Comix

Comics scholar denied entry to US

Comix, Security theatre
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Via Marc “not the Beastmaster” Singer, comes the news that comics scholar Ernesto Priego has been denied entry into the US. He was supposed to present a paper at the International Comic Arts Forum which is going to be held later this year. Marc wondered “what sort of security or immigration risk” Priego posed, personally I doubt there was any real reason for it, other than that somebody in the immigration/border service took a dislike to him for some reason or other. Just a random act of assholery, but as Marc also noted, not a standalone incident: quite a few scholars have been refused entry recently.

The US has long had a reputation for being welcoming to foreign scholars, its universities more than eager to attract top talent from all over the world. Part of the US wealth, scientific and technological prowess is built through the labour of hardworking foreign scientists. If this is changing, if these are now discouraged from coming over, then this can only bode ill for the country. Of course, it may be good for Europe, as all that top talent might come over here…

xkcd

Comix
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I know that as I saw this xkcd strip last Friday, it would be received well in some quarters. It looks like I was right.

For me, xkcd has become the new, more intelligent User Friendly, in that almost every geek of any persuasion I know seems to know and like it. Not undeservedly, as Randall Munroe is the best stick figure cartoonist I’ve seen since Matt Feazle, able to put a lot of nuance in just a tilt of a stick figure’s head.

Saturday comics festival

Comix
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Two interesting comix related articles for you to enjoy this Saturday morning, as a break from all that heavy political stuff. First up is Jog at Savage Critics remembering that old Elaine Lee & Michael Kaluta series Starstruck. That’s was one of those odd series that thrived in the newly unleashed freedom the direct market in the eighties offered to American comics, when creators no longer had to appeal to random buyers at newsstand, but to a well informed comic loving audience buying from shops staffed with people who work there purely out of their love for comics. A science fictional comic with strong human interests, Jog sums up the charms of the series quite well, but not before ruining everybody’s day with this little meditation on how fleeting fame can be:

I’m going to guess that a bunch of you haven’t even heard of Elaine Lee, who wrote the comic; maybe the name’s rattling around in the back of your head, but nothing of use is cohering. Hey, I don’t blame you. Just about every comic she ever wrote is out of print, after all. While I’ll take a little room there to equivocate — she does have a story floating around out there in Charles Vess’ The Book of Ballads collection — I do believe all her bigger works are pure longbox fodder. Most of the smaller ones too.

It’s something nobody likes to think about, really. Someone’s entire body of comics work sinking down, left to the funnybook subculture of bin divers, no one piece able to latch on to a famed or renowned predecessor/successor by the same person. Down, down into the bog. It’s almost as unpleasant a thought as somebody working on a comics project for over a decade, only to see it fade from view. Unlucky, without embrace, and forlorn.

But the former has apparently happened to Elaine Lee, and the latter certainly happened to Starstruck. That’s too bad, because Lee’s writing on that comic was intriguing and ambitious; Starstruck is just the type of comic that some today would possibly be considering a classic of the form, had its full, 500+ page length ever been published. But pages came out in various forms, at various times, often taking on an individual character that seemed to match their then-current environment. In other words, there was a Starstruck of 1984 that was very different from the Starstruck of 1991. Maybe inevitable, considering the long path a comic of its go-for-baroque type was bound to follow back in the day.

Too depressing that; let’s quickly take a look at something much more cheery. Shaenon K. Garrity’s explenation of the appeal of What’s Michael, perhaps the best cat based manga in existence:

What’s Michael? doesn’t have much of a continuing storyline, just a set of running gags, so you can start reading at any volume. Each chapter is a short, self-contained vignette, usually a breezy six pages long. Very roughly, it’s the story of Michael, a typical orange tabby cat, and his typical middle-class family. But Kobayashi frequently breaks from even this vague premise, giving Michael different owners, transporting the cast to more exotic settings (a cop show, a samurai drama, a running parody of “The Fugitive” featuring a veterinarian on the run), writing himself into the story (something he also does in Club 9, where he frequently pops up as a lecherous bar patron), or envisioning a world of anthropomorphic cats and dogs.

