The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1720: The Ice Hole

An awesome little comic I picked up from the creator at the always great Panel One festival in Calgary. I'd also picked up the first issue of Mr. Rosia's Daughters of Knights series prior to this, and I was hoping for a second issue. But since that wasn't available, I grabbed this.

This comic, pun intended, chills me. It reads like a Japanese horror story set in the far reaches of Canada, and every time I read it, it leaves me wanting more, and overwhelmed with questions. Where, exactly, does the story begin? What is in the hole? How is time working in this story? It really seems to be a loop, but that brings us to the idea that the events of the story are not only self-perpetuating, but infinite.

It's a confusing, unnerving, entirely excellent story. If you're in Calgary and can track a copy down, I highly recommend it.

"I'm on my way guys. Just hold tight."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1719: Mathemagick and Mystiphysics #3, April 2009

Moving on from Star Comics, we're going to have a week or so of Canadian comics, some indie, some self-published, all Canuck-y.

I have the graphic novel, or a graphic novel, of this series kicking about somewhere (boxed and ready to move at this point), and I'm going to have to drag it out when we get to our new house. This series combines historical figures as focal characters (a device I really love) with Wonderland (another of my obsessions) and Flatland (a wonderful book), all the while giving some interesting lessons on mathematics. What else could I ask for?

That said, it's the third issue of the series, so I'm not 100% sure who everyone was, what their relationships are, and why they're all together in something called "All-Time." Hopefully the GN will explain.

The comic was produced by a couple of people from here in Alberta, Priddis, Alberta to be specific. I see the series in back issue bins around the city, but I don't know if it's still a going concern. Hopefully, at least, this story about a war between Wonderland and Flatland gets to be concluded, because I'd love to see it.

"You see, in Flatland a male can be anything from an isosceles triangle to any regular polygon."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1532: Futility #4

Red Hayes manages to bumblingly survive a full-on interstellar war and that most horrible of things that those of us with penises can imagine: having a parasite swim up it.

This series is fucking nuts.

I am excited to see where it goes, especially as this issue ends with Red sort of getting home, but sort of not. The next book, "Orange Planet Horror" hopefully will give some insight into the strange new world that Red returns unto.

It's rare, I think, to see a squishy outer space story. So many of them are very clean and clinical, so it's nice to run into a story where the aliens are every bit as gross as we are, and sometimes, most times, even more so. The last series I remember doing this organicness well was the reboot of Prophet from a few years back. Everything was food for everything else in that series, as far as I could tell. Futility isn't far from that either.

On to something new tomorrow, but we'll definitely return to the adventures of Red Hayes.

"Slimy tyrant! You thought to control me? A god!?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1531: Futility #3

Futility is a really gross comic. You may be able to tell that from the cover. It's everything the EC comics wanted to be but couldn't because there were just still some thing that you couldn't do back in the 50s. Cam Hayden and Rick Overwater have no such qualms.

I read the first 2 issues of this series a little while back but didn't get around to blogging them, but at the recent Fan Expo I snagged signed copies of the next 3 issues, because it's just that good. Now, bear in mind that when I say that, it's not necessarily a nice comic. It's not going to leave you feeling good. Red Hayes, farmer and amateur astronaut, is not a good guy. He's a redneck from the middle of Texas in the 1960s. But I get the suspicion that the weirdness he's encountering on his journey through space is maybe opening his mind a little more than it used to be. And then there's the art - visceral and bloody, hearkening, for me at least, to the grossest of the undergrounds. Space is a weird, slimy place, and poor Red just isn't equipped to handle it.

Tomorrow I'll read issue 4, after which the creators have decided to do graphic novels instead. Which I'll get back to one of these days, really.

Futility is a local comic to Alberta, and is definitely evidence that we're not all conservative nightmares out here. This is some high weirdness.

"But it could -- uh -- end with the enslavement of your entire world."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1516: Futility #2

Yeah, yeah, so I'm not keeping up as well as I'd hoped. Lots of interesting things going on, though.

Before I get to the comic, some shameless self-promotion: I'm curating an exhibit at Lougheed House in Calgary that is a partial history of the queer community in Calgary. I'm also curating a queer comics exhibit at the new Calgary Central Library at the end of May. If you're in town, you should come and check them out. I'm pretty proud of what we've done.

