worth reading

We're reading stuff, comics stuff even, and will have a post or two (or less) for you next week. In the meantime go check out Wednesdays Child, Paul DeBenedetto's very fine comics blog. His piece on Bill Willingham's controversial Big Hollywood column makes some of the same points I would if Hillary and I ever finally discussed that (which we've considered). Good stuff.

Amazing Spider-man Family #3

Amazing Spider-man Family #3
by a bunch of people, including J.M Dematteis, Tom DeFalco, Stuart Moore, Abby Denson, and Val Semeiks
Marvel 2008

Garrett Martin: Seems like Marvel's always publishing one of these all-purpose Spidey compendium books, full of random Spider-man shorts with no clear ties to any continuity. Every few years they'll cancel one and then immediately launch another. It's a fine concept, in theory, letting various creators dabble with such an undeniably great character whose own main titles usually aren't worth reading. Somehow though they seem to rarely ever be any good. We picked this issue because of the short from Abby Denson and Colleen Coover (who, y'know, we kinda like), with hopes that old pros like DeMatteis and DeFalco could still dig deep and pull out a worthwhile Spidey tale when they had to. Maybe they can, but they definitely didn't do so here. So do the eight pages of Coover make up for the other 92 or so?

Hillary Brown: Um, no. Unfortunately. The thing is, it might be okay if the other contributors had risen to the level of mediocrity, but I'm pretty sure they failed even by that extremely low standard. This book is a steaming pile of bad, bad art, with a brief respite due to Coover. The writing isn't terrible, but my god. The art hurts my eyes. It made me wince, numerous times, while reading. Am I overstating things? I don't think I am. I try not to be hyperbolic about suckiness, mostly because it's not necessary, but I can't help feeling a little pissed off about Marvel putting this thing out.

Check out page 5 in the preview on Marvel's site, for example, from a serviceable story by J.M. DeMatteis called "The Punch." The art wavers between acceptable but not great and pages like this, mostly from the "villain's" story. I mean, check out his mom in the upper left. She looks like the Cryptkeeper. And while she's supposed to be an unattractive character, with her outside mirroring her morally problematic interior, I really think this is over the top. I even googled "Val Semeiks sucks" with no luck. Basically what I'm saying is that I might actively avoid any book drawn by that guy.

The story about Peter and MJ encountering the Rhino at the hospital, where they've taken their baby and he's taken his mom [?], and they have a conversation about healthcare and agree to disagree temporarily is fine but far too uneventful, especially for a book like this. And the reprint, which covers the breakdown of Harry Osborn, paints all comics from the early 1990s in a bad light, with a creepily overboobed MJ, staggering hair, awful costume design, and so on and so forth. Holy god. The only reason to buy this issue is for the Coover/Denson piece, which is cute but hardly a) their best work or b) really worth the money. It seems like it would fit a lot better in a more kid-oriented (or younger-kid-oriented?) book, like the Franklin Richards stuff. Okay. I'm going to stop venting for a little bit because it makes me feel too particular and like I've spent the morning listening to talk radio or something. Convince me to like more of it.

GM: I can't! I will say that Val Semeiks has done good stuff in the past, and his work on The Demon with Alan Grant back in the early '90's was pretty great. His demons always looked better than his people, though, so maybe he should avoid scripts with humans in 'em. His stuff here is pretty damn ugly, and DeMatteis's story a little too pat. The young thug feels like a generic background punk from a later Death Wish, whichever one Alex Winter was in, and his relationship with his mom is histrionic in a way that probably wouldn't pass editorial muster in a contemporary book.


Similarly, I've liked what I've seen by Todd Nauck in the past. His art is generally fun and slightly cartoonish and sort of reminds me of Mike Wieringo a bit. It's well-suited to the sort of acrobatic action you expect from a Spider-Man story, so it makes perfect sense to get him to draw a story whose only action is Peter Parker and the Rhino walking to a vending machine. It doesn't play to his strengths at all. DeFalco's story is expectedly cheesy, but I have a soft spot not just for him but also for the Rhino and stories in which Spider-Man shows concern for his enemies. Still, it's no more than mediocre, and maybe only exists as a bone tossed to those who've lost faith in love since the dissolution of the Spider-marriage.

