Saturday, July 18, 2015
Alan David Doane Reviews Ant-Man
Click over to Trouble With Comics for my review of Marvel's Ant-Man.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
ADD Reviews Louise Brooks: Detective
Over at Trouble With Comics, I've posted a new review of Louise Brooks: Detective. It's the latest graphic novel by Rick Geary, published by NBM/ComicsLit.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Moore and Burrows Go Back to Lovecraft
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Galaxy Newsbrief 092414: My Alan Moore Interview and More
* Just a quick note that I posted a couple of pieces to Galaxy sister site Trouble With Comics yesterday.
* The big one, as far as I am concerned, is Emerging from the Narrative: An Interview with Alan Moore. This is the first time the text of this 2004 interview has been available online in a decade. It's a wide-ranging interview about From Hell, Voice of the Fire, Miracleman, Moore's thoughts on his impact on superhero comics storytelling, Miracleman and much more. It's one of the pieces I'm most proudest of in the 15+ years I have been writing about comics online, so I hope you'll give it a look.
* I also ran a list of The Good and The Bad in the Gotham pilot. I'm interested in seeing more, but I'm probably not pre-ordering the Blu-ray set, if you know what I mean.
* The big one, as far as I am concerned, is Emerging from the Narrative: An Interview with Alan Moore. This is the first time the text of this 2004 interview has been available online in a decade. It's a wide-ranging interview about From Hell, Voice of the Fire, Miracleman, Moore's thoughts on his impact on superhero comics storytelling, Miracleman and much more. It's one of the pieces I'm most proudest of in the 15+ years I have been writing about comics online, so I hope you'll give it a look.
* I also ran a list of The Good and The Bad in the Gotham pilot. I'm interested in seeing more, but I'm probably not pre-ordering the Blu-ray set, if you know what I mean.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Galaxy Newsbrief 090914: More Than A Million Words of Moore
* Alan Moore has reportedly completed writing the initial draft of his forthcoming prose novel Jerusalem. Moore's daughter Leah made the announcement on Alan Moore's Facebook page: "[Alan Moore] has finished the first draft of his second novel, Jerusalem. Now there's just the small matter of copy editing a more-than-a-million word document, and it's all done."
* Jerusalem is Moore's followup to his first prose novel, Voice of the Fire, available from Top Shelf Productions, and which was written about by Marshall O'Keeffe for Comic Book Galaxy a decade ago. Marshall's article is challenging, but then so is Voice of the Fire, the first chapter of which is written in a proto-human form of English Moore invented to convey the thoughts of a character who was on the verge of achieving consciousness. I can tell you that my first reading of Voice of the Fire was not entirely successful, as I came to it not quite ready for the challenge Moore was throwing down to his readers. I've always appreciated Marshall O'Keeffe's look at the novel for the way in which it allowed me entry into Voice of the Fire, which has become my second-favourite novel of all time, after Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
* I love both novels for similar reasons. They each take the reader on a journey that is not always pleasant, but is ultimately rewarding and is vastly entertaining. They each feature a use of the English language that is a dimension above most other prose fiction, demonstrating a level of planning and complexity that is simply not within the grasp of most writers, or many readers. Both Lolita and Voice of the Fire reward multiple readings, with not only the joy of rediscovering already-known delights, but by revealing new information encoded in such a way that you must read them more than once in order to really gain a deeper understanding of what is happening, while at the same time not alienating the first-time reader too much. Both are works to be respected, admired, and passionately devoured by the hungry mind.
* In my 2004 interview with Moore, he discussed Voice of the Fire in relation to his graphic novel From Hell (with artist Eddie Campbell) and with his decision to become a magician: "One of the things that binds both From Hell and Voice Of The Fire is that...I mean, I started both of them probably around the same time, although there was maybe a couple of years between the start of From Hell and the start of Voice Of The Fire, but one thing that they have in common is that, halfway through both books, I actually decided to become a magician and to begin a serious and practical study of the occult. And this was partly connected with certain parts of From Hell, where we were getting into some of William Gull's beliefs about the nature of gods and, I mean, originally I was just writing these balloons as dialogue just to fill a panel, you know, to fill a page, but I wrote something about the only place that gods, inarguably, exist is in the human mind where they are real in all their grandeur and monstrosity. Which sounded like a nice ringing little line that filled a word balloon and then I sort of stopped and thought about it and actually realized that by complete mistake, by complete accident, I'd written something true, that I couldn't actually think my way around and that was the beginning of a train of thought which, as I say, lead me to a very serious immersion in, what I suppose would largely be referred to as, magic."
