Transatlantic Exchange

Quickly, I wanted to draw your attention to two pieces of process that cropped up over the last couple of days, one from an American working on a European comic, and the other from a European working on an American one.

The first is from former X-Men and Defenders artist Terry Dodson, who is working on the second volume of his so-far-only-published-in-Europe Songes series. I like Dodson's art because I think it strikes an interesting balance between traditional, stylized, cartooning and a kind of real feel-- I believe it, if that makes any sense. I also really like his process posts; because they tend to follow a particular cover or page from conception to finished product, they're both comprehensive and instructive. In this particular case, the lines in the inked image, on the left, are quite thin, and they give the page a confusing aspect, like there's too much going on. In the colored page on the right, the narrative is significantly clearer, despite the addition of a couple of extra elements even over and above the color. Although I tend to dislike coloring that has so many layers, Dodson's art works because it's complex, that's what makes it dynamic and fun to read, and the coloring adds a kind subtle depth that's lacking in the inked page, particularly when Dodson is using such a thin line.

The second of the posts is from David Aja, who often posts preview of the inked and then colored pages before a new issue of Hawkeye comes out. Now, without getting too deep into the weeds here, this is a great page. I love how well Aja mimics the aesthetic of a side scrolling arcade game, down even to the way that Spider-Man is turned slightly away in that middle panel and the way that Hawkeye falls straight down on the bottom left. I am particularly interested to see what purpose, exactly, a page this referential serves in the greater scheme of an issue, because it's either going to work or, well, it isn't. But the important thing to note here is in the thing itself; while the color clarifies the Dodson art above, here it serves to add pop, while the narrative is perfectly clear from the inked page alone. This isn't to say that the colored page isn't better, just that the color isn't necessary here in the same way it is above. This is because its component panels are devoid of unnecessary ornamentation; while much of Aja's early work on Immortal Iron Fist has exceedingly beautiful, detailed, composition, his work on Hawkeye has tended to emphasize complex page structure and panel interaction even as his what's inside those panels becomes increasingly minimal and crisp. His work, always fluid and kinetic, now consistently demonstrates the narrative clarity and playfulness that characterized the best pages and panels from Immortal Iron Fist.

To put too fine a point on it, I think that Dodson's style is representative of contemporary American (or Anglo-American) comics creation and, although my knowledge of Eurocomics is sad and minimal, I have a feeling that Aja's is similarly representative of a Continental style; to a large extent, I expect that we can trace the former to the energetic maximalism of Jack Kirby, while the latter probably springs from Herge and the limited frills of ligne claire. Of course, Aja's minimalism bears a striking similarity to trends in American art comics, and I think this points to an interesting split in American comics in general. In this context, it's heartening to see Aja's work become so successful, just as its nice to see Dodson make some overtures to the overseas market. I have a feeling that crossover projects like these are going to become increasingly common and, to the extent that they can encourage people like me to expend the extra time and resources necessary to pursue comics either published in Europe or drawn in European styles the same way we try to discover American ones, I think that they're a good thing. 

Process: Brandon Graham

Over the last year, I've mentioned, I think probably repeatedly, that I admire the work of Brandon Graham. Graham has recently turned to tumblr, a platform through which he has shared, among other things, process work. My favorite bit of this detritus from this detailing of how the sausage is made is the below layout guide, which Graham sent to artist Giannis Milonogiannis for Prophet #31.*

It's easy to forget that comics is a collaborative process; often, we want a clean division between "writer" and "artist," but I think it's important to remember that many creators are both, even if they are credited as one or the other. Here, Graham is stepping into a part of production that we tend to think of as the artist's purview; elsewhere, like in the Marvel Method, the artist is probably much more responsible for the plot of the book than the writer is. One of the things thats interesting to me about this is the way that each group of creators seems to work differently, so that one particular thing that makes for a successful collaboration between Graham and Milonogiannis might not be useful for Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips or for Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. There is, it turns out, more than one way to make good comics. 

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*I don't think I'm going to do a top ten list but, if I were to, chances are that Prophet would be the book of the year. If you haven't checked it out yet, its time to give it a shot. 

Fare Thee Well, Karen Berger

Today, the news came that Vertigo impresario Karen Berger is no longer working for DC Comics. A rumor that this was coming has been bouncing around for awhile, and I'll leave it to people like Tom and Rich to talk about Karen's career specifically or to guess at what's coming next for the Vertigo imprint.

I will say, though, that I think this is the kind of thing that is bad for comics, or at least it is for us comics people. Although Image is in the process of stepping up to the plate, so to speak, and despite the fact that various comics from Boom! and Dynamite have managed to pass a very high bar in terms of quality, there's not a company in the market right now that is producing the same high number of very good, non-superhero, books that Vertigo was putting out even a couple of years ago. If that era is winding down because the imprint failed as an intellectual property factory farm, it suggests that the industry has gotten even more not-comics focused than I had feared.

Of course, there are always other avenues for high quality comics, but monthlies like Prophet and Fatale are exceptions rather than rules, and books put out by Drawn and Quarterly or Fantagraphics can be intimidating for the uninitiated. It's important, or at least it was for me, to have something like Vertigo around as new readers begin to take comics seriously; although I'd been reading them on and off for close to a decade, it took a chance encounter with Sandman, or maybe Transmetropolitan, on the shelves of my public library for me to consider that maybe there was more to them than spandex and superpowers. By 2006, those readings had driven me to the comic book store and, luckily for me, those were heady days for the imprint, with books like Fables and 100 Bullets in their primes, with Y the Last Man entering its final act and Scalped just about to start up. Without complex, interesting books like those, I'm not sure I would have stuck around, but, because they kept coming out, I kept going to the library and to the comic book store, and I kept looking around, and, eventually, I found my way to comics that better resemble traditional literature as well as superhero books that suggested that that genre, too, was one that had value, at least in the right hands.

And, so, my debt to Vertigo's steward is a great one. It's her fault that I'm out here, kicking this ball around. Thanks for all that, Karen Berger. I wish you well.

Chatter: Chris Ware at BCGF I

Chris Ware:

Books are innately interactive. To read words on a page and make up images in your head and that thing is different than what someone else imagines. It's the strangest intellectual experience of all time. 

It was interesting to hear Ware speak to this, in part because he's abandoned the traditional bounds and binding of books with Building Stories,* but also because my own thinking on this is slightly different.  Comics, it seems to me, are more interactive than traditional prose storytelling, since comics require that readers connect panel to panel, that they literally draw the missing story themselves, or at least close the space between the two. Similarly, its the artist's job to draw the reader from panel to panel in a way that makes closure possible; a failure on the part of either party means that the art itself fails.

Perhaps, then, it is better to say that comics are collaborative rather than interactive. I suppose the same argument could be made about books, but, formally, an author can give you much more in a paragraph than a comics artist is able to by drawing panels that need to be put together when a reader comes along. Surely, the experience of completing somebody else's work for them is stranger than reading a traditional piece of prose?

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* Incidentally, I've decided not to attempt Building Stories until I've actually completed Jimmy Corrigan. In trying to give oneself a comics education, its important to take one step before you take the next one.  

And, NOW!: The Indestructible Hulk

And, NOW! is a series of posts about Marvel NOW!

The Hulk is probably one of Marvel's more confusing characters right now, certainly much more than any of his teammates from the Avengers movie, all of whom have had relatively stable comics versions for some time. There are the colored Hulks, for one, and Banner and Hulk were separated for a while and didn't he spend some time off of the planet, or something? All of that should be set to change, though, with Marvel's best under-the-radar writer teaming with one of its favorite artists to handle a character who seemed to get a particularly favorable response from audiences last summer.

Look: Mark Waid's main idea for Indestructible Hulk is fabulous. We've got Banner and Hulk together again, which is great, and we've got a Banner with a real personality and a certain amount of ambition, which is nice to see. The good Dr. is intent on using his time as himself to save the world, and he's decided that he's going to manipulate his greener half for destruction that's both necessary and controlled. I love that Waid has, finally, written a Banner who is  comfortable in both who he it is that he is and in what it is that he can become. I love that, finally, we get a Banner who understands that he is, as he tells Maria Hill, incurable.

Given all of this, Indestructible Hulk should be a great comic. But its not. This is Lenil Yu's fault. I know a lot of people like Yu, but I'm not sure why; to my eyes, his work looks sketchy, half-finished, like he just kind of churned it out. Many of the panels use a grey or green gradient as the background which, as a time saving idea, isn't so bad, except that the lack of any distraction behind Yu's figures mean that there's nothing to distract from the fact that his figures are stiff and over dark. When something does happen in them, it doesn't really make sense; this issue's second half is devoted to an utterly incomprehensible fight scene, six or so pages that don't come together coherently and which do their best to suggest that, imagine this, fighting is chaotic, without giving any actual idea of who's winning or what's going on.

Even when less complicated movement is required, Yu is apparently unable to suggest sensical spacial relations. Take, for example, the panels to the right, which are essentially the crux of the book. Banner, having pitched his services to Maria Hill, asks "What it'll be?" and both of them are turned towards the  storefronts in the background. In the next panel, though, things fall apart: as the Dr. asks "In or out?," he appears to be turning away from Director Hill, apparently so that we can get a good understanding of her answer. I think we're supposed to assume that she picks up the two-by-four from the boarded up storefront so, leaving the problem of how she grabbed it so fast aside, why is Banner all of the sudden facing away? That doesn't make any sense either physically or emotionally-- isn't this a moment when he should be looking her right in the eye, particularly since he's just barged in a top secret S.H.I.E.L.D mission? Even if he was bashful about this proposal-- which he obviously is not-- why would he put his back to her rather than simply turning his head to the side? Why would he turn all the way around and then finish his question? Just so Hill could hit him? This is not a panel that makes very much sense. It's too bad, too, since this moment could be the book's emotional center rather than simply the point at which the plot turns.

And, holy hell, that isn't even the worst sequence in the comic! No, no, that particular honor goes to this marvelous disaster:

I just want to be clear about this: I love panel interaction. Panels that don't interact are the sign of a staid, traditional cartooning style that forces a reader to completely close the space between panels himself. Those artists who make their panels talk to each other, that is, those artists who suggest a way of reading to the reader are often much more interesting and their work is often a lot better for it. This here, though, is a heavy mess. First of all, how do you bump a sitting person in the middle of their back as you walk by? You'd have to be walking sideways to manage it, particularly if you're walking across their body and not towards it. That unlikely movement is insignificant, though, compared to what that guy's hand is doing: is he patting Maria Hill on the head? It certainly looks like he is, doesn't it? Is there anyone, in the whole of the Marvel Universe, who could get away with that? What makes this guy so special? To make the whole thing even sillier, the panel on the left is a medium shot while the panel on the right is a close up of Hill, so a guy who has a bicep as big as Banner's face appears to have tiny, tiny hands and S.H.I.E.L.D's director apparently has a big, big head. I don't even know what to make of it-- how do sequences like this ever get published? Is anybody actually looking at these comics before they go out?