AJ

[ajmcguire]

Steve Ditko from Witzend No. 2 (1966)

[ajmcguire]

Would love to read a feature where these two debated the merits of Hate.

[ajmcguire]

TOP TEN COMICS OF 2019

1. Grip 2 - Lale Westvind (Perfectly Acceptable Press) 2. Liquid One Neutral (From Kramers 10) - C.F. (Fantagraphics) 3. Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass - Trenton Doyle Hancock (exhibit at MASS MOCA) 4. Dorohedoro volume 23 - Q Hayashida (Viz) 5. Gates of Plasma - Carlos Gonzalez (Floating World Comics) 6. Tongues 3 - Anders Nilson (self published) 7. Theth: Tomorrow Forver - Josh Bayer (Tinto Press) 8. Blood of the Virgin (from Kramers 10) - Sammy Harkam (Fantagraphics) 9. The Pits of Hell - Ebisu Yoshikazu (Breakdown Press) 10. Open Molar - Lilli Carre (Kus!)

[ajmcguire]

Panel border that always works (?): twisty telephone cord

Edward Hannigan / John Beatty / Richard Lewis from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight No.1 (1989)

Terry Beatty / Gary Kato / Eric Kachelhofer from Ms. Tree Special #9 (1992)

[ajmcguire]

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

Edward Hannigan / John Beatty from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight No.1 (1989)

[ajmcguire]

My review of Graham Chaffee’s “To Have and To Hold” is up on the Comics Journal today: http://www.tcj.com/reviews/to-have-to-hold/

A lot of crime comics have thin characters and ride the rails of of genre convention like the rail that guides the old-tyme cars ride at the amusement park.  (Incidentally my favorite ride at the amusement park, but that’s because I'm a mild-sauce type of guy when it comes to rides and I like the ones that allow my two year old daughter to participate with me.)  But “To Have and To Hold” fleshes out the characters in a way that takes the story to different places and does it in a way that doesn’t feel meta or self-aware.  I really loved this comic and spent a long time thinking about how Chaffee pulled it off.

[ajmcguire]

Pulitzer prize winning critic, Michiko Kakutani, drawing a breezy parallel between Stan Lee and a renowned Roman poet. 

[ajmcguire]

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

Al Williamson / Carlos Garzone, colors by Glynis Wein from “Star Wars #39” (1980)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi from “Black Blizzard” (1956)

John Stanley from “Nancy and Oona Goosepimple’s Fireplace” (1959)

Milo Manara from “The Snowman” (1978)

Matt Smith, colors by Nathan Fairbarn from “Lake of Fire” #5 (2016)

Liam Cobb from “Slow Drift” (2017)

Junji Ito from “Frankenstein” (1994)

Seiichi Hayashi from “Flowing Harbor” (1969)

[ajmcguire]

Top: Moebius, July 1978 issue of Heavy Metal

Bottom: Edward Steed,  July 11, 2016 issue of The New Yorker

[ajmcguire]

The Comics Journal published my top 5 comics of 2018 with all their other contributers: http://www.tcj.com/the-best-comics-of-2018/

1. Grip by Lale Westvind (Acceptable Press)

The easiest choice for best comic of the year I can remember ever making. I read it so many times it's already looking beat up.  It's so beautiful and fun and immediate that I experience it more like listening to music I love than a comic I love.

2. The Weaver Festival Phenomenon by Ron Rege (self-published)

This was a revelation in that the various techniques and ideas and Rege has been building up over the years as part of his personal, idiosyncratic lexicon are deployed here in a way where it all seems to comes together for the purpose of telling this story. As if he had been training for this big event.

3. Shit Is Real by Aisha Franz (Drawn & Quarterly)

Franz is great at communicating emotional state through dream sequences and hallucinations which allows for big emotions and maximum creative cartooning and allows her to avoid depending on dialog too much, but it still stays focused and feels tightly crafted. And the indignities of the near future depicted here are funny and spot-on, like a laundromat that requires a membership number that you don't have.

4. Prison Pit #6 by Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics)

The series wraps up by narrowing its focus and doing just a few things over and over repeatedly with near endless variation.  This is peak narrow-band creativity in the same way that Gucci Mane was in the late 00's where he was wasn't rapping about more than three or four things across hundreds of songs, but was getting more out of those three of four things than you would ever think possible.

