MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

Le Voyage brings on these thoughts. Baudoin is a wonderful visual stylist–his art is dynamic, engaging, lovely to behold–but his writing, or at least the story of this volume, is far less interesting, in fact it seems rather clichéd to me. Simon, the protagonist, one day leaves his wife, child, home, and job and starts off on a voyage. This flight is unplanned, rather at the breakfast table his head strangely opens up and starts showing images above it.

This week I spent an autumn afternoon watching Yasujiro Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon (Criterion, 2008). Then I spent an autumn evening watching it a second time with the excellent commentary by David Bordwell (whose blog I highly recommend). His is one of those rare commentaries by someone who has interesting and intellingent things to say [...]

[This was originally written in the summer of 2007 for a print publication. Since it has yet to appear, I'm posting it here. I'm going to post each of the three parts as a separate post during the course of the week. While they are part of one piece, they are also independent.] My enthusiasm [...]

Rüegg, Niklaus. SPUK (Thesen gegen den Frühling). Zurich: Edition Fink, 2004. ISBN 9783906086743. Almost all comics are figurative (that is, representational). More than that, the greater cultural awareness of comics is through characters. A great swath of the field (comic strips, comic books, manga, bd) is covered by the neverending (or nearly neverending) narratives of [...]

Two scans courtesy of Andrei Molotiu from the book SPUK (Thesen gegen den Frühling) by Niklaus Rüegg (Edition Fink Zurich Switzerland). The book is made up of Cark Barks’ duck comics without the ducks, just backgrounds. Beautiful work, I wish I could read a copy, but it is expensive/out of print. Something like this really [...]

On Walt and Skeezix 1925-1926 (Drawn & Quarterly, 2007) and Sundays with Walt and Skeezix (Sunday Press Books, 2007). I haven’t written about Gasoline Alley yet, though I’ve been buying and reading the reprints that are coming out– the three volumes of dailies from Drawn & Quarterly and the Sundays collection from Sunday Press. I [...]

Whoa Nellie! by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics, 2000) In the wake of Ghost of Hoppers, I’ve been rereading the post-Locas books from Jaime Hernandez, starting off with this short graphic novel. One of the best parts of his work is the way his stories constitute the ongoing lives of the protagonists. Over time the reader’s immersion [...]

Archie Americana: The Best of the Sixties by ?. Archie Comics, 1995. 96p. $9.95. I’ve never read an Archie comic before. I’ve seen them at the grocery store; I think I might have seen a cartoon many years ago. I am familiar with the characters: Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica. They are part of the American [...]

Tom Spurgeon links over to Warren Craghead’s blog. He recently posted his tribute to Charles Schulz, originally published in 2003′s Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions. The unpublished pages are here with links at the bottom to the 6 pages of the original version. In light of my recent comments on Schulz’s backgrounds, this is [...]