Category Archives: Comics

Comics, Reviews

Adrian Tomine – Summer Blonde

(Originally published in the July 2009 issue of Rolling Stone India)

Summer Blonde

Adrian Tomine (pronounced Toh-mee-nay, not Toe-mine, as many people think) wears a lot of hats. Metaphorically speaking, of course. His current assignments include illustration gigs with the New Yorker and Esquire, designing indie DVD covers, and editing/overseeing arthouse manga for the publishing house Drawn and Quarterly. But Tomine is not known for these interesting career forks as much as he is revered for the series of mini-comics, called Optic Nerve, which he began at the age of 17.

Summer Blonde, the third collection of the creator’s Optic Nerve series, has four stories. ‘Alter Ego’ is about Martin Courtney, a moderately successful writer experiencing writer’s block under the pressure of meeting and surpassing his debut effort. As he puts it, “They say everyone has one great book in them. Maybe I had a mediocre one and that’s it.” Things take a strange turn when he gets a postcard from an old schoolmate he had a crush on, and begins dating her younger sister, who’s still in high school. ‘Summer Blonde,’ the second story has twenty-something Neil, single, obsessed with a girl who sits behind the counter at a greeting card shop who he buys a card from every other day but cannot muster up the courage to ask her out. When she begins dating his neighbor Carlo, a man who knows his way around women, Neil becomes an unwitting stalker of the girl he cares for. Hillary Chan, the protagonist of ‘Hawaiian Getaway’ calls random strangers passing by the phonebooth next to her apartment, desperate to strike up a conversation with anyone at all, after being fired from her job and abandoned by her roommate. ‘Bomb Scare’ is set in a high school, where a boy – a member of the geek clique in the class – strikes up a friendship with popular Cammie, who has just had a traumatic experience at a party.

All these synopses make it sound like the stories go somewhere, but they don’t – think of them more as stray reels of unfinished films. Every story ends, rather, is interrupted, at a point where, in a “normal” plot, there would be a major emotional turning point for the characters involved. Be warned, if you seek happy endings in your stories, or some form of closure for the protagonists, you won’t get that from Tomine’s work. Neil, the protagonist of the second story, meets the girl inadvertently in a crowded subway train, and as they’re pressed against each other, he stumbles to find the right words. “I am sure…you really hate me,” his voice trails off. Pause. “Yeah, but no more than anyone else,” she replies, still looking away from him. End of story.

A striking aspect of Tomine’s comics is the hallucinatory nature of what he writes and draws – the kind that leaves you slightly off-kilter once you’re done imbibing them. It’s the kind of buzz you get from a Michel Gondry film, or a Bjork video, or a Weezer song. All in all, these are more experiences than actual stories. His characters are real, flawed, everyday individuals, riddled with insecurities, bearing the weight of misguided intentions, the kind that one wouldn’t notice in a crowd. They are also fucking creepy, just so you know.

Part of what keeps you engaged throughout are the interesting and varied storytelling techniques. Flashback panels, narrative captions and thought balloons, often avoided by modern comic writers, are employed by Tomine to evoke a unique emotional effect. Observe the way he manipulates silence to optimum effect. Silent panels take the story forward, let us into the mental turmoil of the characters, mark the passing of time, even freeze a few moments into an eternity. This is a comic book auteur who knows the tricks of the trade, and uses them to splendid effect.

In many ways, Tomine’s work is a natural progression of the underground comix movement of the seventies, started by the likes of Robert Crumb, nurtured by stalwarts like Pulitzer winner Art Spiegelman and Charles Burns, and given shape and form in the last part of the century by talents such as Dan Clowes, the Hernandez brothers, and Chris Ware. The creator has openly acknowledged the influence of Clowes and the Hernandez brothers in his work –the clean-lined style of his character drawings, in particular, and the deceptively simple backgrounds owe a lot to Clowes’ Ghost World and David Boring. Also, among the hardest things to do when you’re drawing comics is to create people whose faces, body structure and mannerisms do not meld into one or two oft-used templates with hair color or a costume being the only distinguishable way to identify a character. Tomine’s artwork leaves no doubt in your mind about his complete proficiency in this area – every single character is singularly drawn, each just as ugly or plain or pretty as the story demands.

Among the allegations made by his detractors is his inability to stray from his comfort zone, making all his work suspiciously similar. But there is no taking away the power in Tomine’s work to echo the human condition. The stories are about Americans, yet they resonate with every individual in any society who has ever felt alienated, lonely or loveless. Isn’t that what art is all about?