A few months back (and I can't remember if I've told you this story yet), I get rid of 9 boxes of books from my shelves and storage. It was a very cathartic moment, and now I just want to get rid of things. When I took the books to a local independent store, they gave me just over $200 credit. And they have thousands and thousands of dollar comics in their basement. I think you can see where this is going. The way I reconcile it is that 200 comics takes up waaaay less room than 9 boxes of books.

I picked up the first two issues of Futility as I scoured through the boxes last week. I'd decided to only get things that filled in holes in my collection - dollar bins are a great place to track down the stuff that you'd like to complete, but that you're not so invested in that you spend huge amounts of money. I filled in most of the old DC series The Warlord from dollar bins. But, to be honest, when I saw the cover of this issue, I had to get it. Comics very often offer a combination of intrigue and shock on the cover. And today's comic is very much pulling on the old EC comics that perfected that technique.

The story is good, and I'm very much hoping I'll be able to track down the last two issues. Will Red Hayes, mid-20th century small-town American farmer, be able to navigate the unrelenting weirdness of space and return to his home and family? Maybe. I'm not going to definitely say this one has a happy ending. I will say that the representation of alien life and culture in this issue is really great. Rather than the Star Trek route, where alien civilizations seem to simply be versions of human civilization from different periods, the aliens in this series are really alien. And they look it.

If you like weird space adventures, 50s sci-fi comics, or if you just want to support a couple of talented local creators, see if you can track this down. (I read issue #1 yesterday. Many of the same thoughts as with today's comic.)

"Hairy people! You can't just die like this! This is tyranny!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 866: Anime Tentacle Monsters, May 2017

An amusing little indie comic about a girl who is attacked by tentacle monsters whenever she gets embarrassed. And, contrary to what you might thing, it's actually a relatively wholesome comic.

I picked this up at the Panel One festival in June, because there was simply no way I could pass up a comic called Anime Tentacle Monsters, especially as it was just sitting there on the table, looking all innocent and stuff. Mr. Lalonde's art and storytelling are excellent, the style of the comic erring just this side of North America in its manga-ness. The characters, especially our focal character Annie (or Amanda, if you're a jerk), present that level of cuteness that is required of the more...um....salacious tentacle monster manga, but actually manage to stay clothed and unmolested (for the most part) throughout the short tale.

There's a website for the comic, and I'm not sure if this is an ongoing series or just an amusing one-shot. As of right now, the site simply contains the word "Soon." I'm totally on board to find out just what is coming soon.

I'm going to stop now, before the puns take over the post.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 863: Crash and Burn #4, 2017

I am literally on my way out the door. This comic was every bit as amazing and spectacular as yesterday's comic and the volume 1 graphic novel. If you're looking for something cool to read, if you like a good space adventure (and things start getting odd in this issue. I think they're on some kind of amusement park planet), go check out the comic. Or buy it. I'm on board, a fan, they've got me til they stop making comics.

Okay, gotta go!

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 862: Crash and Burn #3, 2016

As I had hoped in my review of the first collection of Crash and Burn, I was able to pick up the next couple of installments at June's Panel One Festival. And it's just not enough!! The story continues to intrigue, though today's comic is far more action oriented than character oriented. This is not to say there isn't character development here, but much of it focuses on our focal character, Cora, and the things she's had to deal with in her life. A new character, a metahuman, is also introduced, a potentially disruptive influence on the group, and someone who, apparently, was not on the ship (officially) when it crashed.

Oh, and there's a giant insect.

But what really grabbed me about today's issue was a single moment where the metahuman, Ash, who is described in the official notice as "Highly Persuasive," is attempting to beguile Cora. Cora's response: "I'm Ace." And then she moves on and that's it. But this is a highly significant moment. I noted in my earlier review that there was all kinds of queerness going on in the series. It's called a queer space opera, for goodness' sake. But asexuality is one of the more invisible queer identities, little talked about or acknowledged even within the community. As someone whose child identifies this way, I'm sensitive to depictions of Ace people in media, as they're generally quite negative or clownish. If you need an example, look at someone like Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. I remember at one point my son saying he wasn't going to watch the show anymore as he'd come to realize that much of the humour that came from the character of Sheldon was laughing at his asexuality, and not at the sexualities of any of the other characters in the show.

