Graphic Lit: Three from D&Q

One of the things that comics do remarkably well is provide the reader with a tangible sense of place.

Unlike prose, which must rely on verbal descriptions, or photography, which can only show you a small section of a scene, comics can immerse you in a landscape, be it town or country, giving you a concrete feel for a particular area, real or imaginary.

Three new graphic novels from the small press publisher Drawn and Quarterly underscore that idea by focusing on cultures and countries far outside of the U.S.’s boundaries.

“Jamiliti and Other Stories” by Rutu Modan.

Though not an official follow-up to her acclaimed 2007 book “Exit Wounds,” this collection of short stories by Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan nevertheless proves that she’s much more than a one-trick pony.

Modan’s tales deal with longing and isolation, though a sly bit of satire frequently shines through, as in “The Panty Killer,” an unusual murder mystery, or “Homecoming,” about a family that is forever waiting for the return of the prodigal soldier son.

The early stories here tend to take on a fairy tale tone, while more recent work, such as the title story, focus on the characters and the way they brush against one another.

No doubt some of Modan’s themes are lost to American audiences. You get the sense that there are issues specific to Israeli concerns. That doesn’t change the fact that these are wonderful, haunting tales though, that should only further cement Modan’s reputation as a first-class storyteller.
“Aya of Yop City” by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie.

This is a sequel to last year’s “Aya,” a charming look at life in the Ivory Coast during the late 1970s, when the country was prosperous and on the verge of modernity.

Thankfully, everything that made the first book so delightful is evident here as well. More soap opera than social drama, “Yop City” finds its characters continuing to make fools of themselves in the pursuit of love and/or success, with issues of gender, class and colonialism well hidden in the background. Only headstrong Aya, the Greek chorus of the book, has any sense.

The book risks turning its large cast into cartoonish types at times, but they remain winning and likable even when some of them are exhibiting inane or frustrating behavior.

This is a sumptuously illustrated book; Oubrerie’s art gives you a real sense of the particular place and time. Ultimately though, it’s the characters you remember best. Even if you don’t know the country, you know these people.

“Burma Chronicles” by Guy Delisle.

Having already chronicled his travels to China and North Korea (in “Shenzhen” and “Pyongyang,” respectively), Delisle ventures into Myanmar with his young son and wife, (her job for Doctors Without Borders providing the reason for the trip).

This is Delisle’s best book, a subtle yet pointed look at life in a totalitarian state. Delisle focuses on the everyday minutiae of expatriate life with humor and insight.

At times it seems as if Myanmar could be anyplace, until he abruptly runs into the poverty and cruelty pushed down upon the country. A visit with a bed-ridden elderly woman, for example, strikes home hard, and not for the reasons you might suspect.

Delisle exhibits a basic, blocky style here but is able to convey a wide range of emotions and issues. It’s an indelible portrait of a people forced to live in ugly circumstances that stays with you long after you’ve put the book down.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2008

Graphic Lit: Manga for adults

Glancing at the manga shelves in the local book store, it’s easy to assume that this art form caters exclusively to teens and kiddies.

That would be a mistaken assumption. While the popular stuff does set its sights on the under-18 crowd, there are plenty of high-quality manga available in English that adults can pick up and read with impunity.

For example:

“Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson”
by Akira Hiramoto, Del Rey, 544 pages, $19.95.

About as far from a traditional biography as you can get, Hiramoto’s fictional account of the famous bluesman (who, legend states, sold his soul to the devil in order to be able to play guitar), is more of a phantasmagorical rumination on early 20th century America than anything else.

Thus, we see sharecropper-turned-musician “RJ” meeting up with legendary figures like Clyde Barrow, running into “dry” Southern towns where drinking liquor can get you killed, and literally growing an extra set of fingers on his hand.

Coming from a vastly different culture, Hiramoto’s outsider approach works against him at times (his early attempts at comedy play a little too close to minstrelsy), but his approach to the material is fascinating. He’s also a wonderful storyteller, and the musical and action sequences have a vibrant and compelling potency. You don’t have to be a blues aficionado to appreciate this.

“Disappearance Diary”
by Hideo Azuma, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 200 pages, $22.99.

In 1989, the constant pressure of deadlines became too much for manga-ka Azuma, and he suffered a breakdown, running away from his home and family to live on the streets.

