Sugar Fish Drink
I always have the best of intentions of being productive. Wanting to make the most of my time while I can. The weird thing about writing about what you are reading, is that sometimes you put off reading because you know you need to do work after. But reading is something that does bring a lot of pleasure right now. Finding ways to escape the crushing reality just outside the door.
Last week I paid a visit to the archives at the Western Front, a Vancouver art space that dates back to the 70s. It’s a lovely building that continues to feature amazing forward thinking work. I saw Matmos play a set with a washing machine that was pretty fantastic in their main performance hall many years ago. The show was walking a fine line between musique concrete and blue man group. Anywho, the archive was amazing. I continue to do research into the Canadian underground comic movement, finding new work and creators that seems to take me into different directions. One thing that is quite fascinating, is that their is much more avant garde comics work that plays within formalist art movements than I was expecting. It shows how different the movements are between the US and Canada. While we have folks like Rand Holmes and Dave Geary up here, we also had Martin Vaughn-James, bpNichol and Coach House press. It’s all very fascinating and I will be doing some specific posts on my findings over the next while.
As always, if you want to send me stuff to read, please see below. Also, if you are someone that collects old comics like me and have doubles, ask me about my want list.
Inkstuds
#2147 – 720 Sixth St
New Westminster, BC
V3L 3C5
Canada
and only if you are mailing from the United States
Robin McConnell
1685 H Street # 27043
Blaine, WA 98230
United States
Yesterday I sat down with Unwholesome Love by Charles Burns. Burns continues to be one of my favorites. This book is one of the few things were I would say it lives in the same world as David Lynch’s work like Inland Empire and Mullholand Drive. Nothing is handed to you, it’s comic of experience, unease and unrequited or lost love. Burns weaves a story through 3 short’s, using classic romance comics as a queue and a template, but breaks the expectation and pushes things into uncomfortable spaces. This book was self published with support from the great Partners and Sons comic store in Philadelphia. It’s a real bumper crop year for Charles Burns, with Sweet Dreams out from French publisher Cornelius and then the more available, Kommix and Final Cut both out last year.
Veronica Graham sent me a copy of their massive tabloid comic, Prop Comic. It’s fantastic. I was not familiar with Veronica’s comics. There is so much out there that I need to check out! This book is wild. The comic really makes use of giant pages, taking Popeye’s main girl, Olive Oyl through a flowing world of shifting cityscapes and points in time. She finds herself in a number of brutal situations and things just never stop. There is an amazing kind of anxiety to the comic that pushes you and compels and makes you generally uncomfortable. Great stuff.
The latest issue of Smoke Signal, number 43, is what we say up here in Canada as “All Killer, No Filler”. Gabe Fowler’s Desert Island shop in Brooklyn has always been a go to destination space a deep stock of fabulous work. He’s also been publishing his Smoke Signal newspaper comic for almost as many years as his shop has been opened. This latest issue coincides with the closing of his old space and the move to a larger space. Thanks to significant online crowdfunding support, Gabe has come through on top. The new space will be bigger and better. Photos online have been quite promising. I look forward to my next visit. My first time in Desert Island, Gabe recognized me right off the bat and handed me a beer as I walked in. If only more comic stores gave me beer. This paper is really something, it’s 40 pages of some of the best in comics, from a cover by Olivier Schrauwen (Gabe was an early supporter of his work), to new folks like Juliette Collet, the classics like Chris Ware and the forward moving work like Floyd Tangeman. You won’t go wrong this comic. Also, Marc Bell delivers one of the most Canadian strips I have ever read. The voice comes right out of middle Ontario. The first time I met Cerebus background artist Gerhard, he had the most perfect Canadian voice, and it’s pretty much identical to how I hear Marc’s strip in my head.
Continuing my journey through Rick Veitch’s Heroica comic’s, I read the 4 POD volumes of Boy Maximortal. He has been posting them to Amazon, making full use of each issue. While the story for each chapter is around 50-60 pages, he makes full use of filling all 100 pages of the book. Since the price won’t change until he goes above 108 pages, he treats the book almost like cd single, filling up the space with b-sides, live tracks and rarities, or in this case, uncollected strips from the 70s and 80s, commissioned drawings and various childhood drawings. This latest round of the longer series feels a little like a filler chapter. We are catching up with our main characters a number of years in the future, seeing how they have grown and developed, or in other cases regressed. It’s an interesting study in how comics intersect and the horrible machines that destroyed the creators. We get to see a glimpse of what’s to come with a couple of underground creator stand-ins before their start. There is an amazing part with a Gilbert Shelton based character going through a horrible peyote trip that was probably the stand out part for me. It’s great book and I am looking forward to him getting chapter 3 complete. In one of the books, he mentions doing comics on his computer now, and it seems that he has really taken well to it. There’s some great moments where he does some abstract type backgrounds for jungle fauna that works really well, and his art styling is quite tight and confident. It’s impressive to see a classic comic artist really artistically thrive in a way like this.
I have been chatting with my friend Jarrett about his love of Archie comics, which sent me in the direction of exploring the Spire Christian Comics by Al Hartley, which featured some amazing absurd strips. If you want to learn more, I strongly suggest reading this amazing article by Kliph Nesteroff from 2006. Kliph and I were got our starts around the same time at CiTR. I always had a lot of respect for what he was doing and it’s really amazing to see how far he has been able to take his knowledge and personal obsessions. Archie’s Sonshine, published in 1974 is a day late and a dollar short for cashing in on the surf craze in the 1960’s but that make’s it even better. The cover of the book reminds me of an issue of Short Order Comix, but I don’t think that was on purpose. In this issue, the gang hits the beach, starting out with ogling Ms Grundy’s beach attire, years before the sexy Riverdale reboot. The comic continues with many different exploits, with many lessons to be had, including a charismatic young hip preacher, their to spread the gospel to the teens. My favorite moment is Liberace appearing out of nowhere as evidence for god’s colorful bounty. truly majestic.
