Baby Got Books

I started off the beginning of the year with some new comics. It had been a while since I had wandered the comics aisle, and I’m trying to get back to expanding the scope of my reading. New Year’s resolutions and all. A few notes on what I’ve taken in so far…

The Best American Comics 2007 (edited by Chris Ware) is a beautiful book. It is a clinic in book design and is almost worth buying on purely aesthetic grounds. I told anyone that would listen in December, “Say, if anyone’s asking what to get me for Christmas, this Best American Comics sure would be nice.” So I bought if for myself after the holidays with a gift card.

For a “best of” collection, this assemblage seemed fairly lame on the whole. There were a number of comics by people who had no clear ability to draw. There were several comics whose central premise seemed to be that they should be incomprehensible and look like they were drawn while on hallucinogens. There were more than a few that just seemed to go nowhere. Apparently super heroes and their ilk need not apply for the serious world of this collection.

That said, there were some bright spots. My favorite by far was a piece near the very end of the collection by Dan Zettwoch. It’s an historical portrait of the ‘37 flood of Louisville, Kentucky that felt very timely. I could have read it all day.

Another standout were the strips by Jeffrey Brown. His are day-in-the-life scenes of a music loving every slacker trying to find his way in the world. With excellent musical references. The drawings look a little awkward and slightly off, which is entirely in keeping with the tone of the strip.

Comic legends are also present, like R. Crumb and Art Speigelman. There was also a lengthy excerpt from Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, which I was glad to see, because I hadn’t gotten around to reading her well reviewed book.

So maybe the collection wasn’t as meh as I originally made it sound. It is also important to note that I am comics dabbler, so my opinion on the collection should be weighed in that context. It just didn’t knock my socks off.

I had much better luck with a single slim graphic novel. I first read about Jason’s (Single name only. Like Madonna.) I Killed Adolph Hitler in the New York Times’ holiday book guide. Later, I came across links to excerpts here and here. (I promise that I was not consciously trying to see how much Nazi imagery I could have on the page in one day.)

This story is wacky - in the best possible way. A hit man, pictured above, is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity. A scientist has created a time machine and wants to hire the hit man to go back in time and kill Adolph Hitler. He promptly botches the assignment, and Hitler climbs into the machine for the return trip. Hi-jinks ensue. It’s a delightfully twisted story.

The biggest problem that I had with IKAH was finding it. My favorite comic outlet had just sold out of it the day before I went in looking for it, on several occasions. No one else carried it, and sales people tended to look at me funny when I asked about it. Hitler? Jason? Comic book? Finally, the good people at Criminal suggested that I just go ahead and special order it. Which I did.

Another of Jason’s books, The Left Bank Gang, features Hemingway, Pound, Fitzgerald and other literary giants deciding to pull a bank heist while living as ex-pats in Paris. Why I don’t own that one already is beyond me.

In one last piece of comics news, The New Yorker is inviting artists to re-imagine their iconic monocle guy Eustice Tilley. Check out the entries on Flickr.

Since I admittedly have no real idea what I’m doing, comics-wise, I’ll gladly accept any recommendations for the more well informer.

Holy smokes! I would have completely missed this had the alert ladybloggers of the Pecanne Log not hipped me to it. On February 5, Art Spiegelman will be giving a lecture at the Savannah College of Art and Design (ATL campus) free-open to the public-and free on campus parking. That’s the awesome trifecta right there. Spiegelman is the author of the Pulitzer-winning Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers. From the press release:

In this talk, Spiegelman will trace the history of cartoons from Hogarth to R. Crumb and will consider what he calls “forbidden images,” inspired by the commotion raised over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in early 2007. He believes that in our post-literate culture the importance of the comic is on the rise, as “comics echo the way our brain works.”

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I know of no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Ironically, I completely forgot. Yesterday was Guy Fawkes Night in England. I had occasionally heard of the obscure (to me) celebration and knew that it had to do with something or other. That was about the extent of the effort I was willing put into resolving the mystery.

