Andy Hartzell: the Blog

NY Times Review of FBF

Here’s a link to Douglas Wolk’s review of Fox Bunny Funny in this past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review Section (!)

This is certainly the best exposure the book has yet received, and it’s an honor to be praised by a critic as astute as Mr. Wolk. I posted my own thoughts on his recent book, Reading Comics, several months back. You can read what I had to say here.

So Super Duper

Having plugged an old pal, let me now do the same for a new pal, up-and-coming SF cartoonist Brian Andersen. Brian is also a bona fide fan, one of the three new fans I’ve gained since the publication of Fox Bunny Funny. There’s the Scottish one, the gay one, and the girl. Brian is the gay one.

And his full-color self-published title “So Super Duper” is the gayest new comic I’ve read since…

…I was going to say, since Justin Hall’s “Only in San Francisco”, but that would give you the wrong idea. There are no painful and squirm-inducing sex acts in “So Super Duper”. There are no sex acts at all, at least not in the first two issues. Our lead character is so oblivious that he doesn’t realize he’s gay–he may not even know what the word means, quite.

It’s the sweet-natured naivette of the lead character which gives SSD its considerable charm. His name is Psyche, and as our story opens he’s just been made a member of the the “Amazin’Nauts” team. Yes, this is indeed another superhero parody, but Brian Anderson puts his own spin on the formula. As in Kochalka’s “Superf*ckers”, life in a Superhero compound turns out to be a little like life in High School. And as with “Too Much Coffee Man”, our hero turns out to be a little less than super. Psyche’s got the power of “empathy”, which means he can sense that super-villains are, you know, evil. And that’s about it. Oh, and he’s lazy, flighty, easily scared and a big gossip. And for some reason, not everyone is thrilled that he’s on the team.

But he’s totally thrilled. He’s so delighted with himself that he can’t see the trouble that’s a-brewin’ for him. We can, though, and we want to simultaneously slap him and protect him. Psyche’s a great character–callow, maybe, but so innocent in his callowness that we can’t help loving him. He reminds us of our first love, many years ago, with whom we’d sneak off and giggle in the stairwell while the rest of the company was striking the set of “Damn Yankees.” Or was that just me?

“So Super Duper” is available at Whatever Comics on Castro St., as well as Foto Graphix Books at the Cartoon Art Museum. His website. Buy it! He just did a big signing over the weekend, which I so completely missed. Sorry, Brian! Hugs!

Compound Eye

Yesterday, Ron and I caught two movies at the Mill Valley Film Festival. For him, I went to “Words and Music” a new documentary about composer Jerry (”Hello Dolly!”) Herman. For me, he went to “Compound Eye”, a film starring my old pal Jesse (”Slow Wave”) Reklaw. Suffice to say, there were more differences than similarities between the two movies.

Jesse is a cartoonist, not an actor. In fact, on more than one occasion I’ve heard him launch into anti-actor rants, so I was interested to see how he would handle a central role in a feature film. His performance, as it turns out, is anti-acting of a high caliber. He plays “Jesse Reklaw”, a cartoonist who lives in a funky converted warehouse called “Compound Eye”. At the time the movie was filmed, four or five years ago, he did live in a warehouse called “Compound Eye”. His housemate at the time, Fausto Caceres, plays his housemate in the movie. But while the real Jesse Reklaw dwells in comfortable obscurity, the fictional Jesse is not so fortunate. During the course of the movie, one of his comics provokes a scandal, and he becomes the focus of unwanted attention from protesters, a stoner groupie and a muckraking newscaster.

Jesse reacts to the unfolding chaos by registering various shades of bemusement with his big round eyes. Also he deploys the self-deprecating Reklaw chuckle. As a viewer, I was never quite sure whether I was watching (A) the character Jesse chuckling at the various curveballs fate is throwing at him, (B) the actor Jesse chuckling at the lines of dialog he’s hearing from other actors, or (C) the guy Jesse chuckling at the very idea of him being asked to act in a movie. But because the movie itself is a mash-up of fiction and documentary, it works.

Jesse’s plotline is over-the-top satirical, while the other plotline, involving Fausto reading from an album full of letters from a schizophrenic guy to his Mom, gives the movie gravity. Yahn Soon conceived and directed it, and Fausto did the excellent sound design. At moments, it attains the sort of mesmerizing, ominous quality of, say, Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi,” while at other moments it’s downright zany.

