2o1o in a Shortbox: The Best of the Year

The Oscars were last night, so here's the best comics I read last year. Pretty simple.

The deal is: To qualify, a work must be comics and must have become publicly available in its entirety, in English, and for the first time, either in print or on the web, between 1/1/1o and 12/31/1o. The selections are presented by category, but not in any ascending or descending order.

BEST GRAPHIC NOVELS
"Superman: Earth One"
written by J. Michael Straczynski(@straczynski); drawn by Shane Davis
Like a Hollywood action movie, the first of the "Earth One" graphic novels delivered on action, excitement, and most importantly: gravitas. A 'superhero in the real-world' story for the first half and a classic, smart, grandiose superhero/supervillain battle for the second half with strong character work throughout.

"To Teach: The Journey, in Comics"
drawn by Ryan Alexander-Tanner (@ohyesverynice); adapted from a prose-book by Bill Ayers(@BillAyers)
A documentary-comic, Alexander-Tanner deftly cartoon-ed his way through Ayers' theories about education to clear, informative, humorous, and, occasionally, thrilling effect! Truly it is a work that any aspiring teacher should read. Quite a few healthy life lessons in general are spelled out on its pages.

"Ghostopolis"
written and drawn by Doug TenNapel (@TenNapel)
If "Earth One" is the 'action flick' and "To Teach" the 'documentary,' this is the 'animated movie'. A fully-realized world of familiar archetypal Halloween characters used and combined in unexpected ways, portrayed with fine cartooning and lush coloring. Some pages are laugh-out-loud funny (although some jokes are childish 'potty' humor), while other pages are truly moving. The words AND the pictures are moving, both in concert and separately. (I don't play the numbers game, I list no 'number 1' graphic novel here, but if I did...)


BEST GRAPHIC NOVELLAS (under 100 pages)
"Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale"
written by Zack Whedon(@ZDubDub); drawn by Chris Samnee(@ChrisSamnee)
Truly beautiful and truly unique is this 'life flashing before his eyes' sketch of the television/film/comics character Shepherd Book. The overlapping phrases and motifs that run through the life of the main character serve as bullet-points by which the reader is allowed to drop into further and further back stages of Derrial Book's life.

"Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City"
written and drawn by Brendan Leach (@iknowashortcut)
Sharp drawing and even sharper writing makes this strange comic an exciting and engrossing reading experience. Brotherhood and the passing from one era into another are its themes, the ink-lines combined with ink-washes make for a glowing, bleary, period-accurate feeling. Not to be over-looked is the awesome faux-newspaper-front-page that makes the comic's cover.

"Falling for Lionheart"
written and drawn by Ilias Kyriazis (@IliasKyriazis)
The 'indie- film' comic for the year. (Okay, that analogy's done with now, I promise) Emotional, but with action, sex, and humor; alternative lifestyles are presented as well as mainstream ones; comics is depicted as a medium capable of expressing emotion within the narrative, "Falling for Lionheart" is among the finest graphic novellas I have ever read. And furthermore, it uses different visual art styles to VERY smart narrative effect.

"Portrait of the Cartoonist as a Woman" on NarrativeMagazine.com

written and drawn by Liza Donnelly (@lizadonnelly)

Human and honest, like the best memoir comics are, these 32 pages speak volumes about childhood, womanhood, body issues, sexism, motherhood, and creative energy. The inherent sweetness of the small moments ("I was launched as a cartoonist. ... And most importantly, I made my mother laugh.") support a sense of life and narrative.

BEST MINI-SERIES
"Bullseye: Perfect Game" #1 and #2
written by Charlie Huston(@CharlieHuston); drawn by Shawn Martinbrough
This clever short series tells of murder on the baseball diamond. A certain supervillain-assassin masquerading as a home-town baseball player to carry out a hit. A big baseball fan solves the murder and narrates the story to the reader while walking around an apartment. Only at the last page, does the POV shift and we see that the baseball fan has been talking to a certain superhero.

"Phantom: Unmasked" #1 and #2
written by Martin Powell; drawn by Hannibal King
Again, this series' strength lay in a unique POV: the sultry, intelligent, hard-as-nails, lady private investigator Laughton Brice hired to find The Phantom, through which we see 'The Ghost Who Walks' anew! (The character of The Phantom has been around since 1936.) The Ghost Who Walks never even makes a clear physical appearance until more than halfway through the first issue, only shadows and stories. And, to boot, the courageous choice a character makes in the second issue tops it off nicely.

