Crumby Old Book

Looking back on our discussion about The Wolverton Bible (and particularly the enlightening video about its influence), I'm not sure there's much to say about R. Crumb's Book of Genesis besides the fact that it's a truthful, narrative take on the subject matter. As was mentioned, Crumb focuses on the personal and the intimate (in all meanings of the word), and less on the epic. In my opinion, this really speaks to his background in the underground comic scene, a movement that drew focus to the mundane, human aspect of life rarely presented in the funnybooks up until then. Wolverton, on the other hand, showed an initial focus on the grand and large-scale, which drew parallels with his illustration and editorial work, where he was tasked with conveying everything he needed to say in one image as opposed to relying on sequential art.

Of course, with Crumb's assertion that he took it on as a "straight illustration job," there's still room for interpretation. One of the tasks of a comic artist is selecting the extremely specific moment to convey (especially in the case of an artist like Crumb, whose work relies less on the illusion of movement, in my opinion, and more on the static scene). Within the selection of that moment comes the selection of the staging and framing, all of which hold countless variables for the artist. So when Crumb chooses to depict a sex scene from Genesis, his crafting of that scene is very much intentional and very much his own.


As with Wolverton, strangely enough, some of my favorite scenes come from the very beginning. This probably isn't too difficult to justify: I have little familiarity with the Bible, and it is at it's most visually stimulating when it is farthest from reality. The Garden of Eden and the great flood (along with Wolverton's Revelations) are scenes that are impossible to see in real life, and so I was always drawn to them more than the scenes of Isrealite conflict, something still to true.

The scene of Adam and Eve crouching in hiding away from God is a perfect example of Crumb's style reaching confluence with the original text. He chooses a scene laden with sexuality and shame and complex human emotion from a rather rote Biblical telling, and it feels more Crumb than King James. It's also a scene that wouldn't have appeared nearly the same under Wolverton's pen.

Similarly, the anthropomorphized serpent in the Garden feels very unique to this telling. Crumb has a rich history of bipedal, talking animals, and having the serpent appear so odd and out-of-place helps bring that history to the surface while also highlighting the other-worldliness of the tale.

It seems bizarre that Crumb has so few long-form work to point to when discussing his oeuvre. Unless I'm mistaken, this is his longest release, which feels a bit like an iconic punk band releasing countless singles and b-sides and then a full-length gospel album.

At any rate, it's not going to be less controversial any time soon. Those unawares should check out what an outspoken Australian had to say about Crumb, and the effect it had. I'd also urge anyone who's seen the film Crumb to follow up a bit on his family, particularly his brother Maxon, whose work I'd love to purchase as easily as the better known Crumb brother's.


A slightly racier look at Adam and Eve from earlier in Crumb's career.

A True Revelation

The Wolverton Bible is engaging as a book related to comics, if not consistently as a comic itself. Drawn and captioned by Basil Wolverton, an artist who rose to prominence bringing life to disgusting and outlandish concepts for Mad, among other clients, The Wolverton Bible feels like a beloved band’s b-sides or demos, a part of the catalog not as well known but containing some of the most successful pieces of art. Though not traditionally a comic – the illustrations are paired with captions but feature little in the way of sequential order – The Wolverton Bible exudes comic style.

Each illustration feels like a panel ripped from a laboriously created alternative comic. Expressions exaggerate freely, villains look poised to tie a maiden to a train track, and the women wouldn’t look incongruous in a line-up next to the Golden Age Lois Lane. The men, with the exception of Adam and David, aren’t overly pretty – crosshatching and stippling cover their forms, and their faces are often plumped and squished like fruit. As is often the case when a younger reader looks through the work of a much older creator, I couldn’t help but compare him to artists who came much later. Constantly at the forefront of my mind was Howard Cruse, the cartoonist behind the seminal gay civil-rights-era comic Stuck Rubber Baby. Cruse’s style, if not inspired by Wolverton, is an astonishing case of coincidental influence – Cruse must have, like Wolverton, used countless pools of ink stippling and cross-hatching his very un-glamorized figures. Both artists’ figures have a softness about them that is almost always absent from mainstream comics, where all figures must be toned and solid. Cruse’s figures, like Wolverton’s, possess the ability to look utterly cartooned and yet very true to life.

