Ok, I’ve been review silent for too long. To get off to a start I’m going to give a quick paragraph or two to a bunch of comics I got at MoCCA this year. Sorry these are so short, but most of the comics are not really in need of in-depth analysis at this time.
Windy Corner Magazine #1 by Austin English (and other). 80p, 6.5 x 9.5″, $10.
One of the highlight purchases of my trip (and one comic I was planning on getting before I even arrived at the show) is this kind of anthology book edited by Austin English. I say “kind of” anthology because in actuality over 50 pages of this 80 page pamphlet is comics by English himself in the form of two serilaizations. The first is “The Life of Francis” about a young girl in the mid-40s. The other is “My Earliest Memory Comics”, which I assume is autobiographical. Both are drawn in English faux-child-like style with what looks like crayons of some sort. His style might at first glance look like “my kid could do this”, but is rather more sophisticated than that. The child protagonists of the stories is nicely congruent with the art style and the narration (which has the run-on sentence style of a child, going so far as to have sentences starting in one balloon/panel and ending in the next). If you are not familiar with English’s work, you should seek this out (previews at the link above).
This issue also features an interview with Andrice Arp (of Mome, most famously), a few NYC landscapes by Paula Salemme, a short text piece about art school by Steve Lafler, and a 14 page comic by Richard Hahn. Even if I weren’t attracted by English’s work, the Hahn comic alone is worth the price. Entitled “Wordlessness (on steinberg?)”, it is a beautifully abstract narrative with sharp black lines and a mostly dull green color palette punctuated by bright colors (yellow, red, orange, or blue). Really really impressive. Let me stress that. I could frame those pages and hang them on my wall.
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Super Spy: The Treasure by Matt Kindt. A box of 72 2.25 x 1.75″ panels with a map. Signed and numbered.
The most innovative thing I got at the show. You open a tiny box to find 72 comics panels printed in black on brown. A folded up diagram/map shows you how to lay out the numbered panels on a table. It creates what is like an infinite canvas comic in print instead of online. The panels circle around and offer multiple paths of reading. The location of the panels in relation to each other plays an important part of the narrative. A sequence of horizontally and vertically placed panels show cannonballs flying between two ships. On the one side we see a young man injured by one of them and then how his life progresses. On the other side we see a ship sink. A man escapes from the ship and lands on an island where he eats a bird that we see get hit by one of the cannonballs that sunk the man’s ship. In another path the ship is shown (in a downward panel sequence) sinking to the bottom of the sea, where an upward series of panels shows a diver retrieving treasure from the ship. Oh, and there’s a brief spy story in there to connect this with Kindt other “Super Spy” stories. And the illustrations are excellent. This is great.
Here’s an picture of it layed out on my kitchen table:
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Habitual Entertainment 1 + 2 by Will Dinski. Back to back double issue. 56p, 5.5″ x 8″, $6.
Others by Will Dinski. 9p, hand-bound, 3.75″ x 5″, $5.
Dinski’s improvement is clear between these two minis. The former consists of two short stories bound as separate folios but with a single three panel cover (pretty neat, Dinski definitely has a flair for interesting formats). Neither are particularly interesting. “Others” is two short stories bound together on small pieces of board (dark backed bristol board?). The art is more polished than the other mini. Most notably (and what struck me when I first looked at his work) is the use of full panel sized word balloons. Dialogue is in these rectangular word balloons as big as panels. This paces out the image/text in a very linear way. We see character, then we see text (or vice versa) but never in the same panel. He also uses a black rectanglular panel with a little corner turned up at the bottom (like a turning page) to shift scenes. It all makes for a very steady paced comic.
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Satisfactory Comics #7 by Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe. 32p, $3.
Cates and Wenthe are constantly experimenting with methods for creating comics: jams, constraints, 24 hour comics, etc. Each issue of Satisfactory Comics offers some new method(s). This one features a number of constraints based on “seeds” for the stories and different possible permutations for the two creators to split up the creations (premise/script/thumbnails/pencils/dialogue/letters/inks). This makes for a varied and inconsistent bunch of stories (16 in all). The real downside of their work is the place where the constraint and the method get in the way of craft and execution: flat looking artwork, poor skill in inking with pen nibs, and a sense of hurriedness. Still, sometimes the experiment is the point and reason for itself. Unfortunately, I found last issue a more successful endeavor. (My review of the previous issue of Satisfactory Comics.)
