episode 026: exit the world

in this week's episode we have a change of pace with an interview with cartoonist charles forsman (teotfw, celebrated summer) conducted by joey and our resident curmudgeon/columnist shawn starr (you get to finally hear his voice!). topics discussed include the origins of his publishing outfit oily comics, what he learned at ccs, the influence of chester brown, and why this is one of the best movies ever, and much more.

music by speedy ortiz

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episode 023: best of 2013

alec and joey return again to reflect on what comics they enjoyed in the year 2013. hear them sound like a couple of stoned teenagers as they discuss batman incorporated by grant morrison and chris burnham, pompeii by frank santoro, battling boy by paul pope, life zone by simon hanselmann, the end of the fucking world by charles forsman, backyard by sam alden, household by sam alden, training by josh simmons, fatale by ed brubaker and sean phillips, sex by joe casey and piotr kowalski, satellite sam by matt fraction and howard chaykin, the manhattan projects by jonathan hickman and nick pitarra, sky in stereo #2 by mardou, fury max by garth ennis and goran parlov, change by ales kot and morgan jeske, jupiter's legacy by mark millar and frank quitely, copra by michel fiffe, 3 new stories by dash shaw, new school by dash shaw, lose #5 by michael deforge, optic nerve #13 by adrian tomine, internet comics by mare odomo, young avengers by kieron gillen and jamie mckelvie, so long silver screen by blutch, and more.

music by a$ap ferg

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diary of a guttersnipe 08/20/2013: 48/48/48 times 50

by Shawn Starr

To get things started this week, I thought i would point out that the creators of this fine website Joey Aulisio (a.k.a. my editor) and some dude named Alec Berry did a new episode of the chemical box (the podcast for which this site is so applicably named after). It’s more an elongated talk about why they have been absent than a new episode proper, but i really enjoyed it.

Anyways, here's some words....

Mini-Reviews

Teen Creeps #1 (Oily)
by Charles Forsman

I like that within the first two pages, 'Teen Creeps' delivers on the titles promise. The page featuring “You taste like cherries...do you eat a lot of cherries” makes my fucking skin crawl. What the fuck is wrong with teenagers.

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This week, I am going to catch up with fellow C Box contributer, co-host of the greatest comic book podcast The Splash Page, and all around great human being Chad Nevett. Chad edited and contributed essays to the long awaited new Sequart book release 'Shot In The Dark: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitian' which is available to purchase from Amazon and other fine book retailers right now. Here's a little info on that release....

Shawn Starr: How did you come to edit a book about 'Transmetropolitan' for Sequart?

Chad Nevett: Blame that, like my other big writing gig (for CBR), on Tim Callahan. He wrote his Grant Morrison book for Sequart and they wanted him to do something for their website. He decided to do a discussion column and asked me to do it with him. That was January or February of 2008... the beginning of the Splash Page. We did that for Sequart's site and, in the process, I got added to their e-mail list when new projects would come up and they would open the call for essay pitches. I wound up doing three essays over a few years, one for their 'Watchmen' book and two for their 'Planetary' book. Shortly after the 'Planetary' book came out, I began talking with Mike Phillips about doing something for them, hopefully a book entirely by me. They had asked for three book ideas and I had two: one about Jim Starlin's cosmic work and an anthology about 'Hellblazer'. I figured that I'd give them one idea that's all me and one essay collection to increase my odds of actually getting something done. But, I needed a third idea. Really, those were the two projects that I was excited for at the time, so I threw in something about 'Transmetropolitan'. I'm a big Ellis fan and I had some ideas about the book and... well, I needed a third idea and I didn't think Joe Casey would sell, you know?

Turns out, "Warren Ellis" was the name to mention at Sequart at the time as they were looking to launch a bunch of projects surrounding Ellis. They already had the 'Planetary' book and the documentary about Ellis that Patrick Meaney had done would be coming out, and a couple of more books gave them their "Year of Ellis" project. They're a fan of the anthology books -- and I can see why given the variety of topics and writers you can utilize in anthologies -- and, since they already had a single-author Ellis book scheduled, I think they wanted another anthology to complement the 'Planetary' one. So, they asked if I'd be interested in editing it. I figured what the hell, should be fun...

Do you have a personal connection to 'Transmetropolitan'? It seems like a work that, if read at the right time in ones life, can have a lasting effect on you.