And then, yes, finally, we get to The Amazing Spider-Ma'am, Denson and Coover's cute short story about Aunt May using Peter's work tools to foil some crooks. If only real-life home invaders were Home Alone-level bunglers. I agree this is more straight-forwardly directed at kids than some of Coover's other all-ages Marvel work. Unlike her Marvel work with Paul Tobin or Jeff Parker, it isn't quirky or humorous enough to work equally well for kids and adults. It's still adorable, though, and if they put out an entire book of just Denson/Coover Spider-Ma'am stories I'd probably pay full-price for it.

HB: God, I totally would. Reading/looking at Coover's stuff is like eating a delicious orange push-up popsicle. It's cute and refreshing and easy and just, like, completely fun and great. Will somebody just give her a book of her own already? At very least, you'd like Semeiks et al. could take up a collection so she'd stop making them all look bad in these compilations. I don't know how she draws people who are so cartoony yet so believable in their poses. They're flexible and slouchy in all the right ways, and the coloring is nice and flat and simple. So for me to say this book isn't worth buying just for her contribution really says a lot about how displeasurable the rest of it is.

But talk to me about the last story, the reprint. Is it as bad as I think it is? You had mentioned to me about having an original copy stashed somewhere. And is this why Grant Morrison and Alan Moore were greeted as such complete saviors? I'm assuming yes.

GM: About Morrison and Moore: yeah, pretty much. There were some prominent mainstream superhero writers of the '80's whose work still holds up well, of course, but even then most of it is clearly dated stylistically, far more so than DC's pre-Vertigo stuff.

But I don't think the reprint (Spectacular Spider-Man #200, the death of Harry Osborn, by DeMatteis and Sal Buscema) is that awful. Sure, it's kind of embarrassing, in a number of ways, but it's not nearly as guilty of any of the charges you hold against it as a typical Image comic from the same time period. And I can't hold the horrible fashion too much against Sal Buscema, 'cuz the guy was like sixty at the time.

Okay, actually, yeah, it's pretty bad, full of what made comics suck in the '90's. But the story itself is a fitting endgame for Harry Osborn, and a fine escape route from the almost incomprehensible mess his character had become. Plus it was a genuinely affecting death when I was 15, and one that surprisingly held up for another 15 years. Still, it's probably best not to revisit most comics from that era.

HB: I can see your points about the function of the story, and there are aspects that have been incorporated into, for example, the most recent Spider-man movie, but there's a lot of stuff in it that really pushes some gross buttons, like the way the Green Goblin picks up MJ off the street. It's all very... rapey. And while I think there are writers/artists who could incorporate the kind of violence against women that's implied in a creative and thoughtful way, it's hard for me to see the sexual menace against MJ in this book as all that intentional. Plus, her relationship with Peter isn't that much healthier, full of overheated fights and then making up for no reason and making out to follow that up. I've looked back at Sal Buscema's earlier work, and it all looks pretty good, so why this ickiness, with the monster boobs going in all directions. It's like he had a stroke in the mimetic part of his brain.

GM: He was trying hard to draw like what was popular at the time. Trust me, comic book breasts got far more monstrous in the '90's.

Anyway, yes, kind of a bad comic, overall, despite some tasty refreshment from Coover. You really need to check out her X-Men First Class stuff with Jeff Parker - it's all great.

HB: We better watch it or this could just turn into a Colleen Coover fan site. Maybe it already is. At any rate, we'd be remiss not to link her blog, which has been frequently updated lately and contains this great depiction of her first experience at Fantagraphics, an experience that I feel like I have almost every time I've gone in search of one of her comics. Colleen! We love you!

go read this thing

Okay, maybe we're not the biggest proponents of webcomics, but we're not totally ignorant of them. Our friends Chris and Gardner have just started up a fun webcomic called Registered Weapon, and we thoroughly recommend it.

Groo: Hell on Earth

Groo: Hell on Earth
written by Mark Evanier/drawn by Sergio Aragones
Dark Horse 2009

Garrett Martin: It's been so long since I've read a Groo comic (easily twenty years) that I have no idea how Hell on Earth compares. It definitely has a lot of what I expected: deceptively detailed cartooning, goofy running gags, a blatant moral, and the world's ugliest cartoon dog. Aragones's art is kind of amazing in that it's so immediately familiar and the action so clearly defined that you can unwittingly glide through it very quickly, despite being thoroughly packed with tiny details and background sight gags that take genuine concentration to fully discover. The humor's mostly groan-worthy, but intentionally, and it's all very amiable. I don't remember old Groo being quite this moralistic, though. Have you read Groo before? Do you recall if it was usually this forthright in its message?

