With the current wealth of classic reprint series, it’s easy to fall behind on your reading. (I don’t even want to admit how far behind I am on the Complete Peanuts books.) With the fifth volume of the Prince Valiant reprints scheduled for this spring, though, it seemed [...]]]> By Hal Foster
112 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

With the current wealth of classic reprint series, it’s easy to fall behind on your reading. (I don’t even want to admit how far behind I am on the Complete Peanuts books.) With the fifth volume of the Prince Valiant reprints scheduled for this spring, though, it seemed like a good a time as any to catch up on Hal Foster’s legendary newspaper strip. With a slight shift in the format of the strip in this volume, it turned out this was the perfect time to take another look at the series.

I’d found the third volume of Prince Valiant to drag a little bit, so it was a relief to find that the fourth strip in this collection begins a new story, sending Prince Valiant back to his homeland of Thule. With his helping his father reclaim Thule being such an important driving force of the earliest years of Prince Valiant, it’s almost a relief to see the strip shift its focus here. We’re reminded not only of Val’s heritage (he is, after all, a real Prince) but about the prophecies that were laid upon him early in the strip. It feels like Foster himself took the start of 1943 as a chance to kick the book back into high gear and forge new paths for the strip.

From there, we end up with two years’ worth of high adventure. There are wonderfully inventive moments peppered throughout these strips—one of the best being Prince Valiant building a dam to turn an enemy’s castle into the center of a lake—and Foster keeps the stories moving briskly from one to the next. Even with the return to Thule taking up seven months of this volume, it never feels like any stories are overstaying their welcome or dragging.

In mid-1944, Foster also added a secondary feature into his full page strip, "The Mediaeval Castle." Taking up the bottom third of the page, it follows everyday life for a family living in a castle; everything from schooling to being besieged by enemies, it’s a strange but charming mixture of adventure and historical primer. Considering that most installments are only three panels, I found myself a little surprised by how much Foster is able to cram into each installment of "The Mediaeval Castle." Originally I’d planned to skip reading those strips until I was done with the book and then backtrack to read just those (so I wouldn’t mix the two of them together in my head), but I was pleasantly surprised to find not only the two of them distinctly different, but also each succinct enough that there was no need to try and make each its own reading experience.

I’ll admit that I was a little worried when I saw that "The Mediaeval Castle" was taking up a third of the page of Prince Valiant, because one of the things I quickly fell in love with here was how Foster used the huge full page spreads to his advantage, with large layouts and inventive uses of the space. At first, it felt like Foster fell into a pattern; a nine panel-grid where the first six panels were for Valiant, the last three for the Castle. But as the comic progressed, Foster soon clearly felt comfortable enough with the new arrangement that we had him break that structure as need be. The return of Aleta, for instance, is a huge panel the size of four normal ones, letting us not only see Aleta and Valiant, but her entire court, the tapestries hanging on the walls, and even the tears in Val’s cloak.

Then again, Foster is no stranger to fine detail in Prince Valiant, so this shouldn’t have been a surprise. The fine lines that are on every single page are a joy to simply stop and study. From the veins running through stone walls to the individual fibers on a loincloth, Foster made sure every last detail was present. He was also an excellent artist when it came to understanding the human body and how to depict it move. When Valiant frees himself from a dungeon after being strung up, watching him pull his legs up and through the ropes, and then hang from his knees while undoing the rest of the bonds, makes you feel like you’re watching an acrobat move across the page. Every new image flows gracefully from the previous one, a reminder that a lot of modern artists could learn a great deal from Foster’s storytelling techniques and craft.

Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 is not only a great book, I think it could also serve well as a good jumping-on point for those curious about the strip. By this point Foster has gotten a strong grip on his characters and the format of the strip, and with a new storyline beginning so early on in this volume you don’t have to worry about being lost. And while this volume doesn’t end at a conclusion for the last storyline (running a whopping 20 months in all, as it turns out, only the first 7 months are present here), there’s so much meat here that you’ll be eager for Prince Valiant Vol. 5 so you can find out how it ends. I, for one, can’t wait.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

The first volume of Wandering Son, published in the middle of last year, was an intriguing look at two teenagers who both are trying to figure out their own gender identity and their place in the world around them. Fantagraphics released the second volume at the [...]]]> By Shimura Takako
200 pages, black and white
Published by Fantagraphics

The first volume of Wandering Son, published in the middle of last year, was an intriguing look at two teenagers who both are trying to figure out their own gender identity and their place in the world around them. Fantagraphics released the second volume at the end of the year, and with a lot of the set-up completed, Shimura Takako’s story takes a stronger step forward here. Everything I liked about the first volume is still present, but any issues I’d had with it feel like they’ve been erased as her story progresses.