You can say that it came along at the right time in my life to make a lasting impression. I want to say that I began reading it in January 2000, so I was around 16/17 (my birthday is in January), I was politically minded, feeling trapped in a bit at Catholic school, feeling like I was smarter than everyone around me, and hungry for stuff like Transmet that would both validate and challenge what I was thinking and feeling. I had been an Ellis fan for years, first having my 12-year old mind blown when he took over Thor and, when I first tried out Transmet, was pissed off because he had just left 'The Authority', which was a comic that I was obsessed with in a big way when it was coming out. I literally carried the first four issues around in my backpack for months, randomly pulling them out and just re-reading and flipping through them. And Transmet went beyond that stuff.

I started out with "Year of the Bastard." My shop had all six issues in the back issue bin, so I plunked down my cash and was introduced to the world of Spider Jerusalem. I don't know if I had started reading the comic from the beginning if I would have been so taken with it. But, beginning with the big politics story arc was the perfect thing to hook me. And, in the process, Warren Ellis introduced me to Hunter Thompson. It's not coincidental that that's where I began the series and the essay that I wrote for 'Shot in the Face' is a look at the influence of Thompson upon 'Transmetropolitan'.

After I discovered Transmet, I'm sure the people around me found me a little more annoying. I covered my binder with quotes from the book and talked shit and talked politics like I knew what I was talking about... it was a good time. Transmet was the second half of high school for me along with Thompson and Mark Leyner (who I learned about from a Transmet letter page!) and all sorts of obnoxious self-righteousness that's yet to wear off entirely...

What was your editorial approach to the book. Do you see it as an academic piece of criticism or something more free flowing?

Well, Sequart's aim is more academic than anything and I have spent six years in the world of academia, so I think there's an academic approach/feeling that's hard to escape. However, that's not something that necessarily drives me in a project like this. I tend to be a bit more free flowing as a writer. Once you've got that smart, academic base, you should feel free to push things and chaff against it a bit. I was hoping for a book that contained a nice variety of voices rather than a more unified feel that you might find in an academic journal (though, there can be some nice variety there as well, don't get me wrong). If I had to choose between voice and adhering to an academic approach, I usually sided with voice. But, that's because I also knew that I had guys like Mike Phillips and Julian Darius backstopping me. I could afford to push things a little bit that way, because they (and the rest of their editorial team) would stop things from going too far outside of what they think fits with Sequart.

Did your opinion of 'Transmetropolitan' change during the process of working on the book? Was there any contributors whose essay’s changed how you thought about the work?

I have a pretty strong opinion/view when it comes to Transmet, so I wouldn't go so far as to say anything changed during the process of working on the book. I think it's more accurate to say that I was exposed to ideas that I hadn't previously considered. I didn't agree with all of them, but that's hardly the point. Julian's essay on the structure of the book made me rethink the way that the series was put together. Namely, I knew it could be broken down into six-issue chunks because that's how the trades were put together, but I never looked beyond that. I never noticed how Ellis used three-issue groupings throughout the run... except for year two. I never thought about how "Year of the Bastard" and "New Scum" are the only six-issue story arcs in the series. It was an angle that I had never considered that I really liked thinking about for a bit there.

Almost every essay had at least one moment like that where I saw some aspect of the book in a way that I hadn't before. I don't agree with the majority of Greg Burgas's essay (let the internet feud begin!), but he makes a good case and he made me consider the way that I viewed Spider's relationship with women. It influenced part of my essay comparing Hunter Thompson and Spider, and each of their relationships, not just with women but with men, too. That was a big appeal of the project and something that I hope readers take from the book. I know it's something that I've loved about the Sequart anthologies I've read.

The book seemed to be delayed for a while, was there a specific reason behind that?

There were two main reasons. The second one is an easy explanation: it took time to transcribe Warren Ellis' interviews for the documentary and we wanted to include what he said about 'Transmetropolitan' in this book. I love when books like these have some author interview and Sequart has a wealth of Ellis interview material in the footage that Patrick Meaney shot with him, and it's a great idea to cull the appropriate parts for books like these. Transcribing those interviews took time, so the book wound up getting delayed until those transcriptions were done.