Not all of Wolverton’s work for the Worldwide Church of God was successful for me as a reader. When Wolverton shifted from full pages to smaller scenes, some of his techniques became very repetitive. After the third or fourth time, I became very unimpressed with the use of distant shots of crowds walking through desert landscapes, seen on pages 115, 176, 210, 252, and many more. I also picked up on, though was less disappointed with, the many times he used distant shots with animals framed in the close foreground, visible on several of the pages just mentioned. There were also several uses of very close busts of characters displaying emotions like slyness that, while I feel like they definitely captured with very subtle tones in the text, would have benefited from more context in a larger image. I did, however, love the many times Wolverton rendered odd, angular, and otherworldly pagan idols, as well as the white-hot fury of lightning and fire.

The most successful work in this volume, in my opinion, comes when Wolverton is able to play most wildly. The initial chapters of Genesis, with their otherworldly happenings, and the apocalyptic Revelations, with its modern-day horror, were my favorites in the volume. The storytelling along in many of these images, including the birth of Adam on pg. 21, the hand of God coming down to the Ark on pg. 39, and the pure pandemonium on pgs. 269 and 272, accomplish in single images what many stories fail to do with much more space. The Wolverton Bible is absolutely not a comic book, but it couldn’t exist without the medium, and it shows its influences as prominently – if not more so – as its gospel. While it is perhaps lamentable that Wolverton couldn’t craft these stories as full sequential stories, it’s easy to see why he regarded this as some of his best and most memorable work.

Reading the first collection of G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker's Air is a bit like reading letters from another country: everything is a bit off, it's difficult to understand and follow, but it's all very enticing and you want to know more. Air follows an acrophobic flight attendant swept up in an international (supernational?) conspiracy to... Well, I'm not entirely too sure what the conspiracy really is at this point. I know it involves a forgotten kingdom called Narimar, an ethnically shifting paramour, the shadowy Etesian Front, a winged serpent, a fuel-free engine, some mentions of dominatrixes, marigolds, reality-bending flying machines, and Amelia Earhart. And that's all in the first five issues. Sound like a lot? It is.

I read this first volume of Air in three chunks with short breaks in between. After just finishing it, I'm a little confused about what became of the angry female Front member and the priest, and I can't recall if we found out who the pilot of the "flying palace" actually is quite yet. If I were attempting to follow this series with a month lapse between each issue, I'm not sure I would have the will to continue. I applaud Wilson for keeping things moving and introducing a lot in a small amount of time without feeling horribly rushed, but these sorts of Vertigo books benefit from more of a slow build. As comic readers, we can accept some extraordinary circumstances, but I wish Wilson had gotten more milage out of defining how odd this world is to its regular inhabitants. Blythe and her colleagues seem entirely too ready to adapt to every crazy thing that happens along the way, and it lowers the impact of the zanier elements for me as a reader. I have no concept of what life was like before the zaniness set it, so everything has less of an impact on me. I could see how Blythe's reactions would be more open, but Fletcher or Mrs. B could have really filled that role to help contextualize Air's world and strengthen character at the same time. Ultimately, I find the elements of Air very interesting, but I am having trouble finding my window into the world.

The art, provided by the Turkish M.K. Perker, is solid but I didn't personally feel it was exceptional. As pointed out by a review quoted on the Wikipedia page for Air, his work is very reminiscent of an early Brandon Peterson. I'm a fan of Peterson's hyper-detailed, heavily cross-hatched work, but Perker's is less meticulous and occasionally inconsistent. Faces tend to distort, and detail rapidly disappears as the panel pans outward. I feel that Air suffers from an unfortunate case of having an artist who provides vastly more interesting cover work than interior work. While I appreciate great cover work, I would never condemn a book for its cover. But when you look at how many other Vertigo books invite very expressive artists to provide beautiful covers for books with dissimilar interior artists, you find that the gap is wide enough to judge each separately. For Air, Perker's covers are colored in a much finer manner than his interiors, which helps to distract from his figure work shortcomings. Even with that complaint aside, his choice of framing often felt just a little stilted and unoriginal. You don't have to redefine the rules every time you pick up a pencil, but the panel staging could be a little more dynamic. I felt like he hit his stride more confidently when the more visually appealing airships came in at the end of this volume, but it felt like too little, too late for me.

As it stands, Air seems overly eager to get its interesting ideas across without suitably setting up its fictional world. My interests are piqued by the last page reveal, but they're not $9.99 piqued, so I likely will not be flying Clearfleet Airlines again anytime soon.