5. Lost in The Fun Zone by Leif Goldberg (2dcloud)

This might not show up on some best of 2018 lists because I think it was technically published in 2017, but then issues at the publisher delayed its shipping until summer of 2018.  This book is the opposite of narrow-band creativity and isn’t tightly constructed at all as each page bounces off in wild, unexpected directions.  It’s exhausting but it’s a blast to read.

[ajmcguire]

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

Al Williamson / Carlos Garzone, colors by Glynis Wein from “Star Wars #39” (1980)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi from “Black Blizzard” (1956)

John Stanley from “Nancy and Oona Goosepimple’s Fireplace” (1959)

Milo Manara from “The Snowman” (1978)

Matt Smith, colors by Nathan Fairbarn from “Lake of Fire” #5 (2016)

Liam Cobb from “Slow Drift” (2017)

Junji Ito from “Frankenstein” (1994)

[ajmcguire]

Top: “High Sierra” (1941)

Bottom: “The Getaway” (1972)

[ajmcguire]

“The Weaver Festival Phenomenon” by Ron Rege

This book is a marvel.  It’s like all of Ron Rege’s techniques he has been honing for years fell into place and pulled in the same direction.  What I mean is that every line that seemed like a beautiful affectation in his comics over the past few years suddenly has revealed itself as a building block he was chipping into shape to eventually use in this book.  It makes me suspect that I will view the work leading up to this with different eyes when I return to them.

[ajmcguire]

TOP 5 COMICS OF 2017

Graham Chafee - To Have and To Hold Great story, great character driven plot, sad sack heist gone wrong with tropes all inverted but not in a lame we’re-messing-with-your expectations type of way, more that these characters are actually real living breathing people not plot devices.  It’s so much better than any other crime comic published elsewhere.

Los Bros - L&R #4 Teenage maggie & hoppey ride again!  God is great!  Maggie's facial expressions in any given panel in this comic are better than the total of what most other good artists accomplish in their entire careers.

Jacque Tardi - Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge There was a gap there between Tardi books that was a little too long for comfort, but the wait was worth it.  Really great to compare this to his Manchete adaptations.  The scene where they go to movies was one of three great going-to-the-movies scenes this year along with Crickets #6 and Anti-Gone.

Deforge - Placeholders This was political in a way that was not didactic or superficial.  And the silk screen format complimented the inky goopy parts of his drawing. This is a perfect example of a comic which other artists can try and borrow style from, but there is so much more depth then just the style of the drawings.

Yuichi Yokoyama - Iceland The loudest comic I've ever read.

Lale Westvind - Mary I also loved the latest issue of Hot Dog Beach, but this comic continues in the tradition of “HAXX”, “Yazar and Akadas”, and her gallery art is much more of a flex for her.  I dont have vocabulary to explain why this fires my synpases so much.  She's the artist that inspires the feeling in me the most.

[ajmcguire]

Please help me identify what I don’t have.

[ajmcguire]

SHOUT OUT TO ADAM GROPNIK. MCGRIL ALUMNI STAND UP!

[ajmcguire]

“Architecture of an Atom” by Juliacks (2017)

1. Rob Clough described Juliacks’ style of comics as the “immersive school” with fellow practitioners Austin English, Theo Ellsworth, Dunja Jankovic, and Olga Volozova.  Of that group Austin English is the closest to what Juliacks is doing where traditional narrative is deprioritized over various compositional elements that are more common to gallery art than print publications.  I find that I like Juliack’s work more than Austin English’s, but why is that?  Is there something about the ideas in their art, the way they use narrative, or just the formal aspects of their compositions?  Is it a superficial if it’s just because I find the pages more attractive?  

2.There are several two page spreads that have text that spans the two pages and gets lost in the binding gutter.  This reads as an indication that a bound comic was not the first format some of the art was created for - which we know to be true.  Does this say more about the priority of the narrative or the priority of exhibition vs publication?

3. “Architecture of an Atom” scans like an exhibition catalog, which isn’t surprising based on the construction and context.  The all white and all black pages in the final third of the book enforce this similarity.  How does this sense of the book impact the narrative?

4. Are Juliacks’ related artwork, plays, paintings, and live action films that she refers to as a “trans-media story universe” analagous to the shared universe concept in the common tradition of super-hero dominated comics publishers? (Just kidding about this one.)