Last week I (finally) saw the movie V for Vendetta. The movie is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore, and it was one of the most subversive movies I’ve ever seen. The movie, set in the near future, takes place in a totalitarian UK that is ruled in a near constant state of fear. It includes dialog like, “People shouldn’t fear their government. Governments should fear their people.” Do you cheer for the terrorism that follows or not? The hero/protagonist of the movie, V, wears a stylized Guy Fawkes mask throughout the movie, and his true identity is not revealed. Finally, I had an impetus to find out who Guy Fawkes was and why there was a night named after him. And what was that poem that was repeated in the movie all about?

If you don’t know: It turns out that Guy Fawkes Night is the celebration of the failed “Gunpowder Plot” in 1605 by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators. The plan was to end Protestant rule by blowing up Parliament while King James I and key members of the aristocracy were inside. It didn’t pan out. Fawkes was then gruesomely executed. Naturally, the occasion is marked annually by huge bonfires, fireworks displays, and burning “guys” in effigy. Also, there is a poem.

According to an article in The New York Times yesterday, Guy Fawkes Night is becoming a dull occasion due to increasingly restrictive health and safety laws that limit bonfires, fireworks displays, and other collective fun. These laws make civic displays, including such potentially threatening acts as hanging Christmas lights, unworkable for small towns and other cash-strapped municipalities. A rugby club celebrated Guy Fawkes Night by watching a movie of a bonfire from a few years back. Good times. The People are becoming annoyed. Sounds like they need to watch the movie.

I do still remember The Maine and the Alamo.

Update: Oddly, Republican candidate for President, Ron Paul - of the US - had a Guy Fawkes themed fund raising effort that yielded the third highest single day total of all candidates (behind only Hillary and Obama). Weird. (Thanks for the link, Chris.)

Update 2: More on the “Guy Fawkes Candidate” here. The fund raising campaign included a clip from a speech where Mr. Paul declared, “The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual” and “The American Republic is in remnant status,” he says. “The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into military dictatorship, and few seem to care.” The article helpfully clarifies, “Mr. Paul did not support blowing up government buildings.” As part of your preparation for the next election, check out the movie if you haven’t seen it. (Thanks again, Chris.)

Update 3: Ed also forgot the Fifth of November, but he has posted a clip from the movie.

I’ve made no secret of my disdain for graphic novels. I just think that life is too short for grown people to go around reading comix. But Slate has just published one that I can finally get behind: a black-and-white comic about a cartoon figure who saw the world in black and white.

The graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi have finally made it to the big screen.  The Persepolis movie debuted at Cannes.  See the trailer below, which does not have English subtitles:

Wow.  My French is rusty.  The animation looks fantastic.  Additional excerpts: 1, 2, and 3.

Check out the punk rock band in excerpt 2.  Awesome.
BGB previously reviewed Persepolis and Persepolis 2.

Today is Free Comic Book Day.  Your favorite comix purveyors are giving away free comic books all across the country.  You can’t argue with free.  Here in Atlanta, Criminal Records has you covered.  They’re also having a vinyl record sidewalk sale.

It’s all post-apocalypse all the time here at BGB. After finishing Jamestown, I picked up the graphic novel DMZ (vol 1) by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli on the recommendation of the new comic book guy at Criminal Records. As it turns out, he used to ride my bus in the morning, back in the day. Mass transit - bringing people together.

The basic plot is similar to Jamestown - only completely different. The US has become divided into warring factions, The United States and the Free States. Manhattan is a DMZ. It is a grim and intense fight for survival.

The story is told from the point of view of Matthew Roth, a young intern for a Fox News-like channel called Liberty News. He becomes stranded in the DMZ after going in to report on the conditions of the people living there. He’s the outside world’s link to the DMZ, and the DMZ is a crazy place to be. The interesting thing is that no matter how dystopian the pictures are, the DMZ is clearly recognizable as Manhattan. That slim plausibility is what makes the book work.

I thought that the story was compelling, and I may check out subsequent editions. You can check out the first chapter for yourself here.