Hillary Brown: I haven't ever read any of Aragones's Groo stuff, so I can't weigh in on that, unfortunately, although it does seem that this particular topic (global warming) attracted more attention and controversy than any previous Groo story. Maybe it was just well timed, what with An Inconvenient Truth and Katrina and so on kind of waking people up and simultaneously bringing the real crazies out of the woodwork. I have pretty much always been an Aragones fan, though, as far back as I can remember, not only obsessively poring over his tiny marginalia in MAD, but also keeping an eye out for compilations of his work. He's definitely one of the treasures of comics and is rightfully recognized as such, despite his silliness. I definitely had to strike a balance with this book between trying to see every detail in every panel and wanting to keep going with the story, and it's by far the longest narrative work I've read that he's had a part in, so I was impressed to see that it holds up over pages and pages. Not that he's the writer, but still. As far as whether it's too moralistic, that's a hard question, especially when one agrees with the moral being preached (I certainly do), and I think it's very well put, in terms rather like Pascal's wager: that is, what does it hurt? What, really, do we have to lose relative to what we have to gain from not polluting everything around us? It was definitely a surprise that the book contained anything of the sort, as it certainly looks like pure comedy from the cover (and, obviously, it does contain a running explosive cow fart joke), but I'm not sure that it bothered me. It reminded me, if anything, of Larry Gonick's educational work, which manages both to be funny and to communicate something of importance at the same time.

GM: The environmental message didn't bother me at all; I was just surprised at how thoroughly the book focused on it. And yeah, I too agree with the moral. I was gonna say that I don't remember Groo being political like this, but then I remembered how ridiculous it is that this has become such a politically charged issue. It's sad, but some of the angry letters Evanier refers to in his afterword resemble comments I heard from family members over Christmas. It's ironic that the Sage's big lightbulb about solving the issue involved taking the message to children, since I doubt too many kids these days would ever be in a position where they could read this comic.

HB: Well, yes, and while the children are our future, I'm not sure the argument that they're who you should be arguing to holds up logically. I mean, the best time to start planning for your retirement (i.e., future) is basically right after birth, but you don't see too many six-year-olds starting Roth IRAs with their lemonade stand money, right? I agree that it's depressing the way science has become politicized, but I don't know if we'll be moving away from that state of affairs any time soon. So what else is there to say about this book? I liked it a lot, but I didn't, like, love it, and that might be because it's a little juvenile and a little simplistic, but I also assume it's kind of for kids.

GM: I agree about the logic, or lack thereof, of the Sage's plan. If conditions are already as dire as presented in Hell on Earth, do they really have time for those kids to grow up before the problems need to be seriously addressed? But I can forgive Aragones and Evanier for ignoring the internal logic of their own comic. After all, it's Groo, where logic has never been a priority. And yes, it's always been fairly simplistic and juvenile. Like I said, my memories are foggy, but I'd occasionally buy issues of Groo for years when I was younger. I was excited to read Hell on Earth, and definitely enjoyed it, but it's not quite as funny or charming as I expected. The art, as we've mentioned, is amazing, and there are some great gags in here, but it's a lot like picking up a current issue of Archie or Mad; I love it for the nostalgia, and for the consistency of vision, but I don't love it on its own terms. I would recommend it to fans of Groo, and if my nieces or nephews were 11 or 12 instead of 6 and younger I'd give my copy to one of them, but I don't think a typical adult who doesn't have a preexisting love for Aragones or Groo would think much of it.

a brief review elsewhere

I wrote 150 words on the third volume of Fantagraphics' Popeye collection for the Weekly Dig, and here they are.

We'll have a true post up soon, I think.

UPDATE: Damn. My editor added that line about Altman's film. That thing is a hell of a lot better than its reputation, and surprisingly faithful to Segar.

