A Sock In The Jaw

There's a lot to love about this new Captain America #1, but there's an ambivalence here, too. The two issues, however, are entirely unrelated; as an individual comic book, it's brilliant. As an idea, it sort of sucks, but I'll get there in a second. First:

Captain America #1 is why people read comic books or, anyway, why people should. Ed Brubaker, one of the best writers in the business on his worse days, slips into writing this Captain America like Steve Rogers slips back into the flag, with the ease of someone who's worn this suit before, and who missed it just enough. He does here what he does best, reinventing Captain America (for what's really the third time since he took over the character in 2005) by taking Steve Rogers' past and using it to turn the character into something both new and familiar, something both recognizable and, perhaps, radically different.

Starting with a brief summary of who Cap was in WWII, and then two panels of who is he is now, Brubaker begins his story with an ending, with the death of Peggy Carter. Carter was a member of the French resistance, Steve's girlfriend back in the day, and the aunt of Sharon Carter, who is Steve's girlfriend these days (it seems perfectly normal in terms of the the whole "man out of time" conceit of the comics but, man, typing that last sentence out just now, the whole thing just strikes me as really bizarre). Cap, Carter, Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan gather for the funeral, and their reunion sets off a string of events that were really put in motion during the twilight hours of the war in Europe. Brubaker tells both that story and this one, letting each inform the other, and this style of storytelling gets at precisely the reason why I think Brubaker does Cap so well: he gets that part of the reason Steve Rogers is a compelling character is because there's a contrast between the Captain America #1 of 1940 and the Captain America #1 of two weeks ago, and part of that contrast has to do with ambiguity of purpose. In that first world there were good guys and there were bad guys; in this brave new world, I suspect the lines between them are a little less clear.

Or maybe not. The blast from the past Bravo may very well be a clear cut villain, himself a man out of time, egged on by a decades old jealousy. There are more questions than answers here, and this suggests that Brubaker has become a master of the serial story. Captain America #1 is a whole whole with a beginning and a middle and an end, a discrete and satisfying unit of entertainment in and of itself but one that will be extended and better understood next month, when a hopefully equally as satisfying issue comes out. This is comics at its best.

Of course, it helps that Steve McNiven is drawing the thing. Brubaker is a fantastic writer, but part of what makes him so great is that he always seems to be matched with artists who have their own share of talent and, aside from Sean Phillips, McNiven may very well be the best of them. His panel design is dynamic and he doesn't get stuck in the six by two grid; the panels move with the characters, they're explosive and, although they often reflect the kinetic confusion of a street fight, they read easy, there's never any question about which panels goes after which other panel. It's quite a feat, and it follows a similar mode of operation to the one that Mike Deodato was using with Brubaker on Secret Avengers. The difference here is that McNiven's art is much less stiff and woody than Deodato's: while the latter's panel design saved him from being guilty of the muscled stillness that dooms comics art by making it too heavy, the former's at its best has a levity to it, one that suggests a sort of trial and error process in the talking heads scenes but is consistently killer when there's even a little bit of movement. Although there are a few close ups that qualify as nearly perfect, McNiven is best when he's working at a little bit of a distance, when he loses some of the detail for a more cartoony look. Certainly some of the credit for this goes to inker Mark Morales and colorist Justin Posnor, just as they get some of the blame for putting the lines in the faces of Dum Dum, Fury and Cap, which occasionally gives the book an almost photorealistic look at odds with what I imagine is the art team's tendency towards a traditional, albeit updated, comics aesthetic. This Sharon Carter should be the model; there are a few panels which are right out of an old romance comic which, in a sort of oblique way, is what this comic is.

Second:

I am ambivalent about the idea in Captain America #1. I hate it because Marvel thinks it needs to renumber books every seventy-five issue or so to stay relevant, I hate it because there are someways in which it represents a retread, a place we've already been, I hate it because I disagree with Tom Brevoort when he says that, y'know, maybe, with a movie on the way, it's not the worst thing in the world that Steve Rogers is back as Captain America.

Actually, I don't really disagree with him; it's not the worst thing in the world.

Clearly, I haven't stopped reading Captain America because Bucky isn't wearing the flag anymore. I'm pissed that he's dead, of course, but with a book called Captain America and Bucky coming out and a pretty serious continuity problem between the mainline Cap book and Fear Itself*, I have a hard time believing he's going to stay dead, although I'm relatively confident he won't be Captain America anymore. That's really a different issue, though, as it takes place about as far away from this Captain America #1 as possible, presumably because Marvel didn't want the book the kids who saw the movie pick up at their LCS or in the drug store caught up in some crazy continuity bullshit. In terms of a giant corporation trying to make money off their comics, this makes complete sense; in terms of long-form, continuity based storytelling, it sort of sucks.

Except that I think that there are times when long-form storytelling needs to take a back seat to mythology, to legend, to archetype and, while I personally don't think this is one of those moments, because I think there were many, many more good Bucky-as-Captain-America stories to be had and because I liked the idea of Steve Rogers super spy, I sympathize with the impulse and if I trust this sort of thing to anyone I trust it to Ed Brubaker. The true genius of it, of course, is Grant Morrison, but Brubaker is almost as close, and much more consistently great.

If I trust anyone, I trust Ed Brubaker. Captain America, after being a good book but not a consistently awesome one in the time since the mess that was Reborn, is back and, as pissed as I am that the storyline that I loved as much as I love anything in pop culture was stopped well short of its logical conclusion, he's got me. Here's to #2.

--------

*Not that I really care that it doesn't make sense, shared universe superhero comics often don't, but I wonder if it's a clue that things aren't quite as they seem at the moment.

New Chicago Comics and The Comics Consumption Problem, Part II

Yesterday, I shared some thoughts about the Museum of Contemporary Art's ongoing exhibition entitled "New Chicago Comics," focusing specifically on the presented work of Paul Hornschemeier and Anders Nilsen and how the comics presented in the exhibition, and in particular the way they are presented, tell us something about "comics" as opposed to "comic art" and how that clarifies some of the ways that the form of comics is unique.

Today, I'm going to discuss the work of Lilli Carre and Jeffrey Brown, the other two Chicago cartoonists featured in the MCA's gallery. Although all four artists have a good deal of work at their backs, Brown may be the most prolific (or, he appears to be in terms of books published- Nilsen may very well have more published pages). His comics are displayed in two glass cases at the center of the small room, and what we see is as much process as finished product. Brown uses a new notebook for each of his works (which, when published, retain the notebook size and look) and complete and published works are presented alongside notes, sketches and other ephemera. Accordingly, his work is the most obviously transformed from consumable art into art object by its presentation in the exhibition; we get bits and pieces of individual stories, but totally out of context and surrounded by both pages from other, entirely unrelated, stories and artifacts from the creation of those other stories. Outside of the individual pieces of comic art (which, remember, constitute complete, although not necessarily completely intelligible, wholes), there is not even a real attempt at presenting it as comics like there is with Hornschemeier, Nilsen and Carre (we'll get to her in a second); Brown's work is presented such that we don't get a complete picture of anything, not even the cartoonist himself. Sure, we're given a glimpse into his work and his process but, ultimately, a glimpse is all it is, and, without the wider context of having read his work, we can't understand Brown as a comics artist, just as an artist in the comics style: by turning his consumable art into art objects, the MCA has turned Jeffrey Brown into Roy Lichtenstein.