The first reason for delay is a little tougher to explain. Basically, I learned that I like writing, but I don't like editing. It's not something that I find natural or comfortable. I can revise and rework things I've written, but handling things written by others is tough for me. I think my limit of comfort is reading an essay and making some notes on it. But, this project required more than that and it took me a long time to be able to do that. Far longer than it should have. Thankfully, Mike and Julian were both very understanding and very encouraging. I'm glad that I did this, but I definitely learned that editing is not something that I enjoy.

It's a little weird to say that, because I did love working on this book. It was a pleasure working with Mike and Julian from discussing possible topics to reading essay pitches to reading the essays to working with Kevin Colden on cover ideas... It was a blast and I am really proud of the book. I just don't want to edit another book again. Ha.

Any cool stories involving a chick?

This one time, I got my wife pregnant...

---------------

links

Michael DeForge has completed his 'Abby Loafer' strip for Mother News. You can read it all here. It’s the story of a fashion columnist and her day to day life. The twist though is that it’s by Michael DeForge which makes it intrinsically better than anything else being published right now.

Ryan Sands and 'Thickness' are spotlighted in The Pop Manifesto. Also, I read this interview between Ryan Sands and Frederik Schodt which originally appeared in 'Electric Ant' #1 that i really enjoyed. For context, Schodt was one of the key players in bringing Manga (and Tezuka in particular) to America.

Autopic could justify it's existence based on this Nancy gif for the next decade.

Simon Hanselmann is selling 'Truth Zone' originals (installments 1-69). You can browse them here.

New issue of Derek Ballard’s 'Cartoonshow'. This issue being #2.

Patrick Kyle’s Batman fan comic 'You Can Never Be Me' is online. I think this debuted at BCGF last year and is now out of print, so unless you own it this is probably the only chance you’ll have of reading it.

A new Kyle Baker strip emerged. Besides whatever Michael DeForge is doing, this is probably the best thing being published.

diary of a guttersnipe 05/27/2013: bullet points

by Shawn Starr

Me and my brother drove about 12 hours from Boston to Toronto a few weeks back to attend the Toronto Comics Art Festival (or TCAF for short) and hang out with sometimes site writer Rick Vance. Here are some thoughts, observations, and reviews of what I purchased:

The Trip

My brother does not respect the posted speed limits of any state or country. He also does not appreciate Canadian drivers and their general non-asshole driving style.

In Canada you fill your gas tank before you pay for it, this concept confounded me and every non-Canadian i told about it.

The border crossing was fairly painless, except for when we tried to explain what we were doing in Canada. When the guard seemed to confuse a “comic convention” with a convention of comedians i corrected him by saying “no, the funny books, not the funny people” because i am an idiot.

Luckily no one searched our bags at the border because explaining why i had 'The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame' on my persons would have been awkward.

There are no tolls in Ontario. None.

The first joke i heard in Canada was about the Leafs beating the Bruins in Game 5. Proving Canadians do love their hockey. Also good jobs blowing a three goal lead in Game 7 Leafs, i appreciate it.

Rick Vance has free beer at his house. Free. Beer.

TCAF DAY ONE

I went to TCAF with US currency (a.k.a. real money) and just had all the american dealers there (aka 90% of them) give me change in Canadian (a.k.a. fake money) so i did not have to pay to exchange currencies. This system worked well.

The first booth i went to was Koyama Press because i have learned Michael DeForge tends to sell out of whatever mini’s he brings; and most of them are only purchasable from him at shows. I got 'Lose' #5, 'Loose' #3 (his sketchbook), and 'X-Mas Comics', along with Jesse Jacobs 'By This Shall You Know Him'. I’m not 100% sure, but i may have bullied  Jacobs later in the con into buying Josh Simmons 'Flayed Corpse'. I apologize / you’re welcome.

'Loose' #3 is a really interesting mini, it’s just a random collection of pages from his sketchbook, but in between the seven layers of  detailed drawings each page contains, you can see how small ideas of his grow, like a tiny Superman sketch that he later posted a finished version of on Tumblr or the preliminary drawings of the Youth In Decline logo. I think he only printed like 200 of these, so no one who reads this will ever get their hands on one. So jokes on you.

After Koyama Press, I went over to the Dash Shaw signing to pick up the mini’s he’d been selling on his recent tour promoting 'New School'. He had a short one about the Real World cast during 9/11 which was interesting but really only functioned as a series of Dash Shaw portraits, 'New Jobs' and '3 New Stories' though were fantastic. I flipped through 'New School' while he was doing some sketches in each comic and it looked good, i didn't expect it to be so big.

