Graphic Novels for Beginners

The latest "Nexus Graphica" hearkens back to my "Geeks With Books" days as I provide a guide to which graphic novels a neophyte should attempt first.

While I rank Watchmen among the great sequential works, its success depends heavily on readers who understand the tropes of traditional super-hero comics. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons expertly used the well-established storytelling methods of the time (1986). By revitalizing and reinventing the superhero genre, then entering its 50th year, the duo influenced an entire generation of writers, artists, and filmmakers. For a reader new to the form, Watchmen may as well be written in Greek.

The first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes) assumes a working knowledge of the long-running DC continuity, and, much like Watchmen, is not a good selection for the novice. The second volume (actually collected first) The Doll's House, works within the series' own mythos, which makes it much more accessible to neophytes.

Maus presents a conundrum for the pretentious "literature crowd." It uses funny animals and illustrations to tell its story, but it won a Pulitzer Prize. Surely the acclaimed Maus cannot be a comic book! Upon its publication, bookstores typically shelved Maus in Judaica rather than with the rest of the graphic novels, which for a time were all kept in humor. Masterfully employing sequential art techniques, Art Spiegleman's extraordinary Holocaust tale provides a perfect gateway for the new comics reader.

I go on to discuss several other graphic novels-- good and bad for new readers-- such as Sin City, Persepolis, Asterios Polyp, Bone, and V for Vendetta.

Check out the whole column at Sf Site.

That Was The Year That Was 2009, Part Two

Over at SF Site, Mark London Williams and I conclude the annual countdown of our favorite graphic novels/comics/funny books of the year. We each picked the top ten titles that we encountered over the past year or so. Here's a visual recap of 5-1.










Check out the column for what we said about each selection.




In case you missed it, here's Part One.

That Was The Year That Was 2009, Part One

Over at SF Site, Mark London Williams and I began the annual countdown of our favorite graphic novels/comics/funny books of the year. We each picked the top ten titles that we encountered over the past year or so. Here's a visual recap of 10-6.










Check out the column for what we said about each selection.

Graphics of Reality

My latest Nexus Graphica column is now available. This time, I explore the world of nonfiction comics.

"Like most young comic book readers of that decade [the 70s], my comic reading selections were dominated by DC and Marvel. Outside of the occasional war comic, neither offered much in the way of true stories, so I rarely experienced the nonfiction graphical narrative until high school."

"Art Spiegelman's Maus, cribbed from his father's remembrances, understandably caught my interest."

"Published as collection for the first time in 1990, Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe appealed to my dual interests of history and comics."

"Perhaps the greatest historian to work primarily in the graphic narrative format, Texan Jack Jackson began his artistic career under the nom de plume "Jaxon" as one of the first underground cartoonists with the self-published God Nose (1965)."

"In the early nineties, my own approach to writing changed when I discovered Harvey Pekar, who first started working on comics with his good friend, the legendary artist Robert Crumb."

"As part of their imprint Paradox Press, DC began publishing a series of "factoid books" headlined by The Big Book of... anthologies in 1994."

I talk about and review several other books as well. So check it out.

War on Two Fronts

My latest Nexus Graphica, where I discuss Blazing Combat and Jack Kirby's The Losers, is now available for your reading pleasure.

Following the success of their EC-inspired horror anthology Creepy, publisher James Warren and editor Archie Goodwin began Blazing Combat in 1965. The new magazine employed a similar format, using many of the same artists of the previous Warren publication -- Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, John Severin, Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, Russ Heath, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood. Like Creepy, Blazing Combat also featured Frank Frazetta covers, and Goodwin scripts in a magazine format. But unlike its predecessor, Blazing Combat died an ignoble death after just four issues. Fantagraphics collects the complete run and outlines the whole sordid history via interviews with Warren and Goodwin in the handsome hardback Blazing Combat.

Following the 1973 cancellation of his Fourth World titles (New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen), Jack Kirby created several new titles for DC (Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC). In 1974, he also assumed the mantle on one existing title: Our Fighting Forces. Beginning with issue #151, Kirby rendered the chronicles of a dysfunctional WWII fighting troop, code-named the Losers.

I also review Jan's Atomic Heart, Chicken with Plums, and Showcase Presents Ambush Bug.

To Hell With Alan Moore

For my latest Nexus Graphica column, I revised and updated the "To Hell With Alan Moore" article, my 2006 history of the films based on the works of Alan Moore that originally appeared in Moving Pictures.

Alan Moore (along with Sin City creator Frank Miller) injected relevancy into mainstream comics in the 80s. Previously, comic books lagged some five to six years behind current trends. Moore's skills moved mainstream superhero comics ahead of popular culture and established new trends, the punk to the old guard's rock 'n' roll. His success paved the way for artists such as Moore protégé Neil Gaiman and Mike Mignola (Hellboy creator), as well as the re-tooling of superheroes that lead to this century's spate of successful films such as the Spider-Man franchise, the X-Men series, Iron Man, and even even The Incredibles.

