BAG IT AND BOARD IT

Jon D. W. throws down a good bit of his hard-earned cash on comics. Here, he spills the beans on whether or not it was worth it. But to paraphrase LeVar Burton, don’t just take his word for it--you should read comics, too.



24-HOUR COMICS
Edited by Scott McCloud

This collection, assembled in 2004, features a story each by Steve Bissette, Alexander Grecian, Paul Winkler, Jakob Klemencic, Matt Madden, Neil Gaiman, David Lasky, K.Thor Jensen and Ald Davison, and was an incredibly inspiring read before my last go at the 24-hour challenge. (Of course, comparing my work to what’s collected here after I did my comic can be a bit depressing.) For anyone who wants to make comics in general--even if it does take more than 24 hours--seeing these pages, all of which burst with love for the medium, should make you want to put pen to paper straightaway. Also, in case you missed it in the list: Neil Gaiman.



AMERICAN SPLENDOR: ANOTHER DOLLAR
Written by Harvey Pekar
Art by Zachary Baldus, Hilary Barta, Greg Budgett, John Cebollero, Darwyn Cooke, Gary Dumm, Hunt Emerson, Rick Geary, Dean Haspiel, Mike Hawthorne, Lora Innes, David Lapham, John Lucas, José Marzán Jr., Sean Murphy, Josh Neufeld, Ed Piskor, Warren Pleece, Darick Robertson, Chris Samnee, Ty Templeton, Chris Weston
Lettering by Pat Brosseau, Darwyn Cooke, Hunt Emerson, Rick Geary, Sean Murphy, K.T. Smith

Collecting a four-issue Vertigo miniseries from 2008, this book partners Pekar with a terrific group of artists, including such American Splendor stalwarts as Gary Dumm and Greg Budgett. (Of the lineup, I was probably most thrilled to see Rick Geary’s take on Pekar--it’s a match made in comics heaven.) To borrow from the cover of Pekar’s self-published American Splendor #5 (1980), this book mostly contains “stories about sickness and old people,” but humor prevails even as Pekar faces the quotidian and banal with an increasing diplomacy. Granted I’m a good deal younger than Pekar, but American Splendor has long helped me make sense of everyday life, or at least reassured me that I wasn’t alone in the human condition; this chapter in the continuing saga fills me with hope for all the years to come, both for Pekar and for myself.



ASTERIOS POLYP
By David Mazzucchelli

A lot has already been written about this book, and rightly so--this work needs to be discussed, and I can’t imagine anyone reading it and not wanting to talk about this masterpiece of sequential art. To guide you through some of the early comics criticism surrounding this book, I’ll point you to Ng Suat Tong’s roadmap, put together for The Comics Reporter. Tong likens aspects of the book to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, and I would agree that reading Mazzucchelli’s tome for the first time reminded me very much of the feeling I had after first finishing McCloud’s treatise: I was humbled, I was moved, I was awed and utterly inspired by the limitless possibilities of comics. This book is absolutely a must-read.



THE COMPLETE MAUS
By Art Spiegelman

I know I really should have read this long before now, but for anyone else who’s had that thought, I urge you not to let it stop you from picking up this book. Spiegelman’s work--at once universal and painfully personal--is an absolute triumph, even as it lays bare the very worst of humanity. This tale of survival is revelatory in its ability to present the human spirit in deceptively simple words and pictures. Maus is, without question, one of the finest works, in any medium, that I have ever encountered.



CRIMINAL: BAD NIGHT
By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Colors by Val Staples

The end of this dark and twisted tale might be a bit too Tyler Durden/Fight Club-y for my usual tastes, but the nightmare atmosphere is so enveloping--inviting, I would even say--that the end makes a sick kind of sense and took me willingly as I read. The formal layouts, with three evenly sized rows to each page, play counterpoint to the story’s chaos, a whirling mashup of strippers, butchers, mobsters and Chester Gould. Yeah, it’s trippy. Yeah, you should read it. And everything else Brubaker, Phillips and Staples do together.



GOTHAM CENTRAL VOL. 1: IN THE LINE OF DUTY
Greg Rucka & Ed Brubaker: writers
Michael Lark: artist & original covers
Noelle Giddings: colorist
Willie Schubert: letterer

It’s the first half of Law & Order (before the cases go to trial and Sam Waterston strolls onscreen), but with Batman creeping in the shadows. And the dynamic between Batman and Gotham’s finest is utterly fascinating and too little explored outside of this title. It’s taken me awhile, I realize, to get around to this series, but it strikes me now as maybe the best Bat-book I’ve ever read, and its success lies in its focus on “real” people, sans powers, just trying their damnedest to do a job that can itself seem damned from the get-go.