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Comics, Conventions

Going APE, part 1

I nearly did not make it to the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco this Saturday, thanks to Birdy Nam Nam. The band was due to perform at a French music festival in LA on October 1, and I loved them enough to consider staying back for their show. Unfortunately, they ran into visa problems, and Etienne de Crecy headlined instead. The universe, it seems, really wanted me to be at APE. And since my name isn’t Scott Pilgrim, I do not fight the universe.

The universe also put me in a mild state of euphoria when I got off the BART at the UN Plaza/Civic Center station. I flipped through the last page of The Last Colony, the third book in the Old Man’s War trilogy that I was yapping about a few days ago. Random deus ex machina plot points aside, it was a very very satisfying finish, and it also helped that ‘Saadda Haq’ began playing on my earphones that exact same minute, acting like a closing coda to my week-long read sprint.

My primary agenda of the day was to meet Craig Thompson, he of Blankets and Habibi fame, and get a bunch of books signed by him. Entering the convention center, I tried to mark out the signing spots – the CBLDF booth said that they would have Thompson at 2:30 PM, which meant I could amble around at leisure until then. Which I did, studiously avoiding eye contact with the artists selling their minicomics and prints. No offence to anyone, but I’ve blown quarterly comic/art budgets in the first few hours of a con before, and the most I can do now is to learn from my previous mistakes. No contact = no caving in to temptation.

Until I got to the Lee’s Comics booth. Lee’s happens to be one of the most well-known comic-shops in the Bay Area. I had visited their Mountain View store in 2007, and my I-am-from-India spiel had earned me a hefty discount back then. I wasn’t too confident about pulling that off right now, but as I was gazing through their well-selected con collection, I happened to look more closely the guy Lee was talking to. And realized, with what a pulp fiction writer would call ‘a lurch’ – that Craig Thompson was in the house, yo. Craig caught my eye, called me over and said he recognized me from SDCC – I think it’s more likely he saw the fandom-lust on my face. He was talking to the creator of Zahra’s Paradise, I do not remember whether it was the artist or the writer. As it turned out, Craig was signing at Lee’s comics first, and I was technically first in line, so yeah, whoopee. I told him, as he signed and sketched in my books, how much I had enjoyed reading Habibi, and how it was ironic that Holy Terror and Habibi came out the same week – both centered around Islam, both after years of anticipation and with completely divergent world-views. (A separate post on Habibi and its joys will follow soon, I think)

Just for the record, he was totally nice about my getting multiple books signed. I also bought another book from Lee’s Comics, just to not be a dick and support those guys for getting Craig over. Even went back to the end of the line to not make others in the line wait too much.

Once that was done, I began walking through the other end of the hall. And then the second serendipitous/happy moment of the day – I came across Steve Oliff’s booth.

Who’s Steve Oliff? One of the most well-known colorists of the 80s, Oliff brought computer coloring to comics by working on what would arguably be the most renowned manga of the time, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. How did he do that? By creating color guides using airbrush, watercolor and acrylic, which were sent to the computer coloring team in his studio for reference. This was before Photoshop made pixel-pushing lens-flare junkies out of everyone in the industry, and the results were quite unlike anything being published in the market at that time. Otomo himself approved of the project, and Epic comics milked the hell out of it, making Akira one of the best-selling manga runs, ever. (Read this for more information)

I had met Steve in Super-con 2007, where I bought one of his color guides from him, and he introduced me to the work of Tony Salmons in course of our conversation. He had been a hard man to get hold of, since then. A good friend, on seeing my color guide, wanted to buy a few of his own, and none of Oliff’s online contact information worked. He wasn’t at San Diego this year (he was there as a guest this year, he said, and did not have a booth set up. Ugh!) and we weren’t even sure if he did cons any more. So yeah, meeting him, and seeing the pile of Akira pages in front of him, I chuckled to myself, thinking of my friend’s reaction when I told him that I met Steve at APE. I spent a pleasant hour there, looking through the Akira pages, marvelling at the lovely techniques, chatting with Steve about Otomo art, his experiences and comics in general. I got three pages from him, one of them for my friend, and Steve mentioned that he enjoyed working on that particular page a lot because it had a ‘mist’ effect on it.

It was 2 PM. And Kate Beaton was due to sign at the Drawn and Quarterly booth.