Not only did I revise large chunks of the original text and correct a factual error, but I expanded the piece to include my thoughts on the V For Vendetta movie and included some observations about the forthcoming Watchmen film.

A movie based on Moore's arguably most nihilistic work, V for Vendetta (1990), premiered in March 2006 starring Natalie Portman. Originally published serially during the height of the Thatcher/Reagan era, V relates the anonymous struggles of an anarchist terrorist in a post-apocalyptic fascist Britain. The movie, from first-time director James McTeigue and a screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix), retained much of the original story's anarchy and political references. The finest big screen Moore adaptation to date managed a respectable $132 million in total worldwide box office. Yet again, Moore asked for his name to be removed from the credits.

The phone rang today...

On the other end of the phone, a woman with a heavy Asian accent asked me if I was the Rick who wrote Nexus Graphica for Sf Site.

"Um.. yeah. Why?"

"We'd like to promote your book."

"What?"

"In your column you feature several of your books."

"Um.. I wrote about those books. I did not write them."

"The X-men is not your book?"

*chuckle* "No. I WRITE about OTHER books."

"Well, you have a book, right?"

"Yes.. but it came out several years ago. Who are you and what do you want?"

"You were targeted by our website because of your quality writing. We would like to promote your book." She went on to tell me she was from Book Whirl and they successfully promote books, though she didn't offer names of any clients.


The site itself is slick, though makes the common mistake of too much info on the title page, obscuring their message. And the Barnes & Noble and Amazon links near the bottom give the false impression that they are sponsored by the bookstore giants.

From their ABOUT US:

Quote:

BOOKWHIRL.com is an online book marketing company, specializing in providing affordable, effective online book publicity marketing services for authors. Through its inexpensive, specially designed services BOOKWHIRL.com enables authors to promote their products and connect to readers in a more effective, efficient system – and achieve bigger book sales. BOOKWHIRL.com employs an experienced team of online marketing strategists, ad copywriters, graphic artists, and web designers whose combined expertise ensure an effective online marketing campaign — at easily affordable rates. Our mission: To empower upstart authors all around the world by offering highly-effective online book marketing services at easily affordable rates.

I was not very impressed. You call an author without really knowing what they do? Obviously, I don't own the X-men and the tiniest bit of research reveals that I've never even written the X-men. And I'm suppose to take you seriously?

Then there's the pricing. While not terrible, their services are way too fragmented-- potentially obscuring the actual costs-- and the charts offer little indication of what you get for your money.

The site only lists four clients. Is that all they have? And though they apparently focus only on newer writers, you would think if their pr was so good, I would have heard of at least one of them. I am, by reputation, very tied into the book trade. Something somewhere should have come to my attention about one of their authors.

When I asked the their telemarketer where they were located, she told me Iowa. No indication of that on their site.




Reading the fine print reveals that Book Whirl is owned by Yen Chen Support, an Asian business process outsourcing company. I'm sure Yen Chen is a fine company, but nothing on their site lends me to believe they know the first thing about the book industry on any continent. (Though apparently they use Linux, which does give them Brownie points.)



If you are an author looking for some promotional help, you are better of contacting someone like Deep Eight proprietor Matt Staggs. He may not have the whiz bang of Book Whirl, but he knows the biz and understands the various Internet marketing opportunities. Plus, Matt knows who owns the X-men.




"Rick, can I get your email so we can check in with you in a few months?"

"You can get it from the column."

"Um.. where is that?"

"Sf Site. Scroll down and click on Nexus Graphica. The new column went up yesterday."

"I don't see it. Please tell me your email."

"Forget it. I'm not interested in your services. Don't contact me again" *CLICK*

That Was The Year That Was. Part Two.

As Mark so elegantly announced last time, the Nexus Graphica brain trust have compiled our very own top ten graphic novel or comics-related publications lists of 2008. Mark began this shindig, so it falls to me to introduce the final five selections.

That Was The Year That Was. Part Two.

That Was The Year That Was. Part One.

It's that time of year again -- the existential suspense redolent in the air over whether your uncle will get blindly drunk at Christmas again, whether the country will survive until January 20th, whether you'll get lucky on New Year's Eve. The usual swirl of late December concerns. And in that swirl are the year-end "ten best" lists as well, compiled by movie, music, book and other critics. The erudite Mr. Klaw and Mark London Williams thought it might behoove them to compile a similar top-tenny sort of rundown for graphic novels and comics and split it into two parts. Here are numbers 10–6 of the list.

That Was The Year That Was. Part One.

Our final five selections will be announced in the January 1 column.