19 October 2021
The Editorial Cartoons of Pat Oliphant (No. 39)
18 October 2021
Sugar & Spike by Sheldon Mayer (No. 78)
The difference was creator Sheldon Mayer, one of the prime movers of the early days of comic books. The man who pressed National Comics to buy the Superman proposal, and one of the comics' earliest editors, Mayer as a writer/artist was more eclectic. In the 1940s his most prominent creative outlet was Scribbly, which combined a gentle, humorous take on spandex heroics with a healthy dose of autobiography and outright sentiment - the forerunner of several reworking of the superhero genre to fit more personal themes. On this list, Mayer represents any number of talented men and women who only rarely broke through the stringent and specific commercial restrictions of comic book publishing.
Sugar & Spike works because it marries a great concept to a specific strength of the medium. Mayer's major nod to Ketcham was through his process: he watched films of his own children as inspiration for the proposed feature. What he noted was a period of non-verbal communication between his son and daughter, and that "baby talk" - a language only they and their same-age peers could understand - was the hallmark of the strip. In that device, and in structuring most adventures around the discovery of the wider world, Mayer linked the special world his creations enjoyed to the space young comics readers create around themselves reading comic books. Mayer was more than clever and talented enough to provide a graceful, funny follow-through with increasingly creative adventures for his pair. Modest, charming and accessible, Sugar & Spike may be the perfectly realised American mainstream comic book series.
15 October 2021
The Amphigorey Books by Edward Gorey (No. 43)
Gorey's drawings, whether in the style of The Gilded Bat's relentless hatching or the sparsely adorned phrasing of The Lavender Leotard, carry with them the sense of great weight. The faux-Victorian stylings bring to the page a solemnity that Gorey can spin in a myriad of ways.
From the playfully scary (The Wuggly Ump) to the scarily perverse (The Curious Sofa), from the whimsically morbid (The Bug Book) to the morbidly whimsical (The Ghastlycrumb Tinies) Gorey catches a mood of innocence and dread better than any cartoonist before or after him.
Gorey would be a first rate illustrator if that were all that he did (and he does do that from time to time), but add on top of his drawing skills the fact that Gorey's books are undisputedly amongst the most literate comics to have found their way to the page (reread The Unstrung Harp, his first work, if you doubt me) and you end up with a most astonishing talent.
Gorey's changed publishers at a ferocious pace in the past and as a consequence most of his original books are almost impossible to find in print. But the Amphigorey collections rectify that problem admirably. Make no mistake: these books are essential reading.
14 October 2021
The Editorial Cartoons of Herblock (No. 53)
The early '30s brought Herblock to Cleveland, where he drew exclusively for syndication at NEA. Curiously, as the decade wore on, Herblock grew more liberal as his syndicate's politics became increasingly conservative. By the late '30s, the syndicate shrank the size of his cartoons, and begrudgingly waited out the term of his contract. But in 1939, the cartoonist won the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes, and he became the NEA's darling again. After serving in the military during World War II, Herblock joined The Washington Post in 1946, where he has remained since.
There are few cartoonists today who draw in anything remotely like Herblock's style. Moreover, There are even fewer cartoonists who are as effective. Like the great editorial cartoonists of the 19th century such as Nast, Davenport, McDougall and Keppler, Herblock's cartoons clarify issues to the public and earn the ire of his targets. The '50s saw Herblock crusading against the mud-slinging hate-mongers and red-baiters; he was responsible for coining the word "McCarthyism".
Herblock's power as a cartoonist made itself clear during the Nixon era, when he frequently pointed an accusing finger at the White House, earning the President's hatred and a place on the "Enemies List". Approaching 90, Herblock still chronicles the outrages of today, with a clear view of outrages that came before.
13 October 2021
The Lily Stories by Debbie Drechsler (No. 81)
Emotionally and graphically, this scene is richly textured, full of feelings which remain tacit but nonetheless powerful. We know how important this activity is for Lily, socially, and how the nearness of Dunham hems her in; we also know of the tension between Claire and Lily, and how working with Angela gives Lily an out. Drechsler choreographs these relationships precisely, stressing the spaces between characters and catching the subtle give-and-take of words and silence.
