Alex Groff
Apr 7, 2005, 10:12 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/te_logo.gif" hspace=10 align=left width=115 height=100 border=0 alt="Typographical Errors">by Alex Groff
This column moves around a lot of ideas, but at its heart, I'm stuck with one question: what do we want comics to be? Comics are bits of film, theatre, books, tv shows, cartoons, pulp fiction, comic strips, ‘zines, music, stand-up comedy and poetry. Simply fleshing out how each of these relates could be twenty columns, but I want to get right to the core of it. What can comics be?
Well, two of these surprised me so much that I had to write about them. Comics as stand-up comedy? Comics as poetry? We're used to action, to storytelling that resembles novels or movies, tv shows or sometimes short stories. But there is no medium as versatile as comics. Books are restricted to words, film is restricted by budgets and (often) corporate vision. Comics can do whatever they want, and sometimes, they do.
COMIC HAIKUS
There is a comic strip called A Softer World. It's at, shockingly enough, www.asofterworld.com. And it's interesting because it does something that I had never seen done before. They write comic haikus.
Now, Warren Ellis is well-known for his commentaries. His book Available Light is flash fiction revolving around fuzzy photographs taken from a small digital camera. And, of course, there are his famous "mini-essays" in Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here and Filth of the City. But those are, essentially, mini-essays with pictures.
No, A Softer World is three pictures, often of the same subject from different angles or ranges, and then a brief sentence or two that makes you stop and look at the images again and again. When I talk about illustrated novels, my main complaint is the lack of spontaneity. This is the exact opposite: here, the images and words feel like they were always joined. The pictures are interesting but often commonplace; the sentences are so brief they could be passed over without blinking. But together, you stop and absorb the content, reflect its meaning. Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll shudder, but at the last you'll pause.
<table border=0 align=center><tr><td align=middle><a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/asofterworld2.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/asofterworld2t.jpg" alt="A Softer World strip"></a></td></tr></table>
The difference between stories and poetry is that stories are about movement and action, while poetry is about seeing and reflection. These pieces make you stop and look. Some are funny, some are uninteresting, but there are a dozen that cut me with their intensity. You wouldn't have noticed those sentences in a book: here, they burn themselves into your mind.
There are two other moments I can think of when comics turn into poetry: these are rare events, and they're special. The first is the last page of Neil Gaiman and Milo Manara's story about Desire in The Sandman: Endless Nights, where the woman ages as the story she tells comes to an end. It's a beautiful denouement that can only be done in comics: that page says as much about the human condition as the rest of the story. The action of the story is over, and you are left, paused, watching something greater happen.
The other instance is the last chapter of Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard's Codeflesh. Codeflesh revolves around Cam, a bail bondsman who tries to balance being a vigilante and having a stable relationship. In the last episode, you are watching as the story winds down— but instead of dialogue, you are reading a letter Cam is writing to Maddie, the girl he loves and can't be with. If you've seen the music video for Radiohead's High and Dry, where the people are mouthing the words to the song while Thom Yorke sings, then you can see what Joe Casey was doing. The characters were opening their mouths, but it was Cam's words coming out.
Comics are good at humor, they're good at action— but what we often forget is that they're also good at capturing us when we're at our most vulnerable. The pure intensity in works like Codeflesh and A Softer World are proof that comics are an artform. Let the pedants say otherwise: I know this much to be true.
COMICS AS STAND-UP COMEDY
Now that I've mentioned minicomics, I can't stop. These first six columns have been about size, about the way that a comic can be huge (maxiseries/Prestige format) or small (haikus) and minicomics are a prime example of a form that can produce amazing results, but often gets ignored.
Now, some people use minicomics to tell comic-length stories. If you've read Jim Mahfood's 40 oz., then you know what I mean: there are stories about Zombie Kid, Rocket Boy, and the Grrl Scouts. Some minicomics feel like normal comics, simply produced cheaper. Personally, I think that's a bad thing. Stories belong in comics. Minicomics are a different beast entirely— they're not what you expect, but when they're done well, they can be masterful works.
