BOOKS WE LIKED 2018: Special Saturday Edition

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. That’s right -- it’s BEST OF season when comic sites large and small churn out their lists, anointing subjective BESTS and, thereby, relegating thousands upon thousands of unlisted comics to the long box of Misfit Toys.

We here at Your Chicken Enemy are uncomfortable with these implications of creating BEST OF lists. Instead, we focus on celebrating ALL that is good in small press/self-published comics. Our site is built on an appreciation for diversity, admiration of artists, respect for the craft, and, of course, sandwiches.  

So, in lieu of the traditional BEST OF list, Publisher and EiC of YCE, Daniel Elkin, has gathered his flock of (Chicken) Enemies and asked them for their contributions to Your Chicken Enemy’s inaugural

Today’s BOOKS WE LIKED 2018 features books that have yet to be reviewed by any of the Enemies 

Make sure you check out Friday's Favorites from Matt Vadnais, Justin Giampaoli, Michael Bettendorf, and Daniel Elkin

Thursday's Favorites from Francesca Lyn, David Fairbanks, Kawai Shen, and Josh Hicks

Wednesday's Favorites from Nick Hanover, Sara L. Jewell, Jason Sacks, and Mark Stack

Tuesday's Favorites from Ryan Carey, Philippe LeBlanc, Steve Morris, and Austin Lanari.

And Monday's Favorites from Rob Clough, Kim Jooha, Alex Hoffman, and Keith Silva.

Follow Me In

By Katriona Chapman

Published by Avery Hill

Available HERE

This is a beautiful book. In Follow Me In, Chapman uses the format of a travelogue to not only explore the beauty and history of Mexico but also examine her own growth as an artist and her agency as a woman. Through voyage, Chapman outlines how she moves forward by exploring the past, expertly weaving her personal journey into the context of traveling through a foreign land.

This is also a book about dealing with an alcoholic partner -- and Chapman uses all the tools of the medium to both convey the turmoil of participating in that relationship and make that struggle real to the reader.

Finally, Chapman may well be one of the best cartoonists working today when it comes to conveying an incredible range of human emotion through gesture, expression, layout, and color.

Vanishing Act

By Roman Muradov

Published by Fantagraphics Books

Available HERE

Vanishing Act breaks apart all concepts of narrative and, in doing so, overlays a close resemblance to direct experience. Muradov is seemingly not interested in telling a story as much as he is trying to approximate Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2. All the moments of a moment are laid out in sections, even though they happen simultaneously, consecutively, or in dreams -- “a single evening under a sidestepped temporal constraint”

With Vanishing Act, Muradov once again proves himself to be one of the most maddening, talented, humorous, and thoughtful creative forces working in comics. In his work, everything comes down to gesture, even intent.

Ink Brick: The Journal of Comics Poetry No. 9

Edited by Alexander Rothman, Paul K. Tunis, Alexey Sokolin, and Matthea Harvey

Available HERE

Everyone contributing and editing this journal are constantly and consistently trying to define the concept of comics poetry, while at the same time expanding the medium of comics. The ninth issue of this series continues this mandate. When abstract images are presented in conjunction with poetic expression, each side opens up and the reader grabs for handholds unique to their own understanding. Ink Brick has been providing space for this sort of exploration -- and doing so in a way that never allows anyone to become complacent in any sense they have made -- never resting on a single characterization or delimitation of what constitutes Comics Poetry

Also of Note:

Moon

By Rozi Hathaway

Self-Published

Available HERE

“Based on a conversation with a four-year-old, Moon is an original comics story with plenty of imagination, a look at familial relationships, and a nod the Chinese legend of Chang-e and the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

Heat

By Jean Wei

Published by Peow

Available HERE

“Beautiful slice-of-life centered on a naked 8-foot fire demon and farm life with an old Aunt and grand-niece. Sounds pretty spicy if you ask me. And you know what they say about spicy. Spicy is HEAT.”

