Two Comics, Broad and Deep

This is only an excerpt, however, so all hope is, perhaps, not lost?

Originally written in 2011


I was never one for comics growing up. Sure, I had a few X-Men and Batman comics, maybe one Spiderman, but I was always much more eager to exhaust allowances on card-based collection, moving on from the passive accumulations of baseball and basketball collection to Magic and other realms of rectangles that marked me as having failed the teenage hormonal litmus test.

But even these too fell by the wayside of life. And so here I find myself, happily married to a wonderful woman who counterbalances my anxieties so perfectly it often scares our friends. Among her many blessed traits, she has a keen and curious sense of aesthetic, one which often manifests itself at odd, yet prescient, times. Thus it was that earlier this year we received a copy in the mail of Daytripper (my wife having picked up its potential from a Boing Boing review), a graphic novel by the Brazilian brothers Fabió Moon and Gabriel Bá. This is the fascinating story of a man's life in Sao Paulo, a Brazil of both urban and natural complexity, beautifully illustrated, which is told in asynchronous episodes by a series of untimely deaths, all of the main character. This is no more than BB gives away, so I urge you to further explore its surreal land- and plot-scapes, despite its brevity.

Because if there is one thing that Daytripper lacks, it is thickness. The writing was engrossing enough to prevent me from putting it down, until it was over and I was left yearning for more.

Now I assume that if one wants to read more of an author's work, one should seek more work by that author. I took a far more circuitous route, putting Daytripper up on a shelf six months ago, then moving to another city, getting a library card there (which although feels like a new resident rite of passage, is actually redundant. Connecticut town library cards are apparently accepted everywhere, which means I have triple redundancy; in case I lose one card, I have three other towns that can vouch for my borrowing rights.), and thus finding on the new arrivals shelf the following book: The Best American Comics 2010.

I would only say now of this anthology, edited by Neil Gaiman (of American Gods fame, who apparently also makes comic books, I learned), that it succeeds in the impact of its contents, if not also in the scope of stories of the individual comics themselves. I was most especially struck by the frankness of the nonfiction works, with their humble and honest stories visually and verbally illuminating these autobiographies and memoirs in such a fantastically different and appealing way. If such types of stories wear thin on some comics readers (as series editor Anne Elizabeth Moore discusses of the comics renaissance in the 2007 edition of this series), Gaiman includes selections of what I would generally describe as fiction, or perhaps - and I'm scratching my head at this assumption - the more traditional realm of comic books.

I've included below some brief points made for only some of the selections in the anthology, yet, they're all good reads. But I would first mention that, though my experience with comic books and graphic novels has been utterly short, I have enjoyed reading, for several years now, several webcomics. Due to a missed connection in leapfrogging technological assimilation, or what have you, I had no problem picking up on a good webcomic. And since 2004, I've followed one in particular, Questionable Content. Whatever was happening in my head and in my life at the time, its story hooked me. (I've above linked to the first comic in this series, because unlike the other offerings below, with the exception of graphic web-novel Anders Loves Maria, QC is a continuous storyline.) And some others: Dinosaur Comics, Anders Loves Maria, XKCD, and The Perry Bible Fellowship.

“The Alcoholic”, by Jonathan Ames & Dean Haspiel

New York City in and around September 11th, and a man in and out of his alcoholism reflects on those moments with moody introspection and some matter-of-fact, curt dialogue, like a down-and-out noir detective. Abject tragedy and decent humanity abound in equal measure.

“Metropolis”, by Ben Katchor

Cute one-page stories, sketch-like drawings with watercolor, great faces. 'The Daily Grand Prix' imagines a suburban spectacle of a grandstand along the highway, announcers regaling drivers unawares of their daily trials and triumphs.

“Asterios Polyp”, by David Mazzucchelli

A man's strange journey through life, reflecting back and forth on women and career. The reflection back is apparent, as the excerpt begins with the main character old and alone among ancient Greek ruins.

“Acme Novelty Library #19”, by Chris Ware

More reflection of the main character, like Asterios, a white man, but unlike the accomplished and confident gentleman wandering in Greece, our protagonist here is Asterios's antithesis, a comic book-reading nervous young man, anxious about women, and obsessively over attached to the one female coworker who gave him a bit of attention. It devolves as such a fixation does, with the protagonist assuming more of their relationship than she was aware, with dejection imminent for the man. This is only an excerpt, however, so all hope is, perhaps, not lost?

“Book of Genesis”, by R. Crumb

Richly illustrated, the excerpt provided here of the beginning of the most published book in history is sure to not disappoint. While the story is all too well known, it is a visual delight here to read through it, once again or perhaps for the very first time. The latter is how it felt to me; I knew the gist, but the details were not so perfectly recalled as in this telling.

“The War on Fornication”, from Everybody Is Stupid Except For Me, by Peter Bagge

Entertaining and informative counter-disinformation comic on all things reproductive politics. Text- and facts-heavy, perhaps as a man myself the most pleasing discovery in this excerpt was that its author was himself a man. No matter, share the wealth of knowledge, and buy your teenagers a comic.

“Johnny Hiro”, by Fred Chao

Cinematic action/love story. A young Asian immigrant couple working hard to make it in the big city. The hero, Hiro, is on the lowest rung of a sushi restaurant, busing tables, and in order to prove himself, takes on the challenge of a desperate head chef to please to no end a renowned food critic. Kung fu chase scene action sequence ensues, all with quite a peculiar yet appropriate object of Hiro's pursuit. In this excerpt his young wife is at home talking to the cats. Where's her big scene?

“Norman Eight's Left Arm”, from Sleeper Car, by Theo Ellsworth

A sweet Alice in Wonderland tale, at least visually, of robots at their tea party. The wager is made, yet the focus stays with robot one, Norman VIII, waiting a week for robot one's return. Is he successful in his quest? Is the eponymous object involved in this wager, perhaps even gambled on the table???

“Trinity”, from Taddle Creek, by Michael Cho

Michael Cho's 'Trinity' is a tremendous work of history of the most ambitious and dangerous scientific research ever undertaken, the atomic bomb. Trinity is the name of its terrible conclusion, but it is the spiral of events prior that draw the reader inevitably towards that end. And in its brief aftermath, the author considers the legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Manhattan Project architect, and as Cho considers him, 'martyr' for them all and their apocalyptic damage subsequently wrought around the world. "Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

“Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe”, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Of all the selections contained within this anthology, SPVTU is the only one I knew to exist prior to opening this book. It was a movie, right? Either way, it was an interesting read, a fun story I suppose, but perhaps I was just too engrossed with the seriousness of having just read 'Trinity' to give a shit about kids with superpowers, I think. It probably deserves to be re-read, at the very least.

“The Flood”, from A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld

This was the most enticing standout excerpt of the anthology, a story we all know well, yet perhaps are grateful to not have known too well. In A.D. are the stories of those who did know Katrina too well, and like Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke documentary, should be required first-hand lessons in being American. The darkness we all know to be coming has not yet fallen New Orleans in this excerpt, yet it ends on the first day, August 29th, in bold letters, with two mosquitos in the night.

“You'll Never Know, Book One: A Good and Decent Man”, by C. Tyler

The series concludes much as have some of its best works contained within. History, the confluence of personal events yet seen as part of the whole of world affairs, is a strong theme in this edition of the series, and as graphic novels and comics go, speaks very well of the power and potential of the form. The stories that touch us all, can be told by writing alone, but there is much of our lives we will never convey verbally, so perhaps instead by images and words complementing each other. Such is the way of this last selection, the author a daughter, the comic a scrapbook in the making, its main character her father, its plot his life. This, more than any other comic here, holds the most reverence for its subject, where reverence is due. So too to this book.

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