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Breakdowns - "F" is For...

June 5, 2003

“And if I catch it coming back my way
I’m going to serve it to you.”

Please excuse my absence last week. Other than a vacation, I’ve been really good about meeting deadlines, but I was sick and had about half my usual energy, hence two weeks for this normal-sized column. Speaking of which, I don’t really read my columns much after they’re written. A once-over for grammar and coding, maybe, but that’s never been a big problem. Some of the longer reviews have been reworked a little, but generally I think they work best if just cooked once, and quickly. You want that steak to arrive with a little bit of juice still popping out of it, rather than a gray, soggy lump of boiled meat. But occasionally, that sizzling steak is a little too rare. Sometimes you write something that, in a rare, reflective moment, you wish you hadn’t. It doesn’t happen that often, and shouldn’t. I mean, the more one does this kind of thing, the stronger one’s opinion becomes. I read tons of comics of all varieties, and it continuously reinforces what’s good, what’s bad, what I like, what I don’t. Anyway, you’ll see what I’m getting at somewhere in the column, but rather than do a typical apology, I thought I would instead…break the format of the column! Or maybe just eff with it a little.

F is for Fantagraphics

It’s been reported that publisher Fantagraphics Books is in some dire financial straits, due to their former book distributor going bankrupt and stiffing them to the tune of some $80K. You may remember the same thing happened last year to Top Shelf Productions and Drawn & Quarterly, who all used the same distributor. Fanta took out some loans to keep them afloat, and they’re coming due, so in an uncharacteristically direct move, they have appealed to readers to go to their website and order some books. Now, in case you don’t know, Fantagraphics is really the premier art comics publisher in the industry, or at least the North American comics industry. These are the guys who publish such significant creators as Chris (ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY) Ware, Daniel (GHOST WORLD) Clowes, Pete (HATE) Bagge, Los. Bros Hernandez (LOVE & ROCKETS), Joe (SAFE AREA GORZDE) Sacco and the inimitable R. Crumb. The best, most intelligent, passionate, idiosyncratic cartoonists in the business, in other words, with important bodies of work. They need your support.

I know that a lot of retailers have taken this news with a mixture of indifference and glee. Many have taken the attitude that if Fantagraphics is going to bypass the retailer in their request for help, they can sink or swim on their own. This is understandable to an extent, but the truth of the matter is that, as Warren Ellis pointed out there, if a fraction of these retailers had done a better job stocking Fanta books and exposing customers to all comics have to offer, the company wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, and wouldn’t have had to seek a bookstore distributor (who is reportedly doing very well for them), so why should Fanta go to these same retailers now, splitting their profits and having to wait for money to dribble in, when they need it now?

Some of these same retailers have rationalized the void Fantagraphics’ collapse would cause by saying most of these cartoonists would be happily picked up by other publishers. Yeah, who? NBM is a large publisher but focuses more on European cartoonists who have already had some success with their books there, and their English-speaking creator base is relatively small. Top Shelf, Alternative Comics, Drawn & Quarterly and others would certainly pick up a few of these creators, but they all have annual publishing output much smaller than Fanta’s. And none of them supplement their art comics publishing with lucrative porn like Fanta does with their Eros imprint. So where does the money come for expensive books like B. KRIGSTEIN or PALOMAR or OPUS, huh? And forget art comics for second—who will continue to publish classic work like KRAZY KAT and PRINCE VALIANT and POGO? Does it disappear?

Do yourself, and comics, a favor, and find it in your heart and checking account to shell out $20, $50, whatever you can manage, to get some quality work generally a little deeper than the average story arc in superhero comics. Don’t want deeper? How about funnier, more surprising, more provocative, whatever. There’s something for just about everyone. Go.

F is for For God’s Sake, Buy This Book Already!

SLEEPER by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Wildstorm Comics. $2.95
There are titles you like a lot but don’t feel upset that others don’t. AUTOMATIC KAFKA was one of those for me. And then there are ones where not only do you like it a lot, you cannot understand why it’s not a lot more popular, and it drives you nuts. SLEEPER is one of those.

