It’s been eight years since Chester Brown’s last graphic novel (a collection of his biographical mini-series of Canadian political leader Louis Riel), and his work has always been wide ranging, but had you told me that his new book would be about Brown’s experiences [...]]]> By Chester Brown
288 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

It’s been eight years since Chester Brown’s last graphic novel (a collection of his biographical mini-series of Canadian political leader Louis Riel), and his work has always been wide ranging, but had you told me that his new book would be about Brown’s experiences with prostitutes I wouldn’t have believed you. On the surface it sounds like a crass, flippant subject. What Paying For It actually delivers, though, is a thoughtful and interesting examination on the life of a john and on prostitution in general.

One of the things I appreciated right off the bat was that we don’t ever get a definitive "this is right, this is wrong" statement in Paying For It‘s main narrative. As Brown explains to his friends what he’s going through and his feelings on the matter, we get responses from Joe Matt and Seth on their own feelings on the matter. And while this is clearly Brown’s book, he doesn’t suppress or hide these other viewpoints on prostitution. With that in mind, Paying For It follows Brown’s life as his girlfriend Sook-Yin breaks up with him in 1996, but the two decide to still live together. Deciding that he’s never going to have a girlfriend again, he figures this will mean he’ll have to go without sex.

Flash forward to 1999, and we’re watching Brown become a john for the first time, as he nervously meets a prostitute for some outcall work. There’s some humor in those early encounters; Brown looking under the bed, in the closet, and in the bathroom to make sure that no one is hiding there, or trying to figure out if he should take his shoes off or not (in case he has to run). In many ways it serves to not only poke fun at Brown, but also to help let down the guard of the reader. What might otherwise scare a reader off is instead an entertaining sequence that segues into the actual sex part of the story.

What we get from this point is where the meat of the story shows up. It’s a combination of a series of conversations between Brown and Matt, Seth, and Sook-Yin about the nature of prostitution, as well as Brown’s many, many encounters with prostitutes over the next few years and how his initial nervousness turns into a rather blasé, almost jaded look at the entire experience. It’s not that he starts to look down on hiring prostitutes (not at all, in fact) but rather he starts to recognize certain patterns with some women, and some of the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Brown doesn’t come across as someone particularly wise when these moments hit, though. Instead it’s in such a dispassionate voice that it’s actually a little sad. Comparing this Brown to the one who feels like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders after that initial encounter is rather startling. Brown has slowly lost a lot of the optimism that he first experienced with his new outlook on sex.

It’s the last third of the book that ends up being, for lack of a better word, the most conversation-inducing. Brown makes a big decision in how he’s going to treat his favorite prostitute, and in doing so, the book comes to a sudden and abrupt conclusion. After over 100 pages of watching Brown go to prostitute after prostitute (some of them repeats, others new), the entire book wraps up in eight pages. It’s a startling and somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to the narrative, and people who haven’t flipped through the book before reading will be especially surprised since there are a good 60 pages left in the physical book itself. It’s there that Brown writes a series of appendices (with spot illustrations), where he explains in far greater detail his feelings on prostitution, why it should be normalized, and in doing so answers a lot of questions that he’s been asked about the trade. And while I appreciated that in the main narrative there are no "this is the answer" definitive statements being handed out, it’s here that Brown gets a little preachy. I understand why it’s here; these are points that he’s no doubt tired of having to bring up with people who know him, and by going public with Paying For It they’re a series of questions that will be asked in greater frequency. But none the less, this is a much starker, more black-and-white laying out of Brown’s beliefs here. With no one to argue them, it comes across as a well-mannered screed of sorts, and I’ll admit that toward the end I found myself skimming rather than reading the pages. I’m not someone who enjoys being lectured at (regardless of if I agree, disagree, or fall somewhere in the middle with the lecture) and I suspect I’m not the only one.

While I enjoy Brown’s comics, there’s no denying that his art style is extremely simple and straight-forward. In the past he’s drawn his comics as a series of individual, same-size rectangles that he could then paste onto pieces of paper and re-arrange as necessary, and I saw nothing here to make me think that he’s not still doing so. There’s no variation on page layouts—panels are two-to-a-row, unless there are an odd number of panels in a chapter in which case the last panel is by itself, centered— and Brown’s people look remarkably similar to one another. Aside from different levels of male-pattern baldness (and a hat), there’s no way to tell Brown, Matt, and Seth apart from one another, for example. Sequences with Brown and Seth walking and talking are near-identical, the two in the same position in every panel, with only a silhouette of a building changing, plus the occasional puff of cigarette smoke from Seth. Brown makes his comics work because of his sense of pacing and overall interesting stories, but his sequential art in general comes across much more as a series of storyboards for a film than as a graphical creation to be relished and studied on the basis of his art skills.