Best of 08: Garrett

I left off archival works and compilations, so no Herbie Archives or Great Outdoor Fight. If I included those I'd have to include all of DC's Jack Kirby Omnibi, or Popeye Vol. 3, or the latest Peanuts books, and then my top ten of 2008 list would contain nothing originally published in 2008. I fudge that a bit with the top two, since both appeared elsewhere before being collected, but I feel both were underpublicized enough before collection and both stand strong enough as unified wholes to justify ignoring that self-imposed rule. Or something. Anyway!


1. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Josh Cotter

Probably not a surprise. We both raved over this one back in July, and everything we said then still stands. Beautiful, moving, ambitious yet relatively restrained, etc. You should probably read this book, if you like things that are great.

2. Ganges #2, by Kevin Huizenga

My first experience with both Huizenga and the Ignatz line. I love the size and two-tone printing, which pretty much perfectly complement Huizenga's early 20th century newspaper strip style. Ganges is thoughtful and reflective without becoming boring or pretentious. "Pulverize", about a group of coworkers addictively playing a multiplayer first-person-shooter during the dwindling days of the first internet boom, elegantly examines the delicate interplay between professional and personal relationships, and how tenuous the latter can be. I've seen this book, and "Pulverize" specifically, on a number of best-of lists, and for good reason.

3. Little Nothings, by Lewis Trondheim

We talked about this, too. It's still awesome.

4. All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Not just a perfect distillation of seven decades of Superman, more than just a tender and heartfelt appreciation of the most important superhero ever, All-Star Superman is the rare book that strikes to the very heart of why most of us started reading comics in the first place without devolving into schmaltz or shameless nostalgia. The hope and optimism of All-Star Superman is the perfect antidote to the cynicism and self-satisfied "edginess" that's all too common in modern genre comics.

5. Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Brubaker and Phillips have the talent to take genre elements that are completely clichéd and easily mishandled and somehow turn them into art as good as their influences. The three oversized issues that make up the third trade, The Dead and the Dying, feature their best and most heartbreaking storytelling, and the four-issue arc that ended the year had a great noir twist ending. And the great essays and reviews in the back make this one comic you should definitely buy every month.

6. Casanova, by Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon

The second "album" of Fraction's mind-bending spy-fi farce ended on an emotional high without crapping out on its typical culture-mad sprightliness. Moon's beautiful art is just as fluid and detailed as his twin brother Gabriel Ba's, without really resembling it much at all. And Fraction's back-matter essays are also pretty great, even if he pulls the curtain back a little too far on his creative process. It feels like a Warren Ellis comic written by somebody who isn't a miserable grouse.

7. Tales Designed to Thrizzle, by Michael Kupperman

I always assume Kupperman can't keep it up, that each new issue of Thrizzle will be the one where I can finally see the effort behind Kupperman's hilarious absurdity and thus lose interest. #4 is just as amazing as the first three issues, though.

8. Final Crisis, by Grant Morrison, JG Jones, and Carlos Pacheco

The most elliptical major crossover ever might confound readers who think The Death of Captain Marvel is great literature, but I'm fascinated, both by how consistently Morrison lets major events unfold off-page, and by how slowly and steadily the apocalyptic dread escalates as Darkseid crushes all hope and individuality. I've heard good things about Simonson's Orion series, but Final Crisis is the best use of the Fourth World mythology since Kirby.

9. Incredible Hercules, by Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, and various artists

The hilarious and action-packed Incredible Hercules is the best straight-forward superhero comic of 2008. Second- or third-tier books like Hercules benefit from low expectations, sure, but also from the freedom creators have to make a genuine impact upon the character and establish new status quos. You can't get too crazy with the Batman, but with decades-old, yet relatively untapped, properties like Hercules, an enterprising writer (or two) can stretch out and tell some unexpectedly great stories. We saw it last year with Iron Fist and Nova, and maybe right now with Ghost Rider. But so, unifying modern-day Herc with his mythological past expanded the emotional range of a previously one-and-a-half-note dude, and the oddly poignant relationship between him and his teenage sidekick Amadeus Cho is one of the most believable depictions of male camaraderie you'll find from either Marvel or DC.

10. Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

Whoa, another one we talked about. Imagine that. Like Hercules, Umbrella Academy is just an awesomely fun superhero comic, but with fantastic artwork from Gabriel Ba and a broken family / frustrated potential angle that always makes me think of both The Royal Tenenbaums and Asia's "Heat of the Moment." Good stuff.

