Microcombobulated at SPX

Posted on September 26, 2014 by James Romberger

When I first came to live in New York City in the early 1980s, I worked for a while as a low-paid xerox temp at the World Trade Center. It wasn’t a job I loved. The WTC elevators were unnerving, the vertiginous stairwells even worse and both towers swayed perceptibly in the wind—and I wasn’t overly thrilled with my fellow laborers, at least not with the male “suits” who tended to elbow past the female workers to direct me to do their copy orders first. But in my off-time, I managed to do a little surreptitious production, of several street posters for bands and of art that would find its home in my roommate Seth’s then-new political comics zine World War 3 Illustrated—and also to print a few minicomics (well, I didn’t call them that, but that is what they were), which I consigned to St. Mark’s Comics for a dollar or two. I was eventually fired for serving secretaries before executives and after the WTC blew up the first time, I never went near the place again. That was the end of minicomics for me for some years.

A few weekends ago, I roadtripped with several cartoonists to Bethesda, Maryland for the Small Press Expo (SPX). Besides my usual occupation of Tom Kaczynski’s Uncivilized Books table to flog the ebbing supply of my collaboration with my son Crosby, Post York, I was there to debut my minicomic called “Daddy” written by the very, very scary Josh Simmons and published in two colors by Oily Comics. Also, I wanted to be present for the premiere of the print magazine Study Group #3D, for which I contributed a way-too-personally revealing essay/comics adaptation of a William Burroughs piece, a project that had its genesis in an aborted posting for this site. And these things I did do.

SPX resembles the MOCCA Festival and Comic Arts Brooklyn in that like them, it is bereft of the fetishistic superheroes that taint the American mainstream comics industry and also of the Hollywood movies, wrestlers and porn stars that tend to drown out comics at mainstream ComicCons. SPX and other alternative/literary comics gatherings are comprised of people who do comics apparently for the sheer love of the artform rather than to advance obviously mercantile impulses. A significant percentage of the audience at these shows is comprised of the vendors, who patronize each other and form mutual support networks. A good part of the product of these shows are minicomics, quite small xeroxed or offset pamphlets much like the ones I made at the WTC, but often printed on a copier called a risograph which allows for multiple colors. Occasionally, these budding talents will print a comic book “floppy” in full color on slick paper just like the slick output of DC, Marvel or Image, but the effect of alt/lit concept in mainstream drag can be disconcerting. As well, many publishers seem to do well with small prints, limited edition silkscreen booklets and also, many surprisingly young artists have completed graphic novels in a variety of styles, genres and formats.

Lord knows that I held back from long-form efforts for many years—I preferred to hone my skills in short stories. However, publishers balk at anthologies these days. “They don’t sell” is the mantra they chant, despite a comics history that includes such anthology “failures” as decades of romance, war and horror comics at many publishers, all of E.C.’s output including Mad, Warren’s Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, Zap and other underground titles, Heavy Metal, Weirdo, Raw, MOME, Kramer’s Ergot, etc…in other words, many publications that not only sold well for extended runs, but moved the artform ahead. So people are expected to labor for years in isolation (since the default mode in the alternative is for cartoonists to work solo as auteurs) to make 100-page-plus books, for which they have few sounding boards and little or no income in the process.

At any rate, after an period spent in the mainstream in which I drew a few long books but under restrictive circumstances and unhappy with the results, I have forsaken page rates to regain control over my work. In order to immerse oneself in this brave new world of long or short literate art comics for the small press, one needs to frequent shows like SPX, and of course being who I am, I feel the need to share the details with everyone. And so, I present the following set of minireviews of minicomics and books, which represent but a fraction of what I came back with from my trip to Bethesda.
_________________________________________________________________

It Never Happened Again: two stories by Sam Alden
Uncivilized Books $11.99

I didn’t buy the book by this young cartoonist that won the Ignatz award at the show, Wicked Chicken Queen from Retrofit, but I got two of his earlier efforts, Haunter from Study Group and It Never Happened Again from Uncivilized Books. Both books have an improvisational feel; the bright yet moody watercolors of Haunter carry a large part of the impact of the narrative and the sweet and loose-appearing, but apparently lightboxed, pencil drawings of It Never Happened Again provide atmospheric effects that enhance the delicacy of Alden’s stories.
_________________________________________________________________

Houses of the Holy by Caitlan Skaalrud
Uncivilized Books $6.00

This mini is made up of a series of full-page, nicely rendered surreal drawings accompanied by poetic snatches of text and punctuated by regularly-paced numbered panels. They tell an oblique narrative that despite its title, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Led Zeppelin. It is a dark fever dream, sort of on the order of The Cage, Martin Vaughn-James’s nightmarish masterwork that was recently reissued by Coach House Books. Tom K tells me that the artist of Houses of the Holy was an outstanding student of his at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and that this is an excerpt from a much longer work that Skaalrud has in process. Uncivilized Books will publish it upon completion and I will be anticipating it.
_________________________________________________________________

Reptile Museum by Cody Pickrodt
RayRay Books #2: $4.00 #4: $2.00

Cody Pickrodt’s post-apocalyptic saga Reptile Museum reflects the artist’s knowledge of martial arts and his effective storytelling is comprised of pages that take the form of fluid series of free-hanging vignettes. The precise lines and rubbery high-speed physicality of Cody’s comics remind me of nothing so much as the frenetic crime stories of the tragic Plastic Man creator Jack Cole.
_________________________________________________________________

