Feature: Shapes Shifting - pt. 1

Part I – “Ain’t I a stinkah?”

The first and most symbolic barrier between imagination and a complete story in comics and cartooning is a blank page.  The blank page represents possibility, and there, at that simple, stripped down level of creation, imagination collides with possibility and the resulting shock, when ideas turn into shapes, into characters, scenes and stories, wildly displaces possibility in favor of concrete, two-dimensional illusions. It’s their kinship with this basic element that makes the shape-shifting character a representation of creation, in cartoons or comics, within the space that gives that character a reason for existing. In their space on the page, with each change, they reenact the collision of imagination and possibility. Just as a model of the Solar System that simulates the revolution of the planets around the Sun, the representation has no meaning without that which it represents.

Shape-shifters aren’t necessarily superior to any other type of character just because they shape-shift: they don’t possess any inherent sympathies with readers that other types of characters don’t have. However, shape-shifters do broaden our knowledge of cartoon and comics territory that they inhabit.

The page is a space, and lines, shapes, colors are tools which, a shape-shifter can use to direct a narrative to the brink of cartoon possibility. Or perhaps, more accurately, he is directed. Such is the case in Chuck Jones’ and Michael Maltese’s phenomenal Looney Tunes sketch entitled “Duck Amuck.” Aired in 1953 and voiced by the incomparable Mel Blanc (a shape-shifter in his own right), “Duck Amuck,” in which Daffy Duck falls prey to a malevolent illustrator and is forced to improvise a number of costumes, styles, dances, gestures and anatomic disfigurements under an increasingly capricious brush, is basically a treatise on the lack of space between one form and another in cartoons. If the illusion of the cartoon is stripped away, the illusion of three-dimensional space, it becomes apparent the only thing stopping cartoons from losing consistent form is the force of their creator*—that is, consistent form within a relatively small amount of time rather than over a large span in which several illustrators draw different interpretations of the same character. It’s true a cartoon gets its vitality from human interaction, but the quality of life is determined by which quality of mind an illustrator harnesses when drawing. In other words, the rate and manner in which shapes change is dependent upon temper.

In “Duck Amuck” the creative process is artificially accelerated to show just how volatile the mixture of temper and cartooning can actually be. For most of the cartoon Daffy moves from right to left along a conveyor-belt style canvass. Each new section of the canvass (roughly two to five seconds in duration) is a new set, new scenery, but Daffy takes it all in stride. He’s a professional, after all. When the illustrator draws a scene with no color, Daffy exclaims, “It may come as a complete surprise to you to find that this is an animated cartoon, and that in animated cartoons they have scenery.” When French hills give way to alpine snow, Daffy becomes a skier; when a Hawaiian island appears, Daffy wields a ukulele and lei. The illustrator within “Duck Amuck,” Daffy’s antagonist**, at one point erases Daffy completely, to which he cries, “Alright, Wise Guy … Where am I?” Daffy undergoes auditory changes as well: trying to throw a tantrum, he’s thwarted by a starling chicken cry coming from within his bill, and at one point he’s stricken mute altogether.

What’s special about Daffy’s role in “Duck Amuck” is that he isn’t a shape-shifter normally: it isn’t a recognizable part of his character. So rather than touting an “anything is possible in cartoons” message, even though that’s entirely true, he shows us that any comics or cartoon character can become a shape-shifter depending on the temper of their illustrator at the time of creation. Anything may be possible, but more importantly it must be acknowledged that a creator is capable of anything. “Duck Amuck,” in seven odd minutes, brings to the forefront everything we already know about cartoons, but that which we gloss over for entertainment’s sake forces us to consider how much can happen on the page when possessed by imagination.

-- Ian Burns

NEXT: Merlock Jones and the masters of disguise!

* This is, I admit, an idealistic view in which creators exist in a vacuum wherein the trials of the industry don’t affect the creative process. The reader can assume, then, that I’m speaking about creation at its most primal, pure level.

**SPOILERS!!! It’s Bugs.

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Review: Paying For It by Chester Brown

Paying For It - Chester Brown (w/a)
Drawn and Quarterly, $24.95, ISBN: 978-1770460485

Paying for It is likely to be one of “those” books that will be endlessly blogged-about, make every best-of-the-year list, win countless awards and do really well for the artist and his publisher.  And fair play to them, Chester Brown has been a consistently great creator over the years — a real master of the form and a national treasure in his native Canada — and D+Q have unfaltering in their support of him.  It’s also one of “those” books that would naturally get people talking anyway — in hushed tones, with nudges and winks, or blushing cheeks — since it’s about sex… with prostitutes… and why that’s a good thing.  It also contains lots of depictions of sex, with the author’s penis on full display.  If recent events have told us anything, it’s that there’s nothing better than a crotch-shot to fire-up the public.