GOTHAM CENTRAL VOL. 2: HALF A LIFE
Greg Rucka: writer
Michael Lark: artist, “Half a Life”
Jason Pearson & Cam Smith: artists, “Two Down”
William Rosado & Steve Mitchell: artists, “Happy Birthday Two You…”
Matt Hollingsworth, Digital Chameleon, Wildstorm FX: colorists
Willie Schubert, Rick Parker, Todd Klein: letterers

The actual Gotham Central story here is every bit as good as that in the previous volume, but the two opening stories are rather unattractive in this book. I appreciate having Renee Montoya and Two-Face’s backstory right here at my fingertips, but the art (originally from Batman Chronicles and Detective Comics) is so wildly far afield from the grit, soot and dank Eisnerspritz of Gotham Central that it’s actually jarring to flip to the first two stories. Anyhow, the real meat of this volume is an absolutely moving story all about the ties connecting heartbreakingly lonely people.



THE ESSENTIAL IRON MAN VOLUME #1
Written by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, N. Korok
Penciled by: Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko
Inked by: Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman, Chic Stone, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, Wally Wood
Lettered by: Art Simek, John Duffi, Marty Epp, E. Thomas, Sam Rosen, Ray Holloway

It took me almost two years to make it all the way through this book. That said, I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad to have this on my shelf, ever ready to be referenced. But wow, these stories can be a real plod. It was awesome, though, when Iron Man fought The Uncanny Unicorn (the adjective having not yet been bogarted by the X-Men).



IRON MAN: THE MANY ARMORS OF IRON MAN
Writers: Roy Thomas, David Michelinie, Bob Layton, Denny O’Neil
Pencilers: Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Jr., Mark Bright, Bob Layton
Inkers: Jim Mooney, Bob Layton, Akin & Garvey
Colorists: Bob Sharen, Glynis Wein
Letterers: Art Simek, John Costanza, Joe Rosen, Rick Parker, Janice Chiang
Editors: Stan Lee, Jim Salicrup, Mark Gruenwald

Look, I know: This book is just another way for Marvel to eke a few more bucks out of their loyal readers’ pocketbooks. But I’ve got sort of a developing habit of writing about ol’ Shell Head for a certain publication, and so I picked this up for “research purposes.” As a showcase for some of the different, specialized armor the character has worn over the years, the book doesn’t offer much in the way of a cohesive reading experience. (The afterword with Bob Layton has some embarrassing typos, too, that I would hope Marvel will correct for any future printings.) The Denny O’Neil-scripted story in which Iron Man fights Iron Monger is interesting in being so dull and yet so important to the plot of the first film. If you really love Iron Man, it’s a fun book to read. Otherwise, probably not so much.


All images copyright their respective publishers. Text copyright Jon D. Witmer/The Danger Digest.

24-HOUR COMICS: Where We’re Headed

Around the time I posted my previous 24-hour comic, “Stories of Boys and Girls,” I developed a serious jones to make another. Unlike my previous effort, though, I was determined this time to drag some friends along with me through the misadventure--after all, misery really does love company. My vision was to get three other people, because I figured the four of us would fit nicely around the kitchen table in my girlfriend’s and my apartment. To my amazement, the three friends I had in mind all agreed without the slightest coercion, and even more incredibly, we were able to quickly settle on a date that worked for all of us. And so, on Saturday, August 1, 2009, we gathered around the table, surrounded by a heady supply of caffeine and booze, and at 10 a.m. we started the clock. What follows are my own 24 pages (plus a cover):




















































Of the four participants, I was the last to finish, wrapping things up at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 2. (By the way, if anyone’s interested, after penciling with a Sanford Digit 0.5mm mechanical pencil, I inked with a set of Pigma Micron black pens; other embellishments were made with Faber-Castell PITT brush pens (gray tones) and Copic brush pens. All illustrations were done on Letraset Bleedproof Marker Pad.) The last time I tackled the 24-hour challenge, I made the mistake of totally finishing each page before moving on to the next; this time out of the gate, I determined to rough each page in pencil, then go back to letter each page, and lastly go back for the final inks. When I do my next 24-hour comic (yes, I did say when), I will almost certainly repeat this new method.

Considering my limited abilities, the obvious flaw of this book is the art itself. Though I rushed it at the time and wasn’t thrilled with the results, in retrospect I wish I had more pages that looked like Page #1--it’s great to see some black and gray and have some actual contrast. Of course, it also would have been nice to connect all the floating heads to some actual bodies, and to give distinct faces to the crowd of eggs within which the narrator nearly drowns on page 20.

On a closer read, I think it’s more troubling that the story’s women are all rather unsympathetic, from the nagging “old old lady” to the machinating “new old lady”; Isabelle and the one-eyed prostitute aren’t really seen enough to be more than objects, which isn’t any consolation. Likewise, I’m more than a bit embarrassed that all of the French characters are stereotypes. For what it’s worth, the story is seen/told through the narrator’s perspective, and he isn’t exactly supposed to be a good guy himself.

That said, I don’t mean to be a Debby Downer about the whole comic. Yes, when I first finished it, I was convinced it was a travesty, but that was really just my exhaustion talking. As I’ve put myself back onto a decent sleeping schedule and had the chance to re-read the book a handful times, I’ve become convinced it’s not half as bad as I’d feared, and in fact there are elements I genuinely like--even a few drawings.

