Great Caesar's Ghost

Beware the Ides of March!



read more adventures of Great Caesar's Ghost
Super-Caesar
Wonder Woman's creator on Caesar

Sex Guardian

Canadian superhero action figure discusses sex on a talk show, or something.

Craptain Canuck vs Watchmen, Part 2

3 Superhero Comics That Were Better Than the Watchmen Movie

It should come as no surprise that I felt the best part of the recent Watchmen movie was the ending. Specifically, the choice of music played over the closing credits: Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan." No other song could be so fitting. An ironic, apocalyptic song-poem droned by Cohen over a cheezy, 1980s synth-pop track, the piece perfectly sums up the contradictory impulses at work in the horrible film that preceded it. Serving as a nod both to the conspiratorial nature of the film's plot and to the centrality of the ubermensch Dr. Manhattan character, the song's opening lines, "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom...," perfectly sum up my feelings after sitting through the seemingly interminable movie.

The best part of the recent Watchmen hoopla and hype is that it has re-opened the critical debate on the comic book source material of the movie. Stalwart soldiers for the cause of comic art, like Jeet Heer, take a stance against all superhero comics that are not straight parodies or fun kids' stuff. Others, like cartoonist-critic Frank Santoro, say you have to be a true-believer to even begin to understand where Alan Moore is coming from. Somewhere in the vast middle is Tom Spurgeon who, while he pans the film, still finds several interesting approaches to enjoying the graphic novel.

There is no denying the graphic novel is interesting, a workmanlike, well-crafted, intricately plotted story packed-full of stimulating and often funny ideas about superheroes and politics, but it is essentially a failed masterpiece the parts of which never really cohere in any significant way. A great gaudy graphically complex book, Watchmen nevertheless suffers from Dave Gibbons stiff figure drawing and Moore's shallow characterizations, unbelievable plot, and ambiguous relationship to the material.

In truth, it is extremely hard to take superhero adventures seriously, let alone craft aesthetically sophisticated versions of them for adults. The most successful contemporary examples of mass-market superhero comics seem to straddle a fine line between slick genre exercises that meld aspects of crime fiction to superhero fantasy and utter fannish dreck that would have been rejected by producers of 1970s Saturday morning cartoons. There is only so much metaphor and thematic density a rickety genre about magic boyscouts in circus costumes can support.

For your consideration, another group of superhero-related comics that attempt to do something with the genre, inspired by Sean Rogers' recent Watchmen "Corrective":

1. Trashman by Spain Rodriguez

(collected in Trashman Lives! by Fantagraphics Books)

Originally appearing in 1960s underground press forums like the East Village Other and in Spain's own Subvert comic book series, Trashman answers the question nobody asked, "What if Jack Kirby's Sgt. Fury was a horny Marxist from the future?" Spain re-imagines the traditional superhero story from the point of view of a working-class leftist militant confronted with creeping political fascism and corporate capitalism, confronting it with paranoid drug-influenced page layouts and plotting, clunky post-Kirby figure drawing, heavy black inks, and trippy sloganeering and self-referentiality, all set in a fantasy of revolutionary sex and violence. Trashman is really a prole named Harry Barnes who is recruited and trained by the Sixth International to fight the cops and defend the workers. Trashman has several paranormal senses and the ability to change his shape at will, but he mostly likes to shoot people with machine guns in the service of a disjointed narrative --sort of OMAC meets Che Guevera. The Trashman comics are beautiful and funny love letters to a revolutionary ideal.

2. Archie as Pureheart

by various

(available in 2010 as Archie: Pureheart the Powerful from IDW)

As explained here, the Archie team decided to simultaneously cash in and parody the craze in superhero comics spurred by the 1960s Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko revolution at Marvel and the revitalization of Silver Age superhero products at DC by penning a series of adventures starring the Riverdale gang as a group of superheroes, with lots of tongue-in-cheek fun and beautiful fluid clean cartooning. It's a self-aware kids comics that's not afraid to take a numbskull premise and run with it, without looking back, and without making a career of it. The result reads like a combination of classic MAD superhero parodies ("Superduperman," et al), Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man, and Otto Binder and CC Beck's Captain Marvel/Shazam comics of the 40s and 50s. The sort of superhero comics that Jaime Hernandez would do, minus the sex and punk rock (but still with lots of fishnet stockings and people hitting each other with their butts).

3. Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware (Fantagraphics)

Ware's searing masterpiece puts Watchmen to shame with its ironic distance, convolutions and diagrammatic precision. A reflection on mortality, failure, family, childhood, and an obsession with superheroes, Jimmy Corrigan is a graphic novel that treats the godlike nature of our heroes with a probing wit and academic artistic scalpel. The fact that both almighty god and a washed-up Steve Reeves-style actor appear as a Superman figure is just a bonus. Did any comic do more for and to the genre of superheroes than Jimmy Corrigan? As Peter Schjeldahl wrote for The New Yorker, "Reading 'Jimmy Corrigan' is like operating an intricate machine whose function is not immediately apparent. Gradually, meanings emerge and emotions crystallize. None gladden." The doom that comes to Jimmy is ultimately more banal and overpoweringly wonderful than the boredom of Dr. Manhattan's demise and resurrection.

Graphic Novel Review: Tamara Drewe

Part 1 of The Best of 2008
(see the full list here)

Tamara Drewe
by Posy Simmonds
(Jonathan Cape/Random House)

review by BK Munn


Posy Simmonds draws the best cows of any living cartoonist and her ability is ably demonstrated in this pastoral farce that reads like Leah McClaren as drawn by Frank Thorne (or maybe David Lodge meets Colleen Doran?) --and is in reality an homage to Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (which was originally illustrated by another woman, Helen Paterson, way back in the 1800s). The book has a wonderful polyvocal narrative centred around the goings-on at a writers' retreat in the English countryside. The titular heroine, a zaftig columnist-turned-novelist, is the catalyst for a series of romantic and literary calamities that befall a small group of creative types forced into close quarters in the wide-open spaces. For a comic, Tamara Drewe has relatively large chunks of text, and the book feels very writer-ly, as befits its source, subject matter, episodic plot, and original serial publication, but it actually has a very tight structure built on a foundation of humour, beauty, and skilled storytelling.

Batwoman loves Catman

I love this cover. Sort of a Freudian dream image combining a child-like approach to lust and femininity with bold iconography. You can see why artists like Dan Clowes have made so much of Silver Age DC comics tropes. Background: Catman was a Batman villain who had a major crush on Batwoman (Kathy Kane) and fantasized about her wearing kinky costumes. Sort of a superhero (or supervillain) stalker. But he had a cool pad and liked cats, so he couldn't be all wrong. The Catman "epic" played out over a scattered trilogy of issues during the mid-60s.

Captain Canuck vs The Nihilists of Sarnia

This classic comic book adventure presents the superhero dilemma in a new light. Canada's favourite son, Capt. Canuck, superhero with a cause, fights U.S. imperialism as only he can, through meditation.

Who Cares If A Comic Book Doesn't Solve a Problem?

I wonder with some of these vendors, these artists, these companies--are they really asking themselves ‘what problem does this solve?’ --Nina Stone

Maybe I just didn't understand the argument, but I'm not sure if I get the point of Nina Stone's post about the New York Comicon. Stone writes with great empathy about the plight of the lonely vendors with empty booths at the convention, dredging up her own memories of being a gifted elementary school near-crybaby and comparing her experience of being thrust into the adult world of problem-solving without the tools or even the desire to figure out solutions in a logical, "adult" way, to the experience of entrepreneurs, publishers and artists who have created products for which there appears to be little or no market. Stone blames the "insular" and "self-serving" (read: childish) nature of comics fans for their inability to be "more successful."

Businesses and products (and art) flounder and fail all the time. And its not just because the creators can't see past their own navels and are stuck in a sort of anal-stage of business development, playing with themselves like monkeys in a cage and filing their own shit in sealed mylar sleeves. If the magic key to "success" was "solve the 'right' problem" (which sounds like "build a better mousetrap" to me), you would still have the same situation. There are so many other factors that go into "success" it's almost not worth talking about. Much more than "guidance," a lot of it seems to be luck and timing. Oh, and intelligence. And talent. And a million other things. And what is "success" anyway? I'm guessing, the financial renumeration enjoyed by people on the bestseller list or people with a blockbuster movie. Or "success" means having a girlfriend or the respect of strangers, maybe?