----review interruption----

3 New Stories (Fantagraphics)
by Dash Shaw

'3 New Stories' is a comic which explores the juxtaposition and superimposition of images within the structure of text/drawing based comics (a.k.a. traditional comics) as a means of underlining the thematic nature of it's stories. Similar to Blaise Larmee’s recent work on Tumblr, where Larmee utilizes photo’s of teenage girls as both a coloring element for the art and as an image to haunt the background of his GIF art, Shaw codes the pages of '3 New Stories' with layers of visual subtext that work as an interesting color palette and also through their existence as “images”, create additional layers of meaning to each page and the narrative as a whole.

The first of Shaw’s stories,'Object Lesson', is about a recently out of work criminal investigator (closely resembling Sherlock Holmes) who finds out his High School degree is invalid because his class did not meet the required number of school days to graduate. His lack of a degree makes him unable to find work, forcing him to go back to school to finish out the remainder of his school year, where he finds several of his old classmates in a similar predicament.

The idea of money runs throughout 'Object Lesson', it is a decidedly post-Recession piece, with work, education and monetization becoming the stories central themes. The opening page of 'Object Lesson', in juxtaposition with the first “page” of '3 New Stories' (an advertisement for Fantagraphics new Uncle Scrooge collection) shows the story of a man (Scrooge “The Richest Duck in the World”) jumping into a pile of gold coins next to a starving beggar being handed a few cents while taking up residence on the sidewalk (the sidewalk, while not depicted, is shown through a ghost image of a phone booth in the background). This image becomes even stronger when one looks at the bottom half of the Uncle Scrooge advertisement which shows The Beagle Brothers sitting hungry around an empty table. Both The Beagle Brothers and the beggar take on, in this story, the idea of failing to change to the new model, they are hungry because they did not learn to succeed in the new world order. Robbers, beggars and barons.

In contrast to this failure to change, we have our protagonist attending his first day of school, where he is exposed to it’s new for profit nature, book rentals and meal plans. “Public schools have really improved since our time”  he is informed by a cab driver dropping him off for his first day, a thought often repeated by his former/new classmates. After a few days of attending classes though he starts to wonder “This isn't how i remember High School at all...most of the school work is just filing and office work. It is as if we’re paying them to let us work for them. For no pay.” It is from these sentiments that our detective begins to investigate and unravel the new structure of work and school, the new form of beggars and bank robbers lampooned in the book’s opening pages are shown to be the interns of today. Graduates that upon completing their degree must go back to school to finish out their missing semester performing free office work for massive corporations.

Our hero, while discovering this system, is unwilling to overthrow it. Instead he finds a job in the school with gold plated lockers teaching World History to forty year olds and living comfortably, because he was able to, like Uncle Scrooge, monetize his education.

The following two entries in '3 New Stories' are shorter pieces, but Shaw continues to manipulate the issues advertisements and his own ghost backgrounds to reinforce his narrative purpose. 'Acting Is Reacting: Girls Gone Wild' follows Shaw’s previous forays into animating and illustrating “reality” shows (The Wheel of Fortune, To Catch A Predator, Blind Date);creating a possible 'The End Of The Fucking World' (previous pages ad) scenario to both the female depicted and her parents. Narratively speaking, this is a straightforward story, a foreign exchange student is “interviewed” by a Girls Gone Wild cameraman as they convince her to disrobe on camera. But by removing any geographic signifiers in the girls speech,  and featuring a shifting map in the background of each page, Shaw takes the idea of the “Foreign” Exchange Student, which one would typically attribute to an individual from outside the US, and turns it into a catch all for any female student residing in the U.S..

The final story, 'Bronx Children’s Prison', is about, as the title suggest, a prison for small children. These children are forced to work in the fields or risk harsh spankings, eventually these punishments reach the point that the prisons population stages an attempted break out, in which all but one is gunned down. Each page is colored by a unique set of dot matrices, from general polka dots to jelly beans to Jawbreakers, these images create an almost pop aesthetic to the the story which makes the harsh treatment of the children even more disturbing. The final page of the story though offers a sliver of hope. In a bit of self promotion, Shaw allows one child to get over the wall, finding freedom “ No friends left, but i’ll find more.” which is followed, on the book's final page, by a full page advertisement for his new book 'New School' which features an illustration of a boat, leaving the reader hoping the child is on board (I guess you’ll have to read 'New School' to find out though).