(continued)

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Comics

Holy Terror

It’s funny to read reviewers eviscerating Frank Miller’s latest offering, going nuts over the overt anti-Islamic propaganda and the lack of depth in his treatment of suicide bombers, jihad and the war on terror. It’s even funnier to read readers rushing to Miller’s defence. While I haven’t read Holy Terror yet, there are some things that I want to say, like every comic-book reading webmonkey in the world with time on his hands and an opinion up his asshole.

  • Fact: Frank Miller’s writing has stopped being “deep” and “relevant” about 10 years ago.
  • I do not mean this in a bad sense at all. I adore his work, and his artistic skill is unparalleled. Be it minimalism, symbolism, layout or design, Miller has been ahead of the curve. Remember – he was the artist Jim Lee tried to imitate – and failed. (Deathblow, part of the first wave of Image comics. Sounds like a horror-porn movie, and has contents slightly more intellectual than that particular sub-genre, but yeah, the art’s completely wannabe-Miller Lee) Curmudgeonly John Byrne, who was at the top of his game before Miller and who crashed and burned way too early, acknowledges him as one of his inspirations. This coming from Byrne, who’s not too charitable about the comicbook industry in general, is a ringing endorsement for Frank The Tank.
  • That is primarily because Frank Miller’s art has evolved radically over the years. The Eisner-inspired cityscapes in Daredevil gave way to the Goseki Kojima-influenced inking in samurai-noir series Ronin, after which his style took another leap by the time The Dark Knight Returns came out. He then became more abstract – his Elektra Lives Again graphic novel was more refined than TDKR, and by the time he made his triumphant re-entry into comics, with the chiaroscuro Sin City, Miller had reinvented himself yet again. Miller’s proved time and again that he’s completely fearless in experimenting with format, style and presentation. Contrast the garish, electrifying palette of The Dark Knight Strikes Again with the magnificent dignity of 300, and your eyes will pop in disbelief. Yes, it is the same guy, and yes, he is the best at what he does.
  • That said, I do believe that he has his own ‘house style’ when it comes to his writing. His writing is marked by a distinctive rhythm that echo all the way from his characters’ inner monologues to the snappy ironic patter between protagonists. He started it in Daredevil, morphed it into something gut-wrenching by the time he got to his mid-80’s Batman work, and then proceeded to write books that suited his style of writing. By the time Spawn/Batman was out, it was fairly apparent that he could churn out gruff, raspy superhero antics in his sleep. But – that was it. No evolution at all, nothing that might keep pace with the fact that readers were growing up, and that too much of the same thing is not always a good thing.
  • With Dark Knight Strikes Again and All Star Batman And Robin (otherwise known as ‘the Goddamn Batman’ saga), Miller crossed over into genuinely provocative territory. One might see his interpretations of iconic characters as  both pro-baiting and fan-baiting taken to ludicrous extremes – “You want to see what I got?”, I imagine him chuckling to himself, hammering away at his word processor, “This is what I got. How do you like them apples?” Some fans took it, others rolled their eyes, most complained about raped childhoods. And yet, all of them bought his books, thereby proving him right. He could afford to do what he wanted, and make a shitload of money out of it.
  • That said, I don’t think Frank Miller gives a flying fuck about what his readers think. As far as he is concerned, he has a fan following that will buy his books regardless of what he does or how he does it. Hollywood has given him his fuck-you money, and he has, in the course of his career, earned the right to do exactly what he wants to.
  • Ever since the Holy Terror project was announced, Miller has gone on record, time and again, saying how his book will “piss off nearly everyone”.
  • It’s been 10 years since September 11 happened, and the guy’s kept at it. He’s possibly gone and redone a ton of art because it used to be a Batman project and no longer is, right now. If I were him, I would already be pretty pissed with the mainstream comic-book industry for making me redo my work. If I was trying to piss people off then, I would have become a seething cauldron of rage by now, someone not satisfied until the book is publicly burnt, banned in 16 countries around the world, and someone issues an assassination order against me. That would validate ten fucking years of thankless work on a project even with movies to direct and starlets to bang. How do you like them apples?
  • It’s a fucking superhero comic book. You think there’s been a “relevant” superhero comic book since 1986?

TLDR: Frank Miller does not need to be relevant or politically correct. You will all give him your money anyway. *

*I do not intend to. At least not right away. Probably at a $3 sale in a bookshop/convention sometime down the line. The art looks luscious!
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Comics

10 Notable Graphic Novels of the Last Decade

(Originally published in Rolling Stone India, January 2010)

I remember feeling panicky doing this list. Too many titles to consider, and 10 is too less a number. I asked my editor if she would let me make multiple lists, for superhero, romance, manga, sci-fi and so on, but space was a constraint. So I took a deep breath, and chopped down my choices to these 10. Sure, I excluded a lot, but I stand by this list. How many of them have you read?