Best of 08: Hillary

1. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Josh Cotter
I think it holds up like crazy. Months after reading this, I still can't get it out of my head, which probably means it's really, really good.

2. Little Nothings 1: The Curse of the Umbrella, by Lewis Trondheim
It seems so unfair to demote this to second place because Josh Cotter is more dramatic and Trondheim is more fun-loving, and it's not the kind of thing I often do. Basically, you could consider this list as having two #1s. Trondheim translates amazingly well. Volume 2 should be out soon. Hooray!

3. Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight, by Chris Onstad
Yes, previously published, but nicely packaged and collected, and I suppose it's somewhat accessible if you don't read the strip. It's not flawless, but it is unlike anything else around.

4. The Umbrella Academy, vol. 1, Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way
Because I have to get something superheroey in somewhere here, right? I can't think of any really great collections or GNs of superhero work that came out this year. I mean, I liked Aztek: The Ultimate Man, but I didn't love it, so this is about the closest thing. A nice surprise and a welcome new voice.

5. Criminal, vol. 3, The Dead and the Dying, by Ed Brubaker
I'd actually almost forgotten about this, and that would have been a shame, as it's got a beautifully crafted narrative and showed me why Brubaker is important (really compelling plots and characters despite [or because of?] a straightforward approach).

6. Speak of the Devil, by Gilbert Hernandez
Perhaps too high on my list right now, due to its freshness in my mind, but I think it's kind of an amazing little book, with a short, contained story that still manages to have a lot of impact.

7. Chiggers, by Hope Larson
Larson continues to grow, and her work is deceptively simple. If you look at it closely, she has a better grasp of female-to-female relationships than anyone I can think of except maybe the Hernandezes, and she's young yet. It's a quiet book but a beautifully crafted one.

8. The Education of Hopey Glass, by Jaime Hernandez
I know. Two Hernandezes on one list. But I can't resist this stuff.

9. Herbie Archives, vol. 1
It's pretty good only to include one vintage repackaging of comics here, but this was my favorite of any of them, mostly due to its sheer originality and weirdness. It gets a bit repetitive, but it's still great stuff.

10. Stinky, by Eleanor Davis
Last but not least, a contribution by a local (to me) and a very talented lady. It's a kid's book, yes, but it's the kind that has a lot of care put into every page, and while the story isn't the most original thing ever, the way it's done is really wonderful.

Speak of the Devil

Speak of the Devil
by Gilbert Hernandez
Dark Horse Comics, 2008

Hillary Brown: Merry Christmas, everyone. What could be better and more heartwarming to read at this time of year than Gilbert Hernandez's Speak of the Devil, a jolly romp featuring a whole lot of knifed eyeballs? So, um, this was my first book by Gilbert. I've read a good bit of Jaime's stuff (Locas and some of the smaller compilations), and I'm a big fan, but I still didn't know exactly what to expect. Nor do I yet. Have you read any of Gilbert's books? Is the darkness typical? I'm not saying I minded it--in fact, this book ended up being a really nice pairing with Kill Your Boyfriend--but even though the back warns you that it's going to get dark, it's still hard to anticipate just how dark. It's often said that Jaime is the better artist and Gilbert is the better writer, but I don't know if you can tell the latter from this example. Maybe? Why don't I shut up about Los Bros. Hernandez until you fill me in on your preexisting knowledge and expectations.

Garrett Martin: Very little knowledge of either preexists. This is the first comic I've read by either. Yep! And maybe it wasn't the best one to start with? It does get really dark, but in such a shocking and ridiculous way that I honestly have no idea what Hernandez is trying to say. I mean, I laughed some, but mostly out of discomfort, I think, and not knowing how to react. It gets so over-the-top so quickly that I have to assume we're supposed to find it ridiculous, right?

HB: I don't think we are, and it's possible you have to be familiar with their stuff to realize that. It definitely is over the top, but it has a kind of melancholy (especially female melancholy) that's very familiar to me from Jaime's work. Of course, Jaime's characters aren't so much with the crazy murdering sprees--they exist in a more down-to-earth, realistic world, at least after he gets past the initial rocketship stuff--but Maggie, who's one of his most important and well-rounded characters, suffers from some pretty severe depression sometimes, and she's not the only one. There is something here that rings weirdly truer to me than Kill Your Boyfriend did. It may be that the black-and-white art really suits the strangeness and sneakiness of the story. Or that I have all this background. I mean, I don't already know any of these characters, but I'm steeped in the kind of neo-noir that Jaime does really well, so seeing Gilbert go that route isn't entirely surprising. Except when it is. Basically, there's a kind of outrageousness that manages to pack an emotional punch that they're both very, very good at, but it's possible you have to read a bunch of it to get to that point.