Seriously, these are both worth checking out and only two issues-long. Ask your retailer for where you might find them. I have little doubt most American retailers didn't sell many of these two series AT ALL.

(LATE ADDITION)

BEST STORY-ARC IN AN ONGOING SERIES

"Metal" from "Northlanders" #30, #31, #32, #33, and #34

written by Brian Wood(@brianwood); drawn by Riccardo Burchielli

One of the best stories of any medium was told last year in Brian Wood's series "Northlanders". Cross-cultural viking-era action/romance. Unique, smart, and cool.

BEST INDIVIDUAL ISSUES (either from a mini or ongoing series)
"41" from "Daytripper" #4
written and drawn by Fabio Moon(@fabiomoon) and Gabriel Bá(@Gabriel_Ba)
A tremendously emotionally affecting chapter in the haunting life of Bras, the main character of the series by those talented brother comicsmiths: Moon and Bá. The loss of a father, the birth of a son, and the moment in life at which a precarious level of security-like adulthood is attained... then swept away like all the others.

"M.I.A." Parts 1, 2, and 4 from "DMZ" #51, #52, and #54
written by Brian Wood(@brianwood); drawn by Riccardo Burchielli
Matty Roth, the main character of Wood's long-running futuristic love-letter to NYC, makes some achingly hard decisions to regain his lost honor. LOOK at that cover on the last issue of the arc!

"Collective Punishment" one of five: "five hours under fire" from "DMZ" #55
written by Brian Wood(@brianwood); drawn by Andrea Mutti

A shocking, smart, compact story about the horrors of war, both the ones perpetrated on human bodies and those perpetrated on human minds.

"Collective Punishment" four of five: "A Decade on the Wall" from "DMZ" #58

written by Brian Wood(@brianwood); drawn by Danijel Zezelj
A harrowing and beautiful issue narrated by the first "DMZ" character I ever encountered: the graffiti artist known as Decade Later. After imprisonment, during which he wasn't allowed to draw, this man creates a graffiti autobiography in the ruins of a New York City art gallery. Incredible.

"Electric Ant" #1 and #3
adapted from a Philip K. Dick prose novel by David Mack(@davidmackkabuki); drawn by Pascal Alixe
Crazy mind-altering sex between a self-aware organic-robot and a human... or is she? Visually stunning color and shape choices are made to represent Dick's psychedelic verbiage. Very cool.

"The Sixth Gun" #1, #2, #3, and #6
written by Cullen Bunn(@cullenbunn); drawn by Brian Hurtt
Fun, striking, exciting, funny, and unique all describe this new ongoing series. The most wonderful sound effects melt into the artwork in wonderful ways. The scope is huge, while the human-scale dangers never feel lost. The first arc's conclusion in issue #6 is perhaps the best: mostly double-page spread layouts.

"Never Say Die" from "The Shield" #10
written by Eric S. Trautmann(@mercuryeric); drawn by Marco Rudy
The surprise delight of my year. I received this issue in a pile of free comics. The superhero concept at the core of this series (American soldier is gifted with abilities by the government to better serve) is a very, very old one to which nothing new is brought here, but the characterization seems more genuine than most. The winning element is Rudy's storytelling panel layouts, which are the best I have seen since those of the supremely talented Steve Rude or J. H. Williams III.

"the brave and the bold." from "Superman/Batman" #76

written by Judd Winick; drawn by Marco Rudy

In fact, I shouldn't have been surprised by Rudy's skills as he had already shown me what he can do. More wonderful page compositions here. Judd Winick brings emotional gravitas to Superman's reaction to Bruce Wayne's death. It was also a wonderful compliment to this Batman issue...

"Batman's Last Case" from "Batman" #702
written by Grant Morrison; drawn by Tony Daniel
Despite the fact that this issue makes no sense without the context of a mini-series from two years ago ("Final Crisis") it does an excellent job of gifting that mini-series retroactively with more sense. Most specifically and remarkably it explains Batman's actions and makes them emotionally powerful: "I survived an encounter with something bigger than me".