Jesse’s now in Portland, as is my other friend Erik Nebel, who also appears in “Compound Eye,” and Fausto is apparently living in China. Watching the movie made me a little nostalgic for 2003, which suddenly seemed like a million years ago.

The film screens one more time at this festival, next Sunday the 14th (oops–Saturday the 13th–see comment). You can read more about it and watch a trailer at http://www.compoundeyemovie.com
. It’s thoroughly entertaining and worth seeing, even if you don’t know anyone in it.

“Words and Music” was good, too, but you have to be a fan of Carol Channing and Broadway razmataz.

Reading Comics

I met Douglas Wolk at the San Diego Comicon. He had included “Fox Bunny Funny” on his blog’s “Hit List”, and he was nice enough to come by the Top Shelf booth and introduce himself. I told him I was excited about his new book, Reading Comics, and would be attending his panel ant the con. And then I didn’t go.

Actually, I was a little reluctant to read the book. The write up in the convention guide had mentioned that Reading Comics introduced a “new theory” of comics criticism, which set off alarms for me. I am suspicious of literary theory in general–it’s inherently reductive, and it elevates the critic over the authors he considers. And I was a little concerned that, if Wolk did a good job of selling his “new theory”, it would creep into my brain and affect the way I make comics.

Thankfully, the convention guide was full of crap. With Reading Comics, Wolk is not attempting to introduce any new theory. Rather, he is simply trying to clear a space for a legitimate critical dialog about comics. This is a wholly admirable goal and one which, it turns out, is more difficult than it would seem.

In order to create this space, Wolk has to battle several enemies. First, of course, there are those who think comics are inherently beneath critical consideration. These villains are the easiest to dispose of, since the tide of history is against them. With each new Persepolis or Jimmy Corrigan, each graphic novel that penetrates beyond the comics ghetto into the larger literary consciousness, the position of the comics-disparagers grows more precarious. Fifteen years ago, a work like Maus could be treated as an aberration, but it’s harder to do so today. Still, there are old-school critics who will never accept comics as real literature. I recently came across this essay by Joseph Epstein on Literary life in America, a life which, in his opinion, is being snuffed out. One of the concluding paragraphs:

“To be replaced by what? Perhaps a great messy mélange of low- and middlebrow writing, admixed with highbrow pretensions, with graphic novels taken as seriously as written ones, screen and television writers being celebrated as if they were of the stature of Thomas Mann or Albert Camus. And yet one wonders how long this lowering of standards, this infantilization of literature, can continue.”

Comics as infantilism. Not a new idea, of course. Refuting this idea is one of the prime jobs of the comics critic.

But not the only job. There is also the other side of the cultural divide to contend with, the postmodernists and deconstructivists who reduce literature to a pile of signifiers and treat standards of excellence as mere displays of cultural chauvanism. It’s particularly tricky for the comics critic to engage these opponents. After all, it is the postmodern movemnt, largely, that blurred the boundary between high and low art, thus allowing comics to cross over into the “legitimate” art world. Yet the same movement frowns on the sort of critical distinctions that allow us to separate the masterpieces from the mediocre.

Then there are those critics who are willing to seriously consider individual comic books, but who insist on viewing them through the lens of other mediums; novels, say, or movies.

And finally there’s the comics industry itself, with its big old inferiority complex. It’s the ugly, socially-awkward kid that all the other kids pick on. So when it’s finally offered the homecoming crown of social legitimacy, it naturally expects the bucket of pigs’ blood will follow.

(Is that a good metaphor, or am I pushing it a little?)

The first, say, 2/5 of the book is Wolk staking out his territory and defending it against these opponents. For the skeptics, he patiently explains what comics are, how they work, why they constitute a legitimate and powerful art form in their own right, and how they should be judged. For the true-believers, he makes a case for the value of outgrowing our cultish attachment to the form, that tendency to defend against the disparagers by indiscriminately celebrating everything about the form. It’s good journalistic prose–accessible, intelligent, funny. Convincing, too–though, being more-or-less in his camp to begin with, I didn’t require much convincing.

