Inking Panels

I have a small tattoo or two, just enough to regret, but if I were bolder and was planning to show off my tattoo and my love of comics, I would wish for a tattoo as cool as this:


As your average American comic geek, though, my stomach doesn't look that nice, and, well, I'm just not cool enough.

Photo cribbed from the DOs and DON'Ts at Vice Magazine.

Flotation Device by Keith Helt and Various

Normally the appearance of "Various" as a art credit on a comic means one of a few things. One, there are so many artists who "chipped in" that it wasn't worth giving any one top billing. Two, there are numerous artists of mediocre quality so that if you gave any one billing, you would need to give all of them an above the line credit. Or, three, there are so many high quality artists that you can't give any of them top billing, and they only did a few pages each. Lucky for readers of this book, the third is the one that applies. There are numerous great comics artists here, so many that instead of listing all of them, or trying to pick the greatest of the great, I'm just going to list my favorite: Dylan Horrocks, Anders Nilsen (above), Kevin Huizenga, Gabrielle Bell, and Onsmith. There is no shortage of great art here, the story is a different issue.

There have been a few short story anthologies with art by "various" and writing by one individual. Denny Eichorn's Real Stuff and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor come to mind and cover two ends of the spectrum style-wise. Harvey Pekar's stories are the stories of an average life, taking small pieces of mostly uneventful days and building a life narrative from them. Denny Eichorn's are spectacularly eventful happenings that build incredulity through their sheer volume. Both writer's managed to secure the strong independent artists of their time, with Pekar working with luminaries as bright as Crumb, and Eichorn with the shining lights of the next generation, including Jim Woodring and Peter Bagge.

Keith Helt's Flotation Device seems to fall somewhere in the middle of the two. He sometimes seeks to provide the small events that make the personal resonate with a wider audience - the best in this issue is the six page sequence drawn by Nilsen, sampled here - in the style of John Porcellino, who, in fact, is one of the contributing artists. Other times, he wants to provide a representation of the Big Important Moments in life, hinted at in a two page sequence drawn by Horrocks. Unfortuantely he doesn't quite hit the mark of either, having to settle instead for the book remaining what it is, a diary, relaying the life and times of one man, neither more interesting nor more insightful than his reader. I would love to see him try a longer form story where he can play to his artist's strengths and wring some of the poetry out of these small events, as he and Nilsen manage to provide, but I'll never complain about such stunning art as the pages by Horrocks or Huizenga.

Picking Nits

I wanted to start a new semi-regular feature here at 512.

My impression is that the artists who work for Marvel, DC, or even Dark Horse should be capable of drawing whatever they put in their comics. Especially on the assembly line books. I can't figure out how a piece of lousy art can make it past a penciller, an inker, a colorist, a letterer, and a cadre of editors. And because I think it should be within the realm of expectation that this shouldn't happen, I am taking it upon myself to make of them when it does.

I figured that I might be able to find a good example in this week's big book, the Justice League of America 1, but Ed Benes has really made strides from his early days in the Wildstorm bullpen. This new issue is consistently well drawn and shows a significant leap from the Jim Lee lifts of the past. I'd bet that he is still using a little too much comic book source material for reference, but the finished product is polished enough. I did find a few small flubs, and this was my favorite:


If you look carefully at that right hand the fingers are all too big for the hand as drawn. The palm is not nearly wide or tall enough to justify those manhands. And the cranium, as drawn from that admittedly tough angle, worm's eye view and three quarter angle, is about 20% shorter than it needs to be. But again, minor quibbles in a book packed with page after page of talking heads, it's just that expect more from a Major Leaguer, like I said above.

My favorite panel this week in the bad panel sweepstakes this week is from New Avengers 23. Olivier Coipel is a fine artist, but this panel is just bad:


Jessica Drew, in this panel, is about two feet tall. Against the scale of the hall to the doorway, which for the hotel room shown, is probably about four feet wide and seven feet tall, and she's just a tiny bug in the corner of it. Maybe I'm not aware of her shrinking powers, god knows I've not committed my Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe to memory, but this just looks out and out goofy.

I don't care how rushed your deadlines are, I don't understand how an editor can let such a silly panel get to print. Your in-house art team could fix this with a quick scan and enlarge in about 15 minutes.

The rest of the issue is nice enough, Coipel's unique style still shines through the house style that Marvel doesn't acknowledge but we can see exists. I do wonder how much of the last two pages inker Mark Morales had to take care of, but still the issue is nice. One little tweaking of scale and it would be even better.