"Grounded" Part One from "Superman" #701
written by J. Michael Straczynski(@straczynski); drawn by Eddy Barrows
Any story in which Superman is put into realistic morally complicated situations is usually interesting. Stories in which Superman is put into realistic morally complicated situations and finds a way to triumph are usually going to get me. A single issue that does that over-and-over again was guaranteed to win me over.

"Night Gods" from "The Brave and the Bold" #32
written by J. Michael Straczynski(@straczynski); drawn by Jesus Saiz
This Cthulu-inspired, genuinely scary comic, stars Etrigon the Demon and... Aquaman. Aquaman does a series of bad-ass things and Straczynski put in the effort to write all of Etrigon's dialogue in rhyming verse. All good things.

"Ladies' Night" from "The Brave and the Bold" #33

written by J. Michael Straczynski(@straczynski); drawn by Cliff Chiang(@cliffchiang)
A return to the moment-in-time just before a young heroine's defining tragedy laid out in sharp relief. Just beautiful.

"A Batman's Work is Never Done!" from "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" #17
credited as written by Sholly Fisch; drawn by Robert W. Pope
Kids' comic: Batman has a busy week. Calls his friends. Hijinks ensue.

BEST SHORTS (under 22 pages)
"Comic-Converts" on Jillian Tamaki's Sketch Blog

written and drawn by Jillian Tamaki (@dirtbagg)

It's a diary entry, a comics news report, a food review, a showcasing of friendly faces, and an ethnographic statement all at once. The mix of geek/indie, human/inhuman, private/public elements in this comic about SDCC really shows how much a comics convention can be and how much a comic can show.

"Culture POP" #14 "The Aerialist" on ACT-I-VATE.com

reportage and photography by Seth Kushner (@sethkushner)

The way Kushner laid-out photographs here to bring the reader through a narrative while maintaining the beauty of the photographs themselves is nothing short of remarkable.

"Acidopolous" number one

written and drawn by Nathan Bulmer (@natemorebikes)

A fun, trippy little mini-comic. Reality melts into a world of cartoony horror for one acid-tripping punk rocker. The first chunk can be read here.

BEST STRIPS (one page each)
"Angel" in OVERFLOW Magazine #6, Summer 2o1o; and on ACT-I-VATE .com here!
written and drawn by Dean Haspiel
Hapiel's work always feels RIGHT to me, but rarely so much as when the main figure of this double-page comic falls-- no SLAMS-- into the ground and the textbox reads: "I'll miss you." A pseudo-Kirby, action-representation of emotion in line and color, this may be his best work to date. (Again, I don't make this a numbers game. But if I did...)

"Flying Restrictions 1" and "Flying Restrictions 3" (The Adventures of The Man Who Can Only Fly When He's Sad) on cowbirdsinlove.com

written and drawn by Sanjay Kulkarni (@cowbirdsinlove)

I especially like 3 because it is positive and beautiful in its resolution, but 1 serves as excellent set-up. 2 left me cold by comparison. Doesn't really need to be there.

"The Tell-Tale Beat" on XKCD.com
written and drawn by Randall Munroe

A hilarious piece that reminds us that yes Randall Munroe can, in fact, draw.

"Porn For Women" on XKCD.com
written and drawn by Randall Munroe

Honesty = excellence. And, in this case, hilarity.

"Spirit" on XKCD.com

written and drawn by Randall Munroe

Oh god! I can imagine few things as simultaneously funny and horrifyingly sad. Except maybe the next webcomic:

"SuperMutant Magic Academy: Wufflefluff" on Jillian Tamaki's Sketch Blog

written and drawn by Jillian Tamaki (@dirtbagg)

Creepy, sad, but so true.

"SuperMutant Magic Academy: Pickles" on Jillian Tamaki's Sketch Blog

written and drawn by Jillian Tamaki (@dirtbagg)

Funny but also sort of sad, and feels right to me somehow.

"Domestic Men of Mystery" on JillianTamaki.com

written and drawn by Jillian Tamaki (@dirtbagg)

Father's Day, indie-webcomics style. This one is really beautiful and sad and happy and I can imagine few better ways to go out for 2o1o.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~

Comics that very well might have made it had I bought/read them in entirety:

"The Playwright"

"Jonah Hex: No Way Back"

"Revolver"

"Smile"
"Stigmata" (in translation)

"Artichoke Tales"

"Return of the Dapper Men"

"Special Exits"

(Truly, this one is in need of more attention. Amazing.)

"Market Day"

"Foiled"

The market for graphic novels either swung wide, wide open this past year, or I just never noticed the volume already coming out. They also take a lot longer to read...

Scott Pilgrim Is The New Peter Parker

"Peter Parker is the ideal man. He's smart, he's funny, and he always at least TRIES to do the right thing. Plus, thanks to Marvel's publishing schedule, we get to see each other pretty much every week."

Alison Lynn, friend of mine and Clare's, said those words the night I met her. Of course, Peter Parker holds a few points over most other guys by simple merit of being fictional. He can do and be lots of things us regular joes can't. Like be in fourteen places at the same time in a given week. Scott Pilgrim is far less reliable by comparison. He only dropped into our lives six times somewhat randomly over the course of six years. Does that make him more special by reason of being scarce? I'm not sure.

What I do know is the two hold a great deal of similarities between them. Think about it: Male, main character. Great responsibility... fucks up a lot. Beautiful girl to fight for. Special abilities that force him into an unusual situation. In the end the only difference between these two lovable losers is secrecy and spandex.

The release of Edgar Wright's adaptation film "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" has come and gone and the world didn't exactly explode over it. Its box office gross was considered a disappointment by most and although the film was really well-crafted and is already a beloved film among many (including the writers of this blog), it probably isn't going to spawn a billion other indie graphic novel film adaptations.

However another friend of Clare's and mine has been telling me about an ongoing experiment she's conducting with the residents that, as an RA, are under her stewardship. Rachel Altvater shares with The Long and Shortbox Of It a bit about people at her college dipping into comics:

I went to see the movie with two guys from my staff who hadn't read the books, and they both really liked the movie. I encouraged them to read the books, and one of them was skeptical because they were "comics." When I referred to them as "graphic novels," he jumped at the chance to borrow "Precious Little Life."

...

The guy from my staff said that he'd never read a graphic novel before, and he was liking it so far. He said that "Precious Little Life" was "really good...it just kinda sucks you in, and it looks just like the movie so far."

...

The person who came to possess my copy of "Precious Little Life" seems to be a lost cause. I can't even get the book back from him.

Josh's latest post proves this to be even more true as a friend of his picked up a copy of "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" without prompting of any kind at an unrelated college event.

People love Scott Pilgrim even more than they love Spidey.

Actually, there's also a lot of Charlie Brown in the character as well as Peter Parker. And maybe even some of the late, great Harvey Pekar in there? Could Scott Pilgrim's appeal be essentially that he is a loser with a good and stout heart? And we all see a bit of ourselves in him?

If so, I have never seen such proof that humans like to read about lovable losers because the "Scott Pilgrim" series is currently the most successful graphic novel series in America's history. As Clare said to me: "Bryan Lee O'Malley doesn't need to publish anything else for the rest of his life. And neither does Oni Press." At the very least, THAT makes me giddy as a school-girl because if it's really true, it means that one of America's most inventive comicsmiths and one of America's most varied comics publishers have carte blanche to do what feels right, to take chances, and throw caution to the wind.

Truly, as far as I'm concerned, if even one person discovers a few comics they wouldn't have otherwise I'm glad the adaptation was made. And more money in the bank for creators and publishers during this tough economic time is a good thing. That could be the real legacy of the "Scott Pilgrim" film: the bankroll it brought to a creative comicsmith and a publishing house.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ From bios and other public sources, I understand that Bryan Lee O'Malley (@radiomaru) and Hope Larson (@hopelarson) have been in a committed relationship for some time. So... would it be weird to point out that makes two young creative comicsmiths who both work often with Oni Press (@OniPress) with room to grow and money to burn?

Because this gives me hope for the entire medium, and the future of the American popular graphic novel form.

Josh Kopin vs. The World

SPOILER: This is gonna get mushy, so look away if you're squeamish.

I saw Scott Pilgrim. It's a very good movie, that much I know for sure- it'll take another viewing or two for me to decide if it's a great movie. Mostly, that's because I have a hard time separating the movie from the books; there were moments when I'm pretty sure I was enjoying it simply because I wanted so badly to enjoy it. That Edgar Wright was able to make a movie that wasn't beholden to either the original plot or the original imagery was essential to my ability to separate the two and enjoy the movie for what it was blah blah blah BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Look: by now, you know all that. You know that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a successful comic book movie precisely because it's influenced by the originals rather than being dominated by them, and that it successfully translates Bryan Lee O'Malley's work to film because it does what film does well, rather than trying (and failing) to do what comics do well on film.

Given that you've probably already read that review in a hundred different places, I want to talk about something else: I want to talk about why Scott Pilgrim works, even when it shouldn't. I want to talk about why I want to be able to hand the six volumes to my children (who, being my children, will surely have the same interests as me. That's how parenthood works, right?) and say "Here. Read this." In other words, I want to talk about why I love Scott Pilgrim.

While it would be easy for me to be all "Well, it's the best romantic comedy since Annie Hall, what's not to love" (which is pretty much true), I'm going to go a little bit deeper than that, and that story starts like this: once there was a girl who broke my heart. It happens to all sorts of people all the time, which means there wasn't anything particularly special or unique about the experience, but I did take it pretty hard. Eventually I got past it but, even when I did, a lot of the gunk (the guilt, the anger, even some of the sadness) stuck around. I'm still dealing with those feelings, with that gunk, in a lot of ways.

Then again, so is everybody else. Our new relationships are built on the ashes of our old ones. We learn from the experiences, we figure out what we did wrong, and we try it again. And that's what Scott Pilgrim is all about. Even better, the couple at the center of the whole damn thing is, in every way that matters, an everycouple: Scott's made mistakes, but Ramona's made them too- and whose are worse is irrelevant, because it all happened.

And that's why I love Scott Pilgrim. From the beginning, it's been about figuring out what the next move should be, based on the last one. It's about making mistakes, the dangers of stagnation, the problems with moving from place to place without ever actually moving very far at all. It's about learning to live with what's happened, about fighting your demons (sometimes more literally than others), and, eventually, it's about getting better. You want to know why, ultimately, both the film and the comics are so damn effective? The key is right there: they wore these themes on their sleeves (not unlike an X-Men patch) using characters that (provided you look past the slick, relatively hip, video games and music and manga dressing) everyone understands because everyone sees a little bit of themselves in, and they did it masterfully, without falling into a sappy, saccharine, puddly mess. More importantly, each iteration does it in its own way, in a way that works well within the medium being used: Scott Pilgrim and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World are two related but wholly separate entities that hit on precisely the same themes in a way that works with the advantages and limitations of the way in which it was presented.

This is not to say that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World didn't, sometimes, feel like a comic book (the way that the editor translated a comics gutter into something intelligible in film was particularly cool), simply that Edgar Wright took a six book epic, compressed it into one relatively short film, and still made it all work (although- there isn't exactly anything simple about that, is there?) Even more impressively, 'inna final analysis, the movie took those same issues that the books deal with so well and made me think about them in a different, although extremely complementary, way. This is, ultimately, how the movie must be viewed: as a complement to the books. Both of them, independently and taken together, helped me get better. Both of them, in their own ways, helped my clear some of that gunk. So, yeah, that girl still broke my heart. And, yeah, I felt pretty bad about it for awhile. But poor, oblivious Scott Pilgrim? He's had that problem too. And so has everybody else.
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Earlier this evening, I learned that a friend of mine, Abraham Mendoza, died today. This one's for you, Abe.

Jon Gorga's Precious Little Time!

Last year's "Watchmen" film adaptation came out and there was a huge fan-fare and the trailer was magnificent, advertisements appeared everywhere, the world seemed to scramble to book stores and comic shops to read it and it sold like crazy for a few months, the action figures were gorgeous and, amazingly, in recognition that something was in the air, The New York Times finally created a 'graphic books' best-seller list (only online, however) and all us comics types were very happy.

Whew! Yeah! Awesome!

[Rorschach action figure image at right from DC Direct website.]

But then something happened. The film was a garish, occasionally unintentionally hilarious, extravaganza of superhero violence.

That was my initial reaction anyway. Can you tell I was disappointed? I've calmed down a lot since that day but I stand by my core reaction: in making a Hollywood motion picture out of Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' mini-series Zack Snyder took out all the quiet character moments and amped up the violent/sexual ones. The resulting film had a lot of the core spirit of the comics, but none of the beauty or honesty.

