Meanwhile...

I've only got two reviews appearing elsewhere this week, but they are both of excellent works. First, go to Good Comics For Kids for a write-up of Fantagraphics' Floyd Gottfredson's Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Color Sundays Vol. 1: Call of the Wild, then head on over to Robot 6 for a review of Anders Nilsen's latest book, Rage of Poseidon.

Meanwhile...

I have a review of Anders Nilsen's mixed-media, part-comics memoir Don't Go Where I Can't Follow in this week's Las Vegas Weekly.

I have a rather long review of Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton's Young Avengers #1 up at Robot 6 today.

And I have a review of Andy Runton's latest comic/kids book hybrid Owly and Wormy: Bright Lights and Starry Nights up at Good Comics For Kids.

And that's all I have today.

This is This is a Comic Book

The title of the show is a confrontational one: This is a Comic Book. It’s simple, declarative and unequivocal, challenging whoever hears it to check and see if that really is the case, and then to either agree or disagree.

The confrontation is intentional. This is a Comic Book curators Jimi Payne and Colleen Grennan know this, and are doing more than simply hanging comic art in the Mahan Gallery for a show. They’re also asking questions, starting and engaging in a conversation about what a comic book is, what comic book art is, and how the art world and the comic book world get along, particularly at this point in time, when comics are no longer strangers to gallery walls, and no longer a novelty acts within the “fine” art world.

Now there are an awful lot of challenges to putting comic books in gallery spaces, a topic discussed at length in the show catalog, and This is overcomes two of the most obvious ones in interesting ways.

The first is that comic books are comic books, meant to be handled and read, not simply looked at one random page at a time. The show acknowledges this by including actual comic books in the show. The walls are covered with flat pages, covers and original work, but in the center of the gallery is a little island, strewn with minicomics by many of the artists with work on the walls; you can take in the pieces of the show, but you can also linger by the island, and experience the work of the creators as it was intended to be experienced. There on the walls are comics-as-art, captive and domesticated. Here on the table are comics-as-comics, wild and native. Neat.

(In the corner of the gallery there’s also a bookshelf containing graphic novels for perusal and purchase, so if you’re wondering what that Cochise character is doing climbing up the mountain in one of Lauren Weinstein’s pieces, you can get a Goddess of War Vol. 1 and find out).

The other major challenge is the fact that, because comics are meant to be read, not taken in as wall-art, gallery presentation sometimes means a white room full of big white rectangles, each including grids of smaller, black and white rectangles within the frames. Not exactly an appealing look for anyone other than comics-fiends, really.

But there’s a great deal of color in the gallery.

The most eye-drawing aspect is certainly Columbus-artist Phonzie Davis’ contribution, a column on the south wall of the gallery, wrapped like a gift in big, bright, poster-sized pages from his Left-Handed Sophie comic book.
Among the half-dozen others or so also working in color are Panayiotis Terzis (whose contributions include big, bright, King Top strips with borders bordering on design elements, and a multi-layer, silk screen-looking piece piece that Payne says is part of Fantagraphcs’ new Abstract Comics: The Anthology), Lee Mei Yan (whose works are incredibly busy and detailed jumbles of cute, colorful images, only “sequential” in that their size and scope mean they must be taken in one piece at a time, although it’s up the viewer how big the implied panel, and what sequence in which to “read” them), Ron Rege Jr (whose cover to Cartoon Utopia is equal parts classic cartooning and street art). Among the more expected sorts of pieces are those from cartoonists you’re most likely to heard of, although there were certainly some surprises there.

There are a trio of pieces from Nate Powell, who’s recent Eisner for Swallow Me Whole certainly made his inclusion a timely one. There are several standalone pages from his work, and as always it’s fascinating to see the real, original art that the artist’s hands created: The finished product may be the published books, but it’s undeniably exciting to see what the artist made before it went to the printer, and look for clues about how Powell applied his ink or drew his letters into the art.

Weinstein’s pieces were surprisingly large; there are a couple of page from Goddess, and they were remarkably large. Weinstein works big. The finished, printed Goddess is a gigantic comics (Which, as much as I liked it, continues to frustrate me; I can’t figure out what to do with the damn thing now), at 10-by-15-inches, but the original pages looked even bigger; I’m not sure how big she works, but some of the pages were much larger than the traditional 10-by-15-inch piece of Bristol board, so she must work even larger than that and have it reduced? (At least for the Cochise page).

The pieces I personally found most remarkable were those by Anders Nilsen. There are a few pages from his Dogs and Water a very strong and very representational work from Nilsen.