Batman by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert (edited)

An interesting trend in the last half decade or so is the mainstreaming of many independent or alternative writers. It happens less frequently with artists, mainly because the distinctive style of artists are rarely appropriated for a genre that requires a certain amount of uniformity in the depiction of the main characters. Sure, you get the occasional Kochalka Hulk story, or Bagge Spider-Man story, or Bizarro Comics, but they're most often tongue in cheek. The writers, however, can more easily adapt themselves to cranking out Marvel and DC work. Some writers who were once indie mainstays, Ed Brubaker, Jon Lewis, Dylan Horrocks or Gilbert Hernandez have made names for themselves in the mainstream comics world. They all happened to be artist/writers when they worked on their self-published books, and they aren't for their mainstream books (Hernandez is the exception). Most of these creators, as writers of super-hero material, tend to return to the themes that were important to them as auteurs, and use them to add a layer of subtext or metaphor to the stories they tell in the super-hero world. I've also noticed that this is what makes for a better than average super-hero comics writer.

Grant Morrison seems to be working at that in his most mainstream of mainstream titles right now, Batman. I know he's writing All Star Superman, but that feels like it's outside the realm of average titles, while this Batman book seems to be right in the thick of continuity. In the second issue (656) of his run, he plays a few tricks while telling a fairly straight-forward action story ("Ninja Man-Bats. Alarming twist.") First the majority of the issue takes place in an art gallery showing Lichtenstein-style pop art based on comic panels, and he takes a throwaway potshot, "All this comic book stuff is way too highbrow for me," but this feels like a tired and obvious self-reference, and he expands on this commentary only slightly with his follow-up "If there's one thing I hate...it's art with no content." Second, he uses metaphor after metaphor in the fight scene play-by-play, describing the punches as bibles slamming shut, his microphone sounds as "ghosts writing on glass with broken fingernails" and the smell of the creatures as a Thanksgiving turkey. These are all better than average turns of phrase, but still don't achieve much more than a happy diversion from the action scene that is the standard super-comic diversion.

He does manage to finish the book with a plot twist that offers layers of resonance, namely a few key familial relationships, but we'll have to see if he searches for the depth of possibility in a story being told in the flagship title of the most successful comic book character of all time, or if he saves the real heavy lifting for a title in which the main character doesn't have to do so much, well, heavy lifting.

I feel it necessary to make a compulsory mention of the art in the title, by new series artist (he joined last issue with Morrison) Kubert, but my impression of the two junior Kuberts is that you probably like one more than the other if you care to tell them apart. Andy happens to be the brother I like more, but without a strong writer to work with, I can't recommend him to carry a title on his own. The above sampled panel is Kubert's addition of an in-joke, the gallery attendees you see here are modeled after Morrison and Kubert and Kubert's parents, living legend Joe and his wife Virginia. I would like to see more depth from both, and not just the surface they've been offering.

Berserkotron 2 by David Robertson

About a month ago people began asking if they could send comics for review. I said "of course" and I told them that, like it or not, I would review anything sent to me. So file this review under "Careful what you ask for."

This British photocopied mini comic has a color cover that doesn't indicate promise for the interiors. The text on the cover is a mix of computer typeset and hand drawn, but mixed indiscriminately, with a cover illustration that is of sufficient quality. The interior is a step down from there.

The interior art is on par with the comics that I created as a teenager. And those comics were terrible, even for a teenager. Every panel here is drawn in the same flat, one pen, limited background, one point perspective (at most), with ninety percent of the face shots being either straight on or full profile, with those that attempt a three-quarter shot jumping out with their lack of practice. And as the books wears on, the inking becomes more slapdash, as if time (or commitment) was running out.

The story is not much better. The plot feels stream of conciousness, with each scene arriving after the next at the pace it arrived in the author's brain. The story here is about two friends building a robot for a robot-brawling competition, again a story written about teenagers, seemingly written by teenagers. It mostly seems to be a comic designed for the enjoyment of those who created it (evidently just one man). Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, and in fact I wish I had the confidence to believe in all my creative endeavors with the fervor that Robertson apparently does.

For ordering info: Berserkotron

The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson

It must be more difficult to write the first issue of a new ongoing series without a finish in mind than it is with a finish in mind. If you know the ultimate destination of the story you are offering, then I would think you can have a bit more confidence in knowing what's going to be important in the long run, and what can be thrown away if it's not working.