Perhaps that last remark sells this short, though, since Brown has never been one to capitalize on the sensationalism of sex, rather using it a catalyst for storytelling and self-examination, as in his 1992 book, The Playboy.  Rather than simply being an introspective account, though, Paying For It is more politically charged, with wider implications for conversations surrounding prostitution.  After his long-term girlfriend leaves him (for the drummer of Broken Social Scene), the Brown of this memoir abandons the idea of romantic love altogether and comes to a realization that hiring prostitutes for sex is a better alternative.  Throughout and following his liaisons with various sex workers, Brown meditates on the semi-legal status of prostitution, what it means for those who work in the trade and the greater political implications for Canada.

Most of these arguments are articulated in conversation with fellow cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth — with a lot of awkward deadpan humour (is it just coincidence that Brown’s cartoon avatar is a dead ringer for Larry David?) — but also included are fifty pages of text at the end of the book, written in a more overtly polemical style — not surprising, considering that Brown has twice run for office in Canada over the last three years — and for the most part, his arguments are convincing.  His libertarian stand-point on the issue is clear and logical, but it’s the humanizing of prostitution in the preceding pages that gives it its real weight — most arguments around the sex trade treat the clients and providers as soulless automatons, a quaint Victorian view of “unfortunates” and desperate lechers.  Brown’s encounters with the women in the book paint the profession as altogether wholesome and modern.  He never encounters any pimps, or any signs of violence or abuse, nor do any of the women appear to be sex slaves.  When presented in this way, legalization seems all the more appealing and liberating.

It’s the above argument on taxation where his vision of legalized prostitution falls down, and one with which it’s easy to take exception.

Keeping the government out of the bedroom sounds like a noble idea but the fact is that every time you slip on a rubber, it has been tested and certified by a branch of the government (Health Canada in Brown’s case, or the FDA in the US, the EU in Europe, etc.).  It’s this kind of kneejerk reaction against government intervention that lends his politics an air of stupidity.  And as for bringing the tax exempt status of churches into it — surely Brown should be advocating to make the churches pay tax, not pointing like a sniveling schoolchild trying to get out of trouble, “But, miss, they were all doing it, too!”

If he maintains that prostitution is not a business, then that changes the narrative somewhat and seems to suggest that Brown simply wants to be able to get whatever he wants.  If sex is too private an act to be influenced by the government, does that then extend to sex aid manufacturers?  What about duvet and bed manufacturers? Should Canada’s socialized healthcare system not cover sexually-transmitted diseases? It’s cloud cuckoo land economics and self-interest politics of the worst kind.  It practically undercuts his entire argument, since it shifts his intentions away from what’s best for people working as prostitutes and onto his own desires to freely sleep with women for money.

It’s a pity that this chink in his armour becomes such an Achilles heel on closer contemplation.  It would nice to think that his book does some good in furthering the cause of legalized prostitution, but when it comes to the policy-making, let’s hope they leave Chester Brown out of the picture.

-- Gavin Lees

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Interview: Steve Lieber on Marketing Digital Comics

Steve Lieber knows what's going on.  Last year when his graphic novel (with Jeff Parker) Underground surfaced on 4chan, in its entirety, for free, he decided that rather than fight the pirates, he'd start a conversation with them.  What resulted was an unprecedented wave of publicity, sales and donations from readers who had enjoyed the book and wanted to support the creators.  As the infrographic from his blog shows, even a review at Boing Boing couldn't generate the same amount of interest in the book.

I sat down to speak with Lieber in March to find out his thoughts on the event and how he saw newsgroup outlets changing the way creators deal with marketing and sales.  He's nothing if not a blue sky thinker.  After the camera stopped rolling, he began to tell me about his grand scheme to start an artist's colony in Detroit by buying up an entire neighbourhood of cheap property and reinvigorating the city through art.  Good luck with that one, Steve...

