Wow.... Harry here... Lizzybeth has a lot to talk about this week, here's the second part of her column! Click Here To Go To Part One of Lizzybeth's Column!!! Great stuff here! Read on....
GLOOM COOKIE #6-7. SERENA VALENTINO, WRITER. TED NAIFEH, ARTIST ON #6. JOHN GEBBIA, ARTIST ON #7. SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS.
A new generation of comic are infiltrating the stores, in a line of what I refer to as Goth-Lite Books. In the past, Goth kids have been a huge fanbase for alternative comic books like The Sandman and The Crow. Now that the industry has started noticing all the "Death" t-shirts at Cure concerts, they re putting out titles right and left that seem to be aimed squarely at Goths. Yes, that pasty-faced non-comformist-comformist group in love with black clothes and vampire approximations is now a target market. It s kind of sad. While I do make fun of them, it s not with any real venom. I ve had plenty of Goth-ish friends in the past, and while I did think they were kind of silly, they ve at least got great taste in art and music. But so far, it hasn t made for great comics.
GLOOM COOKIE is one title that s been recommended to me quite a few times. It s a nice-looking book, with an Edward Gorey/Modern medieval art sensibility and a largish cast of quirky goth-ish characters: a gargoyle, a sorceress, the carnival macabre, the monster under the bed, and cute little girls in love with creatures of the night. The book revolves around Lex, a petite ex-princess who resembles the Beetlejuice cartoon version of Lydia, only with a huge head and anime-wide eyes. She has the Continuous Tortured Romance thing going with Damian, a gargoyle who would do anything to protect her.
It s all very pleasant and nice, even when supposedly disturbing things happen. Really, for a book so obviously revolving around ideals of dark romance and tortured existence, there s not much angst. It s probably because the stories are all so cheesy. Somewhere there has been built an Automatic Gothic Dialogue Generator, which reduces any dramatic scene to comedy. Here s an example from issue #7 (I am not making this up):
Isabelle (evil sorceress): Your being rather unseemly my dear. Be calm it will be some time yet before they arrive. There will be time enough to panic when Vincent gets here.
Damion (gargoyle prisoner): What would he want with her? She has done nothing!
Isabelle: As you have done nothing, my darling, but Vincent believes me!
Damion: Let her go, she has nothing to do with this!
Isabelle: I will, if you come home to me, Damion!
Damion: Never!
Isabelle: Then you both die!
Not only is this some terrible grammar, it s all very confusing. Believe me, it doesn t help to know what happened before this piece of dialogue. The action is so muddled that it s hard to remember what happened even a few minutes after you ve read it. Not that it really matters, since the stories are kind of forgettable anyway, even when you understand them. The action is split between fractured fairy tales and some more modern segments revolving around Vermillion, bad goth poet, and "Girl Talk" (which requires no explanation). It s all very pleasant and occasionally amusing, especially some of the earlier sequences with the monster under the bed. But it s nothing to get excited about.
The art is really the best thing about GLOOM COOKIE, and I quite like Ted Naifeh s style on issues 1-6. Unfortunately, that was the end of his run on the book, and John Gebbia s art on #7 doesn t hold up well in comparison. The borders on #7, framing every page with friendly and scary creatures depending on the action, are a nice touch. But the character art is much more simplistic, missing some of those little touches that Naifeh had given the book, leaving GC with a hollowed-out look. I miss Naifeh s character designs already, which were expressive and fun.
For GLOOM COOKIE, you pretty much have to start from the beginning, otherwise it s even harder to follow. Issue 7 sort of stands alone, but it s supposed to explain a few mysteries to readers more familiar with Lex and Damion. Issue #8 should be out later this month, and will start a new story arc. A TPB collecting issues 1-6 should be available in some comic book stores, and they can probably order it for you if they don t have it yet. I personally would recommend the book mostly for the artwork, which is probably an acquired taste, so I advise that you look at GloomCookie to see if this is something you would like.
QUICK TAKES
THE SANDMAN PRESENTS: EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT DREAMS BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK. VARIOUS ARTISTS, BILL WILLINGHAM, VERTIGO (DC COMICS)
I am a big, big Sandman fan. I don t buy *every* piece of Sandman-related product that comes out, but I am inclined to buy it if it looks even halfway interesting. This is a weakness of mine considering I usually end up comparing it to Neil Gaiman s work and ultimately being disappointed. This is also the case with EVERYTHING. The concept is kind of cool: each section, illustrated by a different artist, supposedly answers a question about dreams, such as "What causes recurring dreams?" and "Why do some people dream in color and others in black and white?", using characters from The Dreaming. The execution, sadly, leaves something to be desired. The first section ("What causes nightmares?" illustrated by Albert Monteys) is promising, but the others fall short. The art is utilitarian, which is fine for a strong Sandman story but somehow I think this special could have benefited from some more elaborate art. Many of the sections barely address the questions, and the running sto!
ryline about Nuala "directing" a dream wears out quickly. The only section that produced an answer more interesting than the question was "Why shouldn t you wake a sleepwalker?" and even that was a bit clumsy. In short, if you re really, really hankering for Sandman-related characters, you can pick up this book and be somewhat amused, but you ll probably never read it again. You ll be better off waiting for Jill Thompson s LITTLE ENDLESS STORYBOOK, coming out in a week and a few days.
ADVENTURES FROM GEEKSVILLE #3, RICH KOSLOWSKI & GARY SASSAMAN. IMAGE COMICS.
Image is making a habit of picking up independently published comics and giving their creators a chance to find a larger audience without the stress of self-publishing. Sometimes this really works out well, as with David Mack s KABUKI (I m going to keep mentioning that title until Mack finally puts out an Issue #10, dammit), but sometimes I question their choices. This title, GEEKSVILLE, is a perfectly fine indie comic but I really don t see anything meriting publication from a major company. The whole theme of "Look, we read comics! Therefore we are lame! Laugh at us! Weeee!" can get old very quickly. Imagine a cartoon series devoted entirely to Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons. Who would watch that? He s funny for a few scenes, but any more than that and you re ready to switch the channel. In this GEEKSVILLE issue we have the geek heroes traveling to the comic convention to try to break into the business. This is a perfect situation for humor, but here I get tired of! the "boy are these guys dumb" jokes inside of a few pages. I suppose if you re a big superhero title fan, there are some inside-ish jokes for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more to these characters than just their geekdom, and some reason to be attached to them besides some kind of geek identification as fellow comic book fans. I will admit that the insert, a sample issue of the comic that the three geeks are trying to sell, was very funny.
Some people will like this book a lot. If you are one of those people, or already read and enjoy GEEKSVILLE, I have to point you to Dork Tower and Box Office Poison, two books that can celebrate/lampoon geekdom much more effectively.
PICK OF THE WEEK
CHANNEL ZERO, written and illustrated by Brian Wood, was originally published as a 5-issue miniseries through Image comics back in the mid-1990 s. The collected edition was finally released by AiT/PlanetLars last September.
Reasons that you should have this title. First, the art. It s a very dense b&w style, full of shadows, with images laying on top of each other, running into each other, trailing off the page. Brian Wood has obviously learned a thing or two from Frank Miller s b&w style in the Sin City titles, but he s modified it to include photorealistic images and mixed media on the propaganda posters that are sprinkled throughout the book. There s a lot to look at here. Even a simple cityscape can have deft touches of realism to bring you farther into the CZ world.
Secondly, the words. Brian Wood understands that comic books don t have to be novels with pictures, or movies with text, and therefore knows that the words and pictures don t necessarily have to match up. In this way, he can tell two or more stories simultaneously. There s a story in the images, a story in the running text, and perhaps another story in the worldwide news broadcasts that are quoted throughout the book. And then there are the slogans (such as, "my objective is to be more effective") hidden in nearly every page, running up and down, side to side, concealed within the images or framing the images the words are pictures in themselves, part of the artwork. There s a lot to disorient you in the reading of this book. Because of this, CHANNEL ZERO doesn t just reward rereading, it demands it.
Third. Like any really good piece of writing, CHANNEL ZERO will give you something to think about. That s all I ask of stories in any medium, that it can activate your mind and make you take a look around you with new eyes.. In CHANNEL ZERO, this is part of what the story is about, the ability of media to shape your world and make you think about things in a different way. Plus, this book is reaching out for *you*, to pull you in and put ideas in your head. All of these images, words, it s meant to make you wake up. Brian Wood wants to make you a radical.
What would you do if art were illegal? If everything, from television and films to street graffiti, every form of self-expression were punishable by fines, jail, possibly even death? Would you fight for free expression, even if it could mean sacrificing your job, your home, maybe even your life?
There have been plenty of conversations on this site about censorship and the movies. This book takes a scenario right out of the John McCain playbook to the very furthest limit thanks to the Clean Act, all media are now government owned and operated, and art is now carefully regulated and controlled. To make it safe, you see. Nothing "disturbing", "dangerous," or "immoral" can be broadcast or distributed, and guess who decides what s acceptable? Even the internet has been regulated to uselessness. Anyone who tries to provide alternative media is quickly shut down by the FBI, and the media outlets, now government offices, are high security information storehouses. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving on, changing, and America is completely oblivious to what s happening outside since the government-owned media censors out all information that it doesn t like. If you ve ever read anything pertaining to Media Studies, this stuff is going to sound awfully familiar, and ! it s not as far from the present as you think. After all, the government doesn t *really* need to take control of the media if Ted Turner already owns it all, do they?
Jennie 2.5 is an activist fighting for a free media. She plays on both sides, joining both the peaceful-sign waving protests (that by now have mostly been eradicated), and the guerrilla tactics, the breaking in, infiltrating, sabotaging of government media projects. She manages to break into the national broadcast and air her own counterbroadcasts. A few seconds of still pictures and words are all she can manage, but it captures the attention of the nation. Suddenly, people are waking up.
Make no mistake, this is a stylish piece of radical propoganda in itself, and therefore is going to offend a lot of sensibilities. In many ways, it reaches for too much. But it s hard to complain when there are so many shots that do hit their targets. The willingness of America to shut out the rest of the world. The apathy of the average American citizen. The desire of the general public to eliminate crime by any means necessary. Some of the politics of this book go a step too far for my taste. For others, it will go several steps too far, and still others will find that it s not far enough. But it s not really important that you agree with Wood s ideas, just that you be willing to think about them in more than just the knee-jerk fashion that we have been taught to.
My only real complaint about CHANNEL ZERO is that it s not long enough. There s so much stuff in here, maybe too much, and I wish it could have been expanded on. Some ideas, like the Cleaners, just aren t explored enough, and consequently seem out of place in the larger Jennie 2.5 story. There are a few sequences that could have been left out; they could also have been a story unto themselves.
This book is written just for people like those at this site, the ones who care about art, media, comics, stories. The tough part is finding it. The original mini-series is out of print, and the collected edition is also hard to find. It doesn t appear to be available through the major distributors. The easiest way to get it is through Amazon.com for now, it s a hard-to-find but still orderable title.
That s all I have for this column. I know I mentioned CASTLE WAITING for this week, but I couldn t get ahold of the issues I was looking for to catch me up, so it will have to wait for a later installment. Next week, I plan to take a look at some online comics. They re easily available, they re regularly produced, and best of all, they re FREE. (For now)
Email all your recommendations, complaints, and comments to me at Neverwhere333@angelfire.com
Click Here To Read The Final Part Of This Week's Comic Columns!!!