In related news:  Whether you’re a comix enthusiast of just comix-curious, you may want to check out a seminar this Friday, April 27 from 5-6 PM at the Ponce de Leon Branch of the Atlanta-Fulton County Library.  James from Criminal Records (the guy who used to ride my bus) will present Introduction To Graphic Novels and Comics.  Free and open to the public.  Check it out. 

I bought Siberia by Nikolai Maslov after reading impressive reviews, one after another. Siberia is a graphic novel, so if that sends you screaming for the door, please exit slowly and in an orderly fashion. Thank you.

Unlike other graphic books in the historical/memoir genre, Siberia contains little in the way of dialog and a minimum of exposition.

Instead, Maslov largely lets the pictures tell his story. The author/artist actually grew up in Siberia, as opposed to being sent there for punishment. He worked construction for a while, dodged the town’s drunks and rowdies, served in the Russian Army in Mongolia, and worked a variety of odd jobs. One such job was getting a job at a Moscow art gallery. Instead of the glamorous job he envisioned, the job mostly entailed packing official portraits of Lenin.

The story is one of desolation, pointlessness, beauty, despair, loss, art, violence, madness, and, occasionally, hope. It is no accident that the author’s landscapes and cityscapes are beautiful, while his pictures of average Soviet citizens are grotesque. The Soviet era does not appear to have been kind to its citizens.

The author laments that the Soviets did not allow his generation to create. In one scene, Maslov is threatened with arrest if he does not remove the drawings he has displayed for sale in a park. The book is filled with images of the destruction that replaced the creative impulse of a generation. Fields are littered with industrial/military debris. Senseless violence seems to be a staple of life. Life was to be endured, not lived. If nothing else, the book is a testament to the importance of the creative impulse. But it is more. Siberia also bears witness to the realities of a life on the extreme fringes of the Soviet nation.

The drawing in Siberia are relatively naive by modern graphic novel standards. The drawings are in pencil only. They have not been “finished” in ink or colored in any way. This is understandable, given that the artist has been creating the work in isolation - in a world where the art form is largely non-existent. That the work was created at all is fairly amazing.

The story of how the book came to be published is also interesting on its own. The author marched into the offices of a French publisher based in Moscow and presented him with three pages of drawings. Based on these, Maslov essentially demanded an advance so that he could quit his job and complete the book. It worked.

Siberia is greater than the sum of its parts. It almost requires multiple readings so that the full message of its images can be conveyed. The drawings, so simple at first blush, prove to be surprisingly complex. Maslov’s minimalist accounting of the life of a Siberian everyman in pictures could fill volumes.

Bonus: The nice people at Soft Skull Press have thoughtfully provided us with a copy of Siberia to pass along for free ($0) to one of our readers. If you have an interest in checking out Siberia, this is about as cost-effective a way to realize that dream as you are likely to find. Leave us a comment, and I’ll pick a lucky recipient from among the responses.

I took a quick break today from reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius to become initiated into the graphic novel club, with Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes. I’m pretty sure DJ Cayenne has posted in the past on this genre, but I had yet to check it out. Mrs. Shaft had given me Ghost World as a Christmas present (based on advice given by Aimee Mann in a magazine article), but I hadn’t gotten to it until today.

Initial thoughts: pretty cool, definitely different, and right up the alley of a guy who has a short attention span like me. What I found most intriguing was the fact that, without even trying, I was able to read the dialogue and absorb the graphics without missing a beat. I had expected that I would need to stop after reading each caption and scan the accompanying picture, but it really happened organically and with no incremental effort (again, a huge plus for a guy who doesn’t like to try too hard when reading).

This particular work centers on two high school girls and their views on their own social lives (or lack thereof) and their ongoing critical commentary on the people around them. In the midst of this commentary, an actual plot develops (unlike in my last read, Independence Day). The cover of the book says that it was made into a major motion picture, which my research (thank you, imdb.com) tells me starred Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson as the two girls. However, my research indicates that the plot of the movie veered off from what was featured in the book. Neither here nor there, I suppose, except I think it means that if you’ve partaken in one, you probably haven’t spoiled the other.

