They Really Do Say So Much: Ryan Carey reviews ALL THE SAD SONGS by Summer Pierre

The connective tissue linking music and memory is very strong indeed --- most of us can remember fairly clearly where we were and/or what we were doing the first time we heard a favorite song; hearing one we haven't heard in years often takes us right back to what was going on in our lives during the period when it was in heavy rotation; feelings attach themselves to songs permanently, inflexibly, the record in question causing at the very least faint echoes of the same particular mood or frame of mind again and again and again.

But there's a lot more to it than "that song always cheers me up" or "oh my God, this one  makes me think of  (insert former lover's name)!" Melody and memory are so inextricably entwined that Alzheimer's and dementia patients often respond to songs from their younger years while words and even tactile sensations have no effect on them. The union of the two is so powerful, in fact, that it might even be argued to be primal in nature --- so the idea that a cartoonist would tell the story of her or his life (or a part of it, at any rate) by means of musically-anchored reminiscences seems like a natural. And there's probably no one better qualified to make such a conceit work than Summer Pierre.

The auteur behind Paper Pencil Life hails from a musically-rich family background and is no stranger to singing, songwriting, and guitar-playing herself, but her own personal musical journey isn't precisely what her 2018 debut full-length graphic novel, the Retrofit/Big Planet-published  All The Sad Songs, is about. Rather, it's about how music has shaped her life on the one hand, how her life has shaped her shifting taste in, and relationship to, music on the other --- and how the two have become symbiotic halves that make up the whole of her identity and existence.

Put like that it probably sounds more grandiose than Pierre ever intended it to be, but this is truly an ambitious and innovative graphic memoir about her life in the early 1990s, a period that saw her move from California to Boston, follow her musical inclinations into the city's open mic "scene," and subsequently attempt to navigate her way through a series of interpersonal relationships that largely sprung from it. Nothing, perhaps, terribly ground-breaking on paper, but it is the method that is key here.

It's not only her own music that informs these proceedings, you see, far from it : Pierre also affixes events in time in around albums that were contemporary with them and, even more interestingly, she extracts rich veins of memory from the mixtapes that she made for people she knew (for you youngsters out there this is how we used to do it in the days before slapping together a playlist for someone --- it took hours and was often a genuine labor of love) and the ones that they, in turn, made for her. She has many of these tapes to this day and literally remembers people through music, while also remembering songs in relation to the people who introduced them to her.

I made brief mention of the relationships Pierre forged while part of the Boston folk milieu, and much of this book's dramatic tension stems from the fact that, it has to be said, not all of them were entirely healthy --- and it's one particularly tumultuous one that not only leaves her suffering from PTSD but re-evaluating her relationship with music altogether, eventually setting her on an entirely different path of creative expression. There's a wistful tone to this work on the whole, as one would expect given its subject matter and essential character, but this de facto "break-up" with something woven so deeply into the metaphorical "DNA" of her being --- hell, of her soul, if you prefer such a term --- borders on the harrowing, and whether or not she makes it through with a new, healthier perspective or ends up a shadow of her former self seems very much an open question for a time. It's probably not "spoiling" things to say that it all works out in the end, but it's a difficult and painful period that's communicated with admirable, even disarming, emotional honesty --- and keep in mind this is a comic that places readers pretty deep inside the cartoonist's mind and heart more or less from the outset! So, yeah, like all lovers worth remembering, music puts Pierre through the wringer.

Her new medium of choice is sure proving to be an inspired one for her, though, it must be said --- Pierre is one of those rare artists who use every last millimeter of space in every panel to communicate information visually, her detailed cross-hatching, thick black shading, and precise rendition of minor details forming a highly emotive backdrop for her naturalistic figure drawings, and the candor and unpretentiousness of her narrative tone is mirrored perfectly in the faces of her characters, each a truly singular individual with expressive reactions and mannerisms utterly unique unto them. Even the folks we meet briefly make an impression --- go ahead, say it, just like a lot of songs.

