The final word on Women In Refrigerators, by Randy Milholland. I’m starting to think he’s got a better grasp on the fundamental idiocies of the superhero genre than anybody else on the planet.
And new meme! Go here, and add your drawing of a bear in an ill-fitting hat (special thanks to The Strike-Breaking Dreamcrusher both for the tip-off, and for showing his skills of an artist).
Love Is … four webcomic sightings last week and two more since then. Per my entirely arbitrary standards, that makes it official.
Yeah, pretty thin today. Everybody’s off this week.
Hey everybody. I see the piece that I wrote up and scheduled to post yesterday monrning didn’t actually, but it’s long and now you get an extra one for today, so everybody wins. In fact, I just wanted to point out some of my nicer presents today.
First up, you may recall that about a month ago, my wife arranged for a rather special birthday present for me. What with my birthday falling on a Tuesday, one of the intended gifts was delayed a day, but there I was — barber to ninjas. I got to thank Chris Hastings in person with beer and cheesecake about two weeks back, and he never let on that the original of that page was already in the mail to me. “Sneaky”, “underhanded”, and every other word that might apply to ninjas also applies to Chris and his partner, Kent Archer.
Next, arriving on the 24th and just in time for Christmas, DJ Coffman sent me an unexpected gift — a hardcover copy of his Hero By Night miniseries (prompting one of my nephews to notice it on my desk and say, “Cool, I didn’t know the hardcover was out yet.” I don’t see him often and didn’t know that he read HBN, so yay to Coffman for bringing families together).
I was going to pick up the trade of HBN, even though I have the individual copies, as it both saves space on my shelves and allows me to donate the individual issues to people that might not be able to get comics easily (this week I’ve got two boxes to send to Chris Tarbassian at Operation Comix Relief, who will send any and all donated comics to US troops on deployment). So I get a handsome hardcover for my collection, my nephew feels a little less like the only geek in the family, and some troops get a diversion from their crappy immediate surroundings sooner than they would otherwise? That’s a win for all involved.
Two weeks ago, Jeff Rowland ran what I think is one of the funniest episodes in the history of Overcompensating; having missed out more than once on the chance to buy particularly funny originals of various strips by waiting too long, I emailed Jeff right away.
He told me that the original had been water damaged, and he couldn’t in good conscience sell it to me. It showed up in today’s mail, with three little water spots away from the main image, along with a mess of stickers and temporary tatoos and a Band-Aid™ brand adhesive bandage. All of these gifts, especially the Band-Aid™, are going to be treasured parts of my collection of webcomics art.
So to Jeff, DJ, Chris and Kent, and all the terrific creators that I’ve met in the past two years of fumbling my way through this pseduo-journalistic hackery, thank you. It’s no exaggeration to say that being around so many creative, funny people has made my life richer, and I’m going to keep trying to spread the word about the great work that all of you do.
So we’re full into the holiday season; whatever tradition you may follow, there’s an excuse to get well-fed and well-boozed with friends and/or family about now, plus or minus ten days. And at these times, we generally try to find the best things about ourselves, and today I have two books to share that I believe reflect the best of [web]comicry talent.
First up, The Kids’s Book Project, a benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, spearheaded by Mike Rouse-Deane, and with more contributors than you can shake a stick at (I wrote ’em all up here last month, and I ain’t doing it again so make with the clicky).
Rouse-Deane gave each of his 50+ contributor’s one thing to look at: the page before the one they would be drawing, and the one after. One group of creators started at the forward and worked forward, the other at the end and worked back, and from there it’s an exercise in wandering digression that somehow comes back to a resolution of the original story.
Without giving too much away, I’ll note that the previously released image comprises page three, and that the story (at least at first, and then again at the end) concerns a pair of children named John Alexander Petdander Orlean and Susie James. It’s a fun ride, with much flipping to the back of the book to confirm who drew what. In fact, there’s only one thing missing and that may be the most important thing:
Mike Rouse-Deane has neglected to list his name anywhere in the book. Title page, intro, credits at the back, nothing. I suspect that he’s trying to not steal focus from the creators or the cause, but I’m calling shenanigans on that modesty. You put together a hell of a good project, Mike, and you ought to take a bow.
Secondly, something that I didn’t think I’d get to read yet. The always clued-in JRo let us know that the major booksellers moved up the street date of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet; two hours later I was in the local Barnes & Noble (who appear to be shelving it in the children’s section) and breaking out my wallet.
Forget a body of work that spans the achingly wonderful Copper, the spare and unexpected Daisy Kutter, and sitting in the driver’s seat of the brilliant Flight anthologies. Kibuishi has just left those projects in the dust and announced himself as one of the premier talents in comics with Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper.