Y: The Last Man is a guilty pleasure. Last year I completed the published series by reading Volumes 4-8. The books are graphic novels (comix) about the adventures of Yorick, the literal last man on earth.

I posted at length on volumes 1-4 here. I’ll only add that the series continues to be spectacular. The creators keep adding cool new twists and wrinkles. The internet movie database says it will be a movie in 2008. At this point I think all comic book series are required to become movies.

OK. I showed you mine. What are your guilty reading pleasures? The books that you’d post about only under duress? You can tell us.

This post is actually doing the work of what should have been four posts. I procrastinated so long, that I had read the first four volumes of the Y: The Last Man graphic novel series before I had posted on the first. The series is written by Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra, et al. The first four volumes include: Vol 1: Unmanned, Vol. 2: Cycles, Vol. 3: One Small Step, and Vol. 4: Safeword.

I first heard of this series after reading a post by Jessa Crispin over at Bookslut. I can’t find the link, so I have no idea what she said about it. Time went by. Then I started to notice that Boing Boing drooled all over the most recent volume. (Here is their take on Vol 1). Then I heard a review of the latest installment on NPR by David Lipsky - on the same day that Nitro had posted on his book, Absolutely American. Maybe you can let that kind of coincidence go by, but I can’t. So I hustled over to my comics graphic novels purveyor, and bought my first volume, and then my second, and then…

The series tells the story of a mysterious plague that selectively kills every male of every species on earth - “gendercide”, except Yorick and his pet monkey. It is an interesting proposition. The intro to book 2 throws out some statistics that may or may not be true, but are interesting to think about:

In the U.S….more than 95% of all commercial pilots, truck drivers, and ship captains died…as did 92% of all violent felons… Worldwide, 85% of all government representatives are now dead…as are 100% of Catholic priests, Muslim imams, and Orthodox Jewish rabbis…51% of the planets agricultural labor force is still alive…

In the parts that I have read so far, Yorick is traveling across the country with a secret governmental agent and a geneticist. The trio are trying to get to Yorick to a west coast lab to figure out why he is still alive. As the last man, Yorick is an object of national security, since the fate of the planet may lie in his hands. Other governments (Israel has the best surviving military) are on his tail. Many women the group encounters would just as soon see Yorick dead for a variety of reasons, so the group chooses to protect his identity (and his sex) as best they can.

The series is flat out amazing, with subtle nuances and questions about what a single sex planet might be like throughout. For example, what about those men in the space station? What’s going to happen to them when they land? Can they even make it to earth with the lion’s share of Mission Control now dead? You’ll have to make it to Volume 3 to see how that one turns out.

I recommend this series if this is your kind of thing. If you’re merely comix curious, you can check out an excerpt of Volume I in PDF format. Unfortunately, it cuts you off just as things get good. If you have no interest in this stuff, I doubt that you’ve made it this far into this post.
I haven’t always been a comix dork. I didn’t really read them growing up. My interest began after reading Maus as an adult. My interest wained until I read Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. That book alone is responsible for jump-starting my renewed interest in the genre. So I thought it was interesting, and another of those spooky coincidences, when I saw that the Kavalier and Clay character “The Escapist” is being revived by Brian K. Vaughn, author of the Y: The Last Man series. Volume 1 of the new “The Escapists” series is in stores now. I’ll be off being a loser if anyone needs me.

Want to check out some graphic novels/comix to see what all the kids are in an uproar about, but you don’t want to shell out your hard-earned? Experiment cash free by checking out these online serials.

• Shooting War is a slightly futuristic look at what the Iraq war might look like in 2011 under President McCain. Our hero is a lefty blogger pressed into service as a journalist. Check this one out for sure.
• Motel Art Improvement Service takes a look at the adventures of a single woman biking across America who becomes stranded at a hotel with odd art-related goings on. Its not as dumb as that sounded.
• Greasemonkey is a sci-fi/space action strip with gorillas.

All Links via BoingBoing at some point or other. Yall check all that out. Our Top 25 List lands tomorrow.