GM: It's definitely outrageous. Does Speak of the Devil pack that emotional punch for you? It doesn't for me, and I don't even see how Hernandez could be angling for that. There's a visceral reaction to the violence, sure, but I didn't feel anything for any of these characters. He does a good job of building things up over the first few issues, establishing a relatively mundane but believable cast of characters, and then suddenly veers off on that absurd twist. Nothing in those first few issues lead us to expect these characters to do some of the things they later do so cavalierly. It's almost like Hernandez is mocking readers for potentially caring about the earlier part of the story. But yeah, maybe it'd make more sense if I was familiar with his work.

HB: I don't know. I'm still working out how I feel about the book, but, yeah, I definitely liked it, and I do think it's deeper than it seemed, although I'm not sure there's a logical way to explain that. There's a deep sadness to the characters that I see, but, again, I don't know if that results from reading similar work (minus eye stabbing) by Jaime. It could result from the minimalism of both story and art. There's a very flat affect to everything that happens, which makes the sudden swerve into extraordinary violence more shocking and more interesting, but, yes, possibly less believable. I definitely don't think Gilbert's either mocking the reader for caring or trying not to make the reader care abut the characters. I mean, character development is probably the major thing these guys have contributed to comics, and one of the ways it happens is through absence rather than presence. That is: the characters are often frustrating in their seeming lack of motivation for their actions, and the author/artist deliberately keeps the reader in the dark, refusing to represent crucial events but only alluding to them sidelong, but none of this makes the characters less realistic or round. I can see Speak of the Devil as being in this tradition, but it's also a much shorter work than the series the Hernandezes have been spinning out for years, so it may not be as effective.

GM: I need to read some Love & Rockets.Never done so, and I'm not holding my relatively disappointment in Speak of the Devil against either that or Hernandez. I really do like his art, and even if I think this plot is a bit disjointed he has a good sense for pacing. Your point about absence is really intriguing, and that's a great tactic to use in a medium that's both visual and literary, one where the creators can show and not just tell, and yet where the audience still has control over the rate and flow of information. That's sound comics theory, sure. Maybe it's deployed a bit too liberally in Speak of the Devil, though? There's really no motivation given for why these three people do what they do. Okay, little motivation. The guy has an unhappy homelife, the girl is mad about her dad's job and second marriage, the step-mother is an exhibitionist, etc. But there's no clear through line from any of that to the actions these characters eventually carry out, especially pertaining to certain family members. I just simply can't take any of this seriously, and would like somebody smarter than me (read: you) to explain why I should.

HB: Have you ever seen They Call Her One-Eye? There's something about Speak of the Devil that reminds me of that movie, which is a "rape and revenge" picture that is both extreme to the point of ridiculousness (it's not only violent but also includes hard-core pornography) and kind of bleak and touching and affecting at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if it's kind of an influence on this book. I might also point out that the motivations are somewhat similar to those in Kill Your Boyfriend, in that the characters live in a stifling environment that causes them to rebel. The results are just represented in a darker way, stripped of joy to show them in a different, perhaps more realistic light. It's a more traditional take, I guess, and while it is depressing, there's just something about it that gets under my skin in a good way.

GM: Yeah, it's definitely not joyful, and if Hernandez's goal is to point out the ridiculousness of that whole teen-killers-on-the-run subgenre by not glamorizing or sugarcoating anything (okay I think we've officially blasted apart our tacit no-spoilers rule, sorry folks) then he did a great job. I really don't know how I feel about this book, overall, which is a sign that, if anything, at least Hernandez has made a really striking, distinctive piece of work. And perhaps if I knew about the book's eventual direction I would be more accepting of it. I still feel that it's too random, too unexpected, and not nearly foreshadowed or developed enough.

HB: Fair enough. Maybe you should check back in after spending Christmas with your family and see how you feel about seemingly unmotivated murders then?

GM: Oh, c'mon. Family is what the booze is for. Maybe these kids should've just gotten drunk instead.

