Oil and Water
Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler. Fantagraphics, $19.99 (120p) ISBN 978-1-60699-492-4
A newspaper columnist for the Oregonian and the cartoonist best known for Too Much Coffee Man visited Louisiana in August 2010 to view the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Their resulting journallike comics are based on the mixed feelings the inhabitants have toward the oil business (responsible for keeping many of them in food and housing) and the hippie “do-gooders” such as the creators worrying about the emotional state of those they’ve come to observe. The moments captured can be affecting, but not enough context is given for those who, with the typical American short-term memory, no longer recall much about the event and its effects. We’re also not introduced well to the fellow travelers, even though they reappear throughout, making their reactions less powerful than they could have been. One of them gets lost early on, but we never find out how, when, or where she rejoined the group. While the portraits are lovely, this well-meaning project is much less successful than intended, since there isn’t enough information for the reader to seize onto or recall five minutes after reading. (Dec.)
The Someday Funnies
Edited by Michel Choquette. Abrams ComicArts, $55 (216p) ISBN 978-0-8109-9618-2
In 1970, National Lampoon contributor Choquette was asked by Jann Wenner to edit a special comics insert for Rolling Stone that would allow prominent cartoonists and writers to survey the 1960s. That collection, “The Someday Funnies,” transformed over the next few years into a never-published book featuring the work of 169 writers and artists, and then—when Wenner pulled the plug—into the great lost project of comics history, a “Pet Sounds” of mainstream, underground, and European sensibilities existing only in Choquette’s Montreal storage space. Thirty-one years later, it’s finally seeing print and it’s a doozy, featuring work from luminaries like Art Spiegelman, Joost Swarte, Jack Kirby, and Will Eisner. There are also comics written by Harlan Ellison and William S. Burroughs, and illustrations from such unlikely suspects as Tom Wolfe and Federico Fellini. What sticks with a reader now is the way the ’60s had already begun to curdle in the memory even for those who had just lived them; more than one of these comics posits wild-eyed alternate histories of the ’60s, including the book’s kicker, a great Captain Marvel strip that ties the decade’s woes to Billy Batson’s mid-century silence. Though the collection is, by its nature, a mixed bag, it’s a priceless time capsule of comics history, presented handsomely by Abrams in the large tabloid size Choquette always envisioned. (Nov.)
Return to Perdition
Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. DC/Vertigo Crime, $19.99 (192p) ISBN 978-1-4012-2383-0
Collins returns to his successful “Perdition” story line, as seen in the film and the graphic novel The Road to Perdition, accompanied by realistic black and white and gray-tone sketch art from his frequent collaborator and Eisner co-nominee Beatty. The legacy of gangster Michael O’Sullivan lives on through his grandson, Michael Satariano Jr., a Vietnam War hero enlisted into the Justice Department’s war on crime. As a sniper, Satariano targets high-ranking members in organized crime families, and is promised he will be able to avenge his murdered family. But even though he identifies as a soldier, he begins to doubt his role when he finds a good woman to love. Beatty’s art suggests greater detail in the imagination than the pencils and inks on the page, and his tone, in romance, sex, and violence, beautifully matches the emotional arc of the story. The graphic nature of both the story and the art captures a bleak but powerful tale of someone who doesn’t really want redemption. (Oct.)
Green Wake, Vol. 1
Kurtis Wiebe and Riley Rossmo. Image, $16.99 trade paper (136p) ISBN 978-1-60706-432-9
This horror mystery is the kind of story some love, as they have no idea what’s going on and enjoy puzzling it out. Others will find it frustrating and confusing, wallowing in obfuscation for its own sake. The overall theme learning to deal with loss is strong, but at times, the heavy atmosphere wins out over clarity. In the town of Green Wake, resident Morley is investigating a mutilation, a body with its lips ripped off. The victim's friend Ariel is missing, under suspicion, and the victim’s ex-boyfriend has just found himself in Green Wake. The town is a character in itself, “a place full of people who have no idea how they got here.” Many of them want to keep their secrets, including Morley, who’s clinging desperately to his grief over losing his wife in a car accident in his past. The art has the dark murkiness of a Ben Templesmith or Ashley Wood, but it’s more readable, with more emphasis on storytelling than scratchy design. Twin Peaks is a cited influence on the creators, but with its religious imagery, bloody victims, and monochromatic pages, others might think more of 30 Days of Night. (Oct.)
1-800-Mice
Matthew Thurber. PictureBox (www.pictureboxinc.com), $22.95 (176p) ISBN 978-0-9845892-6-5
Right from the introduction of his dramatis personae, Thurber lets us know that we’re in for just about the most unusual soap opera we could ever hope to follow. Set in and around the fictional environs of Volcano Park, the story in this wildly imaginative graphic novel presents us with a world of creosote addicts, sushi chef assassins, and mice couriers that can go wherever cellphones can’t. It’s a world where one’s love of trees might actually end in marriage, and where great matters or, at least, “ethnomusicological” questions are resolved by banjo contests. The story, not surprisingly, is a maze of interconnected narratives, but despite the dozens of characters we meet, the maze is a blast to follow. Heavy on humor and social satire, Thurber’s story constantly surprises, whether it’s the appearance of a floating Charlie Chaplin head, a killer musical note, or two research biologists working on a temporal distortion of the sex act. Thurber’s at his best experimenting with a wide array of visual techniques none of which get tiresome revealing an artist and storyteller who is wonderfully inventive. (Oct.)