* In 2013, Moore spoke to The Believer about Jerusalem, saying it was specifically conceived as a prose novel: "The decision to take on Jerusalem was very much a movement away from comics, to explore the possibilities of what the novel could do. I really enjoyed writing my first novel, Voice of the Fire. It is still one of my favorite works, but it was a first novel, and having learned a little of what writing a novel entails while doing that, I was trying to see if there were any other ideas that I could put into application. So yeah, it was never considered as anything other than a massive book."
* The idea that a mind as creative as Alan Moore's plans a book specifically designed to better what he accomplished with Voice of the Fire is a delightful one to contemplate. I've been a reader of Moore's work since very early in his Swamp Thing run, and can count the works of his that I haven't particularly enjoyed on the fingers of one hand, with a finger left over for his backward, mouth-breathing detractors, many of whom have demonstrated a contempt for creator rights and an unhealthy obsession with Moore's every utterance. Moore's recent comics work, from his growing library of work with Top Shelf (including the still-wondrous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) to his work with Avatar, show his creativity and intellect are more powerful than ever. There's every chance that Jerusalem will be a landmark, paradigm-shifting novel, the work of a lifetime. More than a million words? I can't wait to read every one.
* Jerusalem is Moore's followup to his first prose novel, Voice of the Fire, available from Top Shelf Productions, and which was written about by Marshall O'Keeffe for Comic Book Galaxy a decade ago. Marshall's article is challenging, but then so is Voice of the Fire, the first chapter of which is written in a proto-human form of English Moore invented to convey the thoughts of a character who was on the verge of achieving consciousness. I can tell you that my first reading of Voice of the Fire was not entirely successful, as I came to it not quite ready for the challenge Moore was throwing down to his readers. I've always appreciated Marshall O'Keeffe's look at the novel for the way in which it allowed me entry into Voice of the Fire, which has become my second-favourite novel of all time, after Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
* I love both novels for similar reasons. They each take the reader on a journey that is not always pleasant, but is ultimately rewarding and is vastly entertaining. They each feature a use of the English language that is a dimension above most other prose fiction, demonstrating a level of planning and complexity that is simply not within the grasp of most writers, or many readers. Both Lolita and Voice of the Fire reward multiple readings, with not only the joy of rediscovering already-known delights, but by revealing new information encoded in such a way that you must read them more than once in order to really gain a deeper understanding of what is happening, while at the same time not alienating the first-time reader too much. Both are works to be respected, admired, and passionately devoured by the hungry mind.
* In my 2004 interview with Moore, he discussed Voice of the Fire in relation to his graphic novel From Hell (with artist Eddie Campbell) and with his decision to become a magician: "One of the things that binds both From Hell and Voice Of The Fire is that...I mean, I started both of them probably around the same time, although there was maybe a couple of years between the start of From Hell and the start of Voice Of The Fire, but one thing that they have in common is that, halfway through both books, I actually decided to become a magician and to begin a serious and practical study of the occult. And this was partly connected with certain parts of From Hell, where we were getting into some of William Gull's beliefs about the nature of gods and, I mean, originally I was just writing these balloons as dialogue just to fill a panel, you know, to fill a page, but I wrote something about the only place that gods, inarguably, exist is in the human mind where they are real in all their grandeur and monstrosity. Which sounded like a nice ringing little line that filled a word balloon and then I sort of stopped and thought about it and actually realized that by complete mistake, by complete accident, I'd written something true, that I couldn't actually think my way around and that was the beginning of a train of thought which, as I say, lead me to a very serious immersion in, what I suppose would largely be referred to as, magic."