Let’s look at it in commercial terms. Dark-tinged, superhero-related crime books like POWERS and ALIAS do pretty well, right? Not as well as more straightforward superhero books, but well enough. It can’t be just that they’re written by Brian Michael Bendis, can it? Ed Brubaker is respected, and sells a goodly number of issues of DETECTIVE and CATWOMAN. It’s not just that they’re Batbooks, though that’s a significant factor. And Sean Phillips, while not an A-list talent to some, can certainly draw and seems to be well-liked. So what’s the problem? Well, maybe it’s a bad time for secret agent-y stuff, who knows? People sometimes get ideas in their heads about, “well, there are lots of cool TV shows like this about conflicted heroes undercover or forced to work closely with the scum of the Earth—the people must want more!” Well, TV is free, you know?

Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. SLEEPER is about Holden Carver, whose superpower is that he absorbs pain and gives it back. The power is a nice metaphor for his current status as an undercover agent for Tao, one of the most ruthless, brilliant, and evil villains in the Wildstorm Universe. The guy who got Carver into this is John Lynch, former Gen13 honcho who’s now in a coma, so Carver has no one to relate to. He’s with bad men and women all day long and too much of it’s rubbing off on him. His superpower is a nice metaphor for the fact that he’s been forced to sublimate his true emotions and morals for so long it’s hard to feel them anymore. They’re atrophied from lack of use. Brubaker excels at ambivalent characters who challenge the standard notions of heroism, and who knows, maybe writing Carver is a way to express his own ambivalence about going from acclaimed indie cartoonist to superhero comics writer, not that the quality of his work leaves him anything to feel guilty about. Personally, anything Brubaker feels strongly about is a guarantee for me of a quality comic, and this was one he even guaranteed satisfaction with himself. Give it a try, or it will be one more interesting, sophisticated and mature book gone away.

F Is for Font of Wisdom

TILTING AT WINDMILLS by Brian Hibbs. IDW Publishing. $19.99
Brian Hibbs is one of the smartest men in the comics industry.

Now, I’ve only known of this guy’s existence for a few years, but it’s been a weird exercise putting the pieces together. I think the first thing I read of his were some of his Savage Critic reviews, possibly before I was doing my own. I think they were forwarded to me so I never really followed up to find where to get more, though I read them now. And reading the following, can you see what I like about him?

“Let me also note, that no matter how catty and bitchy I may get, I not only love comics, but I love the people that create them. I WILL bag on books in the following pieces, and, yes, I WILL bag on creators as well. My mama told me that if you believe positive reviews, you gotta accept the negative ones, too. Something that is often forgotten on the Internet is that there are real people just like you on the other side of the screen, and that’s just as true in comics. I respect everyone who tries.... even if I have impossibly high standards as a reader.”

I couldn’t have said that better. But maybe you know Hibbs’ name as the San Francisco comics retailer suing Marvel Comics for breach of contract? I remember when that was announced, all the message board blather and armchair legal analysis, mainly from well-meaning, passionate Marvel fans who didn’t want to believe their favorite publisher wasn’t holding up their end of a bargain. Well, tempting as it is to throw my own two cents into this matter, or to use the subsequent Sony and Stan Lee lawsuits as proof of wrongdoing, I do know enough to say that none of this means anything until it’s proven or settled. That said, one has to admire Hibbs’ conviction as a retailer taking on one of his main sources of income.

Which brings me at last to this book, and the evidence of why the guy is so smart. Well, the fact that a retailer got a book published collecting his 100 COMICS RETAILER columns is no mean feat, but I happen to know the folks at IDW publish what they feel passionate about, with the demographic being a secondary concern. What’s more impressive is that, as these columns document, Hibbs is a survivor. Better than that, he thrived. He has the #1 comic book store in San Francisco and has had it for more than a decade, a decade that saw the wild speculator craze give way to the crash when customers realized there was no real worth in their investments in 50 foil-covered #1 issues, or hologram covers, or 11 variants. Hibbs saw the danger, and prepared accordingly. And during the craze, the guy’s ethical enough, and protective enough of his customers, to not jack up prices or push the multiple covers. When others saw a financial green light, he saw a moral red flag.

But listen, just because the title evokes DON QUIXOTE doesn’t mean we have to get all metaphorical now. Hibbs is a very straightforward, acerbic writer who speaks from experience. He was there. I thought it was cool that DC Publisher/President Paul Levitz wrote an Introduction, but when he puts down Hibbs as often being ill-informed and wrong, I just don’t see it. A couple times, sure, and they’re duly noted, but more often than not he sees things more clearly than the publishers, dumping five related titles in one week, then nothing the next two weeks, or meeting their agreements by shipping lots of titles in at the end of the month. In an unfair market where the retailer takes such a big percentage of the risk when a publisher screws up, he and his shop were able to stay afloat. It’s an entertaining read, even for non-retailers, and provides an essential perspective on the follies of the speculator craze of the 90s and the ugly industry shrinkage that followed.

F is for Filigree

ISOLATION AND ILLUSION: SHORT STORIES 1977-1997 by P. Craig Russell. Dark Horse Comics. $14.95
Though primarily for Russell completists rather than being an introduction for new readers, this is a very mixed bag that still contains a number of worthy pieces. Despite covering three decades, it’s fairly slim, because Russell hasn’t produced that many short stories. He’s rightfully known for longer works. So what you have here are a handful of early stories and experiments in black-and-white, before he was a “superstar” and was either a) making a sale or b) trying out a technique, mixed with a few works in color that are mainly adaptations of famous short stories. The black-and-white stuff is stunning, artwise, but mainly the impression is that Russell had yet to fashion his metaphysical, philosophical and poetic ideas into coherent entertainment. The one exception here is a story about novelist Mishima’s preparations for hara-kiri. Russell’s storytelling is clear and moody, free of the extra garnish he applies in some of the other stories, and his first person narration is chillingly rational, a little lofty but that’s in keeping with the character, who after all is choosing to live and end life following ancient, perhaps outmoded codes of honor. Russell’s adaptation of a Cyrano de Bergerac science fiction tale is a cute departure in the style of art, but it’s also a bit of a revelation to find Bergerac wasn’t just the long-nosed romantic but a writer capable of packing stories with as many outlandish ideas as an Alan Moore or Grant Morrison. And his rendition of O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” is utterly faithful, a Classics Illustrated approach that restricts Russell from visual pyrotechnics but nonetheless shows how adept he can be at capturing the essence of a story in his adaptations.

F is for Fable

MONKEY VS. ROBOT by James Kochalka. Top Shelf Productions. $14.95
The factory poisons the river supplying the jungle creatures. A monkey dies. The other monkeys get mad and destroy one of the factory’s robots. The robots get mad.

So begins war.

Some may call this book deceptively simple, and at first I was going to disagree, but there are actually a couple themes in motion here. First, Man, as symbolized by the Robot, has to get along with Nature (Monkeys, jungle) and treat it well, or there will be catastrophe. But it’s in the interior scenes in the inhuman factory that suggests that Man is really symbolized by the Monkey, and the Robots are the Technology he’s allowed to get out of control and advance beyond him, though not without the human soul. Kochalka delivers this message as purely and stirringly as a cave painting or a hymn. Plus, it’s got the cute monkeys.

I read this with my three-year-old son, and it wasn’t hard at all for him to see that, yes, those are monkeys, and those are robots, and they’re fighting. Just a little older and I think most children can understand the theme and they’ll remember it because they were entertained and moved. A monkey’s life is not cheap here; it affects you. In fact, the ending, which I won’t give away, is hopeful but not after a shocking amount of strife and pain. Kochalka’s work is often described as whimsical, and there are some of those moments here, but his emotions run deep and are carried through powerfully through this story.

F is for Follow-Up

MONKEY VS. ROBOT AND THE CRYSTAL OF POWER by James Kochalka. Top Shelf Comix. $14.95
Kochalka returns to his most popular and acclaimed creation with a sequel that finds the monkeys and robots at it again. This time the robots have located a replacement power crystal to power their factory/headquarters, but it is taken by the monkeys and a violent search ensues, with casualties on both sides. And then the ending…oh, that ending. Well, I’ll get to that.

I want to be positive and point out that the world Kochalka created, and the monkey/robot conflict is still interesting, and that the monkeys’ attempt to keep the crystal from the super-robot is dramatic, but that sounds like I’m describing a videogame from 1983, doesn’t it? A videogame sequel, that is. Bigger robots! An underwater level! Grab that crystal!

After a sluggish beginning, in which it seems Kochalka becomes too enamored of bad 50s sci-fi movie dialogue, the story is about as compelling as the original, up to the ending. This ending is so ambiguous and inconsequential that it serves to turn the previous enjoyment into frustration, because it was predicated on the hopes of this sequel would be as good or better; would cover new ground or present new themes or new variations of the previous themes. Unfortunately, we get sparkles in the sky, which I suppose indicates Man and Technology are doomed to be forever in conflict. It’s a fine theme and Kochalka can repeat it as much as he wants in his work—Osamu Tezuka explored similar themes for decades, hundreds of thousands of pages—but here Kochalka falls short in providing a suitably dramatic or meaningful ending to make it all come together. The addition of the crystal provides a different plot engine—they’re not just fighting each other, they’re fighting over an object—but the difference is not revelatory and does not enhance our understanding of this world, or ourselves. It remains an entertaining tale that flounders in trying to find any deeper meaning to justify its existence.

