will condense into a ball of pure self-reference so dense that not even a walk-and-talk snippet can escape by mid-2009 at the latest. Burns will, naturally, be tapped to replace Sorkin on each of his four half-completed projects at this time, and will be too zonked out on psychedelic mushrooms by 2011 to do anything but bang out scripts that make reference to Wednesday White via extended baseball metaphors.

Most tellingly, Straub utterly failed to predict the launch of PvP: The Series, despite being involved in the project as co-producer and co-writer! Clearly whoever first said, “Know thyself” had Straub firmly in mind. Apart from these egregious and crippling flaws in the final chapter, ABHOW is worth your time, in that it is at least preferable to being stabbed in the face with lasers. It also contains a handful of cartoons from Straub’s minor side-project, Checkerboard Nightmare, and content from Lance Sharps and Isobel Rai Belpheger, who quite frankly are lowering themselves slightly.

So Tony Long doesn’t think that American Born Chinese is deserving of nomination for the National Book Award. This is one of the most poorly informed opinions I have ever read. Let me elaborate.

Mr Long has not even read American Born Chinese, but his assupmtion is that it is much harder to write a novel worthy of NBA nomination than it is to write a graphic novel of equal quality. In his words:

[A]s literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It’s apples and oranges.

If you’ve ever tried writing a real novel, you’ll know where I’m coming from. To do it, and especially to do it well enough to be nominated for this award, the American equivalent of France’s Prix Goncourt or Britain’s Booker Prize, is exceedingly difficult.

I’m not even going to bother working out how many more novels have been nominated for an NBA than graphic novels, but I’ll give you a clue: lots. So I guess it’s much harder to write a novel worthy of nomination than a graphic novel, right Tony?

One other thing. Not only did Mr Long not read the book he is claiming to be unworthy of nomination, he clearly didn’t read the submission guidlines for the award he thinks American Born Chinese is unworthy of. Let’s take a look.

A. Full-length books of fiction and general nonfictionare eligible. Collections of short stories and collections of essays by one author are eligible. Collected and selected poems by one author are eligible. All books must be published in the United States.

Now, last time I checked, American Born Chinese was a full length book of general fiction. Maybe next time you want to claim that a fine work of literature is not worthy of a particular literary award, you should read the rules of eligibility for said award first.

The only thing that bothers me, after reading the specific guidelines, is that more graphic novels haven’t been considered for the Award in the past.

Edit: I was so mad about this that I forgot to give props to Jeph for pointing it out to me in the first place, and also to mention that Project Wonderful is not only a great idea – it’s also the best name for anything, ever!

Scott McCloud is a genius; I use that word in its precise, Merriam-Webster’s sense of extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity, and as soon as this gets posted, I’m going to start brainstorming a way to get the terms Scott McCloud and deserves a MacArthur Fellowship into the common lexicon in the hopes that it reaches one of their nominators. If any work of creativity ever deserved widespread recognition, it’s Making Comics.

I don’t make comics; I read them and tell other people what I like. I always figured that the process of creating comics was sort of sausage-like, and that I was better off not knowing, but McCloud’s earlier works dissuaded me of that. Still, those were (repsectively) about what comics are, and what they could be, not how to make them. So when I sat down last week with MC, I wondered how much I would get it.

Answer: maybe not as much as my creator friends, but a hell of a lot more than I figured. McCloud’s accomplished two things that seem almost diametrically opposed: on the one hand he’s taken abstract, intuitive ideas and made their mechanical underpinnings clear and obvious; on the other hand, he’s taken very technical aspects and translated them into clear, plain English. He’s done it all in a self-describing structure, where every lesson is conveyed not merely by formal presentation, but by subtle example.

For instance, on page 33, he’s talking about panel layouts and making the flow of reading smooth and seamless. McCloud warns that a particular layout is dangerous — the reader doesn’t know which way to go and can miss panels or be yanked out of the story. There are ways to avoid the trap, and rather than tell us what they are, he just does them — page 33 uses the deadly panel combination, but there’s no confusion on the part of the reader. Like the storyteller he is (although he might dispute that label, see below) McCloud has opted to show, don’t tell.

The book is filled with such moments of awareness, where the reader suddenly realizes that McCloud’s been using all the techniques that he’s been talking about; we can tell what works because we know that it’s worked on us without having been hit over the head by it. The transfer of knowledge that McCloud achieves is more efficient and effective than almost anything else I’ve ever read. His love of simple, clear design is on display right from the table of contents, where each topic is listed in outline form (to show relationships) and accompanied by a small icon that expresses some part of the nature of the topic.

It’s a technique that I would have expected from Edward Tufte, and for anybody wanting to learn how to express complex structures in a straightforward manner, MC belongs on the shelf next to The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations.

What I found most striking about MC compared to the earlier books is McCloud’s treatment of webcomics, a topic near and dear to my heart. At the time of Understanding Comics, they didn’t exist (and the topic of digital tools and techniques was understandably absent); in Reinventing Comics, a fairly large firestorm kicked up, perhaps because McCloud intertwined his discussion of the evolving medium with a preference for certain economic models.

In MC, webcomics just are; they exist, they’re exploding, and any predictions McCloud might make, he acknowledges are subject to rapid aging (case in point: Rich Stevens bridging the worlds of newspaper syndication and webcomics scarcely a week prior to the book’s release).

Given McCloud’s famous ability to be able to talk and argue with anybody, no matter how vicious the difference of opinion, it’s not surprising that discussions of medium (webcomics and other new forms vs. traditional forms) are kept separate from the discussions of artistic philosophy. His now well-known “Four Tribes” model has less the here’s what’s going to happen tone that parts of RC had, and more of a here’s what I’ve noticed, and by the way, it’s a fluid situation tone.

It can still lead to some odd differences of opinion, though; McCloud places himself firmly in the Formalist camp, but I’ve been struck for 20 years more by his ability to tell a story and build characters that come alive, making him (in my eyes) more of an Animist. The lesson to be drawn, then, is that the labels shouldn’t get in the way of the work. The different approaches to making comics result in nothing more than different means to the same end. In this way, the tribes discussion (which I think everybody felt would be something of a lightning rod) hearkens back to the preface, where McCloud declares that when it comes to making comics, There are no rules. And here they are.

In all, as brilliant and well-argued (and in some places, polarizing) as UC and RC were, MC is a noticeably more mature (in the sense of well-aged, like a fine wine) work, as befits a man who draws himself a little rounder and a little grayer than he used to. Given that McCloud has stated several times that his next project will be a graphic novel of considerable length, the Comics series will likely remain a trilogy for some time. Honestly, though, it’s tough to see how there might need to be a fourth — this is a definitive work in the field, and will likely remain part of the canon for as long as there are things that we can still recognize as comics.

Editor’s note: Chapter Five of MC deals with the tools of making comics; given that certain aspects of this discussion are not easily expressed in printed form, McCloud is constructing a “Chapter 5 ½”, which should be available about this time next week. This review will be supplemented at that time, if necessary.

I don’t know much about Gene Yang. I know that he’s done some kickass comics (both print and online); I know that he’s married and has a child; I know that he teaches high school.

I know that however old he is, he’s way too young to have produced American Born Chinese; this is the sort of work usually appears as the capstone of a long and illustrious career. It’s simply too well-structured, too surprising, too deep, too honest to be the work of a young man. Of course, judging from available evidence, Yang is a young man, which just means that he must have a self-awareness beyond his years.

I thought I knew what I was getting in this book, since I’d read the story a page at a time on Modern Tales, and have had the mini-comics for more than a year; I didn’t know that Yang had added more than a third to the story, and what looked like three separate explorations of Chinese identity was in fact one tightly-unified tale.

And that story structure is part of what makes ABC so good. Starting from separate points, the three different storylines spiral around and tighten up, eventually merging into a coherent whole. On the one hand, we have the story of Jin, a young boy trying to fit into his white suburb; racism (both casual and overt) and ignorance drive him to try to be more like those around him, and less like the even newer kid who’s FOB (fresh off the boat) from Taiwan. It’s not quite autobiographical, and not quite fictional; it is deeply personal and affecting.

On the other hand, there’s the tale of the Monkey King, traditional hero of the classic Journey to the West; he’s powerful, arrogant, stubborn, and has some comeuppance in his future. I’ve read parts of Journey to the West (joyless translations, put together by scholars who want you to be sure you know How Important All This Is), but Yang’s version is the first that really came alive for me. This seems like the bedtime stories that mothers would tell their children, and it’s wonderful news that Yang has started a cartoon journal for the Monkey King, filling in more of his adventures. With any luck, there will be a lot of these forthcoming, and a collected volume.

On the other other hand, we have Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee, a super econo-size bundle of poisonous stereotypes packaged as sitcom. Danny doesn’t even know how Chin-Kee is his cousin; he’s an average white kid in an average ‘burb, and if there’s any Chinese heritage in the guy, it’s a couple of generations back. But every year, this buck-toothed, pony-tailed, Confucious-quoting, R-and-L switching, kung-fu fighting (with special moves like Kung Pao Attack!, House Special Kick In Nards!, and Pimp Srap Hunan Style!) cliche comes to visit and ruins Danny’s life (with accompanying laugh track). Where Chin-Kee comes from (and more importantly, why) is what finally ties together the three threads of the story, which ends on a note of perhaps-redemption for all involved.

That feeling of redemption is pretty important, as Yang has imbued the entire story with elements of his Roman Catholic faith. I doubt the first chroniclers of the Monkey King imagined their hero and his compatriots filling the role of the Three Magi, but every generation adapts cultural touchstones for its own purposes. Sometimes it’s a dismal undertaking, but in this case, it works surprisingly well.

Lark Pien provided the colors, and they’re beautiful; from the red of the character chops that introduce each chapter, to the sickly yellow of Chin-Kee’s skin, to the deep lacquer colors of some of the traditional elements (an abacus here, a godly emissary there), the colors perfectly suit the story.

Read ABC. Then read it again, seeing how the pieces fit together. Then go get Yang’s other comics and read them, too. This is the work of a master storyteller, and you owe yourself the pleasure of reading it.

Editor’s note: T Campbell was offered the opportunity to respond to Fleen’s recent review of what was identified as The History of Webcomics — while this was the original title of the book, Campbell has pointed out that the actual title at time of publication was A History of Webcomics; Fleen regrets the error.

Campbell’s response to the review, received over the weekend, appears in full below.

Campbell Responds To Fleen!Drama!

Tyrrell handles his critical role as gingerly as a thermonuclear bomb with a busted timer, as if trying to be forthright and fair enough to compensate for the bad behavior of all the book’s other critics.

Relax, Gary. You took time to read the damn thing all the way through and worked off the actual text. You didn’t rely on lies, hearsay, illogical assumptions or character assassination. Just as importantly, you didn’t decide to like it because I seemed a decent sort, or because you’d read my other work, or because you thought I meant well. That already punts you into the top 2% of the bell curve.

Not that there’s not room for improvements on Tyrrell’s improvements. My biggest problem’s one that I didn’t expect to have: he doesn’t hit hard enough.
(more…)

From the Department of Corrections: Per Campbell’s response, this post has been edited to reflect the correct title of the book; Fleen regrets the error.

Editor’s note: Hoo boy, could this one devolve quickly. I’ve spent a month now very carefully reading and re-reading, very carefully making and cross-checking notes, very carefully writing what you’re about to read. As we discuss the book, please bear in mind that we’re not going to argue opinion on this one; whether or not Campbell is correct is for others to fight over. We will be looking at only whether or not Campbell has effectively made and advanced his points.

The redoubtable T Campbell began The A History of Webcomics as a series of articles over at Comixpedia, later expanding it into a book via Antarctic Press. This book is for me: I’ve been into webcomics since nearly the beginning, I have a lengthy “regular reading” list, I know a lot of the people who make ’em, and I know their history.

And it still turns out that this book really only comes together if you live in Campbell’s brain. Allow me to explain.
(more…)

From the depths of Bulgaria (where one is reminded that vampires are biting danger!) to musings over the Forces Sweetheart, things are never quite right for the residents of Tackleford Metropolitan Borough. That, naturally, is why right-thinking folk love Scary Go Round so damn much, and why they should all be perusing John Allison’s fourth collection of SGR strips, The Retribution Index.