Overall I think Paying For It is definitely a good book, but its flaws—the extremely rushed and sudden ending (after an extended sequence hitting the same notes), the preachy appendices, the slightly dull art—keep it from being a great book. Is it worth reading? Absolutely. I appreciate that it challenges people’s notions of prostitution, and provides a fascinating look into one person’s extended experiences with the practice. But go into it with the understanding that it’s not a perfect book, and you’ll end up with a stronger final impression of Paying For It.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

The fact that there is a television show named Bridezillas is, perhaps, an example of just how weddings can bring out the crazy in people. They’ve got that power. Everyone says they’re going to start simply, keep things from spinning out of control, but [...]]]> By Adrian Tomine
56 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

The fact that there is a television show named Bridezillas is, perhaps, an example of just how weddings can bring out the crazy in people. They’ve got that power. Everyone says they’re going to start simply, keep things from spinning out of control, but 9 out of 10 times, sooner or later… pow! The craziness kicks in, even if just for an hour. It’s with all of that in mind that I’m terribly amused about Adrian Tomine’s Scenes from an Impending Marriage, a short comic originally created as a wedding favor for his and Sarah’s guests. Because if you’ve ever planned a wedding, been near someone planning a wedding, or even thought about planning a wedding, this will ring ominously true.

Scenes from an Impending Marriage is divided up into a series of short stories as Adrian and Sarah go through the various stages of wedding planning; figuring out the guest list, creating the invitation, finding a venue, figuring out what to wear, and so on. Like most couples, they’re not always on the same page about everything. And even more so, just because the two of them are in agreement on something does not mean that the rest of the world will be. One person’s crowning glory is another person’s mark of shame, and that’s doubly true when it comes to weddings.

The conflicts that arise are never serious—after all, this was initially meant as a way of saying thank you for coming to the wedding—and in doing so, Scenes from an Impending Marriage has a light-hearted feel. You aren’t going to see Adrian and Sarah stomp away from one another muttering that this was a bad idea, or explaining that their new in-laws are hideous monsters. It’s not the tone that Tomine was aiming for, and rightfully so. Had Tomine created a complete work of fiction around a couple planning a wedding, there’s no doubt in my mind this would have been a much bleaker creation. For long-time Tomine readers, though, this brings to mind some of his earliest works that were collected in 27 Stories, with a fun, cheeky twist to most of the chapters.

When Tomine does get harsh, it’s over failed attempts to find something for the wedding, never with his and his wife’s comic book alter egos. They learn that just because a DJ can talk the good talk (even if he professionally goes by the name "DJ Buttercream") doesn’t mean their musical tastes are going to even remotely coincide, or what happens when they ask a park employee (while checking the area out as a possible wedding location) what would happen in the event of rain. The comic is still good-natured even then, but you can catch just the edges of a deeper frustration, where clearly the process of planning everything was starting to wear on the pair. And ultimately, when Tomine is a critic in regards to himself and his wife, he (wisely) makes himself the butt of most of the jokes. It’s his freak-outs, his complaining, his controlling nature that are the punch lines to the different situations.

Tomine draws Scenes from an Impending Marriage in a slightly more stripped down style than his recent work, perhaps because of the light-hearted nature of the comic. It’s cute, using mostly nine-panel grids and illustrating himself and his wife in a fun manner. I was impressed at when he switched over to the single-panel, Family Circus illustrations, as well as his depiction of the Peanuts "Aaaauuuggghhhh!!" (complete with noses straight up in the air); they’re both cute little nods to those classic strips.

Scenes from an Impending Marriage is a slight but fun book, an entertaining change of pace from Tomine. As someone who’s both watched friends and family members plan their weddings, and also is beginning to think about what to do for his inevitable own ceremony, it’s a fairly accurate depiction of the process. If you’re looking for the perfect engagement gift, Scenes from an Impending Marriage is the new gold standard.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Vanessa Davis’s comics are not, at a glance, the sort of experiences that would be universally understood. A love/hate relationship with Jewish boys, going to fat camp, celebrating the High Holy Days, a mother who uses slightly inappropriate and sexually tilted words. [...]]]> By Vanessa Davis
176 pages, color & black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Vanessa Davis’s comics are not, at a glance, the sort of experiences that would be universally understood. A love/hate relationship with Jewish boys, going to fat camp, celebrating the High Holy Days, a mother who uses slightly inappropriate and sexually tilted words. "That’s not me at all," you’re probably thinking. But what makes Davis’s comics in Make Me a Woman so good is that somehow, she makes everything relatable to the reader, no matter what their background. Boiling down the emotional experiences of each story to their core, there’s a lot to connect with. And more importantly, fall in love with.

The stories in Make Me a Woman are a mixture of recollections and every-day journal entries, and each have their own particular charm. I was initially familiar with Davis’s comics through her more structured stories, where she picks a specific portion of her life to focus on and then tells it to us over the course of several pages. There’s a lot to love there, with stand out stories including the camaraderie and friendship found at fat camp (I totally want to go now, too), trying to live up to expectations (the last two panels in particular are killer), and "going home for Christmas" (which probably sums up everyone’s family experience at least once in their life). Davis is remarkably unselfconscious in her stories, presenting herself in a relaxed, humorous fashion. It’s that utter lack of a wall between her and the reader that helps make each story so relatable; it invites you in and lets you match your own similar emotions to the ones she experienced, making each story feel like you were somehow there.