F is for Foot in Mouth

There's a guy I felt I wronged last week, and that’s DC Editor Bob Shreck. In reviewing the so-so first book in Matt Wagner’s BATMAN/SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN: TRINITY miniseries, I said Shreck had a “whatever, dude” editing style on books by his “superstar buddies”. While I don’t think I’m necessarily wrong, the wording strikes me as crass, and I apologize to Bob, if he’s reading. What I was getting at—or what I briefly and noxiously hinted at in a throwaway line—is that in books like Miller’s DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN or Smith’s GREEN ARROW run, there isn’t a clear editorial direction—both stories, though not without interest, wander all over the place and are uneven in their pacing and tone. My feeling is that Schreck may be somewhat easygoing in his editing, or more trusting of these respected writers to find their own way to the end of a story, but the truth is, I really don’t know. Editing is, I believe, an art, but it’s largely an invisible one, those of us one the outside hardly ever know how much a book’s success or failure has to do with the editor.

F is for Faerie Tales

SOULWIND VOL. 1-5 by Scott Morse. Oni Press. $8.95
The artists that blow you away on first discovery, that seem to come fully formed out of nowhere, usually just spent their salad days elsewhere, under your radar. Orson Welles’ first splash wasn’t CITIZEN KANE. It was his first film, yes, and he attacked it with a certain “why can’t we do it?” arrogance and vision that came partly from having already been a successful, notorious theatrical producer, and the fact that he brought his players with him for the film, already knowing how to direct them.

Morse’s SOULWIND is, in its way, his KANE, the nervy, multifaceted explosion of style and technique from a brash young talent who’d honed his skills in another field, that of animation. He’s too naïve to know he shouldn’t be able to produce a work of such range and scope right off the bat.

Not that he’s cocky about it. There were several breaks between volumes before this epic concluded a few years ago, during which time Morse worked at both his “day job” as well as producing shorter works such as VISITATIONS, LITTLE GREYMAN and VOLCANIC REVOLVER. Fortunately, the first volume was already strong and confident, so the resultant creative growth over subsequent volumes is never jarring, only more rewarding.

To discuss the events of each book would be to spoil the surprises, but the saga involves a heroic quest involving a Chosen One, a sword of power, destiny, Depression-era Bonnie and Clyde-type lovers, time travel, aliens, faerie, the real story of the villainous King Arthur, and the beginning of Buddhism. How this all fits together is heady but never obtuse or pretentious. Morse digests his influences and keeps the narrative mostly light and engaging, though not without pathos and philosophical musings. On the emotional end, Morse creates some wonderful, moving scenes, humanizing fantastic characters and making them accessible. As for the story itself, it’s a fascinating exploration of the power of an idea. In this case, it’s the idea(s) of heroism, chivalry and compassion that resonates back and forth through time, evolving in ways appropriate to the people’s needs. The different art styles, other than the superb Chinese brush work for the Buddha segments, are not really necessary to the story/stories, but to his credit Morse employs them with equal skill and thought. They’re never used as gimmicks, just enhancements to an already dazzling display of storytelling.

Note: The review is both late and premature. The series finished in, oh, 2001? The first two Oni volumes are now out of print. But not sadly out of print, as I am told the entire saga will be collected as one volume in November of this year. So be on the lookout for that. It’s worth it.

F is for Firsts

Just some quick comments on some #1 issues. As I said, I’m much more interested in reviewing a completed story arc in a trade paperback these days, (and also being out sick last week makes full reviews kind of unnecessary) but these are a couple things I liked that deserved some mention. First, Greg Rucka’s and Darick Robertson’s crack at WOLVERINE #1 was strong. I’m not a great fan of Robertson but he’s fine, and Rucka has taken the time-honored tack of putting an outlandish hero (Spidey, Punisher) and having them get pulled into their neighbor’s drama, and done well with it. It’s also kind of a LONE WOLF & CUB angle, the insanely capable killer being happy to be perceived as just a standoffish regular guy, but willing to help the one who sees beneath that façade.