And, sadly, I can't think of a positive depiction of Ace people in media. Perhaps the most recent incarnation of Jughead Jones in Archie comics, where he's been specifically identified as Ace. Though apparently the Riverdale creators decided not to carry that over into the show. All of which is to say that seeing a badass lady in charge who is also asexual in this comic was amazing. Amazing.

We'll see where the story leads us tomorrow, though if you can't wait, do have a look at the Crash and Burn website and give the comic a read. And maybe buy something from these two wonderful creators.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 46 - Crash and Burn v.1

I picked up the first graphic novel collection of this series at the Calgary Fan Expo this year as I walked around the artists alley and saw a banner proclaiming a "Queer Space Opera."

How does one pass up such a thing?

A brief chat with Ms. Larking convinced me that this was going to be a comic that I would love. The artwork and story are thoroughly intriguing, as is the setting, Earth on the verge of an intergalactic war fuelled by the political intrigues of the Ornos, a theocratic, bird-like alien race. The comic is also nicely multi-medial, in that there's a soundtrack one can purchase that includes themes for many of the major characters and such. I like this idea of telling a story in a number of different modes.

What really sold me, though, was that first reading. It's nice to talk to a creator, and to hear their enthusiasm for a project. That passion can often be the lynch pin in one taking a chance on a comic (or album, or book, or artwork), but it's really that first experience of the comic that puts proof to the pudding. And there's definitely proof here.

First, and foremost, the diversity of representation in this comic is marvelous. The Ornos have a system of gender and sexuality all their own, but even the humans appear to come from a society that has finally (finally) accepted that there is no difference, no hierarchy, to the vast range of gender and sexual orientation in our culture. The characters also hail from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, a characteristic shared by the Ornos and their different feather colourings. Again, these things are presented in a completely positive and unprejudiced way, allowing us to experience a story about characters whose defining features spring not from who they want to sleep with, or what they look like, but who they actually are. And race and sexuality are only a part of that.

Second, the story is just great! I can't wait for the Panel One festival in June so that I can hopefully pick up the next chapter of the story. I don't want to give too much away, but the basic premise is that a delegation of Humans and Ornos, ostensibly tasked with keeping peace between the two races, crashes on a planet and is forced to work together to survive. There's other intrigues and mysteries abounding, but that's the gist of the first volume. The characters, aside from the diversity I mentioned above, are remarkably well-realized, evincing all kinds of emotions throughout the course of the tale, and acting quite consistently in the chaos of the disaster that befalls them. In this, I mean that when we're introduced to the characters, they're in a relatively stable situation, and we see them perhaps at their most relaxed (well, with the human characters at least). But once the disaster occurs, the behaviours of each of these characters flows naturally from relaxed to responsive, and nothing about it seems out of character. This is an important thing to notice in narratives - it's easy to set up a character and then turn them into an action hero once the story calls for it, regardless of whether or not that jibes with the set-up of the character. This is not something that Crash and Burn suffers from.

Alright. That's enough gushing. Pop over to the site and give it a read, and then maybe grab a copy of the comic if you need to have that material copy in your hands.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 45 - Post Script v.3, 2011

At last year's Calgary Expo, I picked up the first volume of this excellent series, and I was overjoyed to see that Mr. Moogk-Soulis was at this year's con so I could keep up with the after-tale adventures of this motley crew.

Much of this volume is dedicated to a retelling, after the fact, of the story of the Three Little Pigs, starring one of my favourite characters from the previous book, Sisyphus. Sisyphus is one of the pigs, and his dislike of his two brothers coupled with his predilection for bacon makes for, as I noted in my previous review, a story that looks somewhat adorable, but is actually really quite chilling. But, y'know, pleasantly so.

Though I had hoped for some further development of characters from the previous book (the Prince is nowhere to be found in this volume), what we really get is more development of the world within which Graham and his compatriots are telling their stories. There were at least four more volumes of the series on display at the con, so I can't help but wonder if much of the world-building that takes place in this volume sets up more complex stories later on. Though, if that's not the case, and what the next volumes do is simply to tell short, smart, funny stories like this one does, the series will still be every bit as rewarding. I think what I'm getting at is that at this point in the series, three volumes in, the setting and characters are cemented enough to start demonstrating a number of potential routes for future development.

