MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro. A Drifting Life. Drawn & Quarterly, 2009. 856p. ISBN: 9781897299746. This massive autobiographical manga has been appearing on a lot of the early best of 2009 lists, and while I can, to a point see, why, I’m not in agreement. A Drifting Life is, basically, the story of Tatsumi’s early entry into the [...]

Overby, Jason. Solipsist’s Doodles. 2008. 5.5″ x 8.5″ mini, 32 pages, $2.75 from his site. After I wrote about his previous mini, Jessica, Jason Overby was kind enough to send me his most recent publication. While I was impressed by the style and disappointed by the story of Overby’s last work, the three short stories [...]

I’ve been following Tym Godek’s blog for quite awhile now, and I’m finally getting around to mentioning a few interesting comics he’s put up. This post features a number of autobiographical/diary strips from late October. I always enjoy Tym’s clear and simple style, but it’s his penchant for formal play that makes some of the [...]

Tomine, Adrian. Shortcoming. Drawn & Quarterly, 2007. Hardcover, black and white, 108p. $19.95, ISBN: 9781897299166. Adrian Tomine is a bit of an anomaly in comics. Shortcomings, his latest book, is a work of psychological realism that I cannot avoid referring to as “literary fiction” with a bit of a negative subtext. Pulling apart my feelings [...]

A look at two comics from Electrocomics.

Austin Kleon posted some quotes from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which included the oft-said “write what you know” advice: Write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with heartfelt, [...]

The number of comics in the “to blog” pile in my office is a little overwhelming. Some are slated for longer appreciations, but many, I suspect would benefit just as well from a quicker look at the highlights or just whatever caught my interest in the work. Or maybe, as happened in this case, a [...]

Ken Parille (the most interesting writer at Blog Flume) writes about David Chelsea, autobiography, and point of view (p.o.v.). He summarizes Chelsea’s comments in 24×2: He argues that that well-known autobiographical comic creators like Crumb, Pekar, Paley, and Spiegelman “get it wrong.” They falsify experience by employing what could be called an “objective camera” point [...]

Trains Are… Mint by Oliver East. Blank Slate Books, 2008. Hardcover, color, 122p, $24.99. (You can order from here.) Trains Are… Mint #5 by Oliver East. Rolling Stock Press, 2008. 52p. color mini, 5 pounds. Oliver East walks around England (Manchester and its environs), from train station to train station, trying to follow the tracks [...]

Chippendale, Brian. Maggots. Picturebox Inc, 2007. 4″ x 6″, 344 p. $21.95. ISBN: 9780978972264. I listed Brian Chippendale’s Ninja as one of my favorite comics of 2006. It was my first reading of a long work by Chippendale, my experience up to that point a few brief pages in an anthology here or there. Long [...]

Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters (2001). Translated by Anjali Singh. Houghton Mifflin, 2008. 192p, $18.95. The comics that get the most attention in the wider press seem to be those with the most socio-political relevance, those that deal with certain “issues” (think Maus, think Persepolis). Houghton Mifflin’s hit from 2006, Fun [...]

Trains Are Mint… by Oliver East. Rolling Stock Press. If the reader takes Oliver East’s comics at their face value (and I do), they are autobiographical accounts of walking. In issues 2, 3, and the forthcoming 5 (of which I have a 12 page preview) he walks around parts of northwestern England following the train [...]

Yukiko’s Spinach by Frederic Boilet (2001). Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 2006. $18.99. The opening scene in Frederic Boilet’s nouvelle manga Yukiko’s Spinach consists of seven pages, each divided into three vertical panels. They show bright lights, buildings, and gaudy signs but not people. The lights are blurry white circles. In one sequence at the end, a hotel [...]

My review of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) is up at The Quarterly Conversation. Here’s last para if you want to skip to the recommendation part: Although Bechdel’s name is familiar to me, I must admit that this is the first work of hers I’ve seen. I’ll further admit that [...]

One Hundred Demons By Lynda Barry Sasquatch Books, 2002. 9.5″ X 6″, 224 p., full color, $17.95. I used to read Lynda Barry’s “Marlys” strips in the back of the local alt-weekly paper. While I’ve never been a big fan of stories about childhood, something about the way the stories seemed to be written as [...]

Cole, Allison. Never Ending Summer. Alternative Comics, 2004. Autobiographical comics are a rather large genre. Once you get past superheroes, they may be the biggest genre in English comics, from old standards like Crumb and Pekar through Eddie Campbell, Julie Doucet, John Porcellino, to newer creators like Jeffrey Brown and James Kolchalka. Allison Cole’s first [...]