Review -- Elijah Brubaker's JEZEBEL

Jezebel

(Elijah Brubaker)

Continuing our love affair with the great work put up by Study Group Comic Books, I submit for your enjoyment Jezebelby Elijah Brubaker. This comic is a retelling of the Biblical story of Jezebel, Ahab, and Elijah and all the hijinks inherent within – it puts the “ho ho ho” back in “holy” as it were, and I have no shame whatsoever for writing that.

For those of you less Biblically oriented, the story of Jezebel goes something along the lines of: Jezebel, once she married King Ahab, got him to go anti-Yahweh and go pro-Baal. This, of course, runs counter to that whole “You shall have no other gods before me” commandment.  God comes to the prophet Elijah and tells Elijah to set up some good old-style smiting and stuff and, from there, the comedy erupts.

Comedy?

Elijah Brubaker has taken this tale of heresy, drought, and slaughter and made it pretty damn funny. He recasts everyone as either insane, petty, stupid, or clueless and, by doing so, turns a horrific story into some jocular comic-making. And he may be going to hell for it.

Hypocentre

hypocentre -short film- from Claire&Max on Vimeo.

Metalocalypse : Weather Bureau

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Convenient Truths -- RUDE DUDE

Sometimes the most universal truths can be found in the smallest slices of life. That’s what makes independent documentaries so powerful, engaging, and entertaining. Not only do they show you little worlds to which you’ve never had access, but they oftentimes also tell the larger story of what it means to be human. Armed with this intellectual conceit, a bag of Funyuns, and a couple of Miller beers, Daniel Elkin curls up in front of the TV and delves deep into the bowels of Netflix Streaming Documentaries to find out a little bit more about all of us.

Today he and his friend Jason Sacks found 2013's Rude Dude directed by Ian Fischer.

Jason Sacks: At SDCC this year, I was interviewing Tim Bradstreet – a super-nice and smart guy, by the way – when a friend of Tim's walked over to his booth and handed Tim a DVD. "Here's that documentary of Steve Rude. He's crazy," the friend said. The two buddies chatted for a minute and then Tim and I went back to our interview, shaking our heads and happy that we weren't complicated, difficult people to work with.

Rude Dude is the portrait of a brilliant artist who has bipolar disorder. It doesn't skimp in presenting Steve Rude's mental illness or attempt to show the artist in a manner that minimizes his strange behavior; instead, this film ended up for me being a deeply moving sketch of a deeply thrilling man, a documentary that was surprisingly honest in how it shows the effects that his sickness has had on his family and his ever-dwindling set of friends.

Back when Rude and writer Mike Baron created Nexus, at the dawn of the direct sales comics movement in 1981, it seemed Rude was poised to be the metaphorical Next Big Thing. Possessed of an incredible artistic talent – partially influenced by the great Russ Manning, partially influenced by great illustrators from the early parts of the 20th century – Steve Rude's thrilling art style seemed a bolt of lightning, a revelation for any comic fan used to the grittier style that then was popular in comics.

Muppet Mash

Review -- HABIT #1

Habit #1

(Josh Simmons with Wendy Chin, Karn Piana, and The Partridge in the Pear Tree)

Habit #1 is a showcase for the talents of Josh Simmons as an artist and storyteller. Within its pages are five stories that will bend your brain with confusion, amusement, repulsion, pathos, and glee. What they all have in common, other than the hands of Simmons smacking everything about, is that all these stories will push you out of your comfort zone and make you re-examine all your preconceptions about narrative, entertainment, and comics.

This collection opens with Simmons writing and drawing (and inking thickly and darkly) a story titled "Seaside Home". This eleven-page tale starts off as a subtle exploration of the dysfunctions inherent in a particular family. It then quickly shifts gears, taking a dark, unexpected turn towards complete devastation and despair. As the family's relationship problems manifest themselves in the very environment they inhabit, the reader can only bear witness to the horror and stare gaping at the reality of Simmons' denouement. It's a hard opening and sets the tone for the rest of the collection that follows. "Seaside Home" is no bedtime story, that's for sure, but it prepares us by unsettling us, taking us into a place where we can no longer trust our prior knowledge of how stories are constructed and drowning whatever expectations we have of traditional narrative in a wave of the unexpected.

YOUR CHICKEN ENEMY -- \m/ -- Bring on October!

Batman The Dark Knight - 8 Bit Cinema!

Carn

Carn - Jeff Le Bars from Jeff Le Bars on Vimeo.

MOON!

CYMATICS

CYMATICS from Susi Sie on Vimeo.

All scenes were filmed by using lycopodium powder, 50 Hz, a Canon 5D and a 100mm macro lens.

Review -- Ryan Claytor's AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONVERSATIONS

This Review Originally Ran on Comics Bulletin

Autobiographical Conversations

(Ryan Claytor)

A few months back I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Claytor about his Indiegogo project, Autobiographical Conversations, and I had the temerity to ask him, “What the heck is autobiographical theory anyway, and how does it relate to the medium of comics?” He answered, “Basically we’re exploring questions like, how and why does the artist portray themselves in a particular manner in autobiographical comics, why don’t more theoreticians present their work in comics form, and does autobiography need to be truthful?” He went on to tell me that the whole comic is basically a record of a series of conversations he had with Dr. Harry Polkinhorn, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University.

When I heard all this my first thought was, “Wow, that sounds utterly fascinating.” My second thought, though, was, “Hmmmmm, how the hell is this going to transfer to an engaging comic without being overly pedantic and plodding?”

The answer to my second thought is this book –  this delightful, engaging, thoughtful, quiet little book.

Autobiographical Conversations, while a “read” due to the heft of its subject matter and the back and forth conversational nature of its dialogue, is also a “view” as Claytor's cartooning style and choices add a level of humanness and mundanity to this otherwise cerebral exploration. Some of my favorite moments in this book are the quiet ones, like when Claytor and Polkinhorn are discussing ideas of how being emotionally honest can co-exist with being objectively dishonest in autobiography, while at the same time they are getting their lunch, choosing sodas out of a full refrigerator case, and paying at the register without breaking stride.

Review -- PAUL POPE'S BATTLING BOY

This review originally ran on Comics Bulletin

Keith Silva:  

Justin Giampaoli: 

Daniel Elkin: 

Jason Sacks: 

Keith Silva: ''Bump Ba Bump.'' From the very first frame, Paul Pope's Battling Boy taps into some semiconductor of memory and invites the reader to follow the bouncing ball. 

When we wrote about The Invincible Haggard West #101, I admit to being too anxious and too caught up in my own expectations to appreciate the elegance and playfulness of this simple image. Hell, given the context, it might as well be an apple 'Ba-Bumping' its way off of the tree of knowledge, for there is great intelligence and greater temptation of all kinds within this story.

On a recent reread of Batman: Year 100, I was struck with the idea of Pope as a conduit of anti-continuity, a Lord of Misrule for comics -- the difference between comic book history and the history of comic books. Pope is old master of the latter and, I think, cares a fuck-all for the former. Creators like Pope are why the Frenchies of Cahiers du Cinémahad to invent the auteur theory. Like Melville with Le Samouraï or Army of Shadows, Pope is the kind of iconoclast who takes the bits that most interest him and uses these elements in a way most creators have never considered.

There is such a strong strain of subversiveness in his work, a Pope-ish prestidigitation, to take the familiar, say a culture icon -- Batman or in the case of Battling Boy, the superhero -- strip it down to its very engine, its essence, the spark of its creation and build out from there. Pope don't reboot.

So what. Why Battling Boy and why now?

Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves of certain truths....

Going Low...