Whenever I read minicomics, I think of Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho and Shannon Elizabeth doing stand-up comedy. Because minicomics are often humorous skits and sketches with something very personal hidden inside. They tell funny anecdotes or draw awkward situations for a laugh, but while they're doing this, these creators are also showing you a part of themselves. Quirky. Idiosyncratic. Personal. Minicomics are not going to be mistaken for works of art which are carefully sculpted over time, through revisions and redrafts— but that doesn't mean they're not worth noticing.
For example, Antar Ellis puts out these odd, poorly-drawn little books about being a frustrated artist, about being overweight, about being black. They're not stories: they're glimpses into his life, into his point of view. I have to admit, I don't always like his work— sometimes, it feels like he does cheap out in the end— but I feel like I know Antar better reading his minicomics than I do when I've talked to him. It's not about the story— although his McDonald's diet skit was great— it's about him, and his personal insecurities and small triumphs.
<table border=0 align=center><tr><td align=middle><a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/girlinblack1.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/girlinblack1t.jpg" alt="A Softer World strip"></a></td></tr></table>
Miss Rose Crowe has two great minicomics that I know of: When Geeks Date and Every Day I'm Beautiful. And these are three to six panel skits or stories about her dating ups and downs and her everyday life. You feel like you know Miss Crowe at the end of the minicomic— and I for one am curious to see what else she has to say. Not because it's high art, but because it's real.
Both Miss Crowe and Mr. Ellis are part of a collective called FAILURE (www.failurecomics.com), and along with three other creators they have put out minicomics and an anthology. And there are a lot of people making minicomics. I met a real chill tattoo artist who had written a minicomic about his apprenticeship; there was a sketchy guy whose book about his dreams made me wish I'd never met him. There was an art teacher named Jeff Sharp whose book, First Semester-- a series of 1 page sketches of his students dumbest comments-- helped me get through my first semester of student teaching. I met Ariel Schrag— I think— and bought her first book, Awkward, a series of stories about her freshman year of high school, written while she was still in high school. She has since written three more books: one for each year of high school. Slave Labor Graphics picked up her books, which says something about what minicomics can be. (Meanwhile, Al Burian's excellent minicomic, Things Are Meaning Less, has recently been published by Top Shelf Productions; Gabrielle Bell's When I'm Old by Alternative Comics.)
AiT-PlanetLAR recently published 1000 Steps to World Domination, which is essentially the story of a man trying to take over the world through cartooning. His family thinks he's crazy, his dog is embarrassed to be seen with him, his wife is patently understanding, and Rob Osbourne, the writer, pictures himself as Napoleon while he (Rob) is dressed in a Godzilla costume. Its off the wall hilarious at times, but along with the humor you get a deeper story about art vs. security. Each "chapter" is four panels, one page.
Literally, there are hundreds of people all taking the time to say something about themselves and to see if anyone is interested in listening. As Janeane Garofalo said, there's a lot of self-loathing involved in standing on a stage and bombing every other night— and that's what these creators do: they place themselves on a stage, tell quirky little stories, funny or sad, and reveal more of themselves than most people would ever feel comfortable revealing.
It's a strange mix of exhibitionism and vulnerability, self-depreciating humor and hope, love and loneliness. It's not intense like comic haikus, but when something is that personal, it's hard not to be affected as a reader.
Why does size matter? I've talked a lot about how big a comic can be, about how much story you can tell. A lot of times, when I think of comics, I think of book- length stories, massive opuses like The Sandman. I don't like miniseries because I feel like it's not enough of a story to be worthwhile.
And yet these comic haikus, these minicomics: they're not meant to be stories. They're meant to be poetry, photographs, fragments. They're glimpses into another life, exotic and yet strangely familiar. We've already looked at how big a story can be. This is how small a life can be: how little space you need to reveal a world.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
If you like webcomics, you should like www.serializer.net, because it is home of some of the finest webcomics I've read. Nick Bertozzi, Jeff Brown, Derek Kirk Kim, Jason, and James Kochalka are all contributors, and the list of well-known creators goes on. As for the unknown creators? They rarely fail to impress. There is a downside, in that the site charges $3 a month. $3 a month for the content you get would make you a thief anywhere except on the internet. There are more free webcomics that I'll mention soon, but if you're ready to submerse yourself in webcomics, www.serializer.net is a good place to jump in and get wet.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.