I'll be the first to admit that the fact I'm roughly the same age as Summer Pierre may go some way toward explaining why this book resonated so deeply, even indelibly, with me --- I remember these times, I was young then myself, and there's a character and ethos to the "slacker" or "Generation X" years that simply can't be communicated with any sort of authenticity by someone who wasn't a part of it. Yet All The Sad Songs knocked me for a loop not just for the overwhelming sense of nostalgia it engendered --- nope, I was (and remain) in awe of the work of one of the very best cartoonists in the here and now, one who is fully arriving into her own and knows how to make every one of her pages sing.

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Ryan Carey lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes about comics for Daily Grindhouse, Graphic Policy, and at his own blog. He also maintains a long-running film review blog, Trash Film Guru.

The Most Subtle Traps Are The Most Insidious: Ryan Carey Reviews JOHN, DEAR by Laura Lannes

"There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on."

So Rod Serling told us, at any rate, but there's simply no convincing the subconscious mind of that, is there? As a result, darkness, through no fault of its own, has become the go-to metaphor for negativity, depression, evil, you name it. Difficult or challenging times in life are "dark" times. The historical era dominated by superstition and anti-intellectualism is referred to as the "Dark Ages." Encroaching despair is the "darkness closing in on us."

It's primal. It's instinctive. Our rational minds know that it makes no sense, but nevertheless --- darkness isn't just symbolic of fear, it's symbolic of all fear, of the fear. The fear of losing ourselves into all-encompassing, all-devouring nothingness.

Laura Lannes understands this more intuitively than any cartoonist working today, and I say that without a moment's hesitation. Her strips in the anthologies Bad Boyfriends (which she edited) and Mirror Mirror II (which she didn't) hinted at the darkness that can slowly, inexorably creep into unhealthy relationships, but her recent solo release from Retrofit/Big Planet, John, Dear goes the full distance, charting in brief but exacting detail something well beyond the simple loss of individuality, the loss of identity, that are part and parcel of too many interpersonal relationships --- rather, her protagonist undergoes a process of complete and total self-negation the likes of which, I again say without hesitation, have never been committed to the page in so harrowing a fashion.

She meets a guy. Things seem okay at first, He's reasonably attentive and seems accepting of her flaws and foibles, but, in truth, he's silently cataloging her insecurities for later use as wedges to metaphorically burrow into her and, ultimately, hollow her out. He moves into her place with little or no discussion, bringing, figuratively and literally, almost nothing of his own. His small talk turns to cutting insults. His facile flattery morphs into neglect --- emotional, physical, sexual. And, of course, when pressed, he makes it known this is all her fault.

Somewhere along the way, subtly at first, of course, the body horror starts. Something is wrong with this young woman's physical form, strange changes are happening to her, clearly and inarguably an external manifestation of her inner turmoil. It's hinted, as these grotesque transformations escalate, that maybe it's only happening in her mind, but you know what? Even if that's the case, it's no less real. Her thoughts, her feelings, her wishes, her self --- they're all slipping away. And the darkness that's been bleeding in from the margins is starting to consume her being even as she becomes utterly unrecognizable to herself.

For some, I would suppose, interjecting the visceral horror of bodily mutation (let's just call it what it is) into a psychodrama plenty terrifying enough on its own terms may seem too heavy-handed, too obvious, but don't doubt for a moment that, thanks to the quiet power of Lannes' graphite illustrations and the absolute precision of her sparse text, it not only works, it's absolutely essential to the proceedings. The changes undergone increase in their severity even as the imagery is increasingly taken over by shadow, until shadow becomes complete and inescapable blackness, the woman whose loss of everything she was, is, ever will be subsumed from without precisely at the moment she's consumed from within.

Needless to say, comics (or, if we want to be precise about this book's format, illustrated short stories) don't get more soul-shattering than this, but Lannes also understands, intuitively, the seductive power of the darkness she's both channeling and utilizing here, so much so that there is most certainly an uncomfortably seductive quality to her horrifically beautiful (a contradiction in terms only on paper, I assure you) drawings --- and this slow seduction becomes a key component of the narrative itself, the ease with which one is drawn into the dark communicating so much of our protagonist's fracturing, shattering state of mind.  Less-confident cartoonists would rely, no doubt clumsily, on the text to convey this --- Lannes has no need for such a crutch.