For many, comic conventions are therapy. They are a thousand other things. Comic conventions --just like hardware conventions or fashion tradeshows-- are also filled with dishonesty and ugliness. Intellectually and aesthetically. Sometimes they are also filled with great art or, at the very least, even products that satisfy a small but needy and grateful market.

Best of 2008

by BK Munn

Of the graphic novels and comics I've read from 2008, here are my favourites. I've categorized according to rough genres. I'm drawn to long-form fiction comics (graphic novels) more than most forms of comics and tend to favour them in my reading and list-making. Dash Shaw's Bottomless Bellybutton was a revelation for me, wonderful art, a mesmerizing, emotional narrative. It was also the work of a relative newcomer, as is the work I've listed in minicomics. I feel kind of silly comparing, say, Jason Kieffer's or Jesse Jacobs' short comics with Shaw's massive book but end-of-year lists seem to do that all the time. Some things are easier to rank. I actually read more new superhero comics in 2008 than in any year since 1986, including large chunks of the latest from Grant Morrison, Brian Bendis, and Ed Brubaker, and I can honestly say that the 6 pages of Gary Panter in Omega #7 and the first two chapters of Jaime Hernandez's superhero saga in the new Love and Rockets blew most of those long-underwear types out of the sky. They were also more profoundly beautiful than several of my choices in other categories.

I also refuse to rank archival re-issues of classic comic strips by past masters, some of the best comics of all time, alongside new minicomics or memoirs or prints of Japanese horror adventure comics. And speaking of translations, I decided to lump the translated Canadian comics on my list in with the other translated comics I read. So, more divisions. I thought of a separate Canadian category for all, but thought the Canuck entries stand up well in international company. It also says something for the current era of comics publishing that there is enough interesting, quite excellent and even wonderful work being published in a number of different categories.

Fiction
Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds
Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw
Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Acme Novelty Library #19 by Chris Ware
Dietch's Pictorama by Kim, Simon and Seth Dietch

Non-Fiction/Memoir/Reportage
What It Is by Lynda Barry
Drop-In by Dave Lapp
My Brain is Hanging Upside Down by David Heatley

Minicomics
Kieffer #2 by Jason Kieffer
Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow by Jesse Jacobs
Small Victories by Jesse Jacobs

Reprints
Breakdowns by Art Spiegelman
Little Orphan Annie Vol 1 by Harold Gray
Popeye Vol 3 by EC Segar

Translations
Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle
Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma
Cat-Eyed Boy by Kazuo Umezu
Red-Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi

Superhero
Love and Rockets #1 by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Omega the Unknown #7 by Gary Panter, Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple

Webcomic
www.harkavagrant.com by Kate Beaton

Canadian Fan Project: Super Letters

More missives from the distant past of fandom, when Canadian comic book fans weren't shy about speaking truth to power:

"As an ardent reader of your fascinating magazines, this is my first opportunity to catch you. In 'The Unknown Superman', you show Strong Bear boring with his hands in the coarse soil and tough rocks. If his ring was not destroyed by that, why was it destroyed when Lois dropped it? And why didn't the ring become indestructible on earth just as everything from Krypton does, if Strong Bear automatically gained superpowers here?" Robert Romano, Montreal Quebec (Lois Lane #52, 1964)

"I though Jimmy Olsen No.101 was just great because it had an interesting plot and plenty of excitement. But in my opinion, it was a mistake to kill off Miri and her father, Dr, Zak-Lor. This was a pretty drastic and unnecessary move, because they were two very important characters in the story. But aside from that, the feature was out of this world!" Arpad de Szoeczy, Weston, Ont. (Jimmy Olsen #103, 1967)