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The Others by Matt Madden. 20p, 4.25″ x 5.5″. (a few pages from it on Matt’s blog)
This is great little mini by Madden. He starts off with sketches in a coffee shop, objects then people, noting that “to sketch another person is an act of invention as much as representation.” From there the narration travels from one person to another. The first narrator draws an old man and wonders at his story. The narration shifts to the old man who notices a woman walking past outside to whom the narration them shifts. Each imagines a story for the person they observe and each observation is off the mark. Throughout Madden constantly shifts the drawing style: detailed or sparse, spare lines or thick ones, realism or abstraction. Funny and attractive. Not sure this is available at all anymore.
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Noose by Mark Burrier. 32p, 5.5 x 8.5″, $4.
Dead Letters and Rare Words by Mark Burrier. 60p, 5.25 x 7.5″, $6.
Noose is a set of vignettes centered around a noose hanging over hole in the middle of an empty field. Different characters find it and have different thoughts and experiences there. The stories are sparse. Burrier’s art, composition, pacing are all excellent, but the stories feel a little empty. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel on reading these, or if there is some point to be made of it all.
Dead Letters and Rare Words is a collection of images and words from Burrier’s sketchbooks. Some of the comics parts remind me of Anders Nilsen with birds and mostly abstracted figures talking to each other or doing monologues. Lots of nice sketches and drawings, holding that kind of one time interest there is in paging through someone else’s sketchbook to see what their work looks like when they aren’t making it for a specific published purpose.
Take a look at Mark’s site, linked above. Lots of great illustrations in the gallery section.
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Phase 7 #11 by Alec Longstreth. 56p, 7 x 8.5″, $5.
Somehow I missed Phase 7 #10. This is the continuation of that issue, featuring the story of Longstreth’s entrance into comics and self-publishing, framed in a story of him (or the character of Alec) talking to a psychologist/psychoanalyst. It’s a kind of kunstlerroman in comics form, with lots of narration. Longstreth’s panels on his first mini-comic, trying to keep a steady schedule, and visiting the post office with piles of enveloped minis bring back memories of my time putting out a monthly minicomic. Interesting reading but not particularly great. I do look forward to the future issue he mentions where he drew a comic about everyday life in art history.
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The Sundays by various. 54p, 11 x 17″, $15.
This was a big buzz book at MoCCA, a large anthology edited by students at the Center for Cartoon Studies inspired by large format Sunday newspaper strips. Unfortunately, it’s quite the letdown. The comics in here are not aided by the generously large format nor are most particularly reminiscent or show any interest/knowledge in the Sunday pages of the past (other than a shout out to McCay, and two pages that seem to be partially aping Tarzan mixed with Disney’s Jungle Book). There isn’t a single page in here that really jumped out at me and excited me or made me gaze in wonder or interest. They had a great idea, but I’m not sure they really knew what to do with it.
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The Anatomy of Us by Karla Krupala. 16p, 7 x 8.5″.
The first page describes this as “an exploration in character and story” and “relationships in states of disorder” and “work in progress”. It reads more like a collection of illustrations on a theme than as a narrative or a comic. But the illustrations are very attractive with a mixture of ink and pencil, detail and minimalism, realism and abstraction. Krupala makes good use of text and word balloons throughout. This is dated 2006, and I wonder if there is more to be had of this project. It promises something very interesting in the future, of which this is just a taste.
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Folk Wars by Erin Womack. 8p, 11 x 17″.
This newsprint folio is visually striking and narratively oblique. I’m not sure what it’s about. There are people that look like bedouins and some things that look like they have robotic heads. The bedouins crawl into the mouth of a big head labeled “Mother”. A woman without a face (just eyes) tries to wake a young man lying in a desert. The images, the layouts, and the colors are all wonderful.
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That’s all for now.
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