* In 2013, Moore spoke to The Believer about Jerusalem, saying it was specifically conceived as a prose novel: "The decision to take on Jerusalem was very much a movement away from comics, to explore the possibilities of what the novel could do. I really enjoyed writing my first novel, Voice of the Fire. It is still one of my favorite works, but it was a first novel, and having learned a little of what writing a novel entails while doing that, I was trying to see if there were any other ideas that I could put into application. So yeah, it was never considered as anything other than a massive book."
* The idea that a mind as creative as Alan Moore's plans a book specifically designed to better what he accomplished with Voice of the Fire is a delightful one to contemplate. I've been a reader of Moore's work since very early in his Swamp Thing run, and can count the works of his that I haven't particularly enjoyed on the fingers of one hand, with a finger left over for his backward, mouth-breathing detractors, many of whom have demonstrated a contempt for creator rights and an unhealthy obsession with Moore's every utterance. Moore's recent comics work, from his growing library of work with Top Shelf (including the still-wondrous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) to his work with Avatar, show his creativity and intellect are more powerful than ever. There's every chance that Jerusalem will be a landmark, paradigm-shifting novel, the work of a lifetime. More than a million words? I can't wait to read every one.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Galaxy Newsbrief 090714: It's Unlikely Your Work is Awesome
* Following up on a post I did about a month ago regarding cartoonist Mike Dawson discussing how he has not seen a sustainable audience build for his comics work, I wanted to note a post by R. Fiore at The Comics Journal (hat tip to Tom Spurgeon) which should have every working and aspiring cartoonist thinking feverishly about their options.
* Fiore is one of the longest-running Journal commentators, and also one of the magazine's -- and therefore the industry's -- smartest observers. Fiore acknowledges the much-linked-to Abhay Khosla response to Dawson's original piece, highlighting both its strengths and its weaknesses. I do love me some AK, but I am sure even he would admit that Fiore's understanding of how the industry works trumps just about everyone else's.
* Fiore wisely compares Dawson's dilemma with an earlier debate over digital comics, spurred by Mark Waid's somewhat groundbreaking digital initiative. He pulls it all together with the sad, Capitalist truth that it's the evolutionary forces at work in the market that decide who gets paid and who doesn't, not some invisible moral imperative that favours good cartoonists and culls the bad ones from the herd. Very much like the music industry, which digital technology has transformed utterly (with corporations, and musicians to a lesser extent, kicking and screaming every step of the way), cartoonists have to evolve into the new paradigm. If they think drawing a comic, story or graphic novel means their work is done and the Brinks truck is backing into their driveway, they think wrong. Just because you build it, that doesn't mean anyone will show up, and no one is automatically entitled to a living in Los Estados Unidos (not yet, anyway).
* Fiore notes that "we have entered into an environment in which its never been easier to disseminate your work and its never been more difficult to make a buck from it." And in the traditional sense, that is true. Look at James Kochalka, who many years ago devoted an entire graphic novel to the premise "Quit Your Job." Kochalka's comics and graphic novels sales figures have never been made public that I am aware of, but he has been tireless in finding other sources of income, from subscriptions to his now-ended American Elf daily web strip to licensing his song Hockey Monkey as a TV series theme, to turning his Super-F*ckers comic into an animated series. Kochalka is probably the most energetic cartoonist I've ever met, and I am sure that energy is invaluable in driving him to find ways to monetize his comics and musical work.
* "Monetize" is a word that rankles a lot of people, with its implication of "selling out." Over the 14 years I have maintained Comic Book Galaxy in one way or another, I have occasionally attempted to monetize the site -- but in its best year advertising revenue brought in less than a hundred bucks a month, and that did not last long, and it was well over a decade ago. Yes, the site was far more popular then, with tens of thousands of daily visitors, but when I look back, I think that the biggest obstacle to maintaining revenue was just me. I saw what we were doing as important and valuable (yes, I was hella naive), and my focus was entirely on the quality of the writing on the site and the relative merit of the comics and graphic novels we were covering. I didn't get into it to be a business person, and I have a feeling a lot of cartoonists feel the same way.