That might sound like a dig at Lichtenstein- it's not. He intentionally did what I think must be accidental here, but that is another possibility that we must file away for consideration later. Instead we turn to the work of Lilli Carre, who's presentation proves incredibly intriguing. Carre, like Hornschemeier and Nilsen, has bits and pieces of her work (most notably a several page sequence from her graphic novel Lagoon) hung on the wall, presented as examples of her comics but coming through mostly as examples of her comics art instead. Like a portion of the Hornschemeier wall, a section of one of her graphic novels is presented; it is coherent and whole in its own terms, but without the knowledge of what comes before or after. The part of Lagoon that is shown is impressive in terms of art, all inky and black with these thin little white lines and bulbous white figures that seem particularly strong surrounded by all that oppressive ink, and I would very much like to read the rest of it. In this format, it is fully legible, but the effect is similar to that of attempting to read bits of the copy of The Three Paradoxes used to wallpaper the plaster opposite Carre's work, with the exception that the whole thing is inherently more honest. There's no possibility that one could read the whole of Lagoon while standing there, and so a viewer feels less cheated by the transformation of a work meant to be read into a work meant to be viewed, for it can be both read and viewed- it is both coherent consumable art and an art object.

Of course, the coming together is imperfect- we see a whole, yes, in fact we see several wholes coming together to make another whole, all intelligible on their own and yet... all missing something important, that is, the other wholes that add up to a whole piece of graphic literature. On the Carre wall, however, there is one piece that represents a perfect comic together; something that is both a complete work of consumable art and an art object:
It's titled My Dreams Have Been Quite Strange Lately and it's a hand made, two sided, accordion book: small enough to be presented, as a whole, in the exhibition.

(Incidentally, if you want a better picture of the book- it's beautiful- Carre has some high-res close ups on her website. I thought about including those instead of this, but this shows the presentation as well as the work itself, so I stuck with what I took at the show.)

The fact that we can read the whole thing as presented means that, in the terms we have been discussing here, it's a perfect synthesis of art meant for observing and art meant for consuming- My Dreams Have Been Quite Strange Lately, as presented by the MCA, is a oasis of possibility in a dessert of confused terminology and intentions. Is New Chicago Comics presenting comics or comics art? Which is it intending to present? Which is it actually presenting? Carre's book, delicate and handmade, is the eye of the storm that is the exhibition- it provides a look at the fascinating limitations of the show, while suggesting the possibility that the presentation of comics in a gallery, the presentation of comics as art objects, need not be as disorienting and ultimately disappointing as the presentation of The Three Paradoxes across the way. It would be hard to manage, certainly, and one might need an awfully large space, but it is certainly possible, and it would be incredibly interesting to see, to both view and consume, on a macro scale. Imagine the whole of Sandman or Asterios Polyp, presented as both consumable art and art object. Surely, it would be something magnificent and interesting to behold.

This is a problem related to the unique essence of comics, and it's an essential piece of The Comics Consumption Problem puzzle. New Chicago Comics is a great exhibition, not least because it exists in the face of such interesting questions, and if you're from Chicago (my kind of town) or there for any reason before the end of January, you should check it out; the MCA is free on Tuesdays, so you have no excuse. You should also check out the various works of Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carre, Paul Hornschemeier and Anders Nilsen; each has fantastic qualities, and each has its own subtle charm, a charm I expect will increase when I can take in complete works. I plan on adding to my library from their bibliography; I will let you know what I find when I do.

New Chicago Comics and the Comics Consumption Problem, Part 1

Although I go to school in the Hudson Valley, when I'm on break I often return to the region where I was born and raised: Chicagoland. Although I haven't lived in the city itself since I was but a young'un, I consider myself a product of its culture and geography and am a proud booster of even its lesser points, particularly now that I go to school in a place where New Yorkers rule the roost. The bit of this that drives my friends craziest is my insistence that ketchup doesn't belong on a hot dog, but it manifests itself in all sorts of other, smaller and less kooky, ways.

When I learned that Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art was featuring the artwork of four Chicago comics artists, I figured it was a way to get a fix for a bunch of my passions all at once, and it was the first stop on my tour of three of the city's art museums during my last week at home. Of the four cartoonists featured (Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carre, Paul Hornschemeier and Anders Nilsen) I am familiar with precisely none, but each section of the small exhibition had its own charm and I was quite fond of all the work presented. Upon walking into the small gallery, you first encounter Hornshemeier's work; it's sort of goofily earnest and uses familiar and popular styles to distinguish between different parts of his stories. His ideas have a pop art flair to them, which is one of the things that draws me in about his work, and they rely on our knowledge of products, stories and styles that exist and our sense of those things that could exist in that context. As part of his section of the gallery, the entirety of his short graphic novel The Three Paradoxes is pasted to the wall like wallpaper, and it was at this point that I was struck by something rather remarkable: just as changing the format in which we read comics changes the way we understand them, changing both the way and the context in which they are presented also, radically, changes the way that we understand them.

Now, I am not an art historian and am an amateur art critic at best, so I am going to warn you before I go on that this might be put in a vocabulary that is rather gross in terms of those two practices. If you are willing to stomach what might be a little bit of clumsy word choice, I think what I have to say will be worth your time.

With that said, it is pertinent to begin at the beginning of this discussion and, for me, the root of this branch of the Comics Consumption Problem lies in the question of comics as art objects rather than consumable art. I have long maintained that comics are for reading; to collect them for collecting's sake or, worse, to buy one in order to frame and display it seems to me to miss the point. There is a great joy in reading a brilliant piece of comics literature that's not that much different from the great joy I get when viewing a Picasso (and there are few things I love more than a brilliant Picasso, which is perhaps another artifact of my Chicago upbringing), but only when I use it as it was intended, that is, as a work that is to consumed as a collection of smaller, individuated, images meant to be understood together. The Picasso is complete on its own, but one of the unique features of comics (as opposed, perhaps, to the whole of sequential art) is that when a part of comic is presented- be it a panel, a splash or a multiple page spread- it is both complete and incomplete, a whole that requires other parts to be fully understood. Thus, when a comic is displayed as an art object rather than consumable art it is complete but not necessarily fully intelligible- we can see it and we can we know it, but whether there is truth to what we see and know is entirely dependent on other wholes that we can't see.

This is one of the things that makes comics unique.

The exhibition attempts to get around the problem by displaying the whole of Hornshemeier's The Three Paradoxes, in order, on the wall. It's a very impressive sight when one takes it all in, but it is also functionally illegible. The pages go from the floor to the ceiling, and there is simply no way that a viewer of any reasonable stature could consume the work as a whole. Instead, we see and understand parts of it- wholes in themselves- but the whole of the wholes is intelligible only as impressive art object rather than as consumable art. Put simply, although The Three Paradoxes is obviously comics when taken as a whole presented as a book and although the parts of that work that a viewer can actually approach and read in the gallery are also comic wholes- incomplete wholes, but wholes nonetheless- but, the way it is presented in the gallery, it is not a comic. It is, instead, art made from comics.

The rest of the exhibition necessarily deals with this problem, since it is comics (or, more precisely, comic art) presented in a gallery space. Take, for instance, the next artist encountered- Anders Nilsen. Of the work presented, Nilsen's was the most intriguing, as the MCA was showing pieces from his longform work Big Questions, which is about to be collected by Drawn + Quarterly in a beautiful looking 600something page edition (I have already pre-ordered a copy- all of a sudden, that huge Walt Simonson Thor omnibus is no longer the most exciting comics package I'm going to receive this spring). His drawing is magnificently delicate and his characters have personality in their visages and, I think, their voices. I say I think because it's impossible, when comics is presented as art, to understand the ability of the artist as a teller of sustained stories. You can understand individual pages, wholes in and of themselves, but not the overall quality of pacing or storytelling. The collection of Big Questions will be similarly imperfect, although on a much smaller scale- as I have discussed extensively before, a reader will comprehend the work as one long story, but will have no way to know what the story felt like when it was originally serialized. Even if the collection demarcates the place of the original divisions, a reader would have to seek to experience the work in the way it was originally experienced in order to be able to understand it as it was originally understood.

The mechanics of that process might seem complicated, but I suspect they are actually quite simple. That, though, is a discussion for another day. Similarly, a discussion of the rest of the exhibition must wait until tomorrow- and tomorrow is when things get even more interesting.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner!