I did have a few minor quibbles with Wolk’s message, but I’ll save these for another enty.

Catch-up

You know how it is. The longer it’s been since you’ve written your Grandma, the harder it is to sit down and begin a letterr to her. I’m discovering that this law holds for blogging as well. Even though the audience for this blog is, possibly, non-existent, one pictures them sitting around waiting for a new entry, feeling hurt and a little bit resentful that I’m neglecting them.

Then, when an entry finally does get posted, the audience senses that it was tossed off lazily, from obligation rather than love. The audience writes back a terse, guilt-inducing comment that begins “You’re obviously very busy, so perhaps it’s best that you just forget about me…”

Well, I HAVE been busy, okay? So just get off my back, willya?

I’ve been moving ahead, slowly, with “Monday part III”, as well as a couple shorter anthology pieces, some freelance work, and a promotional gimmick for Fox Bunny Funny which, if it works out, will be pretty cool.

I’ve also managed to keep up with my reading, to some extent. Forthwith, my thoughts on a couple of the books I recently read.

Another New Theatre Poster

Last fall Ron Lytle prevailed upon me to design a poster for his new musical The Man Who Saved Christmas. I obliged, but I was under some time constraints, and I wasn’t entirely happy with the design I came up with. Fortunately, the show is being brought back this year, and I was able to tweak last year’s design into something more pleasing.

Very retro, I know. To me this looks like the cover of a kids’ record album circa 1955, when kids’ albums still came as boxed sets of 78’s. The show itself is set during WWI, so there would seem to be a disconnect. But Ron’s writing style hearkens back to the mid-century “golden age” of musicals. Besides, just looking at the poster puts me in a Christmas-y mood.

OMG photos

Here, finally, are some photos of the “Oh My Godmother” sets. I did most of the painting. Constuction was handled by Fred Chacon, Artistic Director of the Altarena.

The very successful five-week run ended Saturday night. However, the Bay Area won’t be lacking for Ron Lytle entertainment for long: the Altarena will be bringing back his second musical, “The Man Who Saved Christmas”, in November. I will again be doing publicity art and probably helping with sets.

Post Comicon wrap-up

Back from the con, with a big fat stack of comics and nowhere to put them. Aside from the fact that I came back poorer than I was when I left, it was a successful trip. Intangibles, man, intangibles. Fox Bunny Funny apprears to be getting some notice, I’m beginning to feel like a cartoonist rather than a dilletante. Highlights:

–My pal (and Catholic sponsor) Gene Yang wins the Eisner for best graphic novel! Capping a giddily surreal night, the first Eisner awards ceremony I’ve ever attended. He beat out Renee French, whose beautiful/grotesque “The Ticking” also deserved to win, but there are only so many little silver globes to go around.

–A German distributor enthuses about my book and buys a couple hundred for his comics-starved countrymen.

–I sell a copy to Matt Groening!

–The Barnes & Noble rep chortles heartily at FBF. I know, it’s not supposed to be funny, but don’t begrudge the man–it looks like he’ll be picking up a bunch of them too.

–I sell to a teacher who’s trying to build a graphic novel collection for her class. She comes back the next day, having read the book, and talks about what a good text it will be to teach about oppression.

–Famous colorist Jose Villarubia praises my cover.

–I pick various random people out of the streaming crowd, spin a gossamer web of sales talk and get ‘em to buy.

Yes, put me behind a counter and the old carny hawker comes out in me. The genes of my salesman grandpa turn to their neighbor genes and say “step aside, son.” Selling is fun! It energizes me. Now I’m trying to talk Top Shelf into letting me represent them at the California Library Association Expo. Ha! Those librarians don’t stand a chance!

Speaking of Top Shelf: my experience with them has been great so far. Really nice crew, I enjoyed hanging out with them. A highlight of the trip was Saturday night dinner at the Indigo Grill, at which I conversed with new Top Shelfer “Lee” on subjects ranging from Plato to Modoc to recent advances in role-playing games. It was nice to speak once again in my native geek.

Everyone asks me “How do you like working with To Shelf?”, then looks at me searchingly, as if expecting me to rag on them. I gather this has something to do with the fact that Craig Thompson has been going around bad-mouthing them. He may have good reason to gripe, I don’t know, but this is my “Honeymoon Phase,” so I don’t want to hear about it.