Eye Sees Eye by Kate Lacour
self-published $8.00

One of several people who felt the need to inform me of how fucked-up they found “Daddy” to be (I’m totally aware of this and in fact, it is why one would work with Josh Simmons!), this artist came to the Oily table to eyeball me and give me a creepy body-revulsion pamphlet called Hole/Human. Later I passed by her table and examined this book. I didn’t buy it, but it has stuck in my head enough to include it here because it reveals Lacour to be quite accomplished; her anatomical renderings are striking.
_________________________________________________________________

Little Tommy Lost by Cole Closser
Koyama Press $15.00

I got a copy of this at SPX, but I had perused it earlier this year when I was an Eisner judge. It ended up as a nominee and deservedly so: Little Tommy Lost replicates the look and tone of clippings of a daily/Sunday strip from the late 1930s quite beautifully. The story of abused urchins does seem as if it might well have been someone’s grampa’s favorite serial strip, now lovingly preserved for posterity.
_________________________________________________________________

Jesus Christ, Jared! by Rainy
self published $10.00

This comic is an example of slick printing applied to alternative content to odd effect, but the cover is a compelling use of Photoshop. Of course I am known to be not much of a fan of digital color; still, if it must be done, let it be used to render tears in such an extremely visceral way! The comic is a highly emotional reaction to the persecution of Middle American gay youth by fundamentalist Christians. It is disconcerting to see teenagers who are drawn to look otherwise hip ostracizing the protagonist for furthering the “gay agenda.” This also reflects a phenomena that I saw at SPX that I hadn’t noted at previous comics events: a preponderance of overtly LGBT participants who are finally welcomed to this most intimate and personal of mediums. Rainy and her also talented partner F. Lee positively glowed at their table. SPX’s aura of inclusivity was extended when later, the Ignatz awards ceremony was officiated by a host in drag.
_________________________________________________________________

Fuff #9 by Jeffrey Lewis
self published $2.50

I first met Jeffrey Lewis in the early 2000s, when he would visit my partner Marguerite Van Cook and I in our old studio in our building’s basement, a refuge that we lost when our landlord freaked out after 9/11 and decided that restaurants were preferable tenants. Even then, Jeffrey’s work had a fully developed sense of place and he would draw some of the most carefully-rendered buildings in comics. In the time since, Jeffrey has stayed the course to produce one of the last standing alt floppy comic books Fuff, while simultaneously pursuing a healthy career in music with his band The Jrams. His strong grasp of the urban landscape is on display, as well as an acute ability for self-caricature, as in the current issue wherein he engages in pitched discourse with his drawing table and imparts the complexities of his love life, in the grand tradition of revelatory alternative autobiographics.
_________________________________________________________________

It Will All Hurt #2 by Farel Dalrymple
Study Group Comics $8.00

Farel Dalrymple was selling the original art for his First Second book The Wrenchies at SPX and they are very pretty efforts indeed, complete in ink and watercolor. It Will All Hurt is a floppy edition of his ongoing webcomic at Zack Soto’s studygroupcomics.com, also executed in watercolors, but with a very extemporaneous storyline. Farel also did the art for a few of the most effective issues of Brandon Graham’s version of the Rob Liefeld Image Comics title Prophet, or at least I found them so; my feeling is that kids would totally love to pour over these comics again and again, each time finding new details in the densely packed pages.
_________________________________________________________________

Titus and the Cyber Sun by Lale Westvind
self published $7.00

I’m beginning to see other young alternative cartoonists who, like Dalrymple, are not afraid to use the trappings of science fiction and fantasy, as can be seen in the success of Prophet and other genre-ish efforts. The more recent books of Lale Westvind are in color; those brought to my mind something of the psychedelia of Victor Moscoso, but I was mainly drawn to her black and white comic Titus and the Cyber Sun, which in its ornate stipplings is reminiscent of the French cartoonists of Metal Hurlant and the underground works of the seminal graphic novelist George Metzger.
_________________________________________________________________

Captain Victory #2 by Joe Casey, Nathan Fox, Michel Fiffe and Brad Simpson
Dynamite $3.99

This isn’t a minicomic or even alternative per se, but it is a continuation of a title begun by Jack Kirby in the early 1980s for a fledgling publisher, Pacific Comics—-that just as I was making my little minicomics at the WTC, literally began the direct market in comics that led to the scene I am describing here—and Captain Victory was the final significant expression by that great cartoonist and brilliant founder of so many comics concepts, as I wrote on this site here. An earlier revamp of the title by Dynamite appeared a few years ago, but it was a cheesy regurgitation of Kirby overwhelmed by what I would term “rainbow unicorn barf” art by Alex Ross and others. This slick new version also seems a rehash of Kirby’s ideas, but the art this time out is done in a vigorously explosive fashion by SVA illustration czar Nathan Fox, working in tandem with some of the alt/lit scene’s more adventure-comics-oriented talents such as Jim Rugg, Ulises Farinas and (pictured) Michel Fiffe, maker of the popular sci-fi series Copra.
_________________________________________________________________

