The Nib, Issue 5: Animals

The latest issue of The Nib magazine came out a few weeks ago, and its theme was animals. Not only was I treated to a variety of art styles and tones, I learned a lot from reading this book, including the fact that in the 1930s there was a supposed talking mongoose(!), most fur for clothing comes from a raccoon dog(!!), and Mickey Mouse wearing gloves comes from a minstrel tradition(!!!). I also got to see lots of other interesting information, including distances and migration patterns of various creatures and drawings of a series of endlings, the last known individuals of a species.

Among the more lengthy feature articles, two particularly stood out to me. Arwen Donahue wrote and drew an thought-provoking piece about raising, milking, and butchering goats and how that squares up with her views of vegetarianism, environmentalism, and community. It is not a very cut-and-dried issue, and I appreciated just how much she elucidated a debate about the ethics of farming and raising various sorts of livestock.

Writer Dorian Alexander, journalist Sarah Mirk, and artist Levi Hastings collaborated on an article about the economic and ethical dilemmas regarding smuggling and selling parrots from tropical locales. It is a big business for some, with an impact on local ecologies as well as the people looking to profit from these birds. Not to mention that the birds themselves also suffer because of these practices. What I loved about both of these works was how they mingled personal experiences with research and journalism to make some very impactful writing.

And just to remind people that not everything in this magazine is so heady and complex, there are also a series of gag strips as well as illustrated letters to the editor that round out this collection. I truly feel that the contributors at The Nib are making some of the best comics right now. Herblock Prize-winning, Pulitzer Prize-nominated editor Matt Bors has assembled another murderers' row of creators here.

The reviews I have read of this volume have been positive. Zack Quaintance noted "that that reading experience was quite good, adding that journalism done via this medium is so rare that whenever I come across some of this quality, it tends to linger with me for days (and days...and days)." You can see a bunch of other reviews at Goodreads, where it has a 4.40 stars (out of 5) rating as of this blog.

Content for The Nib is published regularly online, though the print version features exclusive content and comes out about three times a year. You should consider becoming a member and supporting their high quality, independent artistic and journalistic endeavor.

Strange Planet

I am not sure where I first encountered the comic strips contained in this volume, but they sure did strike my fancy. Strange Planet is a webcomic that is published online and propagated across multiple social media platforms. Its author has more than 4 million Instagram followers. This book collects a bunch of strips, arranging them into broad themes, such as parenthood, pets, and recreational behavior. Here's a sample:

As you can see, the humor derives from making the ordinary strange. The aliens talk about commonplace earth practices using interesting/weird word substitutions. So, there's clever wordplay at hand pretty much in every strip, but what really sells them to me is how curiously evocative and even moving they can be.

Perhaps it's from the rather open and simple drawings of the aliens making it easier for the reader to relate to these characters (paging Scott McCloud!), but I also think it's from some brilliant craftsmanship as well. Observational humor is difficult to pull off often, and these strips hit their mark more often than not for me. These comics appear to be deceptively simple but they feature economically and smartly paced dialog and very human, relatable situations.

Nathan W. Pyle created these strips. He is an artist and animator who has written a previous book about etiquette in New York City. He gave a related TEDTalk about the topic here. Portions from an interview in this article help shed some insight into his work.

The reviews I could find of this book have been positive. Dami Lee wrote, "It’s clear why Strange Planet resonates with people. It stars beings without gender or race, meaning everybody can project themselves onto them. They navigate universal situations, shedding light on human behavior that no one understands the reason behind." Molly Barnewitz opined that "by defamiliarizing the human experience of the mundane, STRANGE PLANET helps readers relocate joy to the simple things."

Strange Planet was published by Morrow Gift, and they offer more information about it here.