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Breakdowns – Maim that Toon!

September 19, 2002

High highs and low lows this week, as far as the quality of the books I read, and some strange and pleasant correspondence. I won’t be a name-dropper, but one of the pros with a book reviewed last week appreciated the coverage, and one with a book reviewed below responded to an email with a surprising gift—an attached script for a new series not out yet. A representative from one of the big publishers called me, “sometimes harsh, but ultimately truthful and pretty insightful,” which made my week. However, Dark Horse Maverick Senior Editor Diana Schutz took me to task for a comment in my review of AMERICAN SPLENDOR: UNSUNG HERO #1. Well, she liked the review—it’s a very good book—but didn’t like where I said charging $3.99 for a 24 page black-and-white comic was “gouging” the audience, and said I was plain dead wrong and nobody’s getting rich off this. And mostly, she’s right, and I apologize for the wrong choice of words, and hope it didn’t sour anyone on getting the book after I was so positive about its contents. What I meant, though, was that it is a bit higher than usual for such a book, and the higher price point may well serve to turn away potential readers and limit sales to mostly Harvey Pekar’s and/or David Collier’s existing fanbase. After all, the production costs for this look to be about the same as Dark Horse’s BUFFY books, but are a buck more (just as I noted WOLVERINE: NETSUKE is a dollar more than DAREDEVIL with the same production value). I think sometimes it might be advisable to sell some of the more obscure or challenging titles like AMERICAN SPLENDOR cheaper—make them loss leaders and try to pull readers in that way. But hey, it’s not my field of expertise, and not my money. So again, sorry if a fairly complicated thought of mine was reduced to an unintentionally inflammatory one-liner in the interest of brevity.

This just in prior to press time:
Diana wrote back and all is well. Buy AMERICAN SPLENDOR.

PLANETARY/JLA: TERRA OCCULTA by Warren Ellis and Jerry Ordway. DC Comics. $5.95

“I want to bring these people to justice.
I want to put the world right.
And I need to know now: will you remain in league with me?”

Get it? Justice…league. And you’re right, people do talk like that…in the bad superhero comics with which Ellis has such a problem. I should note that the reason for the labored reference is because this is an Elseworlds story, so there isn’t a true Justice League here, just Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent and Diana Prince banding together to fight the tyranny of The Planetary Corporation. So far, fine—Ellis is determined not to do a typical superhero story, and so we have three heroes without their trademarked costumes and playing the role of underdog for a change. Only, it’s not that much of a change, since JLA: EARTH 2 presented the JLA as underdogs in a world where heroism is almost dead, and Wayne eventually, and for not much reason, wears a Bat-inspired costume and throws bat-shaped weapons. But reason aside, it did provide a little bit of excitement in a story bogged down with our mini-league talking, talking, talking. About the villains, about their motivation, about their plan of attack, and entirely too much technobabble about time loops (“Interesting. Perhaps he experienced subjective time as he fell into the loop” No. Not interesting. Maybe if you showed me, it would be interesting.). And it’s not really well established what Planetary wants. Okay, so they have all the technology and watch everyone from the Moon, and don’t want any rebellion. Fine. But then what? They’ve got the planet running well…and now they just sit and watch it forever? Fun. What we’ve got, instead of the usual PLANETARY tale of wonder, discovery and strange pulp science, is more of an AUTHORITY tale, with the mini-league delivering the requisite bloody ass-kicking to the supremely confident, then surprised, then dead, bad guys. Which is okay, if a Cassaday or Hitch or Quitely is doing the art. But Jerry Ordway isn’t that guy. He’s a good artist, and I’m glad he got some work, but his style is a bit old-fashioned. Look at the Planetary Corp’s homepage—shoulda done something interesting there with some CGI. Look at Amazon Island—ho-hum. It’s not really his fault, though, as he’s not given a lot of fun stuff to draw, but I’m guessing most who buy this book are expecting more flash and effects of the artists mentioned above, and not the usual superhero book look, with the Byrne-inspired diagonal panel composition and lots of speedlines. And since Ellis prides himself on the covers for his books, which are usually arresting and different from the rest of the dross on the stands, I really have to point out what a poor one this book has, with its tiny logo, scabby color and unfortunate similarity to the cover of JLA: EARTH 2. What this felt like, for me, was that Ellis finally found some time to complete a long-standing commitment he wasn’t really that interested in. Hell, The Drummer was in like one panel of the book, disappearing with no explanation. You want to read something by an interested, engaged Ellis? Try this little Bad Signal entry, then subscribe to get several of these gems every week that remind you how good the guy usually is: “Funny how I've come to associate music with the dark. The music that affects me most, anyway. It's half-three in the morning, it's dark and cold; and I mean cold, cold for the first time in months, like someone flicked a switch and winter's here. And suddenly everything coming out of Winamp is taking me back ten, fifteen, pushing twenty years. Suddenly everything's turned back into the soundtrack to a dozen love affairs and the moments that your mind makes widescreen. Eight bars of something and you can see that girl dancing, you can see that girl waiting for you in the square at eight with the pigeons launching away from her, you can see that girl walking towards you and you can see the first time that girl smiled at you and meant it. And...I dunno. This is a cold country. Night comes quickly.
”There's a club I'd go to where they played old-fashioned r&b music, a basement club, and we'd crawl up the stairs in need of a cigarette and some air, and when you opened the door this great column of steam would burst out and rush up into the night, visible from streets away... me and Sheelagh Baxter, sitting on the pavement and just watching it jump up at the stars.
”Winter music. Comes out of the dark and just pokes at your heart a bit.”

That’s some nice writing, more of what I imagine is the at-home Ellis and not the persona he projects. If he’d put more thought and heart into this project, we might’ve seen some interesting scenes with Clark, Diana and Bruce really bonding, rather than prattle about time loops or the less-than-dramatic entrance of Clark (Not six minutes—he made it in three! Who cares?!) After all, all three experienced the murder of their parents; that’s bound to cause some conversation.

PARADIGM #1 by Matthew Cashel and Jeremy Haun. Image Comics. $3.50

“Oh, sweetie. It’ll be alright. It’s a big city, important people die every day. And he was not important.”

Many of us have, or had, aspirations to make our own comics, right? Maybe in high school you and a buddy started drawing some pages, creating ripoffs of existing characters, and talking about all the stuff you liked at the time that you wanted to put into the book. The zingy, pop culture-obsessed dialogue of Tarantino, and later, Bendis, opened some of our eyes to these possibilities. And so, we’ve gotten lots of imitations, and only occasionally, some fresh, vibrant talents like Messrs. Cashel and Haun. Just from the first page I felt like I was experiencing something very smart and with a lot of thought behind it. Great layouts, clever dialogue…and then there was that surprising turn of events. I described it to a friend and she was interested in the book right there. Violence that interests women means you’re at least a step ahead of the pack.

Describing what happens next would take too long and spoil the fun for you, but I’ll just say that there’s some pop culture dialogue, male bonding, emotional entrapment, the beginning of a mystery or mysteries involving everyday violence and not-so-everyday magic, and the various layers of reality we experience and create. And beer. Always beer.

Haun’s so good already that I really hope he’s not lured away to draw, like TITANS or something, because I don’t want this shiny new train to stop chugging for a long time. Working in black-and-white, with lots of shadows, he makes a couple mistakes, such as a scene between two cops and a guy who pulls a gun on them. Both bits of action are hard to see at first glance. But even Steve Rude made mistakes when he started on NEXUS with Mike Baron, and for some reason that’s what I’m reminded of here. Not the story at all, but the feeling of two creators perfectly suited to each other, and burning with ideas and enthusiasm. Cashel tries a little too hard at times to blow you away with technique, and there are honestly a couple scenes where the dialogue drags, but I can take a couple rough areas in exchange for this kind of ambition. Pour yourself a cold one, settle back on the couch, and enjoy what’s going to be a very cool monthly ritual.

POP GUN WAR #4 by Farel Dalrymple.

“Not by beef or by bread are giants made or nourished.”

Dalrymple is one of those guys with a vision and I don’t think he’s apt to be deterred. Some might recommend he just produce graphic novels rather than a sporadic thirty-two-pager, and yeah, it would be easier to follow the story that way. And yet, I really look forward to the day a new issue comes out, so I can see a new beautiful cover and get the brief but beatific jolt of his world. In this issue…hmm…what happens? Sinclair, the sweet boy with the secondhand wings, flies around the city looking for his friend Emily, while Sunshine the Magician gets Kong-sized and there are riots in the streets (for a completely different reason), and a head in a valise is very unhappy with its new owner. I’m not sure what to make of it, either, but I’m still loving it. What I’m noticing is that Dalrymple’s art is growing more bold, less precious, and his writing, while obviously still obtuse and symbolic, is nonetheless incorporating more of his life, with friends making appearances somewhat spontaneously in the creative process, it seems. Go, go.