Middle School Missy by Daryl Seitchik
? $3.00

I’ve found Daryl’s Oily Comics work to be very amusing and well-drawn; this particular issue of her title Missy doesn’t name its publisher, but it manages the neat trick of being both slick and a minicomic at once! I wouldn’t be surprised to see her rolling in bucks like Scrooge McDuck after Missy becomes one of those edgy, not-really-for-kids animated shows on TV at some point.
_________________________________________________________________

Comics Workbook #5
Comics Workbook $1.00

For five bucks, I was able to buy all five issues of this fascinating interview zine, which incidentally resembles my only other self-published effort, the xeroxed zine Comic Art Forum from the early 2000s that I produced with Marguerite. Comics Workbook is a by-product of Frank Santoro’s comics-making classes. The various issues include conversations with Sam Alden, Dash Shaw, Lala Albert and others as well as original comics by Derik Badman, Sarah Horrocks and more, plus articles and reviews by Warren Craghead, Nicole Rudick and the list goes on. In particular, I enjoyed Zach Mason’s exchange with “Ladydrawers” Melissa Mendes and Anne Elizabeth Moore about nonfictional activist comics. I also appreciate Melissa’s poignant Oily production Joey, which details a parental disruption and its effect on the children involved; the art is finished in watercolors and the book looks to be printed by color laserjet, pressing the limits of the minicomic format.
_________________________________________________________________

The Tiny Report: Micro-Press Yearbook 2013 by Robyn Chapman
Paper Rocket $3.00

Unfortunately, I missed all of the panels at SPX and I especially regret not seeing artist and Paper Rocket publisher Robyn Chapman’s presentation about micropublishing, but her Tiny Report (cover above by Chuck Forsman) provides a well-organized orientation to the world of small press comics and independent publishing. Robyn rode back to NYC with us and so I was able to quiz her on the way about what is perhaps the most serious issue facing micropublishers today: distribution. Diamond distributes most mainstream comics, but they refuse to carry a lot of smaller publishers’ books, which makes their stranglehold on the business look monopolistic. In NYC, for instance, it seems that in Manhattan, minicomics and other products of the alt/lit scene are only carried by Forbidden Planet, Jim Hanley’s Universe and Carmine Street Comics and in Brooklyn, only Desert Island and Bergen Street Comics. Those are distributed mostly by the apparently overextended Tony Shenton. It sure looks from here like there is a void to be filled by some enterprising distributor, given the vitality of the micropublishing scene.

Some of the biggest mainstream comics publishers do not use Diamond for bookstore distribution of their graphic novels and collections; for instance, both DC Comics and Dark Horse have deals with Random House. More recently, the book trade distributor Consortium Books has been placing the graphic novels of alt/lit publishers Uncivilized Books and Koyama Press in major book retailers around the country—and the word is that the British artcomics imprint NoBrow and Françoise Mouly’s Toon Books have now joined with Consortium, which ups the ante somewhat.
_________________________________________________________________

Comics Criticism: Even comics critics don’t care about it

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Ng Suat Tong

(or everyone has tunnel vision except me; or in the land of the blind, everyone is blind)

[Allegory of Comics Criticism by Wallace Allan Wood]

TCJ.com recently published an exchange between Frank Santoro and Sean T. Collins concerning the state of comics criticism (c. 2013).

In his prologue, Santoro expresses concern about the neglect of a whole new generation of cartoonists now as much wedded to the world of the internet as to paper.

“… the small subculture of engaged comics reviewers is getting older, myself included. I really hope that members of the younger generation will start writing about each other. I’m seeing some hints of it here and there, but not many organized voices…The “pap pap” demographic of comics is so insular – which is fine – but out on the circuit younger makers are telling me that they never read this site, or any websites related to comics at all. There’s really not much for them in most comics sites that reflects their tastes or their concerns.”

Some questions should spring to mind immediately upon reading this. Why is it of special concern, for example, that younger makers of comics are not reading TCJ.com or any website related to comics at all? Are they representative of the alternative comics readership as a whole? Or are they simply the kind of people Santoro would prefer read TCJ.com and comics criticism?

Comics has a long history of cartoonists not engaging with criticism and critics at all; they for obvious reasons preferring the company and conversation of their “own kind.” No doubt long time comic aficionados will begin pointing to the classic comic histories or the critical works of Seth, Chris Ware, Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman et al. It should be pointed out, however, that the very idea of a negative critique is anathema to this school of criticism (unless it is directed at blind intransigent critics). It is adulation and evangelism which is required. Such is the rarity of this engagement that one might say that the arrival of a celebrated cartoonist into the unhallowed halls of comics criticism is, more often than not, greeted with a joyousness befitting the arrival of the Queen of Sheba (the royal metaphor here being no accident of choice).

