Comics: All the Dead Superheroes #1

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All the Dead Superheroes is a continuing strip in fortnightly installments.  Full issues of the comic can be found at: www.allthedeadsuperheroes.blogspot.com

Story and art © 2011 Iain Laurie

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Feature: Happy Birthday, Jack

Had he still been alive, Jack Kirby would have been 94 today.  In light of this, and recent events involving the Kirby estate, I reread Mark Evanier’s wonderful Kirby: King of Comics monograph today. 

Seeing his fifty-year career compressed into a scant 200 pages is like witnessing someone being pummeled by a cage fighter — no matter where his career took him, he was continually being screwed-over by shysters, nepotists and outright liars; denied the earnings and even recognition that he not only deserved, but outright demanded.  In today’s fan-run comics industry, this kind of practice is still mostly intact: creators get recognition, but are still denied the job security and pension that Kirby and his contemporaries railed so hard to receive.  Indeed, the modern industry helps cast a somewhat lugubrious light on his career.  It’s almost taken for granted that mainstream comics now are “the entertainment biz” and is a somewhat prestigious, exclusive — dare I say glamourous? — field.  Kirby’s time was different:

…he’s trying to do the most important thing he believes a man can do: provide for his family, bring home a paycheck.  Nothing else matters if you don’t manage that.

Evanier, pp. 15

No matter what happened, how high his star rose, how over- or underworked he became, how beaten-down by the system he was, it always came back to family.  All the wild space vistas and superhuman struggles weren’t done out of a need to live out impotent boyhood dreams, but out of love.  It seems that his prodigious imagination was spurred on by that basic human drive to care for his own — he knew that in order to keep working, he had to be better than everyone and only then could he reliably give his family what they needed.

It seems so obvious now to look back on his seminal work and see how it all comes back to community and family: The Newsboy Legion, The Boy Commandos and, of course, The Fantastic Four.  That The Thing is his clear analogue in that family speaks volumes about how Kirby’s self-image had been beaten down over the years.  He wasn’t the educated, dashing Reed Richards, nor the hot-headed raconteur Johnny Storm (that was Joe Simon and later, lamentably, Stan Lee who was able to sell Jack’s ideas to publishers and editors;) no, he was the gruff slugger that, in spite of a coarse exterior, always held family as a main priority.

Earning a living. Being a provider.  The only two things Kirby really seemed to want in his life.  That now, after his passing, his creations are helping to line the pockets of Hollywood producers, it’s infinitely more tragic that the courts deny his family even a small slice of those profits.  Sometimes it can be difficult to side with the families in these cases — the saga of the Frazettas being one in recent memory that may have soured us to entitled money grubbers — but the case here is one that Kirby fought almost all his life.  Even in death, he continues to be beaten down by the same shysters and liars (a certain Smilin’ Someone continuing to swindle his old partner) which only compounds this travesty of justice.

But, the family’s appeals are working their way through the Kafkaesque nightmare of the court system, so perhaps there is some hope on the horizon.  On the man’s birthday, it’s not the time to wallow in his failures and rather reflect on the glories.  Let’s remember those timeless characters and iconic panels that blasted their way through our memory and into our history, those works of pure imagination that transcended reality and, ultimately, were made out of love.

-- Gavin Lees

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Review: Casanova: Luxuria by Matt Fraction and Fábio Moon

Casanova: Luxuria - Matt Fraction (w) Fábio Moon (a)
Image, $14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4863-0

Poor Matt Fraction. His early work on titles like Mantooth and Five Fists of Science showed intelligence, creativity and a unique new voice in comics.  We knew he’d go on to bigger, better things. So, when he began work on Iron Fist and wrote those Thor one-shots that were seemingly soundtracked by Viking metal, it was exciting.  Sadly, it wasn’t long before he got dragged down into pan-company crossovers and Greg Land began turning his X-Men comics into all-too-obvious porn tracings. One can’t help imagine that the decline was preceded with a trip to room 101 and a rousing chorus of “I love Big Brother.” Thank heavens, then, for Casanova.

Begun with Image as an experiment in form and publishing — a self-contained story every issue, with a $1.99 price point — it lasted 12 issues, covering two story arcs.  Each arc was illustrated, beautifully, by one of the twin artists Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá.  And then it vanished for two years, only to be resurrected at Marvel’s Icon imprint, this time in full colour.  This second collection arrives as the third story arc begins to make its debut on the spinner racks.

Casanova captures everything that is great about Fraction’s writing: it’s smart, literate, endlessly inventive and, above all, a whole lot of fun.  Casanova Quinn is a secret agent, living a second life in a parallel universe, where he works for an organization called E.M.P.I.R.E., run by his father.  The big bad is an evil genius called Xeno, who runs W.A.S.T.E. and might just be Thomas Pynchon (and since he spends all his time covered in bandages, who’s to say otherwise?).  Quinn is notably absent — lost in time — for most of this volume, giving the spotlight over to a blue-skinned alien, Sasa Lisi, who is searching for him in order to preserve the integrity of the multiquintessence…whatever that is.  In this mind-bending plot, it takes all the best strands of the spy genre and smashes them together with Michael Moorcock sci-fi weirdness (that Casanova’s dad is called Cornelius is an obvious nod in this direction).

What’s brilliant about the narrative is that it has a stream-of-consciousness edge to it, that manic edge of creativity that comes from inventing an entire world and having it play by your rules.  Much like those Hitchhiker’s Guide radio shows where Adams was literally making it up as they went along, it feels like we’re reading Fraction’s freeform experiments in storytelling.  What saves it from being a mess, though, is his innate sense of structure, so that all the strange leaps in logic and bizarre plot twists hit the right story-beats, holding the whole thing together.  In the end, all the loose-lying plot strands are tied-up and in its final few pages, it might just make sense after all.  Fraction may be unafraid to experiment, but he’s still a consummate storyteller.

Also there to temper the weirdness is the art of Fábio Moon.  His brushwork is self-assured enough to render even the wildest flights of fancy in a loose, stylish way that still gels with the story.  Moon is a very different creature to Fraction, though, and while the weirdness of the story would have most artists turning to the dark and grotesque, he instead turns to glamour and high fashion.  In Casanova, the women are all impossibly beautiful, the men immaculately tailored and, all the tech coated in a futurist sheen that places the book in an appropriately disjointed timeline.  It’s hard to ignore the seductive nature of his art and, in a way, it’s what really sells the book.  After all, what is a spy movie without sex appeal?

It’s refreshing when a comic has the substance to support its style — and vice-versa.  It’s also a real pleasure to see mainstream creators get back to their indie roots and let their creativity run wild, indulging all their whims, with nary a thought for continuity or breaking someone else’s toys.  It bears repeating: Thank heavens, then, for Casanova.

-- Gavin Lees

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Interview: Chuck BB

It seems unfair to call the art of someone so innately tied to metal music "pop", but Chuck BB's unique angular take on comics art is precisely that.  Injecting that sensibility into horror titles, and investing his manic energy into comics about black metal have marked him out as an unconventional, but vital voice in independent comics.

With the second volume of Black Metal, his demons and vinyl-collecting epic with writer Rick Spears, about to be published, I spoke to Chuck over email about the evolution of his art, H.P. Lovecraft and Satan.

-- Gavin Lees 

You're from Redondo Beach — what was it like growing up there?

How did you get your hands on that top secret info?  Just kidding, Redondo is OK.  It's a nice area, being near the beach and all.  It is close enough to LA to get work done, but it's also just far enough to be lazy about going to the city.  Growing up was actually sort of fun, I was heavily involved in the ’90s local music scene, which was mostly punk and hardcore.  I'm glad for that, it helped cement some good ethics, and music views in my noggin that I've branched off and grown from.   So the South Bay is OK, so long as I never have to hear another Pennywise song for as long as I live.

When you say “good ethics”, what do you mean?  Were you a straightedge kid?

I guess I should rephrase that, and explain.  I picked up a DIY ethic.  Being involved in that scene made me realize that I could just do anything I wanted to, I even did a zine for a few years.  It made me want to be active and creative.

What led you to working in comics?

I've been reading comics since I was a little guy, and even though I stopped reading them in the mid nineties, the seed was already planted firmly in the back of my brain.  It wasn't until I was exposed to the non-super hero indies after high school that I started seeing it as something I could do.  While in college, I started making mini comics and going to APE and Super Market in LA and after a while I got a little better, started meeting other professionals and it sort of progressed from there.

I think the mid-nineties turned a lot of people off comics.  What indie titles rekindled your interest?

I wish I could think of some off the top of my head.  This isn't an indie title, but a friend forced me to read Preacher and after that I saw what comics were capable of beyond tights and capes.  He also had me go back and read Sin City, which was around in the ’90s I guess but I wasn't aware of that kind of stuff.  Also Hellboy drew me back in as well.

What were your early minis like? I don’t imagine you were the type to do navel-gazing autobio comics.

I still had interest in superheroes, monsters, things like that — but after reading the aforementioned books I saw there were different angles you could go with that subject matter.  Maybe making it cuter, or giving it greater emotional value.  So my minis were all over the place, I wasn't sure what I was going to do but they forced me to draw and get into sequential storytelling.  I did do some cartoonier auto-bio comics my first go around, and I found them a few days ago in my dad’s garage... they are terrible.

Your first published work was with Steve Niles on Secret Skull. How did that collaboration come about?

A friend of mine lent me a copy of 30 Days of Night, and these Cal McDonald paperback books, and I loved the shit out of them.  From there I found that Steve had this awesome online message board community on his website.  Tons of excellent artists were posting their works there, so I decided to do the same.  Steve saw my stuff, and dug it.  I think he noted my interest in drawing skulls — and he had the perfect gig to snap me into.  It was an excellent opportunity, even if I was still a little green at the time.

Was it intimidating, being a young artist and having this be your first long-form work?  Was Steve quite encouraging?

Steve is awesome — he was super excited about the book.  Just the fact that he had faith in me to do the book was very encouraging.  It was pretty intimidating, and I was doing it while still going to school, but I just chugged away on it for better or worse.  There was a lot of experimenting, and aping of other artists coloring styles (or at least trying to ape).  It was a great opportunity for my first long form work to be attached to such an exciting writer as Steve.

Your art changed quite dramatically after that and became a lot cleaner and more stylised.  What drove this change?

In short, I was still trying to find my voice.  Secret Skull proved to be a great place for me to get my start, but even as I look at it now (and it’s hard for any artist to look at their earlier stuff) I can see someone who is growing and experimenting with each page.  I was also doing it while I was in college, and during that time I grew up a lot and found inspiration in other styles of art including animation design.  I wanted to fuse together the design styles I saw and loved in animation with something that would work for comics.  That's sort of where the journey began.  You will see even more transition or tweaking between Black Metal book 1 and book 2. 

What type of animation were you looking at?  I don’t know if you know Joel Thrussell’s work, but I see a lot of similarities there. (And if you haven’t seen his video for “War Photographer” by Jason Forrest, you really ought to!)

I was loving Genndy Tartakovsky on Samurai Jack, and Bruce Timm.  All that stuff had such style and a fresh breath of air.  Animation design is so clean, and the storytelling is so easy to follow.  I have indeed seen that “War Photographer” video, it’s great.  I don't think I saw it until after I had already developed my style — but it’s super cool and I love it, and it definitely is in my wheelhouse.

A few of your projects have been music related — the CBGB anthology and the Black Metal series with Rick Spears.  Is music a big influence in your work?

Absolutely!   I grew up in a punk scene in the South Bay, I wrapped myself up in it — I just love being a part of music.  I've worked at two record labels in my life, but felt that I wasn't content with being a less creative part of the music industry — I wanted to be the talent, but I never played any instrument as well as I can draw.  Music is something special, and I love quite a bit of it.  I'm always listening, and getting nerdy about it.  While I work, I am usually spinning some vinyl or MP3s... and lots of podcasts.

What did you do when you were working at the record labels?  Were these just day jobs to support your art?

My first job out of high school, before I had even thought about getting back into comics was at this great indie label Oglio who are notable for reissuing ’80s music, and releasing Jackie the Jokeman (of Howard Stern fame/shame), and a bunch of other cool stuff.  That experience actually was pretty great, it was in Redondo and I got to meet a lot of great people and I learned a helluvalot about the industry and music in general.  I also interned at Century Media which is a huge metal label, that was fun because their back catalog was full of great music — and I started working there just before I decided to art school — and promptly left the label thereafter when it was pretty clear that there wasn't a place for anything I personally wanted to do there.

Have you ever been commissioned to do any album art?

I have never been commissioned to do album art, but with the rise in vinyl popularity I think album art has a place still.  I would love to do some — so if any band reads this, get at me!

Do you find it easy to convey music in pictures?

I don't know if it’s easy, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job — but I think that comics allow you to do anything you want.  So you can always think of creative ways to convey ideas like sound and mood with graphic elements and other tools that comics provide.  The blank page is your oyster, and I've always felt the best com art in comics were the most expressive and had a certain melody to their style.  Certain artists have such a unique style, that you can almost hear the soundtrack.  I would hope to reach that level.

I think your drawing has a lot of energy and definitely has a lot in common with graffiti art (which is closely tied in with music culture).  Do you look to urban art to help capture a particular look or style for your characters?

It's totally strange, I've heard this before — but I have very little interest in street art outright.  But I'm sure being in LA and seeing that stuff it somehow subconsciously dripped into my brain.  I also do enjoy other artists who have urban art influence, Jim Mahfood for one.  That stuff certainly has influenced me.

I see that you're going to be in a gallery exhibition based on The Garbage Pail Kids soon.  How did that come about, and is gallery art something you'd like to do more of?

Yes, the Garbage Pail Kids show at Gallery 1988 — they do tons of great pop culture shows with great illustrators.  I did the Twilight Zone show with them, where I picked my favorite episode - one not referenced much I think called "Come Wander With Me."   I plan to do more of their shows in the future, they're just super fun.  I have dabbled in Gallery art here and there, and a place like 1988 is probably more my speed than traditional gallery work.

The Black Metal books are quite curious in terms of format — tankobon-sized pages with manga-esque page layouts — it seems quite at odds with the subject matter.  How did you decide on the format?

Rick and I had previously had the book set up at a different publisher that dealt mostly with the manga-size format, but that didn't work out (for the better).  Oni also was planning a few OGN manga-formatted books, and our book really fit with what they were doing.  Also I love the format, a comic that fits in your pocket, it’s easy to handle.  It's like the 7-inch of the comic world, and there's nothing more metal than an analog format in black and white.

I don't know that I'd consider shoujo manga particularly metal!  Although, are you a fan of Detroit Metal City? 

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read it yet, but I have seen a lot of imagery from it and it looks great.  Also have you seen the reissued all black editions of Death Note?  A giant all-black brick of comics; that is a pretty metal-looking book.

You've been involved in a few H.P. Lovecraft related projects, too — providing covers for Fall of Cthulhu and illustrating his "Nyarlathotep" poem.  What attracts you to his work?

I sure do love me some Lovecraft, but it is funny because I don't think my style is a style people would normally equate with the visions of Lovecraft.  But I'm happy to do it. I love all the content of Lovecrafts works.  One of the podcasts I listen to with some regularity is H.P. Podcraft, a HPL centric show where they break down and discuss his various stories.

See, I don’t think a lot of people “get” Lovecraft, and I think their ideas of visions of Lovecraft have been tainted by bad airbrush art on ’80s rock albums.  The gods and monsters of his stories are very abstract and iconic — things that are totally at odds with reality — so I think your style gets to the heart of his aesthetic.  Are there other artists whose work you think characterizes the Lovecraft look?

Thanks! I think Lovecraft's characters are often indescribably descriptive, you know?  I think that the art can be wildly different than what has been done so far, and it’s sort of insulting to Lovecraft's work to assume it has to look one way or the other.  There is a lot left up to the imagination in his stories, so why not fill it out with various styles.  I honestly mostly see more of the same as far as Lovecraft art goes, Cthulhu always looks the same and the colors are always dreary and dark.  I'm sure I've seen some cool interpretations, but none are coming to my mind at this moment.  I would love to see more HPL art that really pops!

Were you looking at a lot of hieroglyphics and primal art to get the look of “Nyarlathotep”?

Yeah, the story at one point makes note of the Egyptian roots of the character, so I definitely wanted to infuse that. I love iconography like hieroglyphs or 16^th century iconography for the occult.  It just conjures up such strange frightening images in my head.

Are there other horror writers that you enjoy?  Any that you’d eventually like to adapt into comics?

I don't read a lot, but I love Matheson.  A lot of this stuff has been already adapted, so I don't know that there is room for me.  But I'm definitely interested in making horror look a little different and maybe more pop than it’s comfortable with.  I think a lot of Horror art is stale, there is much great, but it has all already been done.  I think horror in general — like HPL — has these supposed strict rules about colors, and styles of art that work best, but it could use a change.

The second volume of Black Metal is due out soon.  What can we expect from this next installment?

SATAN!  Seriously... It picks up right where Black Metal 1 leaves off and heads into pretty epic territory pretty quickly.  There will be some serious character motivation and some pretty unexpected directions it goes.  If you felt the cliff hanger from part 1 was intense, just you wait.

You seem to be enjoying the hell out of this.  Is Black Metal pretty much a dream project for you?

Yes.  It's the project that gets me the most excited.  I really get to have fun with Rick’s words.  No matter what else I'm working on, Black Metal is always on my mind.

What’s the collaboration between you and Rick like?  Do you collaborate on the plotting of the story?

Rick handles most of the story and plotting, but we've discussed the overall arch and agreed upon it.  I come back with notes on the script, mostly on how to make it more metal if it needs to be pushed.  Working with Rick is great, he really got the direction I wanted to go with a Black Metal epic.  Sometimes I add an extra panel, or break up panels but the script works so well that I can do that without changing much.
 

There's been a four year gap between volumes.  Was this a deliberate hiatus?

It sounds depressing when I think about that missing time, but I will just say that it wasn't deliberate: life and other projects got in the way.  We're in a great place now, and we will see the end of this series without such a gap in between.  That is a promise!

How many volumes are planned?

We have from the beginning imagined it being a 3 book series.  It won’t quite reach 666 pages in total, but it will still be a whole lot of metal for your comics dollar.

The only piece of comics that I think you've written is the "Ad Astra" story in Flight vol. 3.  Are you planning on writing more of your own work in the future?

That isn't actually true, but it may seem that way.  I actually write a monthly comic strip in the pages of Decibel Magazine.  It's a metal mag, the only one still being published in the US — but also one of the best rags I have ever read on the subject and I'm proud to be a part of it.  I have been doing it for 3 years, and it's really developed into something I'm pretty proud of.  As far as other projects, yes, I do feel that there will be more writing in my future.   I've got a few ideas that are brewing — but they are not ready to talk about just yet.

The strip for Decibel, this is Stone Cold Lazy?  Can you tell us a little bit about what it’s about?

Stone Cold Lazy is really my place to have fun with metal.  I have fun with notable metal bands, cover art, themes, even band members.  It's mostly a joke strip, but I have a cast of reoccurring characters that have rotated through the strip — and I've finally found my main character in Travis Terror, the Teenage Thrasher.  It's sort of an evolving project, and I could see doing a longer form story with the characters in the future.

Decibel ran a comics special the other month.  Do you see a lot of crossover between the two scenes?

I do, they had a bunch of great artists that have dabbled in the metal world.  Metal is a HUGE scene, it is pretty all encompassing of all extreme music.  There are lots of fans, and there is a camaraderie you can instantly find in someone when you find out they are into metal.  So it doesn't shock me there is an overlap between metal and comics, and I love it!  With metal exploding in popularity, and poking its head up even more in the mainstream — I wouldn't be surprised if we found metal influence in lots of different forms.

I think that's quite perceptive.  I'm not sure if it happened in the US, but back in the late '90s in the UK, mainstream fashion stores (not like Hot Topic or anything like that) began selling metal t-shirts, so you'd see some very fashion-conscious ladies wandering around in Motorhead shirts.  It was weird.  I'm seeing that more and more with comics now, that it's becoming a fashion statement to wear a ready-faded Hulk shirt or whatever.  Do you welcome that mainstream acceptance of the medium?

Yeah, I mean I think Iron Maiden and characters like Lemmy & Ozzy are definitely in the mainstream and have been there for a while.  So there is already a fairly decent acceptance of metal.  I mean the Maloik (metal hand sign) has pretty much replaced the “peace sign” in every photograph with young folks.  It may lose some of its edge in the translation but Metal is here to stay.  There is some music in the genre, well a lot of it, that will never be mainstream and that's perfectly fine — no one is doing it for that reason - but I think the sensibilities of Metal and at least the knowledge that Black and Death metal exist is no longer the underground secret it had been.  Also, I think that it’s fine for metal to get a taste of the mainstream, it won't kill the underground or the unknown, and I think it's a little more open minded than it might seem initially.  They say nerd culture is mainstream, and the awareness is — but that doesn't mean that people are eating it all up ravenously like a real fan would.  So I'm not concerned on any level.

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Review: Nursery Rhyme Comics

Nursery Rhyme Comics - Chris Duffy (ed.)
First Second, $18.99, ISBN: 978-1-59643-600-8

Old folk tales and fables have been a reference point for many successful modern comics — from the ubiquitous Sandman, through Hellboy and Fables, and more generally infusing the work of Bryan Talbot, Jill Thompson and Richard Sala, to name but a few.  It seems, then, almost a no-brainer to trace this influence to its most primal and vital source: nursery rhymes.  Ingrained in our memory since childhood, these absurd, fantastical ditties have in them a melting pot of cultural identities, superstitions and jumbled history; archetypes and morals that imperceptibly shape our view of the world when we’re young.

"Solomon Grundy" by Mike Mignola

For their collection of Nursery Rhyme Comics, First Second have assembled the leading lights of alternative cartooning, from established names like the Hernandez brothers, Mike Mignola, Gahan Wilson and Jules Feiffer to relative newcomers like Theo Ellsworth, Laura Park and Vera Brosgol, and everywhere in-between.   Each has taken a nursery rhyme to transform into comics, some that are as old as memory itself, and others with identifiable authors like Edward Lear.  The unbelievably high caliber of creators on offer here is enough to make any review practically redundant.

What’s intriguing, though, is the variety of ways in which the artists approach their sources.  For some, it is a pure illustration job, but one undertaken with obvious joy, that doesn’t stray too far from the accepted reading of the rhymes.  You have to wonder how many of those readings come from the Mother Goose books we read as children, and perhaps how many youngsters will grow up with these as their images of the nursery rhyme tales — it’s hard not to envy the child who forever has their image of Humpty Dumpty as a Gilbert Hernandez drawing.

"Humpty Dumpty" by Gilbert Hernandez

The real beauty of the collection, though, is where the artists offer an alternative take on the stories.  Lucy Knisley’s old woman who lived in a shoe becomes a rock ‘n’ roll babysitter (giving us a more acceptable take on the “whipped them all soundly” line); in Dave Roman’s hands, “One, Two Buckle My Shoe” becomes a tale of cloning and genetic engineering and James Sturm’s “Jack Be Nimble” is entirely too smart-ass for his own good. 

"Jack Be Nimble" by James Sturm

While it’s hard to escape the politics in rhymes like “The Lion and the Unicorn,” most of these nursery rhymes are simply fun ways to spark the imagination.  It’s a delight to witness so many of these sparks lovingly rendered in this volume.

-- Gavin Lees

"As I Was Going to St. Ives" by Theo Ellsworth

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