Nov 04, 2014 A big stack of comics to read
Last week I got an email from my friend Tom Devlin, Creative Director of the Toronto-based indie, arty, and boutique comic publishing imprint Drawn & Quarterly. He was asking if I might answer some questions and contribute some thoughts to a 25th anniversary and hopefully not secret anthology that is slated to come out next year. I started flipping through my pile of more recent comics, did a bunch of reading, and still haven’t sent answers to Tom.
But it did give me something to write about for this week’s Imprint blog: A pile of not-too-old titles that I recommend. Here are some of them…
Brian Ralph’s Reggie 12 is at the top of the list. It doesn’t hurt that his Astro Boy-meets-Felix The Cat strip ran in Giant Robot from the single digit issues through the end. And I might be extra biased because I personally tracked down and sent files for the strips to be collected and printed in this handsome, oversize volume from Drawn & Quarterly. Did I mention that I’m connected attached to Brian because we traveled on a parallel trajectory in indie publishing fueled by punk rock ethics and eventually ended up as guys with families who still cling to the DIY ethos in a digital age?
But back to the comics. Brian’s taste is as impeccable as his style. He channels masters from Tezuka and Honda to Herriman and Disney, and draws with an effortless stroke. The panels are composed in a classic manner but are packed with details and inside jokes that reward the careful and learned reader as well as the all-ages audience looking for kicks. It’s modern and timeless and funny at once.
Maybe it’s because Halloween just came and went that I’ve rediscovered last year’s collection of Ge Ge Ge No Kitaro strips originally published from 1967-1969. Combining the unironically macabre sensibilities of the Addams family with the harsh justice of E.C. horror comics, Shigeru Mizuki’s strip is the ultimate guide to yokai legends, from nature spirits to supernatural demons to Japanese takes on Frankenstein and Dracula. There’s even a fight between a giant monster and mecha! I love that the one-eyed protagonist, who regulates unruly yokai for humans, has his dad live in one of his orbital sockets, too. It’s weird and funny and loving, and Drawn & Quarterly’s reissue of Mizuki’s excellent Showa: History of Japan series is also highly recommended.
I have a collection of Nancy comics published by Kitchen Sink in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The volumes brilliantly featured introductions by figures from underground comics, humor, and academia, shifting the fandom’s perception of the 1940ss newspaper strip from being quaint and square to being the purest essence of comic strip. It’s meta, it’s deep, it’s genius, and my six-year-old daughter loves reading it. Of course the Kitchen Sink collections (which are presented according to themes such as Nancy Eats Food and How Sluggo Survives) fetch up to 50 bucks these days, so I was happy to see Fantagraphics reissuing the strips in chronological order in a sturdy binding for a fair price.
Not unlike how it took time for Homer to evolve as the principal character of The Simpsons before the beloved cartoon hit its stride, Nancy needed some time to get away from Fritzi Ritz and Mr. Sputter and find its way. Boiled down to childhood imagination and vocabulary, the Zen-like simplicity and straightforwardness of the strip is not unlike how a Chinese garden is broken down into the elements. (Yes, the comics are funny too.)
The first two books, Nancy Is Happy and Nancy Likes Christmas include introductions by Daniel Clowes (The Death Ray, Eight Ball) and Bill Griffith (Zippy The Pinhead), respectively. The third volume, Nancy Loves Sluggo, will be released in December and features an introduction by Ivan freaking Brunetti. Holy cow, if you don’t believe me about Bushmiller being godhead, trust them.
I’ve always loved Johnny Ryan’s humor. While his work can be accurately described as crass, rude, politically incorrect, or tasteless, it’s also also deeply knowledgeable and loving. His dismantling of comic strips (Blecky Yuckerella), super hero comics (The Comic Book Holocaust), and even literary comics (The Klassic Komiks Club) are actually more knowing than they are stupid but much more funny than anything else.
Prison Pit is the only current serial that makes me wait for each installment like a fanboy. In the series from Fantagraphics, Ryan has really turned the corner from cracking up readers to creating a cohesive world of his own–not unlike the evolution of the movies of Stephen Chow. Of course, the universe that Ryan creates is full of hate, backstabbing, and filth. It’s kinda like the epic world of Conan mixed with the jaw-dropping violence of The Story of Ricky and psychedelic story-telling of Jim, but featuring next-level cussing and back-stabbing. One really never knows what will happen next but it is likely to entail bodily fluids and pain.
There’s also an animated version of the strip that I’ve never watched. Check out a slightly less crude but questionably SFW preview below:
I’ve never stopped loving comics since I was a little kid who just learned how to read, and purchasing them from your local comic book store is a noble deed as well as a pleasurable one. And if you happen to live in New York, you might consider attending Comics Art Brooklyn next weekend. If you get Speigelman, Tomine, Burns, Jaffee, or Pettibon to sign a book–or simply lurk at the Drawn & Quarterly booth–I’ll be very jealous… Enjoy!
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