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Review: The Collected John G. Miller

The Collected John G. Miller - John Miller (w/a)

Braw Book Publications, £11.99, Buy it here

It’s not surprising that John Miller uses Frank Zappa as one of his semi-autobiographical stand-ins.  Encountering his work for the first time is much like the first experience with Zappa’s music — the elements are all familiar, and it seems close to what you understand music to be, but the composition and arrangement is strange, alien, almost a sensory overload.  Substitute “comics” for “music” there and you have a perfect description of Miller’s work.  Rendered in stark black and white, the images seem practically carved out of the paper, as Miller abandons curves almost completely in favour of regular, uniform angles, while his stories concern the exploits of secret agents, super heroes and spacemen, that seem to share the tribulations of working-class Scotsmen. The end result is somewhere between the freeform wackiness of children’s comics and primitive tribal art; and much like both those forms, and indeed the music of Zappa, it is raw, unaffected and completely sui generis.

The Collected John G. Miller is a most welcome and long overdue assemblage of the artist’s work which, until now, has existed piecemeal in various underground anthologies, or slim self-published efforts.  This first volume (of a predicted three) covers the 1990s, arguably his most prolific period. The collection is arranged by subject matter, to give the fractured publication history some continuity, and help the thematic weight of the work to emerge more clearly.  Given the divergent nature of Miller’s stories, the repetition can help the reader to find the core of the tales. What may begin as a story about avoiding religious assemblies at school, can become an encounter with Jesus selling bad dope — and subsequently leave us fumbling for some kind of point — when placed in tandem with other half-true accounts of the artist’s experiences with religion, the flights of fantasy make more sense and the literary tenor is more evident. Given that it’s easy to dismiss Miller’s strips as “just crazy,” this is incredibly effective in inviting us to take the work a good deal more seriously.

Sometimes it can be difficult to take it seriously, though, as the artwork practically buzzes with manic energy — forget Kirby crackle, Miller’s pages are bursting with starfields, op-art waves, shattered glass, lightning bolts and mod chequers — the antithesis of the somber, serious tone we’ve grown accustomed to in literary comics.  (And all that spotted black?  It’s obsessively inked with ballpoint pen — the original pages can almost be read like Braille.)  The subject-matter, too, often moves from the sublime to the ridiculous, with cats from U.N.C.L.E. fighting the fascists who are trying to ban alcohol…with mind control…in Lanark.  Some of the characters, though, are clear analogues for Miller himself, like the aforementioned Captain Zappa, who is imbued with the psychedelic power to fight the establishment; or the many underground zine artists that are saved by Ghosty (a psychic superheroine). It’s all too obvious — sadly so — that Miller has struggled with his art being accepted, rather being dismissed as subversive, dangerous or just garbage.

Occasionally, though, we are treated to strips like “Girl at the Bus Stop” or “A Girl Called Ailsa” that eschew all power fantasies and appear to portray the real, unmasked Miller, and can be genuinely moving.  The vulnerability and shyness that is hidden in the meta-personas is brought to the fore and presents an altogether more fragile authorial voice.  It’s in these strips that we realize exactly what Miller’s art means to him — a vital, necessary outlet to hew order from his chaotic thoughts and stamp out an identity on paper.  From marginal details in some of the strips, it becomes apparent that Miller sees several psychiatrists and may experience hallucinations as a symptom of schizophrenia.  After this slow realization, all the blurred identities, concerns of paranoia and spying, half-remembered autobiography and outsiderism make sense.  And struggling through it all is a glittering intelligence that can riff on Andre Breton, David Gascoyne and Wordsworth, with a love of the surreal and the sublime that can channel his condition into Art.

Within these pages are some of the most original, inventive and urgent comics that have been set to print.  They are never an easy read — whether it be from the eyeball-bending visuals, the surreal leaps in logic or the brutal confessionalism — but always rewarding and a lesson in how far the limits of the comics form can be pushed.  Miller ought to have more recognition than the underground infamy he currently has, it would be hoped that this collection will do well to garner him the praise he so rightly deserves.

-- Gavin Lees

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Comics: Plague Johnny #3

How does plague horn whatever example? The contrast accepts behind Johnny. Any polar hash bores against the supernatural telephone. Can the memory refine the civilian? The telephone divides a repeatable shout.