There are a few Vertigo series that spring to mind when I think of finite stories with strong openings are Sandman (well, the story was strong, even if the art left something to be desired), Y The Last Man, and Ennis' own Preacher. Transmetropolitan feels to me like an exception - I wasn't hooked from the first issue, mostly because the short hand used to throw us into the world of the character felt lifted almost wholesale from the real-life persona of Hunter S. Thompson. I have assumed that all of these titles were written with the end already in mind but Preacher, even at the time, felt like Garth Ennis had constructed a story that he could simply let his characters wander through, knowing that he could direct them towards a conclusion when necessary.

This new title is not a Vertigo title, but it sure feels like one. Maybe it's the two creators, perhaps best known for their Vertigo series, the aforementioned Preacher and Transmetropolitan. It's even easy to forget that their last collaboration was on a Marvel comic, Fury: Peacemaker. Wildstorm is not too far removed from Vertigo on some days, and this is one of those days.

I think that sometimes with a "pitch" book, and this feels like a pitch book (Powers with British Spies or James Bond, Agent of Vertigo), the writer finds it necessary to include some big ideas in the first issue, even when they might need a little breathing room. There are a handful of Vertigo standards upheld here: the British ex-pat, the ultra-violence, the dark humor, the slang, the superhero send-ups, and the sex. They do seem to be built on something, but in an introduction like this there were too many moments that felt like color-by-numbers "mature reader" material. Two of the three main characters are thrown right in to their roles as edgy protagonists, leaving you with only hints of who you should be rooting for in this bleak lineup. There is a third main character who is introduced in the first issue whose story is built in a careful manner, and even though the story includes the selfsame violence and humor, it is constructed in a logical, even believable manner. The character's grief and pain is confidently created. I can only hope that this strong handling of the material is the norm for the series, and that Ennis and Robertson can avoid the one-upsmanship that too frequently spoils the proceedings in these "mature readers" titles, and that Ennis, on his bad days tends to traffic in.

Note: Those quotes on "mature readers" are to indicate that the nomenclature is not mine, not to indicate that I feel that "mature readers" is an ironic statement (but...)

Flight 3 by Kazu Kibuishi, editor

I like to look at the art of Bilal, Moebius, Guarnido, Bobillo, et al, but I've never been a fan of science-fiction or fantasy comics for the most part. There are of course exceptions, but they generally prove the rule. The interest just isn't there, so I never bought Flight 1 or 2. The art always looked nice, but the stories seemed to me to be in the Heavy Metal, French album vein, regardless of the artist's backgrounds (primarily webcomics and animation).

So even with the uproar of support for volume 1, I didn't drop the dough for volume 2. I don't know what caused me to spring for vol. 3, maybe it was the Bill Plympton story, maybe the 350 page/25 dollar price differential, maybe it was the curiosity to see what Ballantine was paying for, but whatever it was, I preordered it, so no turning back.

A book like this can be hindered by the format. The anthology, as a format, is designed to cover as much ground as possible by including a variety of creators and stories; too frequently this means a lack of focus. Anthologies are generally built around a theme, and this series is no different. The theme here is, of course, flight, but this is not readily evident in reading the stories. Nearly every story has an illustration or a character that would seem to support that theme, but it rarely holds true. Upon further inspection most are just a function of design. There are many characters that have wings, which they use to actually fly, rather than to illuminate the reader on why flight is so important (or dangerous, or liberating, or constricting, or take your pick).

So without support for the theme, and with a lack of focus, there's only one thing to redeem the book, but at least it's the biggest thing. The stories.

The book is wrapped in a beautiful cover by editor/designer Kazu Kibuishi, but when I saw it I was afraid it was going to be more of what I didn't want. A beautifully illustrated book with stories about subjects that I had no interest: dragons, fairies, monsters, futuristic environments, and faraway lands. Well, I was right about the subject matter. It is page after page of exactly that.

While it's true that there are weak links, there are some tremendous stories here. Michel Gagne kicks off the book with a wordless story, that while engaging and confidently illustrated, turns out to be the first chapter in a continuing story, the only one I found in this book. If there aren't several continuing stories, why include just one, and if you can get away with putting a "the end" in the last panel, then why not do that.


The next story was contributed by Tony Cliff, whose work was new to me. His story focused on one of my least favorite subjects, fairies, but I thought the art had a great sense of movement, a strong design, and beautiful character designs, everything you would hope from an animator. he also managed to inculde the image of flight in a major plot point, and used storytelling to highlight it.