At the same time, though, Davis serves up less structured snippets and vignettes from her life throughout Make Me a Woman, and I found myself slightly surprised at how much I loved them as well. They’re usually just a brief moment or scene, recorded in comic form for posterity’s sake, and yet somehow they become engrossing. It helps that Davis doesn’t present these as throw-away pieces, or something that doesn’t deserve the same amount of attention as her full-length stories. Even if it’s just a short conversation on an elevator, Davis brings the people she encounters (as well as herself) to life, making you feel like you’re sitting in the corner and observing all of these moments yourself.

One of the things I found the most interesting about Davis’s Make Me a Woman is her approach to page layout and the traditional idea of panels. For some of her full-color stories done for other publishers (like her Tablet stories) there’s a traditional look to her layouts. Stories move from left to right, usually in rows across the page, separated by her words that form gutters separating the columns of art. It’s in her black and white stories, though, that Davis instead uses the entire page as a single, large art form where the image flows from one moment to the next, the passage of time unencumbered by panel borders or separations. As your eye moves across the page, each drawing bleeds into the next, but it’s still incredibly easy to follow. It’s a beautiful technique, one that is hard to pull off even as Davis makes it look effortless. It’s a different type of storytelling than most people are used to in comics, but it’s one that I hope Davis never abandons.

As for the figures within the art, Davis draws people in a relaxed and realistic manner. Davis draws herself so close to reality that when I met her at the Small Press Expo this year I was able to instantly pick her out of a crowd. From the way her hair falls around her face and shoulders, to the freckles on her cheeks and nose, she looks as attractive and down-to-earth on the page as in real life. She’s remarkably good at capturing other details like posture and body language, too; from laughing over a silly note left on food, to a nervous swig from a bottle of beer at a club, people move and act true to life. It’s hard to say whether I like her black and white or color art more; while the black and white drawings come across as much more intimate and personal, she has a strong sense of color that pops off the page without ever looking garish or out of place. It’s a great look and each new page made me fall in love with her art all over again.

When reading Make Me a Woman, it’s hard to not feel like you’ve somehow become friends with Davis by the book’s conclusion. She lets you into her life and share her thoughts, and in such a welcoming, friendly manner. If hanging out with Davis on a regular basis is even half as enjoyable as her book, her boyfriend, family, and friends are all extremely lucky people. This is, easily, one of my favorite books of the year. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

One of the things I’ve always liked about James Sturm’s historical stories is that he is able to take events from the past and make them still pertinent to his present day readership. That’s never been more clear than with his latest book, Market Day, set [...]]]> By James Sturm
96 pages, color
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

One of the things I’ve always liked about James Sturm’s historical stories is that he is able to take events from the past and make them still pertinent to his present day readership. That’s never been more clear than with his latest book, Market Day, set in a European city near the turn of the 20th century, detailing the day in the life of a weaver taking his rugs to market for sale. What we get is not only a look into this man’s life, though, but a story that has to do with consumerism, the economy, and—most importantly—trying to create art rather than just product.

At first, Market Day seems like a fairly simple story. We watch Mendleman the rug-weaver head out with his rugs, cart, and horse on the long journey into town for market day, before the break of dawn. He frets over his wife Rachel who, eight months pregnant, is not accompanying him as is their normal routine. He thinks of worst-case scenarios for him and his family. He wonder how he would weave scenes that play out around him into a rug. And most importantly, he prepares to take his rugs to Albert Finkler’s store to sell them. And it’s there that Sturm lets Mendleman’s world fall apart, casting Mendleman into a spiral of despair and defeat.

Mendleman’s experiences at A. Finkler & Son, the other market stores, and then at the emporium are hard to not compare to problems in present-day commerce. As small, family-owned and local businesses fold with the rising pressure of larger chains, Mendleman finding less places to sell his wares (and at much lower prices) is a scene that rings true. It’s a reminder that not only is this a problem that has existed longer than people might have thought, but that so much as one person going out of business effects numerous people. When Mendleman, exasperated, finally sells his rugs to the emporium, it’s hard to not feel horrible as it happens. Even as he bows to the pressure of receiving some money instead of none, you know that the greatly reduced wages are such that he and Rachel will hardly be able to make a living.

It’s also hard to ignore the other allegory in Market Day, as Mendleman talks about the care and precision he puts into his rugs to make them art, rather than to just dash them out as quickly as possible. It’s a struggle that many comic artists have no doubt had as well; you can whip things out quickly to get the needed cash, or strive for excellence and hope that someone will appreciate and value the hard work and care you’ve put into your art. Sturm is a comic creator who has worked for both the small press as well as the big comic companies, and it’s hard to not feel like Sturm is making his own feelings on his craft as a comic creator known here. As Mendleman’s one haven as a creator collapses and he considers giving up the art that he’s devoted his life to, it makes you think of the smaller publishing companies that have gone out of business in the last few years and which comic artists the art form has directly lost as a result.