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Feature: Jim Blanchard's Osama Bin Laden

I wonder how accurate is Jim Blanchard's Stranger cover depicting Osama Bin-Laden's face pre-bullet. There's a strong case for the cover becoming the most poetic artifact from the time immediately proceeding the event, but visually, Blanchard's Osammy is a drooling, lifeless mug shot. Perhaps the best representation of this uber-terrorist icon is a pop equivalent to those soulless portraits of early American presidents: someone we may or may not know a lot about but whom we've become attached to in an incredibly personal way. Because Bin Laden hasn't really been a terrorist for some time. Not really. Regardless, though, for many Americans he's to terrorism what George Washington is to the founding of the nation: namely, the first symbol or idea to appear in the mind when approaching the subject. It's this reaction, most likely, that incited the cheering crowd outside the white house and other locations when news broke of the assassination. More than “patriotism” or catharsis, a violent need to react to Bin Laden's death prompted people to the streets. His image has settled into the muddy American consciousness, becoming the starting point on the linear timeline of the War on Terror that extends straight towards today and goes back no further than 9/11.

Now that the man who started all this, according to the linear timeline, is dead, everything's going to be okay. “We got him,” part two. Blanchard's cover, though, transplants the entire terrorism narrative into the realm of poetics, where every image and idea may be attached to two or three separate ideas by metaphor, and simply by existing destroys any chance of the linear timeline monopolizing the narrative. This is a terrifying prospect for adherents to that timeline, and assassination is a poor substitute conversation, poetic or not, about where America stands as a nation.

On May 2nd, the day after Osama bin Laden's death, investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill spoke on Democracy Now!:

I found it quite disgusting to see people chanting, like it was some sort of sporting event, outside of the White House. I think it was idiotic. Let’s remember here, hundreds of thousands of people have died. Iraq was invaded, a country that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. The United States created an al-Qaeda presence in Iraq by invading it, made Iran a far more influential force in Iraq than it ever would have been. We have given a grand motivation to people around the world that want to do harm to Americans in our killing of civilians, our waging of war against countries that have no connection to al-Qaeda, and by staying in these countries long after the mission was accomplished. Al-Qaeda was destroyed in Afghanistan, forced on the run. The Taliban have no chance of retaking power in Afghanistan. And so, I think that this is a somber day where we should be remembering all of the victims, the 3,000 people that died in the United States and then the hundreds of thousands that died afterwards as a result of a U.S. response to this that should have been a law enforcement response and instead was to declare war on the world.

Basically, to call the celebration moronic would be an insult to morons. It seemed like a joke. A cartoon not unlike the bullet screaming towards Bin Laden’s head on Blanchard’s cover. Evidently the bullet was a last minute addition. Blanchard finished the cover in an astounding 14 hours, from Monday May 2^nd to the evening of Tuesday May 3^rd, and was asked at the last minute to include the bullet. Its cartoonish quality was chosen because it was expedient rather than poetic, but its presence is important none the less.

With the bullet the cover becomes less serious or, perhaps, less exultant. It asks us whether or not the narrative we consider ourselves a part of is actually a cartoon, a fake, and if it is a cartoon, who's holding the pen how do we get off the page?

In the end the idea in the cover may not catch on, and the cover itself may be forgotten within a month or two. But this silly, soon-forgotten thing, simply because it came and went, expresses the real truth about the assassination of Osama bin Laden: that his death is about as relevant to global security, to our lives, as the May 4^th cover of The Stranger.

-- Ian Burns

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Interview: Erik Larsen on Comic Conventions

Erik Larsen is well-known not only for his high-profile contributions to comics over the years as artist on Amazing Spider-Man, co-founding Image Comics and creating the long-running series Savage Dragon; but also as one of the most outspoken and frequently controversial figures in the industry.

It had been rumoured that he was trying to set up an alternative to San Diego Comicon, as an antidote to the overly-hyped nature of the convention. When the chance presented itself, I spoke to him at this year's Emerald City Comicon to find out more about his thoughts on San Diego and his plans for an alternative.