The next artist who grabbed me was Rad Sechrist, whose story was one of my favorites in the book. His 12 page story was expansive, using the theme to subtle advantage. It seems possible that the 12 pages were set as a maximum for the artist and that the story was written with a larger page count, which created pages packed with panels, but it never to the detriment of the tale. The ending does provide a bit of the O. Henry (or Eisner or E.C.. if so inclined) twist, but the strength in character and plot keep it from being only that.


Phil Craven brings in another wordless story which, while slightly more limited by its twisty ending and sentimentality, features an ultimately likable tale of identity.


Azad Injejikian provides a story notable for its originality in both style and content. He presents his story in a picture book style, with an omniscient narrator leading us through an ultimately tragic story. He also maintains the flight theme, using it on two levels, one for a character's ability, the other to support his overall metaphor for how that character moves through life. A beautiful story.


The next story, by Neil Babra, is notable for the left turn that the art style provides from the rest of the book. His story is also the only one that entirely avoids any of the genre aspects of the rest of the stories.

His art style here is best described as neo-Craig Thompson (has Thompson been around long enough to be saddled with a successor?). A lush brush stroke and a subdued color palette provide the story with the warmth necessary to overlook the blunt storytelling. It has become a little too easy to depend on art-comic autobiography shorthand. Here's my set of young adult characters, here's the narrator reminding me of the importance of what the events that transpire, here's the "true" things I saw that illustrate my feelings, here's the pal ready to carry me as I hobble through my emo-ized existence. What saves the story is the humor and the small sense that I got that the narrator recognizes his self-importance, even if he doesn't excuse or avoid it (well, and the fact that a little emo never bothers me).


Editor/designer Kibuishi provides a story as well, and it is, as near as I can tell, completely disconnected from the theme of the book. It's possible that I missed something, but I didn't get a connection at all. What I did read from it is a comment on today's military, which I may be reading into it, but it seems to me to be the theme of this story. Simple and straightforward, the story covers plenty of ground plotwise, while remaining hyper focused on its purpose. When Kibuishi transitioned out of the flashback in the first few pages and into the story's present, I didn't absorb the purpose of the introduction, however when I read through I could see that every panel is pointing to the next and also to the denouement of the story.

Kibuishi, as an artist, possesses the skill necessary to compensate for his weaknesses. His rendering is average, his illustrations too frequently static, and his character designs somewhat slapdash. He expertly pulls the story together with a fantastic sense of layout and pacing, a n extraordinarily strong sense of color design, and a keen eye for paring down a panel to what is absolutely necessary. The story becomes more than the sum of its parts, thanks to the artist's desire and ability to get his message across.


The story by Alex Fuentes presented here is exactly what I mean by the Heavy Metal influence. Realistic illustration with lush, rich computer coloring (I haven't looked -- is Heavy Metal all computer-colored these days -- or the French albums? Blacksad is the only thing I looked at closely this year and I don't recall that being Photoshop color.) and a cadre of fantasy creatures and characters. Fuentes hits a subdued tone of tragedy that was a nice change of pace from the surrounding stories. He introduces characters efficiently and draws the story to a fulfilling end.

There are many more stories that I chose not to comment on extensively: Ben Hatke's art and story lack polish, the tale here feels incomplete; Johane Matte's story is, well, I'm not a cat person; Joey Weiser contributes a story that's cute enough, but not much more; there's a story with stunning illustration by Israel Sanchez, but the story feels like it's been done too many times before; there's no doubt Bill Plympton is a genius, but maybe I set my expectations too high for his story; Yoko Tanaka's art is assured and cohesive, but the story feels like an anecdote, more than even a short story should, it's more like a comic strip; Rodolphe Guenoden and Bannister provide variations on riding-public-transportation stories, both wordless and both employing a meet-cute straight out of your favorite romantic comedy; I don't exactly know what to make of Matthew Forsythe's story, but I liked it; Chuck BB offers another cat story; Becky Cloonan illustrates a visceral tone poem, sinking her teeth into Viking destruction; Reagan Lodge's story is a quick, fox-got-your-tongue anecdote; Paul Harmon's feels like just an introduction, and it seemed as though it should have said "to be continued..." at the end even though there's plenty of meat here; the bit in the Steve Hamaker story must have been done just as well in Finding Nemo, just with different sea creatures; Dave Roman's fairy tale fable is an entertaining bit of stream-of-conciousness; and Matthew Armstrong and Khang Le wrap up the book with two examples of talented illustrators in need of a writer.