In point of fact, it's entirely fair to say that Lannes' aesthetic choices do something more than tell a story: they approximate, as closely as possible, the experience her character is going through within the mind of the reader. Lannes’ deft deployment --- in an artistic sense, and for entirely different purposes --- mirrors many of the same techniques of the emotional and psychologically manipulative abuser lulling us, with something less than our consent but no actual resistance on our part, into what we know, from the outset, will be as far from a "happy ending" as one can possibly imagine.

There's absolutely no way that the crafting of John, Dear could have been anything other than a fucking terrible experience --- it's too powerful, too searing, too authentic not to have come from a place of deep understanding. The act of exorcizing it must have left its own series of intensely-painful scars. It certainly leaves plenty of 'em on the reader. And yet, as portrayals of abuse go, they don't come any more realistic than this. 

Putting work this personal and this demanding in terms of its execution out into the world for others to experience is an act of bravery in and of itself, one for which Lannes is to be not just applauded but thanked --- but don't for a moment go into it thinking that just because it's one of the most unforgettable, and frankly best, comics in recent memory that it's anything other than one of the most challenging, unsettling, even devastating. This book is the abyss that doesn't just gaze back --- it sucks you in and swallows you whole. Even, yes, when you read it with all the lights on.
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Ryan Carey lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes about comics for Daily Grindhouse, Graphic Policy, and at his own blog. He also maintains a long-running film review blog, Trash Film Guru.

Review: THE WINNER by Karl Stevens

The Winner, Karl Stevens new book from Retrofit/Big Planet, is a beautifully rendered, cranky celebration of the power of inspiration. While autobiographical in nature, it is ultimately a book that explores as it reveres the healing power of the creative muse, while questioning the concept of what one has to give up in order to be “saved”. 

One could easily fill a thousand word review of The Winner just lauding Stevens’ art. Ranging from meticulously crosshatched pencils to vibrant and alive watercolors to delicately inked brushwork, Stevens’ cartooning is, by far, some of the best work being produced in the industry, hands down. His fine arts background shows itself well in The Winner, and even becomes a central part of the narrative, at one point he even asks his wife, “Am I a painter, or am I a cartoonist? I need to choose. The fine art world thinks I’m just an illustrator, and the comics world thinks I’m a painter.” 

This question of place, of where one fits in, circles back to the larger themes surrounding creativity and connection that suffuse The Winner. While Stevens often mocks his own pretentions surrounding notions of being an “artist”, deep down this book is a powerful statement about the importance of art itself. Stevens fills The Winner with images of his wife, Alex, the person that acts as his foil, his muse, and, most interestingly, as his savior. She provides Stevens with material to explore, a subject to scrutinize, and a reason to be better to himself. In the narrative of The Winner, Stevens admits having had a problem with alcohol when he first met Alex. She provided him the inspiration to give up drinking and to lead a more healthy lifestyle. His love for her gave him the incentive to move away from self-destructive behavior and move into a more modulated space. 

And yet, even throughout his embrace of a more life-affirming attitude, Stevens constantly complains about the world, its hypocrisy, and his lack of a firm footing in it. There is an insular tone to The Winner as a result. The claustrophobic interiors of Stevens’ job as a security guard at a museum only add to this, pulling the space in. The wall of monitors watching patrons as they walk through the museum adds another layer of distance between Stevens and the world around him. The idea of watching people as they look at art increases a further dimension and commentary about the nature of art itself and Stevens’ own place within. 

Much of the book is about the interactions Stevens has with Alex. He even casts her in the lead role in one of the fantasy stories that operate within the book. Through these interactions, Stevens gives the reader a filtered access to the small moments of his life with his wife, and in doing so, shows the power she holds as a creative force for him. Essentially, Stevens casts his wife as a muse and a large part of The Winner is an artist learning to understand both the possibilities of interacting with his inspiration and becoming worthy of that spark. It’s a love story to his wife, it’s an honoring of his craft, and it’s a cry against the insecurities people feel that keeps them from connecting to the world. 