The marvel of Drechsler is that this kind of attention can be found everywhere in her work, coupled with extraordinary artistic courage. The Lily Stories cover a startling range, from the harrowing disclosures of sexual abuse which haunt Drechsler's one book, Daddy's Girl (1995), to the cold melancholy of The Dead of Winter (Drawn & Quarterly Vol 2 #5, 1996), in which Lily has an abortion but cannot own up to her sense of loss. Drechsler's current series, Nowhere carefully charts the terrain of adolescence, showing us things about high school that we either never noticed or willed ourselves to forget. Armed with a great ear for dialogue, and a mesmerising style which balances contour and texture, Drechsler is already a master.
However, what makes Debbie’s story so original and so chilling are two things: First, the structure is completely different from the way stories of child abuse are usually told. In those stories, the abuse is usually the “shocking” climax, or the “reveal” (as Hollywood types are fond of calling it these days), the buried secret, the motivation for a character’s actions or whatever. In Debbie’s story, the initial scene of abuse happens near the beginning and is depicted in an almost matter-of-fact manner. It’s an unexpected and horrifying scene, but then we follow the little protagonist through the rest of the night and into the next day. There is no sermonizing, no hysteria, no false self-righteousness. It is simply this little girl’s life - and that is dark, dark, dark.
The second factor is Debbie’s art for the story: The drawings of the characters with their big, hopeful (yet somehow doomed) eyes, and the topsy-turvy space they inhabit - floors rising to hit the reader in the eye, rooms which seem alive, not so much expressionistic as sea sick. Her drawings depict the feeling of innocence stolen, of a pure vision corrupted, of a sweetness that turns to nausea. They are heart-breaking.
BOOKS BY DEBBIE DRECHSLER:
Daddy's Girl, Fantagraphics Books, 1996
The Summer of Love, D&Q, 2002
12 October 2021
Goodman Beaver by Harvey Kurtzman & Will Elder (No. 64)
These stories that appeared original in Help! Magazine offered views of modern society that work even better now than they did in 1962. While four of them dealt with subjects that were lampooned earlier in MAD (or could have been), each one tackled deeper issues that reflected the dilemma of modern man.
Goodman Meets S*perm*n explored the fact that a real superhero would give up on humanity after realising that "people are no damgood!" Goodman Goes Playboy features a look at Archie and his gang grown and striving to live the life of modern, hedonistic, swingers, and eagerly willing to sell their souls to get that life. Goodman Meets T*rz*n puts a stamp of harsh modern reality on romantic perceptions of jungle intrigue and adventure, and Goodman, Underwater grapples with the idea of actually altering dull realities to become full of intrigue and adventure. Goodman Gets A Gun is an odd story where Goodman himself tries to live out his fantasies as opposed to just observing others.
All of these stories were pointed as hell, clever and would be hysterically funny even if they were all text. But Elder's artwork is utterly masterful, done by a draftsman at the height of his prowess. Each and every panel contains incredible detail - not just in the inking technique - but in the thousands of little "throwaway" gags he delightfully squirrelled into them. Each can keep a reader occupied for hours. I've been rereading them for 37 years and haven't gotten tired of them yet.
11 October 2021
Little Lulu by John Stanley (No. 59)
The children are not, however, metaphors for adults or adult behaviour. Instead, Stanley's kids, much like Hal Roach's Our Gang cast, are considerably more autonomous than their real life counterparts could ever hope to be, while brilliantly maintaining their fidelity to the impulses, cruelties and nutty logic that governs childhood.
Visually, Stanley's work is a masterpiece of compositional precision and formal clarity, rivalling, in its own way, that of Shelly Mayer or Alex Toth. Stanley managed, in stories no fewer than four pages and no more than eight, to achieve a flawless graphic flow, choosing exactly the right composition and scene for each successive panel. Stanley's style is the US equivalent of Herge's clean line - the drawing is just as impeccable, but less fussed over and more histrionic, particularly the facial expressions, which are usually delineated by appropriately shaped and exaggerated black holes.
