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Really, Yule, is there anything better?
Although I'd argue that Ressel is the real reason for the shows success. Vasquez had the weirdness but the strangeness of the animation seems to be from Ressel's direction. Having read JV's Johnny The Homicidal Maniac (which is alternately hilarious and deeply disturbing, often all at once), I can assuredly say that JV's got the market cornered on weirdness. And biting the hand that feeds him.
The two pilots aren't nearly as good as the later episodes. But why this ever got on Nick I'll never know. What were they thinking? Still, so funny, so very funny.
When Moore wrote The Watchmen back in the mid-1980s, he wanted to use the Charlton Comics characters that DC had recently acquired, including some of Steve Ditko's most memorable creations after Spider-Man. I had some of the old Blue Beetle and Captain Atom comics from the 1960s and enjoyed them. I was glad when DC decided that Moore couldn't be allowed to destroy their new properties.
Twenty years later, DC doesn't have a problem with Johns, Rucka and Winick doing it. It's getting to be what you have to do as a writer for superhero comics nowadays: kill off a minor hero. Or his wife. God help you if you're a Marvel minor character or a DC female.
I wonder if the recent announcement that Beckett Comics' Fade From Grace is a five-issue miniseries stems from the earlier announcement that Beckett's other businesses have been sold to Apprise. Anyway, it's a fairly straight-forward story with Adobe Illustrator generated artwork that does a pretty decent job. Issue 4 has already hit my in-bin but has not made it up on the Beckett Comics website, leading me to believe that the fledging comics publisher will fold. Of course, they have twenty years' experience publishing other fan magazines, including what was a robust sports card related business. Markets are soft, amigos.
The other fact — that no one seems to have news about these guys — also seems interesting. I'm sure that they will make a blurb in The Comics Journal in a few months, well after they have perished. It took me months to hear that CrossGen folded, owing all sorts of people (including talent) cash.
Speaking of TCJ, they have republished some very rare White Boy strips. I've only seen them republished in the Smithsonian collection from twenty or thirty years ago. Stunning line work that makes you regret the demise of newspaper comic strips as a viable pop art form. The lengthy interview with Brian Michael Bendis ("the hardest working man in sequential art") has merit, too. The "best of 2004" list I could do without, but that's just me. TCJ is really an old fart's journal, with way too much attention paid to things that no one really reads. At least it gives me enough in the reviews to understand that certain graphic novels are just going to revolt me. "Piss Christ": already hashed that one to death. Let's move onto something interesting rather than simply reactive.
All my favourite indie artists have gone to minis for their work, meaning that they are entirely unlikely to appear around here. I suppose I can go to Comics Revolution in Evanston, but I just never have a reason to go into Chicago any longer.
Just to show that every workplace is ripe for the picking when it comes to RO consulting, allow me to present to you three different comments from a recent issue of — all things — Comic Book Artist. I'll go through the quotes and then comment.
From "Darwyn Cooke New Fronteir: From Batman Beyond to Catwoman to New Frontier, the brilliant 'newcomer' gives us a comprehensive look at his life", Comic Book Artist Vol 2, #3 (March 2004), pp. 98:
One thing I can't seem to communicate very clearly — or nobody seems to really want to accept this as a fact — is that the company I work for is not really relevant to me. It's the editor. It's the person. I follow people; I don't follow companies. Each company has characters that are interesting enough to do something with, so it comes down to people. If Axel [Alonso of Marvel Comics] went to Dark Horse tomorrow, you'd probably see me working for Dark Horse. If Mark [Chiarello of DC Comics] was to go to Marvel tomorrow, you'll probably see me doing more work for Marvel, because the relationship is important to me.
Mark Chiarello, same issue, on legendary comics editor and writer, Archie Goodwin:
[Archie Goodwin] was the weirdest mixture of a super-intelligent guy who was a complete nerd, who also happened to have this great sense of humor, was one of the great writers — one of the top three — in comics history. Archie was also the best editor ever in comics, bar none. The underlying thing was, he loved comics.The man really, really loved comic books....