At this point, no announcement had been made about Tr!ckster the bar-and-art-show that Larsen has become involved in.  If some of his responses seem a little guarded, I suspect that this is why.  Despite his somewhat abrasive reputation, I found Larsen to be a very down-to-earth and sensible interviewee.  What follows is an excerpt from our conversation when we turned to the subject of San Diego:

-- Gavin Lees 

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Review: The Bulletproof Coffin by David Hine and Shaky Kane

The Bulletproof Coffin - David Hine (w) Shaky Kane(a)
Image Comics, $17.99, ISBN: 978-1-60706-368-1

Back in the ’90s, Alan Moore stewarded a line of comics for Image called 1963, which took a snide look at Marvel heroes of the silver age and their alliteration-prone writer.  It was charming, irreverent, and fun but, sadly, never finished (in part due to Jim Lee’s sabbatical from comics art, and also due to Moore’s falling out with…well, everyone).  While Shaky Kane and David Hine share some of the pedigree of Affable Al and his collaborators (works for 2000 A.D., Marvel, and DC) they don’t carry quite the same gravitas.  That could be about to change.  The Bulletproof Coffin is very much a spiritual successor to the 1963 line, one that takes its conceit a stage further, adds a dash of Philip K. Dick, some essence of Brendan McCarthy and results in some fantastically layered meta-comics.

Much in the same way as Smilin’ Stan fictionalized himself in the Bullpen Bulletins, so too do Kane and Hine become both fictional and actual authors of The Bulletproof Coffin.  “Kane and Hine” are the famed creators behind Golden Nugget comics, who produced heroes like the Coffin Fly, Red Wraith and Ramona: Queen of the Stone Age (all recognizable Silver and Golden Age archetypes — the masked vigilante, the undead spirit and the jungle girl) until they were bought out by Big Two comics.  After that, they disappeared from the public eye.  Yet when Steve Newman (or is it Norman, or Nyman, or Noman?  His entropic surname is but one of the many games played within these pages) discovers new issues of Golden Nugget character comics, his life slowly devolves into a mess of paranoia and possible delusions.  His world becomes one where the comics are mirrors of real life, his family are spying on him for the government, and maybe — just maybe — he’s the real Coffin Fly and must save Ramona from a future filled with zombies.

It’s a beautiful set-up which approaches superheroes from a post-modern, but not necessarily cynical perspective.  Kane and Hine obviously have a great love for Simon, Kirby, Ditko, et al, so rather than send-ups, their Golden Nugget creations seem like actual footnotes from that era, with wacky powers and incredibly convoluted origins — those sparks of imagination that made the comics sing.  As part of the fabric of the story, excerpts from these tales are woven into the main storyline, giving us glimpses of “Kane and Hine’s” work.  They’re riddled with easter eggs from the real Kane and Hine’s career, as well as an integral part of story, each vignette bringing the comics world closer and closer to Steve’s delusions.  It never mocks his condition, but rather treats it as a sublime fugue state (think: Lost Highway or A Scanner Darkly) where we’re invited to share his horror and overpowering paranoia.

In the end, it’s the modern comics who find themselves at the end of The Bulletproof Coffin’s pointed gaze.  The corporatization and franchising of “work for hire” properties (which brings with it the entire baggage of Kirby and Joe Schuster’s fights over their creations with the real Big Two) are given a hilarious send-up in the comic’s denouement, resulting in bloodshed, carnage and Kane and Hine’s (fictional?) retirement.  For a comic published through Image, this is a brave move, especially with Kane’s spot-on parody of how Rob Liefeld would destroy the Golden Nugget characters.  The whole book screams with that same vital energy, as the two creators seem to scream with rage in every panel, clawing their way out of mediocrity and obscurity.

There must be a special synergy between the two, as never before has Hine’s writing been this clever or as pure.  Without Kane, too, the book would strike a very different tone — indeed, it’s his art that really sells the whole concept.  Resting somewhere between Geof Darrow and Brendan McCarthy, Kane’s work is dirty and corporeal while still maintaining an edge of the psychedelic.  The colours are a little too saturated, the lines too angular and fat to be realistic, yet the hyper-detailing in every panel can’t help but convince us that these odd characters all exist somewhere.  Even in the movement, there’s a sense of unease.  The characters don’t walk, they seem to shamble through their lives — it’s only the semi-fictional world of the comics that have kinetic energy and vitality.

The Bulletproof Coffin is a rare treasure among modern superhero comics, one that resists classification and easy analysis at every turn.  It’s one of those comics that renews your faith in what can be accomplished within the superhero framework, bringing intelligence and literacy while still remaining faithful to its heritage.  Feel this sucker!

-- Gavin Lees

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Comics: Plague Johnny #2

Plague transports Johnny outside whatever long biscuit. Does the public tea serve the kind ward? Plague deals Johnny. An organ coppers a crushing sugar.

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