Thematically, I'm pleased to report that there was no sanctimonious, William Bennett-style goodie-two-shoes moralising, the sine qua non of children's entertainment these days. Quite the opposite, if anything: Tubby is usually cheerfully unrepentant or downright clueless when one of his idiotic schemes backfires and blows up in his face. Lulu often triumphs in the end by demonstrating even greater deviousness than her opponent, and when she tells Alvin one of her fables designed to impart a moral lesson, Alvin usually gets it exactly wrong (Alvin, Spare That [Family] Tree, September 1959, for example). Nor is the series exactly non-violent: in one story Lulu punches out Tubby and Willy, in another, she is almost cooked and eaten, and in yet a third she systematically stalks and shoots the boys with perfume from a water-pistol. None of this is offensive or exploitative. The complicated plots (reminiscent of the staples of Hollywood's screwball comedies with their mistaken identities, fake assumptions, and likably oblivious characters) combined with irony make these stories far more sophisticated than they actually look, which is practically the definition of good children's stories.
QUILLERMO DEL TORO:
(via Twitter, 6 January 2022)
The D&Q editions are superb. I own the entire John Stanley Little Lulu and these new volumes are still a must. So beautiful. Little Lulu: The Little Girl Who Could Talk to Trees – Drawn & Quarterly.
08 October 2021
Alley Oop by V.T. Hamlin (No. 60)
The fun began in earnest on April 6, 1939, when the caveman and his girlfriend. Oopla, are suddenly transported from their prehistoric haunts to the 20th century - specifically, to the science laboratory of Dr. Wonmug. Wonmug has perfected a Time Machine, and Alley and Oopla become forthwith his time travellers. Designing his daily strips as single works of art, not as aggregations of so many panels per day, Kamlin delighted in tinkering with legend and literature as he sent his troupe to ancient Troy, King Arthur's Camelot, Cleopatra's Egypt, Ceasar's Rome, the American West of Billy the Kid, and the decks of Captain Kidd's ship.
When Oop and Ulysses escape the Cyclop's cave, for instance, it is Oop not Ulysses who blinds the one-eyed giant, and he does it by giving him a black-eye instead of driving a stake into the orb. Thus, mythology is left intact, but is deliciously modified to give Hamlin's hero the central role.
Visually a cliche strongman with a barrel chest and bullet head, Oop is an obstreperous, truculent, club-wielding comedian caveman until the advent of the Time Machine, and then he becomes less comedic and more commanding, his skill as both warrior and tactician determining the outcome of most escapades. Unflappable in a crisis, Oop becomes a cool pragmatist, his temper honed to a fine belligerence: he is as peevish and cranky as ever but much less excitable than in his earliest days. But there is still comedy a-plenty in his adventures: when his favourite horse gives out during hot pursuit of a villain, Oop dismounts but continues the chase, now carrying the horse.
07 October 2021
Barney Google by Billy DeBeck (No. 98)
Billy DeBeck at The Library of American Comics
06 October 2021
Li'l Abner by Al Capp (No. 77)
Capp ridiculed humanity's follies and baser instincts - greed, bigotry, egotism, selfishness, vaulting ambition - which the satirist saw manifest in many otherwise socially acceptable guises. And he undertook to strip away the retentions that masked those follies revealing society (all civilisation perhaps) as mostly artificial, often shallow and self-serving, usually avaricious, and ultimately, inhumane. Li'l Abner is the perfect foil in this enterprise: naive and unpretentious (and, not to gloss the matter, just plain stupid), Li'l Abner believes in all the idealistic preachments of his fellowman - and is therefore the ideal victim for their practices (which invariably fall far short of their noble utterances). He is both champion and fall guy. A protean talent, Capp invented a host of memorable Dickensian characters and introduced a number of cultural epiphenomena, all grist for his satiric mill.
Print Mag: Lil' Aber's Al Capp - A Monstrous Creature, A Masterful Cartoonist