This column moves around a lot of ideas, but at its heart, I'm stuck with one question: what do we want comics to be? Comics are bits of film, theatre, books, tv shows, cartoons, pulp fiction, comic strips, ‘zines, music, stand-up comedy and poetry. Simply fleshing out how each of these relates could be twenty columns, but I want to get right to the core of it. What can comics be?
Well, two of these surprised me so much that I had to write about them. Comics as stand-up comedy? Comics as poetry? We're used to action, to storytelling that resembles novels or movies, tv shows or sometimes short stories. But there is no medium as versatile as comics. Books are restricted to words, film is restricted by budgets and (often) corporate vision. Comics can do whatever they want, and sometimes, they do.
COMIC HAIKUS
There is a comic strip called A Softer World. It's at, shockingly enough, www.asofterworld.com. And it's interesting because it does something that I had never seen done before. They write comic haikus.
Now, Warren Ellis is well-known for his commentaries. His book Available Light is flash fiction revolving around fuzzy photographs taken from a small digital camera. And, of course, there are his famous "mini-essays" in Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here and Filth of the City. But those are, essentially, mini-essays with pictures.
No, A Softer World is three pictures, often of the same subject from different angles or ranges, and then a brief sentence or two that makes you stop and look at the images again and again. When I talk about illustrated novels, my main complaint is the lack of spontaneity. This is the exact opposite: here, the images and words feel like they were always joined. The pictures are interesting but often commonplace; the sentences are so brief they could be passed over without blinking. But together, you stop and absorb the content, reflect its meaning. Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll shudder, but at the last you'll pause.
<table border=0 align=center><tr><td align=middle><a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/asofterworld2.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/asofterworld2t.jpg" alt="A Softer World strip"></a></td></tr></table>
The difference between stories and poetry is that stories are about movement and action, while poetry is about seeing and reflection. These pieces make you stop and look. Some are funny, some are uninteresting, but there are a dozen that cut me with their intensity. You wouldn't have noticed those sentences in a book: here, they burn themselves into your mind.
There are two other moments I can think of when comics turn into poetry: these are rare events, and they're special. The first is the last page of Neil Gaiman and Milo Manara's story about Desire in The Sandman: Endless Nights, where the woman ages as the story she tells comes to an end. It's a beautiful denouement that can only be done in comics: that page says as much about the human condition as the rest of the story. The action of the story is over, and you are left, paused, watching something greater happen.
The other instance is the last chapter of Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard's Codeflesh. Codeflesh revolves around Cam, a bail bondsman who tries to balance being a vigilante and having a stable relationship. In the last episode, you are watching as the story winds down— but instead of dialogue, you are reading a letter Cam is writing to Maddie, the girl he loves and can't be with. If you've seen the music video for Radiohead's High and Dry, where the people are mouthing the words to the song while Thom Yorke sings, then you can see what Joe Casey was doing. The characters were opening their mouths, but it was Cam's words coming out.
Comics are good at humor, they're good at action— but what we often forget is that they're also good at capturing us when we're at our most vulnerable. The pure intensity in works like Codeflesh and A Softer World are proof that comics are an artform. Let the pedants say otherwise: I know this much to be true.
COMICS AS STAND-UP COMEDY
Now that I've mentioned minicomics, I can't stop. These first six columns have been about size, about the way that a comic can be huge (maxiseries/Prestige format) or small (haikus) and minicomics are a prime example of a form that can produce amazing results, but often gets ignored.
Now, some people use minicomics to tell comic-length stories. If you've read Jim Mahfood's 40 oz., then you know what I mean: there are stories about Zombie Kid, Rocket Boy, and the Grrl Scouts. Some minicomics feel like normal comics, simply produced cheaper. Personally, I think that's a bad thing. Stories belong in comics. Minicomics are a different beast entirely— they're not what you expect, but when they're done well, they can be masterful works.