I said to everyone beforehand: 'Hey, if the movie is great more people will come out jazzed to read it than there are already. If it sucks, millions of regular, everyday people across the world will say 'It wasn't as good as the comic' and mean it." Still, the resulting film was so self-indulgent and violent I feared that there would be a backlash. That people would say: 'See? In reality all that superhero and comics stuff just comes to violence and sex. No more.' Generally, we didn't get that outside of a few cranks. (Despite the fact that we saw it big time when "Sin City"'s adaptation came out years earlier.) More importantly we didn't, thank god, move backward; but the movie's release slowed the progress we were making. Junot Diaz, awesome novelist and establishment geek, said something that amounted to: 'the Watchmen movie trailer was the best thing to happen to the comics industry in a long time.'

ENTER: Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphic novels that began with "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" and Edgar Wright's upcoming film adaptation "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" that opens tonight at midnight. The process that came before the release of "Watchmen" has happened again, but bigger because both the film and the last comic are summer releases! Let's hope the last part of the story doesn't repeat as well.

Clare has informed me that not only is the last comic "Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour" sold out in the comics store she works at, but that ONI Press itself has run out of copies of the book and has to go back to the printer and thus only the chain bookstores have copies.

That's pretty remarkable. Superhero comic-books sell out of stock. Indie graphic novels do not.

I think it shows that people really are willing to find comics shops (at least Graphic Novel sections) and try something if they've heard good things/they want to be informed about a big cultural phenomenon at the zeitgeist. That's the one solo difference between this moment in time and past big-scale adaption film releases or films based on non-superhero comics: The sixth book just came out. Everyone can be pretty nearly on the ground-floor together and enjoy the latest (and final) comic and the adaptation of the whole series together.

But if it's a bubble ready to burst (not jinxing it, not jinxing it, not jinxing it) I want to enjoy it too, and the window is closing fast. At time of writing I am 35 pages into "Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together", the fourth book in the series. That means just about three graphic novels to go. I am going to finish them by midnight tonight.

So help me god.

Oh and Twitter. So help me Twitter. Because that's where you'll see my updates on this adventure over the next... YIPES! less than twelve hours! I better get back to reading!

~ @JonGorga (<--See if I make it on my Twitter account! Not the LongandShortbox account.)

Bryan Lee O'Malley's Finest Hour

SERIOUS SPOILERS IN THIS ONE, FOLKS!

How good is Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour?

This good:



Unlike the last time I used this trick, though, the above picture isn't an easy way out review of a pretty cool but also pretty substance-less Marvel crossover event- no, Finest Hour is, in fact, one of the most well-written, best drawn, most satisfying comics of the year so far. Bryan Lee O'Malley, amazingly, brings his epic twentysomething slacker love story to a clean close: most of the plot threads are tied up (including threads that we didn't even know existed!), Scott drops the modifier from Young Neil's name, fights Gideon, gets the girl, and, in what could have been a horribly clichéd ending that O'Malley turns delightfully on its head, lives happily ever after, etc.

All that's impressive, for sure, but what's really cool is how we get there and the depth and maturity that the slacker epic shows in its conclusion. It would be easy, extremely easy, to write off Scott Pilgrim as just another moody story about moody youngsters being horny, shallow, hip and, well, moody. Instead, the series as a whole deals with its oft-maligned subject in an incredibly clever and always surprising way. Although the titular character often devolves into stormy angst, the supporting cast (Wallace and Stace, in particular) always serve as a foil for Scott's moments, reminding him (and the readers) just how out of touch our hero can be. This restraint is particularly true of Finest Hour- in which the subject matter is more consciously angst and groan-inducing and which could have easily used schmaltz and self-pity as crutches- when O'Malley turns the characters' pain, their damaged views of themselves and their world, into physical manifestations that have consequences, both good and bad, in the real world. The book (in what is actually a natural progression from what has come before, if something of a sudden extrapolation from that previous trajectory) literally lets its characters wrestle with their demons and- more often than not- we get to see them win. We get to see the moments of realization on their faces, the looks of pure joy or sadness or, best of all, understanding. It's really in these scenes where O'Malley's art and his writing work as one and while this synthesis has been clear in the past volumes, in Finest Hour we have a rare example of the form.

In fact, everything about this comic is in rare form- Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour is, in many ways, a perfect piece of sequential literature: I've read it through twice and skimmed through it many more times than that and each time it gets better, each time I catch something I missed before, whether another of the ubiquitous Zelda logos in the book's last act or an Easter-egg call back to other parts of the series. O'Malley's art, steeped as always in manga and video games, cycles through so many different styles, levels of detail, and line weights it's a marvel that he makes it seem so effortless, that his narrative is so coherent. There's always something new to discover in this art, always something that we didn't see the first time.

His writing, too, is full of treats and surprises and, while I'm going to limit what I share, the book's last act is as much about his readers as it is about his characters- everyone's had their heart broken. Everyone's blamed someone else, forgotten their own behavior, and had to come to terms with all of that. Some us get through better than others but- like Scott and Ramona- we all learn to live with it or- like Gideon- we perish.

I truly believe that the best heroes are those heroes we see ourselves in and I'm glad to say that I see myself in Scott Pilgrim, particularly in his Finest Hour. Bryan Lee O'Malley wrote a hell of a series and he ended it in spectacular fashion- this is a book I want to share with my friends and, eventually, my kids. Scott Pilgrim is a classic, and Finest Hour cements its legacy.

If you haven't read these before, I suggest you get to it before the movie comes out in three weeks- I promise it will be worth your while.

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A quick note about how excited I was for this book- I went on a LCS run on a TUESDAY just to make sure I got a copy. That's how excited I was. And it was totally worth it.

A Call to Ads

Sometimes I wonder about things. Arty medium difference economical things...

I've mentioned finances and how they affect the Comics industry in a few of my recent posts, and I'd like to expand upon some of that while tackling a whole other industry: the Advertising industry. More importantly, I want to address the connection between the two industries and the wide potenial for the Comics world's deals with the ad men of Madison Ave as I see it.

So "Kick-Ass" (@kickasscomic) is one of the hottest comics on the stands right now (when it comes out). I haven't read every issue yet (the last issue of the first volume, #8, came out back in January). I happen to think it's pretty over-done violent junk, but who am I to judge the tastes of the people.

"Kick-Ass" also just received the silver-screen treatment (@kickassthemovie) and made a somewhat disappointing weekend release that, however, hasn't dropped off in huge numbers since. In the weeks leading up to the adaptation's arrival in theaters this giant billboard could be seen in Times Square here in Manhattan:

Pretty sweet, right? Well, I can't enjoy it because all I can think is why couldn't it be this:

Comics billboard advertising. Why not?

Well, I think to myself: Self, comics can't have billboard ads because the amount of money the rental agency charges the ad agency who charges the person who gets the advertising contract is too huge for the number of people who are expected to see it and then follow their nose into a comic-book store or into a box-chain bookstore and ask for the Comics & Graphic Novels section.

An unfortunate truth, I guess.

Films cost millions of dollars to make and make tens of millions of dollars in revenue, so the ad agency charging the production company can be paid tens of thousands of dollars and in turn spend thousands of dollars on a giant fucking billboard.

So the problem is one of scale or, perhaps more accurately, perceived scale.

But perceptions can be changed, can't they? We just had the annual Free Comic Book Day this month and although it wasn't a failure by any stretch of the imagination, it was pointed out to me by a comic shop manager friend of mine that his boss HATES Free Comic Book Day (@Freecomicbook). Why?

Well, because it's a day on which he is required to shell out money (although not a lot, something like ¢8 a comic-book) for product that he is then going to be expected to give away for free. If he doesn't give the comics away, he looks like a jerk. If he absconds from the whole event, he looks like a jerk who isn't current with the times. So far, financially, this has all worked out because so many people come into the store looking for something free and leave with a few things that aren't free that the store makes enough money to cover the expense and then some. But he still hates that he's giving the product away and there's something else. There's a bigger problem here:

Most of the people coming in are comics readers already because most of the promotion for the event appeared in places comics readers look.

I can understand his point of view even if I don't agree with it. (As I wrote the next day, I saw quite a variety of people.) Most specifically I can agree with the undeniable fact that comics still don't get promotion in the same way the other arts do.