The Winner is a ravishing and sublime book to look at. In being so, it doubles down on that which it is trying to convey.

Kickstart Your Part: Retrofit Comics Announces 12 New Books For 2018

12 new comics by Yoshimoto, Stevens, Pierre, Cobb, Aulisio, Lautman, Sakugawa, Tobin, Craghead, Williams, and Lannes!
BACK THIS KICKSTARTER TODAY!
As usual, the new slate of comics coming from Retrofit looks amazing:

• All the Sad Songs - Summer Pierre
• Fashion Forecasts - Yumi Sakugawa
• I Love You - Sara Lautman
• John, Dear - Laura Lannes
• Our Wretched Town Hall - Eric Kostiuk Williams
• The Prince - Liam Cobb
• Survive 300 Million 1 - Pat Aulisio
• Survive 300 Million 2: Serpentine Captives - Pat Aulisio
• The Troublemakers - Baron Yoshimoto
• TRUMPTRUMP vol. 2: Modern Day Presidential - Warren Craghead III
• Understanding - Becca Tobin
• The Winner - Karl Stevens

Review: HOW TO BE ALIVE by Tara Booth

Got a review of 

HOW TO BE ALIVE

by Tara Booth

Published by Retrofit/Big Planet

over on Comicon.com

Check it out HERE

"This is humanity writ raw. Booth is holding up a mirror to aid in our reflection of all the minor struggles that our brains trick us into interacting with on a monumental scale. The reader sees themselves in Booth’s paintings, sunburned or killing houseplants, popping zits or choosing shoes, and says, “Yeah, that’s me. I see myself in that moment.”"

In Lieu of Reviews Two: Eight Books For You

Elkin’s note: I’ve been busy with end-of-the-school-year shenanigans, and now I’m going on a two-week vacation. I have a bunch of books that are mostly spectacular which have been piling up on my “to-review” stack. I kinda want to come back from my trip relaxed, calm, and unconcerned, so I’m just gunna dump a whole bunch of these books in this week’s column. Know that if they are featured on this list, they are worth your time and money. I may come back to them again for full-length reviews in the future.

WHAT IS A GLACIER?

By Sophie Yanow

Published by Retrofit/Big Planet

Available HERE

Retrofit writes: Sophie Yanow, acclaimed creator of War of Streets and Houses, returns with another autobiographical tale of her trip to Iceland. Air travel in our environmentally fraught times is juxtaposed with her reflections on a relationship that ended a year prior.

Simply stated and drawn, emotionally powerful, this short book demonstrates why Sophie Yanow is one of the best cartoonists working today.

THE MAN WHO CAME DOWN THE ATTIC STAIRS

By Celine Loup

Available HERE

Celine Loup writes: Inspired by film noire and the works of Ira Levin and Shirley Jackson, The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs is a horror comic about motherhood and post-partum depression. Emma is excited to start a family in her new home, but motherhood brings far more isolation and despair than she is prepared to handle. If only her husband could understand, but he hasn't been the same since that day...

Highlighting Loup’s art, this one deals with some serious issues and takes the reader deep into the experience she is exploring.

THE CHRONICLES OF FORTUNE

By Coco Picard

Published by Radiator Comics

Available HERE

Radiator Comics writes: Originally published as a series of minicomics, The Chronicles of Fortune is a quirky and idiosyncratic adventure of Fortuna, the greatest superhero who could do anything to improve the world, but is tragically stricken with ennui. Coco Picard’s The Chronicles of Fortune follows the lives of Fortuna, and her alter-ego, Edith-May as they learn to cope with loss and recruit a team of friends along the way! Discover a temperamental stove, a nosy mountain, a goofy crocodile, a loner moth, and a singing goldfish as they lead Fortuna on her greatest adventure! At once charming, sad, funny, poignant, and bizarre, The Chronicles of Fortune keeps one foot in mundane reality.