Even ignoring the various allegories and messages, Market Day is still a strong and moving book. It’s hard to not feel for Mendleman as he gets wrapped up in his worries and fear; we see that even when things are going well while he walks to the market with his merchandise at the start of the day, so after everything has gone wrong it’s multiplied a thousand fold. Sturm accentuates Mendleman’s mood with his expressive art, the deep, dark colors of the night surrounding him as he walks, the gloom just as apparent through the visuals as with the narration. Mendleman gradually transforms into little more than a black silhouette against the brown and gray surroundings, his despair covering him like a cloak.

Fortunately, for every piece of gloom in the art there are other places that you can see brightness and beauty. I love the way that Sturm draws the market itself, with all of the various wares spread out; it makes you want to somehow visit this place yourself and shop. Even simple stores and stands look enticing, and there’s a wide plethora of people that Sturm draws for you to eye. The green countryside in particular serves as a visual contrast to the darker colors of the city, and it’s so bright and cheerful that it makes the later walk through its lanes and hills at night that much more gloomy.

Even if you read Market Day as little more than a day in the life of an eastern European man in the 1900s, it’s an engrossing read. As a commentary on art, and devotion to one’s craft, and to the shifting marketplace and how it can affect so many people with the smallest of changes, it’s that much more interesting. Market Day might not be a cheerful and heartwarming story about what it’s like to be an artist, but it’s certainly an important one for people hoping to survive in the 21st century market. This is a cautionary tale for not only those selling to the market, but those buying from the market as well. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I never really "got" Nancy. I’ve heard for years about Ernie Bushmiller’s original strips and how fantastic they were, but Bushmiller died right around the time I started paying serious attention to comic strips in the early 1980s. So [...]]]> Written by John Stanley
Art by John Stanley and Dan Gormley
152 pages, color
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

I never really "got" Nancy. I’ve heard for years about Ernie Bushmiller’s original strips and how fantastic they were, but Bushmiller died right around the time I started paying serious attention to comic strips in the early 1980s. So I’ve never seen any of the originals, just the interpretations of other writers and artists over the years. I have, however, read some John Stanley comics in the form of Little Lulu, and I thought they were adorable. When I heard that Stanley had created stories for the Nancy comic years ago, I couldn’t help but wonder if this would finally be my introduction to the world of Nancy that so many other people had raved about.

Stanley’s stories are all short and to the point, which considering that Nancy was originally just a four-panel comic strip, is probably not a bad thing. There’s a wonderful disconnect from the real world into Nancy’s in these stories; I hesitate to say that they’re "kid’s comic logic" because it seems unfair to label them as something so simple. Rather, Stanley is telling fantastical stories where product exchanges at the department store erupt into chaos, rich boys always lose out to the downtrodden in the way of love, and witches live down the street. It’s all very matter-of-fact as Nancy (and occasionally Sluggo) wanders through this landscape, the impossible erupting around them in a no-nonsense manner.

That’s not to say that Nancy, under Stanley’s care, is unflappable. It’s especially true in the stories co-starring Oona Goosepimple, the young creepy girl who lives in the mansion down the street and whose house is full of witches, monsters, and ever-shifting corridors that you can get lost in for years. Oona was Stanley’s own creation, and reading the first Oona stories here surprises me that no one else picked up the reins with her after Stanley left the book. While the Oona stories stand out as being particularly odd, I think in some ways they’re the best pieces in this first book because it’s here that Stanley is able to spook the normally blase Nancy. Nancy ultimately exits the Oona Goosepimple stories even more confused and dizzy than when she enters them, a fun state to watch our title character.

Stanley also avoids making Nancy ever saccharine or saintly; she’s anything but that, as it turns out. Her Aunt Fritzi seems continually exasperated with Nancy’s antics, regularly exiling her from the house in order to get some peace and quiet. While Nancy means well much of time, she’s still a child and Stanley occasionally puts a devilish streak into Nancy at which point you just need to back slowly away. Nancy is as much demon as she is angel, here, and it’s that mixture that helps keep the book fresh.

The art in Nancy was created with layouts from Stanley and finishes from Dan Gormley. It’s a nice, simple final look; I’ve heard artists over the years talk about the iconic look of Nancy, and you can see that in these drawings. With her perfectly spherical hair and full cheeks, she’s adorable looking and impish. Comparing her to the sophisticated look of Aunt Fritzi, or the slightly gaunt Oona Goosepimple, and you can see how carefully crafted Nancy and her friends are from Stanley and Gormley. A lot of the jokes depend on sight gags, and the pair keep everything moving swiftly and easy to follow.