There appears to be a tradition of Canadian libertarian comics that I am only just learning about. Captain Tax Time 1990 comic written by tax accountant Paul Haynes in response to the GST tax in Canada. He justly felt that the newly implemented goods and services tax was a regressive tax policy that would more significantly impact lower income folks while higher income brackets and corporations get away with spending less in taxes because of being able to write off expenses and manage money in specific ways. He's not wrong, but it's also amazing that it's gone into a subpar comic featuring prime minister Byron Baloney and his finance minister who turns into the Grabber! Only Captain Tax Time and his sidekick, Sergeant Saver can come to the people's defense and take down the corporate overlords that really run the country. I wonder if it’s time to come back to take down the tariff! Oh god, modern political comics about the current US president are incredibly painful. I was joking with a friend that I am just waiting to see someone do a drawing of Captain Canuck taking down Trump and the Tariff. I was joking of course, but he said it’s probably a good thing we haven’t seen it, because it probably exists and it’s probably terrible.
I Love Comics, Who Loves Me? is a collection of shorter strips by Yan Cong, published by KUS. The art is really beautiful lush pencil work that evolves throughout the book. When the comics work in this book, they really work. The later work is quite effective in creating haunting and quiet moments. The style is really neat, using the floating figures to great effect. There was one strip in there that was about comics, which felt flat to me, but that’s because I am generally not enjoying comics about comics. It feels overdone and there are already more than enough comics about comics out there. There is very little new things being said in comics about comics. Yan’s work really shines when the stories take on their own life, not being firm in reality, and allowing you to journey with characters and be present in a moment. That moment may be uncomfortable, but it’s providing place and feeling in a really strong way.
Synapses is another collection from KUS, this time with work by Ivo Puiupo. I loved this book. It’s a bit of a journey through experiences and interconnecting ideas taking shape in different visual techniques. The work bounces and plays, and does not find space to settle. As a reader, it’s up to you to take the book and process in your own way. Strong work that I want more of.
I still read a mainstream comics. 16 year old me comes through and orders everything by Garth Ennis. The latest is Get Fury, drawn by the very confident Jacen Burrows, who seems to be doing his best to fill the boots of Steve Dillon, crafting a very easy to follow simple style that works to service the story quite nicely. It’s a pretty by the books Ennis comic, Frank Castle has to rescue Nick Fury from a North Vietnamese POW camp before he is tortured for secrets and killed. Or is that what’s really going on! It’s like a Jason Statham movie. I’m not expecting to watch Godard, I want to see stuff blow up. And stuff did blow up real good.
Cam Hayden sent me some more comics to read after I thoroughly enjoyed the books I got at Short Run last fall. The Least I Could Do is a collection of short stories that appeared in different comics anthology and magazines. His comics are really funny and a breeze to read. I especially liked his epic usage of the Blues Traveller and his vest of infinite harmonicas. The 90’s and 2000’s were wild. Good comics for fans of Pete Bagge or Max Clotfelter.
I recently ordered a bunch of old 90’s graphic novels. Batman - Birth of the Demon always held a special spot for me, as someone that grew up on Norm Breyfogle’s Batman comics. I have a lot of Batman comics and will continue to buy more Batman comics. Written by Dennis O’Neil, this story build’s on the myth and history of Ra’s Al Ghul, the constantly reborn enemy of Batman. The story is nothing special. It’s a bit hammy, but well worth it for seeing Breyfogle go unhinged with his art. He’s always had his own unique style when drawing Batman, creating great angles and over the top posing. This book is fully painted, so he really goes into the colouring, crafting some unreal dream sequences. Breyfogle had a stroke in 2014 that took away his ability to draw and he ultimately passed away in 2018. During that time, he continued to be vocal online, supportive of social justice issues while also describing his own health challenges in great detail. With my own father having a stroke during that time, it gave me an understanding of the complexities that my father was unable to share because of his loss of speech. It was all quite heart breaking, but it makes me want to remember and value his work even more.
I recently saw Angela Fanche posting images from her story in Cowlick 7, which served as a good reminder to revisit this hefty anthology. Edited by Floyd Tangeman, this book is a really great way of seeing modern forward thinking comics. There is no cohesive through-line in the book other than it being mostly artists that are pushing their work into new dimensions and not letting up. It’s not an easy book to read, but I also really value that. It’s a collection to revisit and take time with. You can reread strips and get different experiences out of them. I will continue to buy anything Floyd puts out as he keeps exposing me to new comics and ideas.
Lastly, is a giant collection of Slaine Comics by Pat Mills and artist Simon Bisley. This is some of Bisley’s greatest comics work. The book is printed at the size the original art was painted at. Each page is a glorious spread of blood, bulging veins, mythic beasts and more. I think this is also Bisley’s most cohesive work. He was born to draw to Celtics Legends, giving life to these stories in a way only he can. It’s one of those books where you can tell so much work went into it, that it can’t be repeated. Bisley’s art would get more and more distilled over the years until pages would seem like they were barely penciled and slapped with some rough colours. This book is all you need.