Good stuff I’ve read so far:
“Carl’s Large Story!!!” by Marcos Perez. Grungy xeroxed minicomics at their loopiest and most endearing. His website: Carl is the Awesome.

American Elf. Yes, that American Elf, by James Kochalka. What can I say? I like James Kochalka now. No longer do I find him precious and cloying, now longer do I find his art clunky. Now I find his observations touching and quirkily funny, and his art bold and appealing. Is it because I’m now a Top Shelf artist? Or have I just hit menopause?

What else.. what else…

The Surrogates, written by Rob Venditti with art by Brett Weldele. Yes, also published by Top Shelf. In the near future, life is lived virtually, through remote-control android “surrogates”, but a lone terrorist is threatening to bring down this decadent social order. A total sci-fi genre story, but the central conceit works and the storytelling is strong and efficient.

Rob Hanes Adventures #8 and 9, by Randy Reynaldo. Randy won a Xeric the same year I did (class of ‘95), but that’s only part of why I’m loyal to him. “Rob Hanes” is a well-drawn adventure comic in the vein of “Terry and the Pirates.” A complete throwback: clean-cut cheeky boy-scout hero, dastardly villains, pert and sexy (but not overly sexy) females to rescue and trade quips with. I love the fact that it’s not done as pastiche or parody, but for real. Few creators can pull that off nowadays.

Reich, by Elijah Brubaker, published by Dylan Williams’ Sparkplug. First part of a comic book biography of Wilhelm Reich. Takes some cues from Chester Brown’s “Louis Riel” (one of my all-time favorite comics), but Brubaker has an interesting cartoony-yet-moody style of his own.

Also, it was nice to catch up with the “Yikes” tykes again. Steven Weissman’s “Chewing Gum in Church” collects the comic strips he did for the Fantagraphics site. He sometimes comes dangerously close to “Peanuts” territory in this collection, and I kind of miss the interesting rhythms Weissman was able to develop in his comic-book stories. But a lot of the strips are funny, and it’s interesting to see the kids’ relationships distilled down to comic-strip tropes. But why does Little Bloody now have swarthy skin and big lips? Has he undergone an ethnicity-transplant?

Oh! And Tom Neely’s “The Blot.” Tom’s brushline has gotten all beautiful and delicate. His storytelling has gotten all raw and personal. Nightmare creatures have invaded his sunlit neo-Fleisher-brothers cartoon world. The results are riveting.

Oh My Godmother

Here’s my promo art for Ron Lytle’s upcoming Musical Spectacular, “Oh My Godmother!” This is the third incarnation of the show; each version has used the same basic art, with new caricatures added in to accomodate cast changes.

Shadowland

For me, Deitch has always trumped Crumb as the ultimate underground cartoonist. Crumb’s stories read like they bubbled up spontaneously from the overheated id of one warped individual. Deitch’s stories read like they bubbled up from the overheated id of our whole warped society.

Because of their roots in long-decayed pop culture, I think Deitch’s comics are actually best experienced as individual stapled installments. Preferably all ratty and torn, discovered in an attic somewhere. I read all the “Shadowland” pieces in their original incarnations, as one-shots, two-shots and anthology entries. Reading them again between the covers of a single book is both rapturous and a little disappointing.

Rapturous = the first half, the chapters revolving around hard-bitten clown-faced Al Ledicker. It’s a lurid coming-of-age melodrama: a childhood spent in sideshows, whorehouses and magic-lantern parlors–enough to turn any clown evil. It all builds to a spectacular climax, with shocking revelations, secrets revealed and just desserts gaudily meted out.

Disappointing = the second half, where we follow the subsequent history of several of the characters, and where we get the back-story explanation of some of the more surreal characters (the gnomelike “Gray ones”). There are some good moments, but Deitch’s storytelling has gone soft. The tone is elegiac rather than bloodthirsty. Following the tangled plotlines becomes more difficult, with less payoff. This part of the book seems to have been drawn after a hiatus of five or six years. I’m wondering if this was the period when Deitch fell in love, got married and temporarily lost his edge.

In any case, he seems to have regained it with “Alias the Cat.”