With any luck, I'll be able to get up to the Edmonton con and, should the Post Script team be about, I'll be able to find out which route gets taken.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 802: Daughters of Knights #1, 2017

The last of my individual comics from the con today. Everything else is a graphic novel. I had a lovely chat with Mr. Rosia at the con about comics and community. He's a proponent of Panel One, a loose conglomerate of local comics creators who share resources and support in order to produce wonderful art. They've got a festival coming up on June 3, if you happen to be in the Calgary area.

Today's comic is the first of five parts, and I'm intrigued by the story thus far. A medieval setting, accusations of witchcraft, and a final 6 pages that are definitely amongst the creepiest I've seen in comics in a long while. I'm going to focus on these last pages today, because they gave me a rather Lovecraftian vibe. The story tells of a young woman with a facial deformity who is accused of witchcraft, but blames the deaths for which she's held accountable on a demon. It's unclear whether or not the demon is real, even in the last pages where things definitely seem to take a turn for the supernatural.

What's Lovecraftian, at least to me, about this section is that though the art definitely depicts particular images, the precise things that are happening, especially on the last page, are not shown in full - we're left to use our imaginations to really get a sense of what's going on, and we all, I think, know that what we imagine is always going to be worse than reality. I'm not kidding when I say that this sequence creeped me out. But what's interesting to me is that while the story can definitely be read literally, there's something about it that also speaks to me metaphorically. What kinds of demons might someone with this kind of deformity harbour within them, especially given the treatment she's likely to have undergone in a relatively unenlightened time? Was it an actual demon that was responsible for the crimes she's committed, or something more subtle? I suppose, in the end, the answer is that it is a demon - where it comes from matters little.

One other thing I quite liked about the comic is that, even though she's been taken captive, Seraphine, our focal character, refuses to take any shit from her captors. Couple this with a mysterious other lady that watches the caravan cart Seraphine away, and I think we've got the potential for a couple of strong female leads in this comic. In the wake of Marvel's recent blame of falling sales on diversity, this is a very, very important thing for us to bear in mind.

I'm hoping there'll be a second issue out by the time the Panel One Festival rolls around, but if not, Mr. Rosia has a few other works out that I'll be very, very happy to pick up.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 7 - PostScript, The First and Second Collections, 2016

Of late, one of my favourite things to do at a comic convention is to wander the indie artist's aisles and pick up strange and interesting pieces. It's not a habit I've been in for much of my con-going life, which, in retrospect, I'm quite sorry for. I've found some really great pieces of art and of comics over the last few years at conventions, and I wonder how much I have missed at previous cons when my focus was on the boxes and boxes of comics for me to pour through.

(That said, one of my gripes with the Calgary Expo was that there was very little as far as boxes of comics to go through. I had to keep reminding myself that it was an entertainment expo, not just a comic con.)

PostScript takes up a relatively common narrative device of questioning exactly what is meant by "happily ever after" at the end of a fairy tale. Works like Castle Waiting and Fables take up just such a question as well, and what strikes me is that it's a question that can be taken up by numerous writers and the answers they come up with can be strikingly dissimilar, given the commonality of the source material. Which is a roundabout way of saying that PostScript offers a fresh take on what happens after the tales of the Three Little Pigs, the Gingerbread Man, and various other characters embedded deep within the collective unconscious.

Mr. Moogk-Soulis's art is adorable, and there's a danger in judging a book by its cover that one might think that all this collection is is adorable. But it's not. Sisyphus, the third little pig, continually tries to eat Ginger, his baked compatriot. The princess and the dragon have a strangely domestic arrangement going on, one in which she seems to hold the upper hand. The valiant prince is occasionally naked, and isn't really particularly smart. PostScript reminds us, in much the same way that the sadly short-lived TV series Galavant did, that while the fairy tale can certainly continue, its characters have to grow and adapt to the new status quo that's asserted after their gently traumatic tales.

As with many inaugural collections, we can see both the artist and the characters searching for their voices in this collection. I enjoyed immensely the interaction between the princess and the dragon, and look forward to seeing more of them in later collections. Sisyphus and Ginger have a strange and slightly unhealthy relationship, and I am interested to see how that develops. I'm not that interested in seeing the prince develop much more, but that's because I actually think he's pretty great just the way he is. His squire, on the other hand, is wonderful, and I can't wait to see more of him.

