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Breakdowns -- A Clearer Cure is Soured

March 25, 2004

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks since the last column. The job situation is pretty good; that is, I now have one, though I won’t start until 4/19, so money is stretched a little tighter than we’d like, but livable. As for my previous employer, no hard feelings, and rot in Hell.

The Publisher Report Cards finally concluded, and while I’ve been pleasantly surprised that they went over quite well with a lot of people, with plenty of publishers writing to me about them as if I actually had some authority, I wasn’t surprised at all that I would finally irritate one of them. Larry Young took the AiT/PlanetLar report card in fairly good stride, considering it was the second harshest (by my figuring) one I did. He chose not to quibble with me calling some of their books “junk”, since I did like others a great deal. But he, and Brian Wood, both said that there have never been concrete plans for a DEMO trade, so my essentially saying their public assertion of this was a lie is inaccurate and unfair. I had some other information, but not from these two direct sources, so I have to take them at their word and apologize. I wouldn’t want anyone that read my comments to think they were just dicking around readers and that they should just wait for a trade that may never happen without solid sales of the monthly issues. It’s a good book and I’d like to see it do well enough to warrant a trade, and one should remember the monthly issues have some nice extras in there that almost certainly couldn’t fit in a trade already collecting twelve issues of story.

Now, the fact is not lost on me that I often end up apologizing or correcting something from a previous column. This is something I wanted to address a bit, among other items, in the exercise at the end of the column, wherein I attempt to give myself a report card as a reviewer and columnist. It seems only fair after the publisher report cards, and yet, still a little rigged, the way I like it.

First Issues

KINETIC #1 by Kelley Puckett and Warren Pleece. DC Comics. $2.95

Somehow I’ve missed ever reading anything Puckett’s written, but Pleece I usually like, and this first issue ended up being pretty good. It’s about a high school senior, Tom Morrell, who’s a hemophiliac, among other maladies, a rather extreme version of the 98-pound weakling that turns into a superhero. Well, the turning or blossoming of superpowers hasn’t happened yet, but I assume it will happen soon, since the cliffhanger ending shows a big truck about to hit him. Before that, we get to know Tom a bit, his depressing, hypercautious life, and see a bit of hope—a sweet new girl student who seems to like him—snatched away by his frustrated but well-meaning mother. Not much happens, but Puckett makes Tom accessible and interesting enough that I’d like to see more.

BLACK-EYED SUSAN #1 by Patrick Neighly and Donny Hadiwidjaja. Mad Yak Press. $3.50
A young woman, Susan, wakes up in her spaceship to find she’s apparently slept through some sort of invasion. Her crew is nowhere to be found. She crash lands on a less-than-hospitable planet, hooks up with a silent but capable young Anakin Skywalker-type kid, and later a big, strong hero, and they set out to keep themselves alive on the invaded planet and hopefully, to find some other survivors.

It’s a workable concept, and Neighly’s shown himself to be a bright writer in past work such as last year’s SUBATOMIC, but unfortunately, there’s little of interest here so far. Neither Susan nor the other characters are compelling beyond a mildly amusing wisecrack or two. Hadiwidjaja’s art is competent in the storytelling but rather flat, and a little too cartoony for what is supposed to be a thrilling SF adventure. There’s nothing offensive here, but it all needs to get quite a bit better—fast—to warrant continuation.

Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks

REAL STUFF by Dennis P. Eichhorn and Various Artists. Swifty Morales Press. $19.95
Fledgling publisher Swifty Morales Press has collected the best of the twenty out of print Fantagraphics issues of REAL STUFF and REAL SMUT, along with a couple other pieces from other sources. Eichhorn is something of an anomaly in the genre of autobio commix, in that he’s actually lived. That’s not meant to diminish the likes of Crumb and others, but as these stories show, Eichhorn is a rough-and-tumble fellow, bedding many ladies, fighting many men, and taking copious amounts of booze and drugs throughout his life. This is no navel-gazing exercise.

Publisher and editor Caleb Wright has chosen the sexiest or most outrageous tales from those issues, and also chose to sequence them in chronological order. The first choice is quite understandable, as he wants an exciting book, and if it succeeds we can expect another volume. The second editorial choice is logical enough, but would be a more significant choice if the later tales reflected some sort of growth or self-reflection on Eichhorn’s part, which they don’t.

That doesn’t mean the book isn’t recommended, because Eichhorn really is an excellent storyteller. These moments in his life are usually without any deep meaning, and he avoids really digging in to explore, for instance, why he has three failed marriages, but he tells a great story. Oftentimes, the stories come from him living a reckless life, such as his experiences while drunk or on drugs or with prostitutes, while sometimes he just happens into a bad situation through no fault of his own, like when, as a kid, a friend invites him over for dinner and the mother feeds him a burger made from dog food, and after he eats it, the whole family laughs at him. There are a couple dozen gems here, stories you’d love to hear in a bar or now will be recounting in a bar, and Eichhorn has the immense good fortune of collaborating with lots of great alternative cartoonists before they became more famous, like Dave Cooper, Peter Bagge, Julie Doucet, Robert Gregory, Joe Sacco, Seth & Chester Brown, Peter Kuper, David Collier, Jason Lutes, Jim Woodring and quite a few more. Based on the artists alone, this would be worth a look, but the stories are all compelling, often funny, strange and occasionally poignant. They do lack the ability to stay with the reader for long, but it’s compelling reading while one is doing it.

SUPREME POWER VOL. 1: CONTACT by J. Michael Straczynski, Gary Frank and Jon Sibal. Marvel Comics. $14.99
I waited out this series in order to read it in two gulps o’ trades, as is my wont these days, and this would appear to be a miniseries that works better that way. What it is, is JMS’ revamp of old Marvel alternate universe superteam The Squadron Supreme, initially a rather half-baked spoof of DC’s Justice League of America until late writer Mark Gruenwald put his best effort into ennobling the concept.

Now, it so happens that I’ve never read Gruenwald’s SQUADRON SUPREME maxiseries/graphic novel. Just one of those books on my mental list that I haven’t gotten around to buying. So I can’t say how much Straczynski takes from it, or if it’s better or worse, but I can say that this is good stuff, one of his better projects, at least this volume. Certainly Frank’s art is an improvement, almost as pretty and detailed as Bryan Hitch’s, but with something of the stiff, quaint elegance of John Severin. Some would argue that not much happens here in these first six issues, but really, this story is mainly about Mark Milton, aka Hyperion, the Superman analogue who fell to Earth to immediately become part of a U.S. government project. Like the Jim Carrey character in THE TRUMAN SHOW (Carrey’s name is mentioned once in the book, presumably as a nod to the film), Mark’s identity and morality were formed in a bubble, based on lies. His “parents” don’t love him, they fear him, as do most of the unseen observers. But Mark’s abilities (think Superman again) mean that very soon, he does see these people, and knows he’s different from every other kid he can see in the distance. He’s utterly alone. The government counts on this, as it will make him even more dependent on them, even more loyal to his country. Every attempt at manipulation just builds toward what one must assume will culminate in Mark’s eventual rebellion and rage. Straczynski wisely keeps Mark placid and mysterious, still waters running deep and all, so that the backlash will be all the more dramatic when it comes.

He also shows admirable, and surprising, restraint throughout, avoiding a lot of the Borsht Belt humor he peppers AMAZING SPIDER-MAN with, and he portrays Presidents Carter, Bush I and Clinton as average men, not great but not evil, just dealing with the Hyperion situation as best they can, though there’s a nice, ironic sequence where Clinton addresses the public, describing Mark in wholesome, All-American ways that are totally at odds with the military operation we see him perform in Desert Storm.

While this is largely Mark’s story, the other characters are interesting enough, if not exactly well-defined. Kyle Richmond, aka Nighthawk, is still a multi-millionaire, but now he’s African-American and only stops crime committed by Caucasians. The Doctor (Spectrum) derives his power from a jewel from Mark’s spacecraft, and while he has always been a loyal military man, there are strong hints his mind may now be occupied by an alien presence. The Flash analogue, The Blur, is also now African-American, and willing to cash in on his powers, for money, prizes and babes. That’s a bit of an uncomfortable stereotype, as it seems like of the relatively few African-American superheroes, a high percentage effectively sell out, or don’t quite have the same selflessness and heroism of their white counterparts. However, Straczynski does portray the character as smart and wanting to do the right thing, and he’s deep enough to be concerned about one’s purpose in life, which results in a nice scene with Mark that one assumes will make him change his own life.

I must admit I expected little from this book, which seemed to be just a rehash of something that worked before, just another way to service some trademarks with a stretched-out story. But it really is working beautifully, not exactly exciting but very smart and readable.

MAGIC WHISTLE #9: BIGGER, LARGER, AND BIGGER by Sam Henderson. Alternative Comics. $11.95
Ha, Hee, and Ha!

More? Oh, all right. In order to maybe get this thing in bookstores, the series is now going to be annual trades rather than floppy issues that only come out twice a year anyway. Good idea, though I’m not sure they needed to keep the numbering, which could confuse people. Also, $9.95 seems the right price, but what do I know?

In this volume, we get a lot of Henderson’s really lame concepts, and part of the fun is watching him struggle, and succeed, in making things like “Pickles the Exploding Dog” and “Hippie Beach” funny. As one might expect from a longer collection, there’s a higher percentage of material that doesn’t quite work, from the Dirty Danny strips to “The Delegate Rorshach Test” to “The Lighter Side of Bajinas,” but Henderson scores with “The Newlyweds”, cowritten by Erica Merchant, which farcically details a couple who want no children finagling all manner of money from their parents for the baby that never comes. Henderson’s one-panel gags are always wonderfully absurd nonsense, and the best piece here is the longest and most self-referential, about the travails of a hammy supporting character fired from a comic strip, who has the misfortune of buying characters from Henderson to people his own new strip. All that was left was the worst character, and it turns out the rest of the characters (seen previously in MAGIC WHISTLE as being for sale) were ripped off from other strips, so everyone is pissed at Henderson. The author seems to be having a ball here, working in different art styles to depict a jungle adventure strip, a layer soap opera strip, and even a Tijuana Bible. Henderson is really at his best when he’s following his muse to oblivion, when his ideas are at their most ridiculous and stupid, and this collection has plenty of that, in a good way.

PARABLES by Michel Gagne’. Gagne International Press. $18.95
From my negative reviews of supposed “all-ages” books like ADABADAD and others, I guess I’m the guy who thinks he knows what is and isn’t “all-ages.” I can’t help it; I do have kids, and I know what’s appropriate for them and what isn’t. LION KING 1 ½, which I watched tonight, is fine. Funny, visually attractive, and with the typical but enduring Disney message about the unique kid going out and finding his own place in the world, almost always without his real parents but with some surrogate or two in their stead. It works.

These parables, not so much. Not for kids, and not for me.

Now, I like a lot of Gagne’s art, but the work here looks to be the result of some bad trips in the ‘70s, rather than the period of 1997-2000 in which it was created. He uses a lot of blacks, depicting creepy silhouettes at times similar to the work of Tim Burton in his own books and THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. And nightmares are just what will happen if a kid of six or under sees almost any page here. I’ll get to whether older children can handle this work in a moment.

The first story, “A Search for Meaning: The Story of Rex” outlines the problem right in the title. Do you want to discuss the meaning of life with your kids before bedtime, or do you want them to be able to sleep? Rex is a cute fox who goes searching for meaning, high and low, before being gripped by darkness, which one may assume is an existential dilemma. But have no fear, young-uns, because a comet comes and shatters the darkness’ entrails, and—wait, this is a kids’ book, right? Right?!

Let’s try another one. In “The Story of He,” a four-legged, equine creature is born with several horns on his head. He wanders until he finds some unicorns, who drive him out for being different, causing him to fall down a mountain and break all but one horn off. When he meets them again, they don’t recognize him, and only see him as a large unicorn. He is revered and admired and takes a wife, making a life for himself with these unicorns, who somehow don’t notice when his horns grow back.

Now, this one is fine. A little violent, sure, but the idea of having to act like you’re something you’re not in order to be accepted is an important lesson to…hmm. That can’t be right.

In “The Great Shadow Migration,” shadows get separated from the light, which upsets the balance of the world, resulting in a living hell of war and destruction, until the balance is restored. Again with the disturbing silhouettes, and again, it’s too metaphysical to work for kids, while writing like “When the shadows/Reached the light/They were overwhelmed/With delight” isn’t sophisticated or mellifluous enough to stick with adults.

“The Bird, the Spider and the Octopus” is Gagne’s fourth storybook, actually comprising three short, separate tales. “The Bird” in question thinks his beak is too big, so he asks a crab to chop it off, which he reluctantly does, leaving the bird with a grotesquely shattered, useless mess where his beak should be. It should effectively stop kids from getting nose jobs, I admit, but to get the “be yourself” message across better, buy Eric Carle’s THE MIXED-UP CHAMELEON, huh? “The Spider” is incomprehensible, something about a spider spinning such a huge web it ensnares rockets and buildings and eventually even the moon. It seems to be about not reaching beyond one’s grasp, which is a message Gagne should have heeded. “The Octopus” is more Lil’ Guignol, with the octopus severing one tentacle after another for no reason until all that is left is a lump.

With its stark, sinister artwork and dark or adult themes, this is not a work for children, nor does it meet the basic requirement of children’s literature sounding good when read aloud, as Gagne frequently mangles the meter and comes up with non-rhymes like “creation/apparition” and “damaged/enraged” that perhaps bespeak a language barrier. Adults may appreciate some of the imagery and the attempt at heavier themes, but none of it is very successful.

IRON WOK JAN VOLS. 1-4 by Shinji Saijyo. ComicsOne. $9.95 ea.
Much as I enjoy The Food Network’s IRON CHEF program, I really had no interest in this book until I started to hear how good it was. Chalk this up to another victory for word of mouth, because this is one excellent, utterly gripping series.

Jan is a young prodigy at Chinese cooking, being hired on as a junior chef at the esteemed restaurant Gobancho, at the request of his grandfather, a legendary chef himself, and the man who trained Jan. The hiring doesn’t sit well with the strong-willed but otherwise sweet Kiriko, who is in training herself, and may one day take over Gobancho. It’s not just that her turf is being encroached upon, but that Jan really is unpleasant—totally self-involved and viciously competitive. It’s not his fault, though, as this is how his grandfather raised him, instilling in Jan a drive for cooking supremacy with an unrelenting barrage of verbal abuse and actual physical violence. No hobbies, no joy. Cooking is all Jan knows, and if he cannot be the best chef there is, he has nothing.

Jan is a fascinating, heartbreaking character, but Saijyo doesn’t stop there. The basic formula for each story (there are about nine per volume) is a test of cooking skill and ingenuity, between Jan and Kiriko or another opponent, or even himself. Though the formula rarely varies, each story is very suspenseful, and even educational, as readers will learn interesting facts about Chinese cooking and how ingredients reach with each other, such as, say, how onions help break down the chemical bonds in steak to make it more tender. It’s a splendid marriage of technical information with strong characterization, and the second through fourth volumes reach a fever pitch of suspense, as they deal with a large cooking tournament that doesn’t appear to conclude until Volume 5. Wonderful stuff, and I’m itching to read more.

GYO VOLS. 1 & 2 by Junji Ito. Viz Communications. $12.95
Juni Ito, creator of the unsettling manga TOMIE and UZUMAKI, returns with another horror series, albeit one more science fiction in nature. Still, it’s a pretty natural progression from UZUMAKI, which dealt in part with biology being perverted by evil forces.

Here, the evil force is of unclear origin, perhaps the result of a Japanese experiment with gas in World War II, perhaps some angry spirits, or maybe even a combination of both. This has resulted in, of all things, fish with spidery legs sprouting from them, compelled to zoom over the countryside, wreaking havoc. It gets worse quickly, as Ito can always be relied upon to wring as many variations of an idea as possible, so the walking fish are soon joined by ravenous walking sharks, then fearsome bears, and inevitably, humans, even chains of them, all strung together on top of these skittering, unnatural contraptions.

We first get to see the beginnings of the horror with a young couple, the girl very sensitive to the awful smell surrounding the remote cabin they’re visiting. The couple will soon be separated, with the girl of course becoming one of these monstrosities herself.

The idea of the morbid gases of dead animals and people driving inscrutable engines of destruction is bizarrely compelling, and Ito’s grotesque vision is arresting, but by the middle of the second, concluding volume, the air leaks out of the story, no pun intended. A romantic subplot for the young man, the mad scientist character, and the whole purpose of these creatures and how to stop them, are all underdeveloped or feel like filler to keep the perverse imagery going. Ito’s strength comes from giving the reader every iteration of a premise, upping the ante each time, so the ambiguity of whether these creatures will ever be defeated just feels like he couldn’t come up with a good finale, or ran out of time. The second volume also adds two unrelated horror shorts by Ito, one very brief and absurd, the other quite good.

MIGHTY LOVE by Howard Chaykin. Vertigo/DC Comics. $24.95
Chaykin’s reputation is such that any project that doesn’t have lots of nudity and blowjobs might be seen by some as selling out. Well, this may be a tamer book by his standards, but necessarily so, as it’s more of a cute romance book. Yes, there’s a mystery, there’s some seediness and profanity, even some prostitutes, but the key element of the story are these two superheroes and how they meet, don’t get along, but start to become attracted to each other, while in their secret identities they’re bitter enemies. He’s a high-powered defense attorney and she’s a driven detective in a corrupt system. One small complaint I had is that while I can understand her vigilantism, when she can’t bring people to justice as a police officer, it’s hard to reconcile his defending these creeps and then, once they get off, donning spandex and making sure they get what they deserve. Why did he ever get into this line of work, and how is he so good at it, when he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing? It doesn’t make sense, but Chaykin needs to use it so the two characters can clash their day-job ideologies, as happens in most good romantic comedies. If you can accept this, the book works pretty well, with good development of the twists and turns of the crime story and some sharp dialogue. Chaykin’s art is as fine as ever, with a modern sheen courtesy of Dave Stewart. I don’t know that it’s satisfying enough to drop $25 on, but it’s good.

The Worst Webcomic Ever

I wasn’t looking for it—why would I? But, with the help of The Comics Burrito’s John Pierce, I found it; that is, I agree with him on the awfulness of MY AMERICAN, MY BUKKAKE by Susannah Breslin. Now, look, we’ve all been there—Dad dies, we feel the need to watch a woman accept load after hot load all over her, or even take the treatment ourselves. And sure, we feel it’s this shitty world’s fault, and someone needs to feel our pain. But then we come to the realization, as I hope our little bukkaketeer Susannah does someday, that it’s no reason to punish innocent comics readers. This really is inexcusably, hilariously bad, ugly, pretentious trash, skidding giddily across the cum-soaked floor from ill-conceived exorcism of personal pain into the kind of ineptitude we can all feel good despising.

Lest I end the reviews on a sour note, I should mention that the best superhero book of the month is Darwyn Cooke’s DC: THE NEW FRONTIER #3 and the best non-superhero book is Adrian Tomine’s OPTIC NERVE #9, the first part of perfect-so-far “White On Rice” three-part graphic novel. Great comics both.

Reviewer Report Card: Chris Allen

In the past twelve months, Breakdowns has changed at least a little, both in how I approach it and how it comes out. As for the latter, the most obvious change has been that the past few months has seen the column go from weekly to semiweekly, and sometimes there has been three weeks between editions. The benefit, I think, has been a little more time to think about certain topics or books, and to on occasion rewrite, which has always been a luxury. A few people seem to have missed the weekly edition, but somehow I get more feedback now, perhaps because it gives readers more time to consider a column and write about it, and maybe the fact that these columns are now longer makes them seem “weightier” or more substantial. My own favorite comics critic wrote to me last week to tell me the column was like “a full meal,” which was really gratifying.

The reason I went to a less-frequent column has to do with time. Specifically, I was focusing on the column to the detriment of my previous job, as well as my family. Not alarmingly serious detriment for the latter, though something I’ve addressed, but certainly a problem on the former. I mean, hey, I don’t have that job anymore. Just because one can get all one’s work done at the office and still have time to write some reviews, doesn’t mean one should, you know?

Another part of the time problem is that for quite a while now, I’ve been trying to get various projects either off the ground or completed, some of them comics. It’s not particularly hard reviewing GYO, but that’s still a chunk of time I could have devoted to scripting a page or two of a comic or graphic novel. It’s been slow, but I’m actually making some progress on some of these projects, and naturally, I find them a bit more satisfying than reviewing somebody else’s project.

In a way, this may benefit the column, in that I’m a little less likely to get worked up about silly comics industry nonsense. A year ago, the news of AVENGERS canceling and relaunching yet again may have provoked a couple column inches, but now, who cares? I probably do less of the topical commentary now also due to the fact that so many quality bloggers will have already covered the topics in depth before I can get a new column up.

Another way the column has changed has been a slow transition away from “floppies” to graphic novels. I’m still going to buy a SWAMP THING #1 if I’m curious enough, or review a new floppy someone sends me, but more and more I’ll drop the monthly in favor of the inevitable trade paperback, now that almost all publishers can be relied upon to collect anything worthwhile fairly rapidly. Reviewing complete stories makes for better reviews, anyway. Plus, in trying to organize the past year’s worth of floppies for sale and orderly storage, I became very frustrated at all the trouble it takes to keep, and keep up with, all these things.

The infrequency of the column, and my need not to be tied to labor-intensive projects, probably means that multi-part features like reviewing every HELLBOY trade, or more publisher report cards, are a thing of the past. Approaching each new column like a clean slate is more where I’m at these days. I also don’t have time to interview people, and feel a bit burned by the last artist who agreed to one and then never answered the questions I sent him.

In trying to be more organized, I found I’ve unintentionally snubbed a few small press creators nice enough to send me books for review. There are quite a few I need to get to, and I’ll try my best to do this.

If this all sounds kind of whiny, I don’t mean it to, as I actually thought I did a pretty good job overall. I think I’m probably better at longer reviews, but the short ones are also okay, and frankly, many books really don’t need or deserve a lot of verbiage. I think the range of material covered is about as broad as anyone out there, and I’ve increased, and probably improved, my manga coverage as I’ve become more familiar with it. And the fact that, as a non-blog, I’ve found a lot of good blogs linking to me, as well as the fact I was able to branch out into reviews for The Comics Journal and NinthArt, leads me to think I’m doing something right.

Areas of improvement would be being better informed about doings in the industry. While I always kept up with the bigger picture of comics in Journalista!, I should keep up more with the less important, but frequently discussed, news at the more superhero-focused sites, if only so I don’t get caught unawares when important stuff does happen there. I might also be better informed about webcomics, and of course I’m not alone in being less than stellar in criticizing comics art, which is much more difficult to review than the plot and dialogue and characterization. And I suppose I should continue to keep my mean streak in check, or find other outlets for it. It’s hard, as this often results in some funny lines, but too often I’ve looked back at some of them in embarrassment for both myself and the target of my derision. I guess I’m mean enough to think it up, but nice enough to feel bad later. I’ve only had this problem the last thirty-four years, though, so I’m sure it will clear right up soon. Incidentally, I’m not talking about any of the negative reviews above, which were justified, and perhaps even too kind.

Next Time: I’ve been reading a lot, though some of it has been multi-volume work I may want to save to review in big chunks later. I don’t want to say what I’ll be reviewing yet, actually, but expect the usual variety.

Chris Allen

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Chris Allen
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Chris Allen has written for THE COMICS JOURNAL; NINTH ART; COMIC BOOK GALAXY and POPIMAGE.

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