He eventually returned home, only to suffer another breakdown in 1992, this time abandoning his responsibilities to become a gas pipe-fitter. By 1998, his alcoholism became so bad that he was forced to check himself into a rehab clinic.

Azuma chronicles those experiences in “Disappearance Diary.” This is not a mordant, gloomy affair about a man confronting his darker nature, but rather one of the cheeriest stories about homelessness and despondency ever told.

Drawn in a cartoonish style, Azuma refuses to pay heed to despair, cracking jokes and looking on the bright side when possible.

Yet despite the book’s sunny disposition, there’s a melancholy dread at the center that’s impossible to ignore. It’s this constant “push-pull” between the facts of Azuma’s tale and the way he delineates it that makes “Diary” such an amazing book — certainly one of the best I’ve read this year.

“Good-Bye”
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Drawn & Quarterly, 212 pages, $19.95.

This is the third and final volume of Tatsumi’s short stories that D&Q is collecting (though they plan to publish his autobiography at a later date). As with the previous books, these are largely bleak, dour tales of people on the fringes of society. The obsessed, poor, and utterly depressed make up Tatsumi’s world.

“Good-Bye” might well be the best of the three volumes, mainly because in many of the stories Tatsumi connects his characters’ sufferings to larger social and political events, namely the American occupation of Japan and deep poverty the country dealt with after World War II.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2008

Graphic Lit: How-to books

One of the great draws about comics is that it has such low overhead. All you need is pen and paper and presto! You’re ready to make a comic.

Of course, there’s a bit more to it than that, as the following “how-to” books show:

“What It Is”
by Lynda Barry, Drawn and Quarterly, 209 pages, $24.95.

Part autobiography, part writing guide, part philosophical treatise and all pure genius, Barry uses a variety of artistic tools — including collage, watercolor and pen and ink — to examine the nature and central importance of art and the creative impulse while touching on themes like memory, imagination and myth along the way.

Barry writes with genuine awe about the creative process, attempting to define near-indefinable terms and ideas (“What is an image?”) while delving into her own childhood and, by extension, our own as well. For her, art is more an act of self-discovery than communication, and getting the work out on paper is more important than finding an audience or determining whether it’s “good” or “bad.”

More than just a mere tutorial (though it excels as that), this is a rich and rewarding book that should be read even if you’re not planning to draw. But especially if you are.

“Drawing Words & Writing Pictures”
by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, First Second, 304 pages, $29.95.

Perhaps you’re looking for a more definitive, textbooklike guide to making comics. If so, this meaty book, based on classes Abel and Madden teach at the School of Visual Arts, more than suffice.

Just about every aspect of comics production is covered, from how to lay out a page to lettering, using computers, developing your characters, inking and much more. Each chapter comes with a “homework” section and exercises, making this book more of a college-level class than a manual.

There have been a lot of “how to make comics”-type books, most of them superficially focusing on rendering and style. “Drawing Words” is a much more thoughtful, comprehensive book that I’d recommend to anyone interested in making comics. I predict it will quickly be the definitive go-to book for budding cartoonists.

“How to Draw Stupid and Other Essentials of Cartooning”
by Kyle Baker, Watson-Guptill Publications, 112 pages, $16.95.

Sometimes though, you want your advice quick and dirty. Enter Kyle Baker, cartoonist extraordinaire (“Nat Turner,” “Special Forces”).

Baker eschews a lot of the traditional how-to-draw advice (Baker on perspective: “Draw faraway things tiny and nearby things big”) in favor of some very useful and no doubt hard-won tips on things like how to stand out (“don’t do the same thing everyone else does”), design characters (“a good cartoon character should be easy for everybody to draw”) and be funny (“hitting is funny”).

This blend of no-nonsense advice and irreverent humor is about as far away from Lynda Barry’s approach as you can get, but if you’re looking to make cartoons in any sort of professional capacity, it’s also essential. Plus, Baker’s a very funny guy.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2008

Graphic Lit: Classic manga

Most of the manga on bookstore shelves these days consist of contemporary works, aimed at a contemporary audience.

What's been pushing my buttons lately, however, are the classic Japanese comics of yesteryear.