No Better Words

By Carolyn Nowak

Published by Silver Sprocket

Available HERE

This is a porn comic that beautiful and viscerally captures desire in a safe story filled with agency and consent.

Poetry Comics on Comics Bulletin

This week I got to explore what's going on in the world of Poetry Comics 

over on Comics Bulletin.

First was THIS ESSAY by Alexander Rothman, the Editor-in-Chief of the premier Comics Poetry journal, Ink Brick. 

As a new form (or at least one where precedents are rarely accessible), comics poetry is difficult and uncharted. Practitioners must figure out what they’re doing. And more fundamentally than with most work, audiences must figure out how to read it. Our media environment encourages quick consumption of content that is increasingly custom tailored. This work, on the other hand, asks us to walk a mile or two in someone else’s brain.

Next, I badgered Austin Lanari into writing THIS REVIEW of Ink Brick #5

My favorite thing about Ink Brick is not just that the work is often challenging: it’s that the challenges it often presents to the reader do not in any way resemble the often more literary challenges of more traditional comic books.  This has an effect of broadening any reader’s appreciation for sequential art as a whole (and arguably fine art or poetry as well).  That kind of expansive rewiring is in stark contrast to the often insulating effect that sticking to one kind of work can elicit.  

Next came an INTERVIEW I did with Chrissy Williams, one of the Editors of Over The Line: An Introduction to Poetry Comics

So I suppose the thing to say, even though I realize how obvious it sounds, is that the genre needs to be defined fundamentally as an inextricable combination of both comics and poetry, neither of which should be dispensable. In the best poetry comics, I believe, the piece would fail utterly (or at best be horrifically diminished) if you removed either the poetry or the artwork from the composition.

That may not be what you mean though. You may mean “yes, fine – but what is it?” Or, in other words, what does it do that distinguishes it from either comics or poetry? Well, poetry is used to creating meaning with text alone (either on the page, or audibly), so putting it into a visual sequence makes it something different. It now finds it has help in building imagery that it didn’t have before, and has to ask itself “how can we keep this interesting and make sure we’re not just repeating ourselves?”

Finally, for Tiny Pages Made of Ashes (our small press review column) I got Ray Sonne to write this REVIEW of Sarah Ferrick's SEC

Ferrick’s poetic lines hitch and groan, interrupting the speaker’s passion (“I want to fuck you!” screams one page in a curly, nearly unreadable red) with their anxiety and frustration as they fail and fail and fail again to find completion. “One sec, one sec, one sec” evolves into the speed and tempo of a bedsheet mantra. The sickening desperation of the speaker only ceases as the comic becomes wordless, giving into the blossoming of bright red, vulva-like flowers with brown pubic hair drawn on the higher points of their stems. Orgasm has no words and neither does its post-coital peace, which is represented on the last page via a flower of purple and yellow, two colors previously unused.

While I wrote reviews of LATE BLOOMER by mare' odomo

Ultimately framed as a journey, Late Bloomer examines that which is without, within, as odomo works through what it means to be an individual in world among others: how we interact, what we desire, how we perceive and are perceived, what we reject and are rejected for. It’s messy business, and odomo’s work reflects this. Page after page are filled with smudges and things almost violently crossed out. Some pages are only half-filled, others framed, yet left blank. Thoughts are begun, reflected upon, abandoned or tossed aside in frustration caused by either an inability to understand or the necessity to move forward. Moments of tightly rendered landscapes are juxtaposed with the crosshatch of window screens or almost oppressive urban streets.

And TIME CAPSULE by Maggie Umber

Umber’s work is comics poetry insomuch as it is neither narrative nor sequential. It is, instead, a series of images — landscapes, bats, insects, snails, snakes, birds, chimpanzees — boxed in panels, sometimes alone on a page, sometimes crowded together, juxtaposed with numbers and letters, as if apartment addresses, our own little boxes. Everything is rendered in a moment, sometimes nimbly as if to record it as it happens, other times tightly detailed as if by capturing each element of her subject she can give it some permanence. Placed together, her pages resonate with her final admonition, “We are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event. If it is allowed to continue life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on.”

Books in Bites 9: Two Comics Worth Your Attention

Quick Reviews of Two Books you may be interested in.

PLANS WE MADE by Simon Moreton

Published by Uncivilized Books

Available Here

Sometimes you really need to step back and listen to the quiet. In the silence, sporadically, the loudest admonitions can be heard. “Go forth.” “Conquer.” “Be afraid.” “You are in love.” -- such are the sounds reverberating in the hush. Artists who can make the most of silence, pauses, lulls in the frenetic pace of the day-to-day, often deal in that which we most need to hear.

So it is with Simon Moreton’s Plans We Made. Here is a book saturated with those in-between moments that occur between thought and expression (wherein, as Lou Reed reminded us, lies a lifetime). His simple lines coalesce into each juncture, uncomplicated and absolute, conveying all that the mind conjures -- be it joy, disappointment, or confusion -- as steps are taken from here to there.

Plans We Made is about looking back. Moreton is remembering youth and longing, capturing those liminal instances of what might be possible in the next moment. While specifically exploring his British and suburban experiences, Moreton, through his minimalism and erasure, transcends that which is individual and broadens his reach to the universal.

Longing is a human construct that is saturated with hope. It is the wellspring from which arises disappointment as much as it slakes desire. Within all discontent comes the impetus for change. Morton takes this all apart in Plans We Made through narrative, through pace, but mostly through his simple lines and layouts. In Morton’s pages, forms are dissolved into naked shapes through which the reader makes meaning, attempts closure, overlays the self. Here, what is less becomes more; the silence echoes reflections like a placid lake seen from above. Each moment is about that which is unsaid and undrawn; it leads to the cacophony of silence and an emotional center that holds tight insomuch as it becomes universal.

There is solace in solitude as there is beauty in simplicity. Moreton masters the lyrics to this song. In each of its pages, Plans We Made sings softly that which could have been, quietly humming a backbeat of instances of regret and of unadulterated joy, paring it down to the shadowline between substance and articulation.

This, my friends, is a beautiful book.

Plans We Made is available through Minneapolis publisher Uncivilized Books here.

INKBRICK: A JOURNAL OF COMICS POETRY Volume 4

Available Here

The possibilities of what is termed Comics Poetry continues to fascinate me, intersecting, as it does, so much of what I use to define myself and the world around me. Alexander Rothman, Paul K. Tunis, and Alexey Sokolin, the editors of InkBrick: A Journal of Comics Poetry, keep pushing the genre(?) to the forefront, gathering the wheat into their barn, as it were, and burning the chaff with the unquenchable fire of omission.

I’ve written quite a bit about this anthology in the past (see here and here), trying to understand how this hybrid form functions and what new sensibilities it brings to the table. I’ve loved and lauded what Rothman et al. are attempting and producing with each issue. Volume 4 continues my unpacking and pasting on the wall, but with just a little less enthusiasm than before.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s when the shiny new begins to tarnish with use.

Don’t get me wrong, though, there are many spectacular pieces in this issue. My favorite piece is “Eight Bells” by Alexey Sokolin and Angel Chen which uses both an evocative pastiche of nautical imagery along with a poem presented with its sentences diagrammed in the traditional grammarian’s method (such stuff sings in my heart and soul). There is strength in the visual acknowledgement of how the words of each sentence bind to each other, their function flowing into form, hinging upon each other -- diagramming in this manner expresses the mathematics of language, gives added pauses to the work of each word. The poem here cascades and the art floats along with this conceit. Here the poetry throbs with a tighter heartbeat because of its intersections with the visual plane.

Another addition to InkBrick 4 that maximizes the possibilities of comics poetry is “August in Pasikuda” by Isuri Merenchi Hewage and Deshan Tennekoon. In this piece, panels are overlaid on intricately detailed watercolor and ink backgrounds (abstracted and awash in color) giving the illusion of sequence, of story. Sporadically placed, the words inhabit corners, giving breath and life to their meaning. On its own, the art performs one story, the words another. Together, though, they create something beautiful, they create comics poetry.

But the fourth volume of this anthology stumbles a bit in its overall cohesion to its intent. While the idea of comics poetry is expansive, there have to be some agreed upon guidelines and,  in this volume, there are a few pieces that just step outside the wide circle. Not that they aren’t interesting in their own right, but are they comics poetry if they are wordless or only have one word? Where do you draw the line? If everything is comics poetry then why make the distinction at all?

For me, the decision by the editors to expand the scope of what they include weakens the overall sensibility of InkBrick. Compared to the previous issues, Volume 4 feels watered down, as if it was rushed to print or subject to late night editorial boozing.

Still, InkBrick is the go-to for what is happening in the world of comics poetry. It is overall a spectacular world, more than worthy of a journey.

You can pick up a copy of InkBrick: A Journal of Comics Poetry Number 4 here.

What Is The Sound Of Both Hands Clapping: A Review of INKBRICK - A JOURNAL OF COMICS POETRY NUMBER 3

“You don’t read it. You don’t stare at it. You listen.” I wrote this when David Fairbanks, Keith Silva, and I reviewed InkBrick #2 for Loser City. It is how I understand what happens when an audience interacts with comics poetry. I still stand by this assertion and the recently released third volume of InkBrick bears this out even more.

Comics are typically at their best when words and pictures work in conjunction to express plot, character, setting, time, and action. Reading comics is a participatory act, as the reader takes in the information the artists have given him or her, and fashions the communication, makes meaning, understands story. Poetry works in different parts of the noggin. It paints in bright colors with thick brush strokes and asks its audience to feel more than think -- make meaning in the heart as much as the head.

Insomuch as they require an active engagement, both of these ways of comprehension are defensive acts. The mind and heart act as a bulwark against chaos, shaping it into understandable and comfortable bites of cognizance.

Comics poetry addresses the conversation between the parts of the brain that make both logical and emotional sense of the world. The typical actions in which a reader understands that which he or she is reading must be muted for a moment in the face of comics poetry. To fully engage with it, the reader must lower his or her defenses. Tear down the wall. Break them down. Allow for the chaos to supersede meaning just for a moment. Get uncomfortable, and then get quiet.

As I said, “You don’t read it. You don’t stare at it. You listen.”

The comics poetry in InkBrick #3 have a lot to say.

from "Juniper" by Paul K. Tunis

InkBrick #3 shows an even stronger editorial hand than the previous issue. Alexander Rothman, Paul K. Tunis, Alexey Sokolin, Bianca Stone, and Gary Sullivan (all of whom, except Sullivan, have contributions in this issue) have once again culled and arranged an interesting cross-representation of the possibilities of comics poetry. While Rothman (“Play”) and Tunis’ (“Juniper”) contributions lean more towards the “comics” in the comic poetry axis, Sokolin’s contribution “Panopticon” leans more towards the “poetry” edge. Yet all three sit firmly in the experience of what is comics poetry.

Of the twenty contributors to InkBrick #3, though, a few really stand out:

from "The Shrine" by John Swogger

One of the most impressive pieces is “The Shrine” by John Swogger.  According to the bio information provided in the back of InkBrick, Swogger is an archaeological illustrator who has also published work about Asperger syndrome and is currently working on a book about depression and eating disorders. Swogger says that “The Shrine” “is a poem-comic about my work as illustrator at the site of Catalhoyuk, and the visual relationship and interplay between my work there and the site’s visual legacy.” But it’s also a comics poem about the power of place and the effect it has on the individual. What is most interesting it communicates forcefully through what has been removed. It uses the style of a “blackout poem” and converses through redaction. What is unseen is part of the experience of the poem as much as what is presented. It would not stand as a comic, nor is it particularly powerful as a poem, but as comics poetry it is a work of art.

from "January 2nd" by Catherine Bresner

Catherine Bresner’s excerpt from “January 2nd” uses collage as her visual motif. Her crafted and manipulated images are, in effect, labeled with the words of her poem, each panel a piece unto itself, all merging into a greater whole that revels in a certain sad absurdity of resignation.

