Review - Casanova 8

CASANOVA 8
By Matt Fraction and Fábio Moon
Letters by Sean Konot, Cover by Gabriel Bá
Published by Image Comics, August 2008



The very first time I read an issue of CASANOVA was on a bus from Milwaukee to Chicago, following a visit to the Masters of American Comics exhibit, in order to see original pages from LITTLE NEMO and POPEYE. I read it and I thought, “oh, okay. He’s trying to write a Grant Morrison comic book.” It wasn’t as good as a Grant Morrison comic -- what the eff is? -- but it was fun for all of its sixteen pages of comic book, five pages of backmatter. I came back for issue two.

And I came back for issue three, and four, and five-six-seven.

What kept me coming back -- and what I look forward to as I read every issue -- is that backmatter that comes after the story proper. Writer Matt Fraction talks about process, about how each issue was constructed, about how seeing the giant cranes on the Oakland side of the San Francisco Bay (which I’ve been looking at myself for the past year) informed a scene, or a visual, or an entire issue. He talks about overheard conversations that came along at just the right time, and about how the act of creating CASANOVA is a testament to the life that he lives. Folks like Cormac McCarthy go out of their way to NOT talk about the creative process, to let the work rise and fall by virtue of the work itself. But it’s not that simple all of the time -- with CASANOVA, part of the work is the life that surrounds it. I like that a lot. And by the time issues five or six were coming out -- and far and away by the time this issue, issue eight, came out -- I was making special trips to the comic shop on the Wednesdays a new CASANOVA was due. It still feels very Morrison-influenced (especially in eight’s backmatter, where Fraction recounts writing Casanova recover from an illness, so that HE might recover from an illness), but instead of feeling like sheer imitation the way issue one struck me, it now feels like Fraction is building on a tradition instead of replicating it.

The art in this issue, which starts a new story arc, is taken over by Fábio Moon, twin brother and studio-mate of CASANOVA co-creator Gabriel Bá. Though it comes from a different artist, there’s a certain inspired-pop-magic in twins trading off on illustrating a book that very much concerns itself with evil, alternate universe, and sexy twindom. Fábio and Bá are fantastic, apart or together, as I gushed on about a little bit in my review for 5, and they’re on the verge of the rest of the world recognizing it, too.

One thing that leapt out at me -- there’s a pretty unfortunate foot on page four, as Casanova kicks backward at a up-to-no-good nurse … but even that is part of CASANOVA’S charm, watching quality comics craftsmen draw weird looking feet from time to time, or slip into action-comics patterns only to shake themselves free of it a few issues later. CASANOVA is one of the special ones -- a comic book worth reading, re-reading, and examining from all angles.

Tell me more: Matt Fraction, Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.

Small Press Review - 5

5
By Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Rafael Grampa & Vasilis Lolos
July 2007. I paid four bucks for mine!



I picked up 5 at CCI, and along with THB and the Fourth World Omnibus it was easily one of my favorite purchases. It’s essentially a love letter to comics, to making them, and to each other, by Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa.

5 is made up of four short stories and a cover, each by one of the contributors. The first story is “Becky,” by Gabriel Ba, about a tiny (but menacing!) lady getting out of prison, going home to her pet tiger and dirty dishes, and chaining herself to her drawing table.

“Fabio & Gabriel,” by Becky Cloonan, involves two artists, a mysterious egg, and “Becky’s” Becky reaching up through the comic page to flick the nose of one of our heroes.

“Vasilis” by Fabio Moon concerns itself with spaceships, even more cross-referencing from the previous stories, broken ankles, and yet more comics drawing.

“Grampa,” by Vasilis Lolos, and probably my favorite contribution, features an artist doing battle with a squidy-pug-in-a-jar before the unbelieving stares of the general public -- except for a grinning kid, who happily believes it all, and is rewarded for it with a comic book. Sweet!

Rafael Grampa provides the cover and title pages to every story. His website calls 5 the first, but not the last, collaboration between the five artists, and I really hope that’s true. The Engine occasionally flares up with talk about a “slimline anthology," an inexpensive periodical put together by four or five like-minded souls -- and if Becky, Fabio, Gabriel, Rafael and Vasilis were the souls behind such an effort, I’d be a happy, happy dude.

(I don't know when or where outside of San Diego copies of 5 are available, but earlier this week Comic Relief in Berkeley had copies -- let 'em know you want one!)

Tell me more:

Becky Cloonan
Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
Vasilis Lolos
Rafael Grampa

Review - Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, vol. 1

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS, Vol. 1
By Jack Kirby
Inks by Vince Colletta
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $49.99



“This kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby tradition is to create a new comic.”

I always think it’s such a great idea at first, to by yet another collection of Silver Age comics, something big and prestige (or cheap and black and white), but usually I get an issue or two in, and I’m ready to return to the latest given issue of any old thing at all. Even the beautiful weirdness of SUPERMAN IN THE FIFTIES wasn’t enough to sustain my attention through the entire volume.