Beastly Good

Beasts of Burden showcases the kind of episodic-yet-continuous storytelling that, in my humble opinion, is too-often missing from modern comics. Each of these four issues is a done-in-one tale that is more rewarding if you read the issue before and after it. Changes in characters flow from one issue to the next, but there is nothing that can’t be referenced or explained briefly in the next issue without feeling awkward and expository. Whereas as most comics today rely on expansive, decompressed narratives that feature entire issues where very little happens to progress the story, it is such a treat to read an issue and feel that you have gotten a complete story. JMS is using a similar formula on his current run on The Brave and the Bold for DC Comics, but his stories have been pushed into questionable continuity so as not to conflict with any of the long, drawn-out plots DC has been banking on for quite some time.

Beasts also has pedigree going for it. Written by (somewhat) famous indie comic creator Evan Dorkin (whose Milk and Cheese dug into my consciousness at a young age thanks to its frequent appearance on the television show Roseanne in the background), Beasts shows a maturity and confidence in its storytelling. It almost shocked me to see Beasts nominated for an Eisner for “Best Publication for Teens,” not because it isn’t worthy, but because it hardly feels like it’s toned down for a younger audience. I know I was certainly saddened and stunned when the end of the first issue came and the eaten animal comrades didn’t emerge unscathed from the frog’s stomach.
Dorkin also writes to his artist’s strengths. In Jill Thompson’s case, the strengths are many. One of the few creators to be handed the keys to the kingdom of The Endless of Sandman fame with Neil’s blessing, Thompson’s work leaps across genres from quirky-but-traditional (her series work in Sandman) to manga (Death: At Death’s Door), to children-appropriate (Scary Godmother) to painterly (here, obviously). Thanks to her long and varied career, Thompson’s watercolor work doesn’t feel stiff and posed like so many other paint-based comics illustrators. Instead, her palette breathes and comes to vivid life. I would go so far as to say that Thompson is one of the only comics painters whose work I look forward to with glee and not dread.

My own journey with Beasts came after seeing an advertisement in a Star Wars comic (also published by Dark Horse) and biting for the animal-based premise. After I took a gamble on these four issues, I eagerly sought out the compilations that previous Beasts stories appeared in, paying a bit extra to get those that are out of print. Dark Horse graciously offered all but one for free online, but I needed these bound and on my shelf. I sincerely hope that the free offers drag more people to explore Burden Hill and discover a perfect use of monthly comics outside of the regular mainstream hullabaloo. I know I'm in for more.

A Trip Through Dream Country

The most curious thing about Neil Gaiman's Sandman opus is that it really is as good as it's made out to be. With an army of artists at his side, Gaiman crafted what is, in my humble opinion, easily one of the top 5 comics stories ever told. By utterly revamping the idea of the The Sandman into a grand, myth-spanning being known as Dream or Morpheus, Gaiman opened up a gateway to storytelling without limits. That is precisely what is on display here in the third volume, Dream Country.

Rather than suggest we read the first volume (which was more of a horror comic teetering as it found its footing) or a later volume (which would require more context than time allowed), I latched onto Dream Country as the perfect example of what made The Sandman the seminal series it was. Collected in this slim trade are four stories that intermingle horror, comedy, fantasy, despair, and outstanding creativity. Most of all, they barely feature the titular character (except for the last tale, which doesn't feature him at all). I suspect that this method of storytelling will be familiar to those class members who read more than a handful of Spirit stories. Like Eisner and his masked do-gooder, the greatest strength of Morpheus might lie in his creator's boundless drive to tell stories.

The four seemingly disparate tales in this volume all revolve around the idea of dreams. These dreams require captured stimulus ("Calliope"), are the basis for powerful change ("A Dream of a Thousand Cats"), are granted in a bargain ("A Midsummer Night's Dream"), or seem unattainable and mournful ("Façade"). In any situation, dreams are the center of the Sandman mythos, so the title to this volume is exceedingly appropriate.


The first two tales, pencilled by Kelley Jones, show the range that this series is willing to take. In "Calliope," we are privy to a wicked deal to spark a novelist's creativity. This entry perhaps ties the most into the regular fabric of the series, as the Furies and Orpheus both factor in. This story also serves as a sort of hub of metaphors, as Dream's own bondage is mirrored here by the captured muse, and the tortured writer's bargain is a much darker version of the deal that Will Shakespeare will make in a few issues' time. "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" is an issue that tends to stick in the minds of many Sandman readers. I think this is the first (but not the last, no, certainly not the last) issue of The Sandman that made me cry when I first read it years ago. The sadness of the unnamed cat's tale really struck me because it didn't feel forced in any way, and she was such an audacious, powerful female character -- who is also a cat. Here Dream is a dark cat with brilliant eyes, and the issue doesn't feel like a "What If?" but like truth, a quality that was felt in the best of the 75 issues.