Wandering Son Vol. 2 picks up right where the last volume left off. Shuichi, Yoshino, and Saori are entering the 6th grade. But as the three find themselves not all in the same class, it’s the first hint that things aren’t always going to be quite so easy for Shuichi and Yoshino. What follows is a whirlwind of encounters and moments, with Shuichi and Yoshino learning more about their older transgendered friend Yuki, a class trip where Shuichi starts encountering some bullying, a potentially misplaced crush when a classmate of Shuichi’s sister sees Shuichi dressed as a girl, and even hurt feelings among the group of friends. In short, it’s life in the sixth grade, only filtered through the additional issue of being transgendered.

I love that Takako has given Shuichi and Yoshino their older friends Yuki and her boyfriend Shii; it gives the book a slightly different perspective as Yuki shows them one path that their life may eventually lead, as well as someone that they can theoretically talk to and be slightly more comfortable around. At the same time, I appreciate that Takako doesn’t take the obvious tactic of them all becoming instant best-friends simply because of the transgendered connection. There’s still a certain level of uneasiness mixed in with the admiration for Shuichi and Yoshino, and I like that Takako isn’t going for the easy out. Being part of a minority offers people an obvious introduction, but she doesn’t confuse that for a universal pass.

Then again, friendships in general aren’t taken for granted in Wandering Son Vol. 2. Saori being in a different class than Shuichi and Yoshino is already creating a rift, and Saori’s unstated jealousy of Shuichi’s relationship with Yoshino is a development that is making Saori that much more interesting. (Although, after meeting Saori’s mother, I want Saori to stick around if only because I’m dying to see her mother again, who steals an entire scene in just two pages.) At their age, friendships can start, stop, and start again at the drop of a hat, and watching something as simple as a shared journal between Shuichi and Yoshino create problems has a bite of realism that I think all readers can relate to.

It’s the school trip, though, where Wandering Son stops becoming sweet and innocent, and we start seeing the real world seep into Takako’s storytelling. Up until now, it’s been a pretty warm and innocent story for our characters; there was the occasional clash, but never anything too serious. What starts as simple childish taunting by Shuichi’s seat mate gets uglier with each interaction, with Takako completely understanding how a bully will find a weakness and continue to exploit it with larger and more powerful attacks once that vulnerability is discovered. When the phrase, "Little faggot," is spoken, in some ways the softer world of Wandering Son comes crashing down around the characters. It’s hard at that point to forget that the world is tilted against Shuichi and Yoshino, and that for every Saori, Kanako, or Yuki, there’s someone else far more unaccepting around the corner. It’s a powerful and dramatic moment, and Takako writes it pitch-perfect.

The art in Wandering Son is adorable as the first volume. Takako draws her characters with a certain air of innocence about them, with expressions of surprise and happiness bursting onto their faces in a way that makes me hope none of them ever try to become poker players. My favorite moments here, though, alongside those of unbridled joy, are when Shuichi’s sister Maho starts to figure out what’s up with her little brother. Those looks of suspicion and realization are classic, telling us everything we need to know about what’s inside of her head in one fell swoop.

Wandering Son Vol. 2 is a great sophomore collection from Takako; I feel like the slightly choppy nature from the early chapters in Vol. 1 is gone, and Takako’s starting to expand the cast and the plot in a way that provides more of a dramatic bite. Based on the class trip sequence in this volume, Takako’s just getting ready to make Wandering Son a lot more heavy and less idealized for the characters. If it goes anything like we see here, we’ve got a hell of a ride ahead of us. With beautifully designed hardcovers (and a pleasing weight and feel to the books too, with a good paper stock to boot), Wandering Son is the sort of series you’ll be proud to have on your bookshelf. I’m ready for the next volume now.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Carl Barks is one of those comic creators that, up until now, I’d never read anything by. And as a long-time comic reader, that’s been a secret shame. Barks is, after all, one of the original three inductees into the Comic Book Hall of Fame (along with Will [...]]]> By Carl Barks
240 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

Carl Barks is one of those comic creators that, up until now, I’d never read anything by. And as a long-time comic reader, that’s been a secret shame. Barks is, after all, one of the original three inductees into the Comic Book Hall of Fame (along with Will Eisner and Jack Kirby), and his comics for Disney made him a superstar across the world. Well, everywhere except for America, it seems. Here, his creations have been occasionally collected, but also quickly falling out of print and never making a huge splash. Fantagraphics is now giving Barks’ Duck comics a whirl, and based off this first volume alone if there’s any justice in the comics world, fame should finally (belatedly) be coming for the late, great Barks.

Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes isn’t chronologically the first of Barks’ Duck comics, with Fantagraphics (wisely) jumping ahead about half a dozen years to when Barks had hit his stride and started turning out stories that are touted as Barks in his prime. (At the end of the collection process, they’ll go back and issue those earliest, reportedly weaker stories.) So when I sat down with Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, I was bracing myself to have my socks knocked off. And I’ll admit it: at first, I wasn’t as enthralled as I’d expected. The opening story ("Lost in the Andes!") initially felt a little rambling and aimless, as Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie wander South America trying to find where chickens that lay square eggs come from. But just as I was starting to get around the halfway point and the Ducks were in the hidden Incan city, I began to realize something: I couldn’t stop reading.