"I say, guv'nor, this is Ringo Starr speaking on behalf of all us Beatles. We are quite flattered that you mentioned us in your comic. But if you're going to put us in, please do it properly. On the first page you show Mr. James Olsen watching us on the telly and your artist depicts us with lapels on our jackets, whereas we have none. We want to thank you for the publicity. You see, we are making all this money to get something we have always needed --a haircut!" Pat (Ringo) Boardman, Toronto (Jimmy Olsen 81, 1964)

"I especially like Rose and Thorn. I am looking forward to seeing much more of her. I don't really know why I like Rose, but maybe its because she has the same haircut I do!" Linda Hamilton, Winnipeg (Lois Lane #108, 1971)

"I truly enjoy your stories, and their characters. They're simply great! I don't believe in telling people of their mistakes, especially since I haven't any to speak of ...So I'm writing just to tell you that I think you're very fair in your attitudes towards your readers. You take the complaints of those who do write to complain, and you answer them constructively. As long as Lois Lane is on sale, I will continue to buy it, and remain a follower of Lois adventures!" Bonnie Erickson, Alberta (Lois Lane #137, 1974)

Superman Robots

Some of the most poignant melodramatic aspects of the Superman family children's comics of the 1950s and 60s involve the Superman robots. Automaton slaves created by scientific genius Superman to act as his backup beards, and kept hidden in the closet when not in use, many classic stories relate the AI-like attempts at individuality and rebellion of these sad creatures. Superman kept his robots stashed away in his parents' basement, in a cave at the North Pole, in the closet of his apartment (whole Phds await!). Supergirl kept her robot double waiting patiently in the trunk of a tree, never sleeping, in those anxiously whimsical stories drawn by Jim Mooney.

The most recent robot tale I've read concerns Robot X-3. While training a new batch of robots (Superman trains his robots instead of programming them with essential information like, "don't let anyone see you change into Clark Kent"), Superman is turned invisible by red kryptonite and X-3 has to take his place and rescue some astronauts. X-3 gets lost in space and ends up on a tiny planet where he meets a stranded mermaid woman who reminds him of Superman's first girlfriend, Lori Lemaris. X-3 is such a hero-worshipper that, when the mermaid dies, he creates a robot mermaid family and builds a little house where he lives forever and happily ever after, kind of like The Little Prince meets Space Family Robinson, as illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger .

My Barbarian

Bringing the "people dressed as Canadian superheroes" file up to date:

David Mirvish Books Closing

The Star
Spacing Toronto

Globe Books

It is quite the news. When I first read about it and posted it to Sequential, I thought that the closing of Mirvish was long overdue, in the context of North American booksellers, and definitely in relation to the book market as constituted by the Book Depots, BMVs, and Chapters/Amazons of the world. No way to compete, despite the deep pockets of the owner. Sure Mirvish Village is a "village," but it's not exactly Guelph, a one (or two) bookstore town. There are tons of (chain) stores within fifteen minutes of Mirvish. Not to mention that the store seemed overstaffed and closed early (chains stay open to 9 or midnight --especially in populous/cosmopolitan areas of megacities). Hell, the Bookshelf in Guelph is open most nights to 8 and our Chapters to 10. (But lets not forget that Heather Reisman set up a $3 million/year fund to Israeli army vets.) Anyway, Mirvish is going online, where they have a very slim chance, based on financial backing, acumen, and customer loyalty, to make a go of it as a boutique/gateway site for moneyed art book buyers. Overall, it was a great space, offering a great service. Books you would never stumble across anywhere if you didn't know what to ask for. Booklaunches for Shary Boyle and other artists. Support for small presses like The Porcupine's Quill. I had many great experiences there and found some great books. Silver lining: maybe the Beguiling will move out of its cramped space across the street, if the rent is reasonable.

NFB Reveals New Site

Canada's National Film Board, or NFB for short, has been producing movies, ranging from animated shorts to documentaries to full-length features, since forever. They gave finally got around to opening a youtube-style website where you can watch all their films. There are over 700 films currently uploaded, with more added daily.

Here are some highlights:

1978 cartoon about death and the afterlife by Ishu Patel


1939 film about unemployment in the Depression


women pilots in WWII by Jane Marsh


Norman McLaren's Le Merle, 1958

Be Nice, Clear Your Ice!