HB: Happy holidays, everyone!

Kill Your Boyfriend

Kill Your Boyfriend
by Grant Morrison, Phillip Bond, and D'Israeli
DC Comics, 1995

Garrett Martin: See, Grant Morrison doesn't just write superheroes. I missed Kill Your Boyfriend when it came out in '95 (by then my comic money was redirected towards the daunting task of tracking down all of the Fall's albums), and that's for the best, as I probably would've hated it. Despite what Matt Fraction says in this review, it's good I first read this as a 30-year-old, as my actual 17-year-old self would've been offended, even if only as a kneejerk reaction.

I didn't enjoy being hectored about being a highly uptight suburbanite back then, and probably wouldn't have been able to look past the drugs and sex and violence to realize how fun the comic actually is. I would've associated more with the dead boyfriend than the guy that killed him, even though I never read fantasy or sci-fi and was obsessed with generally pro-drug rock 'n' roll. I mean, I lived in East Cobb, of course I was Republican. I voted for Newt Gingrich, dammit. I was a scared, uptight idiot, and still am about many things. Despite already strongly loving Morrison in '95, I would not have allowed myself to enjoy a comic that seemed to glorify drug-use, teen sex, and murder. Yeah, I was dumb. And now I am old, or older, and regularly feel highly nostalgic for youthful experiences that I personally avoided when I was young. Kill Your Boyfriend reminds us how awesome youth is, even if you don't take anywhere near full advantage of that youth. And no, I don't think murdering sprees and general mayhem constitute that full advantage, but that's also not what Morrison is saying. Would you have liked this when you were a girl? Do you like it now? Did meeting Mr. Brown turn you into a modern-day Bacchante?

Hillary Brown: Well, gosh, getting married and going to college at age 18 isn't really all that decadent. I think I'm pretty much a square too, despite my love of violent, profane art, so I don't know if that means I am or ain't the target market for this book. I do wish I'd read it when it came out, but not for the reasons Fraction mentions as much as because of what followed, something Morrison acknowledges in the afterword (sidebar: Is Badlands called Heartland in the UK? Or is that just some sort of massive error?). Once, there was Badlands and not much else in terms of gleeful murdering couples on the lam, and then all of a sudden they were everywhere, shortly after Morrison completed his comic, which tends in retrospect to mute the impact of his entry in the genre. That's not his fault, of course, but it's still a factor. You see that sort of set up and you kind of automatically sigh and think, "Oh, mid-to-late 1990s, what the heck what were you on about?"

I think I wavered, in the reading, between real enjoyment and annoyance, and my guess is that that's fair. There is a kind of joy in the lack of a moral, such as when our heroine loses her virginity and complains that that moment is always disappointing in books and movies but to her it's brilliant, but there's also a hiccupy kind of pacing that comes off as immature. Maybe that's intentional, but it doesn't read that way. It reads as though Morrison didn't feel like writing the in-between material, the "how we got here from there" stuff, and wanted to keep the pace frenetic the whole time. I appreciate hyperactive art, but this is maybe a little ADHD at times. On the other hand, as you point out, at least it's different from the superhero stuff. Do I like it? Yeah, I guess I like it, but I still feel bad for the dead boyfriend too...

GM: The lack of dot-connecting is a common complaint about Morrison. I don't even really notice that with his superhero comics, but Kill Your Boyfriend does feel a little rushed. Considering the subject matter, though, that rush works to the book's advantage. Should the comic deliberate over ridiculously impulsive acts? Were you bothered by the jump cuts in Breathless? I think if the book was less breezy it would lose much of its impact, while also letting the horribleness of their actions seap in more. It'd make the book less fun, and, along with its unsmug and surprisingly charming cynicism, that fun is its greatest strength.

HB: Well, that's true, and you may be right, but you can be quick and breezy and light without making the reader feel s/he's missed something, can't you? For example, when you get around to Joann Sfar's The Professor's Daughter, you'll see that that has almost perfect pacing, with a maximum of speed and a minimum of jump cut. And, yes, the jump cuts do bug me a little in Breathless, even as I recognize that they're an important innovation. They can make me feel jittery and as though I'm in the control of a person lacking both marbles and direction, which is a useful artistic experience but not one I want to have all that often. It's not necessarily that the book needs to be more deliberative. I think it's just that it doesn't really make me identify all that much with the characters because it feels as though the book espouses their philosophy of carefree violence, and there's something that really bugs me about that--more so in this case than in a lot of others. It may be going too far--it is, in fact--to say that Kill Your Boyfriend reminds me of Garth Ennis's less successful efforts, but it's very hard to do this kind of thing super well. Malick did, but maybe he set up better the bleakness against which rebellion is necessary.

