MadInkBeard

Yesterday was the 6th blogiversary of Madinkbeard the blog. As in recent past years (read last year’s), here’s a rundown of stuff from the past year:

On Phoenix 6: Nostalgia: “Nostalgia” starts out weird and crazy and ends up weird and cartoonishly absurd (yes, I do feel guilty using “cartoonish” in such a negative context). Some of this Tezuka seemed to be making up as he went along, some of it is being forced a little too much into a message, and some of it is just plan ridiculous. And through all this, the issue of “how to live life” is not addressed beyond a base survival instinct. Even pleasure does not enter the equation, as Romy’s whole live is consumed by survival and sad nostalgia. If I were on a distant planet like that, I’d just let the humans die out, me included.

On Lone Wolf and Cub: Rather, in reading the series, I’m seeing how much Koike is slowly unrolling his characters and the world they inhabit, through a seemingly endless series of variations on a fairly simple plot: Ogami Itto (Lone Wolf) is hired to assassinate someone; he succeeds.[1] Almost every story follows this plot, yet Koike is consistently finding variations and subtleties to show more of Itto’s character (and that of his son, Daigoro) and to offer another historical lesson on Japan of the times (17th century). I’m taking the history as history in this series, as I understand much research went into the background if not necessarily the primary plot.

On Phoenix 9: Strange Beings: This is half of a page showing a rare use of very small panels by Tezuka. It’s almost a consistent pattern of shrinking panels except for the one panel that is made to stand out in the center. This sequence is the end of a flashback, so the shrinking panels are the past fading back into the past before opening up again into the present.

I made a zine of comics criticism.

I finished up a series on Tezuka’s Phoenix.

On Allan Haverholm’s comics: Haverholm makes remarkable use of negative space in his images. At first a kind of rhythmic placement of blank rectangular frames, then the placement of spaces to emphasize elements in the page: a table in negative space holds a rendered handgun, a large area of negative space separates a group of musicians from the table, now rendered, still holding the gun. The negative space works as a slow revealing act on the handgun. First by framing it, then by taking on the shape of the gun itself, as seem in this remarkable spread.

On Oishinbo: What matters is the food and the education, and Oishinbo shines in that respect, helped a lot by the art. Hanasaki mixes a number of shifts in representation into his work. The primary characters all have a classic manga look to them: caricatural and round with big eyes. The backgrounds have a more structured and geometric realism to them, again, a rather classic manga style. But the food, it is drawn in an almost photorealistic style, forcing the reader’s attention onto the real focus of the manga. Even wine and sake bottles are drawn with extremely detailed labels. Hanasaki also uses a photographic style for certain panels that show backgrounds or scenes important to the education aspect. When talking about sake production, panels show nearly photographic images of sake brewers at work. In a liquor store, discussing how sake and wine are stored, panels show the shelves of bottles in near photographic style.

I did a close reading of a Toth romance comic.

I translated something for du9 on Poison River and wrote pieces for them on scale Kramer’s Ergot 7 and Moriarty’s The Complete Jack Survives.

I feel in love with Aidan Koch’s comics once and then later again.

On the ending of Asterios Polyp: Is it tragedy? The Orpheus dream sequence might lead one in that direction, but Asterios’ death is not necessarily a tragic death. Consider the distance between the potential death at the beginning of the story–lightning strike or death in a fire–and the implied death at the end. At the beginning, Asterios is alone, seemingly depressed, and looking backwards, reliving(watching) the past. Death is avoided, temporarily, and in this reprieve he makes amends with Hana, he even finally builds something (a treehouse). The whole story is like a moment of grace, an opportunity for happiness for Asterios. Orpheus is granted this opportunity, but he loses his chance. Asterios’ Orpheus dream is what could have been but is not. He gets his love back, if only long enough for some peace before they both move onto rest in it.

I had a comic in the Abstract Comics anthology from Fantagraphics.

I wrote an article for Graphic Novel Review where I cooked some recipes out of Oishinbo.

I made a recipe comic for 24 Hour Comics Day.

I reviewed a novel, Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s Running Away, for Words Without Borders.

I finished up Things Change Book Four, put the series on (probably permanent hiatus), and made free pdf downloads of the whole series.

I made a comic for every day in November.

I wrote a lot of short reviews in December.

On a story in Map of My Heart: In some way, these views outside of the expected are a form of estrangement, making something strange so we must look at it anew. Towards the end of the story when John looks in the window of his own house at his cat sleeping on a chair, he is, in some way, estranging his own view of “home”, seeing it from a new perspective. This is further enhanced by the way he’s joined two panels together (see above), each showing a different image of Maisie (the cat) sleeping, yet connected together (note the lack of gutter). Are these two panels at all? Or are we simultaneously seeing John’s view and a second view of our (the reader’s) very own. The scalloped shape that bridges the two/one images is both bush (alongside the house) and thought balloon.

I fell in love with Okazaki’s two page spreads in Supply.

My best comics of 2009 list.

I discovered Pascal Matthey’s non-narrative scenic comics.

I had a long conversation with Craig Fischer about Abstract Comics.

I did not like Crumb’s Genesis.

I wrote about Thierry Groensteen’s comics user’s manual.

For much more, take a browse through the archives (tags or months) linked at the top of the page.