Ben Wicks was a bestselling author, tv host, and cartoonist. But his most lasting contribution to Canadian culture, besides the Ben Wicks Pub in Cabbagetown, may be this awesome public service ad that has inspired millions of Canucks:

Have a Mighty Samson Holiday!

Holiday Fun: Nardwuar is a Canadian Superhero

See the Canadian punk king rock out while dressed as Marvel Comics' Canadian superhero The Guardian:

Happy Birthday Beethoven

bonus: make a Schroeder toy

Top 5 Fictional Comic Books

I recently read with interest this examination of books that never existed outside of fiction on the Guardian Book Blog. In that discussion of Borges-style imaginary books like The Blind Assassin from the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, a poster in the comments section mentioned several apocryphal novels glimpsed fleetingly in a sequence from Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic book. The post made me think about my favourite examples of "fictional" comic books and cartoon characters, as featured in some classic comics and graphic novels.

5. "The Comic Book Archer" (Adventure Comics 269) by Robert Bernstein and Lee Elias

In this 1960 story, superhero and Robin Hood imitator Green Arrow tries to help a young comic book artist get published in "All-Star Comics" by reproducing the feats of the cartoonist's creation, "Wizard Archer." This is a fun little gem from the Silver Age of U.S. comics that features a self-referential, behind-the-scenes peek at a DC-like comics company, in which caricatures of writer Robert Bernstein and cartoonist Lee Elias appear to explain how comic books are made ("The artists draw whatever the writers tell them to in their scripts!"). Of course, the upshot is that Green Arrow proves the archery tricks that appear in the comic can actually be accomplished in "real life" and so Wizard Archer appears in the next issue of All-Star, which finds a space on the shelves alongside Atlantis Comics, The Golden Avenger, and Western Heroes. (this story is reprinted in Showcase Green Arrow)

4. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)

The comic-within-a-comic of this graphic novel is the famous Tales from the Black Freighter, the pirate comic and Brecht-reference that answers the question, what kind of comics would kids read in a world where superheroes are real? Text pieces in the book suggest that Tales was part of a larger pirate genre, spear-headed by EC's Piracy. The pirate story "Marooned" is used by Moore as part of the elaborate system of parallels and gothic devices that make up the bally-hooed structure of Watchmen and still reads today as an affecting piece of purple prose, regardless of the repellent stiffness of Gibbons drawings.

3. Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks (Drawn and Quarterly)

This graphic novel about an American journalist investigating the bizarre secrets of a small New Zealand town is equal parts ode to comics and metatextual exegisis of comics storytelling. It also contains more than its fair share of imaginary comics (or comics-within-comics), including Captain Tomorrow -- the creation of New Zealand ex-pat Dick Burger, an autobiographical minicomic by Burger's ex-assistant Sam Zabel, and mysterious about maps, Maori, and Captain Cook. At the heart of the book lies the mystery of the Hicksville Lighthouse, repository of all of the great comic might-have-beens, the mythical comics that the world's greatest artists and writers would have created if not constrained by commerce and the philistinism of comic book production in the 20th Century. Thus, we are treated to the exquisite idea of Harvey Kurtzman's magnum opus History of War, lying alongside lost works by Jack Kirby, Picasso, Winsor McCay, and untold hundreds of others.

2. David Boring by Daniel Clowes (Pantheon)

This graphic novel has been described by Clowes as "Fassbinder meets half-baked Nabokov on Gilligan's Island" and largely resists summarization. It deals in small part with efforts of the eponymous lead to learn more about his father, a cartoonist who worked on a superhero comic book called The Yellow Streak. The single extant issue of the comic book exists only in fragmented form, having been torn up by Boring's mother. Piecing together the few panels of the comic remaining, it appears that the Yellow Streak comic is a synthesis of Superman and Johnny Thunder, but the story is mostly unreadable, portraying a weird Freudian nightmare universe akin to the world created by Wayne Boring and other artists of the Weisinger-era Superman comics, the world of Jimmy Olsen and the Phantom Zone. Boring's efforts to make sense of these fragments, trying to find some reference to the real world history or psyche of his father form one of the major subplots of the book and relate to Clowes' recurring themes of alienation and authenticity.