Graphic novel ads on Times Square billboards. Why not?

Comic-book ads on television. Why not?

Magazines, newspapers, radio, subway cars. Why NOT?

Because less people read comics? No. That may be the truth, but that isn't why these ads don't exist. There are ads for all kinds of things that have no market whatsoever in reality. That's the American way. Sell 'em something they don't need! Advertising isn't based on reality it's based on expectations about reality:

Perceived economies of scale.

Whether changing the perception will magically change the reality or vice versa I have no idea, but I do know there are some softball ways to start this process. In fact, some of them are already underway.

Facebook user-designed ads which can be set up to direct a user to a Facebook page are so cheap and, as a result, are appearing for comics, webcomics, and comics-related events. That's really exciting because not only is that advertising in the face of people who theoretically want to see it, it's designed directly by the artistic creators/event planners for those people.

But these are probably called-up from text-search algorithms based on the user's habits. So they'll see these ads only if they already happen to be on Facebook pages with words like "webcomics", "comic-books", "artists", etc...

Marvel advertises for its Digital Comics Unlimited streaming subscription service on all kinds of websites. They have a bunch of them, they look like this:

Not exactly as professional looking as I'd like. It is a web banner ad; it doesn't really need to be too fancy but it only looks marginally better than the user-designed Facebook ads!

The "Scott Pilgrim" people at Oni Press (@OniPress) and Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) really have a good thing going. They've printed up bookmarks that have an ad for the upcoming film adaptation on one side and an ad for the soon to be completed graphic novel series on the flip side.

See?

"SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD" (the movie adaptation)

"An epic of epic epicness."

in Theaters August 13 & @ www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com

*Turn it over...*

"SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR" (the sixth and last graphic novel)

plus! "Catch up on Scott Pilgrim at your local Comic Shop!"

in Stores July 20th & @ www.scottpilgrim.com or www.onipress.com

Now that's smart marketing. You see one side, it excites you and you learn about either the adaptation or the source material when you flip it over!! The film gets advertising, the comic gets advertising, the customer gets a free bookmark. Each side is the same size and in the same place and thus gets the same exposure. Both are true to their respective logos and designs/aesthetics. Nobody behind this marketing tool made an a priori assumption about the number of people potentially interested in a film or the number of people potentially interested in a graphic novel. It's trying to get as many people as possible interested in both and as a result probably has gotten a maximum number of people interested in the related product. Everybody wins!

I don't mean for this post to be a series of admonitions and accolades. All comics companies could be doing more to promote the Comics medium in mainstream avenues.

I saw a Las Vegas comic-book store make shockingly good use of advertising in a large theater in the weeks after the release of "The Dark Knight" two years back. They placed Grant Morrison's recent issues of "Batman" in a nice fan shape (with Alex Ross' gorgeous cape and cowel cover on top) with the deluxe Batman movie dolls Warner Bros. released in a small glass case next to the concession stand. Why couldn't DC Comics do something like that on a huge scale?

Why didn't "Kick-Ass" the movie have a teeny tiny bump play before it started in the theater for the Comic Shop Locator service? Did you even know such a public service existed? 1 888 COMIC BOOK. Really.

Why don't the mid-level to major-level companies create a multi-million dollar coalition (they've done that before on at least two occasions I can think of, off the top of my head) to buy ad space in People magazine or The New Yorker or time on WFMU (I'm told they love Dan Clowes over there. Fantagraphics, you're not taking advantage of a golden opportunity!) or during the goddamn Super-Bowl or ANY OF THE MILLIONS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES SELLING ADVERTISING TIME/SPACE?

I don't mean for this to be about what the Comics industry is doing wrong. This is not a badgering admonition. I mean for this to be about what more the Comics industry could be doing right. This is a call. A call to the weapons that lay waiting at the feet of the Comics industry.

I believe in marketing comics, because I believe in the power of the Comics medium. Sometimes, I wish the publishers and advertisers believed in marketing comics too. Maybe the recent acquiring of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company will enliven things in this department a bit. I wrote a bit a few weeks ago about the first appearance of Marvel merch in Disney stores. Disney owns radio stations and television channels up the wazzoo, so are we going to see Disney/Marvel making use of those outlets for more than just cartoons of varying quality starring Marvel characters?

I hope so.

~ @JonGorga