Kinda bonkers, kinda sweet, kinda sad, this one is definitely a keeper.

COSMOS AND OTHER STORIES

By Rozi Hathaway

Published by Good Comics

Available HERE

Good Comics writes: Cosmos and Other Stories examines themes of loneliness and longing, with Hathaway’s uniquely expressive and dreamy paintwork taking the reader on a journey through various cities, towns, bedrooms and celestial realms. If you’ve ever been lost in a crowd, stayed up all night to talk to someone long distance, or felt the ache of an absent love, then this collection will speak to you.

More like comics-poetry than a straight narrative, this book demonstrates Hathaway’s evocative use of color and pacing to capture mood, tone, and theme.

PRETENDING IS LYING

By Dominique Goblet

(Translated by Sophie Yanow)

Published by New York Review Books

Available HERE

New York Review Books writes: In a series of dazzling fragments—skipping through time, and from raw, slashing color to delicate black and white—Goblet examines the most important relationships in her life: with her partner, Guy Marc; with her daughter, Nikita; and with her parents. The result is an unnerving comedy of paternal dysfunction, an achingly ambivalent love story (with asides on Thomas Pynchon and the Beach Boys), and a searing account of childhood trauma—a dizzying, unforgettable view of a life in progress and a tour de force of the art of comics.

This book is spectacular. Buy it.

EVERYTHING IS FLAMMABLE

By Gabrielle Bell

Published by Uncivilized Books

Available HERE

Uncivilized Books writes: In Gabrielle Bell’s much anticipated graphic memoir, Everything is Flammable, she returns from New York to her childhood town in rural Northern California after her mother’s home is destroyed by a fire. Acknowledging her issues with anxiety, financial hardships, memories of a semi-feral childhood, and a tenuous relationship with her mother, Bell helps her mother put together a new home on top of the ashes. A powerful, sometimes uncomfortable, examination of a mother-daughter relationship and one’s connection to place and sense of self. Spanning a single year, Everything is Flammable unfolds with humor and brutal honesty. Bell’s sharp, digressive style is inimitable.

It’s Gabrielle Bell. It’s good. Of course it’s good.

EARTHA

By Cathy Malkasian

Published by Fantagraphics

Available HERE

Fantagraphics writes: Eartha is Cathy Malkasian’s fourth graphic novel — a metaphorical fable that resonates with contemporary themes. For a thousand years the unfinished dreams from the City Across the Sea came to Echo Fjord to live out their lives. Sex fantasies, murder plots, wishful thinking, and all manner of secrets once found sanctuary in Echo Fjord. Emerging from the soil, they took bodily form and wandered the land, gently guided by the fjord folk who treasured their brief and wondrous lives. But recently, city dreams have stopped coming to Echo Fjord, and without their ethereal tourists the fjord folk suddenly feel lost. Has their ancient way of life ended for good? Has something happened to the city? Are all the dreamers gone? One of Echo Fjord’s inhabitants wants answers: The story’s eponymous protagonist Eartha wants to visit the City Across the Sea, but how will she get to a place no one’s gone to for a thousand years? The city isn’t on any map, or in anyone’s memory. Without thought or hesitation she ventures into the limitless waters, hoping to find the City and solve the mystery. Cathy Malkasian’s Eartha is an expansive tale of pastoral life, city corruption, greed, and addictions, and reverberates with questions plaguing us today, such as the alienating effects of hyper-connectivity and the self-destructive obsession with novelty. Malkasian’s drawing is notable for its rigorous draftsmanship, stunning landscapes and depictions of nature, the gestural nuances of her characters, and her sophisticated storytelling, all of which are on display in Eartha, making this the author’s lushest and most impressive graphic novel yet.

I’ve been working on a full-length review of Eartha in fits and starts for the last couple of months, but I just can’t seem to make it stick. My thoughts on theme keep falling apart. Regardless, this is a beautiful book. Malkasian’s pencils are breathtaking and, while it doesn’t entirely hold together, in the end, it’s worth owning just to look at.