What I’d initially mistaken for a lackadaisical storytelling technique turned out to be a much more classic method; Barks is carefully planting material to be mined in the later moments of the story. More importantly, though, is that you need to have a slightly different mind set for reading Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes. Essentially, you need to let go of looking for a large structured story, and instead just lean back and enjoy the sheer fun of it all. And once you do that? Well, Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes begins to fire on all cylinders.

Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes is divided up into three sections based on story length; Adventures, Short Stories, and Gags. The four adventures stories (each in the 30-32 page range) are all fun, although it’s "The Golden Christmas Tree" that was easily my favorite. There’s something wonderfully strange about a story involving an evil witch wanting to wipe out all Christmas trees in the world by using a spell powered by "tears of disappointment." There’s a moment where Donald is trying to break into the witch’s cabin by using a log as a battering ram, and the witch conjures up a mulcher that not only shreds the log, but spits out newspapers on the back with the headline, "Late News: Witch Foils Housebreaker." It’s a moment where you can’t help but laugh, and the further you make it into Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, the more full of these bits of cleverness that you’ll encounter. It’s also interesting to contrast the villain of that piece with the one in "Voodoo Hoodoo," a bad stereotype of a witch doctor named Foola Zoola. Unlike the witch, Foola Zoola has genuinely been wronged, and in the end nothing bad happens to him; the Ducks merely manage to escape before vengeance is (unfairly) delivered on them.

The shorts and gags are well worth reading, too. I was especially excited to read "The Sunken Yacht," a story in which Donald and his nephews raise a sunken ship by pumping it full of ping-pong balls. It’s a technique that was actually used years later, inspired by this very comic, and turned out to work well and kept the ship from disintegrating as it rose. Life imitating art is one thing, but this is clearly a case of life imitating genius. The shorts don’t have the same epic quality as the adventures, but Barks is able to stuff them full of good jokes and clever twists, often placing Donald and his nephews at odds in classic games of one-upsmanship. Even the one-page gag strips are worth a chuckle or two, Barks zooming directly to the punch line.

The reproduction on these strips are beautiful; Fantagraphics hired cartoonist Rich Tommaso to re-color the works, and Tommaso wisely uses gentle flat tones to keep with the overall feel of Barks’ crisp, classic art. I also appreciated the essays about the different stories in the back of the book. Fantagraphics did the same thing with their recent Mickey Mouse books, and once again it feels like we’re getting all sorts of DVD extras included here. Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes is a handsome looking book, and trust me when I say it’s just the first of many I plan on reading by Barks. It may have taken me several decades to finally read Barks’ comics, but I’m not waiting that long for another helping. I’ll be reading these as fast as Fantagraphics can publish them.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

When people talk about classic Disney comics, they’re usually referring to the various Duck comics (Donald, Uncle Scrooge, Huey & Dewey & Louie, and so on) by Carl Barks, or [...]]]> Written by Floyd Gottfredson, with Webb Smith and Ted Osborne
Penciled by Floyd Gottfredson
Inked by Al Taliaferro and Ted Thwaites
280 pages, black and white
Published by Fantagraphics

When people talk about classic Disney comics, they’re usually referring to the various Duck comics (Donald, Uncle Scrooge, Huey & Dewey & Louie, and so on) by Carl Barks, or perhaps Don Rosa. It wasn’t until Fantagraphics announced their Mickey Mouse comic strip collection project that I’d even heard of Floyd Gottfredson and his long tenure on the property. We’re two volumes into the series now, and at this point I’m finding the collections fascinating. With this new book, I feel like Gottfredson’s take on the characters is blossoming into something strong enough that I wish I’d encountered it much earlier in life.

Gottfredson’s stories from the 1930s follow a format that is largely dying in comic strips today; the adventure serial, seen only in a handful of properties running in newspapers. Focusing on a core cast of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle Cow, Mickey and company come up with an idea and follow it through a convoluted and at times lengthy series of twists and turns. An orphanage needing money will transform into a staging of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a duo of evil robbers snatching the proceeds; poor Widow Churchmouse’s plea for help will have Mickey tangling with pirates, gorillas, and cannibals; looking for an investment will plunge Mickey into the world of horse racing with an impossible steed. The genesis of each story is never even close to where it’s going to wind up, and half of the fun is watching the twists and turns.

With the stories in Mickey Mouse: Trapped on Treasure Island, I feel like Gottfredson has fully learned how to hold onto the reader’s attention. The titular story is a bizarre rambling tale, but the story beats keep everything lively and moving at a fast pace. More importantly, looking back at the story when it hits its conclusion, it never feels like Gottfredson was making things up as he went along. Early ideas that seem forgotten click back into the greater puzzle, and it’s a pleasure to see it come together. The centerpiece of the book for me was "The Mail Pilot," which ran for three and a half months and is the strongest Gottfredson we’ve gotten to date. At first it feels like a slapstick, silly tale where Mickey has randomly decided to learn how to fly an airplane. It’s a lot of jokes about his feeble attempts in aviation school, and while it’s particularly amusing (it’s Gottfredson’s best slapstick yet), it feels lightweight. Then we learn why they need new pilots—a group of pirates has been kidnapping the mail pilots while out on their routes—and suddenly everything gets a lot more interesting. When Mickey goes up against the pirates, there’s still an undercurrent of humor present, but Gottfredson gives the story a lot of danger and energy. Mickey’s no longer the bumbling goofball, he’s a genuine hero ready to take down the pirates.