"Berlin" #17 from drawn & quarterly

American jazz musicians, Communists, Socialists, Jewish immigrants to Berlin, a self-hating writer and Hitler himself have all been characters at one time or another in Jason Lutes' long-running series about the Weimar Republic and its slow, sad, disintegration into the despot state that was Nazi Germany.

I LOVE "Berlin". (I also didn't mind Berlin, incidentally. Beautiful city.)

With all that said I felt let down by this issue. Is this issue at the same quality level as the other issues? Or are my opinions colored by the long wait since the last issue? Issue #16 was my first flush with the pleasure of reading Jason Lutes' brilliant work. Followed by a slow process of collecting most of the previous issues of "Berlin" finally allowing me to read the earliest ones. In which I discovered, in issue #3, Lutes' brilliant use of sound effect lettering which I detailed recently in an editorial here on The Long and Shortbox Of It and which I used as an example in my college Senior thesis.

(For the sake of accuracy and honesty, you should know I have not read "Berlin" #5 through #14. Certain details are lost on me as a result.)

"Berlin" is broken into eight-issue arcs; there will be three of them when the series is complete and then Lutes will move on to another project. So this issue is the first of the third, and final, story-arc of the series. I wonder if the series suffers from the same effect that many superhero series do: after the exciting feeling of an arc's conclusion the shift to an arc's beginning leaves the reader with the 'nothing happened here' feeling. This issue will undoubtedly go down as an important one in the series as it is the first time Hitler himself is shown on-panel.

"Berlin" #17 details several character interactions that don't lead much of anywhere:

-Four farmers work in a field. A very good scene.
-Hitler speaks with a propaganda man (Goebbels, I presume) in a dimly lit train-car.
-Our quasi-main character, the writer Kurt Severing, walks into the Communist Party headquarters, argues with an old acquaintance and leaves disgusted with what he sees.
-Silvia, a young girl, leaves the Communist headquarters and has a night-time conversation about the nature of political organizing and sabotage. Excellent scene!
-Finally, we are treated to young lesbian lovers being discovered in bed but treated as an innocent pair of friends comfortably naked with a member of the same sex. Another great scene.

Only about half of these scenes include involving details or revelatory moments, all are probably necessary set-up for what is sure to be a brilliant final story-arc bringing the entire sad story to the finish line, but still... What gives? 'Writing for the trade' in an underground comic? If there is over two years between issues, there should be a modicum of a self-contained nature to the story. drawn and quarterly's website even bills the new issue as:

"The beginning of the third book of the acclaimed historical trilogy. The long-awaited first chapter of Berlin: City of Light, the final volume of Jason Lutes' epic historical series."
~ publisher's online product description

Come now. Any product should awesome on its lonesome and the story feels incomplete here. Though, the issue undeniably ends well.

Lutes' art is as sharp as ever. Smooth and fluid. Never a line out of place. Beautiful street scenes. A character's facial reaction upon being kissed is ever-so-slightly spied in the quarter of her face visible to the reader while adorable squiggles and a sweat drop (synesthetic visual character 'emanata') spring out of the spot their faces touch.

THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT?
A bit of a lagging story in this one, but gorgeous art and smart storytelling more than make up for it. I am unshaken, still looking forward to more. I am a "Berlin" fan.

It's still the best indie comic-book coming out right now. Ich bin ein Berliner.

~@JonGorga

The Digital Divide

I have fallen really and truly behind in my Captain America reading. Every month I buy Brubaker's monthly and somehow, some horrible how, I end up with it at the bottom of my pile and it never gets read. This is a great and true travesty- those Captain America comics are surely among the great comics of our time, as they have been since Brubaker took over the title five years ago. To be completely honest, I miss the Captain a great deal, and one of my comics related new years resolutions was to make sure I read as much good Cap stuff as there is, on time and monthly. I want to do this partially so I can review it and consider it critically (I do, after all, have aspirations towards being the world's foremost Captain America scholar), but mostly because I want to read the stuff; although I've mostly moved away from character based purchasing, in the case of Captain America (and sometimes Iron Fist) I just can't help myself from wanting to read all of it, even the bad stuff (and some of it is really bad). Luckily for me, some of the Cap stuff that's coming out appears both great and essential: I'm trade-waiting Mark Waid's "Man Out of Time" mini, although Gorga has had some great things to say about it, and with the upcoming movie and the character's upcoming 70th birthday, there's bound to be more good stuff to come.

Including, of all things, Jason Aaron and Ron Garney's Ultimate Captain America. Aaron has slowly and sneakily become one of my favorite writers: between Scalped and Punishermax he's written some of the best comics of the last couple of years and has even managed to get me interested in characters as lame as Ghost Rider and as ubiquitous as Wolverine (every time I pass a new issue of the current "Mr. Logan Goes To Hell" arc I have to try really hard not to break down and buy all the issues so far. On that day you will know I have failed, for the cries of joy and despair will be spread across the four winds) and I was pumped to see him write my favorite character. Even better? Ultimate Captain America was going digital day and date.

Some of you might already know this, but back in October I cracked the screen of my laptop by falling on top of it (the story is very short and pretty funny, but I'm not going to speak of the incident anyway) and solved my problem by hooking up my laptop to a monitor on my desk and buying an iPad for mobile use. It didn't hurt, of course, that I could buy and read comics on the thing. I'm not sure I could ever give up on physical format comics (I'm twenty, but I still buy vinyl!) and particularly not at the prices their being offered for at the moment, but I'm always up for trying something new and interesting- it helps that comics look great on the thing, without the limitations of printing and absurdly high-res.

In fact, I was so interested in the way comics look on my fancy new toy that it was inevitable, given my interest in the comics consumption problem, that I would also become interested in the differences between the two formats. I proposed to Gorga that we each review the whole of the series in one of the formats, and use it as a springboard to talk about the pros and cons of each format. I was more excited for this series of posts than I was for the comic itself, and so when the release date rolled around on Wednesday, I was pumped. I booted my iPad, logged onto the Marvel comics app and...

I found that Ultimate Captain America was missing.

And then I realized that Jonathan Hickman and Carlos Pacheco's seriously brilliant Ultimate Thor (featuring Ultimate Captain Britain wearing a lab coat and his costume AT THE SAME TIME!), also announced as day and date, hadn't shown up the last week in December, when it came out in physical stores everywhere. That comic has had some distribution problems of its own, so I wasn't that worried about it, but it hasn't appeared since either. I don't want to speculate too much on why this is, but I'm having trouble believing that Marvel is going back on their day and date announcements, particularly in the wake of the recent news about the death of Ultimate Spider Man. It's too bad, too: starting off their same day digital release program with two minis that were likely to be very popular was a smart move for digital readers, although it may have damaged some relations with physical retailers, but promising something that never appears is a good way to turn readership off of digital comics entirely, particularly given what seems to be a wide preference for comics you can read off of paper and prices that are simply too high for a product that only exists digitally.

I hope to see the minis soon- I would like to read them, after all, and am getting tired of waiting. It's a fast moving comics business and I wouldn't want minis that are deserving of attention to fall in the same spot in my stack as my poor ignored Ed Brubaker Captain America comics.

The Transmogrification of The Indie Comic-Book into The Indie Graphic Novel (Series)

Jason Lutes' "Berlin" has been coming out since 1996 in a slim 30-page saddle-stitched format (that's just fancy talk for: it's a comic-book). But things have changed since 1996. Are "Berlin" and Adrian Tomine's "Optic Nerve" the last of the great indie comic-books?

Chris Ware's "Acme Novelty Library" became a hardcover graphic novel series when Ware began self-publishing the title at issue #16. Los Bros Hernandez' "Love and Rockets" became an annual paperback graphic novel with restarted numbering under the title "New Stories" in 2oo8. Finally, Seth's "Palookaville" jumped ship this year: with "Palookaville" issue #20, the series is now 'hardcover graphic novel volume' #20.