1.
Wimbledon Green by Seth (D+Q)

Seth's first graphic novel, It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken, introduced us to the fictional New Yorker cartoonist Kalo, one of the great hoaxes of modern comics. Seth wrote an introduction to Horrock's Hicksville and seems to have a soft spot for imaginary comics. Wimbledon Green is the story of an Uncle Scrooge-like comic collector who criss-crosses the country looking for the world's most rare and obscure comics, including such gems as The Green Ghost #1 (the Holy Grail of comics collectors), All Bedtime Comics and Mighty Orbit. But the cream of Wimbledon Green's collection is the classic hobo comic book, Fine and Dandy, a wonderful series that recalls 30s comic strips, Laurel and Hardy, and the work of John Stanley, a Seth touchstone and idol.

Review: Manga Serials

I missed out on responding to Tom Spurgeon's most recent "5 for Friday" questionnaire, Right to Left, or, "Name Five Manga Series You Personally Are In The Midst Of Reading, Whether Or Not The Series Is Ongoing Or Finished." Since the last time I reviewed a random manga title was awhile ago, I thought I'd respond to Spurgeon's quiz here:

The most recent translated Japanese comic I read was Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy, a wonderfully evocative existential graphic novel about two young lovers in 1970s Japan, which the comics critic Bill Randall has suggested owes a large debt to gegika pioneer Yoshiharu Tsuge. But this is a stand-alone novel, and one of the better ones I've read this year. In terms of multi-volume stories, however, my reading has generally been limited to adolescent and melodramatic genre fare.

1. Cat-Eyed Boy and The Drifting Classroom, by Kazuo Umezu

The beautifully packaged Cat-Eyed Boy (published by VIZ) tells the story of the titular feline demon, equal parts Tintin, Sluggo, Ditko-era Peter Parker, and Klarion the Witch-Boy, an itinerant monster-fighter who enjoys living in people's attics and defending children and their families (usually against their will) from (sometimes quite disturbing) manifestations of evil. Cat-Eyed Boy is a perfect serial character (the stories originally ran in a kids magazine with a horror edge, a fact referred to in several episodes), with a built in appeal to younger readers centred on the hero's rejection by society as well as a childlike approach to plot and narrative logic, not to mention horrific, "I dare you to look"-style imagery. The stories are disgusting, scary, hilarious, and emotionally powerful. I burned through the two-volume omnibus edition of these books, and the horrific images, humour, and cartooning artistry have stayed with me. The amazing, Willy Wonka-flavoured book design is discussed by Chris Butcher here).

By contrast, I am slowly savouring Umezu's magnum opus, The Drifting Classroom, ordering two volumes at a time and waiting anxiously between installments (I've just finished volume 6). The story, about an entire school of Japanese children mysteriously transported to a post-apocalyptic future, and the resulting Lord of the Flies-style debacle that ensues, is a breakneck, fast-paced horror-thriller about loyalty, familial love, politics, savage murder, giant insect creatures, Plague, and the howling fear of imminent, inevitable dirty death. The original serial nature of the work shows in its overall frantic pace, where events tumble over each other, unchecked, with very little in the way of pacing, reflection or character development. But it is thrilling, sad, and spooky.

2. Dororo by Osamu Tezuka

I've only read the first volume of Vertical's 3-volume collection of this disturbing 1960s Tezuka classic, written in the vein of Kurosawa meets Frankenstein. The story, about a young urchin who teams up with a ronin, who is really a bizarre Pinocchio-like character whose body parts have been stolen by demons, is gross and mesmerizing, with great storytelling and Tezuka's patented cross-genre goofiness. The book design of this series, like most of Vertical's offerings, is beautiful.

3. Nana by Ai Yazawa

I first became aware of Nana, a sort of punk soap opera several levels below, continents and generations removed from Love and Rockets, by flipping through the pages of Shojo Beat magazine at the grocery store a few years ago. The most accessible, recognizingly human, and serious of the many girls' manga series on the market in North America that I've encountered, the story, about two young women trying to make it in the big city, is compelling, humourous, and sharply-drawn. Very much a melodrama, the book packaging of the first two volumes I have is reflective of the intended audience, with muted colors and thoughtful imagery.

