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Graphic Scenes: January/February 2012
David Berry | 12/02/29 | Last Updated: 12/02/29 1:11 PM ET
More from David Berry | @pleasuremotors
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In this (usually) monthly series, Afterword deputy editor David Berry takes a survey of graphic novels and comic arts that have slipped under the radar of the Post’s illustrious book department in the past month (or so). If you have something you think he should read, don’t hesitate to drop a line at dberry@nationalpost.com.
Athos in America
By Jason
Fantagraphics
Besides a particularly gleeful dark humour, this collection of short stories by Norweigan artist Jason is tied together by a certain obsession with Hollywood genres: science-fiction and crime are the main targets, and Jason infuses them with both a slightly tweaked pathos and a taste for melancholy macabre. His drawing style is sparse and uncluttered, but that works something like keeping an even tone during a dry remark: his punchlines and gut-punches are that much sharper for having played it cool. All of these stories have an underlying sadness — something that seems to stem from the bleak futility of all our existence — but the best has to be Tom Waits on the Moon, four seemingly unconnected vignettes that ruminate on various relationship troubles before tying up in surprising and funny end. That’s not to discount any of these, though: this is just fantastic stuff for sad bastards and the people who love them.
Collier’s Popular Press
By David Collier
Conundrum
Collecting 30-odd years of the newspaper strip work of David Collier, from his initial forays into landscape work at the Globe & Mail through one-panel, slice-of-Saskatoon-life bits for the Star Phoenix and his 24 Simcoe St. strip for this particular paper, Collier’s Popular Press makes a case for an at-times overlooked entry into Canada’s cartoon canon. Collier can at times seem a bit too folksy, but at his best he is a sharp-eyed chronicler of mere existence. His later works, in particular Simcoe, are testaments to the often unobserved depths of the quotidian: there is real existential dread in the panel as Collier frets over making others wait in line for the bank machine, and his habit of pushing one lengthwise panel into extreme or off-kilter views shows more artistic verve than an entirety of a modern comics page combined. What emerges more than anything here is an appreciation for an artist will to push in a popular medium that all too often treats art like just another typographical element.
Jinchalo
By Matthew Forsythe
Drawn & Quarterly
Continuing the wordless, folk-tale style he used so wonderfully in Ojingogo, Matthew Forsythe follows a trickster bird and a hungry young girl in Jinchalo, a story that feels like it’s been passed down through the ages. The plot is something like a bedtime story, as young Voguchi (the same little girl from Ojingogo) has to follow the titular raven into his otherwordly realm in attempt to reclaim her father. The joys are similar: wonderful little surprises popping up around nearly every corner. Silence from characters requires illustration with verve, and Forsythe hardly has a stroke that doesn’t feel vivid like a child’s imagination, each panel crawling with potential, and realized with a twee glee, too.
Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Yonder 1949 – 50
By Walt Kelly
Fantagraphics
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume anyone reading a review of comics is aware enough of Walt Kelly’s landmark Pogo series that they don’t need much in the way of description, but suffice to say that any strip artist worth their salt has taken serious cues from Kelly’s rich dialogue, playful illustration and at-times fierce politics. This first edition, which features for the first time full-colour Sunday strips, definitely leans towards the sweeter side, but there’s simply no denying Kelly’s mastery: he evokes full characters with nothing but a few choice words, and the sprightliness of his visual style is all fun here, laying the groundwork for what would become profoundly subversive later. The included essays, as is usually the case for Fantagraphics reissues, absolutely nail the context and import of the strip, too. I just don’t think you can say you love comics and not have this around.
The Silence of Our Friends
By Mark Long, Jim Demonakos & Nate Powell
First Second
Set in 1968 Houston, The Silence of Our Friends is a stark antidote to the relentlessly uplifting stories of good-hearted white folk helping Black people realize their potential. Detailing the lead-up and aftermath of a march that ended, thanks to good-ol’-boy stupidity, with a police officer dead and an entire block of Black students detained, it shows the real-life struggles of idealists in a world that’s not just indifferent to their everyday, but actively hostile to their hopes. At the centre are two patriarchs: Jack is the race reporter for a local news affiliate whose sympathies are under fire at work as much as in his suburban neighborhood, and who finds solace in drinking when he can’t in doing some good as a witness. Larry is an activist and professor at an all-black university whose commitment to change is at tension with his more militant compatriots, thrust into justifying his identity through his friendship with the sympathetic Jack. In this case, the people are never black and white: aided by Nate Powell’s rich but sharply-defined style, this is a story about how hard it is to be good in the world that ultimately shows exactly why we admire those who are capable of it.
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Topics: Afterword, Comics, David Collier, Graphic Novels, Graphic Scenes, Jason