The Dogs and Water pages were marked here and there with white correction fluid, and patches of other pieces of paper placed atop the originals, apparently covering mistakes or drafts that Nilsen wasn’t happy with. For example, this page in the book…
…has a large, polygon of paper covering almost half of the original image, with the drawing extending over both fields of paper.

I suppose any actual cartoonists in the reading audience will here think this simply stating the obvious, but from a reader’s perspective, because the finished product so often looks perfect, I often assume it was created perfect, and it’s something of a revelation to see how many imperfections go into reaching that finished perfection.

Also on the more representational end of things are a few complete strips.

Dorothy Gambrell* has several Cat and Girl strips that can be read in their entirety in the space of a single piece.

Here’s one, entitled Times New Viking**: Matt Furie, like Gambrell, has complete strips, although his characters and use of space and line makes his work seem at a greater distance from what one imagines when one imagines “comic strip” than Gambrell’s. Gambrell’s strips could easily appear in newspapers, if newspapers were more awesome than they actually are, where I can’t see in a newspaper…maybe an alternative magazine of some sort. John Porcellino*** also provides complete strips, although his—interestingly enough—aren’t original pages from any of his minicomics, but recreations of them. That is, instead of giving them his original art, he created original art from the original art, if that makes sense. It’s pretty neat.

Porcellino’s work has a special place in my heart, as I first became aware of him shortly after I moved here (at the inaugural SPACE) and found it quite inspirational (In a “Shit, if this guy can publish comics drawing baby raccoons like that, certainly I can draw comics too!” kind of way), particularly the way his work has evolved into the graceful, beautiful, airy abstracted aesthetic it is now.

This is a pretty Porcellino type of piece too:
On the other side of the spectrum are sequential pieces without any real story or, like Chris Day’s Droop Till You Drop, which shows Droopy going from drooping to melting, and Noel Friebert’s excerpt from Son of a Gun, which is a six-panel grid with no images in it, simply words written in several different styles. (Shit, I wish I thought of making comics that way).

I know it’s all art (it’s in an art gallery, after all), but is it a comic book? It must be. The name of the show says it is, and, after seeing it and thinking about it, I can’t disagree. It’s comics, and wow, what a multitude of definitions to that term there are.




*Speaking of Gambrell, check out her awesome Baba Yaga t-shirt design. I’m not one of those wealthy people who can afford to buy “clothing,” and simply cover my shame with strategically placed back-issues and yarn, but if I were, I would totally buy that


**Hey, here’s an additional Columbus connection to this piece. Did you know that, in addition to being a type font, Times New Viking is also the name of wonderful Columbus band? It’s true! You should totally go buy their album Rip It Off right this minute. I like track 2, “My Head,” and track 9, “The Early ‘80s” best. Also, if they happen to be playing near you, you should totally go see them, as they’re even better live than recorded.

Here, watch them perform with poor sound quality:





***According to publisher Drawn and Quarterly, Porcellino will be in Columbus on October 12 to promote his new book Map of My Heart at Wholly Craft, a swell store I would spend a lot of money at if I had a lot of money (which I don’t). No confirmation at Wholly Craft’s site though; I imagine they’ll eventually have some info up here.


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This is a Comic Book will remain on view through Friday, August 28. For more info on the show and/or Mahan, click here. You should really go see it if you can. And buy a catalog, if you can—they are only 125 of them in existence, so maybe it will be worth money some day! (There much rarer than copies of Chew #1, and people seem to think that will be worth money). And hell, if you got scratch to spare, buy something off the wall while you're at it. I think one of Terzis' pieces would look perfect right above your couch. Thanks to my friend who doesn’t want me to name her for letting me use her retarded Mother Box to take the photographs of the show above. This is my last post on the subject of this particular show, I swear.

PSA: This is a Comic Book at Mahan Gallery August 1-28

(Above: Image by Lee Mei Yan; more examples of iamges from the show are available here)

Hey comics fans! Do you live in or within driving distance of Columbus, Ohio? If so, you're going to want to make sure you visit The Mahan Gallery in the Short North this month to check out their new show, This is a Comic Book.

The show surveys "new perspectives in comics and the varying implications of displaying them in a gallery setting," according to the official gallery PR. "This is a Comic Book intends to inform the public while encouraging investigation from even the most knowledgeable comic book reader by removing the work from its usual method of interaction and directing a microscopic lens on the works as both illustration and creative writing."