Whenever I read minicomics, I think of Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho and Shannon Elizabeth doing stand-up comedy. Because minicomics are often humorous skits and sketches with something very personal hidden inside. They tell funny anecdotes or draw awkward situations for a laugh, but while they're doing this, these creators are also showing you a part of themselves. Quirky. Idiosyncratic. Personal. Minicomics are not going to be mistaken for works of art which are carefully sculpted over time, through revisions and redrafts— but that doesn't mean they're not worth noticing.
For example, Antar Ellis puts out these odd, poorly-drawn little books about being a frustrated artist, about being overweight, about being black. They're not stories: they're glimpses into his life, into his point of view. I have to admit, I don't always like his work— sometimes, it feels like he does cheap out in the end— but I feel like I know Antar better reading his minicomics than I do when I've talked to him. It's not about the story— although his McDonald's diet skit was great— it's about him, and his personal insecurities and small triumphs.
<table border=0 align=center><tr><td align=middle><a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/girlinblack1.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/web/2005/girlinblack1t.jpg" alt="A Softer World strip"></a></td></tr></table>
Miss Rose Crowe has two great minicomics that I know of: When Geeks Date and Every Day I'm Beautiful. And these are three to six panel skits or stories about her dating ups and downs and her everyday life. You feel like you know Miss Crowe at the end of the minicomic— and I for one am curious to see what else she has to say. Not because it's high art, but because it's real.
Both Miss Crowe and Mr. Ellis are part of a collective called FAILURE (www.failurecomics.com), and along with three other creators they have put out minicomics and an anthology. And there are a lot of people making minicomics. I met a real chill tattoo artist who had written a minicomic about his apprenticeship; there was a sketchy guy whose book about his dreams made me wish I'd never met him. There was an art teacher named Jeff Sharp whose book, First Semester-- a series of 1 page sketches of his students dumbest comments-- helped me get through my first semester of student teaching. I met Ariel Schrag— I think— and bought her first book, Awkward, a series of stories about her freshman year of high school, written while she was still in high school. She has since written three more books: one for each year of high school. Slave Labor Graphics picked up her books, which says something about what minicomics can be. (Meanwhile, Al Burian's excellent minicomic, Things Are Meaning Less, has recently been published by Top Shelf Productions; Gabrielle Bell's When I'm Old by Alternative Comics.)
AiT-PlanetLAR recently published 1000 Steps to World Domination, which is essentially the story of a man trying to take over the world through cartooning. His family thinks he's crazy, his dog is embarrassed to be seen with him, his wife is patently understanding, and Rob Osbourne, the writer, pictures himself as Napoleon while he (Rob) is dressed in a Godzilla costume. Its off the wall hilarious at times, but along with the humor you get a deeper story about art vs. security. Each "chapter" is four panels, one page.
Literally, there are hundreds of people all taking the time to say something about themselves and to see if anyone is interested in listening. As Janeane Garofalo said, there's a lot of self-loathing involved in standing on a stage and bombing every other night— and that's what these creators do: they place themselves on a stage, tell quirky little stories, funny or sad, and reveal more of themselves than most people would ever feel comfortable revealing.
It's a strange mix of exhibitionism and vulnerability, self-depreciating humor and hope, love and loneliness. It's not intense like comic haikus, but when something is that personal, it's hard not to be affected as a reader.
Why does size matter? I've talked a lot about how big a comic can be, about how much story you can tell. A lot of times, when I think of comics, I think of book- length stories, massive opuses like The Sandman. I don't like miniseries because I feel like it's not enough of a story to be worthwhile.
And yet these comic haikus, these minicomics: they're not meant to be stories. They're meant to be poetry, photographs, fragments. They're glimpses into another life, exotic and yet strangely familiar. We've already looked at how big a story can be. This is how small a life can be: how little space you need to reveal a world.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
If you like webcomics, you should like www.serializer.net, because it is home of some of the finest webcomics I've read. Nick Bertozzi, Jeff Brown, Derek Kirk Kim, Jason, and James Kochalka are all contributors, and the list of well-known creators goes on. As for the unknown creators? They rarely fail to impress. There is a downside, in that the site charges $3 a month. $3 a month for the content you get would make you a thief anywhere except on the internet. There are more free webcomics that I'll mention soon, but if you're ready to submerse yourself in webcomics, www.serializer.net is a good place to jump in and get wet.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.