The attitude of young comics makers conforms to this pattern. They are merely ape-ing the behavior of their forebears. What was once good for the artists of Fort Thunder (and its adherents)—namely steadfast, earnest positive promulgation—is now good for the new web-based alternatives. Collins returns to these concerns towards the close of the dialogue:

“The other big problem, maybe the biggest, and certainly the one that’s worried me the most and I think inspired my whole end of this discussion with you, is that there’s an entire generation of young artcomix makers whose work just isn’t being reviewed at all. …An entire generation, an entire movement, of altcomix creators who are doing vital, defiant, personal work is badly undeserved by criticism, and that will have a huge effect on both comics and comics criticism moving forward.” [emphasis mine]

This might certainly be of concern for readers (and critics) with a long term interest in sustaining the comics grassroots. It might in fact be seen as the duty of committed blog aggregators (with a compliant readership) to push links to these sites on a more frequent basis and for publishers to consider the best of these for print publication and more sustainable retailing. Comics critics who see themselves as evangelists and want to sideline as marketing agents for the small press may also choose to delve into this. Indeed, the vast majority of comics reviews do in fact fall into the category of marketing. There is no reason why these hats cannot be put on or taken off at will. There are even college courses in marketing for those so inclined. One might even consider being reborn as Peter Laird (of the Xeric Foundation) or Kevin Eastman (of Tundra).

But all this is of secondary importance to the state of comics criticism. Last time I checked, The Comics Journal was supposed to be the magazine of news and criticism, not the Journal of Comics Marketing. Collins’ concern that the artists of the Happiness anthologies are not being reviewed suggests that he is concerned that they are not being covered positively and disseminated widely—that they are not being sold to a whole generation of readers. This would appear to be the primary purpose of comics criticism in Collins’ view.

I beg to differ. If you want to sell things, then sell them—send them to famous cartoonists, influential publishers, and comics critics who are interested in selling things. One influential Tweet by a comics celebrity will do more good than a 3000-word review of the highest quality produced by a nobody. And for god’s sake, don’t send your comics to critics who want to criticize them. Find someone who cares more about how many copies you sell than about the quality of your work. If we could only separate these comics critics from comics marketers, comics criticism might be in a more healthy state.

Comics must be the only art form where the most prominent commentators in the field (who shall remain nameless) regularly dismiss or deprioritize discussions of the art form they are engaging in. The art form I am referring to is not comics but criticism. Santoro’s comment that he “noticed that [he] wasn’t taking the time to read long reviews or blog posts” (in the last few years) is not a new phenomenon but purely a symptom of this modern age—an age of endless distractions and diminishing attentions spans. The idea that someone might take a copy of The Comics Journal on a long plane flight as reading material (as Tucker Stone has admitted to doing at least once) could be taken as a sign of mental illness or at least an eccentric attitude towards comics.

Comics criticism doesn’t actually need more people who are interested in comics (that is a given considering the insular nature of the hobby); what it needs is people who are interested in criticism. Collins’ main concern—that the comics he likes aren’t being reviewed—is understandable but should be of little concern to comics criticism per se.

* * *

Santoro and Collins began their discussion with much broader concerns, starting with the number of comics reviews being published of late. This question of quantity is first directed at Collins who answers:

“Less. Certainly less as far as alternative/art/literary/underground comics go. It seems as though there’s as much of a profusion of reviews of superhero comics as ever.”

Any proclamations on this topic are guaranteed to be anecdotal and unscientific but my impression is that there has not been a drop in the quantity of long form criticism concerning non-superhero related comics since I started monitoring the field more closely. Santoro suggests that there was an apparent golden age from 2008-2009 “when 1000-word reviews were common.” No doubt quality is always preferable to quantity but a 1000-words can hardly be considered the high water mark of long form criticism. Perhaps it is the bare minimum Santoro demands but 1000-words often suggests:

(1) “I don’t have enough space or money to pay you for more”, OR
(2) “I don’t want to waste my brain cells on this so I’m going to vomit out whatever is on the tip of my tongue”.

600 words for opinion and short analysis (at best), 300 words for the gloss and information, and 100 words for padding and style don’t often add up to much in terms of essential reading for the informed except in rare circumstances. A little more leeway might be found in instances where the work has been thoroughly assimilated by the comics community and a tighter focus brought to bear on the subject matter. 1000-words is of course the “industry standard” for long form criticism and not something to be especially proud of. As a purveyor of this kind of material, I should know. The call for 500-word reviews (to increase coverage) during the closing years of the print Journal certainly heralded the arrival of poorly substantiated opinion as opposed to analysis. A publisher’s synopsis and an Amazon.com comment would have worked just as well in this instance.

The short form approving review or “call to purchase” is tailor-made for the comics critical community, a grouping which is largely unpaid and interested primarily in fellowship—the generation of comments and making friends on Facebook and Twitter. Collins points to this early in the exchange where he writes:

“It’s exceedingly easy to type up your strongest single impression of a new work and post it to Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, and receive feedback almost immediately. And since your strongest single impression could be nothing more complex than “This is SO GOOD, you guys,” and the feedback can just be a like or a fav or a reblog or a retweet or a share, it’s tough to build up a thoroughgoing interrogation of a comic. The energy is diffused.”

The motivations for writing comics criticism are many and this is but one possibility. Some might do it for pocket change while others might participate in the interest of generating a conversation by which process they might attain enlightenment or at least a modicum of self-improvement. If one desires a large readership and a huge reception on Twitter, then an article on a superhero comic would increase the probability of this (preferably a controversial one). To expect a substantial response when writing a review of an alternative comic with a readership in the low thousands (or hundreds) at best would be to deny reality. At the risk of stating the obvious, people are interested in what they’re interested in. They are unlikely to read, comment on, or even click on a link to an article about a comic or subject of which they know nothing about. In fact, the best way for a comics critic to get an audience is to not write about comics at all—easily one of the least popular art forms extant today.

