RIP, Keiji Nakazawa

Keiji Nakazawa, the creator of the Barefoot Gen manga series and survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, died last month at the age of 73. He was 7 years old when the bombing occurred, and dealing with it became the focus of much of his life's and comics work. Barefoot Gen was a very widely read series, one of the first manga to be translated into English and other western languages.

The Los Angeles Times ran the best obituary for him I could find in English. Here is a list of numerous tributes and informational sites from The Comics Reporter. 

Van Helsing's Night Off

Top Shelf Month continues with a look at some of the work they publish from international comics creators.

Van Helsing's Night Off is a clever riff on many of the Universal Monsters (e.g. Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman). Here, they are depicted in a very stylistic manner, distilled into a few distinct shapes, and let to pinball around in panels reminiscent of a daily newspaper comic strip. Though the whole enterprise seems simplistic on face value, the artist packs much playfulness into his wordless drawings. The settings are mundane, such as the Wolfman sitting around the house reading a newspaper and trying to deal with the full moon, but they are deftly humorous both narratively and graphically. Just looking at the Frankenstein monster's hugely clunky clodhoppers, Van Helsing's impressively tall stovepipe hat, and the Bride of Frankenstein's humongous hairdo make me smile.

Austrian comics creator Nicolas Mahler has been prolifically producing comics for various publications and also as stand alone works. His work tends toward the darkly comic, as seen here and in his other works Lone Racer, about a former race car driver, Spam, where he changed spam emails into comics, and the superhero comedy Angelman.  Here is his official site (which is in German). He speaks more about his work and the state of graphic novels in Europe and abroad in this interview with Inkstuds.

I have to admit I was disappointed at first when I got this book because it did not contain a continuous narrative but was won over by its charming drawings, tough-in-cheek treatment of the characters, and expertly executed punchlines. A sense of logic is quickly established through the episodes, and these simple-looking players take on lives and personalities in short order. Other reviews I have read share my positive reaction. Entertainment Weekly's Rachel Lovinger opined that "the dark, campy humor will delight and mystify mature monster fans." Suzie Lackey called it "a wonderful achievement in the medium of graphic novels and comics" that "can be enjoyed around the world without the restrictions of language."

A preview and more is available here from Top Shelf.

Sulk

As Top Shelf Month begins, we dive into a series from an established talent.

Sulk is a one-man anthology by Jeffrey Brown. Brown is a prolific comics creator known for his intimate autobiographical works, such as Clumsy, as well as far ranging parodies/homages like The Incredible Change-Bots. His art style is distinctive, a mix between cartoon and realism, and here he has grown ever more capable with his writing voice. This series tends to be more toward the parody/homage spectrum of his work, and thus far there are three compact volumes.

 

Bighead and Friends

Volume 1 follows the adventures of Bighead, a superhero in the vein of 1970s Marvel Comics, with dramatic cliffhangers, stories that reference each other, insane villains, and bombastic action. Some of the stories chronicle his early crime-fighting days as Little Bighead. In his mature adventures, he confronts adversaries like the Claw, the Grapplers, the Bowler, the Beefy Hipster, and even himself. Over the course of these stories, of course he dies, meets the Devil, Jesus, and Buddha, and has to fight his way through demons to be reborn. It is apparent that these adventures are outrageous, overblown, and surprisingly silly, but there is also a sincere affection for these superheroic conventions. Brown at once parodies these adventures while also capturing their joyful parts.

Sean T. Collins called it "a funny, intelligently drawn superhero humor comic."

Deadly Awesome

The second volume is more like a manga, with one MMA fight comprising the totality of the book's plot. Brown stages the action with great detail and attention, and his visual storytelling is quite excellent. What puts this story over the top is its crazily intense and intricate dialogue (both external and internal) that lends an inappropriately undue amount of gravity to the proceedings. The fight is a formulaic one, the up-and-coming brawler Eldark Garprub versus the cagey veteran Haruki Rabasaku, but Brown's artfulness keeps things interesting, fresh, and exciting. This parody cleaves closely to its source material, but its love for fight stories shines through even as they are exposed as overinflated bags of wind. The net effect: I really got into this story, snickering at its pomposity but also wondering in suspense who would win.

J. Caleb Mozzocco wrote about it, "The story is more or less all sports story cliché, but Brown livens it up with a lot of extremely weird touches, and a wild use of various layouts that give the book a surprisingly fluid look."

The Kind of Strength that Comes from Madness!

This third volume of Sulk is less of coherent whole than it is a survey of caffeinated science fiction and fantasy stories. Pirates, college students with huge, remote controlled robots, and long-haired martial artists populate these pages. There are vampires fighting unicorns, giant lizards terrorizing cities, and astronauts taking substances to augment their abilities. Things often end poorly for those involved, transforming the clever twist endings of Twilight Zone episodes or formulaic Silver Age monster comics into something like a blunt object. These stories wink at those past tales in part in admiration, letting us know we are in on a joke, but they are also pretty brutal in their execution. Except for its ending with a jokey story about time-traveling babies, I felt this book was very dark in comparison with the others.

This volume is probably the one I have seen least positively reviewed, mostly, I feel, because of what Sean T. Collins observes, that "the anchor point in The Kind of Strength That Comes from Madness is much harder to locate." It is a satire about pretty wide genre conventions.

The series as a whole seems to me very well received. The reviewer at Avoid the Future wrote about these three volumes, "the stories in Sulk are nothing if not concise, and, like most good short fiction, waste nothing in their construction. Every panel and word is valuable, and consequently, it’s difficult not to feel absorbed whilst reading it." It is difficult to read these books and not conclude that Brown is very good at making comics of many varieties.

Top Shelf provides lots of information and previews for each volume in this series (click the links to see more about volumes 1, 2, and 3). 

Top Shelf Month Begins!

Based in Marietta, Georgia, Top Shelf Productions is one of the preeminent publishers of graphic novels in the United States. They offer a range of works, from free webcomics to kid's club works to more mature content. Their stable of creators is pretty diverse in terms of nationality, style, and focus, and it includes Alan Moore, James Kochalka, Jeff Lemire, and Andy Runton.

Publisher/editor Chris Staros is also President of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and he has been a stalwart promoter of good comics and graphic novels for years.

This month I will be featuring various works Top Shelf has published. I hope you enjoy reading about these books as much as I enjoyed reading them!

My Top Graphic Novels from the Last Year

I read a lot of comics and graphic novels over the course of a year, and I review the majority of them on this blog. What follows is a list of my favorites that I wrote about here, plus two whose reviews are to come in the new year. Most are from 2012, but I could not resist including a couple from 2011 that I did not get to reading until this past year.

From 2012:

My Friend Dahmer
A deeply creepy and thought provoking book, this graphic novel haunted my thoughts for days and weeks after I read it. Not really voyeuristic, instead it depicts a slow descent into depravity by painstakingly small degrees. This book disturbed me by how much I could relate to some of the characters and situations as well as how they would all lead to eventual horror. Derf's art is incredible in its mix of realism and cartoon. His storytelling is also dead on, with tension-filled sequences, humorous interludes, and painful observations. Maybe the best thing I read in the past year, this graphic novel is an impressive masterpiece.

Wizzywig
This graphic novel was a close second in my brain. I really enjoyed Ed Piskor's tragic and compelling account of a fictional super-hacker whose exploits were based on real-life events perpetrated by others. The story beats and art were so expertly laid out they kept me intrigued, while the blend of fiction and reality left me fascinated and wanting to learn more. The story focus, style, and delivery all combined to make this book a highly satisfying reading experience.

Friends with Boys
Faith Erin Hick's tale of adolescence, family drama, friendship, school, and a ghost was one of the most heartfelt and evocative books I read all year. Her character work is strong in terms of her art design but even stronger when it comes to her writing. Each person feels three-dimensional and also intriguing. I was sad to come to the end of the book and realize I could not spend more time with them.

One Dead Spy
The first volume of Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales hopefully augurs a long series of sequels. This book is at once informative, entertaining, and inventive. It made me laugh at loud while also teaching me much about the American Revolution. Intelligent in delivery and rich in details, it may just be the best historical adaptation I have ever read in graphic novel form.

Cruisin' with the Hound
Sadly, we lost comix institution Spain Rodriguez this year, but we also saw the publication of his works I most appreciate. This book collects various stories that have appeared in anthologies over the years about his formative years as a gang member and roustabout in the 1950s in Buffalo, NY. The artwork is masterful and the stories pop with energy at once sexy, rough, familiar, funny, and bittersweet.

Glory: The Once and Future Destroyer
I just read this book in the past week, and it is everything that superhero and episodic comics should be. Ross Campbell's art suits the wide range of bloody battle scenes, alien creatures, and quiet, emotional moments. Joe Keatinge's writing takes a tired Wonder Woman knock-off and reinvents her as a hulking and formidable character while surrounding her with a fantastic supporting cast and intriguing narrative situations. Every chapter ended with a cliffhanger that kept me wanting more.

The Graphic Canon, Volume 1
Russ Kick's edited book of literature, myths, and legends includes works from many nations and eras and has as diverse a cast of comics creators adapting them. Not everything in this volume is A-1 material, but the hits far outnumber the misses, and the ambitiousness of this first of three volumes cannot be denied.

Here are my couple of books published last year that I could not resist including:

Freshman: Tales of 9th Grade Obsessions, Revelations, and Other Nonsense
One of my greatest comics joys in the past year has been finding the work of Corinne Mucha. I love her mini-comics, and this book is an excellent look at adolescence that is evocative, empathic, and not cloyingly nostalgic. The characters are familiar and real; the situations awkward and memorable. Mucha's cartoonish style, comic pacing, and storytelling chops are excellent.

Infinite Kung Fu
Kagan McLeod's epic combines the best aspects of kung fu movies, supernatural fighters, undead adversaries, and legendary tales. The action sequences are incredible, the cast of characters intriguing, and there is a guy who can punch you so hard you cough up centipedes. Extremely fun and engaging.

There you have it, not a top ten, but my Best of Last Year.

Thanks for reading my blog. Happy New Year!

Ichiro

This is a tough book to explain because it has a lot going on. Ichiro is a young son of a Japanese woman and American GI who finds himself in Japan for his mom's job. Unbeknownst to him, the move may be permanent, which bothers this lifelong New Yorker. Dealing with the change in geography as well as his father's death, Ichiro is helped acclimate by his grandfather, who shares with him a great many stories about Japanese and Chinese history and legend as well as about his own family.

That's about half of the book. The rest involves a plot with a mischievous, shape-shifting raccoon who takes the form of a tea pot and traveling to the spirit world where Ichiro sees the results of an on-going struggle between legendary figures Amaterasu, Lord Yoritomo, Hachiman, and Susano. This fictional war has overtones that mesh with the events of World War II and also the Iraq War, where Ichiro's father was killed.

Apparent from all I have described is that this book has plots within plots, and that its mix of fictional and real world concerns makes for an interesting presentation. Themes of loss, loyalty, betrayal, war, pride, and identity undulate like waves throughout. I felt this was a complex, thoughtful book that left me perplexed in places but also willing and eager to reflect and reread. I am not sure all this material coalesces in a satisfying manner, but this is certainly a book that begs to be read more than once.

This book's creator Ryan Inzana is a designer and illustrator whose work has appeared in advertisements and magazines. He has also produced two other graphic novels, Johnny Jihad, a fictional account inspired by John Walker Lindh and the Columbine shootings, and an adaptation of Stud Terkel's Working, written by Harvey Pekar. I thought his artwork and storytelling in Ichiro was strong, with good use of color and line. The size, format, and excellent paper quality also added to its luster. Inzana speaks about his work on this book in these two interviews.

Reviews I have read about Ichiro have been mixed, commenting on its strengths and drawbacks. The reviewer at Literary Treats "applaud[ed] his creative approach at tackling such a disturbing, emotional subject matter" and also added that this is a "great graphic novel for anyone who wants to learn more about Japan, or about the Japanese side of World War II history." In a lukewarm review Infodad commented that this book "simply tries too hard to do too much – it has well-done moments but is not, as a whole, especially compelling."

Ichiro is published by Houghton Mifflin. There is a preview available at Amazon.

Our Movie Year

Harvey Pekar was well known for his autobiographical comics, particularly his decades long series American Splendor. He became a fixture on Late Night with David Letterman, and eventually his idiosyncratic voice was portrayed in the 2003 film American Splendor directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini and starring Paul Giamatti. This movie won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Fim Festival and also brought Pekar an unprecendented level of fame and attention. This graphic novel mostly chronicles the year the movie broke.

With its pages, Harvey worries about his post-movie life, fearing all the attention will go away and he will be seen as a flash in the pan. He also details his many travels (sometimes telling the same tale more than once), brushes with famous folk, and obsesses over care for his cats, house, and bills while he is gone. Ironically, maybe the most affecting stories, about a vet visit for a cat and another about a saltwater aquarium doomed by a power outage, have nothing to do with the movie. Also, the last third of the book contains a number of various and sundry works Harvey wrote about celebrities and musicians from the past as well as his selections for the movie soundtrack, making for an interesting, if disconnected, hodge-podge.

This book was illustrated by an all-star team of Pekar's collaborators, including R. Crumb, Frank Stack, Gerry Shamray, Gary Dumm, Ed Piskor, and Dean Haspiel. Their different styles cast different tones for the stories and events, echoing the look of past American Splendor comic books and also the metanarrative of the film. Pekar, who wrote the stories in this book, died in July of 2010, and his life is properly celebrated in this obituary.

Reviews I have read of this book have been on the negative side, perhaps due to comparison with the usual high standards set by Pekar's other works. The Onion A.V. Club's Tasha Robinson wrote, "The results are scattershot and even sometimes impersonal, which is unusual for Pekar's work. It seems incongruous that his world-hopping and his celebrity encounters should so often be humdrum, while his detailed recounting of an hour spent waiting for a tow truck is so involving." The reviewer at Grovel commented on how the book is uneven but "despite its faults this is a great companion to the movie, not least of all because it goes further behind the scenes than even the movie itself did." Kevin Forest Moreau concluded that this book was a weak offering in the American Splendor corpus, "somewhat intimidating and, yes, padded."

This book was published by Ballantine Books.