Brad Kayl, Christian Gossett and new artistic find Jeff Henderson present a black-and-white, penciled art #0 issue of ASSASSIN, and thankfully, beneath the gimmicks is a tight short story with good dialogue. It has little to do with the story of the hitman Samuel, who faces the consequences of killing a messiah, but it introduces him with a nice one-off, and the art is good. Should be even better when these RED STAR perfectionists get through with it.

If you gave Priest a really, really good artist, he might start a bigger fire with his books, but in THE CREW we get midlevel Joe Bennett and Danny Miki. They’re fine, but don’t have the distinctive style to keep this book burned on your retina after you read it. Bennett is fiddling with his contrast knob, though, so the results are pleasantly closer to a Risso kind of thing. The series gets off to a good start with former War Machine James Rhodes still emotionally staggered from his girl leaving him, now having to deal with bankruptcy. That old thing where you take away everything, and the character is now a kind of loose cannon, more fun to watch. Works, too, especially when you add the third bit of bad news: his estranged crack whore sister is murdered, so he takes it upon himself to find the killer. Strong, superhero-tinged crime drama that Marvel has gotten down to a science the past couple years.

F is for Friends

Ivan Brandon is a writer I got to know through Brian Michael Bendis' old board, and it's been great to see his star rise, first with Beckett's GENE-FUSION 2310, currently soliciting a trade paperback of the first four issues of this mostly all-ages book, and now TERMINATOR 3: BEFORE THE RISE, a prequel to the upcoming summer blockbuster, also from Beckett. It was really cool to see the movie magazine in my grocery store, as it features a lengthy preview of the first issue from Ivan and Goran Parlov. Hard to review something I read standing up in the aisle, but I liked it a lot, and the art is excellent. Most movie tie-in comics frankly suck--see the first X-MEN movie comics, because good creators generally don't want to bother doing such a tightly controlled project that has to please not just the publisher but the movie studio, and even good work is not going to get much credit anyway. But honestly, it's obvious a lot of care and love went into this one. Hey, I have no problem giving bad reviews to friends--they wouldn't expect different treatment--so if this ends up falling off, I'll let you know, but it really looks like it will be worth your while, possibly a surer bet than the movie itself.

F is for Frosted Flakes

CONFESSIONS OF A CEREAL EATER VOL. 1 by Rob Maisch, Bo Hampton and Others. NBM Publishing. $17.95 and $9.95
Described by the publisher as the comics version of Jean (CHRISTMAS STORY) Sheperd, these autobiographical stories place Maisch just as much in the company of Neil Simon for the similarities in depicting horny young Jewish men scheming ir “horny Jew” appeal. Long-time friend Hampton encouraged Maisch to pen these stories he’d been regaling Bo and brother Scott with for years, with Bo handling a number of the adaptations.

The book begins with “Slow Dance”, a knowing reflection of the dreaded high school dance, where Rob and pal D.J. vow to dance with some girls. Maisch recalls with total clarity the particular rules of his adolescent dance years, such as how a guy could get beat up by his peers for dancing to fast songs, and how as socially inept as Rob and D.J. were, they still had their standards, so that buck-tooth Trudy Mocha or Marleen Goza—she of the glue-like saliva in the corner of her mouth—just didn’t cut it. When Rob finally does get his dance, it’s almost too good to be true, but the schmaltziness of the moment is mitigated by the funny, embarrassing ending, where Rob’s dad shows up and has Rob paged by the MC.

“Mean Old Man” tells of Rob’s and friends’ campaign of terror against a bullying neighbor that is at first hilarious and then sad and rather poignant, while “Klingon Battle Helmet” is another prank-filled story that stays funny throughout, and Scott Hampton’s art here is the best in the book. “Back in the Saddle”, adapted by Bo Hampton, is something of a departure, not a childhood/adolescent story but one recounting a colorful event during Maisch’s time as a shopping mall manager, where he booked a childhood hero—a TV cowboy—to appear. Maisch has to deal with not just the man’s drunkenness and demands but his refusal to ride a horse on stage. Maisch’s reserves of will seem to have stuck with him after childhood, and the cowboy gets what’s coming to him. A book that convincingly recalls youth in all its nervous, hormonal joy and agony.

I’ll cover the recently released second volume next week. Also, I’ll definitely get to XENOZOIC TALES VOL. 1, GREYSHIRT: INDIGO SUNSET, TOO MUCH HOPELESS SAVAGES #1, ALAN MOORE: PORTRAIT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN and METROPOLIS.

Chris Allen

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