Lynda Barry = Cruddy-est Funk Queen of the Universe, Ever

Whenever I have a pressing "To-Do List," I always seem to gravitate towards #2 on that list, not #1 - no matter how much I want to do #1.

#2 on my list right now - the thing the last few posts here have covered - is the revamping of ComicsResearch.org. But I do have another, more pressing issue. (OK, maybe I've got more than one "more pressing" issue at present, but I do what I can.)

But #1 - ahhhh, #1. For the Comic Art & Comics area of next week's annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association, I proposed an essay entitled "'Whenever Possible, Be the Unexpected': Approaches to Lynda Barry's Cruddy". If you haven't read Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, but you love poetically written, well-characterized, unflichingly dark but absolutely hilarious fiction - and you have a strong stomach - Cruddy is your book, hands down.

Check out Cruddy's Amazon.com entry - you can read the first chapter or two there. Then read chapters four and five at the Simon & Schuster website. That'll give you a small taste of what's to come. (You don't even meet the cream of the character crop, the delightfully well-spoken "Suzy Homemaker," until about 2/3 of the way in.)

What's that? You don't know about the sublime cartooning genius of Lynda Barry? The creator of the #1 Poet, Fred Milton: Beat Poodle? Well, what are you waiting for?

OK, this post served its purpose; now I'm ready to get back to work on that essay!

Ditko = Ditko

I first discovered cartoonist Steve Ditko's work in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man - or, more accurately, in Pocket Books' three-volume Spider-Man Classics series, published in the late 1970s. Technically, the first Ditko art I saw must have been in Origins of Marvel Comics- but the Pocket Spider-Mans gave me hundreds of pages of Ditko artwork, and I devoured them all, over and over again. Ross Andru was the current Spider-Man artist at the time, and I liked that work a lot; but the old books drawn (and often plotted) by Ditko were quirky, instantly recognizable, intensely felt: They were magic, and I couldn't get enough of them (or reprints of his early work on Doctor Strange). Fans of Ditko's Marvel-era work will be interested in the recent Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko volume, at right.

It wasn't until years later that I discovered Ditko's own, more personal work, on characters like Static, The Mocker, and - of course - Mr. A (you might still find copies of The Ditko Collection, with lots of Mr A., if you're lucky.) Ditko had become a student of Ayn Rand, and Mr. A. was the living embodiment of Rand's philosophy of "Objectivism": A is A. In Mr. A's world (and in Ditko's) there can be no moral grey areas; there is good, and there is evil, and there is nothing else. I think the icongraphy in the following image (from the Heritage Comics website) makes the stark argument quite clearly, itself:


While I find Ditko's personal work fascinating, I can't say that I could ever agree with it philosophically; I guess I'm too much of a grey-area kind of person. But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy Mr. A; it's clearly passionate, heart-felt work. How many commercial artists of any stripe are that willing to put their innermost beliefs down on the page, this starkly, with no apologies or hedging?

Thanks to a post by Dr. Chris R. Tame on the Ditko-Kirby email list, I was happy to learn about the following article:

"The Illustrated Rand", by Chris Matthew Sciabarra. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6.1 (2004): 1-20. (Download a PDF version of the entire article here.)

The article, part one of two, catalogues Rand's cultural influence by listing some of the scores of academic journals, magazines, televsion shows, and more media which have quoted or mentioned Rand's work. Unfortunately, the bulk of the article is little more than a list. There's precious litle analysis here, although there may be more extended discussions in part two, which I haven't yet read. We don't even learn if most of these mentions are positive or negative, informed or throw-away.

The largest section of the article by far, however, is devoted to Steve Ditko and Frank (Sin City) Miller (pages 8-12). While the section includes several meaty Mr. A quotes, we still don't find much in the way of analysis. I'd love to learn more about how Objectivism plays out in Ditko's work: How accurately does his work embody the philosophy? Does Ditko's thought expand on, embellish, or even contradict Rand's? Again, perhaps I'm asking too much of an admitted "overview" article; but if anyone out there knows of more critical looks at Ditko's pesonal work, I'd love to hear about them.

And since I haven't mentioned it yet, the premiere website for Ditko is Blake Bell's Ditko Looked Up. Watch for Blake's Steve Ditko: Mysterious Traveller, a biography forthcoming from Fantagraphics. I'm sure that Blake's book will get into the questions I've asked above - and more - with relish.

Comic Book Artist's Will Eisner Tribute: Some Things are Worth Waiting For

Thanks both to a phone call from pal The joey Zone and the fine folks at the Will Eisner Discussion List, I learned yesterday that the long-awaited Will Einser tribute issue of Comic Book Artist magazine was now available in finer comics shops.