Comics to Check Out - Redcoat West, by Natalie Asplund

I'm part of a research project with Catherine Burwell of the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary (that's a lot of capitals), a project that focusses on young creators in digital and traditional media, and their relationship to intellectual property laws.

As part of the research for the project, I'm doing some interviews, and one of them will be with the creator of this comic, Redcoat West: A North West Mounted Police webcomic. I've just finished reading the first chapter, and it's really excellent.

I'm not super familiar with webcomics, but I'm trying to branch out. This comic pulled me in and kept me interested - it puts me in mind of Scott Chantler's excellent Northwest Passage series, though with a little more sci-fi. You should check it out.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 6 - Ihtsipatapiyoop [Creator], 2014

(I'm going to make a concerted effort to getting back to a graphic novel a week. Really oughtn't be that hard, but we'll see how it goes.)

It's not often (okay, maybe never) that one walks past a table at a comic convention and sees free graphic novels. So when it happens, I take notice. As I strolled down one of the artist alleys at this year's Calgary Con, I happened across Brian Batista's table, and was drawn in by his fantastic visions of Hindu deities. I picked up a print of Ganesha (Opener of Ways), and chatted with him for a bit about pop culture, the academy, and the lovely nuttiness of the convention. And then I had to double check and ask if the two stacks of graphic novels he had on the table were actually free.

Mr. Batista works with the Urban Society for Aboriginal Youth, meshing education in art with traditional stories and knowledge to produce graphic novels. One of the products of this collaboration is the graphic novel Ihtsipatapiyoop, a tale of the power of art to create, and recreate, the world we live in. The story is told both in one dialect of the Blackfoot language and in English, providing a nicely fluid linguistic representation of the harmony that is sadly lacking between Indigenous and Settler cultures in this country. The variety of young artists on this book (Christian Boulet, Maria One Spot, Christiana Latham, Samuel Bighetty, Garry Geddes, Mitchell Poundmaker) manage to avoid the troubles often associated with an artist's jam, and demonstrate the ways that different perspectives and styles can mesh into a whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts. There are moments in the piece, marking the transitions from one artist to the next, where their art overlaps, and it's a technique that works remarkably well in the context of the tale. Also of note, from a technical vantage point, is the complete lack of panel borders in the work. Moments flow into one another, and this very simple erasure of one of the fundamental elements of graphic storytelling reflects a much more holistic world view. It also reminds us that, narratively, the whole of what we are seeing is flowing from a paint brush, and eschews boundaries in a way that only liquid can. Equally inspired by mainstream comics, manga, and traditional Indigenous art, the journey of the artist Sage to rediscover her world and her traditions reminds us all that the past, the present, and the future are fundamentally linked, and that we are all responsible for creating our own realities. While explicitly speaking to the concerns of Indigenous peoples here in Canada, and more broadly the world over, this message of self-creation is a vital one for everyone. We are all the artists of our own realities. It's easy to forget, and very often hard to remember. A graphic novel like this one helps remind us.

I have a couple more graphic novels produced through USAY, and they both include discs with recordings of Elders telling the stories upon which the graphic novels are based. I'm hoping to be able to find links to the recordings online somewhere once I get to those GNs. Have a look at both Mr. Batista's site and the USAY site for more information on this and other similar projects. A very cool story by some wonderful young artists.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 266: The Art of Dodging Shadows #4, 2004

(I'll post a picture once I've scanned the cover tomorrow. I'm blogging this from bed.)

Nicholas Johnson's crime caper wraps up pretty much how I expected, which I'm pretty glad about because I'd hate for anything untoward to have happened to some characters that I've really grown quite fond of. I really do hope he manages to put out a trade of this series, because it's really good and I think that it would read really well as a continuous book, rather than the serialized pamphlet.

That's an interesting notion, actually. I could have, had I wanted to, read the whole series as a continuous book, even though I have it in four issues, by dint of the fact that I have all four issues. But even that separation is enough to consider it as a serialized story, rather than as four chapters in a single story. It makes me wonder just how much we are conditioned to react to a story by the medium it is presented in, and not just the medium (yes, yes, Mr. McLuhan), but the particular format of the medium in which it's presented. I know that I would have reacted differently reading this as a trade in one sitting rather than reading it as four separate issues in one sitting. There are connotations of time in the serially-published pamphlet. It is virtually impossible, even in the back of one's head, to ignore the fact that time has passed between the installments of the story, even if, in narrative time, no time has passed at all. But how exactly does that change one's reading experience?