GM: See, I'm normally very bothered by violence like this, but it doesn't bug me in Kill Your Boyfriend. The book is so light and joyful that it's hard to take the violence seriously. This is just about the frothiest piece of spree-murdering teen fiction around, and I disagree that it espouses a philosophy of violence. The violence is just a metaphor for that exciting moment on the edge of adulthood when you realize you're capable of living your life however you choose. They're not saying it's fun or cool to kill people, but that you don't need to be constricted by all the preconceptions that family and society have prepared for you. It's like all seven volumes of The Invisibles rolled into one slim graphic novel. Kill Your Boyfriend makes that point in a giddier and less cynical manner than something like Natural Born Killers. It's closer in spirit to Bonnie & Clyde, which does a great job of making you almost forgive them for their horrible crimes. Also, though, comics are a less visceral and immediate artform than film, so maybe that's why I can easier distance myself from the violence of KYB than similar movies.

I enjoy Kill Your Boyfriend less for the message and more for the execution. I like how the plot jumps from scene to scene, how Morrison doesn't waste time meticulously setting up every moment. And I've always loved Phillip Bond's art, which is wonderfully cartoonish without becoming too abstract or unrealistic. He doesn't have the often startling detail of Frank Quitely, but Bond might be my favorite frequent Morrison collaborator.

HB: Or, you know, it could just be that you love Grant Morrison. I think you've definitely got some good points, and, again, I can agree with an anarchic philosophy to some extent, but challenging authority doesn't have to go quite so far, does it? Ugh. I'm draining all the fun out of the book. I completely agree that it far surpasses Natural Born Killers in just about every way possible--it's
like The Buzzcocks to Natural Born Killers's Insane Clown Posse--and you're right about the art being a kind of candy-coated pleasure to look at. Sometimes I just Morrison weren't so explicitly concerned with bucking the status quo, and I do think it's something he's grown out of. You can continue to be revolutionary without always defining yourself against something. But this is grouchy and dumb. People should read the book.

GM: I'd say other high-profile writers are more guilty of pointless status quo bucking and hipster contrarianism. That's what I think about a lot of Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis comics. Whereas those two often coast about in hypercynical mode, Morrison's comics are usually pretty positive and hopeful. And maybe the end of Kill Your Boyfriend is supposed to be a downer, with the girl living the sort of life she had hoped to avoid, but I see it more as both acknowledgement that that "normal" life isn't quite so bad but also reinforcement of the idea that you need to embrace your youth while you can.

How do you feel about people calling this a "pop" comic?

HB: I totally agree that those guys are more guilty, but neither are they as canonized. I forgot about the end of the book though! I don't think it ends up a downer, although I'm not quite sure how to interpret it, other than thinking it's funny. Maybe it's an insight into your parents' lives? A hint that they, too, were once like you, and that a quiet suburban life doesn't preclude excitement in your earlier days?

What do people mean when they call it a pop comic? That it's not grim?

GM: Maybe not Ellis, but Ennis and Preacher get more love in non-superhero circles than Morrison or any of his comics.

The pop comic thing, which Fraction mentions in that review above, refers to how it's fast, short, and, y'know, teenagery, like it's the comics equivalent of that fucking Supergrass song about being young and having fun. Maybe Brit-pop comic would be a better tag?

HB: Because it implies cheekiness? Yeah, I think that's an accurate tag and not a dismissive one in my opinion. But I like things that are fast, short, and teenagery.

GM: Yeah, it's not supposed to dismissive at all. It's sad anybody feels the need to specifically point out a "pop" comic, though, since superhero comics pretty much always should be inherently short, fast, and youthful, but whatever.

more stuff here soon and elsewhere now

HELLO. We'll have posts soon about Kill Your Boyfriend, Speak of the Devil, and more. In the meantime, go read this review I wrote of Guy Delisle's Burma Chronicles for the Weekly Dig.