Eisner, who passed away January 3, 2005, was one of the most important and influential cartoonists this country has produced, with a career spanning the growth of the modern comic book. From his 1940s creation of the newspaper comic-book insert, featuring The Spirit, to his later kick-starting the "graphic novel" movement in the 1970s, and beyond, Esiner's impact on comics can't be overstated. Rather than go into detail here, I'll point you to his website's short but comprehensive biography. More information about Eisner may be found at my ComicsResearch.org; watch for even more there soon.

Kate and I caught a glimpse of the issue at one of Houston's Bedrock City Comics shops, and believe me, this looks like a true "must-have" for anyone interested in Eisner's work or even in comics in general. It's chock-full of interviews with - and essays & artwork by - dozens and dozens of cartoonists, writers, editors, publishers, friends, students, disciples, and more.

Full disclosure: Thanks to editor Jon B. Cooke's prodding, I've got a page-long essay in this tome myself; I also helped out a bit in the editing department, for which I was amazed to learn that Jon rewarded me with the title "Special Contributing Editor." Yowza!

I'll post a more in-depth review once I've received my own copy; but I wanted to alert folks here about it now, since it's sure to disappear from the shelves quickly. At nearly 200 pages (including several gorgeous color sections) for only about $15, it's a steal - or a sound investment, depending on your temperament. Pick up a copy at your local comics shop, or order on-line via Top Shelf Comix. And several books written, edited, or worked on by Messr. Cooke are available via Amazon.com.

Above: Dave Gibbons' beautiful, respectful cover to CBA v2 no6.

New York Times' Comics Forum: Keeping the "Mess" in "Message Board"

As Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter rightly notes, the New York Times Book Review's April 24 piece on comics does read like something out of the past - why the Review devoted so much space to this type of superhero-influenced review is a bit puzzling, especially given its recent coverage of Spiegelman and Satrapi and David B., among others. (Note: Registration required to view any Times links. Don't want to register? No problem!)

What's also puzzling - no, more like extremely disappointing - is the Times' new Readers Forum on Comics. I spent an hour or so making my way through the posts there, and oh my Lord - if you think (as I do) that the "wheat/chaff" and "thoughtful poster/moron" ratios are usually pretty low on comics-related message boards, try slogging through this one. I had naively assumed that the Times On-Line would attract a more contemplative, erudite, and open-minded audience. Stupid, stupid Gene...

The Forum opened April 16, to coincide with the Times' preview of Will Eisner's The Plot; unfortunately, it also coincided with a revamp of the Forums as a whole. So a large part of the first week's postings are written by Forum regulars who are angry that the previous Forums on Shakespeare and Nabokov, for example, were "replaced" by the Comics Forum. From what I can tell, it's not a "replacement" so much as a "restructuring" and an unfortunate bit of timing; but these folks in general can't seem to tell their post hoc from their propter hoc.

What we do get, however, are the predictable laments about the end of civilization. And also some fairly ignorant comments about Eisner's The Plot, from considering it a joke to questioning the need for any such book in the first place to - I'm being serious here - calling Eisner a Spiegelman clone. And of course, the ever-popular "expert opinion":

Look at that guy at the top of the page, pretending this is about "literary" comics like Maus, as if there were more than about five of them.

To be fair, there are some knowledgeable defenders of the forum. For the most part, though, even those who do know something about comics rarely get past recommending Sandman or "more sophisticated" superhero books. I like Sandman and Watchmen, but I wouldn't consider either of them to be good "gateway drugs" for the curious but clueless would-be comics reader.

I realize that a message board can only be as good as the people who post in it, and I suppose I have no real right to complain about the Times forum, since I haven't contributed anything myself. But seeing the small-mindedness and petty carping there only reinforces my opionion of message boards as places generally to avoid. I've occasionally found useful info at places like the Comics Journal boards, but then we're back to the whole "wheat/chaff" thing...

If anyone knows of any good comics-related discussion boards - forums where people actually pay attention to other's ideas, and where, come to think of it, people actually have ideas - I'd love to hear about them.

The Ad that Made an Icon out of MAC!

[Horn-Tootin' Dep't] In 1996 I attended the Popular Culture Association's national conference, where I presented a paper on Charles Atlas ads and some of their many parodies. (A sample panel from one of the ads is displayed at left.) I later turned that essay into an article for the Winter 2000 issue of Hogan's Alley (for you bibliography buffs, that's issue 7, pages 80-87, according to my horribly out-of-date c.v.). The HA website recently posted my article, along with a few small illustrations.

I had heard they were planning to do so a couple of years ago, but I think they just got around to it recently - not surprising, given how much work goes into each issue. The website has also archived features like their interview with Bizarro's Dan Piraro and an essay on Johnstone and Cushing, the advertising company behind classics like Postum's pesky nemesis, Mr. Coffee Nerves.