The problems associated with writing good, well researched long form comics criticism mirror those found in the creation of alternative comics with a marginal readership. The present day solution to these problems is echoed in both endeavors. If one desires quality criticism of the alternatives in the field then an altogether different attitude (and critic) is required. This is the kind of critic who primarily writes for herself or at least because of some deep inner need (pompously metaphysical as this may sound). It is a simple equation. You write criticism because you have something to say, because you feel compelled to write about it, and because you want to do the best job you can (as would any artisan). The need for an audience (and this is an ever present gnawing desire) must come only after this. The available readership for comics criticism is limited by the popularity of the form and the attractions of the topic or comic being written about; much less so the quality of the criticism.

An actual increase in the volume of comics criticism is not necessarily desirable or even achievable considering the state of the industry and art form. A different lesson presents itself if one considers the titans of comics. Kirby’s oeuvre, for instance, would have been substantially enhanced had he the luxury to draw and write less and not more comics. In the same vein, I would much prefer it if unusually prolific critics would write substantially less but longer and more considered reviews. Which makes Collins’ point later in the exchange appear somewhat wrongheaded:

“My point, ultimately, is that without a sufficient volume of reviews being written, you’re not going to see needed critiques — particularly since most people are writing for little or no money, and most humans like enjoying themselves if they’re not getting paid, and it’s generally easier to enjoy yourself if you’re thinking about something you like instead of something you don’t.”

It is not critical volume which is required but concentrated quality. The idea of twenty 500-word articles on Alternative Comics X does not please my mind in the least and would certainly not be an advancement over just one good long form article on the same comic.

Monitoring the comics critical scene is an endless drudge considering how often blog aggregators point me to worthless plot synopses and marketing copy masquerading as reviews. Even worse is how little effort they spend differentiating between this excrement and the truly worthy articles which generally get lost in the shuffle. In any case, the state of coverage is considerably better than was the case back in the 80s and 90s when The Comics Journal (the print version) was virtually the only game in town when it came to non-superhero related material. Not being reviewed in the Journal (for good or ill) in those days was tantamount to not getting reviewed at all. Since then, the state of comics criticism has been enriched by voices emerging from the fields of academia; a not surprising new source considering this grouping’s dedication to thinking, reading, and writing about things. A number of these writers emerged from fandom and it is high time fandom looked beyond its own narrow shores to the wider world of critical writing if only in the interest of improving itself.

* * *

Side note:

Noah commented twice on the article at TCJ.com; I understand with some irritation that the site you are reading was left out of the conversation when it turned to subjects such as long form comics criticism and analysis, extended comments sections on subjects other than superheroes, female writers, and coverage of non-superhero related material.

He should not be surprised or overly concerned. To put it bluntly, The Hooded Utilitarian is a pariah site as far as the traditional comics community is concerned—reviled primarily because of its owner and a lack of correct communal spirit. Others might add lies, bad faith, and a lack of “professionalism” to the mix. To expect consideration from a school of comics criticism which you have rejected is perhaps asking far too much. Like a lump of shit, the only instance in which they might care to notice this site is if they stepped on it accidentally.

HU is not exceptional in its pariah status. The manga community is yet another example of a group of “comics untouchables”, a community with women writers and readers in far greater abundance than on HU. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion that, for all intents and purposes, women are the Dalits of comics, alienated by virtue of the types of conversations which engage the longstanding comics critical community of males. It might be that in their view, it is the men who helm the traditional comics conversation who are to be avoided. They also don’t need anyone to fight their battles for them (see comments by Peggy Burns, Sarah Horrocks, and Leah at the original article) .

SPX: Different Shows for Different People

Posted on September 17, 2013 by RM Rhodes

tumblr_inline_mrhtsxZ6Lc1qz4rgp

In a comment to my post from last week, R. Maheras wrote:

“I was at SPX today, and almost every complaint about homogenized superhero comics can probably be made about contemporary small press.

There’s a relative sameness pervading contemporary small press that I don’t remember seeing during the small press explosion of the 1980s.

Zombies, cutesy creatures/monsters, or reality-based angst comics seemed to be bulk of what’s available these days.

In the 1980s, I was snapping up dozens of small press comics every month. At SPX, While I spent about $120, I was hard-pressed to find stuff I wanted to sample. One of the more interesting things I found was actually what creator Pat Barrett himself only half-jokingly labeled a screed: “How to Make Comics the Whiner’s Way.” I thought it was actually a pretty good indictment of what appears to be a substantial faction of today’s small-pressers.”

I was also at SPX this weekend. This comment made me want to use my words and Noah was kind enough to put this up as a separate post instead of hiding it in the comments.

I’ve been going to SPX since 2002 – a few years covering the show for a small local magazine here in the DC area, then one year as a volunteer, and this was my sixth year selling my own comics as the man in the purple suit. (Full disclosure: I also maintain the SPX Good Eats Google Map.)

Over the course of the past decade, my wife and I have come up with a game at SPX. She goes off and finds stuff and I go off and find stuff. When we compare our finds, we ask each other “where did you get that?” It’s very obvious that what she finds interesting in comics is very different than what I find interesting in comics and we always spot very different things at the show, so much so that it’s almost like we’re at completely different shows. I tend to regard that as a feature, not a bug.