"Acme Novelty Library" changed formats like most people change their clothes but "Palookaville" now exists as nineteen comic-books and one graphic novel-ish thing. Seth is to be congratulated in at least one way: "Palookaville" Vol. 20 is a pretty gorgeous book object but doubts linger in the forefront of my mind.

"The expansion into hardcover from pamphlet is a parallel that illustrates Seth's growth ... into a book designer, hobbyist, editor, essayist, and installation artist."
~ "Palookaville" #20 (marketing writing on the book-band)

A slightly different tune from Seth himself (a slog of text yes, but worth it):

"It's not like I wasn't aware that the comic book format was coming to an end. A shift had occurred (this last decade) in the sales of comic books and people simply weren't buying 'alternative' comic books any longer-- they were waiting for the book collections instead. Books were the current 'healthy business model.' ... I was torn. I have a deep and abiding love of the old pamphlet form of comics. I grew up with them, and it is the most simple, austere and unpretentious format you could invent. ...

all the great alternative comics were gone ... Hate, Yummy Fur, Eightball, Yahoo, Dirty Plotte, Peepshow, Jim/Frank... they'd all vanished. Even Love and Rockets had turned into a large squarebound book. Only Optic Nerve seemed to be strongly carrying on. I hadn't truly realized how much of a dying breed we were. Was I leaving now too? It seemed a minor betrayal of something to quit the format. ...

It's difficult to do a long story all at once and putting it out a bit at a time was a method that worked for me. There was an era when the comics reader was more willing to go along with this approach ... Then they'd buy the book collection as well. I appreciated that too. I guess that day is done. ...

In fact, the less constrained page count would actually allow me to present larger chunks of the long story as well. ... I suspect that this format change itself will influence how my next long story is told. ... So, goodbye, comic book format. It was good to know you. I leave you with no regrets."
~ Seth from "Palookaville" #20: Introduction

So where does the 'comic-book' end and the 'graphic novel' begin? Well, somewhere in the middle of the 'graphic novella' I guess? At over 100 pages? Other than that I'll be damned if I know anymore.

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's "Lost Girls" was an indie comic-book slowly released over several years. The series was canceled and eventually finished when published as a bound book set and then a single volume "graphic novel". If the only way to get the entire story is to buy the trade, does that lend credence to the concept of a serialized graphic novel?

"I suspect that this format change itself will influence how my next long story is told." Of course it will. If I gave anyone alive one page a day to write something, the writing would be different than if I gave them 100 pages at once. Artists, like all humans, are adaptable. They expand or truncate to fit the space they're given. This affects the way these stories are told and if ALL indie creators switch over like this I fear we will begin to see an English-language paper-marketplace with very similar comics. I am working on a review of "Berlin" #17. Will my review of "Berlin" #18 (in 2o13 or whenever) be of a hardcover book? In which case, webcomics-in-print may become the new go-to source for a variety for voices who wish to do something in short formats without a superhero in it (not that there's anything wrong if there is) at a comics shop or box chain bookstore. Truth is: webcomics already rival the indie comics in that regard. Turn on your computer, type "recommended webcomics" into Google and you may be amazed at what you find.

But should not the talented creators of limited financial means be also given credit for surmountting the problem Seth clearly stated: "It's difficult to do a long story all at once"? As a creator of limited financial means (who believes himself to be talented) I myself know that to be true. Time, food, money. These are troubling obstacles to sitting at a computer/typewriter/drawing board/lightbox all day long. I believe those who do so, indie or otherwise, without immediate recompense and publish their hard-fought work all at once, are creators who deserve the term graphic novel.

In the end, I have little doubt that just as digital comics will take off, people will find a use for paper comics; so too, as the ongoing graphic novel series becomes more common, people will find a use (most likely an entirely original and unexpected one) for the comic-book.

Here's looking forward to whatever that may be.

~@JonGorga

An Opportunity I'm Not Library To Pass Up

I don't like winter break very much. It's not that I don't like the time off (I do), and it's not like I don't like my family (I love them, that's why I come home), there just isn't very much to do in Chicago's north suburbs in late December and early January. Rather than find things to occupy me, then, I have often to make them.

Luckily, my local library has a pretty sweet graphic novel and collected comics collection. It's growing, too: when I started checking books out as a freshmen in high school, the whole shebang occupied maybe four bookshelves. Today, when I walked into the library for the first time in probably about a year, it took up four whole bookcases.

Clearly, someone at the Highland Park public library likes me very much.

I always use the opportunity of being home to read some stuff I wouldn't have read otherwise; things that just aren't my speed enough to buy, or things that are just too big, unwieldy or expensive for me to consider purchasing on a normal occasion. This vacation, I've chosen three things to read, all of which encompass both categories of comics I borrow from the library.

The first, Fantagraphics' complete collection of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar, is my introduction to Los Bros Hernandez. That I've read nothing of their work means that I have a pretty big hole in my comics knowledge, and I hope the experience of this tale, which originally ran in the Bros' Love and Rockets anthology, is as fantastic as everyone says it is. The HPPL also has Luba, Locas I and Locas II, so it's possible I'll also get to at least one of those before the break is over.

The second, Top Shelf's collection of Eddie Campbell's Alec comics, entitled The Years Have Pants, is something I've thought about buying a couple times, on the strength of recommendations alone. It's a huge, beautiful, book- I hope I enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy looking at it.

The last maxi-sized comic currently on loan to me is Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's Local, which looks about as perfect a comic for me as there ever was. If Wood's Demo proved anything, it's that he writes a great short comics story and this collection of twelve interconnected ones, about a girl who sets out from Portland, Oregon and just travels around the country, looks perfect. And pretty.

I'm hoping to review each of them; I'm curious how their massive size and quality paper changes the experience of reading comics. I'll let you know how it goes.

Talk Over Balloons: artist Shane Davis

In a medium that was (and in some ways, still is) so dominated in America by stories of men in skin-tight leotards there is still a perception that comics aren't capable of emotional storytelling. And yes, there is still a slight shortage of human connections between human characters in mainstream comics. That is changing as the mainstream comics world changes and that change is coming with professionals both from comics and from outside comics. But left behind in some ways in this process are the old company flagships that once loomed so large on the comics reading populace: Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Superman. DC is once again attempting to make Superman relevant by 'rebooting' him in another universe, but doing so with the new-er format of the full-length graphic novel. With a treatment from long-time uber-fan and scripting genius J. Michael Straczynski (who started his career in film and television), all that was needed was a penciler. The man chosen for the job is Shane Davis. As he said in an interview with CBR, "I wanted it to look classy and not flashy". In his interview with Newsarama.com Davis' statements reflected my thoughts about the project: "If you care about comics and you care about the property of the character of Superman, you realize how important something like this is." Now, here at The Long and Shortbox Of It, Shane Davis gives us the very human story of drawing something so huge and important as the first graphic novel to tell Superman's story anew, attempting to make a human figure out of the Last Son of Krypton.

Jon Gorga: Hello readers, this is Jon Gorga for The Long and Shortbox Of It. I'm here today at the New York Comic-Con (@NY_Comic_Con) in the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. I'm interviewing Shane Davis, who is the artist of the upcoming graphic novel "Superman: Earth One", a really exciting new initiative from DC Comics (@DC_NATION). So Shane, my first question is: Mike Cotton (@MichaelCotton) interviewed you for Wizard Magazine recently and one of the things he said was: "Earth One" is "a huge, possibly paradigm-shifting project in terms of format and storytelling" for the medium and for the industry. So I'm wondering whether you agree and your thoughts on that in general?

Shane Davis: You know, I would love for "Earth One" to be a game changer as far as superhero comics go. But that's a very bold risk, I think. I still like the floppies.

JG: I love 'em too.