In practical terms, this means Mahan's walls will host work form fourteen excellent comics creators, many of whom you've no doubt heard of:

—Anders Nilsen (Dogs and Water, Monologues for the Coming Plague, Monologues for Calculating the Destiny of Black Holes)

—Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole)

—Lauren Weinstein (The Goddess of War, Girl Stories, Inside Vineyland)

—John Porcellino (King-Cat, Thoreau at Walden, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man)

—Ron Rege Jr (Against Pain, Yeast Hoist)

—Matt Furie (Boy's Club)

—Phonzie Davis (Left-Handed Sophie)

—Mickey Zacchilli

—Cole Johnson

—Panayiotis Terzis

—Dorothy Gambrell

—Lee Mei Yan

—Mike Taylor

—Closed Caption Comics

Sounds like a pretty awesome show, right? But wait, there's more!

At the show you can also purchase an inexpensive-ish catalog/zine which will feature a selection of images from the show, artist bios, interviews with Phonzie Davis and Lee Mei Yan, a curators' note from Jimi Payne and Colleen Grennan, an essay by former Comics Journal editor Anne Elizabeth Moore about recent comics history, another essay by Wexner Center for the Arts film and video curator Dave Filipi about some of the challenges he experienced showing comics in a gallery setting when he oc-curated last spring's Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond and a third essay by comics blogger, critic and know-it-all loudmouth J. Caleb Mozzocco about how the only way to really experience comic books is to read the damn things. Yes that's right, for a couple of dollars you can get the same sort of content you get from me here all the time for free, only on paper! And not-free!

Seriously though, my questionable contribution aside, it sounds like a really cool package, and it will be pretty small-run, so get yours while you can.

You can find Mahan's contact info and address here if you need to know their hours of operation or to look up directions or anything like that. I'd recommend stopping by this Saturday between 6 and 10 p.m. if you don't mind crowds; that's the opening reception, and it's also the night of Gallery Hop, so there should be plenty of activity and people watching opportunities in the neighborhood.


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On the subject of gallery shows in the Short North in the month of August, you may also want to check out Rivet Gallery's We'll Be Right Back...After These Messages..., a show featuring art inspired by '80s cartoons.

Here's something Rainbow Brite-y by Charlie Owens that the gallery's using to promote the show...



And here's a Masters of the Universe-related piece on a flyer for the show...

Delayed Reaction: Dogs and Water

Dogs and Water (Drawn and Quarterly), by Anders Nilsen

Why’d I wait?: You know, I’m not sure if this ever showed up in my shop or not, so I’m not positive I purposely chose not to buy it upon release. Amazon says it was an August release, and publisher Drawn and Quarterly lists it as a July release on their website, but I don’t recall seeing it in my local comic store over the summer, perhaps because they didn’t get it or perhaps because I wasn’t looking for it. I’d heard the title mentioned in connection to Nilsen’s name before, but didn’t know it came out already.



Why now?: Because I saw it at my local library, remembered how much I enjoyed the last Nilsen book I borrowed from there and, come on, who can resist that intriguing cover? I love the mysterious story it suggests, to the point where I immediately want to know what the hell is going on between this figure and this dog with the gun, yet at the same time kind of like just wondering about it and not knowing.

I should also point out that the book design itself is quite lovely. The book’s on the short side, about a hundred pages, but the pages are wider than your typical trade paperback, and it’s got a hard cover and spine that remind me a bit of old elementary school text books.



Well?: The very thing I found most off-putting about the book—and as I was reading, I didn’t much care for those first few pages—rather quickly became something I admired about it.

The style in which Nilsen tells this story is rather idiosyncratic, and though it reads like a comic book, it doesn’t look much like one, so immediately the reader is pushed off balance with that little surprise.

See, there are no panels in it. The images all appear as if there were, but there are no borders and gutters, no rectangles framing each image. The images simply sit upon the page, arranged more or less as if there were panels, but someone had come and taken them away. (For a sense of what I’m talking about, you can see some preview pages here and here).

Now I know Nilsen isn’t the first person in the world to use this sort of technique, but generally when you open a graphic novel, you expect to see some grids on the page, so any time you don’t, it can be a little surprising.

The lack of borders also draws attention to the setting, making the desolate, flat, nameless land seem like it goes on forever in every direction, which, as far as we can tell from the story or what we learn from the protagonist, it does.

There’s also a level of intimacy engendered by Nilsen’s panel-less pages, and the somewhat abstract black and white art. While reading it, there were a few times I got the feeling that it wasn’t even run through a printing press or anything, but that it was just a big sketchbook that Nilsen had hand-drawn and stuck on a shelf in my library.

That particular illusion is broken up during night scenes, in which (one) color is added to make things darker, and dream sequences, in which the colore of the ink lines change from black to blues or silvers or grays.