There are still some rough edges here and there throughout the book, though. The performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the opening story is bound to offend some modern readers with its racial stereotypes and faux dialects, and even if that wasn’t present it’s a sequence that has not aged well. Most readers won’t be familiar with the plot of the source material, and this re-enactment is less than riveting material, to put it mildly. Horace and Clarabelle, despite being half of the core cast of the comic strip, are also increasingly irrelevant as the strip progresses. Early on they served as a way to get Mickey and Minnie into the adventures as well as to bounce dialogue off of, but they’re clearly being phased out of the strip by the conclusion of this volume. They’re not terribly interesting characters, so their slow erasure from the book is actually a welcome change.

The art in Mickey Mouse: Trapped on Treasure Island is solid. In a standard newspaper comic strip there’s not much more for innovation, but I did like that Gottfredson was able to make such a small landscape for art still feel expressive and fun. It’s some of the supporting characters where I think the art is at its best; the Churchmice characters look great, Widow with her half-moon glasses and hair, and the Captain with his neatly trimmed beard. It makes them look like more than just generic mice, and visually memorable. I also found myself having far more affection for the horse Tanglefoot than the script would have warranted, and I realized after a little bit that it’s thanks to how Gottfredson drew him. Tanglefoot is so gawky and clumsy as he stumbles across the panel, you can’t help but like him.

The Mickey Mouse books from Fantagraphics are full of tons of bonus material; advertising art, essays, sketches, even examples of how the stories got re-purposed down the line. These feel like the Criterion Collection DVDs translated into comic strip compilations, a prime example of how to give the readers more than their money’s worth. Reading the first Mickey Mouse collection, I enjoyed it but I hadn’t felt a burning desire to read on. With Mickey Mouse: Trapped on Treasure Island, I’m already eager to see what Gottfredson did next. I’m in for the long haul.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Richard Sala is one of those creators that holds a fairly unique voice in comics. Many people have tried to replicate his off-beat brand of horror, but ultimately nothing out there quite like his. So with a new graphic novel called The Hidden out, the question for most [...]]]> By Richard Sala
136 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

Richard Sala is one of those creators that holds a fairly unique voice in comics. Many people have tried to replicate his off-beat brand of horror, but ultimately nothing out there quite like his. So with a new graphic novel called The Hidden out, the question for most people won’t be, "Should I read it?" but "When should I read it?" What you’ll find inside is a book that in many ways sums up both Sala’s greatest strengths and weaknesses.

The Hidden begins in a typical manner for many Sala books; a series of mysterious scenes, with a professor having nightmares followed up quickly by his town being destroyed as he runs. But then, with no warning, the setting jumps slightly in time and we get to the heart of the graphic novel. Our heroes, such as they are, are a young couple named Colleen and Tom who run across the amnesiac professor, even as an unknown force or group has destroyed the nearby city and almost all of its inhabitants. At the mercy of the professor, they find what at first seems to be a safe haven, but then things go from bad to worse and they have to try and rise to the occasion to stop the destruction from shifting to an even greater scale.

Early on, The Hidden is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s "Masque of the Red Death" short story, with the scenes of the decadent businessmen locked away from the destruction raining down all around them, assuming that what was outside could never infiltrate their lair. But being Sala, nothing in The Hidden remains static for long, so every time you think you’ve cracked its code something new rears its head. With its ever-sliding setting and characters, though, eventually Sala has to reveal what’s really going on, and that’s one of the weakest points of the book. With little space for the characters to figure it out on their own, we instead have a member of the supporting cast show up with a huge block of exposition, explaining the plot and how it unfolded. It’s an awkward and jarring moment of the book, and while Sala in the past hasn’t been adverse to moments of wholesale exposition, this one seems much more labored and lengthy than in the past.

When it’s not full of overly heavy exposition, though, there’s a lot about The Hidden that does work. The attack at the Rebirth Foundation shifts that scene from uneasy to terrifying, with Sala pacing out the shifting dynamics of the people in the room in a way that continually ups the fear factor. And when violence shows up almost randomly, there’s that sudden feeling that anything can happen at any time, that at no point in this story is a character safe from harm or death. Even something as simple as a nightmare sequence can grab your attention, and it goes a long way toward smoothing over its exposition issues.

Sala’s art is strong throughout the graphic novel. His strangely angular creations are once more on display here, but even more than in books like Delphine, I feel like Sala’s making the landscape an equally critical visual element. The desert mesas and buttes tower above the characters as they wander through the wasteland, their ridges and accompanying twisted trees providing an eerie nature to the scenes. Piles of abandoned cars and corpses also regularly show up, presented in a way that at first you can’t help but see them, and then over time they’re almost lurking in the background, an after-thought for the characters who are numbed to their presence. Sala’s colors are also on display here and they’re gorgeous; I love the deep blues he uses for the sky, or the reds and oranges for the landscape. And when we have a creepy nightmare, with the world around a character plunged into a single color, it adds a sinister layer to the scene.