SD: But where "Earth One" allows advancements (as in any original graphic novel) is not having to rush what people want, like a money shot of Superman. You don't have to jump the gun in the first 22 pages to show that big dynamic shot of the character. And I think that's the advancement and the game-changing part. It's more of an advanced storytelling in that you're kind of knocking the shackles off. It gets a lot of the luxuries of a movie, in that sense.

JG: Cool, that's actually almost exactly what I've been thinking and what I'm hoping for it.

SD: I think that's what a lot of people are going to come out of Earth One with. More of a: 'Wow, I feel like I maybe watched a Superman 'movie' and I can't wait for the next Superman 'movie'! Because [monthly] comics is great but if you took a two-hour movie and you have a character like Batman and you have to open up with a money shot of Batman and then, you know, another couple minutes you have to do another shot of Batman and next thirty minutes you have to have this other big shot of Batman, that can limit you in the actual storytelling in the movie itself.

JG: So you would say that the format has definitely allowed you to stretch your legs as a storyteller, pencil on paper?

SD: Well, "stretching my legs"? I wouldn't use that term. I was more-- It did, but it also allowed me to advance as a storyteller, I think. It allowed me to tackle situations in the fashion that was best for that scene, not what was the quickest way to show a nice big open shot of the character.

JG: Sounds good! What was it like working with J. Michael Straczynski as a writer?

SD: Joe's a great guy, he's a great collaborator. Working with Joe we talked a lot back and forth, working on stuff. It seemed like at least designing stuff, everything I designed was good off the bat. I think we talked a little bit back and forth about Clark's [space] pod a little bit. But that was the only thing that was like: 'Well how do I handle this? How do you see it?' Pretty much from every robot, spaceship, or bad guy to Clark and Superman. Everything I pretty much knocked off the bat. There was never any question. I don't know what everybody else's working situations were. I'm sure not everybody had great working situations with me, but I had a great working situation with Joe.

JG: Good. That's the thing that's hardest to control at the end of the day, right? In any business.

SD: Yeah, but we got along great so it was a great ride. The challenge for me now is: What do I do next?

JG: The next thing on the horizon is always the scariest and most challenging element of anything.

SD: Yeah. Yeah, it is

JG: So I'd like to ask you a question that's a little different from the others. Because the format that some people think of under the term 'graphic novel' is different from what other people think of and there's been a lot of argument about whether people like it, whether people don't like it, what it means, I want to ask you what 'graphic novel' as a term means to you, and what you think of it?

SD: After working on and producing what I just produced, I know and I see a really distinct difference between a graphic novel and a trade[paperback collection]. With that, I think what might shake-up people a little bit on this is maybe people have read a graphic novel, but how many have they ever read with a superhero that was just straight up done like this? Even things like "Dark Knight" and "Watchmen" were done in sections.

JG: Absolutely. And a lot of people don't know that.

SD: No, they don't... well they forget it. They're like: 'Oh, here's this awesome splash page of Batman in every chapter' and there's a reason for that. It was broken up into sections.

JG: You gotta sell the product.

SD: You know, you did. I don't know those circumstances with the editors, but they were selling the book. Kids were buying Batman or adults who wanted their Batman, you know? "Watchmen" is a different one I think. I think everybody kinda looks at "Watchmen" as its own thing. I don't want to go there.

[muffled question]

SD: ... It's $25, and you get either a free print or a comic.

[muffled statement]

JG: Pause for Con stuff.

SD: ... Thanks, thanks. Do you want the book or do you want the print?

JG: Speaking of selling stuff.

SD: Sorry.

JG: No! No, it's cool. It's reality, someone's buying a comic right now from Shane Davis. He's signing a sketchbook and a comic. I love comic conventions. I really do. I've been going to cons since I was like 8 years old.

[muffled question]

SD: ... That's not for sale yet. It's a story I'm working on now. I actually wrote that story and I'm drawing it right now.

guy: Really? Because this is absolutely amazing. When do you think it's going to be coming out?

SD: Don't know, I'll be going into the second half of it this month.

guy: Because that is one of the coolest Clayfaces I've ever seen.

SD: Yeah, everybody says that, everybody loves my Clayface. I just had this idea for a cool Clayface story. It was a twist on Clayface and they liked it.

guy: That's really cool.

SD: Thanks a lot man.

JG: That is cool!

SD: Thanks, thanks.

JG: Actually, my next question was going to be: ' "Superman: Earth One" comes out on the 27th of this month, October, but what's next?' You were saying that's the scarier thing, but it sounds like you've got a really cool new project where you're both the writer and the art storyteller?

SD: Dan [DiDio] was nice enough to let me write an issue of Batman that has a story on Clayface I wrote with a writer. He's writing some stuff for Marvel right now with, I think, the "Chaos War"?

JG: Greg Pak and [Fred] Van Lente? They're the two writers on that, I believe.

SD: Yeah, but he's dong a one-shot with [Michael William] Kaluta: Brandon Montclare. He's co-writing with me on this. It's a nice fun ride. It has a good angle and idea on Clayface and it was a one-shot story, it wasn't anything too long. I was like: 'Dan, what do you think of this story?' and he was game and so I'm drawing it up now. Don't know when that's going to release, but hopefully sooner than later.

JG: That must be a nice change of pace after doing a full 136-page graphic novel.

SD: It is. It's a short ride and it's got an ending that once you get to page 20, 21, 22 you flip back to the beginning and you're like: 'ohh...!' So it really couldn't have been more than one issue. It was just a quick idea: Well, if Clayface can do all this can Clayface do that?

JG: That's the fun of playing with the sandbox of a universe of shared characters.

SD: It's weird, I picked probably a character that's hardest to write a story with-- and what I mean by 'write a story with' is I didn't just use Clayface for something, I actually wrote a 'Clayface story'.

JG: Yeah, I got you.

SD: He's one of those characters that just kind of get used to get in and out of a tough situation, you know? A lot of writers have used him to get out of corners. 'I just need some guy to impersonate this and do this and who can do that' and that's Clayface. And you don't even know why he's doing it! Why's he doing it? Somehow Clayface hopped into a graveyard and is Jason Todd?! You know? WHY? What if I just had to pick this character that nobody seems to write a good story with and said 'hey what if I wanted to do the character justice for a minute.' I felt bad for Clayface. He's always used. I wanted to do a good Clayface story.

JG: I've had the same thought about certain Spider-Man villains. They just never got a serious treatment from their point of view.

SD: It's like: I don't think he's going to rob a bank today... what's he going to do, you know?

JG: No that's great. Pushing the medium and the format forward on lots of different fronts. That's great.

SD: Thanks, thanks. You had a question we were interrupted in, about the 'graphic novel'.

JG: Oh, the 'graphic novel', what the term means to you?

SD: When I went into it, I really did go in with a bold determination on it. Because it was a hell of job.

JG: I'd imagine.

SD: Yeah and when Dan told me, I never believed it. I was really trying to wiggle off the hook and go somewhere else and I ended up with the script in my lap and I was, like: 'I can't believe you guys did this to me,' you know? Somebody says: 'Hey, you're going to have to do this, Shane!' You know, I have more percentages of failing at this than I'll ever have to succeed. So why am I doing it?

JG: But more to gain in the long run, right? It could be a whole turning point for the genre?

SD: Yeah, I hope so, I hope so. I really have no idea what it's really going to do for me and my career, I have no idea what it's going to do for the genre. I hope people at least look at the character in a different, exotic, high-brow light. Maybe with more sensibility, more heart to the character. I mean, some of the quotes on the book... I'm just going to read some of these quotes off the back. ["Superman: The Movie" director] Richard Donner: " 'Superman: Earth One' balances the character, the mythos, the action that defines a great Superman story. I believe every moment. I know Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster would have thought it was awesome." I think David Goyer's was most important: "humanistic." HUMANistic.

JG: Interesting that it's Hollywood guys.

SD: A lot of them were Hollywood guys, yeah. But I think this is who it appealed to the most.