Stargazing Dog
Takashi Murakami. NBM (www.nbmpub.com), $11.99 trade paper (128p) ISBN 978-1-56163-612-9
In this heart-wrenching literary manga winner of several awards in Japan a pathetic middle-aged man goes on an ill-fated road trip with his dog, as told from the dog’s point of view. In the second half, a not-quite-as-pathetic middle-aged social worker investigates their fate. Just when it seems the story couldn’t get any more heart-breaking, the social worker remembers his childhood pet dog with deep regrets. The unnamed, unemployed protagonist seems to be a victim of the deep recession(s) of our times. A divorce follows his job loss, and he pawns most of his belongings for the dog’s veterinary bill. Murakami not to be confused with the Superflat artist of the same name draws detailed, naturalistic background art reminiscent of Jiro Taniguchi (Walking Man), only grittier. The short book offers some profound insight on the human condition (by way of the canine condition) without being too sweet or sappy although naming the dog “Happiness” is heavy-handed. The choice to tell the first story from the dog’s point of view is borderline saccharine, but without all the cute dogs, this book might be unbearable. (Nov.)
Chimichanga
Eric Powell, with Dave Stewart. Dark Horse, $14.99 (104p) ISBN 978-1-59582-755-5
Powell (The Goon) tells a captivating story about a pint-sized bearded woman. We follow the adventures of Lula—imagine a Lilo-size version of Flemish baroque painter Anthony van Dyck—as she trades a lock of her hair for what turns out to be a bizarre-looking alien she names Chimichanga. Of course, the other members of her traveling freak show don’t all take kindly to Chimichanga, even though he might be the only attraction that will pack in enough curiosity seekers to turn a profit. Then there’s the witch who traded with Lula to worry about. She quickly discovers that a potion containing Lula’s hair can temporarily cure explosive flatulence. When an evil corporation, Dinderly Pharmaceuticals, acquires the potion —well, that’s when the intestinal distress really hits the proverbial fan. What makes this story work is not simply the artwork or the pacing, both of which are excellent, but its adorably indefatigable heroine. Occasionally, the book’s point about the identity of the real freaks in society is done with a heavy hand, but a bit of moralizing doesn’t detract from a strangely wonderful graphic narrative. (Oct.)
Artifacts, Vol. 2
Ron Marz and Whilce Portacio. Image/. Top Cow , $14.99 trade paper (114p) ISBN 978-1-60706-211-0
Superior art is the main attraction of this collection, gathering the middle installments of a team-up miniseries. All of the Top Cow fictional universe’s super characters are involved in gathering or preventing the gathering of 13 magical objects that could destroy that universe. Actually, at this point in the action, the morally ambiguous superfolk aren’t quite sure what’s happening or which side they’re on. The issue is simpler for Sara Pezzini, NYPD detective and bearer of the Witchblade, and for Jackie Estacado, mobster and bearer of the Darkness, who just want to protect their daughter, Hope, from the carnage. The script sets up fight scenes and cliffhanger climaxes efficiently in the confusing plot, and readers can enjoy the art while waiting for a point to surface. Portacio’s pencils lay out the physical action well enough, which is beautifully developed in the exuberant inking by Joe Weems (sometimes helped by Marco Gall) and in the layered, muted coloring by Sunny Cho. The result is as lovely as it is tantalizing. (Oct.)
Reviewed on: 10/17/2011
Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60706-211-0 (978-1-60706-211-0)
Comics
The Man Who Grew His Beard
Olivier Schrauwen. Fantagraphics, $19.99 ISBN )978-1-60699-446-7
This collection of stories is a wonderful example of how an animator’s eye, artist’s hand, and storyteller’s vision can combine in a series of stylistic experiments that harken to a previous age of comics, but speak to the contemporary world we live in. In this sequence of graphic tales, Schrauwen looks closely at the relationship between our external and internal realities, and shows us how human imagination is only limited by the constraints that our own failings and frailties place upon it. In stories like “Outside/Inside” and “The Imaginist,” this theme is developed with wonderful poignancy and delightful cynicism. What’s impressive is the ease with which Schrauwen moves among various styles, affording him an extraordinarily wide range of visual tools (e.g., exaggeration and caricature, emotive color schemes, line and shading techniques) that reveal the outer and inner lives of his characters, while his storytelling gives us as much information about his characters from how they don’t react in a given situation as from how they do. Sometimes looking like a throwback to vintage comics and sometimes like a clever homage to the Kama Sutra, this collection is,at all times, the work of a master storyteller. (Oct.)
Reviewed on: 10/17/2011
Permalink: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60699-446-7 (978-1-60699-446-7)