If not for the fact that he’s still alive, I’d swear that Kibuishi was the reincarnation of Hayao Miyazaki, because Amulet reminds me of nothing so much as a Miyazaki story. All of the Ghibli touches are there: characters with open, simple, but incredibly expressive faces; the choice of the young girl (not quite ready to be a woman) as the protagonist; the stylish, otherworldly, and lovingly-crafted flying machines; the landscapes and critters that clearly come from a dream world that isn’t all rainbows and lollipops.
Into this mix are thrust Emily and her younger brother Navin; their mother has been taken from their new home by a nightmarish menace made of tentacles and teeth. When you’re a girl who’s already lost her father these circumstances demand you do whatever you need to do to get your mother back. In this case what needs to be done means accepting the help of a mysterious and long-lost great-grandfather, and taking on the powers and burdens of a magic stone in the titular amulet.
An amulet which, as it so happens, has its own views on things; at more than one point, the reader is left wondering exactly what price Emily will have to pay to save her family. With barely the initial setup to the story finished, it’s clear that this isn’t one of those happily ever after kinds of stories … it’s one of those nobody said getting what you wanted will make you happy stories, or maybe one of the sadder but wiser kind. It’s a new kind of all-ages literature, of a sort with BONE, and sure to please anybody you might choose to gift it to.
And best of all? If Book One released early, maybe that means that Books Two through as many as we can get Kibuishi to write will release early, as well. Right now, I’m ready to curl up with about a thousand more pages of Amulet.
Webcomics can save your life. Want proof? From the Introduction of Schlock Mercenary: The Tub Of Happiness by Howard Tayler:
In December of 1999 I had a heart attack.
Here I am, almost eight years later. I suspect that those chest pains were a clarion call. Less than three months after the ripping of that final, hairy bandage, I found myself telling Sandra, “I think I’ll pick up doodling as a hobby.” A week after that the first Schlock Mercenary character drawings were emerging, and within two weeks I was writing and illustrating strips.
Hold that thought, we’ll be coming back to it shortly.
Reading SM:TTOH, some notice that Tayler’s trying to play fair with the rules of his hard sci-fi universe; others note the art that rapidly progressed from its very rough original form to its present, less-rough form; many focus on the funny (with a hefty side order of BLAM). Me, I notice how reprehensible most of his characters really are.
They are mercenaries. Their defining motivation is there in the second panel of the first strip:
We’re a crack company of space mercenaries. We do “hurting people” and “breaking things”.
So we’ve got Good Guys whose stock in trade is murder and destruction and extortion — not for defense of their homes or grand ideals, but for money. They are not so very different from the union thugs portrayed in the storyline on pages 175 to 177, who are portrayed far less sympathetically than Our Heroes. By the time the book is done, they’ve directly caused a spasm of war that lays waste on a multiple-planetary scale and laid the groundwork for a broader conflict that will kill billions of sentients.
And yet, that war and those uncountable deaths somehow disturb us less than the fact that all that death and destruction was provoked by the act of spamming 30% of the galaxy’s population.
So Tayler’s working on some pretty dark thoughts, making us laugh at them, robbing those less social corners of his own soul of some of their power. I know that it’s working, because hanging out with Howard Tayler, he’s absolutely the sort of person I’d take to the town picnic and introduce to my neighbors as a friend, and totally not a societal danger that spends his days trying to convince me to care about mass murderers. Because dammit, I do care about them, and they do make me laugh.
Letting out the blackness between the parts of ourselves that we show the rest of the world has got to be a good thing. In Tayler’s specific case, that process (via cartooning) has had a salutary effect on his health. To recap, in the form of the famed Harper’s Index:
QED, people.
Got tipped off by the always clued-in Rich Stevens about a piece by David Byrne in the latest issue of Wired; he’s talking about the management of musical careers (vis-a-vis, how much do you want to give away to other people in exchange for their help). It’s designed as a comment on the music industry, but it’s really applicable to any kind of creative endeavor, such as webcomics.
Particularly interesting is his breakdown of six different models (with examples) of how to get your music (webcomic) out to the listening (reading) audience:
Right now, the traditional syndication of comic strips exists somewhere between 1 and 2;, comic book work-for-hire and Zuda-type deals straddle 2 and 3; I’d like to see the new ComicSpace do something like 4 or 5 (which would be the Aduz model of publishing); and most self-supporting webcomics artists live in zone 5 or 6 (depends on whether they ship themselves, or farm out fulfillment to someone like Topatoco).
It’s a fascinating read, and if we envision the models on a y-axis (arbitrarily, we can put 1 at the bottom and 6 at the top), I fully expect to see musicians and non-independent [web]comickers climb up to the webcomics end of the scale. As the worlds of music, comics and movies all start to merge into a general art from digital tools, I hope that we’ll make newcomers to the world of self-managed creation feel welcome.