JG: I find that exciting.

SD: [Harlan Ellison:] "this is an absolute imperial piece of work". You know, the trick with this for me was: I did go in and I said: 'Okay I have to do it, here it is in my lap.'

JG: That's about 6 months-- 8 months of your life on one story? 136 pages.

SD: It was about 9 months. 9 months. But there were some delays in the middle with script. JMS had some other commitments he had to tie up. I set out to draw the All-American graphic novel and that's how I treated it since day one. I didn't really worry about trying to draw a very iconic, commercial Clark Kent. I kinda tried to do the character justice, you know. I drew every scene TO the character, in light of what was best FOR the character. And talking about what makes this different, what I hope made it different, I really hope people will come away feeling like the character was done justice... Not so much justice but they felt like he was real. You know, like Clark Kent was real.


JG: That he was a human being.

SD: Yeah, that we treated him like it. What I felt-- and this wrapped into what I had to do on the graphic novel-- I felt like Superman became a very cardboard-cut-out character, you know?

JG: The Big Blue Boy scout. Yeah.

SD: He was very iconic. So iconic that he was so not realistic. I was thinking about this the other day. What did we do here? I always get on these things and I try not to look down. That's my motto: 'Whatever I do, don't look down.'

JG: A good philosophy.

SD: Yeah, I try to remember and learn from the past. I'm looking back at it now after it's done and it's printed and I start noticing things like: Okay, I drew a guy walking down the street carrying his groceries and he drops tomatoes out of the bag as a fire truck rushes by him and he notices his place is on fire. Real-life stuff, you know? A guy dropping some of his groceries. A guy dressing like a guy. Trying to get a girl's attention. Having a conversation with his dad which was really heart-breaking. In those scenes, if it was a sad scene, I tried to really make it as sad as possible and draw it in a composition and make you feel sad, you know? And somehow with all these human moments with Clark, in the end we end up with him in a costume with primary colors fighting a bad guy and I think that was the magic of the book and where a lot of people are giving the great response who have read the book. You really take a normal dude and we built up and made you care about a normal dude and then slapped him in a costume and he had to save the Earth. And at the end it's believable.

JG: Awesome.

SD: Where Richard Donner made you believe a man could fly, I think what we set out to do and ultimately did accomplish is that we made you believe Superman can be real. And I think that's something that means a lot to people. And I think it might be something that people have forgotten. I think me or you or a lot of people, we were born, we grew up and we were introduced to Superman. We never saw Superman come onto the scene.

JG: He was here before us and he'll be here after us, as some people have said.

SD: I think he becomes like a Santa Claus icon.

JG: Yeah I follow you. God, that's a really good way of putting it because it feels equally empty the way he's often portrayed: No personality.

SD: Yeah. And I think where we're at now with "Earth One"... I think we took him for granted in the average Superman book. We always remember where Batman came from, you KINDA remember Superman's origin story. And that's where people who are like: 'How many times are we going to re-tell these origin stories?' I told somebody we really didn't retell his origin story because this isn't about him rocketing to Earth as a baby, it's about him deciding to be...

JG: It's an untold chapter.

SD: It is. It's the in-between chapter. But it's weird, it's one of those most important chapters of anybody's life is that moment when you decide who you're going to be the rest of your life. People are like: 'Oh we've seen this story' and no, you haven't. I haven't. Maybe he did reflect on it but you didn't feel it, you didn't live it, you didn't actually read it. He contemplates it. He doesn't just jump in the costume. He's like: 'Why would I do this?' Who would? Because once you do it once, you're going to do it the rest of your life.

JG: Yeah. Of course! That's great.

SD: It's expected of you, you're going to expect it of yourself. And that's what drew me to the script and why I'm HAPPY I did it. I'm really happy I did it.

JG: Good.

SD: I don't know if I could ever do it again! I'll be honest, I went into this project weighing 269 pounds and I came out weighing 196.

JG: DAMN.

SD: I don't know if I could do it again. I hope to one day. I'm going to pack away some cheeseburgers first. I'll try to get back on it. I put a lot into it and I was really stressed the whole time I was working on it and I was really concerned about the quality of the book and despite that I'm sure I'll have negative criticism and I'm sure I'll have great criticism. I've only been met with great criticism so far. But for all the negative? I really did try and at the end of the day I can tell myself that. That's enough for me, you know?

JG: It sounds like art, Shane.

SD: It's art!

JG: No, it sounds like serious art, it sounds like serious storytelling. It just happens to have a guy in a blue suit and that's what a lot of people are waiting for, Shane, I think.

SD: Honestly, I came out a different person than the person I went in. It's something I'm always going to remember, this book. It's something you're not going to forget, you know?

JG: Cool. Clark comes out changed, you came out changed, and hopefully the readers will come out changed! And it will be something that people will remember for the rest of their lives.

SD: Earth One is the best diet plan out there, man.

JG: Yeah, apparently!

SD: Everybody needs to do one. Forget Jenny Craig, man.

JG: Draw a 136 page graphic novel and you WILL lose weight?

SD: Go work an Earth One project, you'll be alright.

JG: I've been joking for the past year that the metaphor of the starving artist? It's not a metaphor.

SD: No, no.

JG: It's not a joke. It's for real.

SD: It's a losing your appetite artist, that's what it is!

JG: Well I should let you get back to your fans, Shane. But thank you so much for making the time for this!

SD: Thank you, and it's been a pleasure.

JG: This is Jon Gorga for the The Long and Shortbox Of It.

__________________________
I wish Shane Davis, DC Comics and Joe Michael Straczynski (and Clark Kent as well) all the luck possible in this new chapter of their lives. This massive undertaking of making the Man of Steel feel like a man of flesh and bone while attempting to jump-start superhero serial graphic novels will arrive on shelves next week: October 27th, 2o1o.

I'll be buying a copy of "Superman: Earth One" for myself and reviewing it here on The Long and Shortbox Of It, come by for the continuation of this story!

Shane has just recently begun maintaining a website called simply ArtofShaneDavis.com! Not much there yet, but check it out!

Real Quick!

Sunday (that's today!) I'll be giving a talk at NYCC in room 1A15, at 1:30 PM. If you can stop by and say hello, I promise you will not be disappointed.

Comics Scholars ASSEMBLE!

Sorry for the lack of chatter here over the last week- Clare and I are in the midst of the start of a new semester and Jon just got a new job- but to make up for it, we have a lot of stuff coming up this week, including something really exciting that Jon is going to post in the next couple of days. The Long and Shortbox of It has hit the big time.

In the meantime, though, I have some exciting news to announce:

Sunday

1:30-2:30

COMICS STUDIES CONFERENCE SESSION #8: Art—Frank Verano (University of Westminster) weaves capitalism, culture, and contemporary art theory into an analysis of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again, a work that takes on and subverts its function as both pre-sold commodity and work of art. Josh Kopin (Bard College) examines the way shared art duties on Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction’s The Immortal Iron Fist furthers the series’ narrative, while also exploring the structure of comics and the way we consume sequential art. Alexa Laura Siegfried (University of California, Riverside) questions whether there is a difference between fine art and illustration in a study of the relationship between contemporary artists like James Jean and Dave McKean and the fine art canon.

That's right, folks- I'm giving a presentation at NYCC in a few weeks! This one's a good one, too- it introduces something I'm calling the Comics Consumption Problem, which is something that we've done some work with here. I hope some of y'all will come check it out- it's going to be a blast. You should be able to find the full CSC schedule up at the NYCC website soon and if you do stop by, be sure to say hi.

Fables on the BBC

Via Rich Johnston comes this cool Fables ad, which I guess ran in the UK over the weekend during a Doctor Who marathon:



This is neat, because it is basically the kind of thing Jon was begging to see more of last week; people can put comics adverts on television and Vertigo is putting comics adverts on the telly (well, at least in Britain, anyway), which is a huge step in the right direction.

