Two Funnies

Two cartoons this evening. The first is an historical scrap from the life of fictional explorer Chance Oxblood by Grant Reynolds from his Comic Diorama: Collected Comics. The second is by best-of-the-bunch Roz Chast from the 30 November 2009 issue of The New Yorker. I've tagged "faces" so pay deep attention to those. Enlarge both for the reading.

Define.
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Coming soon: an eating-my-shoe post and a rare color image.

Now, End-Product-of-Laughter "Stitches" I Can Get Behind

My favorite sequence from David Small's Stitches (2009).

One of the reasons why I was underwhelmed by this book is that it feels like a series of painted cartoons instead of a comic. The last two panels on the page above are art school exercises: draw a curious and youthful eye (good!) and then a scary eye (good!). They are oddly free-floating illustrations, as if from a sketchbook, and it doesn't seem worthwhile to add them up. Add to the mix many pretty scenic double splash pages and there's almost too much independence.

As for the story, even though it's Small the small child who gets caught between Small the artist's tug-of-war between extreme innocence and extreme cruelty, my arms were hurt.

I am very close to declaring 2009 the Year of Trite Acclaimed Comics. Formal sophistication meets flat sentiment and thought. A thrilling style can't convincingly offset or reignite sitcom writing.

The following spring to mind:
1. George Sprott by Seth.
2. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.
3. Greg Rucka's unbearable Detective Comics dialogue.
4. AD: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld.
5. The Nobody by Jeff Lemire.

You can still use words, you know.

My comic of the year? Citizen Rex for its immense difficulty and absurd final issue "message"? Maybe. Gaiman and Allred's "Metamorpho" from Wednesday Comics? Maybe. The ever-reliable Joe Sacco's Footnotes From Gaza, which I haven't yet seen and may not even be out? I'll go with Sacco any day.

Sorry, The Graphic Novel, I'm wanted elsewhere.

Cultivar

(From Jules Feiffer's Ronald Reagan in Movie America. Enlarge.)

Norm MacDonald roasts Bob Saget: "Bob has a beautiful face, like a flower -- yeah, cauliflower. No offense, but...your face...looks...like a cauliflower." Reagan's Feiffer-made face looks like the Grinch made out of broccoli. So it's plainly obvious why I have quoted Norm MacDonald on Bob Saget.

Pot-o-gold

This plum wonder's from a Gary Panter sketchbook in RAW Vol.2 No.3. The page break of the notebook officiates the surprise of page two. Bottom left to right and then up up up. Those leaky eyes!

Okay, I'm on a faces kick.

The Woodwork

Citizen Rex -- so far so fun -- moves at quite a clip. Gutters and closures and the opposite of decompression oh my. Panel to panel, I get lost. Intra-panel, baby, I get lost. Look at panel one up top: abruptly flying garments! The caption "Outside:" is just as abrupt: where'd the inside go? Are they under a bridge? Look at the moon shift! This is some Coconino County bullshit. I second suddenly-there Flying Squirrel Girl's question mark.

(From Citizen Rex #1 by Mario and Gilbert Hernandez.)

Shaw Could Use a Lish

Scan a 700+ page monster and you get the blurs.

Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button is a cushiony comic. Place it behind your head and its brickiness will soften. I mostly mean that it's a huge hug, a pat pat on the back. No hard feelings. Barely any hardness at all. Precociousness heals all wounds.

His faces, though, on the other hand, however. Strange to think that nuance enters the picture during moments of highly overt wretchedness, but that's what I think.

Someone pioneer comics physiognomy right now. Add Sean Phillips' work on Criminal. Who else for faces? Lynda Barry's bulgers and frighteners. Basil Wolverton. John Cassaday. Charles Burns.

And now for something grocery related (also from Shaw):
BzzzzileyCyruzzzz.

Yard Sale Wilmer

Drew this in BC two years back. Knew then and there that it would be downhill from there. Witness my apex.