Here's a look at some of these time-honored comics from the East, recently translated and repackaged for an American market:

"Dororo Vol. 1 & 2" by Osamu Tezuka, Vertical, 300 and 288 pages, $13.95 each.

Many of Tezuka's stories sound unusual when summarized, and "Dororo" is no exception.

The plot concerns a wandering swordsman named Hyakkimaru who is trying to collect the 48 body parts stolen from him by demons when he was a baby (he relies on a mysterious sixth sense and artificial limbs -- many of which hide secret weapons -- to get around).

Paired with the plucky titular youth, he travels from village to village in Feudal Japan, encountering a number of creepy and increasingly bizarre monsters in a sort of "X-Files" meets "Seven Samurai" fashion.

Tezuka fudges over issues of exactly how Hyakkimaru is able to function, much less wield a sword, but the story is no less compelling or entertaining for all its leaps in logic. Cartoonists-in-training would do well to examine the way Tezuka establishes a setting, for example, or lays out a tense action sequence.

In short, "Dororo" is a rewarding read and one of my favorite books of the year so far. Look for the concluding Volume 3 to come out at the end of the month.

"Cat Eyed Boy Vol. 1 & 2" by Kazuo Umezu, Viz, $24.99 each.

Fifty bucks might seem like a steep price to pay for a bunch of oddball horror tales originally aimed at kids, but Umezu's work here has a propulsive, surreal power that is nigh impossible to shy away from.

The Cat Eyed Boy of the title serves both as Crypt-Keeper-like narrator and protagonist. A wandering trickster god of sorts, his travels constantly rub him against some rather gruesome and inventive demons determined to wreak havoc.

The series preys heavily on childhood fears, such as the notion that your parents may not have your best interests at heart (or may even become monsters when the lights go out).

Like "Dororo," "Boy" doesn't always make sense, but instead is infused with a nightmare logic that anyone who has had a bad night's sleep will recognize.

"Red Colored Elegy" by Seiichi Hayashi, Drawn and Quarterly, 240 pages, $24.95.

Inspired heavily by French "new wave" cinema, "Elegy" tells the melancholy story of Ichiro and Sachiko, two young lovers torn between what society and their families expect of them and their own personal hopes and dreams.

Hayashi borrows heavily from film and animation, loading the book with symbolism (i.e. moths flickering around a lamp).

He also keeps his backgrounds and figures as minimal as possible, all the better to portray the characters' dissolute and existential lifestyle.

While I found the star-crossed lovers a bit self-absorbed for my cynical, Western taste, I was in awe of Hayashi's stylistic choices. Ultimately, "Elegy" had me thinking about comics in ways that I hadn't before, and I treasure it for that.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2008

Graphic Lit: Memoirs, memoirs

Stroll into any big-chain bookstore these days and peruse its stacks of new releases and you'll notice that memoirs are hot stuff these days, controversies about their potential truthfulness aside.

It's not just prose books that are jumping on the autobiography bandwagon.

The success of books such as "Fun Home" have led many artists to attempt to relate their personal experiences in a sequential art format.

Jeffrey Brown is probably one of the best-known practitioners in this field, having made a name for himself by chronicling various cringe-inducing love affairs in books like "Clumsy" and "Unlikely."

His latest is "Little Things: A Memoir in Slices." As the title suggests, Brown decidedly focuses on the minor, at times quotidian events of life -- a camping trip in the mountains, witnessing a
terrible car accident, an unexpected illness.

Drawing in a sketchy, cartoony style, Brown has a keen eye for detail that makes his stories come alive. Ultimately "Little Things" seems to be about the ways minor, unexpected events can force us to reassess or even alter our lives.

At the outset of the book, Brown is your typical lonely single guy. By the end, he's a new dad. Even he seems surprised by how he got from A to B.

Philippe Dupuy's "Haunted" is much more hallucinatory and experimental than "Little Things" though it's no less autobiographical.

A Frenchman, Dupuy is best known for his collaborations with Charles Berberian, particularly on the "M. Jean" series (collected in North America under the title "Get A Life").

Striking out on his own, Dupuy loosens up his style considerably, to the point where the drawings have a desperate, dashed-off quality, as though he's attempting to get the images on paper as quickly as they enter into his brain.