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS was another San Diego purchase, and I was wonderfully surprised by how quickly I read through the sixteen comics reprinted therein. The volume contains seven issues of SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN and three issues each of THE FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE, the titles handled by Jack Kirby upon his defection from Marvel to DC in 1970, presented in chronological order. While they can occasionally stray into absurdity -- Don Rickles and his look-alike Goody Rickles show up in the last issue of JIMMY OLSEN reprinted -- those moments are easily outweighed by the creepiness of Mantis emerging from his energy cocoon, Granny Goodness seeking to return Scott Free back to her orphanage, and Darkseid’s goon Desaad hooking up all sorts of Kirby machines to his own flesh.

The Fourth World, as Mark Evanier puts it in his afterword, is Kirby at his most Kirby. He had an epic in mind, but he was making it up as he went along. Not willing (or, um, able) to rest on the success of, you know, creating the Marvel Universe, Kirby was playing with themes he’d return to again and again -- gods doing battle on Earth among humans, and mankind meeting the cosmic face to face. A book like GODLAND is fun and all, but see the quote up above -- if Kirby were alive today and still making comics, they wouldn’t look like that. They wouldn’t look like any Kirby comic we’d ever seen before.

Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS is probably the most Fourth World-like project the comics world has seen in recent years, and while that was executed with a beginning and an end, it still was born from the creations of those who had come before. Heck, most of them were actual Kirby creations. To see the pure comic book manic energy SOLDIERS sprang from -- and to understand the debt all of comics, and much of pop culture, owes to Jack Kirby -- the FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS is a great place to start. It’s the first of four volumes, with the second due to arrive later this month.

(Marvel’s DEVIL DINOSAUR OMNIBUS is also new to the shelves, along with Image’s reprint of THE SILVER STAR, a late-80’s Topp’s-published “Kirbyverse” effort. I dunno about SILVER STAR, but DEVIL DINOSAUR is more weird fun -- I think there’s an ETERNALS OMNIBUS out that collects that entire run, as well. I’ve had my eyes on DC’s KAMANDI ARCHIVES for a long time too … look, long story short? Go read some Kirby comics.)

Tell me more: Jack Kirby, Fourth World wiki.

Review - THB: Comics From Mars 1

THB: COMICS FROM MARS 1
By Paul Pope
Published by AdHouse Books, July 2007. $4.95



An SDCC exclusive, this is the first THB comic in … I dunno. Years. It coincides with the release of AdHouse’s Pulp Hope, an absolutely gorgeous art book by Paul Pope, one of the best artists working in comics. Also announced at San Diego was the release of THB in a complete four-volume series from FirstSecond, but in the meantime: if there’s any way you can get your hands on this beautiful, scratchy, black and white comic, do so but quick.

THB is the comic Paul Pope has been returning to again and again for more than ten years now, chronicling the adventures of HR Watson and her bodyguard mek (that’s the Tri-Hydro-Bioxygenate of the title), but it’s also more than that -- Paul Pope’s Mars is so fully realized that it’s possible to dip in and out and feel engrossed without getting lost. COMICS FROM MARS offers four short stories that 1) offer a glimpse of a zooball game, 2) give a crash course on Martian history, 3) convey the work day of mek/comics mechanics, and 4) show HR in the course of her normal day, seeking out only the fat-bubbliest of bubble hipshakes.

I think my favorite thing about this issue of THB -- more than the inky black inks, the energy of new comics being told, or the hope of more THB to come -- are Paul Pope’s letters. Hand-lettering is beautiful and slipping away into memory, and I treasure every glimpse of it I can still catch. I don’t know if Eddie Campbell is still hand-lettering or not, but I know for a fact that his letters on FROM HELL made the book just as much as Alan Moore’s words and Eddie’s own art. Paul Pope’s letters in COMICS FROM MARS are another piece to an exquisite puzzle, and for all the fun I had at San Diego this year, one of the best things to come from the con was the news that THB will soon be collected and complete.

Tell me more: Paul Pope, AdHouse Books.

FINDER interview -- go read it!

Carla Speed McNeil talks about FINDER with Newsarama. It opens with this exchange:

NEWSARAMA: Carla, despite your popularity on the internet, there are a lot of folks to whom your work is still an unknown. Can you give us a quick overview of Finder?

CARLA SPEED McNEIL: Ouch.

It is otherwise and interesting interview with the creator of one of my favorite comics, who you don't really see the comics sites talking to that much. She's putting out a hardcover collecting SIN-EATER volumes 1 & 2 into one book this summer, digest-size for the bookstores, which I think is a great idea. I hope the copious footnotes remain -- in addition to helping me understand what the frak is going on sometimes, they're a really fun and honest insight into Carla's creative process. It's probably the footnotes on SIN-EATER Vol. 1 that brought me back for Vol. 2. If you don't read FINDER -- start!