I'll venture that the implicit knowledge of time passing in publishing terms while no time, or very little, has passed in narrative terms introduces a kind of cognitive dissonance into the reading of a story. It only happens with some comics, though. If the story you're reading ends, and the next month's comic starts a new story, and time has passed, that dissonance is not present. Conversely, if a story ends on a cliffhanger (as issue #3 of Shadows did), the return to that story, sometimes months later, induces in a reader the feeling of time having passed and no time having passed all at the same time.

Interesting. I'll have to see if I can put my finger on what kind of effect this might have on appreciation or reaction to the story. But not now. I'm tired (remember, I'm in bed posting this) and it's time for sleep. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 265: The Art of Dodging Shadows #3, 2003

Continuing on with the adventures of the most lovable hitmen you're ever likely to come across...

Last issue's preview box for this issue said something about a pixie, and I really was wondering how that was going to fit into the overall narrative, but Mr. Johnson manages it with some panache. I, honestly, would read a solo series about Reggie (just in case you're reading, Nicholas) and his experiments in sleep deprivation. There would be so much madness and it would be awesome.

The plot moves along at its usual brisk pace here though, and this is an interesting narrative choice, there's a plot going on in the background of all the capers and gunplay of a guy courting a young lady (that'd be Gabe, our main character). It's interesting because this is the sort of romantic story that might start taking center stage in this kind of story, about a hitman wanting to give up his violent life and have a "normal" one. But that story isn't foregrounded here, which really is kind of refreshing. The story's more about a young man dealing with his, admittedly, extreme parental issues, and it's cool to see the story stay on that track, rather than derail into the rom-com mode. All the elements are there, but Mr. Johnson deftly avoids them, and gives us a cool-ass caper about a guy who's hired to kill his dad.

It'll be interesting to see how things wrap up in the next issue, whether or not the romantic story will take over, whether or not Reggie will ever sleep again, and who exactly is going to end up on the wrong end of a gun. Though, that said, I'm not entirely certain which end is the right end.

See you tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 264: The Art of Dodging Shadows #2, 2003

I got a really nice email from Nicholas Johnson, who, in his own terms, executed this comic, after I reviewed the first issue a few weeks ago. I dropped him a line to let him know I'd read it, and he was happy to see that the comic is still in circulation. He's hoping to collect it into a trade, and I'd urge anyone who can to grab a copy. So I thought that since he'd been nice enough to write back, I'd read some more of his excellent comic.

And it really is excellent. I noted last time that the art style and the story are an interesting mix, but I'd like to speak a bit more about the art right now. Mr. Johnson has a really great grasp of the cinematic quality that the comic book page affords. Though that's not really the right way of putting it. It's a quality that is purely comics, but the closest I can come to describing the way we've seen this quality before is to call it cinematic. It's the equivalent for that in comics.

Anyway, there's a great action sequence at the beginning, lots of bullets and blood flying, and Gabe, our focal character executes some cool acrobatics to take down the hitmen who are, literally, gunning for him. The bends and lines of Gabe's body as he jumps and flips through space are really lovely, especially in contrast to the vertical lines of the background and the horizontal trails of the bullets as they barely miss him. Late in the comic, we have a pan-out from Reggie's sleep-deprived eyeball that perfectly conveys the state of mind Reggie is in, half in and half out of the world. Not only are the designs of the characters well-rendered, but so is Mr. Johnson's use of the form.

The story moves along at a similar pace to the first issue. It moved in a direction I sort of saw coming, but I'm interested to see how the caper gets pulled off. Interested enough to probably read the third issue tomorrow. Join me then to see if I'm a big liar!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 221: Black Bastard Wizard World Chicago Preview Edition, 2001

So this is a weird comic. We'll round off the week of self-published comics with something I've had in my collection for a long time, but I'm still unsure as to whether I enjoy it or not.