----interruption over----

The first floor seemed to be where most of the artists / publishers i cared about were housed, the second seemed more regulated to children's books and webcomic artists although i did find some guy from Providence selling Mickey Z comics and Jim Rugg was up there. By mid-Saturday there was a twenty minute line to get into that room so i may just not be with it.

----review interruption----

RAV #8 (Self-published)
by Mickey Zacchilli

I have heard Mickey Z refer to it as a cyclical wandering story, stuff keeps happening but it’s all happened before. That idea really highlights the stories existence as a romance book, which have the tendency to repeat and fall back in on themselves because of the limits of the “will they or won’t they” trope. Anyways, some guy talks to a cat and then some lady rips a person limb from limb. Also, other shit. I like this book.

----interruption over----

After the initial walk around we (me/rick/chris) made the trek to The Beguiling. The store actually inhabits two floors, the first is more of the “book” section, with a collection of just about everything in and out of print  you could ever want. My brother commented that he could drop a $100 there without thinking, and he’s not a big comics guy to start with. The store is also littered with original art that makes you want to cry, i saw a Mazzucchelli Batman sketch just tucked away in a corner like it wasn't hot shit for example.

The Beguiling’s second floor is a completely different store, the first tip off to this would probably be the music, the first floor had “classic rock” playing, while the second was some form of Dubstep that i could never identify the creator of. It was loud and i guess littered with samples of things people find cool. The second floor housed more manga and quality back issues than i could ever look at. Rick found an issue of the 'Negative Burn' anthology in the Paul Pope bin with a Godzilla short by Alan Moore and Art Adams in it, which i hope they use as the basis for the next Godzilla movie just so I can hear Alan Moore denounce it.

After leaving The Beguiling, we went to some random burger joint on the way back to TCAF and flipped through what we had bought so far.

Rick had a 'Heavy Metal' issue with a short story from Guido Crepax in it. I’d never seen Crepax in color before, it was weird.

There is a place near The Beguiling called Honest Ed’s which i guess is a giant outlet store. The alleyway next to it had neon lights dubbing it Honest Ed’s Alley Way and this did not reduce my fears of walking down it.

Rick and Chris ended up going to a panel on Moebius at the Hotel TCAF was using as an off site venue. I used this opportunity to go to the Los. Hernandez signing which was surprisingly empty, i was later told by people that their signing the previous night was stuffed to the gills so i guess that explains the short line on Saturday. I flipped through Jaime originals while he was signing my books which were awe inspiring. I regret not buying one, but i was scared of talking to him because Holy Shit! the Hernandez Brothers! (I had a similar dumbfounded reaction of Clowes/Ware).

After staring at the Hernandez brothers for five minutes i went up to the first floor and finally got the WiFi on my phone to work (The WiFi at the library was really patchy, but a room full of comic fans will do that to any server). I was greeted by 2-3 tweets asking about my whereabouts. My favorite was a concerned DM from Joey Aulisio “Shawn, you alright? people are looking for you” That dude sure does care about me. #Swoon

Before meeting up with the people on twitter concerned about my well being though, i got my copy of 'The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame' signed. The difference between Tagame in person, and what you would picture him being based on his work is staggering. He’s like a big teddy bear. He even drew one in my book, a fucking teddy bear, right next to the picture of a guy having his anus prodded with a finger.

I talked with Ryan Sands, he had a mild line so I flipped through 'The Strange Tale of Panorama Island' which he had a display copy of (following its almost immediate sell out) and it looked beautiful, I’m kind of shocked Maruo was able to garner such a luxurious release. Anyways, Ryan Sands is a very nice person, which i guess is why everyone who matters in alt-comics contributes to his various projects.

I saw Box Brown taking hits out of a flask at his booth, the Retrofit booth was across the aisle from Picture Box so i was expecting a Brown/Nadel throw down later that day, but sadly that never occurred. But I did get 'Snake Oil' #7 from Charles Forsman....

----review interruption----

Snake Oil #7 (Retrofit)

by Charles Forsman

My brother said this book needed another page of the main character getting punched in the face, i’m not sure if it’s because he just hated the main character or didn't feel the events following the beating were in keeping with what we were shown. Besides that, he enjoyed it.