from "Tigridia Pavona" by Maelle Doliveux

Likewise, Maëlle Doliveux’s piece “Tigridia Pavona” shrouds itself in despondency. A Tigridia Pavonia is an ornamental flower in the iris family that is known for having its blooms last only one day. Doliveux’s comics poem rests entirely on the conversation between the image and the words and its message of regret is hollow and quiet and suffocating.

from "Rise/Fall" by Alyssa Berg

The last contribution in the collection, “Rise/Fall” by Alyssa Berg, is also another instance of the singular aspect of communication inherent only in comics poetry. It is another quiet piece which demands its audience to open itself further than it would were it just approaching a comic or a poem.

If you are unfamiliar with comics poetry, InkBrick -- A Journal of Comics Poetry #3 is a good place to start. You can pick up a copy of it, as well as their previous editions, here.

Between the Panels there is Light and there is Music: A Review of INK BRICK No. 2

INK BRICK is an anthology of comics poetry

DANIEL ELKIN: The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley defined poetry as “a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.” Later, T. S. Eliot said of the genre, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from
these things.”

Thinking this through, this may say more about Eliot than it does about poetry.

Anyway…

My favorite definition of poetry comes from Carl Sandburg who said, “Poetry is a plan for a slit in the face of a bronze fountain goat and the path of fresh drinking water.” That Sandburg was my kind of fella.

Regardless of the definition you prefer, one thing for sure is that poetry ain’t comics. But comics… well they can be poetry?

“Comics Poetry” is a term that has only recently entered my lexicon. Here, individually, are two words that hold special meaning to my heart, but usually they dance on opposite sides of the room in my head-disco, listening to their own particular versions of Love to Love You, Baby. By combining them into one entity, the juxtaposition of the two words is jarring. Comics, after all, are dependent on narrative, while poetry is often of the moment. It threw me a bit to think of how the two media might intersect.

Now here, standing in the midde of that intersection is INK BRICK, wearing a duct-tape coat and holding a tattered cardboard sign which may have once read “Will Yea To Your Beauty”. INK BRICK is a journal of comics poetry that is “dedicated to finding and promoting work that crosses the borders between comics and poetry – material that is either in direct conversation with traditional poetry, or that is forging a new, visual poetics.”

Goodness me, that sounds like a vaguely grandiose and unfortunately dirge-like statement of artistic intent bombast, doesn’t it? Hackles up, one could see how easily “Comics Poetry” could suffer much of the same abuse that “Performance Art” does, by both practitioner and critic.

Picture, if you will, a throng punctuated with endless beards, the sudden shine-flickers off the lenses of cat-eye glasses, and so many fine shoes snapping wildly from panel to panel as the pages turn to the beat of an extended Art Blakey drum solo. Envision swirls of colors placed JUST SO as to implore that you feel that feel that I feel when I use these colors, man, while thick set type-faces shout out “Gossamer” and “Flux” and “Ash-pits” and “Oxides” as if you should know, as if you don’t know.

This is my “Comics Poetry” nightmare, the deviantart.com of the “latest thing” to flop out of some zipped up culture whore, pander-handed and snide-sneered from that plastic ledge of discernment — where art turns fashion turns quickly into a new app for your I-Phone 7 and then is cast aside the moment something new and shiny is shat.

Nightmares fester deep into the night. But, as always, there is a pinprick of light in that darkness. That light is INK BRICK.

Thankfully, there’s a true sense of careful curatorship in the pages of INK BRICK. The Editorial cadre of Alexander Rothman, Paul K. Tunis, Alexey Sokolin, Bianca Stone, and Gary Sullivan have dug the necessary trenches and built the solid battlements in what is assuradly a war against the thick frivolous good intent/bad execution that must constantly be seiging the Comics Poetry crowd. INK BRICK works because of this stewardship and the journal sits comfortably on the table. It is a journal that is as solid a collection of transformative art as there can be.