THEN IT WAS DARK: A PARANORMAL ANTHOLOGY

Edited by Sarah Benkin

Published by Peppermint Monster Press

Available HERE

Have you ever seen something you can't explain? Heard a voice speak a warning to you as you drifted off to sleep? Ever see a woman with no face singing to herself on a long, empty road? Ever talk to a serial killer? From the strange, nighttime experiences of a man deployed in Iraq to the story of a house haunted by a slightly mad old Jewish matriarch, from a chaplain's experience performing an exorcism to the history of spiritualism, to a ghost that seems to love LARPs, Then It Was Dark collects a variety of strange experiences from talented and diverse voices. A collection of personal paranormal experiences, true ghost stories, friend-of-friend tales and brushes with the unknown.

Check out the now-funded Kickstarter for further details. This book has many spooky, scary, and unnerving tales. As with many anthologies, the contents are hit-or-miss, but those that do hit, hit hard and well.

In Lieu Of Reviews

Tiny Pages Made of Ashes is Comic Bulletin’s Small Press Review Column

This week, in lieu of reviews, I’m just unloading all the fantastic books that have been sitting around in my “TO REVIEW” pile for embarrassingly too long. These all deserve thoughtful reviews, but I’ve either been overwhelmed by all the great books being published of late or unable to find the right words to describe these gems. Please know that if they are featured here, they are spectacular works and deserve your attention.

(Ed. Note: All text featured below comes via the respective publishers)

THE ONE HUNDRED NIGHTS OF HERO

By Isabel Greenberg

Published by Little, Brown, and Company

Available HERE

In the tradition of The Arabian Nights, a beautifully illustrated tapestry of folk tales and myths about the secret legacy of female storytellers in an imagined medieval world.

In the Empire of Migdal Bavel, Cherry is married to Jerome, a wicked man who makes a diabolical wager with his friend Manfred: if Manfred can seduce Cherry in one hundred nights, he can have his castle--and Cherry.

But what Jerome doesn't know is that Cherry is in love with her maid Hero. The two women hatch a plan: Hero, a member of the League of Secret Story Tellers, will distract Manfred by regaling him with a mesmerizing tale each night for 100 nights, keeping him at bay. Those tales are beautifully depicted here, touching on themes of love and betrayal and loyalty and madness.

As intricate and richly imagined as the works of Chris Ware, and leavened with a dry wit that rivals Kate Beaton's in Hark! A Vagrant, Isabel Greenberg's One Hundred Nights of Hero will capture readers' hearts and minds, taking them through a magical medieval world.

TURNING JAPANESE: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR

By MariNaomi

Published by 2dcloud

Available HERE

MariNaomi’s newest graphic novel tours the mid-90’s US and Japanese illegal hostess bar scene and her own personal cultural awakening.

TEENAGE GRAPHICS

By ElevatorTeeth

Published by Hardcore Ambient Press

Available HERE

TEENAGE GRAPHICS is a collection standalone images possibly with an overriding theme but possibly without. All of the images were created in silence between this year and last year.

BABYBEL WAX BODYSUIT

By Eric Kostiuk Williams

Published by Retrofit/Big Planet

Available HERE

In Babybel Wax Bodysuit, cartoonist Eric Kostiuk Williams presents a collection of short stories delving into self-worth, Internet culture, and the fascinating grotesqueries offered up by our science-fiction present, all rendered in what curator Luis Jacob ("Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto") has referred to as a "unique visual style, narrated in a fabulous spirit of liquid intelligence."

In this issue: our author, as a closeted teen, navigates comic book message boards and befriends a Pentecostal Christian! Keith Haring fights off gentrification in the 1980's East Village! A familiar pop star breaks free of her Las Vegas promoters, one hundred years in the future! And more...

AND THEN THERE WAS NOTHING

By Patt Kelley

Available HERE

An ecosystem emerges from a sink full of dirty dishes. Eighties mall rats kidnap an unsuspecting man and love ensues. A fart catastrophically ends Thanksgiving Dinner. And Then There Was Nothing is a collection of short stories previously published in various anthologies or seen somewhere on the internet.