My wife picked up Pat Barrett’s book for me and she talked to him about it. He told her that it was written in response to people who knew they wanted to make comics but didn’t know what they wanted to create. Mind you, that’s hearsay so it’s impossible to say exactly what his intention was (and I argue that we should look at the primary source instead of the author’s intent anyway). Having read the book last night, I saw a very pointed sendup of “How-To” books, especially those that are aimed at teaching people how to draw. And yes, there was a lot snark aimed at autobiographical comics, which were all the vogue a few years ago.

One of the interesting things about comics these days is the conventional wisdom that if a comic isn’t about superheroes then it’s pretty much automatically not commercially viable. And that lack of concern about whether or not a book is going to sell has opened the floodgates to allow just about every kind of comic under the sun – both in terms of subject matter available, art style and format. And, as far as I’m concerned, the best thing about indie comics is the almost complete lack of homogenization or sameness on offer.

For example, on my row of tables (I was on what Rafer Roberts called “the fifty yard line” of the room) there were Warren Craghead and Simon Moreton’s minimalist comics, a gay porn space opera, my eclectic collection of books, video game inspired books, and a guy selling bad caricatures and an apology for a dollar. There was also a wide range of books available from the DC Conspiracy, Interrobang Studios, Nix Comics and the Spider Forest Webcomics Collective.

My must-buy book of the show this year was my friend Marguerite Debaie’s A Voyage to Panjikant, a meticulously researched historical fiction about traders living on the Silk Road in the Seventh Century. It’s a beautiful book that’s colored entirely in watercolor. I also picked up a space opera comic called Galaxion by Tara Tallan, simply because it looked interesting. I even went out of my way to pick up the few books from Frank Santoro’s Comics Workbook competition that were at the show – Jared Cullum’s Baba’s Accordion, Alexey Sokolin’s Freefall, and Alexander Rothman’s Vespers.

Not a one of these are “[z]ombies, cutesy creatures/monsters, or reality-based angst comics,” but it’s easy to understand why it seems like that’s what the room had to offer. With such a large variety of material to choose from, it was impossible for any single individual to wrap their arms around everything that was available. I think a certain amount of confirmation bias does tend to creep into what people tend to see at shows like this when the options are so overwhelming. We see what we expect to see because there is no way to really carefully evaluate everything.
I saw volumes of Shakespeare that contained beautiful handcut paper illustrations. I saw a comic printed on a strip of canvas. I saw comics that were printed at mini comic size, traditional comics size, magazine size, square format, horizontal format, and were massively oversized. I saw comics that were photocopied and hand-stapled. I saw mass-printed books with beautiful production values. I saw parody books that were waiting patiently for cease-and-desist letters and wonderful original concepts.

And yes, I did see some zombie books because zombies are big in pop culture right now. I saw autobiographical comics because most first novels are bildungsromans and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that comics follow the same patterns as novels. And there is always a great deal of cutesy stuff on display because the one thing that always sells at a show of such magnitude is a quick, easy hook that makes you laugh and only costs a few bucks.
And yes, you could make some of the same complaints about the books available at SPX that can be made about superhero comics – some are poorly drawn, some are poorly written and some are not well thought out at all.

But you cannot complain that indie comics have crippling continuity issues that prevent newcomers from picking them up. You cannot complain that indie comics present a straight white male view of the world that is not friendly to women and minorities (in fact, there was a greater preponderance of books with the word “feminist” in the title this year than there has been in years past). You cannot complain that indie comics are dominated by white males (the creator split was about 50/50 gender-wise, not so much racially). You cannot complain that indie comics are mired in endless editor-driven events that force you to buy a dozen books to get the full story. You cannot complain that indie comics have devolved into corporate IP farms whose stewards are more interested in maintaining the long-term viability of characters than they are in character development.

The real joy of attending a show like SPX is that everyone in the room is there because they want to be – because they are desperately, passionately in love with the medium and the possibilities inherent in comics. And yes, the creators would really like to make money. But most of them know that they will probably not break even, but for some weird reason they show up anyway.
Given that half of the people exhibiting at SPX this year were there for their first time, it’s entirely possible that a good portion of them went for the easy options and chose the same basic topics that most newbies choose. But if that’s all you saw then you were not looking very hard because there was a lot of weird, crazy, interesting, creative, exciting stuff available. I had to stop browsing because I went over budget twice – and I intentionally avoided the big publisher tables. I’d even go so far as to say that there was a book in the room for just about anyone from any walk of life. And that’s absolutely not something that you can say about mainstream superhero comics.

cover-image-store_page-sm

Dyspeptic Oroborous: The Divine Hobby

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Noah Berlatsky

A couple of days ago, my twitter feed displayed the following message from TCJ.com.

Today we worship the latest by @xaimeh with pieces by Dan Nadel http://bit.ly/oZjPF2, Frank Santoro and Adrian Tomine http://bit.ly/mV9U8W

I’ve liked things that both Dan and Frank have written in the past — Dan’s piece on the Masterpieces of American Comics exhibit was probably my favorite selection in the Best American Comics Criticism volume that Fanta published a year or so back. And tcj.com has been doing a lot of good things since they sent us packing (this lovely piece by Craig Fischer, for instance. So I was assuming that that “worship” was just a bit of jocular hyperbole. Obviously the pieces would be laudatory, but I had hopes they wouldn’t be sycophantic.

