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    #51
    Graphic Novels

    Two good American comic artists, who both happened to live just down the street from my place in Berkeley, CA a while back, are Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) and Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Art School Confiential). They're somewhat similar in that their stories usually focus on young characters in urban settings dealing with every day life and relationships. Like the somewhat autobiographical character in Art School Confidential, Clowes is a bit on the nerdy side.

    http://lambiek.net/artists/t/tomine_a.htm

    Preview of a Tomine story:
    http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/imagesPreview/a462fba9cc8e66.pdf

    Tomine is published by Drawn and Quarterly, a great Montreal-based graphic novels editor, which has a great lineup of artists. that lineup itself is nicely produced in a series of small self-portraits on their featured artists page:

    http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/artHome.php

    You can't have a thread on modern comics without mentioning Robert Crumb, an eccentric artist who was a big part of the late 60s counterculture and was very influential in "blowing up" the genre.
    http://www.rcrumb.net/

    This famous poster of his, titled Short History of America, was presented frame-by-frame in a recent major conference on sustainable urbanism, it was a huge hit and really underscored some of the basic ills of modern land developement:

    http://www.crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif

    There are some definite Crumb influences in Joe Sacco's approach. His most famous books, "Palestine" and "Safe Area Goražde" won the American Book Award and Eisner Award. "Palestine" is a remarkable book, as poignant a read as "Maus". The review that comes up on top of the Amazon customer reviews is remarkably spot-on:

    http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Joe-Sacco/dp/156097432X

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      #52
      Graphic Novels

      I just got this in the mail:

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        #53
        Graphic Novels

        Clowes and Sacco are great -- but Peter Bagge and HATE sum up America about as good as it gets...

        http://www.peterbagge.com/

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          #54
          Graphic Novels

          "Their stories usually focus on young characters in urban settings dealing with every day life and relationships."

          I can't imagine ever wanting to read about that in any format.

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            #55
            Graphic Novels

            Watchmen is fucking awesome, and the only comic I decided to take to New Zealand with me from Wales (I'm from Wales, not the comic).

            Also Preacher, by Garth Ennis (?) is a fantastically fun read, especially the first three or four volumes, before it gets a bit daft.

            The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison is a great conspiracy theory bollocks, but still a good read. Good art as well, mostly.

            Constantine (Hellblazer) veers between really good, and fucking crap. I think it's at it's best when it steers clear of the magic-the Ennis story about the crashed Spitfire is one of the finest things I've read.

            Y, The Last Man is good as well, if you can suspend your disbelief a bit. I haven't finished it yet though.

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              #56
              Graphic Novels

              Gambrinus: if you like Y, you really should check out Vaughan's current baby, Ex Machina. It involves a similar suspension of disbelief, but it's really, really good.

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                #57
                Graphic Novels

                Yeah!! Read the first four or five volumes of Ex Machina, but along with everything else, it's been dumped in my old bedroom at my parents for the moment...

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                  #58
                  Graphic Novels

                  Nil a fhios agam:

                  If you're looking for something with a similar feel to Persepolis, you could try Zeina Abirached's Le Jeu des Hirondelles, about her family's life on the demarcation line in East Beirut in 1984. I've only seen it in French.



                  You could also have a look at Guy Delisle's books, Shenzen, Pyongyang and Chroniques Birmanes. They're all published in France by L'Association, an independent BD publishing company who have a good catalogue. They're all available in English.

                  He's a French-Canadian film animator. The first two are about his experiences working in China and North Korea; the third is possibly the best and details his trip to Burma with his wife, who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Nothing spectacular happens, but they're interesting musings about life in each country. I like his drawing style.

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                    #59
                    Graphic Novels

                    It's in "Tainted Love",according to Wikipedia. The story's called "Finest Hour". And I think it may have been a Hurricane, actually.

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                      #60
                      Graphic Novels

                      Bafflin, those two works look great, thanks for the pointers.

                      The first one kind of reminds me of a movie called West Beirut, which was about the friendship between three teenagers across the demarcation line through the civil war in that city. Pretty good movie, somewhat autobiographical work by a director who moved to LA and worked with Tarantino there before doing that feature.

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                        #61
                        Graphic Novels

                        Mrs Bafflin has just been lent several books from the Loisel and Tripp series, Magasin Général, set in Quebec in the 1920s, and she likes them.



                        There's an accompanying series subtitled "Arriere Boutique" which has, on alternate pages, the original pencil drawings and the finished, coloured versions. Often I prefer the pencil drawings.

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                          #62
                          Graphic Novels

                          West Beirut is a lovely film, it's nice to see it mentioned.
                          However I totally could not get on with Persepolis. I just couldn't stand the central character, I'm afraid.

                          I just read Wanted because I won it at the BFI quiz. It was pretty good. I think the hardest bit about comics is that I always want to read on quickly and that clashes with appreciating all the lovely little details of the artwork.

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                            #63
                            Graphic Novels

                            I thought the film Wanted was actually better, although neither is brilliant. I found the comic to be so dark and nihilistic as to be a bit pointless.

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                              #64
                              Graphic Novels

                              Yeah, I preferred the film. Lots more characterisation, etc.

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                                #65
                                Graphic Novels

                                Is Magasin Général available in English. That cover makes me want to read it. It's one of those images that makes you want to know the story behind it. Fantastic. I'd hang that on my wall.

                                Is it just me or has Frank Miller really jumped the shark? Everything he does seems to become dumber and more transparently right-wing. Dark Knight Returns was a bit right-wing, but with some subtlety and satire that was so well written and executed that it didn't really seem that way. I don't think it's the definitive Batman but it didn't ruin the character as some suggest.

                                Then he wrote (but didn't draw) Batman Year One which is, I think, the closest thing to a definitive Batman ever done.

                                But it's gone down hill since then, I think. Sin City is pretty cool, but it can't really be taken too seriously, gets a bit old after a few issues, and also has a bit of a right-wing vibe too it. 300 was sort of cool, but the film, which he blessed, was ridiculous.

                                The sequel to Dark Knight was crap. All inscrutible satire and style and no substance. Plus, more shitting on Superman, which isn't fair to the character or the creators who've done a lot of good stuff with Kal-El.

                                And now he's doing All-Star Batman and Robin with Jim Lee, going further down the road of Batman as Dirty Harry (he actually said in an interview that's how he sees him.) Batman isn't the sane-man-in-an-insane world like he was in Year One. He's just a psychotic, misanthropic, borderline-child-abusing douchebag. And Jim Lee's art is very pretty and he draws Batman well, but the way he draws every female character to look like a porn star is tedious. Yet it fits in with Miller's interest in prostitutes-with-a-heart-of-gold obsession.

                                Now he's working on something where Batman fights Osama Bin Laden and is spewing all sorts of simplistic sub-Hitchensesque clash of civilization stuff in interviews.

                                I'm so not impressed anymore.

                                BTW, anyone who's ever been even slightly entertained by Batman or anime should acquire the new Batman: Gotham Knight DVD and also watch all the extras. In particular, on the extras there are some really great episodes of the Bruce Timm animated series from the early 1990s that I'd never seen before.

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                                  #66
                                  Graphic Novels

                                  Has he jumped the shark? Has he ever! All Star Batman and Robin has got to be the biggest fall from grace not just in comics but in any artistic medium, in the world. Ever!

                                  Let's hope this shitness doesn't rub off on his film career - he has written and directed the new Spirit film and if he fucks it up I'm going to be even madder.

                                  Comment


                                    #67
                                    Graphic Novels

                                    Reed, the publisher of Magasin Général is Casterman (of Tintin fame, in Brussels) so it will probably get translated, eventually. That serie has been really popular in France (one of the main characters is a French expat in Quebec)

                                    There are some samples there: http://www.regisloisel.com/maggen1.htm

                                    Lyra, if you liked West Beirut, you might like a new Lebanese movie called, "Under the Bombs" which just came out. I saw it last weekend, quite poignant and very well done:

                                    http://www.souslesbombes.com/

                                    Comment


                                      #68
                                      Graphic Novels

                                      I think The Dark Knight Strikes Again marked the big fall from grace. This just continues the pattern.

                                      I think the Spirit film will be ok although it will not be brilliant like Eisner's original work. It will be more Milleresque than Eisnerian, althouth despite the way the trailer looks, it's not more of Sin City. It's in full color, he assures us on his blog at www.mycityscreams.com.

                                      It's appropriate that Tarantino and Rodriguez worked on Sin City. Miller seems to be a lot like them - brilliant with the visuals, but lacking anything resebling intellectual or emotional depth with the stories or characters, and all three love to wallow in homages to the favorite schlock of their youth.

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                                        #69
                                        Graphic Novels

                                        Never read the second Dark Knight volume. Was put off by the bad reviews.

                                        Sorry about my outburst earlier. I read the first few comics of All Star Batman and Robin. All bad but I remember one in particular that was so bad it has mentally scarred me ever since.

                                        Just seen the trailer to the Spirit. It's not going to be very good, is it? Well, maybe I'm being overly harsh but as far as I can see, it's a comic that just can't be turned into a film successfully.

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                                          #70
                                          Graphic Novels

                                          No need to apologize. I just wanted to clarify the chronology of the shark-jumping.

                                          I think The Spirit will be a lot like Sin City, except a lot less violent and a bit more fun.

                                          Without Will Eisner's cartoony art, the stories are just noir detective yarns. Nothing wrong with that, but there's nothing especially new and exciting about that either. It would be better as an animated series or feature.

                                          On the plus side, the film version will not feature Ebony White, who was The Spirit's driver in the old comics. To a modern audience, he's a horrible racist stereotype, although Eisner says he didn't mean for it be degrading and the character evolved out of that stereotype in the later comics, which included some "normal" black characters.

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                                            #71
                                            Graphic Novels

                                            http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809838857/video/8831867/

                                            As I suspected, this looks 100% Frank Miller and only a little bit Will Eisner. Still, it might be cool.

                                            I thought that, in the comic, the Octopus never showed his face.

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                                              #72
                                              Graphic Novels

                                              I hope I'm not sent to the bargain bin for liking DK2. I can't remember what I liked about it, but I remember liking what. (What if I actually didn't like it, and I remember it more fondly than I did ? UH OH.)

                                              My favorite Hellblazer was when Constantine got cancer. The final shot in the book was one of the greatest and most powerful moments I ever felt in a comic. As with all of the Preacher graphic novels, but when Jesse Custer goes back to his hellish family and talked about how he first met John Wayne especially.

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                                                #73
                                                Graphic Novels

                                                I liked DK2 at first, but as I read on, I liked it less. It's ok as a weird sci-fi satire, but as Batman and Superman stories go, it's poor.

                                                As part of the movie hype machine, the History Channel had a program on last night about Batman with lots of commentary from the filmmakers some of the important Batman people at DC and a lot of psychologists and other academics. Good stuff. Much better informed and thoughtout then a lot of the bullshit pseudo-academic stuff that gets floated about the character, like a piece in the post the other day that wheeled out the old line about the Batman as a fascist. Although Frank Miller might go a long with that, it betrays a misunderstanding both of the Batman stories and, more importantly, the history of fascism.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Graphic Novels

                                                  Bafflin, I have only now noticed your recommendations. I'll be searching out the Delisle books, particularly the one on China. Thank you.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Graphic Novels

                                                    Oh dear. They're making a Watchmen videogame. And it's a brawler.

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