* The difference is, I never expected my online projects to generate a living wage for me. I don't know if Dawson expects or believes he is entitled to just make comics and that alone will make him enough to live his life the way he wants, but I do think a lot of cartoonists with less experience than Dawson (and let's acknowledge his courage in bringing this issue to light at all) are living under the illusion that great success is already a sure thing, they are just waiting for the right break to come along.
* "Gods do favors, Darwin doesn't," is the thrust of Fiore's piece at TCJ, and the fact of the matter is, as Alan Moore once wisely noted, the only place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind. Increasingly, that's also the only place where the idea of a cartoonist being able to make a livable income solely with their work exists. Is it right? Is it wrong? Those questions are irrelevant. It's the way it is. If you want to be a cartoonist, be one -- be a great one! But if you want to be able to afford food, clothing, housing and the other expenses of daily living, make sure you have a day job, or a solid plan to monetize the hell out of your work in comics. It's almost impossible to imagine you'll do it merely by publishing your work in book form, so if you find the idea of "monetizing" your comics distasteful or too time-consuming to imagine, well, like I said up front -- you should be thinking pretty hard about your options. R. Fiore knows what he's talking about, and it's unlikely your work is so awesome that it's going to overcome the obstacles facing cartoonists today.
* Fiore is one of the longest-running Journal commentators, and also one of the magazine's -- and therefore the industry's -- smartest observers. Fiore acknowledges the much-linked-to Abhay Khosla response to Dawson's original piece, highlighting both its strengths and its weaknesses. I do love me some AK, but I am sure even he would admit that Fiore's understanding of how the industry works trumps just about everyone else's.
* Fiore wisely compares Dawson's dilemma with an earlier debate over digital comics, spurred by Mark Waid's somewhat groundbreaking digital initiative. He pulls it all together with the sad, Capitalist truth that it's the evolutionary forces at work in the market that decide who gets paid and who doesn't, not some invisible moral imperative that favours good cartoonists and culls the bad ones from the herd. Very much like the music industry, which digital technology has transformed utterly (with corporations, and musicians to a lesser extent, kicking and screaming every step of the way), cartoonists have to evolve into the new paradigm. If they think drawing a comic, story or graphic novel means their work is done and the Brinks truck is backing into their driveway, they think wrong. Just because you build it, that doesn't mean anyone will show up, and no one is automatically entitled to a living in Los Estados Unidos (not yet, anyway).
* Fiore notes that "we have entered into an environment in which its never been easier to disseminate your work and its never been more difficult to make a buck from it." And in the traditional sense, that is true. Look at James Kochalka, who many years ago devoted an entire graphic novel to the premise "Quit Your Job." Kochalka's comics and graphic novels sales figures have never been made public that I am aware of, but he has been tireless in finding other sources of income, from subscriptions to his now-ended American Elf daily web strip to licensing his song Hockey Monkey as a TV series theme, to turning his Super-F*ckers comic into an animated series. Kochalka is probably the most energetic cartoonist I've ever met, and I am sure that energy is invaluable in driving him to find ways to monetize his comics and musical work.
* "Monetize" is a word that rankles a lot of people, with its implication of "selling out." Over the 14 years I have maintained Comic Book Galaxy in one way or another, I have occasionally attempted to monetize the site -- but in its best year advertising revenue brought in less than a hundred bucks a month, and that did not last long, and it was well over a decade ago. Yes, the site was far more popular then, with tens of thousands of daily visitors, but when I look back, I think that the biggest obstacle to maintaining revenue was just me. I saw what we were doing as important and valuable (yes, I was hella naive), and my focus was entirely on the quality of the writing on the site and the relative merit of the comics and graphic novels we were covering. I didn't get into it to be a business person, and I have a feeling a lot of cartoonists feel the same way.
* The difference is, I never expected my online projects to generate a living wage for me. I don't know if Dawson expects or believes he is entitled to just make comics and that alone will make him enough to live his life the way he wants, but I do think a lot of cartoonists with less experience than Dawson (and let's acknowledge his courage in bringing this issue to light at all) are living under the illusion that great success is already a sure thing, they are just waiting for the right break to come along.