Alas, if you click the link you get what the tweet says; Jaime’s comics transubstantiated into communion wafers, less to be read and discussed than to be consumed as a path towards union with the divine. Thus, Frank expresses awe, reverence, and wonder, talks about breaking down into tears, lauds the purity and uniqueness of Jaime’s talent, and finishes up with what reads like literal hagiography.

No art moves me the way the work of Jaime Hernandez moves me. I am in awe of his eternal mystery.

Tomine’s piece is more of the same, albeit shorter. In comments, Jeet Heer suggests that it might be worthwhile to compare Jaime’s work to Dave Sim’s. This does seem like an interesting juxtaposition, but Frank nixes it insisting, “Lets be careful to not make this thread about Sim. This is a Jaime celebration.” No criticism at TCJ, please. Only celebration, worship, and gush.

To be fair, neither Frank nor Tomine are making any pretense of trying to explicate, or really even engage, with Jaime’s work. Instead, both of their pieces are testimonials — personal accounts of having seen the light. From Frank’s piece

Something extraordinary happened when I read his stories in the new issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories no. 4. What happened was that I recalled the memory of reading “Death of Speedy” – when it was first published in 1988 – when I read the new issue now in 2011. Jaime directly references the story (with only two panels) in a beautiful two page spread in the new issue. So what happened was twenty three years of my own life folded together into one moment. Twenty three years in the life of Maggie and Ray folded together. The memory loop short circuited me. I put the book down and wept.

We don’t need to see the two panels in question reproduced (or, indeed, any artwork from the story reproduced), because it’s not about the panels. It’s about the effect of those panels, and of Jaime, in Frank’s life. Jaime is transformative because Frank says he’s been transformed. It’s a witness to true belief by a true believer for other true believers. The imagery of short circuits and closed loops is unintentionally apropos.

Dan’s essay is nominally a more balanced critical assessment. In practice, though, it’s got the same religion minus the passion, resulting in an odd combination of towering praise coupled with bland encomium. Frank’s piece has the energy of an exhortation; Dan’s, on the other hand, reads like a painfully distended back-cover blurb. “The Love Bunglers”, Dan declares, is the story of Maggie “finally holding onto something.” Jaime’s art is great because it is personal, so that “this alleyway is not just any alleyway — it’s an alleyway constructed entirely from Jaime’s lines, gestures, and pictorial vocabulary.” And the big finish:

In the end we flash forward some unspecified amount of years: Ray survives and he and Maggie are in love and Jaime signs the last panel with a heart. “TLB” is also a love letter from its creator to his readers and to his characters. It’s a letter from an old friend, wise to the fuckery of life, to the random acts that occur and that we have no control over. Jaime, I think, used to be a bit of a romantic. He’s not anymore, but in this story he gives us something to hang onto: A piece of art that says that you should allow fear and sadness into your life, but not let those things cripple you. That sometimes life works out and sometimes not, but the things we can control, things like comics and storytelling, carry redemption.”

Let fear and sadness into your life but don’t let them cripple you. Sometimes life works out and sometimes not. It’s criticism by fortune cookie. And…signing the last panel with a heart to show us the power of love? Gag me.

The point isn’t that “Love Bunglers” isn’t great. I haven’t read it; I don’t have any opinion on whether it’s great or not. But I wish instead of telling us that this is one of the greatest comics in the world no really it is, Dan would have taken the time to develop an actual thesis of some sort — a reading of the comic that elucidated, unraveled, and interracted with its greatness, rather than just declaiming it.

I’m talking here specifically as someone who is interested in and conflicted about Jaime’s work. I would like Dan, or someone, to write something that would allow me to see why this particular sentimental melodrama dispensing life wisdom is better than all the other sentimental melodramas in the world that are also dispensing life wisdom. But instead all Dan provides is assertion (“It just works. They’re real.”), predictable appeals to vague essentialism (“There are no outs in his work — what he lays down is what it is.”) and paeans to nostalgic retrospection (“As I took it in, I realized that I remembered not just the moments Jaime was referring to, but also the narratives around those moments. And furthermore, I remembered where and how and what I was when I read those moments. I remembered like the characters remembered.”) If I am unconvinced by standard-issue authenticity claims and do not have years and years of reading Jaime comics to feel nostalgic about, what exactly does “The Love Bunglers” have to offer me?

Part of the trouble here may be that it’s difficult to write about something you like as much as Dan likes Jaime’s work. Love can sometimes reduce you to gibbering — which is understandable, though not a whole lot of fun to read for someone who isn’t under the influence of similar giddiness. I think it can also be especially tricky to write about soap-operas, where a large part of the point is personal emotional attachment to individual characters. If the narrative deliberately figures the reader as fan or lover; it can be hard to say anything other than, “I adore this character! I adore this author! I’m in love I’m in love I’m in love! It’s so awesome!”

I don’t have a problem with people writing to say that something they love is awesome. I’ve been known to do it myself even. But this is TCJ,…and it’s Jaime Hernandez — the most prestigious publication devoted to comics criticism focusing on one of the most lauded contemporary cartoonists. If they wanted to run one love letter, I guess I could see it…but two or three? Surely, nobody in TCJ’s audience needs to be told that Jaime is awesome. Everyone knows Jaime is awesome. Except, possibly, for a few weirdos like me who are waiting to be convinced. But if this is the case, why forego actual nuanced and possibly convincing discussion of his work in favor of vacuous cheering?

