Pointless Man

Some recommendations for those interested in something longer lasting than a graphic novel: Usagi Yojimbo - a heartfelt exploration of a society long gone by a masterful Japanese cartoonist, Stan Sakai, who has spent almost his whole life in Hawaii; deceptively simple and cartoonish on first glance, the art and storytelling share a strong sense of economy rare to comics; Sakai is an award winning letter, and his inking is some of the best in the business; 22 volumes and counting Vagabond - perhaps the best comic being published anywhere today, this manga follows the lives of Miyamoto Mushashi, wandering swordsman, and his contemporaries (with a particular interest in two of his childhood friends); the art effortlessly slips between bold brush strokes to light line work, or watercolours to black and white; the layouts and transitions from panel to panel are excellent; the fight scenes progress logically and show a surprisingly realistic understanding of both the mental and physica...

Was recently tipped by Kiwis By Beat to a beautiful, excellent web-comic, Rice Boy by one Ethan Dahm. Some trippy, really well crafted material there. Reminds me a lot of some of my favorite children's books. This is just a joy to read.

Like Blankets , To the Heart of the Storm is a memoir of youth, and very much worth reading. However, while Craig Thompson's art is moving, evocative, and highly poetic, Eisner's work in Storm is simply masterful in its heavy use of realism and selective reliance upon more subtle symbolism. The novel opens with a brief explanation in prose of the general feeling of the draft, and the effect it had on those it brought in to the armed services in the very late '30s and early forties, before it drops us next to Willie, himself drafted into World War II. Riding a train to boot camp, Eisner stares out a window, framing his stories there. From this initial vantage, we are shown and then brought into his childhood in episodic fashion. We are given very atmospheric tellings of his parents' histories before Eisner goes on to tell us of himself: his fights, his first romantic experiences, early jobs, friendships, the racism he faced as a Jew, and the 'old world' polit...

Absolutely awesome. It doesn't hit you at first. You flip through it, and, sure, it's got some nifty layouts, but the inking doesn't draw you in. No, it's the writing that does it. This is why it's nowhere near as pretentious as you might think for the book to be subtitled 'an illustrated novel by CRAIG THOMPSON'. But here's the thing, just as Will Eisner envisioned for the genre, Craig is able to make you read the art just as much as his writing. Blankets is replete with visual metaphor, literal flights of fancy, and real, honest feeling. Even the linework and lettering fit beautifully and (more suprisingly) explicitly into the way you read things. Brilliant. Someday, maybe you'll walk into your local comic shop, or some big Barnes and Noble, whatever; you'll see Blankets chilling there, waiting for you to pick it up. The natural response will be to flip through and remark, disinterestedly, "Cool," before you walk on to something n...

The Crow , recently back in print, is at once great and terrible. It is the comicbook equivalent of a John Cartpenter movie if Carpenter were a goth art-school grad from Detroit. It reeks of the '80s and silly, but serious goth-drama. It has a scene where the lead character cuts his arms in mock suicide, bandages them up like a martial artist, and then performs a page or two of dance (in front of his cat), presumably all out of sadness. It is gleefully violent. It doesn't really bother explaining itself, but tosses in poems and acute musical references at whim. It finishes up with a 'coda' from someone uninvolved in the making of the book, which stands as one of the silliest pieces of pan-religious paganism I've ever read. To top it off, the author seems oblivious to the campiness of his work. If Wikipedia can be trusted, he has said of it, "There is pure anger on each page." Regardless of that quote's authenticity or context, The Crow seems unaware...

Had to offer a few alternatives to a guy on a board when he went a little far, IMO, in praising Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman--all of whom deserve praise and recognition, but not as the best in the biz. If you read this site, you'll probably have seen me mention some of this before. If so, just take it as a friendly reminder that you need to get out there and support these guys. They deserve it. The following is the result of that discussion. Paul Hornschemeier -- Paul has a BA in Philosophy, first self published and sold his comics from a porn store in Cleveland, and now resides in Chicago. His material has an incredible range, is quite intelligent, and often tends towards the avant-garde. Writing and composition aside, his art is excellent, managing at once to feel cartoonish and realistic, while straying away from the look of traditional American mainstream comics. He is equally at home working in black and white, duotone, and full colour. Sequential , a serie...