What’s up slackers? I can only assume that the dearth of posts lately is due to everyone last minute shopping and then curling up in the evenings with their books and mulled wine. I haven’t been getting much reading done lately myself due to holiday mania and work travel. Luckily, I have a backlog of books that I still need to tell you guys about that will take up some of the slack. Next up is Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Bosnia 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco.

Remember that war? Remember how Republicans in Congress provided succor to our troops by rallying behind President Clinton during a time of war, providing him with their unwavering support? Me either. Luckily, this book isn’t about us. It is on the ground reporting of the impacts of war on real people in an UN-designated “safe area” during the war in Bosnia. Oh, and it is told in comic form. Read on below the fold.

I was not a big comics fan growing up, and I really had not read much of the adult-oriented graphic novels until this year. I read art Spiegelman’s Maus when it came out, and I think that it is something that everyone should read. After Maus, though, I quickly reverted to text-only snobbery. The attention that comix started to get over the last few years with Persepolis, the new Spiegelman, the McSweeney’s collection, and other titles, got me to have a second look. I am sold for the most part. I am convinced that there are some stories that are best told in this way.

Sacco’s war stories, I think, would have suffered if relayed in typical journalism or war-memoire styles. Any explanation of the players in the Bosnian war would require you to draw your own figure on a napkin outlining the ethnic and national groups and their relationship with one another just to keep them straight. Then there are the geographic regions and their alliances to keep straight. You’d need a chalkboard to keep going back to. Having Sacco’s images to go along with the text is so much more visceral and immediate than a column from the front lines. In relaying the horrors of war, it is also much more direct and honest. The author does not allow you to conjure a rose-colored sepia-toned romantic image of Gorazde, he supplies you the reality as he saw it on the ground.

Going into this book, I really had no idea what the whole Bosnian war was about. This book provided a basic back story of the break up of Yugoslovia, although it is principally about the war as it happened in a specific place. For more information, a big picture history would be the way to go. Sacco provides a “suggested reading” list at the end of the book. I enjoyed the book and felt better informed as a result of having read it.

Sacco is a war correspondent who has a few other books on the Bosnian war and a book about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I will be checking some of those out in the new year.

Sadly, Persepolis 2 is subtitled The Story of A Return, rather than Electric Bugaloo.

Persepolis and Persepolis 2 are graphic novels about the fascinating life of the author, Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis 2 begins where the first book left off.

Persepolis ended with the young Marjane fleeing Iran for boarding school in Austria. from the beginning, the boarding school in Austria idea seems like a poor one - from a parenting standpoint. When things finally hot bottom, Marjane returns to an Iran that had been fighting Iraq for years. This book ends like her last book, with Marjane leaving Iran, this time for good.

Powell’s Bookstore has an interview with Ms. Satrapi that contains this nugget:

The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people.

Amen, sister. This book is a worthy follow-up to Persepolis. So read them already.

That’s right. While I was supposed to be on vacation, I read Frank Miller’s 7th Volume of the Sin City series Hell and Back. Keeping it noire yall.

I also stayed up past my bed time, and I played video games, too. So there.

This is a graphic novel. Sin City was also a movie that did not feature any of the action in this book. I have not read any of the other Sin City books. I started with this one because I was unable to distinguish a “1″ from a “7″ on the spine. I’d say, on the whole, that this is not a “gateway” comic, but I enjoyed it plenty. Last week I worked during my planned vacation (hurricane); tomorrow, I go to work in Florida for the rest of the week. It’s crazy. I look forward to reading all of your posts when I return. Later.

My next book is the well regarded Marvel 1602 by Neil Geiman. Marvel, like the comic books? Yes, Marvel like the comic books.

Although, this is a graphic novel. It’s another “what if” book, that reimagines what it would have been like if some of the Marvel characters had existed in 1602 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and her succession by James I. I won’t bore you with any more of the plot, because none of the BgB crew care. It’s themes are familiar though: religious opression, fear and suspicion of the “other” - all that good stuff. I enjoyed it, and the artwork that begins each chapter is spectacular. I found out about this book from this year end review (#5)