Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Chris Allen is leaving us. For the most part. Sort of. Oh, hell, I’ll just let him explain:
Breakdowns #64 - I Know It's Over, Still I Cling
The title, which quotes The Smiths, has some meaning which I'll get into at the end of the column. First, while we're all fresh, I wanted to point you to Comics Newsarama (www.comicon.com/newsarama), which has, in a sidebar story on the right of the page, an article on the sad plight of comics scribe and gentleman William Messner-Loebs. If you have any aid to offer, contact him at this address.
And now, let's get on with the last Breakdowns for GrayHaven. What?! Keep reading...
Atomic City Tales: Go Power! By Jay Stephens.
Oni Press. $14.95.
While Stephens has grown into a much more controlled creator, constructing his Jetcat stories in particular with some suspense and off-kilter but well-timed gags, earlier work such as Atomic City Tales reveals a much looser, perhaps more personal side. Here we find an engaging but shambling superhero deconstruction that seems to have started almost haphazardly. This is not necessarily a bad thing, for a couple reasons.
First, one of Stephens' great creative gifts is his seeming ability to present challenges to overcome in each story, to set out on an uncharted course and make his way to whatever end pleases him. I have no idea if this is true or not; he may have scripted these tales ahead of time in typical fashion. But they feel spontaneous, as if he had an inkling of where he wanted to go, an urge to draw, and he was off.
These breezy stories of the arrogant superhero Big Bang and the other superpowered denizens of Atomic City, Stephens logically, and very amusingly, depicts just what a directionless slacker himbo might do with earthshaking power. He's literally the world's biggest jerk, almost completely missing that sense of "great responsibility" we've been told must come with great power.
The other interesting aspect of the stories is how much Stephens literally puts himself into them. He's a character here, essentially himself, not seemingly idealized yet interesting in the way he gets to live out a cartoonist's sometimes unconscious fantasy to enter the world he creates. Though the art is not as stylized as his Jetcat/Oddville stuff, being more generically small-press superhero, there are still plenty of laughs and idiosyncratic fun to spare.
Shop Talk by Will Eisner
Dark Horse Comics. $19.95
It's been an odd streak, this being my third less-than-gushing review of the truly great Eisner's work (The Princess and the Frog and The Name of the Game were the others). Of the three, this is the most noteworthy, though it's not a graphic novel. What it is, is a book Eisner put out about a year ago featuring interviews he conducted with some of the greatest writer/artists in comics history, including Milton Caniff of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon; Jack "King" Kirby; C.C. Beck, creator of Captain Marvel; Gil Kane; Harvey Kurtzman; Joe Kubert; Neal Adams and more.
From that list alone, it should be clear to any serious comics fan that, yes, this is certainly worth the $20 it costs, especially since most of these industry pioneers have left us. OK...maybe I will gush just a bit...
It really is invaluable to an artist or writer/artist to learn how a master like Caniff composed his stri, to study the proven, individualistic approach Mad Magazine's (and the advertising world's) Jack Davis took to his one panel gags; or to learn about the birth of the comic convention from Phil Seuling...or how Joe Simon and Jack Kirby worked together...or where many of these now-dimmed beacons saw comics going and how they assessed their own parts in history. These are not career-spanning interviews but, as the title suggests, more friendly conversations between each pro and Eisner. Because of his accomplishments, these gentlemen really open up about their various methods, knowing Eisner will understand and appreciate the craft to which they've given their life's blood.
A particular highlight is the first interview, with the always voluble Adams, the only one to really argue with Eisner (mainly about the utilization of visual reference), though respectfully and palpable amusement. The lowlight is undoubtedly the bitter, distorted boasting and slandering from the mouth of Kirby in 1982. Fans of the Lee/Kirby masterworks are hereby recommended to seek other sources for a more balanced picture.
As a document of comicdom's greats and their views and methods, it's one of the best one-stop-shops you can find. And one can't blame Eisner for the dated quality of some of the interviews, since they were all done about 20 years ago. But in assembling it for a 21st Century audience, he or his editor should have done more to put these creators and their work and words into a comtemporary perspective. When Eisner enthuses in 1980 about the growing respect for the graphic novel in the United States, where's the editorial disclaimer that he was largely overstating things? Why are there only bios on a few of these men, and why no mention of relevant news, like what Adams is doing these days, or what Kane or Beck work is now available in DC Archive Editions, or what Seuling's legacy is in the massive conventions of today. It's really like finding a cool book from 1983 and automatically excusing it being dated, but as a 2001 release, the laziness is inexcusable. Accept it as a flaw, and enjoy the other treasures and lessons within.
Uno Fanta by Ashley Wood.
IDW Publishing. $19.95.
Vagina. We'll get back to it.
Vag-sorry, it's hard to leave. OK.
Ashina...er, Ashley Wood has rapidly made a name for himself, from cover artist extraordinaire for lots of Todd McFarlane Productions books to interior Hellspawn artist for Brian Michael Bendis and Steve Niles, to a dab of Uncanny X-Men and now creator of Popbot, also from IDW (and art director of Tripwire Magazine!). Despite his rapid rise (and yeah, he was unknown for a while prior to Hellspawn), two things have hung over his head: the similarity in style to Bill Sienkiewicz, and his trouble with telling a story. He's sorta cheated on the latter problem by filling Popbot with lots of full-page, backgroundless images, though I did detect some improvement in storytelling in some of his later Hellspawns.
As for the Bill the Sink comparisons, he arguably cheats there, too, asking Sienkiewicz, who's a friend, to write the introduction this art book. He allows that some influences are more obvious and singular than others, and that that's all right, citing his own slavish imitation of Neal Adams early in his career. All well and good, and indeed, Wood's use of earth tones is not really like Sienkiewicz at all, nor do I see the same themes and obsessions.
Actually, this is a pretty impressive art book for an artist so young and with a fairly small body of work. No TMP work is represented here; this seems to be material created almost exclusively for the book itself, which is admirable. Some of the Popbot characters appear here for the first time, but the rest just seems to be things he just felt like drawing, from misshapen Native Americans to gun-toting private dicks to some truly stunning facial studies. And of course, vagina.
Wood draws and paints some of the sexiest, leggiest women ever seen, though the poses rarely diverge from either menace or eager compliance. And getting into the vagina (can I be more sophomoric?), he has a fascinating preoccupation with rendering it not-quite-realistically, from slightly enlarged to strangely distorted, changed into a shockingly round socket such as one might screw a light bulb into. Well, no reason why the art board or monitor can't serve as a place to work out issues. What is fortunate here is that we have a good look at just one brief era in an artist's career, with another volume on the way (Dos Fantas), so it needn't be comprehensive, just representative of one stage of artistic growth.
And now, for a bit of news.
This is my last Breakdowns at GrayHaven for the foreseeable future. The column is moving to Kevin Smith's new pop culture site, MoviePoopShoot.com, which takes its name from the spoof site in his film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The site will be somewhat irreverent but everyone's serious about their work, and I think it's a great opportunity to expose a different audience to some of the notable comics and graphic novels out there. I hope those of you who enjoy this column will give it a look over there. And it will be nice to work with my friend Chris Ryall again, late of GrayHaven and Comic Book Galaxy before that.
As for GrayHaven, I'm not really leaving, hence the "still I cling" in the title. The column's gone but in its place I'll be doing other things, daily journal-type stuff about comics news, cholesystectomy, fajita marinades, whatever I'm thinking about. I hope you'll check that out as well, and I'll also be contributing reviews that don't go into my column to GrayHaven/Ain't It Cool News. And I'll still be editing and making a general nuisance of myself behind the scenes as Mangling Editor or whatever it's called.
So, it's not such a huge change after all, but I did want to thank Andrew Goletz and Travis Howard for making the transition as smooth as possible.
Chris Allen
We’ll miss the column, Chris, but we’re glad we were able to publish it for a while, and we wish you well over at Kevin’s site.
"Moriarty" out.