A FINE MESS by Matt Madden. Alternative Comics. $3.95

“You know, Smagula, these so-called “primitives,” who, as the cliché tells it, cower in fear before cameras, claiming they will steal their souls: They are the true Post-Modernists, for only they understand than an image is as real—if not moreso—than the “real” object it represents!”

Matt Madden is a major emerging talent who is not far away from breaking out. He just needs a great story to tell. ODDS OFF showed a great gift for character, presenting people realistically, with desires and dread and insecurity with which we can empathize, but the book’s refusal to wrap up tidily or dramatically probably kept it from being feted like PISTOLWHIP or something. I get the sense that he’s building towards something, though, honing his skills diligently and clearing out his trunk, whether that trunk is mental or physical. In the physical case, A FINE MESS is such a trunk-clearing, a collection of works all produced in the 20th Century and under one cover for the first time. “Aranda’s Coat” appeared in the SPX2001 anthology, where I first read it, but I enjoyed it a bit more this time. A college professor wants to teach a lesson to an overbearing colleague with a dashing leather coat, so he draws the coat so well he takes all the power from the “real” coat. A tale of subjective reality and magic realism, told crisply and with wit. “The Grossinator” tells of a long and shambling evening of a charming gay man who parties down, gets drunk and embarrasses himself with an awkward pass at someone on whom he’s had a longtime crush. Sort of a dry run for parts of ODDS OFF, actually, and quite funny and compassionate for good, bright people without direction. Academe and post-collegiate life are the setting for much of Madden’s work, and he follows these stories with suitably academic “Exercises In Style,” where, inspired by Raymond Queneau and the Oubapo movement (Madden has co-created a U.S. branch with like-minded cartoonists), he takes a mundane story sequence and draws it in different comic formats and perspectives. It could be dry, but it’s actually really enjoyable and impressive, opening one’s mind to the endless possibilities in comics storytelling. The book, in a handsome oversized format, is a hint of where comics can go with better brains behind the brushes.

THREE FINGERS by Rich Koslowski. Top Shelf Comix. $14.95

“But it wuz Rickey, ya hear me, RICKEY, that squeaky voiced lil’ sumbitch, who had the crowd goin’! Humans loved that little pecker!”

I wrote above a little about pop culture and the desire to explore what we love and hate about it within our own creations, our own attempts at pop culture. As superhero comics have spent decades feeding off of older superhero comics, we’ve started to now get a new wave of “alternative” comics from fans of superhero comics and other bright, juvenile forms of pop culture. Rather than pouring their influence back into the superhero well, they explore it as a dense, multi-character graphic novel—with two characters involved with comics—in the superlative BOX OFFICE POISON, or in the classic cartoon-inspired THREE KINGS here. But whereas the former waves its geek flag proudly and with compassion, ironically, the creator of 3 GEEKS, Koslowski, tells a thoroughly bitter story here. The pitch may have sounded something like, “Behind the Music—Toon Style!,” and that’s what this is, kind of, a graphic mockumentary of the early days of cartoons, with the stars like Rickey Rat and Portly Pig being real, a la WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? Fine premise, and Koslowski’s art, which takes old photos of Walt Disney and the Old Hollywood guard like Charles Chaplin and does a nice gray wash over them, has the right look for a documentary, barring several typos. He alternates these pages with six panel grids of “interview footage” of Rat (a Mickey Mouse homage, if you hadn’t guess), Portly, a profanity-spewing Foghorn Leghorn stand-in, and “Dizzy Walter’s” brother, who is meant to represent the old Hollywood suits who used up the Toons and spat them out. About a third of the way in, after we’ve seen the rise of Walters and Rat, the book goes south, as the plot kicks in. Now, for me, a book doesn’t always need a great story, if the characters are interesting. There are no characters here except for the broken-down Rat, who just weeps and sniffles the entire time, offering no insight into his life, whether the story was true, nothing. The plot, such as it is, is that a rumor grows and persists to this day that Rickey Rat’s popularity is due to having just three fingers on each hand. No other toon reaches his level of fame, so in secret, many start chopping their own digits off: The Ritual. The Leghorn character hints that it’s true, and the second two-thirds of the book is a dull merry-go-round of this character saying the ritual is real, this one saying it’s not, as time marches on in the narration, attempting feebly yet offensively to tie this ridiculous Ritual hook to Marilyn Monroe’s death and the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s an ugly, pointless engine for a story, no matter how nice it’s designed and drawn. I heard from a friend that another friend, who works for a large toymaker, hated the book because it defiled the characters. I disagree slightly. I’m not personally interested in defiling toons, but if you’re gonna do it, do it, and make Rickey Rat the evil, satanic star, or Dizzy Walters the Hughesian powerbroker, anything to give this story an interesting character or someone to latch onto. Foghorn Leghorn saying “cocksucker” just isn’t enough.