An example, taken from Shaenon’s post:

example of What's Michael

Cute, and oh so recognisable.

Marvel censors Essential Tomb of Dracula

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censored artwork, covered breasts

Up until the eighties Marvel used to publish comics that weren’t superheroes, all sorts from romance to western and from kung fu to horror. Many of these were instantly forgetable or cheap attempts to cash in on whatever genre became briefly popular, but they nevertheless managed to produce some classic comics. One example is Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s Master of Kung Fu, which made that most seventies of genres, the kung fu comic, actually worth reading, another was Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s Tomb of Dracula, an elegant seventies continuation of Bram stoker’s classic vampire novel. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, it’s where Blade came from, later to star in three suprisingly good blockbuster movies. Tomb of Dracula was aimed at a somewhat older audience than your average Marvel superhero comic, especially in its shortlived magazine incarnation, which didn’t have to content with the Comics Code Authority.

Recently, Marvel has been reprinting the series in its Essential format: cheap, black and white trade paperbacks. These are ideal for fans who would like to read the series, but unable or unwilling to seek out the back issues themselves. Unfortunately however, Marvel has decided to tamper with the reprints, covering up the nudity that was present in some of the original issues, as Groovy Age of Horror reveals, which also has the scans shown here, as well as more examples of what’s been censored.

original artwork, showing breasts

Now I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand, I dislike reprints that tamper with the original, especially when it’s not done by the original creators. On the other hand, this is not like covering up Lady Justice bare breasts: it wasn’t great art, just cheap tittilation and little is lost by the alterations. On the gripping hand, it is indictive of the current climate in the US, that things that could be sold with no trouble at newsstands in 1979 now need to be censored to sell in bookstores.

Eddie Campbell

Comix
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Most of you will know Eddie Campbell, if you know him at all, from his work with Alan Moore on From Hell, Moore’s magnus opus on Jack the Ripper and the birth of the 20th century, amongst other things. What you may not be awareof is that Campbell has had a much longer career than that and is not just an artist, but a talented writer in his own right.

His best know solo work is probably Bacchus, a long running series starring the Greek god of alcohol and his adventures in the twentieth century. The centuries have not been kind to Bacchus and he’s now little more than a wino, though a wino who looks uncannily like Corto Maltese. The drawing is semi-realistic, more in the style of Milton Caniff or Hugo Pratt, though with periods of Kirbyesque excess. The stories are somewhat meandering, with interchanging episodes of high voltage action and more quiet, slice of life drama. Various other surviving Greek gods show up from time to time as well. The early stories are somewhat on the rough side still, but get much better over time. The best Bacchus book you can get is probably King Bacchus, with Bacchus is king of the Castle and Frog pub, which has seceded from the United Kingdom and declared its independence. The followup volumes are also quite good. But really, no Bacchus book is a bad buy, even the early, rougher volumes are worth getting.

Next to Bacchus, there’s Alec, which is basically a slightly fictionalised autobiography. Campbell has been doing these stories for years and unlike many cartoonists he’s actually had an interesting life. Born in Scotland, quite bright, worked for years in various blue collar jobs, started cartooning, lots of drunk adventures (notice a theme), got married, moved to Australia, got kids, settled down. Alec is the longest running series Campbell has been doing, having done Alec stories since he started drawing comics. What’s impressive about them is that, again unlike other cartoonists, he knows when to move the focus from his own life to that of the people around him, without coming across as a voyeur. Much of it feels like the sort of stories you’d tell your mates in the pub, only much better.

Campbell’s artwork is excellent, at its best in black and white I find. As said he is very much in the style of Hugo Pratt or Milton Caniff, though immediately recognisable as his own. He has an eye for small details and knows when to put in details and when to leave them out. The small samples here really do not do his work justice; the best way to sample his work is to get one of his books and
just start reading. Any good comic book store or library should have at least some.

Now to do a Mike Sterling and do a half post of linky goodness: