New Library Comics: Week of March 10, 2008

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Brunetti, Ivan. Cartooning : philosophy and practice / Oakland, CA : Buenaventura Press, c2007.

Gumby / Walnut Creek, CA : Wildcard Ink, c2006- no. 1

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Particle dreams / Agoura, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1986-1987. nos. 1-2, 4

Lurid tales. / Seattle, WA : Eros Comix, 1991- no. 1

Oh, comics!. Dublin, OH : Corby Visual Productions. nos. 12-14

Terasawa, Buichi, 1955- Cobra / San Francisco, CA : Viz Comics, c1990-1991. nos. 1-12


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Friday Tunes

Sorry for the relative silence this week. Here's a playable playlist of some of the songs I've listened to over the past couple of weeks:

Review: Glacial Period

Glacial Period
by Nicolas De Crécy
NBM ComicsLit, $14.95

This is a strange graphic novella, part future travelogue, part art & cultural critique, part ecological warning tract, and part absurdist narrative.

The book basically breaks down into three acts. In the first, we are introduced to a group of archaeologist-anthropologist-explorers in a far future Earth ravaged by ecological catastrophe into a glacial wasteland. They are accompanied by talking hybrid pig-dogs who are for no discernible reason are named after American super-heroes like Hulk & Spider-Man. (One wonders if this was an unfortunate choice by the translator and that perhaps in the original French they were named after famous European comic characters--Tintin & Asterix perhaps?) We learn that the explorers are looking for artifacts from our earlier civilization, and perhaps a great city; also, that one of the pig-dogs, Hulk, has untoward feelings towards his human mistress.

In the second act, Hulk and the humans separately stumble upon different parts of the Louvre, recently uncovered via a snow-slide from its icy entombment. The humans discover the various paintings hung in the museum and completely misinterpret what they represent.

In the third act, the statures and various pieces of representational art come to life and begin to hound poor Hulk, impressing upon his the history of the Louvre and the downfall of the prior civilization. Hulk then mounts one of the large dog-like statues and rescues two of the humans who had become trapped in a mini-avalanche. They ride off into the sunset.

The plot summary above doesn't even begin to describe the strangeness, so I don't feel that I'm giving much away. The best part is the satirical second act, as the explorers take the representations of their finds far too literally. It serves as a critique of the potential follies of anthropology as well as the times that produced the art in question. The other parts of the narrative don't fare as well; the introductory section establishes relationships that are not successfully followed through on, while the end defies logic and undercuts the earlier parts with its use of the fantastic and absurd that comes out of nowhere. My understanding is that this is De Crécy's style; he just needed to either curtail it here or set us up better for it.

De Crécy, a graduate of the Angoulême comics art school, is a skilled storyteller and is able to work the reproductions of the various art works into his work with ease. This is partially an educational enterprise, done in conjunction with the Louvre to promote appreciation of the arts in general and their collections in particular. I'm not sure this is what they were expecting!

Still, there's enough good stuff here to recommendthat you consider giving it a look.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

Bad Reading Habits

I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a tremendous back-log of comics that I haven't read yet. There are three whole short-boxes of comics floppies in my to-be-read 'pile,' not to mention the scores of unread graphic novels and manga sitting on my shelves.

This means that in the evening when I'm selecting a comic to read next, I don't necessarily go for what I think will be the best read, but often the quickest, in an attempt to cut down on the sheer volume of comics that need to be read. So anything by Chuck Dixon? An easy read, five minutes tops. But even though an issue of Casanova will most likely be a better comic, the time spent per page count will be higher. So the last several issues of Casanova sit in one of the boxes.

Sometimes if I get a nice long weekend with nothing else to do I'll pull out a long run of something and give it a read. But those chances are few and far between these days.

One peculiar thing that happens, particularly with mini-series, is that I'll read the first issue to see if it's any good. If it is, I'll get the rest of the issues, but many times they go unread until the series is finished. Then I realize that several months have gone by since I read the first issue and I don't know remember what's going on. Going back to read the first issue again seems counterproductive--reading something I've already read when there are so many unread comics to be read. It's like a vicious circle or something.

Of course one solution to all this is to buy less comics. I've managed to cut about $100 off of my monthly DCBS order, so that's a start. I could also move more things to wait-for-the-trade, but that just means that the bookshelves grow more packed instead of the short boxes.

I long ago accepted the fact that I'll never read every prose novel I want to read. I guess I'll have to accept the same thing about comics.

Sigh.

And another thing

The blog below this one about marriage and weddings is the one I wrote to you about today. But here are a few general facts I need to mention also.

I was mentioned in the first paragraph of an article in the Feb issue of GQ on page 73. I'm still really thrilled by this kind of thing. That's how you can tell that I'm not "really" famous.

Here is a link to a video interview of me at the Purple Onion, a couple hours before my show there a couple weeks ago. Michael Capozzola – cartoonist, stand-up comic, and PR guy extraordinaire – is the interviewer.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=24596

I was featured in the March-May issue of Australian publication Vegan Voice magazine. Subscribe here and support compassion down under!
http://veganic.net/

Thanks for indulging my fragile ego!
Smooches,
3 thighs

Phony Wedding, Real Marriage

I’ve been away from the blogometer for quite a while and for good reason. The Crazy Half-Nekked Wife and I journeyed across the continent of our birth to the West Coast where comedy, chaos and cocktails ensued.

First stop, San Francisco. My comedy shows at the Purple Onion were both sellouts -–ticket-wise, not content-wise– and Johnny Steele was brilliant. Only an idiot would follow that guy on stage but I was up to the task.

Did another show the next night at a vegan medical conference up in Santa Rosa and met some terrific folks. It’s always fun to chat with people who don’t have shreds of dead animal carcasses dangling from their teeth. (insert smiley face with wink here)

I also signed books at WonderCon, a comics convention in SF that same weekend. Here is a shot of me with Stormtrooper Elvis, a foreshadowing of things to come later in this blog. Just like a Bergman film.



After such a far out weekend of grooviness, we unwound by hiking in Marin County with a group of friends and followed it with some hot tubbing and a massage. Go here for a short video of our friend Anne and me enjoying our hike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4OEm5k7Om4

It was an extremely pleasurable day with the exception of the hot tub. Anne's boyfriend, Nemo, for reasons yet to be determined by local law enforcement officals, assaulted our eyes with a tiny, black, shiny strip of fabric stretched across his reproductive organ. He called it a bathing suit. We called it the recurring centerpiece of future nightmares.

While in SF, we also went to the studio of my good friend and eminent Rock & Roll photographer, Pat Johnson, for some new publicity shots. He’s the coolest daddio who ever stroked a goatee and we always have fun at his place. Here’s one of the shots he took. In my mind, I’m BB King.



From SF, we flew like naked apes strapped inside a metal tube to Las Vegas for a reenactment of our wedding of six years ago, when I surprised Ashley and a few of her family members with a wedding by an Elvis impersonator. (Yes, I am a classy dude.) Since so few friends or family were at the original shindig, we decided to throw the whole dang thing again. Here’s the pic the chapel provides for only a huge amount of money. Incidentally, there is something funky about the color here. In real life, Ashley's hair is approximately 100% less red than this.



Simultaneously hysterical and touching, the wedding etched its image in the minds of all in attendance for who knows how long. At least until they got wasted at the after party.

Vegas is one of those places that you can’t believe exists outside of the Old Testament, just moments before God obliterates it with a flaming tower of vengeance. But that’s not why I like it. Even though I don’t gamble, it’s one of the last places on earth where you can walk around with a cocktail in your hand and smoke cigars indoors. It’s the little things in life that make me smile.

Here is a shot of me and my good friend, Lance hanging out in a casino. He’s a porn star or something, I think.



Here is a shot of my wife, Ashley, and her bevy of hot babe friends. I'm never too busy for a trip to the beach with her and her gal pals.



I hope you enjoyed this tour of my memory of the last two weeks. Another installment in a week or so.
Smooches.

That Sense of Wonder

Remember that sense of wonder you had when you read comics as a youngster. I can remember going to the spinner rack at the newsstand, being presented with so many choices and having to narrow it down to just one or two comics. Then getting home, cracking it open, and reading it cover-to-cover--the story, the letters pages, even the ads--over and over; pouring over it like a Talmudic scholar.

Where is that sense of wonder now? What made it leave? Is it age and experience? Have I just read too many comics?

Were the comics of my youth better in some way? By most objective measures today's comics are overall better--better writing, better art, better production values. And there are certainly many more choices in both types of material and in sheer number of comics being published. But is that 'wow' still there for a new comics reader?

Forgive me, I'm just feeling a bit melancholy today.

Does today's eleven-year-old kid who cracks open a new volume of Naruto have the same feeling of excitement, wonder and possibility that I did when reading an issue of DC Comics Presents?

I certainly hope so.