"A Midsummer Night's Dream" has the distinction of being the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award (not without controversy), and I can certainly see how it earned the prize. By framing itself around and within the famous play of the same name, Gaiman and collaborator Charles Vess get a lot of mileage out of a conventional size comic book. This story is one of those perfect mixtures of comedy and sadness that Gaiman is so adept at, with Robin Goodfellow and the rest of the faerie causing mischief even as Will Shakespeare's young son illustrates his skewed priorities. The end of the story, with its twisted lift from Shakespeare, gets me every time and inspired much of my love for the original play.


Finally, this volume includes "Façade," a story that I suspect readers won't respond to as well as the preceding three. I know that I hardly cared for Gaiman's collaboration with Colleen Doran the first time I read it, but my feelings have changed with time. This melancholy tale of a forgotten Silver Age heroine shows Gaiman's ability to mature a character without going overboard. Rainie becomes more complex and real in these 22 pages than she ever did in her myriad adventures before, even if the story is a heartbreaking one. It also doesn't even feature Morpheus, though the real breakout star of the series drops by at the end. yes, Death is probably the most affecting character to be spawned in Gaiman's epic run. The idea of Death as a spry young goth girl changed everything when she was introduced and provided the genesis for some of the strongest stories Gaiman has ever told. While Death certainly has one of the single greatest lines in all of comicdom (I won't spoil it here), I'll be damned if her greeting on the telephone at the end of this issue doesn't bring the tears right back up.


And I suppose that's one of the most honest things I can say about the quality of The Sandman. I laugh and I cry every time I work my way through a story, no matter how many times I have read it before. I'm so grateful that Gaiman was able to bring this book to the public at a time when overly rendered, grotesquely muscled murderers ruled the comics scene. As comics were striving to become "mature" by virtue of more guns, more blood, and more sex (not to mention more pouches), Gaiman and crew were effortlessly putting the foundation into place for true mature storytelling. Vertigo wouldn't exist in nearly the same form it currently does if Sandman had never been published, and the world would be much worse for it. Luckily, enough of us still dream about the characters that Gaiman and his team of artists created to keep them around.

"Nice One, Scott! Now Turn The Page!"

Scott Pilgrim is a precious little story.
I came across the first volume in the series a few years ago after reading about it in Wizard and online. Initially, I wanted to see what the hype was all about. After years of disliking manga, I wasn't excited to jump into a series created in a similar format, and the volume ended up drifting onto a bookshelf, awaiting its time to be read. Sure enough, after about a year, I finally got around to opening the cover and jumping in.

The funny thing is, I just don't have all that much to say about this first volume because I feel like it's all so obvious. Bryan Lee O'Malley poured all of his geekiness and angst into this series, and it really reads like a passion product from a creator who can still edit himself (not to discredit any work that the fine folks at Oni Comics might have put into the editing process). Sure, O'Malley throws reference after reference at the reader and introduces world-building elements without much warning, but Scott Pilgrim succeeds where so many fan-service projects go wrong: there is a heart and soul to the story beyond the nerdiness.


The characterization displays this best. Scott is a lovable loser/slacker, but O'Malley puts him in situations that deepen his character. The awkwardness of dating a high schooler, the feeling of mediocrity with Sex Bob-omb, his... unique living situation, the dreams of a mysterious courier, and his night with Ramona all affect Scott in ways that lift him above a two-diminesional stereotype for a nerdy guy in his position in life. Wallace is another great example, as O'Malley plays some stereotypes up in a realistic way (teasing and flirting with "straight" characters) while showing Wallace's responsibility for and tolerance of Scott as well as his troublesome drinking habits. Aside from the alcoholism, I can attest that the relationship between Wallace and Scott is strikingly similar to the relationship I share with some of my close friends from home. The key to these characterizations is that O'Malley knows how to have some fun with it all, balancing character maturity with lighthearted moments and plenty of absurdly unreal additions.