Ostensibly a loose collection of daydreams and ruminations hadwhile out jogging, "Haunted" is suffused with a surreal sense of horror and despair (dismemberment is a running theme throughout the book), whether it involves Dupuy directly or the strange cast of anthropomorphic characters that occasionally pop up.

Reading "Haunted," it's obvious that Dupuy is wrestling with personal demons that, while familiar, remain subtly enigmatic. The result is an unsettling but compelling read that lives up to its title. It will stick around in your brain for a few days.

Rather than go for the straightforward or experimental approach, perhaps the best option in penning a memoir is to fictionalize everything, as Canadian Michel Rabagliati does in his "Paul" series.

Obviously a stand-in for Rabagliati, the "Paul" books follow the young man as he stumbles through school, matures into a young man and finds a career and true love.

The latest entry in the series, "Paul Goes Fishing," finds the titular character and his wife attempting to start a family during a lengthy fishing vacation.

The trip provides Paul with the chance for numerous ruminations and remembrances, and the book frequently diverges into long digressions as Paul remembers influential events from his past or that of his friends and family.

Despite the constant side excursions, the book is an utter delight and my favorite of the three. Paul's everyman qualities are endearing and Rabagliati has a lovely rail-thin line that conveys a good deal of nuanced emotion.

In fictionalizing his life story, Rabagliati has arrived at a more honest story than a pure memoir could probably provide.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2008

Graphic Lit: Holiday shopping guide

With so many graphic novels to choose from, finding the perfect gift for your favorite comic book geek can be tough.

To aid in your travails, I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting some of the more notable big-ticket items out for the holidays this year, along with some (comparatively) cheaper suggestions, all broken down according to genre. No need to thank me.

FOR THE MAD MAGAZINE FANATIC

Pricey: “Mad’s Greatest Artists: The Completely Mad Don Martin” (Running Press, 1,000 pages, $150) collects every single cartoon, cover, sketch and parody the floppy-footed cartoonist ever did during his venerable run on the magazine (roughly 1957-1987), wacky sound effects and all, packaged lovingly in an immense two-volume slipcase. For many, Martin’s goofy, black sense of humor is synonymous with the magazine itself,

Less expensive: “The Mad Archives” (2 volumes so far, DC Comics, $49.99 each) collects the “classic” Mad era from the early 1950s when Mad was a comic book. For many fans, this material, edited by the great Harvey Kurtzman, beats anything “the usual gang of idiots” came up with afterward.

FOR THE COMIC STRIP LOVER

Pricey: Frank King’s “Gasoline Alley” celebrated the fleeting joys and sorrows of American life in its daily strips, but the Sunday pages were another thing altogether.

Here, King experimented with color, art styles and form, spinning out a variety of lavish dream sequences and ruminations on nature.

The best of those pages are now collected in “Sundays With Walt and Skeezix” (Sunday Press Books, 96 pages, $95). What’s more, they’re printed at the gi-normous size they originally ran in the newspaper back in the 1930s. That means you’ll have trouble fitting the volume on your bookshelf, but the beautiful production values more than make up for the space considerations.

Less expensive: Just about every significant comic strip is getting its due in snazzy hardback collections these days, including “Peanuts,” “Popeye,” “Dick Tracy,” Dennis the Menace” “Terry and the Pirates,” “Moomin” and much more. But if you’re looking for something contemporary, “The Best of Mutts” (Andrews McMeel, 256 pages, $24.95) provides some choice samples from the first 10 years of Patrick McDonnell’s wistful funny animal strip.

FOR THE MANGA JUNKIE

Pricey: Assuming you haven’t gotten hooked into Naruto’s clutches yet, Naruto Shadow Box Set (Viz, $189.95) offers you a classy way to do so. It comes complete not only with the first 27 volumes of the series, but also a wooden bookcase to store them, as well as some assorted stickers, posters and whatnot.

Less expensive: A number of popular series such as “Battle Royale,” “Azumanga Daioh “ and “Princess Ai” have been collected into chunky “Omnibus” or “Ultimate Editions,” putting a number of initial volumes together in one. My pick would probably be the “Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition” (Tokyopop, 434 pages, $14.99), as it’s one of the most popular series out there now.