Everything I know about editing came directly from Archie. I saw the way he treated freelancers and, more importantly, for someone like me who just wants to be liked, I saw how much his freelancers loved him. I saw his relationship with Al Williamson, Walt Simonson, and all these guys, andthe advice Archie gave me was, "Editing's easy. Hire the best people you can possibly get and just let them do what they do." Don't tell Mike Kaluta how to draw a hand, don't tell Wally Wood how to spot blacks, because you're just getting in their way. Let them do what they do best. — [pp. , emphasis in original]
Returning to Darwyn Cooke, he also talked about what a good editor needs to be able to do [pp.96]:
I no longer understand where the emphasis is on the editor's role. For example, if you're pencilling a mainstream monthly title, depending on the editor, you can only get him on the phone once a month. I'm trying to figure out what it is they do. There must be a lot of stuff they do, but I don't understand it. If you can't get the guy on the phone, how can creative concerns be addressed? A lot of people are like this. I don't even know what the criteria are for being an editor, because a lot of them come through from the company's political system. You can't even talk about story structure. The writer sends you the script. You phone the eidot and go, "Look, there's a major plot hole here on page 12, it's foreshadowing this event, but it contradicts what we did in the issue last month." But the editor doesn't know what the [expletive deleted] you're talking about, you know? So you get into a pissing match with the writer, because the editor doesn't have a clue.
And CBA's Jon B. Cooke (no relation) started this off with his comments about the real goal of the CBA magazine [pp. 96]:
I often say that it's an open secret that Comic Book Artist isn't about artists at all; it's really about editors. It's about what makes a good editor and what makes a bad editor. It's about the virture of facilitating artists and writers, bringing them together, making an environment to make them feel safe, protecting them from interference, and the result just might be exceptional work done quite often to please the editor. But if the priority is not the work, but the product, well, you can take the Mort Weisinger approach and scare the [expletive deleted] out of people and make them not produce their best work but work that comes in on deadline.
Some thoughts:
One of the pioneers and inventors of the modern graphic storytelling medium of comics died after heart problems.
Will Eisner was one of the greats of what he called "Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative" and "Sequential Art". The creator of the newspaper "comic book", The Spirit, Eisner also created maintenance and instructional comics for the US Army during his enlistment during the war, something that lasted until the 1970s through his studios continued work with the government. You haven't lived until you've read one of Eisner's tales of how to clean a carburetor.
Eisner continued to develop the medium through a series of theoretical theses, most notably 1985's Comics & Sequential Art. It's hard to overestimate the importance of that book to the industry: it gave comics credibility and an academic language for design, plus providing descriptions of some of the techniques most successful artists used unconsciously.
His work also continued to be vibrant and worth reading. He moved into personl storytelling in recent years through his several graphic novels. 1991's To the Heart of the Storm fictionally retold his youth as a Jew in New York during the 1930s, with Hitler rising and Communism spreading. He continued with further explorations of Judaism, which have come under some fire. L even taught from some in her classes on narrative art in medieval Europe, including Day In Vietnam and Contract With God.
When he died, he was working on yet another graphic novel.
He was one of the last great comic book storytellers from comics' "golden age" (roughly from the appearance of DC's Superman to the Wertham investigations in Congress). Others survive, but they entered comics as teenagers and tended to do their best work later.
Eisner stands with Kirby as one of the genuinely important creators in the comics field. But Eisner was smarter and didn't work for The Man.
From the Chicago Tribune: "Will Eisner, Famed Comic Book Innovator"
I didn't get it until recently, so the new issue has already been released. It'll probably show up in the pulls on Thursday, if not already.
TCJ has a great interview with Ed Brubaker, the man who made Catwoman interesting again. Brubaker cut his teeth on some interesting semi-autobiographical comics and has continued in independent comics publishing even while working for the Big Guys. He's currently got a gig at Marvel doing Captain America (this would be volume what, five?) which, regrettably, comes after Marvel's decision to kill off the majority of the secondary characters. Or at least maim them.
Comic Book Artist, Jon B. Cooke's fabulous rag on artists in the comic book field (as opposed to comics, although they did a nice feature on Cho, who really straddles both with Liberty Meadows, since Image also puts out monthly or at least periodic collections in magazine form) did a feature this month on the Filipino artists who joined the ranks of Marvel and DC during the 1970s. I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to this one: who remembers these guys any more? Much embarassment and enjoyment later, I remember why some of these guys were my faves.
Nestor Redondo comes easily to mind, with his wonderful work on a variety of titles, including Moench's Aztec Ace (Eclipse). His brother, Frank/Franciso/Fred Redondo brought new life to The Unknown Soldier feature in DC's Star Spangled War Stories, before that title was fully taken over by its lead character. Bob Kanigher may have provided the better scripts but he seems driven as a result of Redondo's great artwork, a frenetic but stratightforward style that suited the character's WWII spy thriller stories.
What I didn't expect was all the beautiful line work that was published in the Philipines and never got translated for the English speaking audiences. Most of them seem to be in Tagalog, so maybe folks just never got to see it. This rivals any of the fine work that came out of Europe during that time. These artists seem to all know each other — and many have no formal training whatsoever — and you can see some of the influences, especially out of Redondo Studios. But what amazing work!