The Hidden isn’t perfect—the exposition is hard to shake, and the ending is even more abrupt than normal (and slightly unsatisfying beyond the initial "gotcha!" moment)—but what Sala does well, he does very well indeed. There’s quite a lot to love in The Hidden, with some scenes in particular that will stick with the reader for a long time. I’d like to see Sala shake these slight faults for his next book, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be reading it.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I’m a big fan of Dave McKean’s. Often dreamed of owning one of his covers. Read each issue of Cages as it was published and fell in love with it over and over again. Bought half a dozen copies of Cages and Pictures that Tick to give as [...]]]> By Dave McKean
232 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

I’m a big fan of Dave McKean’s. Often dreamed of owning one of his covers. Read each issue of Cages as it was published and fell in love with it over and over again. Bought half a dozen copies of Cages and Pictures that Tick to give as gifts. Even bought some of his photography books over the years. So a new McKean graphic novel should have been the best news I’d heard all year. But now that I’ve read and re-read Celluloid, it’s hard to keep a bit of disappointment from creeping in, even as I can still admire its pluses.

McKean’s new graphic novel is wordless, telling the story of a woman whose partner is still at work, and finds herself bored. When an old film projector showing an unfocused erotic film is discovered, though, it allows her to walk into the world of film itself, moving through a series of scenes until she finally arrives at the climax she’s been desiring ever since the man in her life stayed at work rather than came home. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is.

I’d known not to expect a retread of Cages (which I’ll admit has its flaws, but I still love it anyway) but I found myself slightly taken aback by how little there is in the way of actual plot in Celluloid. It’s a mood piece, pure and simple, and while I’m not against that nature of story even that didn’t seem to entirely work for me. Most of the different scenes feel a little cold in terms of storytelling; it’s hard to warm to McKean’s protagonist, and her wandering from one style of art to the next feels almost random in its progression. At times Celluloid feels less like a narrative and more like a series of pieces of art that were collected together due to similar themes.

The one saving grace for Celluloid is some of the pieces of art themselves. It is entertaining to watch McKean move through his various styles, from sharp pen and ink lines for the "real world" scenes, to what appears to be a mixture of paint, photography, and computer effects that shift and turn as the book progresses. Some work better than others; the usage of fruit photography alongside lines and paints is inventive, with grapes for hair and other fruit subbing in for more delicate parts of the female anatomy. But even then, while I appreciate the styles on display, there’s a computer-generated sequence towards the end that feels almost like a parody of McKean’s more recent works (overly textured and messy with hundreds of images stitched together like a collage), and there’s never any strong motion or energy to the pages. I’d have been happy to immerse myself fully in McKean’s art, but there’s a stiffness present that keeps the reader from fully getting drawn into the finished book.

Having read Celluloid a couple of times, it’s hard to keep from being a little disappointed. It’s not a bad book, but it suffers a great deal in comparison to McKean’s other creations. As an experiment it’s interesting, and some of the styles of art on display are breathtaking. But it’s hard to shake the nagging thought that Celluloid should have been great, based on its pedigree. And while I respect what McKean wanted to do with Celluloid, "great" is not a word I’d use to describe it, alas. This is a book for McKean completists above all else, I think.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Jim Woodring is that rare comics creator whose works are truly unique. On the surface, you might think it sounds otherwise—a silent comic about a protagonist (Frank) in a strange world that perpetually seems out to get him—but the reality is anything but. Of course, that’s [...]]]> By Jim Woodring
104 pages, black and white
Published by Fantagraphics

Jim Woodring is that rare comics creator whose works are truly unique. On the surface, you might think it sounds otherwise—a silent comic about a protagonist (Frank) in a strange world that perpetually seems out to get him—but the reality is anything but. Of course, that’s in part because the word "reality" and Woodring’s comics about Frank really don’t belong in the same sentence; these are some of the strangest, trippiest comics to crawl out of anyone’s headspace in a while, and at such a continual basis at that.

In 2003 Fantagraphics published The Frank Book, an omnibus of Woodring’s comics about Frank, and I figured it was probably the last we’d see of the character. But last year, Woodring debuted Weathercraft, a new graphic novel set in the world of Frank, and he followed it up this year with Congress of the Animals. It’s an extremely pleasant surprise, to get such a wealth of new material in the space of these past two years.

With Congress of the Animals, Woodring returns to Frank as our protagonist, where a bizarre croquet accident destroys his house and places him into indentured servitude to pay for a replacement home. And then, when a moment of escape presents itself, Woodring plunges Frank into a series of strange non-sequiturs that lands him in a situation I never thought we’d see in a Frank comic.

Of course, if you’ve ever read a Frank comic then you’ll know that saying there’s "a series of strange non-sequiturs" is like saying that an issue of X-Men features mutants. The world of Congress of the Animals is forever morphing and malleable. Statues shudder to life and flip their faces inside out; creatures with 13 faces rise up out of the deep; tentacled horrors attempt to eat and devour our hero. (It’s that latter in particular that we’ve seen more times than we can count in Woodring’s comics. Those easily disturbed might want to steer clear.) There’s always a certain internal logic to Woodring’s comics, though; be it a crank device that rotates your face in the direction you turn it, or rings of eyes that forever gaze at whomever is walking by. There’s that continual danger that the world of Frank is always out to get the unaware, and it’s a place where you can never let your guard down.

But with all of that in mind, Congress of the Animals is—and I hate to say this—probably the weakest of the Frank comics I’ve read, saved in part only by its conclusion. Too much of Congress of the Animals feels aimless, or rather more aimless than normal. I’m used to Woodring’s strange stream-of-consciousness stories and I enjoy them a great deal, but this feels like a series of scenes even more disconnected from one another than Woodring normally gives us. It’s still a trippy, surreal, slightly unnerving landscape that I appreciate the creativity and sense of wonder that is infused into its creation, but this is a much more episodic and wildly varying story than I’d have liked. Maybe it’s in part because of its larger page count, versus a short story; Woodring usually doesn’t have this much room to stretch out his explorations into the world of Frank. But when the big event happens in the last twenty pages, it feels slightly frustrating that it’s taken us this long to get to this moment, and that it’s shoved into the last fifth of the book.

That said, "weakest" is a relative term when it comes to Woodring, who is truly one of the most creative comic creators working today. His art is still richly textured and unnerving, with massive faces on prehensile necks that swing around and stalk poor Frank, or creations that are so fundamentally wrong that it can’t help but disturb the reader if they look for too long. It’s fascinating just to look at the art and marvel at the oddities that spring to life; for that alone it’s hard to not highly recommend a graphic novel from Woodring.

Congress of the Animals might be my least favorite Woodring book, but it’s still overall strong and compelling. I love the fact that Woodring has made a huge, fundamental change to the world of Frank, and that in doing so it still feels like an old familiar friend. I’m not sure just anyone could have pulled this off so late in the game, but with Woodring it feels like a natural extension of everything we’ve seen up until now. There’s no other comics quite like Woodring’s out there, and I’m forever thankful that we get these amazing, disturbing, wonderful creations from him. After all, a "merely good" comic from Woodring is still better than most other comics out there. If you haven’t read any comics by Woodring, definitely take the time to give them a try. They are, in the end, truly unique.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

If you’d told me a decade ago that Fantagraphics would be hand selecting manga to publish in North America, I’d have laughed at you. But as more publishers dip into the wide spectrum of comics published in Japan, it’s a delight to see Fantagraphics bringing over [...]]]> By Shimura Takako
208 pages, black and white
Published by Fantagraphics

If you’d told me a decade ago that Fantagraphics would be hand selecting manga to publish in North America, I’d have laughed at you. But as more publishers dip into the wide spectrum of comics published in Japan, it’s a delight to see Fantagraphics bringing over books like Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, and now Shimura Takako’s series Wandering Son. Because as much as I enjoyed A Drunken Dream, it’s this gentle, inviting series about two transgendered elementary school students that has truly captured my attention.

Wandering Son feels at times more like a series of character sketches that all connect together than a narrative-driven book, but it’s a structure that makes me that much more intrigued, letting us catch glimpses into the lives of Shuichi Nitori and Yoshina Takatsuki. Shuichi is a young boy transferring into a new school in the 5th grade, even as he’s mistaken as a girl because of his soft, delicate demeanor. At the same time, in his class is Yoshina, the tough, more forceful girl that Shuichi slowly forms a bond with, because of their growing understanding of being uncomfortable with their gender. And what begins as a quick crossdressing experiment slowly begins to grow into something greater, and with it, the size of the story expands as well.

Shuichi dominates the early chapters of Wandering Son Vol. 1, and he’s the one that I find much more fascinating of the pair of characters. Unlike Yoshino, Shuichi is initially much more unsure of his life and what’s going on around him. He seems to almost stumble into his understanding of being physically born into the wrong gender; it’s a combination of teasing from his fellow students and a perhaps innocent mistake that finally starts leading him down that path. But at the same time, it’s curious to see Shuichi on the first steps of a journey that everyone else seems to already have plotted out for him. Family members tell him, "You should have been born a girl," in an almost casual manner, and it’s those little cultural differences (I can’t imagine that same sort of scene in an American comic) that help set Wandering Son apart from its peers. Perhaps once Shuichi comes out to family members things will change with them, but for now it’s a curious and almost sweet series of events.

Shuichi’s relationship with Chiba, in particular, gets the book moving as she encourages him to dress like a girl and even buys him a dress to wear. Even as she comes across supportive and encouraging, I like that Takako keeps Chiba’s motives at least partially hidden. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it’s that nervousness and uncertainty coloring the relationship between Shuichi and Chiba that helps make Wandering Son feel especially real. No matter how much you want to trust, those early days in understanding your sexuality and how it differs from your friends can be fraught with tension and fear, and Takako brings that to life to a greater audience here.