The pages of Nancy are printed in a slightly faded, old-comic look; at first I was a little surprised that they weren’t crisp and white, but by the end of the book I found myself liking the old, archived feel of the book. In general I’m impressed with the presentation of Nancy Vol. 1: The John Stanley Library. Seth created an iconic cover illustration of Nancy with the simplest of lines, and the end papers are just beautiful. Be warned if you buy one volume of Nancy, you’ll quickly want to buy more. And as for the Bushmiller original Nancy comic strips? It turns out collections of them start in 2011. I’ve got a lot of Nancy ahead of me.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I picked up the first volume of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip solely due to a friend of mine (also named Greg), who grew up reading Tove Jansson’s Moomin books and had utterly fallen in love with them. [...]]]> Written by Lars Jansson
Art by Tove Jansson
88 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

I picked up the first volume of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip solely due to a friend of mine (also named Greg), who grew up reading Tove Jansson’s Moomin books and had utterly fallen in love with them. His descriptions over the years had intrigued me, with promises of whimsy and silliness mixed in with satire and cleverness. That’s exactly what I found in these collections of comic strips drawn for London’s The Evening News. The fourth volume, however, was the first to feature some strips written by Tove Jansson’s brother Lars Jansson, and this fifth volume published the final collaborations between Tove and Lars before Tove quit the strip entirely. This book, then, was a test. Would Lars be able to grow into the strip enough to make me want to read it once Tove was gone?

Having felt slightly lukewarm about Lars’s writing in the previous volume, Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Vol. 5 was a bit of a relief. It’s still not as strong as Tove’s own writing, but there’s definite signs of improvement. The first story, "Moomin Winter," has the Moomin family trying to settle down to hibernate but has them continually interrupted by new visitors asking to stay with them for the season. It’s a cute enough story, especially once a special delivery of a Nibling appears and begins to wreak havoc with his continual sharp observations and discovery of everyone’s secrets. It’s probably the best of the three stories in Vol. 5, aided in part by a confined setting that forces Lars to keep a relatively sharp focus on the plot.

By contrast, "Moomin Under Sail" is much more meandering, taking the characters along with Too-Ticki onto a sea voyage that includes stowaways and pirates, among other obstacles. It’s not a bad story, but it seems to go every which way at a moment’s notice. Lars still hasn’t quite mastered the rambling story in the way that Tove had, and there are times when it feels almost like Lars himself has no idea where his characters are headed. "Fuddler’s Courtship," likewise, shifts positions wildly, going from a romance gone wrong to a strong and pointed satire of psychiatry. The slightly more adult subject material here actually feels off-putting in places when Lars’s script feels slightly strident, but before too long it calms down and goes back into a tone we’re more used to.

There are some nice bits with Lars’s writing that weren’t evident with Tove’s, most notably when Lars breaks the proverbial fourth wall. When the Nibling arrives at the Moomin house, the Nibling says his mother asked for him to be sent to the Moomin family "in the papers" and that clearly they were much more well-off as a result. "Moomin Under Sail" is even more blatant, with the first three strips revolving around the fact that the Moomins are trying to find a new plot for their latest storyline, at one point Moominpapa even staring out at the audience and saying, "My goodness! Readers…" It’s never overused, and comes across as cute and sweet.

Tove’s art looks as adorable as always, the Moomins looking like ambulatory hippos with their wide eyes and huge snouts. There’s such a wide variety of body types here, each new crazy looking creature more fantastic than the previous. My favorite character design here is probably the young Nibling in "Moomin Winter," with his schoolboy hat and innocent expression even when he’s tormenting everyone else. He’s so adorable you want to kill him, which is exactly what Lars’s script calls for.

I’m going to miss Tove in Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, so much that I’ve finally broken down and bought the first two Moomin novels (which are being reissued in North America, hurrah!) for once the withdrawal hits. And while Lars’s take on the Moomin characters is certainly slightly different than Tove’s, after this book I’m interested enough in his version that I’ll take a look next year when Drawn & Quarterly releases the first collection of strips both written and drawn by Lars. Until then, though, I’ll probably just re-read some of the earlier strips. They’re great enough that they never get old. It’s nice to finally see what all the fuss is about with the Moomins.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Drawn & Quarterly, over the past few years, has dipped its toe into translating manga into English, primarily the works of creator Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Books like Tatsumi’s autobiography A Drifting Life and short story collections Abandon the Old in Tokyo have proven to be [...]]]> By Yoshihiro Tatsumi
136 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Drawn & Quarterly, over the past few years, has dipped its toe into translating manga into English, primarily the works of creator Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Books like Tatsumi’s autobiography A Drifting Life and short story collections Abandon the Old in Tokyo have proven to be fascinating, looking at his attempts to break free of genre and industry constraints at the time. So when Drawn & Quarterly announced Black Blizzard, Tatsumi’s debut graphic novel, I was intrigued. (And not just because the creation of Black Blizzard is part of the time period retold in A Drifting Life.) What I found, though, was a creator that shows talent but was still beginning to learn his craft.

Black Blizzard is a fairly typical crime noir story; two wanted criminals on the run, handcuffed together, even as one of them appears to be a genuinely good person. It’s a far cry from his short stories, which are punctuated by unpredictability and a general off-beat nature. At this point in his career, Tatsumi stands out not from inventiveness, but being able to create a tense situations. Black Blizzard is at its best when the characters are on the run from the authorities, with the thrill of the chase. As Susumu and Shinpei run through the snowy wilderness and try to build a fire, you get the sense that anything can happen. And of course, with the ever-present handcuffs connecting the two, the threat of how to get the pair separated looms forever overhead.