4. One Piece by Eiichiro Oda

This serial is one of the very few boys' series I can even stand to look at in Shonen Jump magazine, thanks to the open, fluidly dynamic and cartoony style of writer-illustrator Oda. The story, about a Plastic Man-empowered wannabe boy-pirate in search of a mythical magic coin with his Jason and the Argonauts/Seven Samurai company of super-powered fighters (think Jimmy Olsen meets the plot of Fantastic Four #5, forever), is strictly pulp boilerplate and shows no sign of ending soon (there are over 50 volumes). Moronic and basically for kids, it is nevertheless one of the most coherent and appealing of the popular comedy-adventure fight comics.

5. Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

I am "in the midst of reading" this series only in the sense that I stopped before finishing the final volume. At the time of first reading, the series just became too cyclical and frustrating, after a pivotal set-back/do-over half-way through where a major protagonist was replaced by a younger variation of himself. The series, about a highschool student who is granted the demonic power to kill people at a distance by writing their name in a notebook, is a tense, page-turner of a gothic thriller, relentless in its pacing, and full of agonizing reversals, hairbreadth escapes, gasp-inducing shocks, moral quandaries, and crazy-explosive Hollywood set-pieces. The Byzantine story and plot mechanics are very nicely complimented by the laser-sharp daring of Obata, a virtuoso cinematographer to writer Ohba's Hitchcock-ian plodding.

Review: How Sluggo Survives

How Sluggo Survives
Ernie Bushmiller, edited by James Kitchen
Kitchen Sink Press
1989
ISBN 0-87816-067-1
out-of-print, price my vary

I found this book as part of a Mystery Hoard that included, in total, 3 issues of Wizard Magazine and a giveaway Spider-Man comic.

How Sluggo Survives is a collection of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy comic strips that focuses on Nancy' co-star and sometime boyfriend, Sluggo. Sluggo is a tough working class kid with no visible means of support, modeled after the slang-talking, newsboy-cap-wearing inner-city kids of U.S. popular culture, akin to Hollywood's Dead-End Kids and Jack Kirby's kid gangs.

This is a fascinating volume, part of a series of themed reprints published by Denis Kitchen during the short-lived Nancy renaissance of the 1980s, when everyone from Frank Miller to various Underground and RAW alumni were singing the praises of the so-called 'dumbest comic strip' ever. One of the best parts of the book is the introduction by reclusive control freak, painter and RAW Magazine cartoonist Jerry Moriarty. Moriarty sums up the appeal of Nancy for the Underground generation as "brain repair," noting that "[b]eing a reluctant Ernie Bushmiller fan also said something about esthetic renewal and ongoing change and hope." Moriarty's essay is accompanied by notes from his alter-ego, Jack, of "Jack Survives" fame. The conceit of this Jack piece is that Jack has been a living in Nancy's town and has observed her adventures with Sluggo from a distance, although he sometimes feels like he is observing something resembling the activity of another dimension, perhaps the creation of his elderly neighbour Bushmiller.

The strips in How Sluggo Survives seem to have been chosen for the degree to which they reveal aspects of Sluggo's life away from Nancy. Many intriguing snippets of his existence are revealed, including Sluggo's address (140 Drabb St.), his various jobs (office boy, delivery boy, scrap dealer, grifter, goldbrick), and portents of his future --a recurring gag revolves around the fortunes he receives from one of those "weight and fortune" amusements that used to litter the commercial districts of every town in North America. Sluggo is a fascinating, mysterious character: a proto-punk hobo child who oozes America from every inky line.

Since I grew up largely post-RAW, I've always taken for granted the canon-icity of Nancy and so the Nancy naysayers and those who argue that Bushmiller's strip is moronic (or even those who appreciate Nancy in an ironic or, "so bad it's good" sense) have always puzzled me. The strip is well-crafted, charming, and, more often than not, very funny and thought-provoking. Highly recommended!