Think about it: is there any warning that Scott's dreams will be revealed to be a subspace portal, or that Matthew Patel will attack Scott with magical powers and summon demon hipster chicks? Up until the first instance, Scott Pilgrim could just be a winsome slice-of-life story for a Canadian slacker who likes to make video game references. But thanks to O'Malley's manic manga-inspired art style, these twists of absurdity just feel natural. I had an issue with Death Note because the supernatural elements felt too inorganic and much too easily accepted, but I would point toward Scott Pilgrim as an example of throwing in crazy plot elements without much explanation and having it all make sense. The art is a little rougher here than in later volumes (to be expected), but it's full of energy even when it seems to be cutting corners, and O'Malley never skimps on the action.

With the impending Edgar Wright-helmed movie adaptation starring good 'ole non-actor Michael Cera, it's a great time to be a Scott Pilgrim fan. I mean, even a few years ago, volumes were hard to come by because of small print runs. I'm pretty sure the movie will be pretty good, but Michael Cera will just play Michael Cera like he always does, so prime reading season is anytime from now until August when you'll be unable to un-hear Michael Cera's voice every time you read any of Scott Pilgrim's dialogue. Get in before it's ruined, kids!

"Light" on Appeal -- For Me, Anyway

I last read a manga in eighth grade, if memory serves me right. When the manga book happened a decade ago, I got right onboard, but I ultimately couldn't buy into the differences in storytelling between Japanese (and sometimes Korean) tales and the American books I grew up with. I'm never sure if the difference is in translation or the culture itself, but some things never click with me, but I'll get to that in a little bit.

First, some context that shows how fundamentally different manga really is from American comics. Firstly, manga is a huge, if declining, business in Japan. Since Japan is a commuter culture, the need for quick entertainment is strong. To put it into perspective, the sales for manga on cell phones alone trumped the sales for comics in America last year. This is partially because there are manga aimed at young children all the way through to stay-at-home moms, but another large reason for this is the disposable format and cheapness of manga. Manga magazines, such as Weekly Shonen Jump (where Death Note first appeared in serialized format), are usually the sizes of phone books, feature only a few ad pages, and are printed on very cheap paper. They come out weekly and tend to cost the equivalent of US $4.00. American comics, on the other hand, ship monthly on nice paper and cost between $2.99 and $3.99 (sometimes more) for 22 pages of story content with 10 pages of ads. Manga readers are frequently polled about what stories they enjoy and features are swapped in and out accordingly, with the popular ones being collected into bound volumes that sell for more money.

Because of the weekly printing schedule, most mangaka (manga creators) are aided by a team of uncredited assistants, many of whom are apprentice mangaka. In many cases, the well known artist lays out panels and draws figures, and little else. Someone else is in charge of backgrounds, lettering, inking, etc. This is not wholly dissimilar to American comics; big name artists provide the pencils, and workhorse creators come in to ink, color, and letter over those pencils. The biggest difference is that those inkers and colorists and letterers are always credited in today's world, and have been for quite some time. The notion of having uncredited artists providing backgrounds or figure work would get an American creator excised by fans and publishers, and assists from other artists are almost always done on different pages and credited as such. As a reader and a hopeful creator, I find the idea of uncredited work distasteful and insulting to the people putting in the long hours to insure the book comes out on time, but this is ingrained in the manga industry. In this book, I found the art capable, but nothing extraordinary. I enjoyed the Shinigami designs, but their world was so muddled in shadow that I was left wanting. In some cases, the backgrounds seemed to be computer-filtered photographs or tracing work, which did nothing to win me over.

With all of that aside, Death Note still wasn't for me. Shonen is manga aimed at teen boys, a category that I don't quite fit into. While I read many slam-bang superhero books, the titles that I tend to enjoy most have heavy character moments, serious drama, well-explored concepts, and sufficient build-up. I am intrigued by Death Note's central premise, and I enjoy Ryuk as a character and as a cool visual, but there is much too little story development for me. I can't fault the series necessarily; if it moved at the pace I would have enjoyed, it surely would have bored the teen readers and been cancelled long before it finished. Within one chapter, Light finds a death note, meets a god of death, and starts his massive quest to rid the world of evil and rule over his utopia. I just can't get into a story that takes place in the "real world" where a teen boy is more brilliant than the entire police force and unfazed by meeting a GOD OF DEATH. The introduction of L. as a young man who inexplicably gets free reign over global task forces only made matters worse. The suspension of disbelief fell through, but it might have worked much better for me when I was a lot younger.

I don't mean any of this as an insult to the format, as I still believe that I will find manga that I enjoy regardless of production or publishing differences. I enjoyed Death Note for what it is, but that magical manga that clicks with me probably won't be shonen.