< comics >
GRAPHIC CLASSICS: EDGAR ALLAN POE
(144pp trade paperback, $10.00; pub.
Eureka Productions)
Review by Alan Rankin
Ahh, comics and classic literature. Despite what the Werthams of the world might think, the last sixty years have shown that comics actually combine quite well with history's great books. In addition to getting untold numbers of ninth graders through English Lit (present company included), "classic comics" have created some high-quality works that succeed as comics, in addition to working as adaptations of another medium.
The illicit affair between comics and literature began with Gilberton Publishing's
Classics Illustrated in 1941. Almost 170 issues, ranging from
The Iliad to
Wild Animals I Have Known, were constantly in print for the next three decades, due no doubt to their usefulness around term-paper time. In the '70s, Marvel picked up the ball, publishing 36 issues of
Marvel Classic Comics – some of which were later reprinted in paperback form. In the early '90s, First Comics joined forces with book publisher Berkley to resurrect the
Classics Illustrated name. First took the innovative step of pairing great stories with great comics artists, resulting in an excellent series that can still be found in used-book and comic stores. I particularly recommend Bill Sienkiewicz'
Moby Dick, Rick Geary's
Great Expectations and
The Invisible Man, and Gahan Wilson's rendition of
The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. In each case, the artist's style is perfectly suited to the story.
The latest runner in the "classic comics" relay is the best yet (and that's saying something). Wisconsin-based Tom Pomplun, publisher of the literary mag
Rosebud, has taken the great-artists-plus-great-stories equation and extrapolated it to its logical conclusion. The result is a series of 144-page paperbacks that explore a writer's work thoroughly, in both comics adaptations and illustrated text pieces. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, features an even dozen of Poe's best-known stories and poems. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is adapted by Geary, who really has a flair for Victorian mayhem. Matt Howarth and Stanley Shaw adapt "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Masque of the Red Death," respectively. Unlike classic comics of the past, the adaptations try to retain as much of the writer's original structure and language as possible. "Red Death," for example, features only two word balloons; previous adaptations would have almost certainly added invented dialogue to "liven up" this grim tale. This technique, combined with illustrated text stories like Richard Sala's "The Black Cat," make this a classic comic even your English teacher would love.
Like First's series, the stories also succeed as great comics. The best example is J.B. Bonivert's "The Raven," featuring a bizarre, intricately detailed art style that's unlike anything else I've ever seen. Each panel invites long examination of its complex flourishes, and would do so even if divorced from Poe's best-known work. Rafael Nieves and Juan Gomez's "The Bells" changes the poem's verse not at all, but adds a visual interpretation that throws Poe himself into a sad tale of murder in old New England. And Roger Landridge's "Eldorado" is darkly funny; I especially like the expressions on the face of the knight's hapless horse.
The collection is rounded off with an intro by Joe R. Lansdale, and a reprint of a Spain Rodriguez story about the odd circumstances of Poe's death. Some critics have apparently taken issue with the presence of reprints in this series, but frankly, I don't agree. Prose literary anthologies have been doing the same thing for decades. (In fact, it's a criticism that's particularly ill-suited to the medium of comics – where 90% of the "graphic novels" produced in any given year are collections of reprints!) Besides, stuff like Spain's story, or the scattered illustrations by Maxon Crumb (brother of R.), add nice touches of weird flavor to the collection.
Pomplun's come out with eight collections so far, including
Mark Twain,
Arthur Conan Doyle,
H.G. Wells,
Bram Stoker and
H.P. Lovecraft. (Get this:
Lovecraft features art by Richard Corben, S. Clay Wilson, Geary, Maxon Crumb, and bizarro post-pop painter Todd Schorr!) I'll be seeking more of these for my own bookshelf. A success on every level; they might even have cheered Poe up.
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< personal >
LIVINGPROOF #1: Crisis
($3.00 ppd or fair trade - but e-mail first - from Andrew Mall / PO Box 14211 / Chicago, IL / 60614 USA.
E-mail)
Review by Randy Osborne
What starts out sounding like a soul-numbing hymn to consumerism, brand loyalty and popular culture takes a wistful and even lonely turn early on. In these essays, Andrew mulls the futility of spending, the abundance of junk in the world and the sadness caused by absent or unresponsive friends. More often than not, he nails it.
Passages abound like this one, describing how Andrew parted with his girlfriend after they had been together for almost five years (Andrew lived in her family’s house for several summers): “On the last day of summer our goodbyes were hurried, exactly the same as every morning. We both still had to go to work – the morning routine was unchanged. I drank my cup of coffee and ate my yogurt and made my lunch, and she did – well, she did whatever it is that girls do in the morning. I’ve never really understood all of it. I headed out the door, we shared a quick hug and a peck on the cheek and a “Call me” and I was off. I was driving back to college after work that afternoon and she was going back to her college that weekend, but it didn’t feel much different … I was saying the one goodbye that I never thought I was going to, and it really didn’t feel much different.”
Andrew brushes up against what makes personal writing like this hard – and he manages to back away just enough to make it still possible. At the end of this essay, for example, he writes that he has seen the girl “a few times” and each time their meeting has been “strange.” He won’t elaborate, he adds, because “I’m sure you can see how it might be strange.” But each meeting, he writes, has ended with “a hurried goodbye, a quick hug, a peck on the cheek and a ‘Call me.’”
It’s a nice fat chunk of reading for three bucks. Worth every dime.
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< lit >
TWIST Vol. 3, #1: "regrets"
($3.00 from PO Box 441 / Ames, IA / 50010 USA.
E-mail)
Review by
Christine Douville
This short litzine is more chapbook-like than zine-like: there is a total of four totally blank pages, and there's a page with only one haïku printed on it… not something you will see often in zine world, as most zinesters usually avoid wasting paper. But then again,
twist is slightly more professional than the average zine (no mistakes, at least none that I spotted at the first reading; perfect layout; nothing too cute or corny); if it weren't so anonymous, I would have been tempted to say it was issued by a small press rather than by a zinester.
Who are the creators of this zine? And, most importantly, who are the contributors? The editors mention that all published submissions will be anonymous unless specified otherwise, but I would have appreciated a few words about the writers and artists who shared their regrets with us… or a short paragraph to explain this "anonymous" policy… or a longer intro, to explain the theme better and link the submissions together.
twist publishes personal prose essays, artwork and "very little" poetry. My favorite pieces were "after", by… Anonymous, and the photos by Richard H. Fox and R. Harvey. Overall, nice work, nice layout – I'm intrigued. The fact that I preferred the visual part over the writing in this issue is probably related to the theme; this "regrets" issue felt a bit sober to me. Maybe I'm too accustomed to regrets… I'll make sure to check out their upcoming issues – the next themes are "luck" (deadline: May 15, '04), "fear" (deadline: August 15, '04), and "magic" (deadline: November 15, '04)!
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< comics/x >
THE OCTOPI AND THE OCEAN
by Dan James
($6.95,
Top Shelf Productions,
Ghostshrimp Press)
Review by Mark Campos
Eight legs good! This is like some obscure folk myth, only with weird and poetic edges. The war between the octopi and the sharks is resolved with the help of a kid who gets dragooned into the struggle. The story is lucidly conveyed through wordless drawings (after some exposition), nicely printed in spot blue on good paper. And, like a good children's book, it carries a subversive message: that those who help win the battle are not always rewarded for their trouble. Worth a look at.
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< comics/x >
I BLEED SCORPIONS
by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey
($2.00 ppd from Daniel Merlin Goodbrey,
www.e-merl.com)
Review by Mark Campos
Eight legs good! This is a teaser for Goodbrey's online "Hypercomic" archive: a guy in a pub tells his chums that he bleeds scorpions. The high-contrast art blacks in a lot of detail, and the computer-generated characters are stiffish, but the story has a relaxed magic realist quality, which makes me want
to check out his site to see if he has any more good stories.
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