I realized this week that I needed to backtrack a bit. Last week I mentioned Geeks Next Door in passing, on my way to a larger, different piece. So I thought I’d jog one step back and actually write about it.
It’s billed as “the exaggerated tales of a geek couple and the people who live with them.” The main characters, Jessi and Matt, no doubt based on creators Jessi Bavolack and Matt Pascal, deal with cats, family and accents, and even frat zombies (probably better if you just go look at that last one). They’re often joined in their adventures by Jessi’s younger sister, Maggie, and a character named Barry (who seems to be the only one not based on an actual person).
I’ll keep this short, since that seems the trend here lately: you should have a look at this webcomic. I’ve found it kind of charming and winsome in reading through the archives. It’s still relatively new (ergo, not a whole lot of archives), but the characters are very compelling even though the idea itself (webcomic about a couple and their life? We’ve seen this before…) isn’t new. But, weirdly, that’s part of what makes it distinctive; it feels familiar in a number of ways. The characters sometimes borrow elements from manga, in the way faces (or fangs) look, and the overarching story (couple living together) is one we’ve seen–but these folks have a fun, goofy twist on it: the geek angle. It’s there, without knocking you totally over the head–and that’s one of this webcomic’s strengths: it’s very accessible to a wide range of readers.
There’s also some very nice color work in there, and I’m a sucker for good lettering. This webcomic’s worth adding to your list of reading for next week when (hopefully not if) you’re off from work. Fingers crossed we’re not socked in with snow again…
Editor’s note: in order to satisfy Andre Babyn’s concerns about the worth of what I’m writing (see yesterday’s comments), I promise that I personally loathe the creator of every item mentioned today¹, and would gladly run them over if not for the fact I’d have to wash my car afterwards. Thank you.
Other theories: it’s because having an open story means that DJ Coffman doesn’t have to cram in all the cool ideas into too few pages; it’s the co-writer he’s working with; it’s a difference in editoral policy; it’s a comfort level with the story and art; the month has an “R” in it. In any event, it’s shaping up to be nicely grim/gritty/überangst-free, and just plain fun to read. Plus (very small spoilers here) the last page features a giant monkey. Can’t go wrong there.
Update: And that’s number four!
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¹ Not really. Except for 8 year olds that write good comics for the CCP. I can’t stand them.
From my email outbox:
To: David Kellett <dave@davekellett.com>
Subject: satisfaction issueMr Kellett,
It is my understanding that you promise 100% satisfaction with purchases of your various “Sheldon” merchandise. Regrettably, I must inform you that I have NOT achieved 100% satisfaction with my purchase of your latest book, A Blizzard of Lizards.
The book itself arrived in pristine condition, with a smooth, silky feel to the cover, which is worth at least 30% satisfaction. Although the heaviness of the cover stock is obviously protective and lends a reassuring “heft” to the volume, it is perhaps slightly too stiff to easily bend in the hand during reading. This unfortunately makes the volume approximately 4% less satisfying.
The sketch in the inside front cover of this Artist’s Edition (#99/250) was suitably rendered, especially considering that vast numbers you must have had to produce in a short period of time. Call me 20% more satisfied as a result.
The content of the strip, as always, is exemplary in terms of the total entertainment derived, along with scoring consistently high on the standard LOLs per page per minute scale (LOLpppm), contributing another 57% satisfaction. The innovative use of re-arranging and englarging selected panels in strips to completely fill pages and emphasize gags (as seen most …
You’ll have to pardon me for a moment, that Linus and Lucy song is playing on the radio, and I must dance.
… clearly in the printed collections of your colleague Brad Guigar’s Evil, Inc. strip) adds 8% more to the overall satisfaction.
Finally, the bonus story, the sexy, sexy signed photo of Arthur the duck, and the examples of strips translated into Norwegian all contribute a final 5% satisfaction.
And here I hope you can see the problem, Mr Kellett — far from being 100% satisfied, I find myself 116% satisfied, a discrepancy of nearly one part in six! Surely, a craftsman of your skill is appalled by hitting so wide of the mark, and I must ask at this time that you contact me directly so that we may find a way to make good on your promise of 100% satisfaction. Your good-faith suggestions are welcome, but may I suggest that you spend 10 minutes hurling pinecones at an innocent puppy? That should about do it.
Sincerely,
Gary Tyrrell
The Internet
Speaking of callbacks to old-school comics (we were so, dammit!), did everybody catch Meredith Gran’s tribute to Everett True yesterday? Lesson to be learned from this: don’t be afraid to go obscure, kiddies. The readers that you hoped would get it will, and they’ll clue in the others.
Other quick items:
