Original Art Sundays (Friday) Nos. 212 - 215: Speedy Recovery, pp. 8 - 11

Finally back! Working so much. New story on the board, a very ambitious 2 or 3 page thing, but I want to finish posting this one first.
When we left our stalwart group, they were planning to go to Runnovia for a gig, playing big band music for royalty.
Read on...

Notes on these pages:

I love the name Runnovia. It's so Rocky and Bullwinkle!

Page 8 (the airport scene) REALLY would have benefitted from more background in the first two panels. I was going for a remote airfield feel, but there's just too much left out for it to fully read. I do like the flying Packard. It was inspired by Harlan Ellison talking about his Packard on the old Anti-Gravity Room series and by the flying sedan Will Eisner used in a couple very early Spirit stories.

Page 9 (the grand ballroom scene) resolves much better. I had real fun inking those arched cathedral ceilings! I don't know enough about architecture to get every detail, so this is pure swipe file stuff.

Page 10 (the lead-in to the next big moment) also resolves nicely, I think. Speedy's kneeling and the reflections in the floor tiles in Panel One are nice touches. I love Speedy's little "not now" out of the corner of his mouth in Panel Two!

I'm not completely happy with the way the vibrations on the valet are rendered, but I wanted it to be less obvious than simply drawing in a ghost image and speed lines between the two of him. After all, if it were blatantly obvious, Speedy would have seen it right away!

Page 11, the cube dropping over the band, is exactly what I wanted it to be. I particularly like Sandy Beaches, the drummer, passed out over her kit. I like rendering transparencies. We learned in commercial art school that those streaky lines indicating glass or plastic just aren't right, but darn if they don't look right in something like this!

I'm stopping there because the next pages start off with a two-age spread, and rather than cobble it together from multiple scans, I want to wait until I can get to the MCAD large format scanner and get a clean scan of the whole thing. I have a mountain of scans I need to take care of, and will make time for it Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, I think. 

For this section of the book, I had a great confidence in the work, and a conviction that I really controlled my storytelling. That held for most of the rest of the book (posted soon), and was very satisfying. I look back at this whenever I lose confidence in craft. While there are always things that can be improved, looking at your strengths can help you through rough patches, even if they come from 16 years ago!

Next: more Speedy Recovery.

Best Comics of 2012, No. 6: Hawkeye

So Marvel made the list twice this year. Good for them.
Smart writing, clean art and good storytelling.
Glad they're finally getting back to that.

Matt Fraction's Hawkeye brings many things to mind. The most immediate is Eisner's City People and Invisible People, works that peer in the windows of the cliched everyman.
But where Eisner is drawing on the classic model of Jewish tragedy in most of his city narratives, Fraction is channeling the wry wit of American Flagg era Chaykin and tempering it with a healthy dose of old school Frank Capra. It also brings to mind William Messner-Loebs' short-lived series Bliss Alley.
This book depicts Hawkeye as an Avenger who lives in the old neighborhood and cares directly about others who share the place.
While he has the unorthodox option of attempting to solve one of the problems by buying the building in question, Clint addresses the issues fairly head on.
The wit comes in an unusually blunt empathy. Fraction uses captions and parenthetical translations as a vehicle for humor and understanding. As an example, when Clint is released from the hospital early in issue 1, there's a word balloon going out of panel that reads "(some Spanish sounding stuff". The following panel has a character saying "Back off (Russian maybe), I keel you, okay bro?" We read it as Clint hears and sees it.
David Aja's art and Matt Hollingsworth's colors are remarkably effective together. Clean subdued palettes that reinforce sparse, accurate rendering. Can't ask for much better.

 This two page sequence from issue 2 references Clint's past as a criminal and his time in the circus, also showing his protege/partner Kate Bishop.
There's so much to like about this book. Every part of it works. The design elements are obvious without being intrusive, and contribute to the story. The narrative and action build seamlessly. Character dominates throughout. It's an easy read, but not dumbed down. It references the central character's unnecessarily elaborate back story without confusing matters.
It's clean, sharp, and stand up to repeated readings. Volume 1 of the trades, My Life As A Weapon, is out as of March, and well worth the pittance requested for it (lists at $16.99, Amazon for $6.99).
Some vile souls have posted torrents of it. Do as your conscience and pocketbook demand, but the usual mantra applies: support creators and publishers whenever possible. At #3,408 on Amazon's list, it's doing OK, but hey, more sales means more work for the creators, at least ideally.

I've railed against the evils of snark in the past. This book could easily be misread as snide.
But another phrase sums it up nicely.
Joie de vivre.
Reading this , I get the sense that, as hard as they must work to create such a seemingly seamless project, the creative team on Hawkeye are always having the time of their lives.
As are the characters.

Tomorrow: Number 5 of the best of 2012, if you swabbies care to show up for it!

Best Comics of 2011: no. 1

Finally.
To recap:
14. Sailor Twain
13. The Lions of Valletta
12. FF/ Fantastic Four no. 600
11. Rachel Rising/ Terry Moore's How to Draw series
10. Batwoman
9.  Star Trek
8. Scapled, Book 8
7. Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder
6. Sugar & Spike Archives
5. The Shade miniseries
4. Kevin Keller/ The Simpsons no. 183
3. Habibi
2. Pogo Vol. 1: Through the Wild Blue Yonder
And the No. 1 comic of last year:

This thing is a monster, in every way. Close to 40 years in the making, this is the only comic I know of that contains work by Vaughn Bode', C.C. Beck, Fellini, Frank Zappa, Will Eisner, Barry Smith, Wally Wood, Trina Robbins and Tom Wolfe, which is but a small sampling, to give you an idea of the book's scope.
The volume measures a hefty 5.7 x 11.8 x 0.9 inches and weighs over four pounds. The initial concept as proposed to Rolling Stone was to have cartoonists create work that summarized their views of the 1960s as the decade drew to a close. The project was tabled for a labyrinth of reasons, and just finally saw print this last November from Abrams Books.
Another noteworthy touch: the editor, Micheal Chocquette, asked that the creators leave blank space in each of their stories. He then returned to the stories and filled in those holes, illustrating his escapades in getting the book out in panels contained in the other narratives.
I had a hard time deciding which pieces to include in this entry, but here's the Frank Zappa page.

And I'll brook no complaints about the pages being crooked. Given the size of this bear, it's a miracle I got it on the scanner!
And here's the Eisner story, always a welcome treat.

 A new Spirit story.
That alone is an event worth celebrating.
In addition to the aforementioned benefits, the text of the foreign language strips is printed in the original text, with a section in the back devoted to translations. And the editor even has the courtesy to refer to the late Jeffrey Catherine Jones by her proper name and pronoun, despite her work having been submitted before she came out.
So what does it say that the two best comics of the year were reprints? Was there really such a dearth of worthwhile new material? Did I just not see the best stuff? Did my limited exposure for the first half of the year taint my judgment?
Or was that just the way it worked out?
Some combination of those factors, I suspect.
2012 looks to be a promising year for comics. I'm enjoying the stuff I've been reading all along- CHEW, Unwritten, Terry Moore's stuff- and some old favorites are reappearing- the first new issue of The Twelve for almost two years- so I have hope for a good year in comics.
Thanks for sticking with me through this painfully protracted process. Much faster next year!

Best Comics of 2011 no. 3: Habibi

Yes, yes, I know it's on everybody's lists, and Craig Thompson is the darling of comics circles this year.
While I didn't much care for his previous magnum opus, Blankets, I did attend a lecture he gave at the school where I teach, Minneapolis College of Art & Design. I was sufficiently impressed to buy the book and get a spiffy signature and sketch.
And yes, it's a richly layered text, with multiple meanings interspersing tales of love and loyalty with lush and intelligent page design inspired by the Koran. The mathematics of the design are consistent with Islamic beliefs and serve as a framework for structuring the emotionally rich narrative.

And I am quite impressed with the layout and the dense, involving story.
The beauty of Thompson's page design is not lost on me.

But true though that all is, it's not the biggest reason it's on my Best list.
I love books.
I'm not talking about content, I'm talking about form. There's something satisfying about a well-crafted book. The beauty of a good tight binding, elegant end papers, a design and strategy to the physical properties of the volume itself that reinforces the content without calling undue attention to itself. these things inspire me and leave me awestruck.
So when Thompson talked about delaying getting Habibi printed for several months while he located a printer who could fulfill his specs on the volume, and then toured the printer and the bindery(!), I was hooked.

This is an elegant book with exquisite contents.
Few volumes of comic narrative are this well bound. This holds a proud place on my shelf next to the single volume limited edition of Bone, the lovely collection of Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's LOCAL, and my limited edition first printing of Eisner's A Contract With God.
Great books should be a joy, either open or closed. Habibi is such a book.
Friday, Feb. 10: the final two of 2011.

Happy Birthday, Will Eisner!

Just a very quick post.
If you don't know who Will Eisner was, you're reading the wrong blog.
Suffice to say that comics would not be what they are today without him.
Instead of going into some long elaborate theoretical diatribe, as is my way, I'll let today's Google search logo do my talking for me!