By way of contrast, Takako’s depiction of Yoshino is much more confident and self-assured, and it makes a good contrast for Shuichi. As we see the flip side of Shuichi in her, though, Takako makes sure to begin to give Yoshino depths as well. Her vulnerability shows up at several unexpected moments, and it ends up feeling somewhat heartbreaking as we see that even Yoshino’s tough exterior has some cracks. Still, while Chiba gets the ball initially rolling in Wandering Son, I keep getting the impression that Yoshino’s purpose here is to move the story (and especially Shuichi) into places that Chiba herself could never reach.

As a narrative, Wandering Son feels at times a little piecemeal. Events are often happening just off-panel, referred to but never actually witnessed. There were a couple of moments the first time I read the book where I felt like I’d accidentally skipped a page, only to take a closer look and realize that Takako had deliberately skipped past them and into the aftermath. The more you read Wandering Son, though, the more it becomes an attraction rather than a detriment. Not only does it help illustrate the idea of this being bits and pieces of a larger life, but just like the real world, you can’t always see everything that happens. Catching only flashes of Yoshino’s fight with a classmate, for example, ends up being much more interesting than if we’d seen every last insult or punch. You can still piece together what happened, but in some ways it ends up being more vivid because of the elements that you have to add in yourself. Insults become much more cruel when you have to come up with the specific word or phrase yourself. There are some times where I do feel like we’re at a slight cultural disadvantage (I’ve heard of the manga The Rose of Versailles before, by way of example, but I feel like not having read it makes me miss on some of the significance of Shuichi and Yoshino’s class performing the play), and that’s the one time where the gaps don’t work quite so well. Translator Matt Thorn’s explanation of honorifics and pronouns in the back of the book, though, is truly fascinating reading and shows how much more meaning there is to the "-kun" and "-chan" suffixes that are thrown around in manga.

Takako’s art is beautiful here, delicate line drawings that fit well with her story. While panels are often lacking in backgrounds, it’s the only complaint I have with her art. So much of the book hangs on the transformations of Shuichi and Yoshino, and it’s there in particular that the book shines. Shuichi dressing as a girl looks so right that it’s hard to feel like it could be anything else. Not just in terms of the clothing fitting, but Shuichi’s actual physical demeanor. Despite Shuichi’s inner nervousness, for the first time Shuichi actually looks alive rather than trying to withdraw into a shell; it’s the visual slow birth of confidence that gives this book so much hope.

Last but not least, props need to go to Fantagraphics for a great physical design of the book. From the attractive cover design and the light (but sturdy) paper stock, to the strong reproduction of the color pages in the volume, Wandering Son Vol. 1 looks attractive in your hand or on the bookshelf. It’s nice to see so much care taken to make this an inviting-looking book. The second volume of Wandering Son is currently set for the end of the year, and I’m definitely going to be reading it as soon as it’s published. This isn’t quite like anything else on the market right now, and I’m thrilled to see Fantagraphics exposing it to a wider audience.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

There are books out there that, no matter who you are, as soon as you read it you’re going to have the exact same mental description in your head. It’s impossible to not refer to it that way the second the phrase pops into your head, and [...]]]> By Stéphane Blanquet
32 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics Books

There are books out there that, no matter who you are, as soon as you read it you’re going to have the exact same mental description in your head. It’s impossible to not refer to it that way the second the phrase pops into your head, and the more you talk to other people, the more you realize that it’s perfect because everyone can’t help but feel the same way about it. I am pretty sure that Stéphane Blanquet’s Toys in the Basement is one of those books, and the phrase that everyone’s going to find themselves using is, "A deranged Toy Story." Which is, I shall quickly add, a complement.

The idea behind Toys in the Basement is pretty easy to sum up; a young boy and girl at a costume party go into the basement, are mistaken for toys by the damaged and discarded toys left behind, and led into the secret hiding place that the toys have created for themselves. On the surface, it’s like a thousand other "toys are secretly alive" stories out there. Except here, the toys have no love for children and are quite bitter about their fate. We don’t get toys that yearn to be played with again, these toys are ready for revenge, and woe to any children who stumble across them. It’s at that moment that Toys in the Basement moves away from so many other stories over the years, and starts marching in a distinctly warped and evil manner.

I liked Blanquet’s art in a volume of Dungeon Monstres from NBM, but this is the first time I’ve read something written by him as well. For the most part, he’s a good storyteller, introducing us to the main characters and then hitting the ground running. After all, he’s only got 32 pages to tell his story, so things need to progress at a fairly swift rate. Our protagonists (who never get names, the better for which younger readers to imprint their own lives into this story) are in many ways horrified observers than actual characters; aside from a brief opening scene explaining how the boy ended up in a bunny outfit rather than dressed as a pirate, they don’t have much personality or depth, but they don’t need them. They’re there to get dragged down the terrifying river, pulled through as their situation goes from bad to worse every time they stop to catch their collective breath.