FOR THE TIGHTS AND CAPES CROWD

Pricey: Marvel and DC have a number of big-ticket, hardcover collections to choose from, from the “Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus” to “Absolute Kingdom Come.” My pick, however, would probably be “The Absolute New Frontier” (DC Comics, 462 pages, $75) which, according to the experts, is the best way to read Darwyn Cooke’s elegant homage to the DC superheroes of the ¤’50s and ¤’60s.

Less expensive: DC and Marvel’s ongoing black-and-white “Essential” and “Showcase” reprint compilations (about $16.99 per volume), provide some satisfying old-school thrills to those on a budget.

FOR THE ART HOUSE AESTHETE

Pricey: Last year, acclaimed cartoonist Chris Ware provided a number of covers and strips for The New Yorker’s Thanksgiving issue. Now, these covers, which form a complete story when read in order, are being offered by the New Yorker as a packaged portfolio of 15x20 prints for the whopping price of $350. If you need extra inducement, the package also includes some of Ware’s notes and a strip that was previously available only online.

Less expensive: You can buy the same package as “Acme Novelty Library 18.5” from Drawn and Quarterly for $32. The prints come folded in half though.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2007

Graphic Lit: Exit Wounds

Young Tel Aviv taxi driver Koby Franco is coasting through his life when a female soldier shows up by his car one day and says “We need to talk.”

“Remember that suicide bombing in Hadera three weeks ago,” she asks? “Remember that body that was so badly burned it couldn’t be identified?” Well, she says, I think it was your father.”

That’s the start to “Exit Wounds,” the stellar new graphic novel from Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan.

The story’s locale and references to terrorism suggest an overt political tome. Modan, however, wisely keeps such themes in the background, instead creating a wise and warm romantic drama.
You see, Koby has been estranged from his dad for a number of years and would prefer to keep things that way rather than risk any further disappointment. He’s not eager to find out if this poor, unclaimed soul is really his father, and he knows his dad well enough to suspect that it’s not.

But Numi, the female soldier, had been romantically involved with Koby’s dad prior to the bombing and will not be stopped in her quest to uncover the truth.

Thus, she drags the reluctant Koby around the country, talking to eyewitnesses and digging desperately at long-shot clues. Slowly, the father’s identity and whereabouts start to take shape, while Numi and Koby begin to forge a relationship of their own.

Never a household name even among the indie crowd, Modan is probably best known as a member of the Actus Tragicus, an Israeli comics collective (she’s also illustrated a number of children’s books). “Exit Wounds,” however, pretty much establishes her as a top-tier artist worthy of notice.

Modan adopts a simple “clear line” art style with little shading or variance in width. Instead she uses flat, warm colors to suggest depth or feeling.

Warm, funny and touching, “Exit Wounds” is specific enough in its look at modern Israeli life to seem unique, but universal enough in its characters and themes to be easily recognizable. It’s one of the best books you’ll read this year.

Also from Drawn and Quarterly:

“King-Cat Classix”
by John Porcellino, 384 pages, $29.95.

Porcellino is one of the stalwarts of the indie-comic scene, having self-published his “King-Cat” comics for almost 20 years now.

“King-Cat Classix” compiles the best of the early years in one handsome hardcover volume. The stories included here suggest a young artist attempting to find his way, trying a variety of different methods and styles before settling down into the contemplative, minimalist style he uses to great effect today.

For fans of his work, “Classix” provides a great look at Porcellino’s growth and development. The uninitiated might feel a bit lost here however. For them, I would recommend tracking down “Perfect Example” instead.

“Spent”
by Joe Matt, 120 pages, $19.95.

For several years now, and at a glacial pace to boot, Joe Matt has cast a devastating, caustic eye on his own life, such as it is, documenting his failed relationships, nerdy childhood and ugly personality traits in excruciating detail.

“Spent” reaches a new high (or low as the case may be) as it documents his devastating addiction to pornography.

But for a book about such a salacious subject, there’s surprisingly no nudity or sex involved; Matt emphasizes dialogue instead, with lots of narrow panels of talking heads, emphasizing the claustrophobic feeling of the book.

It sounds like a depressing and dull topic for a book, but Matt is a gifted storyteller, boasting a likable, thick-lined style, and he knows how to break down a lengthy monologue into readable chunks. “Spent” might be the comic book equivalent of rubbernecking, but all the same you won’t be able to tear yourself away from it.

Copyright The Patriot-News, 2007