More than most anthologies I've read this year (and I tend to overbuy anthologies), this book is a good example of what can be done when an editor's eye for contribution is strong, even if his desire to maintain a theme is not.

Krill #1 by Aaron Mew

This is a mini that I picked up in San Diego. I just saw it a few minutes ago and realized I hadn't yet read it, so I read it and made this post. I feel like a real blogger - real-time comic reviews.

This isn't much of a comic. It's numbered with a "1" and it certainly reads like the first short chapter of a longer story. It also reads like it was created stream-of-conciousness. Well, at least as stream-of-conciousness that a comic book can be. I find it hard to believe that any regular writer (comics or not) could truly create an original work using s-o-c as a style. It would mean that you were able to forget the basics of telling a story and letting your brain flow onto the paper. Writing prose it would be difficult to keep up with the flow of thought, and if you had to draw panels to tell the story it would be impossible. How many thoughts would pass you by as you committed the first to paper. Unfortunately, in this case it just means that the story passes you by.

There's not much to work with. The illustrations are attractive enough, but the story lacks an element of truth-telling that I look for in art. I want to know that the storyteller is sharing a piece of the world's truth with me. In this case, the characters need to represent the truth of the world they inhabit. Maybe the truth is there, and maybe I just need another chapter to find it.

I have no idea how much I paid for this comic, but the artist provides this and other stories for free on his website. Enjoy.

The Hairy Monster: A Guide by Tom Gauld

I didn't think that I would use this as a review because my first thought was, well, that this isn't a comic. Then I thought, says who? This Hairy Monster guide consists of seven panels in the form of attached portfolio plates in a limited edition of 500 from Cabanon Press, and I thought well, the seven panels do tell a bit of a story, even if it is a light one. At least in the McCloudian sense it would comprise a comic. (It does make it difficult to stick to my "minimize spoilers" rule when you can see the whole thing in one shot). I mostly just thought that this is a good opportunity to spotlight one of my favorite new cartoonists, Tom Gauld.

I first bought some of his mini-comics from Buenaventura Press at A.P.E. 2005 and was blown away. He has an amazingly economic style, and approaches his drawings with a style that while refined and assured, seems to be roiling with energy. His characters and places carry a real heft, yet achieve this with a minimum of rendering. Even in the panel you see here, which is dense and full, you still get the sense that every line was necessary to convey the texture and vibe of the hairy beast.

While somewhat sated by the one page biographies that appeared in last year's Kramer's Ergot, I really look forward to Mr Gauld's next full length comic, which should be available from Buenaventura before the end of the year. In the meantime I marvel over this and the postcard book I picked up at San Diego, Robots, Monsters, Etc.

Dusty Star by Andrew Robinson and Joe Pruett

I've been waiting for years this book to come out. Andrew Robinson kicks so much ink-slinging ass with the art on this book, that it even lived up to my expectations.

I'm not even going to review, because I'm not in the mood to nitpick. I'm just gonna be a fanboy and tell all of you to go out and buy it. And then add it to your subscription list. And then buy copies for friends. And then buy another one for yourself.

(and nobody's even paying me for this)

Henry & Glenn 4-Ever by Gin Stevens, Tom Neely, Scot Nobles, and Levon Jihanian

There are plenty of comic fans each year at San Diego Comic Con (oh, sorry, Comic-Con International) who are familiar with Glenn Danzig's work as a musical artist. In the encounters I've had with him at comic book shows over the years, he's been nothing but genial, never showing off the attitude that one might expect from a punk and metal legend. Whether you like him or not, he does come across as quite a cartoon, so I thought it ingenious that these four cartoonists paired him up with another punk/metal legend who has become a cartoon as well, Henry Rollins, and made them the protagonists of a series of one-panel cartoons.

The star of the group is Tom Neely. His gags are the funniest - even if he wasn't the first one of the group to come up with the "Do these pants make my butt look fat?" gag, he pulls it off the best - and his cartooning is the strongest. Levon Jihanian comes in a close second, but doesn't put the effort in to make each panel its own story, instead letting the gags rest in illustrative isolation.

The one thing that none of the cartoonists manage to pull off is visual accuracy in their caricatures. Neely does a tremendous job of divining the physical appearance of both men, transforming Rollins into a shirt-and-shoeless Dick Tracy, and putting just the right amount of mince into diminutive Danzig, but didn't bother to do his homework. Rollins is covered in tattoos in real life, and while I could buy that the shaved chest that appears here is apt, it is a glaring omission to fail to include the ink.