1. Scott Pilgrim

Writer/Artist: Bryan Lee O’Malley
The hardest thing about praising Scott Pilgrim is this – instead of yapping on about how good it is and why one should read it, you could do nothing better than just thrust a copy of the series into someone’s hands. One of the breakaway successes of the decade, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s series is about an everyday rock-band guitarist from Toronto, his dimension-hopping girlfriend and her seven evil ex-boyfriends, and a bunch of the awesomest supporting characters ever. A postmodern cartoon series featuring more pop-culture references than you can shake a stick at, Scott Pilgrim speaks perfect Twentyfirstcenturyese – a truly enduring series of this generation.

 

 

 

2. Y The Last Man

Writer: Brian K Vaughn; Artist: Pia Guerra

It sounds like the perfect male fantasy – a young man named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey are the only survivors of a planet-wide holocaust that kills every male creature on this planet. But being the last man on earth comes with its disadvantages, as Yorick, accompanied by a scientist and a secret agent, embarks on a journey across the world to find his estranged fiancée and finds himself the target of everyone from male-hating cultists to military strategists. Writer Brian Vaughn brings together a number of themes and plot-lines seamlessly towards a bittersweet ending, and this series remains a high-point of the mainstream sequential storytelling of the decade.

 

 

 

3. Ultimates

Writer: Mark Millar; Artist: Bryan Hitch

Simple recipe: Take a serving of Silver-age superheroes, remove the tint of nostalgia from the wrapping, add a dash of the current socio-political climate and serve with a healthy dose of cynicism. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Bush era reimagining of Marvel’s Avengers not only ramped up the action all the way to eleven, but also ended up making the comic a testament to the way the world went insane in the double-noughts.

 

 

 

 

 

4. Blankets

Writer/Artist: Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson’s graphic novel is not just a love story. It’s a memoir of a boy’s coming of age, of religion and family and the choices that we make on the way to adulthood. Set in Wisconsin, Blankets follows Thompson’s early life in a fundamentalist Christian family and society, the near-obliteration of his love for art by a din of scorn and piousness, and his first love, Raina, who changes his outlook towards life. In a way, the black-and-white art accentuates the timelessness of the themes addressed by Thompson, making this book one of those rare gateway volumes for casual readers.

 

 

 

5. The Goon

Writer/Artist: Eric Powell

It’s ironic – from winning awards for the best humour publication, The Goon has gone on to win accolades such as Best Continuing Series and Best Multimedia Artist, and even an International Horror Guild award. That’s because Eric Powell’s labour of love effortlessly straddles multiple worlds – at one moment, it features toilet humour and slapstick situations that cater to the lowest common denominator, and in the next it becomes an emotional saga of friendship, loyalty, love and revenge. Add to it the Powell’s completely unique painterly style which has evolved over the years to something that leaps off the printed page and you have a series that just gets better with every chapter.

 

 

 

 

6. All Star Superman

Writer: Grant Morrison; Artist: Frank Quitely

Before Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely began writing their twelve-chapter story of the world’s most familiar superhero, Superman, as a character, was at his nadir – fans complained of the lack of present-day relevance, writers bemoaned the lack of storytelling engines for the characters, others just did not care. But in course of those twelve issues, the writer-artist team not only made Superman resume his rightful place in the comic-book pantheon, but they also crafted a perfect saga of heroism that spanned time, dimensions and universes, with an epic, note-perfect ending. Never before has the Big Blue Guy epitomised truth, justice and humanity so effortlessly as in this Eisner Award winning series.

 

 

 

 

7. Fables

Writer: Bill Willingham; Artist: Mark Buckingham

What if fairy tales do not end happily-ever-after? Bill Willingham tries to address that notion in his ongoing series, one in which characters from folklore and fairy tales co-exist among normal people in the present-day, the bulk of them in exile in a neighbourhood in New York City. These characters exist in avatars you had never envisaged. Imagine Snow White as a hard-as-nails politician, Cinderella as an Emma Peele-esque super-spy, and the Big Bad Wolf a bad-ass sheriff. From murder mysteries to swashbuckling adventure to all-out war against a common enemy (who might be the last person you could imagine as a war-mongering Adversary), Fables makes a habit of turning genre conventions on their head.