Now, before we get too excited, Rich suggests that Vertigo may have not bought the space so much as traded some with the BBC, so they may not have actually sought out the time for the 30 second spot so much as taken the BBC up on an offer of barter. With that said though, DC/Vertigo/Warner/Whoever did decide to give up a chunk of (very valuable) advertising revenue to run the ad and this is extremely important because it means that DC/Vertigo/Warner/Whoever thinks they can sell comics by advertising them on television. Cool, right?

Well, mostly. Rich has some complaints about the ad copy (which is fair enough- the man does do advertising for a living), but the major problem I have with the ad is that it sells Fables as a series of graphic novels, which it is not. It is a series of comic books. The distinction may seem fine and, to be honest, it is, but it is also extremely important. COMICS is a medium, much like literature or film. A "graphic novel" is (to borrow a term from improv) a long-form kind of comic, while a comic book is a short-form (again, an improv term) example of the medium. Therefore, Fables is a long running comic book which, as a general rule, runs 32 pages per issue while 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a graphic novel set in the Fables universe.* There are other things that separate comic books from graphic novels (for instance, comics are generally part of a series while graphic novels are generally stand-alone) but these are mostly generalizations (this week's Serenity: Float Out is a one-shot while Maus has two volumes, for example) and, therefore, to distill the differences to their essence is to discuss length.

Hence, the problem with the advert calling Fables a series of graphic novels; Fables is a series of comic books, which is occasionally collected into something resembling a graphic novel. This is the heart of something I call The Comics Consumption Problem: because collections resemble graphic novels we treat them as such and, therefore, we consume them as such. The problem is, collections of comic books are just that- collections of comic books! To treat them as graphic novels is to consume them differently than they were intended; it is to consume them as one story rather than as serial chapters of one story. This may not seem like an important distinction, but it is a very important distinction- telling a story serially over a period of months is different than telling a story in one big chunk (this is part of the reason that television differs from film, for example); it forces a creator to put the same sort of overall structure in an individual issue that he or she would put in the series as a whole, when taken together and it forces us, the reader, to read in a very different and specialized kind of way.

I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't buy collections- they do a lot of good, and there is a reason they exist. I am suggesting, however, that there needs to be a new standard, a new way of understanding them that differs from both comic books and graphic novels. We need to understand them in their own terms.

The Fables advert on the BBC is really cool and, like I said, I think it is a step in the right direction. I do, however, think that it represents a kind of thinking about comics that moves us backwards in other ways, ways we need to be very careful of.

*Whether or not 1001 Nights of Snowfall actually counts as a "graphic novel" is an interesting question- most of it is comics, but some of it is actually illustrated prose. A discussion on how to treat something like this will have to wait for another time.

Earth One... For the First Time All Over Again?

DC is going to be up to some crazy tricks next year.

DC announced their new "Earth One" project this morning.


So: Who wants to see a new comic about Batman becoming Batman? Again.
I'm not sure I do.

But: Who wants to see new stories about established superhero characters in the full-length graphic novel format?
That I'm pretty sure I do.

Apparently the first of these graphic novels (fittingly featuring the first superhero character) will be "Superman: Earth One" and will be written by the excellent J. Michael Straczynski and drawn by Shane Davis (whom I've never heard of but, if this Superman image is any real indication of his work, he'll be welcome in my brain) and will soon be followed by "Batman: Earth One" by drum rolllllll... Geoff Johns and Gary Frank!

(from DC: The Source blog, via the "Comics Books" program wall)


I have been saying for years now that the future of superhero comics could be in graphic novels.

Sci-Fi books and films gained huge readership and slowly got established as a part of the cultural canon where Sci-Fi television never did.

Superhero films have pretty insane box office clout these days where superhero comics are being ignored by comparison.

Graphic novels are becoming the darling of 'literary' types where comic-books are left by the way-side (most obscenely in the occasions where the story was serialized as a comic-book before it was a collected trade-paperback).

See, people are doing this silly thing called 'trade waiting'. We'll hear more about this later, but basically it's the comics equivalent of 'Who has time for television? I'll wait for the DVD season set.' (Which, by the way, I do. Television is much harder to follow for me than monthly comics.) They don't pick up the monthly individual issues of an ongoing comic-book, they instead wait six months or more for the paperback collection. People like the feeling that they've gotten their money's worth, that they can hold a meaty consumer item, something that looks nice on a shelf. I'm as guilty of that as anyone. Although I have rarely, rarely, rarely waited for the trade on an ongoing series, I certainly feel the pull. I did twice decide to wait for a trade of a mini-series and I have bought paperbacks of stories I already owned entirely in single issues. Some series are built for it and some aren't.

I do believe there is a certain weight, a certain power, to complete 'full-length' works of art.

I think the film "Citizen Kane", the novel "Invisible Man", and the graphic novel "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" attest to this.

Do I think they're actually categorically BETTER than short-form serial fiction? No. Do I think it's right to squish a random chunk of short-form serial fiction together and pretend it's a complete single work? HELL NO. I think that's a mess. I've written to that effect elsewhere on this site.

This is not the first effort to do graphic novels with established superhero characters. The excellent "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" stands as proof. What the "Earth One" graphic novel project might signify is a shift toward graphic novel series, i.e. long-form serial fiction. Something more like the James Bond films. Okay. Maybe that's a bad example?

When Straczynski was asked in this interview on Ain't It Cool News conducted by columnist "Ambush Bug" with both writers Straczynski and Johns what he thinks of this possibility, his answer is wonderful:

BUG: The graphic novel format has been a preferred reading experience for a growing number of fans. Trade-waiting is a pretty common term I hear thrown around these days. What do you think; does the release of such a high profile product in a graphic novel format signify the end of the monthly single issues?

JMS Not at all. It's like saying that the production of movies signifies the end of dramatic series TV. Each serves a different need, and fills a different niche. If there's anything that is signified by trade-waiting, it's that we need to write better stories. If a reader can wait until it's all done to buy it, then we're not doing our jobs right. We should be writing stories that the reader can't wait to buy as soon as the next installment hits the stands, and then at the end, wants to gather together for ease of re-reading. If a reader can wait it out, then we as creators need to re-evaluate our work. Seriously.

And here's the more optimistic side of the coin from Johns:

BUG: Apart from event books and maybe the occasional guest appearance or team book appearance, this is the first time I recall you doing a Bat book. What was it about this project that finally attracted you to Gotham?

GJ: Three words: “Gary Frank” and “freedom.” Obviously, I love long form storytelling. ... BATMAN: EARTH ONE allows Gary and I to break the restraints of any continuity and focus on two things: character and story. Add to that the idea of working on a line of graphic novels instead of being limited to twenty-two pages, it’s a challenge and I love a challenge.

Sounds good to me.

The Life and Times (and Death) of a Savior

I bought "The Life and Times of Savior 28" #5 (from IDW Comics) two months back and, as I'd gotten used to over the previous issues of this mini-series, I got something much more than the average smart superhero story.

I got something beautiful.


This review of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" #5 is long overdue, yes. But J.M. DeMatteis' and Mike Cavallaro's remarkable mini-series deserves more praise and a more critical exploration than I have seen it receive.

Alan Moore has stated that when he was writing the "Watchmen" mini-series, he really felt like it was going to be the end of the superhero genre. He thought that as far as he was concerned once he'd shown that the ultimate expression of Superman had to be either detached from humanity or devoted to destroying the few to save the many and the ultimate expression of Batman would either be a non-functioning psycho or an all-too human man-child the superhero genre would be dead. "Watchmen" was to be its tombstone. How naive of him.