Some things you should note as you peruse:

• This book features Allison switching back and forth from his Illustrator mode to his hand-drawn mode; both are beautiful to behold.
• Reading SGR in large doses reminds one that Allison never forgets anything; note the nunnery that is suggested to Amy, which rather than merely being a throwaway gag, becomes a plot point more than a year later.
• This book does not include the story “Oldbourne”, which starts in the archives here; this is a great shame because “Oldbourne” featured my favoritest SGR moment of all time: I trod on Lego! The expressions on Shelley in this strip are a marvel and make me smile every time I think of them; I only hope there are enough smiles left for me in the rest of the book.
• Don’t worry, there are actually plenty of smiles! Especially considering this book covers a period of time when Esther was becoming a more prominent character. Esther’s growth from walk-on extra to mysterious background player to full cast member has been wonderful to behold.
• This book also does not include Allison’s year-end music reviews, or a two-week guest stint that featured some beauteous work; however, this allows plotlines to resolve more quickly, so that’s all right.
• There are some odd printing artifacts on certain pages, where blacks are not entirely opaque. This is actually pretty interesting, as it allows the reader a peek behind the scenes to see what the character models look like in all their layers.
• Finally, as an extra-special bonus, each chapter is introduced and commented upon by Shelley Winters, who is a small friend to all of us. There are trials and tribulations for Shelley in the book, but all is well in the end.

To summarize, this is a pretty wonderful book, and I think that you would enjoy it very much! So please be certain to purchase and read TRI at the first opportunity, and watch out for devil bears.

Phil & Kaja Foglio are back with the fifth Girl Genius collection, Agatha Heterodyne and the Clockwork Princess; for regular readers of Girl Genius, it’s more of the same: high drama mixed with hard slapstick mixed with steampunk romance in a world “where the Industrial Revolution became an all-out war”. Our Heroine continues her journeys with Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure, trying to keep a step ahead of the dangers loosed upon the world by madboys (or “Sparks”, to be polite). There’s monsters and mutants, random mechanical beasties (or “clanks”, to be polite), and the danger that the world might find out who she really is.

The Folgios move the story along at a rapid clip, revealing more of the political situation of Europe under the Pax Wulfenbach, more of the history of the Jägermonsters, and more of Agatha’s mother (and her parents). There’s going be to hard times ahead for the Girl Genius, trials and tribulations and not much fun for quite a while. But it seems that it will all work out in the end (or was that the beginning?), and in the mean time, it’s a beautifully-drawn, fun read.

I like Wapsi Square a lot. I like how it transformed itself from a slice-of-life strip to something with mysterious, supernatural overtones so smoothly, you almost didn’t notice it happening. And with Paul Taylor’s new omnibus collection, Wapsi Square 2001 — 2004, we can watch that transformation all over again.

Into the life of ordinary 20-something Monica is thrown a single magical (if goofball) element, almost a throwaway, early in the life of the strip. Things settled back down to lighthearted fun, and even the return of the supernatural was played more for laughs than anything else. Ah, but since then — our goofball seems to have quite a history, and Our Heroine’s personal experience is tied up in prophecy and dangerous responsibility.

A key thing, easily noticed in the collected strips, is the emphasis that Taylor puts on what’s often an invisible art: lettering. When the script face changes, big, important things are happening. Whether it’s the fractured components of an ancient chimera reincarnated as drunken college girls named Brandi, Bud, and Jin (heh, I just got that), or a neighborhood barrista who appears to be a font of insight and wisdom (with a focus on what’s important), you know that Taylor has plans and ideas for all of these characters.

The planning brought to the characters is notable even in one-shots. For instance, this lady, seen in exactly one strip so far. The story tells us she’s an industrial designer of custom brassieres, but her word balloons are all scratchy, meaning that she may be supernatural. Looking at that scarf around her neck, I can almost imagine Taylor deciding, One day she stretched a polymer cable too far; it snapped and cut her throat, leaving her voicebox damaged and her neck scarred.

Beats me if that’s her actual backstory, but rest assured, Taylor has one for her, and everybody else in the strip. He’s just doling out the details one at a time. And that’s the essence of good storytelling — show, don’t tell. Taylor mentioned in San Diego having ideas for the next five years running around his head, and looking at the stories told in just the first three, I believe him. If you haven’t read Wapsi Square before, WS2-2 is the perfect introduction.