Full Bleed #6 – Tiptoeing through the Top 300 Comics

I’m not a guy who pays that much attention to comics sales, but when I do look, I usually do find some items of amusement and confusion, and this time is no exception. It should be noted that these numbers, for product ordered to ship in August (or was scheduled to ship), does not include reorders. This could bump DC, Image and everyone but Marvel up slightly, since Marvel does not support reorders. Oh, and the last time I did one of these, I pointed out that Chaos! Comics’ “reimagined” versions of their once-popular properties looked to be a washout, and then they went bankrupt. So I’m no visionary but at least able to see the obvious.

Okay, Marvel has 31 of the top 50 books, and the biggest market share at almost 22.5%. You’d think those kinds of numbers would eliminate the “Quesada’s on his way out” rumors, huh? And it was really a textbook play to double up on the successful ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, PUNISHER and mainline X-MEN books, because everyone apparently scraped up the extra cash needed last month with no problem. And I was just last night rereading Warren Ellis’ COME IN ALONE, where he noted the top book sold around 150,000 copies. TRANSFORMERS sold 274,000. Say what you will about the comic, and it’s my belief the glory days will be short-lived for this book, but it does send a message that the comics industry is rebounding nicely. I also note the execrable BATTLE OF THE PLANETS is still doing well but dropping to #19, and the drop will continue. JLA continues to do well, with two biweekly issues in the top 20, despite a total lack of buzz. Pleasantly surprised to see Alan Moore at the respectable #31 for LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, with 108,000 units ordered.

CrossGen, though probably doing well enough off their other media deals, has to be concerned that their highest-charting title is SOJOURN at #87, with RUSE next at #97, and undoubtedly due to drop down closer to other CG titles CRUX, NEGATION and MYSTIC in the 140s when the last remnants of Mark Waid’s mastery are wiped away. They need a Waid-level creator, and fast. Good new books, or good-looking books set to come out that need your support are 21 DOWN, BEAUTIFUL KILLER, FIGHT FOR TOMORROW, GRENDEL: RED WHITE & BLACK, ONE PLUS ONE and AUTOMATIC KAFKA, this last I’ll happily translate for you. Oh, and best of luck in the Special Olympics. And I don’t know if any ground is being made up in trade paperback sales (I’ve never seen the tpbs of this book in bookstores), but AMERICAN CENTURY seems to be sliding towards oblivion at #164. And here’s maybe the most obvious sign that DC either doesn’t know how to market properly, or just doesn’t give a shit: LOONEY TUNES and CARTOON CARTOONS are at #206 and #210, with combined sales of under 16,000. Separately, these spinoffs of ongoing Cartoon Network shows featuring world-renowned characters like friggin’ Bugs Bunny cannot outsell D&D fetish comic KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE. Worse, really, despite a hit film that reached tens of millions, the SCOOBY-DOO comic barely moves 15,000 units. Pathetic. People should really be fired for this kind of thing. On a better note, the top graphic novels list shows great numbers for the classic LONE WOLF & CUB, which warms me heart. I was also greatly surprised that the YOUNGBLOOD: BLOODSPORT miniseries from Millar and Liefeld had orders of only 22,000, with new publisher Arcade Comics apparently not doing reprints. In other words, what looked like a pretty sure thing—Millar’s got two of the top ten comics, Liefeld is an infamous creator who still gets lots of press despite the fact this is his first new work in years—could actually sink this company. As a friend and respected reviewer told me, he cannot wait for this book to come out, and I confess I have much the same feeling. It will likely be gloriously stupid and fun, and not boring, which is more than one can say about a lot of superhero books.

Reading: TWELVE by Nick McDonnel.
Listening: A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD by Coldplay.
Drinking: Lagavulin, 16 years old.

Chris Allen

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