 

 

 

 

8. Planetary

Writer: Warren Ellis; Artist: John Cassaday

In Planetary, Warren Ellis examines the very mechanisms of what makes genre fiction tick. He weaves archetypes from pulp fiction of the early 20th century – comics, schlocky horror movies, science fiction – into a series that parallels the works of Philip Jose Farmer; a shared universe seen through the eyes of three “archaeologists of the impossible”. While the later half of the series flagged a little because of erratic production schedules, Ellis’s writing and Cassaday’s magnificent artwork made fans across the world gasp when the last issue came out a few months ago, concluding a decade-long series.

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Walking Dead

Writer: Robert Kirkman; Artist: Charlie Adlard

Before zombies took over popular culture this decade, no one could have predicted that a black-and-white indie comic book series where would become the most perfect survival horror tale ever written. Walking Dead is like a George Romero film that does not end. What makes the series so groundbreaking is the way writer Robert Kirkman keeps his characters so vulnerable – there is no guarantee that a cast member would make it through the next chapter, and absolutely no warning about what lies ahead for the protagonists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Promethea

Writer: Alan Moore; Artist: JH Williams III

Promethea, on one hand, has the heart-stoppingly beautiful art of JH Williams III, a man whose immaculate visual design makes every page-turn evoke gasps of wonder. On the other, it features the Grand Guru of the graphic novel, Alan Moore, at his psychedelic best, writing a treatise on magic, feminism and mythology. A complicated series that left many readers polarised about the creators’ intent, Promethea remains one of those rare examples of virtuoso artistic expression that stands the test of time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final thoughts:

1. Of course order does not matter. Are you kidding me?

2. Obviously, all series are to be considered in their entirety. With the exception of Fables, which is valid only from issues 1-75, and the two one-shots 1001 Nights of Snowfall and The Last Castle, and Ultimates, where I’ve considered Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s two-volume run as canon.

3. The list is very mainstream, glad you noticed. The keyword is “notable”.

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Comics, Life

7 Things I did not do at Comicon

  1. Meet Bryan Lee O’Malley Out of all my ‘goals’ for Comicon this year, this was the only one that did not happen. I wanted to meet the creator of Scott Pilgrim, just say hi, and maybe buy some art. He did make an appearance at the con, he did bring art I wanted, and horrors, he was apparently the guy who picked up a Seth DPS that I was eyeing at the Beguiling art store. But I missed him by about an hour. Oh well, he stays in LA, so there’s a high likelihood I’ll bump into him some time. If all else fails, there’s always next year.
  2. Attend the Locke and Key screening Locke and Key – which as I’ve mentioned before as a series that rocked my world – was recently optioned as a TV series. But a few weeks before Comicon, it was announced that the series had not been picked up, unfortunately. (Which means it joins the likes of Global Frequency and David Goyer’s Wonder Woman as aborted shows I would have liked to see) The pilot was supposed to be screened at SDCC, and I was looking forward to watch it. Alas, it was all about the timing. People were queuing for it way before I reached the convention center, and I missed the evening show because I was attending the Eisners.  So, uh…. 
  3. Cosplay  A lot of people dressed up at Comicon. A LOT. I was not one of them. I could probably argue that no, I was dressed up like that fellow Raj from The Big Bang Theory, but I did not shut up in the presence of women, and I definitely did not have a dorky haircut. Also, comic art collectors probably would not take a cosplayer in their midst too seriously.
  4. Give in to temptation (No, really) So I bought some pages for a bargain. I got offered twice my cost price for them the same day. I swallowed hard, punched myself in the face (mentally, of course), and refused. I loved those pages and sometimes, money isn’t everything.
  5. Save on hotel bills Yes, I should have planned before, and would have saved a boatload of money on hotel bills, probably more than enough to cover the cost of another Preacher page. (Seriously, I am getting addicted to the idea of owning Preacher pages. Preacher is the new Hitman, y’all). But I did not, and I paid 225$ per night for my hotel, for 4 nights. My middle-class Indian upbringing wants to choke me to death and kick me in the head for good measure.
  6. Meet a TV cast I would have loved to meet the cast of Chuck, and I would have even settled for The Big Bang Theory. The closest I got to a TV cast was for Once Upon A Time, which I did not enjoy as much, even with Robert Carlyle in it. Ah well, filed under “next time”.
  7. Take More Pictures I took a lot of pictures, I swear I did, but sometimes you just gotta nut up, shut up and let your eyes do the recording. And that’s exactly what happened.
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