----review interruption----

After giving credence to the Charles Forsman rumor that i was a made up person created and maintained by Alec Berry and Joey Aulisio by going unseen for the first few hours of the con, I then went and hung out with him for a while until they kicked everyone out of the library because it was closing. Conversation highlights include:

. Flipping through the proof copy of 'The End Of The Fucking World', which looks very nice. I know someone who has a pull quote on it.

. Talking about our mutual love of Josh Simmons and how his wizard throat rape comic was originally going to be published in a Jeffery Brown edited anthology but they couldn't find a way to make the story publishable.

. Me insulting various comics people and him politely nodding his head.

. The recently re-posted Groth/McFarlane interview on TCJ, i pointed to this particular exchange:

“MCFARLANE: ...My only point was, that out of those 200 kids, eight of those guys are going to turn into Fantagraphics fans someday. But because you insulted them, one of them might not. That’s your audience.
GROTH: I’ll accept the odds, yeah.
MCFARLANE: Whether you want to accept it or not, they, and the guys that are buying 'Spawn' today are your future audience, and you’re going after guys who are actually going to be your allies some day.”

I found this really interesting in the case of Forsman and the current crop of alt-comic artists emerging right now whom Fantagraphics would possibly wish to publish at some point who have some early Image influence. This was followed up by talking about Stephen Platt and Tim Vigil.

DAY ONE - POST SHOW

Sat around waiting for The Doug Wright Awards to start, then for another 40 minutes as a fire alarm went off once the show began seating. Chester Brown and Tom Spurgeon sat in front of me, which creeped me out a bit.

The awards were fine, little long but i assume every awards show is. If the whole fire alarm thing didn't happen it probably would have been quite a briskly paced show. The highlight was, as everyone else said, the David Collier speech which went through about five stages of funny/not funny/ funny again.

After the awards we went to the after-party bar thing. I had a couple beers, talked to Jim Rugg at the bar while he was waiting for his drinks about how hard it is to even get a basic grasp of everything that's at a show until two weeks after when you missed it. We then went home and passed out hard. I don’t walk that much.

TCAF DAY TWO

We showed up late for the second day of TCAF and left early, it was more of a “oh shit i forgot to get this” day. I got a Patrick Kyle book that I've wanted for a while but refused to pay the shipping to import to the US, and Tin Can Forest’s 'Wax Cross'. Those two guys were in this weird side room on the first floor i didn't know existed until i stumbled on it trying to get a WiFi signal on my phone.

----review interruption----

Wax Cross (Koyama)
by Tin Can Forest

Didn't understand it, but it looks pretty.

----interruption over----

We went to the panel about the death of comics blogging which was mostly asinine. Someone gave a speech in the form of a question which made me want to drink, sadly the bar which the panel was housed in didn't seem to be serving at the time. Tom Spurgeon seemed to possess the correct level of disdain for the panel, although i learned he had woken up a few minutes before the panel later. But i’m a fan of contempt for any reason.

In contrast to that panel i really enjoyed the Dash Shaw talk. He has some interesting idea’s about art and his own work.

I think that was it for Sunday at TCAF...yep.

DAY TWO - POST SHOW

Saw a double bill of "Room 237" and "The Shining" at a theater far too nice to be showing them. "Room 237" seemed like a really interesting documentary you’d find playing around on Netflix at 2 am trying to find something to sleep to. It was basically a series of semi-interesting internet essays about "The Shining" that there various authors read over the various scenes they were referring to. Most seemed to extrapolate a lot of stuff based on little inconsistencies which could easily be explained by the hotel being built on a Indian burial site. "The Shining" was very good though.

END

diary of a guttersnipe 04/02/2013: scarface on repeat

by Shawn Starr

It was an intresting Spring Break to say the least....

Mini-Reviews

Skim (Groundwood Books)
by Mariko Tamaki , Jillian Tamaki

If you stripped "The Craft" of all that Hollywood “wiccan” bullshit and had it just be a nuanced movie about a confused kid trying to figure out her identity while attending high school, dealing with suicide, body perception, sexuality, drugs, etc. then you would get 'Skim'. Which makes it nothing like "The Craft", but it’s easier to write a review if you say “It’s like this, but not at all” and then just talk about how you saw random fragments of "The Craft" on USA (the network, not the country) throughout various summer vacations, but never actually saw the whole thing from start to finish until years later in college. Which is kind of like high school, where you don’t really understand what you were trying to be until later, which is what 'Skim' is attempting to convey. And, circle closed.

Emmanuelle #1 (Eurotica/NBM)
by Guido Crepax

Crepax draws everyone in this book with weirdly angular faces and frayed hair. I guess it was the 1980’s and people thought that looked good. Nice layouts nonetheless.

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Talking About 'The End Of The Fucking World'

In it’s final issue Forsman delivers on the titles promise, the world fucking ended. Not in a tongue and cheek 'Asterios Polyp' way, or a zombie apocalypse, but through the destruction of James and Alyssa’s world together. James’s world literally ends while Alyssa’s is figuratively destroyed. This is an important distinction, and it shades what each character meant to each other, and the overall narrative.

James 

In the end James, as much as he tried throughout his journey, could never truly change. He was a sociopath from the beginning, but with Alyssa's presence you could see a reserve in him, you could see him making a life of it. Similar to Derf’s analysis of Jeffery Dahmer in 'My Friend Dahmer', you can see James (along with Dahmer) struggling with their basic instincts. Dahmer numbs this feeling through alcohol, James chooses Alyssa; this is why James calls Alyssa his protector (“I was not her protector. She was mine.”). The absence of Alyssa in James life marks a constant struggle with what he is, her absence see’s James directing his aggression towards innocent targets, both human and animal.

With Alyssa he is able to control himself to an extent that he could never do on his own, that is, except when he feels like she, his protector, is threatened. This is why James can never overcome his psychopathy, his very being puts Alyssa in danger, which cases him to regress back to his null state. The cult, whose existence is left largely unexplained, is used to illustrate this point throughout James and Alyssa’s relationship. When they fall in love, in the home of a professor on vacation, James is almost able to expel his demons, until the cult seeps into the narrative and his violent tendencies are pulled back to the forefront of his relationship with Alyssa.

The cults involvement in the narrative following the events of issue seven mirror James and Alyssa’s relationship, the more pages they take up the further Alyssa pushes away. The cult brings out a side of James that she can’t control, and not until the cult leaves the narrative following James and Alyssa’s break up for three issues, do they reconcile and leave to meet Alyssa's estranged father, where, for one issue, they find happiness again.

In the penultimate issue, Alyssa’s father informs the police of her and James location, headed by a Cult member the police bear down on their location and demand James’s surrender. In this moment, James comes to a duel realization, he will never change, and he can only protect Alyssa by leaving her. He’s damaged. James tying up Alyssa (to her protest) is removing the last barrier of his humanity..

“BANG”.

Next Week: Alyssa

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links

Previews of 'The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame', featuring a book flap which solidifies my theory that every page of that book is going to be hardcore.

Der Hipster: Animation Olivier Schrauwen

Jog on 'Muse' is both one of the best straight up reviews i have read in a long time, but also one of the best discussions on “cheesecake” art and female sexualiation in comics that's been produced in a long time. Unlike the mixture of half thought out screeds and obvious trolling that most discussions on the form are inundated with, Jog takes a nuanced look at the genre of “Good Girl” comics, both it’s historical merits and shortcomings, and 'Muse'’s place in that spectrum.

Don’t call me the “W-Word”; that word is offensive to my privileged status.

Cover for 'Frontier' #1

Found a copy of 'Kramer's Ergot' #7 for 50% off and almost wet myself in excitement, if you ever come across that book just take a minute to flip through it

Johnny Negron T-Shirts and Prints

The DeForge Study Group T-Shirts came out quite nice.

Video preview of Dash Shaw’s 'New School'. I’m rereading 'Bodyworld' right now, that book is going to show up more and more in the greater “comics” conversation over the next few years as a major influence on long form webcomic narratives.

Blaise Larmee gets "Spring Breakers".

I don’t understand why anyone would spend three entire interview questions trying to get the next  writer/artist on a series  to spoil both the current run, and their (soon to be) run. Especially when you’re talking to Ales Kot. Why would you even want to know?

Passport came, should be at TCAF in May.

New Kevin Huizenga comic.

Short documentary about 3-D printers and their ability to print gun parts, which was interesting.

THIS COLUMN JUST GOT TRUMPED