The truth, as things turned out, is that people loved "Watchmen" so much (and indeed loved the psychopathic Rorschach most of all) that the genre was rejuvenated as a place where characters could be seen somewhat realistically destroying each other mentally and physically on a monthly basis. Superhero comics are still for children... except they also have to be violent enough that adults will take them seriously. Superhero comics have to be lighthearted enough that children will find them exciting and hopeful... except again they also have to be grounded enough that adults take them seriously. Paul Levitz, the until-just-recently Publisher of DC Comics, said in the 2003 documentary "Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked": "We point out, with some passion and energy, that comics not only aren't only for kids, they're not mostly for kids today." And, on the subject of "Watchmen", "Most of the guys in comics live within about fifty miles of here, so we were all at the same poker-games and the same parties. And it was just: 'Wow, how the hell did he [Moore] do that?' and you went home and you ripped up whatever you had done that week and just said 'No, dammit. There's more I can do.' " As well as the glorious general statement: "Comic-book writers and artists are doing the same thing the storytellers did drawing pictures on the caves at Lascaux. We're using story to create context for life. On a very, very good day (and we don't have enough of them) that becomes art, on an ordinary day it becomes escape. It's always magic."

(Yeah. If you haven't watched that documentary yet, you should.)

So the superhero fiction writer of today must ask himself this archetypal question: To continue the fight month after month or try to do something more?

The main character of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" is cracking under this exact pressure. Savior 28 a.k.a. James Smith (the most fantastically everyman secret I.D. name I'VE ever heard) is a character who doesn't know who he is anymore in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Like many Americans. Like the superhero genre itself.

I don't think any of us truly appreciate our superheroes. Despite the millions they rake in at the box office, they still seem to be a cultural joke in most people's eyes. That's the beauty of "Watchmen", it didn't take its characters for granted. And that's the main reason I can't stop thinking of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" as the new "Watchmen", because it doesn't either. And you, also, will no longer be able to take your superheroes for granted after you read the end of the first issue of "Savior 28". Because to watch a superhuman character lose the woman he'd loved, and drown the pain in alcohol, only to wake up on September 12th, 2oo1 and see the epitome of failure in his eyes? That's pain. Anguish, even. For James Smith and for the reader. What does James Smith do? The invulnerable super-powered flying man of the title?

He opens another bottle of scotch.

His next reaction? Suicide attempts.

Plural, of course. He's superhuman.

Mike Cavallaro's art is key to the evocation of pain in these scenes. James Smith's face changes in each panel into a new mask of horror. (Really. Click on this image, make it as big as you can get it and look at each panel. Distinctive expression of pain on each face in each image.) His smooth, almost cartoony line allows the character to fool our senses for a moment every time he appears in one of many too-horrible-for-words moments.

This is actually the first page of "The Life and Times of Savior 28" art I ever saw. It's the first page of the second issue. It sold me on buying the issue pretty much immediately. The following 21 pages sold me on the whole series.

Even though that was my introduction to the series, I don't think I'd recommend you read it that way. The series' writer and concept originator J.M. DeMatteis had something in mind in the structure of the mini-series. Is it as structured as "Watchmen"'s plot? No. Each issue doesn't have a unique arc and structure, but they do have their own themes: #1 and #2 are about the history of the superhero and the history of the 'real world', respectively. That's why the first issue is titled "A Kind of Eulogy". The third issue is about the superhero as celebrity/political figure. The media and political pundits of the 'real world' are featured. Hence, "The Whole World Is Watching". The fourth focuses on the Oedipal Complex exhibited by most superhero characters (albeit with a role reversal) and the fifth (titled "In Pace Requiescat") is about the superhero as (finally!) savior. The main thematic elements of superhero narratives are on display here: history (mainly, their own), social/political relevancy, Freudian/Oedipal tension, and religion.

Is this a definite and clear structure? Hell no. There are bits of every theme in each issue. Plus I just made half of that stuff up! I'm an academic folks, what can I say? But, this is part of my point. "The Life and Times of Savior 28" is not 'the "Watchmen" of our generation'. Such a title would be pretty damn meaningless anyway. It feels in a few ways, to this reviewer at least, like a kind of anti-"Watchmen". An antidote to ultra-realistic, ultra-violent, ultra-structured superhero comics. A silky-smooth-line-drawn, tastefully intense, organic superhero comic that examines and comments on superhero comics.

The final issue does not disappoint. The entire mini-series is framed as the memoir of Savior 28's former sidekick, Dennis McNulty, and the story reaches an emotional and absolutely fitting conclusion for both Savior 28 and his 'biographer'. I couldn't stop myself from reading this as soon as it was in my possession. The story hit home emotionally as I read it standing in a falafel shop. It is finally, at the end, so sad. Cavallaro's smart splash-page storytelling techniques are in full force here. But the real crescendo of the piece is a single page of twelve small panels in which almost the entirety of the series is silently summarized and as we see Savior 28's and Dennis McNulty's lives meet and intertwine and separate and end all on one page... it hurts. Everything that Paul Levitz said about comics is reflected in that one page, as well as in the last issue, as well as in the entirety of the series.

"The Life and Times of Savior 28" is a particularly smart and particularly beautiful exegesis of superhero narratives because it makes it clear that our superheroes can be saviors if, just like REAL people, they choose to sacrifice something REAL. Is it child-appropriate? Not really, no. As evidenced by the nine panel-grid page above and the splash-page at left. (If you want a great kid-appropriate comic, you must check out Clare's editorial here.)

I believe the mini-series "The Life and Times of Savior 28" reconciles much of the problems facing most superhero comics (and their writers...) coming out today.

Read it. A trade paperback collection has been solicited for January. For my money, you want to read the five 22-page issues to really get a feeling for their individual themes and rising energy. But I'm crazy. Just read it.

More Twenties Action North of 125th Street!

"Luke Cage: Noir" #3 of 4 from Marvel Comics

This issue re-kindled and re-affirmed my love for this series. The 'villains' (such as they are) took a quick backseat to the character-driven story elements. As it should be. (Indeed, the two have been merged as we now see in flashback that all three of the introduced villains were present at the defining moment of Luke's life.) Martinbrough's art continues to be gorgeous, while built on clear and subtle story-telling. And it's badass.

I have been saying for years (and I'm sure I'm not alone; nor am I original in this, goes back to Aristotle I think) that a good work of art should be made up of good parts, a balance between each of those having autonomy and each being merely parts of the whole. A good movie should have scenes that should fly by themselves as good short films and a good comic should have pages that should fly by themselves as good one-pagers. This issue was full of them.

(Check out this great scene in which Luke sets a trap for his childhood-friend turned greedy mob boss out to kill him. Stryker is too late to stop his henchman from striking a match after he sees the literal 'writing on the wall' and the gas-lamp.)

It's also been a great deal of fun for me as a recently minted New Yorker to see all the references to New York City locales and borders. So "downtown" to a black man in the Nineteen-Twenties would of course be "south of 125th street", i.e. below the lowest street in Harlem. The land of the "offay", the white man.

But maybe the best part? The flashbacks are coming together fairly well! Finally! We can now see a chronology of the story. And it's awesome. We now see that the populace of Harlem's belief in Luke Cage's invulnerability may be greatly mistaken... or is it? We still have yet to see Luke take a bullet straight on. (Excepting the first issue's exciting cover, an image not strictly part of the story.)

If you're a Marvel fan, you know what the answer to that question is probably going to be based on the superpowers of the main 616 continuity version of the character running around since 1972, but I'm not sure that in this new NOIR version of the Marvel universe, Mike Benson and Adam Glass might not be going for something different. The fourth issue will tell, I'm sure, and I can't wait! I'm really enjoying this.

The end left a bit to be desired. It looks like we're taking another bit of a left turn, but I thought that about the end of the first issue and enjoyed the second one nonetheless.

THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT?
This series is going from great to excellent before my eyes! Although, I'm saddened at the realization that this may read better as a 'serialized graphic novel' than a mini-series. A minor distinction, yes. But basically it means I may not be able to stop myself from buying it again in hardcover... And the mini-series is a dying breed.

Still, it's worth your money.