Partially no doubt it’s because comics remains permanently tucked in a defensive crouch. No matter how unanimous the praise of Jaime is, no matter how firmly he is canonized it will never be sufficient to undo the brutal unfairness of the fact that he’s not as popular as…Frank Miller? Harry Potter? Andy Warhol? Lady Gaga? Somebody, in any case, can always be trotted out to show that the really famous and canonical person you love is not famous and canonical enough.

But there’s also a sense in which TCJ’s tweeted fealty is less about Jaime (who surely doesn’t need the flattery) and more about the celebration of fealty itself. You worship at the altar of Jaime because worshiping at the altar of Jaime is what the initiated do. The sacramental praise both constitutes an identity and confirms it for others. You are in the club and enjoying the hobby in the proscribed fashion. Fellow travelers shall take you to their bosoms, and even the chief muckety-muck shall weigh in with a heartfelt and avuncular hosannah.

Comics was long a subculture first and a subculture second and an art a distant third. TCJ set itself to change that. Certainly, it has altered the list of holy objects. But the rituals remain depressingly familiar.

____________
Update by Noah: This is part of an impromptu roundtable on Jaime and his critics.

The Concerns of “Comics”

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Jason Overby

“The product of art — temple, painting, statue, poem — is not the work of art. The work takes place when a human being cooperates with the product so that the outcome is an experience that is enjoyed because of its liberating and ordered properties.”

-John Dewey

There’s a post by Frankius over at comicscomics referencing something Evan Dorkin had written about the relatively minimal impact in the comics community of books like Wilson or Genesis. Santoro’s talking about how the readership of comics is more diffuse than it used to be in the eighties and nineties where everyone was pretty much on board w/r/t what the important releases were. What I remember of my own experience working at a comic shop at that time differs, though we were all probably following tcj religiously back then and felt like we were in it together, maybe. But it was a good post. The landscape of comics has changed to the point where fandom has become a smaller subset of overall readership and, therefore, less necessary. The younger readers grew up with manga, anime, alternative/indy comics, sophisticated video games, and their frames of reference are different from those of the old guard. And there’s a fresh crop of readers who aren’t so young, who have much more catholic tastes but, nonetheless, have no idea what formula Johnny Quick recited to gain super speed or what happened during the “Secret Wars.”

Lots of commenters offered their two cents on the post. My attention was caught specifically by something Andrew White had written:

“I guess I just think people have to challenge themselves more in the types of works they see as important. Like, I think it would be the greatest thing ever if Jeet or Dan or someone tried to critically engage, say, Franquin’s Spirou or even (God forbid!) Dragon Ball or something in the same way that they do stuff like Gasoline Alley and Kirby’s Fourth World.”

It brings up a good point about how arbitrary “comics history” is. It’s easy to see that positive associations, as opposed to some more objective system of value, are what impel bloggers (critics?) to write about Kirby or King more than Toriyama or Baldessari. And It all gets confused because, though these canons are very personal, there’s a great deal of overlap, and it’s hard not to want to moralize and ascribe solid good/bad pronouncements to the various creations. I don’t know whether I’d call most of it “Art,” but it is all, of course, art.

art is not about making meaning, it seems to me. It is the way we relate aesthetically to the world. “Art,” on the other hand, is worried about the concerns of art, which is a form of meaning. I was recently thinking about how art ideally escapes the manichean system of valuation that is all but unavoidable in literature, which seems to be concerned with the accuracy of sign/signified relationships. But this is another typically binary way to view culture – aesthetic vs. conceptual – beauty vs. meaning. It’s a map, but it can be restrictive.

I made this post as a way of coming to terms with the fact that I can’t escape my own goofy influences. I grew up immersed in a certain subset of the larger visual culture, and it’s useless for me to completely reject the way I, Jason Overby, respond to Spiderman’s costume, Batman’s utility belt, Toth’s page layouts, Bushmiller’s economy, Gould’s weirdness, Beto’s brushstrokes, etc. My aesthetics were formed by this random soup, but that doesn’t mean that I want “Comics” as a medium to embrace its own heritage.

I get frustrated with people wanting the “Art” establishment to take “comic art” (meaning the actual inked comics pages as objects) seriously. I look at Dan DeCarlo originals and they’re magically beautiful to me, but that’s ignoring the fact that they’re illustrating dopey stories about teenagers. There are some thorny questions about taste and objective criteria that have historically elided the concerns of “Comics” but which are part of the concerns of “Art.”

But the concerns of “Comics” are changing. The protective insularity of the eighties and nineties has given way, with the success of manga, critical acclaim, newer formats, etc. to the wide open, less-detached-from-the-cultural-zeitgeist aughts.

The most exciting thing to me about comics in the nineties, something that was on everyone’s minds, was the idea that comics, as a mode of expression, could be divorced from comics, as a cultural history. I guess we’re beginning to reap what we’ve sown.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

Tag Archives: Frank Santoro

Microcombobulated at SPX

Comics Criticism: Even comics critics don’t care about it

SPX: Different Shows for Different People

Dyspeptic Oroborous: The Divine Hobby

The Concerns of “Comics”