As for the story, we follow a young person backpacking along a highway in the middle of nowhere, talking to the teddy bear he has tied to his pack. The setting is purposely indistinct, but there’s a haunting post-apocalyptic vibe to it—it’s clear that people are now extremely few and far between, animal life is much more common than it is now, and cars are extreme rarities.

While our protagonist marches through this tableau, he encounters a small group of deer, he’s pursued by a pack of dogs with a somewhat unexpected agenda and eventually comes across signs of human civilization that evokes the modern Middle East (there’s some rubble that used to be buildings, a pipeline, soldiers, a downed helicopter and a little kid with an assault rifle).

Everything that isn’t explained only deepens the import and impact of everything that is, making Dogs and Water’s minimalism seem quite eloquent.



Would I Travel Back in Time to Buy it Off the Shelf?: I don’t know. It’s definitely a great read, but even knowing that ahead a time, I don’t know if I would have wanted to fork over $19.99 for such a quick experience, no matter how nice it would look on my bookshelf (That said, it’s a book that likely rewards multiple readings).

If your library has a copy, or take requests on what to order from patrons, definitely give it a look. And if you’re at least $19.99 richer than me, go ahead and buy it, I guess.

Delayed Reaction: Monologues for the Coming Plague

Monologues for the Coming Plague (Fantagraphics), by Anders Nilsen

Why’d I Wait?: Because I had no idea it existed until I saw it on the “new” shelf of graphic novels at a local library. According to Amazon.com, it came out in July of ’06. And despite reading the Fantagraphics catalogue, reading the Diamond shipping lists several times a week and visiting one to two comic shops once a week, I still missed it. I have no excuse for my obliviousness.



Why Now?: A flip-through should be all you need to pique your curiosity. Here, take a virtual flip-through, on me:






Well?: Nilsen’s art is of the “Hell, I could do that…in fact, my seven-year-old daughter could do that?” Well you know what? I don’t think you can. And I’m pretty damn sure your daughter can’t either.

Nilsen is a very talented draftsman (Go here and click on anything with the initials “A.N.” next to it to see what I mean…and confidential to you Chicagoan cartoonists: Your website is very, very hard to use), and the quick, scribbly style he uses here belies his sequential art chops. The images repeat over and over, but they’re all unique, all placed just so and all bleed into one another pretty flawlessly—whole sequences of the book work like an animated-cartoon-in-process (the bit with the changing heads on the trip to Pittsburgh, for example, or the part where the guy with a scribble for a head pulls a dead dinosaur out of his pocket), so that you can flip quickly through the book and see ‘em move. If you wanted. But you don’t really want to do that. You want to read the thing.

It’s an epic of artst-fartsy philosophy cartooning, and I readily confess that I may not have “got” it all, but I did find my self laughing quite a bit, so I got something out of it. The narrative skips around, but every seemingly disconnected element of it informs the whole, and the various threads intersect in surprising ways.

There’s a sequence of repeating images of a woman feeding a wild bird, with either the bird or the woman saying something incongruous to one another (a running gag that’s simply a fill-in-the-blank cartoon); another where a man with a scribble for a head talks to another about semiotics and goes on a “trip” with him that ends in a horrible car accident (there is no car though); the guy who doesn’t have a scribble for a head talking to an indifferent dog about career choices; some riffing on what you should do if you meet the Buddha on the road and the consequence of such action and some frank philosophical talk involving what life is like in heaven with Jesus and God.

Oh, and it introduces another philosophy, one that isn’t semiotics—it’s called The Mediocrity Principle and it sounds depressingly like my life right now. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? I don’t know. A character travels to the future to do a study on the matter, but his results are inconclusive. “It’s super hard to do studies in the future,” the scribble-headed man says.

If you like Adult Swim’s 12 oz. Mouse or some of David Rees’ odder comics, definitely buy the hell out of this. Not that it’s like either of those, other than the strange absurdism, sparse graphics and the weird evocation deep in your brain that the work your experiencing is either brilliant and deep or just kinda funny.

If you don’t like either of those things, or actively hate them, and think any book that bills itself (on the back cover) as containing “absurdist art comic,” “stream of consciousness image generation,” “automatic writing,” and “dinosaurs” is your idea of personal hell, well, you may want to check it out from the library and read the hell out of it anyway. Just in case it blows your mind.

Don’t you think that’s a risk worth taking?


Would I Travel Back in Time to Buy it off the Shelf? Nah, it has a long shelf-life, and is still readily available. As soon as I have an extra $18.95 that I don’t have anything more important to spend on—like food, shoes, medicine or Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold—he Batman Team-Ups Vol. 1—this book will be mine.