The book slows down, though, once we get a lengthy flashback to Susumu’s love story that got him landed in hot water in the first place. While it’s obvious from day one that Susumu wasn’t really a murderer, this hammers it home just in case anyone was doubting. By the time we see the end of this relatively straight forward and innocent story of Susumu trying to help a circus ringmaster’s daughter (and falling in love), Black Blizzard has lost a lot of its steam, and the book never fully rallies back up to its earlier potential. There are a couple of strong moments in the second half, but the thrill itself is so much less that it’s not the same level of fun. Tatsumi himself seems to lose interest in his own story as well, the last handful of pages being told in a matter-of-fact manner, the resolution to the entire story having happened off-panel. It’s a weak ending to a book that started out so well.

Tatsumi’s early art is blocky and crude in places, but there’s an energy about it that helps propel those early pages forward. Watching the duo of wanted men running down the train tracks feels fast-paced, and brings that urgency further to life. It’s probably the best thing about Tatsumi’s art, and certainly goes a long way towards explaining why the flashback scenes don’t work quite as well. There we get the same expression on Susumu’s face no matter what the occasion; it’s definitely not up to the later standards of Tatsumi’s work, and the high quality that readers now have come to expect from him.

Had I never seen anything else by Tatsumi before, I might have felt that Black Blizzard was all right but nothing out of the ordinary. Knowing the growth in his career to come, though, it’s interesting to look at this as a historical footnote, trying to pick out the eventual hallmarks and signs of what he would become best-known for. Tatsumi completists will want to take a look at Black Blizzard, but as an initial introduction to his work, there are much better places to start. Hopefully we’ll get more collections of his short stories down the line; this was a fun detour into the start of his career, but I’d rather see more of his work once he’d become a stronger writer and artist.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

It was in 2004 that Daniel Clowes released the last (and at this point, presumably final) issue of Eightball, and with his work in the past decade on movies like Ghost World and Art-School Confidential it was a reasonable assumption that Clowes might have been giving [...]]]> By Daniel Clowes
80 pages, color
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

It was in 2004 that Daniel Clowes released the last (and at this point, presumably final) issue of Eightball, and with his work in the past decade on movies like Ghost World and Art-School Confidential it was a reasonable assumption that Clowes might have been giving up on the comics art form entirely. With Wilson, though, Clowes makes a full-fledged return to the comics format, in his first original graphic novel. And perhaps because he’s been gone a while, Wilson seems designed to try and see how far it can get under the reader’s skin.

Wilson is told as a series of one-page, old-school Sunday comics broadsheets. It initially starts as a series of one-off stories, establishing the character of Wilson and his general misanthropic, sociopathic nature. With those first twelve strips, each story is angling towards a specific punch line, that rim shot sound as Wilson lays out a withering final jab at the current subject of his ire. We start seeing this on the very first page, with Wilson being upbeat and cheerful for what we will later is clearly a struggle at best. As he shoots down the random stranger that he stopped to talk to, though, Wilson’s nature is revealed: a person who interacts with other people solely to use as sounding boards, no more respect for them than with any inanimate object. If they talk too much, he cuts them down. If they’re busy, he ignores their complaints and barges in. But at the same time, Clowes is trying to position Wilson as an over the top, "I wish I’d said that," mouthpiece for the reader. All of the frustration and annoyance that anyone has ever faced in regards to stupid people is here on the page; the difference is that Clowes heaps it on over and over again, time and time again. At first it’s amusing, then you start to realize that Wilson as a person has nothing else to offer anyone.

And then, as the book progresses, a larger story begins to flow from one page to the next, and in doing so there becomes a slight shift in the story. Instead of random strangers that Wilson cuts down, we start seeing him have to deal with family, and Wilson becomes a much more interesting book. Meeting up not only with his dying father but also his ex-wife and a daughter that she’d given up for adoption after they separated, Wilson’s lack of social niceties and understanding becomes less of a setup for jokes and more of a widening flaw that is cracking and pushing through his foundation. For the first time in decades he’s offered, for a split second, something that would approach normality. But even as he tries to make things "right" in his head, the huge disconnect between the way the world works and how Wilson’s mind works grows. This is someone where it makes you start to wonder how he’s managed to function in modern society for as long as he has. There’s something not wired quite right in Wilson’s head, but at no time does Clowes use this to try and dreg up pity from his readers. Instead it feels like the reaction he’s going for is a strange mixture of scorn and schadenfreude. Wilson’s net of pot shots is cast far and wide, with Clowes knowing that some are going to hit home with readers, while others will target those that readers dislike. It’s a strange but effective technique; try to at least briefly offend everyone at some point, and you’ll hit friends and enemies alike.

Clowes is casting the artistic net wide as well, drawing the book in a variety of styles; some in a more realistic manner that past Clowes readers are used to in books like David Boring and Ghost World, others are much more cartoonish, or drenched in a two-color palette. There’s no specific pattern to the shifts in style; sometimes a more simple approach is used to illustrate a lighter piece, other times it’s one of the darker moments in the book. It seems at times simply there to try and break up any fear of a visual monotony—something I don’t think that Clowes needed to worry about—although it is amusing to see the characters drawn Little Lotta style while talking about rather dark moment’s in the book’s saga.

Wilson seems to delight in making its titular character unlikable, but personally I found it all the more absorbing as it went along. Wilson wouldn’t be an easy person to be around in real life, but this arm’s length distance away courtesy Clowes makes him worth gaping at. I suspect the real litmus test for the reader, though, is how much or little of Wilson they later recognize in themselves. I suspect that if anyone says that none of Wilson is part of them, the reality is that they’re actually the closest to the main character. It’s a fun ride through a twisted man’s life, and it reminded me how much I’ve missed Clowes’s comics in general. Hopefully this is the start of a regular return to the printed page for Clowes.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I really have to commend Drawn & Quarterly for bringing Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s comics into English. They’ve already released three collections of his short stories, ones which reek of discomfort and alienation among every day, real people. I was a little wary, though, when I [...]]]> By Yoshihiro Tatsumi
856 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

I really have to commend Drawn & Quarterly for bringing Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s comics into English. They’ve already released three collections of his short stories, ones which reek of discomfort and alienation among every day, real people. I was a little wary, though, when I heard that their next Tatsumi project was an autobiography that ran over 800 pages long and only tackled a small fraction of his life. Could Tatsumi really have that much to say? As it turned out, I was very wrong for doubting; A Drifting Life may be set in the 1940s and 1950s, but it has quite a bit to say about here and now.

Hiroshi Katsumi was only ten years old when World War II came to a close with the surrender of Emperor Hirohito of Japan to the Allied Forces of the West. Three years later, Japan was only starting to really recover, and it was then in the city of Osaka that Hiroshi began to realize his dreams of becoming a comic creator. Manga was thought of primarily for children, with four-panel gag comics ruling the medium. As Hiroshi began to learn about creators who were trying something more, though, his own ambitions grew. But would manga ever be able to gain respect among the country at large? Or was he wasting his time and tying his future into a series of doomed publishers that overstepped their bounds?

Japan is these days often held up as the fantasy land of comics, one where everyone reads manga, where subjects like romance, cooking, or sports thrive just as much as action adventure and super-powers. It’s a bit of an eye-opening experience, as a result, to jump back some sixty years and learn that it most certainly wasn’t always that way. So much of what Tatsumi’s alter-ego Hiroshi Katsumi goes through in the pages of A Drifting Life rings very true for the North American comics medium of today. Family groups denouncing any comics that are aimed at older readers, fights over the name of the medium, struggles for creators to tackle subjects they want even as the market asks for something different, publishers trying to tie down talent in exclusives solely to deprive the competition—it’s simultaneously distressing and exciting to see that all of this happened decades ago in a country that now has such a rich and varied comic scene.

Hiroshi’s life, with all of this publishing history as a backdrop, still comes out as something interesting and well worth reading. Hiroshi’s love/hate relationship with his older brother Okimasa comes across so believable that you almost feel like you’re actually sitting alongside Tatsumi’s early life as a spectator. What I found myself enthralled with was the no excuses way in which Tatsumi writes the scenes with Okimasa. We learn about Okimasa’s chronic illnesses early on, but from there we see them alternately be friends and enemies with no rhyme or reason, just like how siblings all over the world interact. There would certainly be a temptation for Tatsumi to go back and try and add in interpretations of what may or may not have gone through Okimasa’s head at the time, but instead it’s all presented in stark black and white; this is how it happened, this is how he reacted, period.

The character of Hiroshi is by no means an angel the whole way through A Drifting Life, for that matter. While Hiroshi is our hero and protagonist, for every victory he has, there are just as many mistakes and bad decisions that play out. A Drifting Life is not only about the maturation of the comics market, but of Hiroshi as well, both struggling towards adulthood. Hiroshi’s naivety towards so many things in life—business, friends, women—is painfully awkward to read about at times as he seems to continually encounter something he knows nothing about. It’s a relief to see him slowly learn how the world really works, even if only to then find a new obstacle in his path moments later. Then again, that’s also true of the manga movement here. It’s fascinating to read about all of these different publishers struggle to find that golden ticket to success, and see all of the different publishing attempts that unfold over the years. So many of them, like the monthly hardcover anthologies, seem like such a pie in the sky dream even now that it’s hard to imagine another country attempting to build a publishing empire on these formats half a century ago. People who are savvy with understanding today’s comic market will be hard-pressed to not mentally insert contemporary publishing companies’s names on top of the ones that exist in A Drifting Life, and it’s a fun little mental game to play among one’s self.

The art in A Drifting Life is slightly more varied than what I’ve seen from Tatsumi in the past, perhaps because everyone here is based off of real people. While a lot of the secondary characters fall into Tatsumi’s trap of coming out of the same mold as one another, overall I was pleased to see how much stronger the art in A Drifting Life was in comparison to his short story collections. His characters are still wonderfully awkward and gawky, and Hiroshi and Okimasa in particular are wonderfully expressive; just looking at how Okimasa is drawn over the years is fascinating because he’s always clearly the same person even though Tatsumi is able to draw him looking both villainous and friendly in ways that transform his entire face. I also really have to give Tatsumi credit for how he draws Japan in the 1940s and 1950s; so much of the story comes to life in the way that he sketches the buildings and streets of Osaka and Tokyo. Between the drawings and the little details in the story about living in that time period (the scarcity of television, the dependence on telegrams rather than phone calls even in the late ’50s), one almost feels at times like this isn’t so much an autobiography but rather a guidebook for time-travelers heading to 1950s Japan.

A Drifting Life is ultimately an enthralling book, in how it manages to speak not only of a world half a century ago but also towards today’s comic market. It’s almost painful when the book ends in 1959, with only a brief epilogue set in recent times that is painful to read—both in what is said about Hiroshi in his older age, as well as what isn’t said about the unchronicled years. I never would have predicted that after reading over 800 pages of Tatsumi’s life, I’d be hoping for another volume down the road, but that’s exactly the feeling that A Drifting Life evoked in me. If only all autobiographies were this engrossingly good. This is a book for the ages.

Purchase Link: Amazon.com

One of my favorite travel books from the past couple of years has got to be Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. Traveling to the capitol of perhaps the most notoriously isolationist country in the world, Delisle shared his experiences in a [...]]]> By Guy Delisle
272 pages, black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

One of my favorite travel books from the past couple of years has got to be Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. Traveling to the capitol of perhaps the most notoriously isolationist country in the world, Delisle shared his experiences in a graphic novel that was both fascinating and informative. When I heard that his latest book, Burma Chronicles, was about his living in the a foreign country for an entire year, I was more than a little excited. His stay wouldn’t be just for a month or two, but for such an extended period of time that it held many more possibilities. What I found? Not entirely what I expected.

Delisle’s wife Nadège works for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), a humanitarian organization that sends doctors to countries in desperate need. When she accepts a year’s position in Burma (or Myanmar, the name that the military junta that controls the country now call it), Delisle thinks he has a good idea of what to expect in this southeast Asian country. What he actually encounters, though, is at times stranger and more implausible than anything he’s come across before.

One of the things I loved about Pyongyang was how well it illustrated visiting a country where everyone acts in lockstep to the will of their ruler. There’s no dissention, no arguments, just an entire nation of people who do everything that’s expected of them. With Burma Chronicles, that’s very much not the case. Some of the most interesting sections of this book are about the relationship of the people of Burma to the military rulers that dominate the country. The people of Burma are regularly apologizing to Delisle and his wife over all the inconveniences and outright madness that goes on. It’s those sort of encounters that make Burma Chronicles so interesting, as he finds pages in his magazines cut out, or entire DVD shops are forced to get rid of all non-Burmese production DVDs. And of course, the unseen figure of Aung San Suu Kyi overs over the entire book, the winner of the 1990 elections who was forbidden to take office and has been under house arrest on and off since 1989 and has so far served a full 13 years. Living near where Delisle’s family is, it’s hard to not smile at Delisle’s attempts to be able to walk by her house, even as the idea of being trapped in house arrest for years at a time is chilling.

The rest of the book really varies in terms of interest; a fair portion of the book can be best described as, "Boy, foreigners sure are strange." It’s a lot of little travel vignettes that could have happened in just about any travelogue, Burma or elsewhere, and they’re easily the weakest part of the book. They’re not bad, certainly, but after delving so deeply into the culture of North Korea and China in his books Pyongyang and Shenzhen, it’s a slight disappointment here to see these other stories tossed off so casually and without any heft to their narrative. On the other hand, the times that Delisle does immerse himself in the local culture are really strong; towards the end of the book, his three-day stay at a monastery is one of my favorite portions of the entire book. You get such an idea of what a monk’s life might be like (especially considering that monks are forever in both the forefront and background of at least half of the stories in Burma Chronicles) that even if you forget his searching for illegal software, or forgetting his towel before taking a shower, this will stick with you. At the end of that experience Delisle wistfully says to himself, "If I’d known, I would have come here from the start of my stay and not waited till the end." I can’t help but join in that sentiment.

Delisle’s stripped down, simple art style is charming. Perhaps more importantly, it is a great sort of "everyman" art, letting the reader insert themselves into the travelogue if they choose to imagine it as such. With getting an entrance visa to Burma difficult at best even if for humanitarian reasons, Delisle’s Burma Chronicles is probably the closest that most people will ever come to seeing the country for themselves. That said, I do love how he draws the surroundings in Burma; when he’s drawing locations like a cramped paper store, or the streets winding through his neighborhood, you get such a clear, beautiful glimpse into this other country.

I almost hate to admit that in the end I actually enjoyed Pyongyang more than Burma Chronicles, but don’t let that chase you away from this book. Burma Chronicles is a strong, fascinating book about a part of the world that most people will probably never visit. I think that after such high expectations from Pyongyang, though, Delisle’s much more casual, lighter portions of Burma Chronicles couldn’t help but disappoint a tiny bit. If I’d never read anything by Delisle before, I doubt I would have never noticed what I was missing. Regardless, it’s definitely a book I’m glad I read, and the next time Delisle travels to a foreign country, I hope he creates a book about it too. I know I’ll be ready and waiting to read it.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com