I've read it a few times over the years since I first got it at the Fan Expo in Toronto. I'm still not sure if it's a savagely ironic send up of the "Blaxploitation" films and television shows of the late Seventies, or if it's just mean. I like to err on the side of the former, because I'm eternally optimistic, but it's a pretty harsh comic.

And funny. Don't get me wrong. But harsh.

I'm not sure I have too much to say about it. The story really does poke fun at all of the ridiculous disco-era tropes that gave us the likes of Shaft and Foxy Brown. What is kind of cool about it, though, is that it takes these tropes and completely eviscerates them, but in a kind of loving way. It kind of acknowledges the wistfulness of nostalgia, but attacks with the fury of understanding.

Which I guess makes it a pretty fascinating comic. But it's definitely a weird comic.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 220: Beat City #8, 2002 (?)

I bought Beat City many moons ago at Toronto's awesome "Word on the Street" festival one of the years when they closed down a huge chunk of Queen Street and let the literati loose upon it. Sean Ward was selling his comic on a street corner, out of a box, so I bought one.

There are super monkeys, super dudes, disco dancing villains, go go girls, and a trophy. This is a strange, strange comic, and if the monkey commentary at the beginning is anything to go by, it was made up as Mr. Ward went along. I believe it.

Of course, this is what makes it kind of cool. It's a surrealist superhero disco comic, and I can pretty safely say I've never read anything that fits that description before. Jim Mahfood's Generation X Underground Special comes close, but doesn't have quite as much disco. Mr. Ward's art puts me in mind of Saturday morning cartoons, but it's like we're seeing them through the lens of still coming down from the acid trip the night before.

I'll see what other self-published madness I can pull out tomorrow, and then I think we'll get back to Mr. Jones and his science fiction jewels. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 219: The Art of Dodging Shadows #1, 2002

A bit of a jump back in time today, publication-wise at least. I picked up a stack of self-published comics from Vicious Ambitious, a Calgary-based indie publisher from the early 2000s this summer at a garage sale, and they've been patiently waiting in the stack of things I will read when I'm finished with the PhD. All grad students will recognize that pile as the ever-growing, never-read pile that you eventually store drafts of articles on top of. To combat this, I blew off the dust and grabbed a comic.

I'll admit, the crime/mob/hitman genre of story telling has never been a favourite of mine. I have a slight moral compunction (one of the few) with celebrating this kind of criminal enterprise in the form of fiction, something I hold to be sacred. So I was reading this comic well out of my comfort zone. This is not always a bad thing, and often a very good thing, to do.

Nicholas Johnson's got an interesting art style. I've talked quite a bit over the last few weeks about this idea of abstraction and the removal of detail in cartooning styles. Mr. Johnson's style is definitely in this area, but is as different from the other works I've talked about as they are from each other. I was recently reading a piece by Northrop Frye about the idea of the relationship between geometrical figures and representational artworks, and he notes that just because everything is based on these ostensible Platonic solids doesn't mean that there's a finite number of combinations of them. His analogy is in reference to myth as the correlate of these geometrical figures for imaginative literature, and I think the metaphor can be extended to the abstracted cartoon-style of comics art. Mr. Johnson's art is as different from Charles Schulz's Peanuts (the example Barbara Postema utilizes when discussing the technique in Narrative Structure in Comics) as Schulz's is from Scott McCloud's cartooned version of himself in Understanding Comics. Yet somehow these disparate-but-related styles manage to convey the same sorts of emotions with just as many details removed. Comics really are a cool communications medium.

Technical stuff aside, and my reservations about the genre, I really like the characters and the direction of the story here. It's got kind of a Grosse Pointe Blank feel to it. Gabriel and Reg, our focal characters, are funny (especially sidekick Reg who experiments in this issue with the notion that we are addicted to sleep, and thus has stayed up for two straight weeks - oh, yeah, he's a hitman too), and the introduction to the story is exciting and intriguing enough that I'm extremely glad to have picked up the next three issues when I found this one. I'm hoping it completes, if not the story, then a story arc.

If you can track it down (the secondary market availability of self-published comics is a real problem, I think), this is worth your time. Great art, good characters, fast-paced and witty dialogue, and a story that sucks you in from page 1. I'll dig through the archive today and see what other self-published goodness I can find. Check out Mr. Johnson's blog. He's still working away at comics, which is lovely to see.

And I'll see you tomorrow.