Blanquet saves the creepiest moment—the massive Amelia—for the climax of the story, letting everything build up to that point. It’s a great part of the book, and up until then I found myself loving Blanquet’s storytelling. It’s also unfortunately the moment when the book runs out of steam; the last three pages feel deflated and are a bit of a let down. It’s hard to say if Blanquet ran out of ideas and wrapped things up, or if he simply didn’t have the space for anything else. Either way, though, it’s a sudden (and rather cliché) ending that ends the book on a slightly sour note. You’re having so much fun that this last moment just can’t quite hold up to everything else we’ve experienced, and that’s a shame.

The art, fortunately, is adorably dangerous the whole way through. The toys all look gleeful and creepy at the same time, and the children in their costumes look positively deranged in the same way that Ralphie in the bunny suit appears in A Christmas Story. Blanquet walks a fine line between cute and creepy, with deliberately garish and over the top colors that seem happy at first but hurt your eyes the longer you look at them. And of course, the behemoth called Amelia is anything but cute, and it’s the best image in the entire book; for that alone, I’m a fan.

A stronger ending would have made me love Toys in the Basement rather than merely like it. Still, it’s a nice book and it let me know that Blanquet’s not a slouch in the writing department. Between this and The Littlest Pirate King it’s nice to see Fantagraphics bring these strange little books into English; in theory they’re for children, but they’re so darn creepy that I think in many ways adults will get the bigger kick out of them. I’ll be keeping my eyes open to see just what Fantagraphics unleashes next in this line.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

For being a comic book powerhouse in France, it’s a little surprising that not much of David B.’s works have made it to North America. He’s probably best known for his autobiographical book Epileptic, and his dream diary Nocturnal Conspiracies [...]]]> Adapted by David B.
Based on a story by Pierre Mac Orlan
48 pages, color
Published by Fantagraphics

For being a comic book powerhouse in France, it’s a little surprising that not much of David B.’s works have made it to North America. He’s probably best known for his autobiographical book Epileptic, and his dream diary Nocturnal Conspiracies and ongoing series (and Epileptic follow-up) Babel are also translated. After all of those deeply personal books, though, I was a little surprised to find a new book from B. now in English… about the undead crew of the infamous Flying Dutchman ship.

In The Littlest Pirate King, we quickly meet the cursed crew of sailors, searching for the one reef that will destroy their ship and grant them death, but forever unable to reach it. Frustrated by their inability to end their lives (or rather what little they have left), they start pillaging and destroying other ships on the sea, even as they find it unsatisfying. And that’s how, inadvertently, they end up with a living human baby on board the Flying Dutchman.

The Littlest Pirate King is a strange book, there’s no two ways about it. You spend the first half reading about the undead crew rampaging across the seas while bemoaning their fate to never die. You see them start killing innocent travelers (a reminder for anyone who’s grown attached to them up until this point that they’re not to be trusted in any way), and then upon getting their booty growing tired of it and hurling it over the deck. And then, just when you think the book has settled into a groove, they end up with the baby that they decide to keep until it’s ten years old, at which point they’ll kill him too.

I think what ultimately struck me the most about The Littlest Pirate King (which B. adapted from a story by Pierre Mac Orlan) was how it weaves back and forth between innocent and grim. One moment we’re getting the undead crew sullenly marching, single-file, below decks because the sun is about to come up and the ship will plunge back underwater for the day. The next minute, they’re stabbing travelers unfortunate enough to encounter the Flying Dutchman. I appreciate that B. isn’t ignoring the nasty, dangerous side of the Dutchman myth, but at times you feel almost like a whiplash victim as the book yanks you from one extreme to the other.

The one moment which will charm you from start to finish is the crew’s affection for the human baby, whom they start calling Tiny King. Even though he’s slated for death, B. makes it clear how much they care for him and vice versa. It’s actually rather sweet, with the Tiny King saying he wants to be dead like them, and the crew starting to worry and fret over their initial plan to sacrifice him when he comes of age. It’s what carries the second half of the book, and brings it towards its slightly sad conclusion.

More consistent is the art, which is unsurprisingly beautiful from start to finish. My favorite sections of the book are those which show off the strange and sometimes alien-looking sea creatures which surround the ship as it dips below the waves for the days. The ship is shown as existing amidst a jumble of species and shapes, moving alongside them but still not being a part of them. Add the book’s bright, vivid colors (how can you not love that glowing underwater green seen through the window?) and it’s a gorgeous book. Even at its most nightmarish, there’s always something to admire within The Littlest Pirate King.

This was a strange book, one that goes all over the place, and I’d be curious at some point to see the source material from Mac Orlan that B. adapted this from. I’m glad it’s in English, though, even as I’m slightly unsure exactly whom the target audience would be. I was entertained, though, and for the art alone it was a worthwhile read. Fantagraphics has more of B.’s work on the horizon, and I’m already eager to see what they’ve got in store for us next. Even an average B. comic is, ultimately, still one worth reading.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books