* "Gods do favors, Darwin doesn't," is the thrust of Fiore's piece at TCJ, and the fact of the matter is, as Alan Moore once wisely noted, the only place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind. Increasingly, that's also the only place where the idea of a cartoonist being able to make a livable income solely with their work exists. Is it right? Is it wrong? Those questions are irrelevant. It's the way it is. If you want to be a cartoonist, be one -- be a great one! But if you want to be able to afford food, clothing, housing and the other expenses of daily living, make sure you have a day job, or a solid plan to monetize the hell out of your work in comics. It's almost impossible to imagine you'll do it merely by publishing your work in book form, so if you find the idea of "monetizing" your comics distasteful or too time-consuming to imagine, well, like I said up front -- you should be thinking pretty hard about your options. R. Fiore knows what he's talking about, and it's unlikely your work is so awesome that it's going to overcome the obstacles facing cartoonists today.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Galaxy Newsbrief 081114: Mixed Feelings
* Abhay presents a long, rambling examination of the just concluded Brubaker/Phillips project Fatale that pretty much defines "mixed feelings." Like me, I get the sense Abhay wanted to like the book more than he ultimately did, and he nails some of the shortcomings of the series pretty well.
* Starting back with Sleeper, I was absolutely in love with the Brubaker/Phillips collaboration, a love that sustained through Criminal and in fact inspired me to create a blog solely dedicated to the team's second title together, A Criminal Blog. I don't have anything to do with ACB anymore, but I still admire the work Ed and Sean did on Criminal.
* It was with Incognito that I started to not be as passionate in my enjoyment of Brubaker and Phillips's collaboration. Sure, the book was tight and entertaining and beautiful to look at (artistically, Phillips always delivers), but the story seemed driven far more by the desire to sell comics than to tell a story that demanded telling.
* I was initially excited about Fatale, and curious to see what Ed and Sean could do. It seems like the book went from limited to ongoing to ending with #24 over the course of its existence, and I felt like there was clearly a lack of direction behind the scenes and confusion over what the book should and would be. While there were still excellent issues and gorgeoous artwork, I think some of the inconsistency Abhay talks about may stem from that.
* The duo's next collaboration is The Fade Out, which from what little preview material I've seen seems most comparable to Criminal of all the other titles in Brubaker and Phillips's growing library of titles. I am looking forward to reading the first issue and hoping that there's a true return to form for one of my favourite creative teams. Incognito and Fatale filled me with mixed feelings, and it would be nice to once again have a Brubaker and Phillips book I can feel unreservedly passionate about again.
* Starting back with Sleeper, I was absolutely in love with the Brubaker/Phillips collaboration, a love that sustained through Criminal and in fact inspired me to create a blog solely dedicated to the team's second title together, A Criminal Blog. I don't have anything to do with ACB anymore, but I still admire the work Ed and Sean did on Criminal.
* It was with Incognito that I started to not be as passionate in my enjoyment of Brubaker and Phillips's collaboration. Sure, the book was tight and entertaining and beautiful to look at (artistically, Phillips always delivers), but the story seemed driven far more by the desire to sell comics than to tell a story that demanded telling.
* I was initially excited about Fatale, and curious to see what Ed and Sean could do. It seems like the book went from limited to ongoing to ending with #24 over the course of its existence, and I felt like there was clearly a lack of direction behind the scenes and confusion over what the book should and would be. While there were still excellent issues and gorgeoous artwork, I think some of the inconsistency Abhay talks about may stem from that.
* The duo's next collaboration is The Fade Out, which from what little preview material I've seen seems most comparable to Criminal of all the other titles in Brubaker and Phillips's growing library of titles. I am looking forward to reading the first issue and hoping that there's a true return to form for one of my favourite creative teams. Incognito and Fatale filled me with mixed feelings, and it would be nice to once again have a Brubaker and Phillips book I can feel unreservedly passionate about again.
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