One particular point of pride is that I managed to incorporate a Battleship and Space on consecutive pages--this was a challenge given by my girlfriend, and when she posited it, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen. (Since I’m mentioning where certain elements came from, I should note the Penfluridol was a gift of Wikipedia’s random-article generator; a few other ideas arrived by means of Scott McCloud’s Story Machine.) Also, despite his status as a stereotype, I like the character of Claude. What can I say? I’m a sucker for French gangsters.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how the book reads; I think the dialogue and narration is completely passable for the story. (The angled narration boxes, by the way, were a response to the time crunch, but happily they also underline the narrator’s skewed perspective.) And speaking of the story, after I finished the pencils and went back to ink the letters, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the driver pulls double duty, standing in for both me as the improvising creator with “like a couple thousand questions about [the] story so far,” as well as for the reader, who similarly doesn’t have a clue “where we’re headed.”

Finally, a note on the cover: Somewhere around 10 p.m., a certain party spilled his ink onto the table, and it did a number on my rough pencils for the last page. I consequently re-did the pencils for page 24, but at the end of the day, it struck me the original would make a fitting cover, as it speaks to the 24-hour-comic process itself while also literally showing where the story is headed. A happy accident, that.



Other Danger Digest 24-Hour Comics:
"Stories of Boys and Girls," May 2003

This post’s images and text copyright Jon D. Witmer/The Danger Digest

24-HOUR COMICS: Stories of Boys and Girls

On May 10, 2003, I sat down at the desk in my dorm room inside Ohio State’s Bradley Hall and began my first (and so far only) 24-hour comic book. I’d stumbled on the idea by way of Scott McCloud’s website, where he details the challenge: “To create a complete 24-page comic book in 24 continuous hours.” Every aspect of the book is limited to that window of time; you aren’t supposed to think about the plot or doodle character designs in advance, and if you take a nap, the clock keeps ticking down. Before I go on discussing my efforts, here’s the result of my experiment, one from the vault for this week’s New Comics Wednesday:


























If you’re still reading this, you have my sincere thanks for your tenacity. There’s not a single line I wouldn’t like to redo, and god knows the pages could have used some more shading and texture. (Color probably wouldn’t hurt either, but that’s still not really my style. Someday soon, maybe.) It also would have been nice to have drawn hands instead of the skeleton fingers everyone is seen with, and I don’t think it would have killed me to use a ruler for the panel borders. Oh well, next time.

The writing is often cringe inducing, but I suppose that can happen when you’re making things up one page at a time. On that note, I should say that once I started the clock, I never bothered to plan out the 24 pages, instead taking a page at a time and trying to do each in under an hour. That almost kept me on target, but the lack of sleep, erratic eating schedule and constant influx of caffeine finally took their toll on me, and I trudged through the final pages like a wounded soldier pulling himself through the mud, ultimately setting down my pen after 26 ½ hours. (Scott McCloud refers to this as an Eastman Variation on the official rules, and a noble failure. Noble might be too nice a word.)

Despite its scattered narrative and clumsy characters, I nevertheless am pleasantly surprised by some of the themes that managed to come through, particularly the main theme (though it was admittedly unintentional at the time) of a god forgotten, who tries to redefine himself/herself for a world that’s moved on. That’s old-school Star Trek, right there. Of course, there are also the more poorly executed themes of becoming unmoored by a crush and the general fickle nature of attraction. What can I say? I was 21 and single, and at a school with an undergraduate population somewhere around 40 or 50,000, I couldn’t step outside without seeing an attractive girl I’d probably never run into again. The idea’s not bad, but the execution surely suffers.

Then there’s Pliny. I was taking a geology course when I made this comic, and I recall a chapter in our textbook that dealt with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. On the latter, the book referenced the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and name-dropped Pliny the Elder. That, combined with a then-recent screening of Andy Warhol’s Blow Job, resulted in Pliny sucking off a guy wearing a head wreath (no pun intended). At the time, it seemed terrifically edgy, but any real story significance is quickly muddied during Pliny’s climb up the mountainside.

Regarding the title, I originally (after finishing page 24) decided to call this piece “Stories of Boys and Girls from the Spring of my 21st Year.” Call it the editor in me, but anymore I think that’s just too long and too pretentious a title for something as, well, amateurish as this. Accordingly, I’ve here abbreviated it to just “Stories of Boys and Girls”; that’s the one and only change I’ve allowed myself to make, and I only get away with it because I didn’t draw a cover page. (That’s what 21-year-old me gets for being lazy!) Still probably too pretentious, but at least it’s not as long.

I point out these criticisms mostly for the selfish reason of letting people know that I get it and I see the mistakes. But hey, considering this whole mess came out of 26 ½ hours, I think there’s something to be proud of in it. If nothing else, I learned a lot. And I’m sure I’ll learn even more when I do another 24-hour comic, hopefully well before another six years go by. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading. Yo-ho!



Other Danger Digest 24-Hour Comics:
"Where We're Headed," August 2009

This post’s images and text copyright 2009, Jon D. Witmer/The Danger Digest