In response to my complaints about Trevino, Hilzoy went and procured an actual historian to comment on the Phillipines Insurrection and – generally – on the advantages and disadvantages of such things for national life. I take the key sentence to be:
Once the indigenous resistance was stronger – more politically conscious, better armed and trained – this unspoken calculus no longer applied. Instead, the "home field advantage" came back into play. No longer could small numbers of well-armed foreigners dominate much larger numbers of "natives" on their home soil, as they had been able to do during the 19th century.
I have nothing to add, except that Lemuel Pitkin – I loved A Cool Million, too – requests that I tell you what comics to read.
I’ll start by completing my Green Lantern Geopolitics thoughts. (See also here.) It seems to me that what Matthew has forgotten to mention is that the Lantern in question is obviously Guy Gardner. We missed Guy Gardner appreciation week at Dave’s Long Box – just keep scrolling down below the Stiltman stuff – down, down – and election day ‘whose side is your superhero on?’ stuff. He has a nice essence of Guy frame. Before that he did a ‘what is Guy saying?’ caption contest. One of the entries seemed particularly Green Lantern Geopolitics relevant:
Here are my late entries:
Too obvious? How about this, then?
As to the question I asked in my first post. Is the problem with Trevino that once upon a time he (like me) consumed too much juvenile literary matter? Once again, the case of Guy suggests this may be a danger:
Getting back to my recommendations … that panel is from Red Son
But on what principle should I recommend comics to you, oh mysterious reader? Here is my thinking on the subject. It seems to me there are a handful of graphic novel-type productions most folks know, and mostly people appreciate them when they try them. Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Frank Miller’s Dark Knight. Maybe Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Are there any others that have attained mainstream status like that? These are wonderful books and if you haven’t tried them … you should. But it seems to me arbitrary that so many people stop there.
For tonight, if you haven’t read Jeff Smith’s Bone
That’s all I have time for tonight. Belle says I have to watch "Buffy". We’re working through season 7. (Don’t tell us whether Rupert is dead. We’re worried about him.)
{ 45 comments }
Matt 11.17.06 at 10:12 am
I recomend reading the Japanese comic _What’s Michael?_, and after that the “Ed the Happy clown” sequence from Chester Brown’s _Yummy Fur_. After all, before he started telling the boring, boring story of his own life Brown brought us the wonderful story of a man whose ass-hole was a gateway to another dimension and a man who accidentally got the head of that other dimenion’s Ronald Reagan stuck on the end of his penis. There’s hours of good fun in each, though I recommend only one of the two for kids.
Sven 11.17.06 at 10:25 am
Shouldn’t that be Filipino? Or at least Pilipino?
LizardBreath 11.17.06 at 10:36 am
Actually, I’d love some recommendations of comics for a clever seven-year old. I bought my daughter a collection of 1940’s Wonder Woman comics on a whim, and she’s fascinated and adoring, but they are kind of excruciatingly weird. (For people, like me, not in the comics world so much, very very bondagey.)
What would you get for a kid who likes superheroes?
John Holbo 11.17.06 at 10:48 am
Oh man, lizardbreath, you must have missed my Wonder Woman post over at J&B. The story about how those books got that so VERY bondagey and inappropriate for children way is most fascinating.
I’m not really sure what books are best for kids. That’s a bit of a problem. I don’t have that many picks. Except that Bone would actually be quite suitable.
Maybe Mouse Guard, although that’s not superheroes exactly.
John Holbo 11.17.06 at 10:53 am
Sven apparently has a good point. But I googled the lyrics and they came up spelled that way in several places, so I went with it.
dutchmarbel 11.17.06 at 10:56 am
I recommend Palestine, the rabbi’s cat for adults and Neil Gaiman for older kids and adults.
Lizardbreath: I have boys, so that probabely makes a difference. They like superheroes, but are also very fond of monsters and creepy creatures. In English they liked little vampire and strange stories for strange kids. The book I ususally buy for girls that age is paper bag princess.
Jared 11.17.06 at 11:00 am
Marjane Satrapi, not Marjorie Satrap.
There is also the McSweeney’s genre of graphic novels, much more pretentious (to be very un-generous.) My impression is that in certain circles Jimmy Corrigan (by Chris Ware) is the biggest thing out there.
Belle Waring 11.17.06 at 11:00 am
bone is very very good but it ain’t nohow as funny as pogo.
Doctor Slack 11.17.06 at 11:02 am
Hate to nitpick, but: Maybe Marjorie Satrap
I think you mean Marjane Satrapi. (And yes, it’s a great book.)
I think pretty much anything by Chester Brown or Seth has mainstream cred. And Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim books will probably achieve similar status.
John Holbo 11.17.06 at 11:04 am
Yes, spell updated. I don’t know how my brain managed that one. Really, I do know better in my heart. I’ll get to Jimmy Corrigan and Scott Pilgrim, like, tomorrow.
John Holbo 11.17.06 at 11:05 am
Yes, it isn’t as funny as Pogo. But it’s got more locusts.
Barry Freed 11.17.06 at 11:29 am
…the wonderful story of a man whose ass-hole was a gateway to another dimension and a man who accidentally got the head of that other dimenionÂ’s Ronald Reagan stuck on the end of his penis. ThereÂ’s hours of good fun in each, though I recommend only one of the two for kids.
Um, which one?
Matt 11.17.06 at 11:39 am
It depends on whether your kid is afraid of vampires or not, Barry. If they are they should avoid _Ed_, since there’s also vampires there. No vampires in _What’s Micheal?_ so it should be safe for kids.
LizardBreath 11.17.06 at 11:47 am
4: Read it, but had already gotten her the WW book and been bemused by the contents. (And I think it’s actually bizarre enough to be harmlessly incomprehensible, so not a really big deal.) I’ll look for Bone.
Sebastian Holsclaw 11.17.06 at 11:59 am
If you ever like mythology–Niel Gaiman’s The Sandman is very good. Now that he has a bit of mainstream popularity it is at least as cool to hate him as it is to like him, but I think that is just silly. The main objections to him are an artifact of the serial form (Dickens had the exact same ‘contrivance’ problem). If you hated mythology however, don’t try it.
Christmas 11.17.06 at 12:16 pm
Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey is pretty wonderful.
Christmas 11.17.06 at 12:25 pm
Also, Jason does good stuff, like SSHHHH! and You Can’t Get There From Here. Jim Woodring isn’t for everyone, but The Frank Book is incredibly beautiful and disturbing. On a completely different note, Joe Sacco’s Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde are two of the best “comics journalism”/autobio comics out there.
Ken Houghton 11.17.06 at 12:52 pm
Try Birth of a Nation.
Doctor Slack 11.17.06 at 1:01 pm
Jim Woodring is certifiably awesome. Or awesomely certifiable. Or something.
Speaking of comics journalism, Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang is excellent and topical.
Timothy Burke 11.17.06 at 1:36 pm
Mouse Guard is a good recommendation for kids.
Also, though, both Marvel and DC are producing some pretty good comic-book versions of some of their TV cartoon-versions of characters. The Justice League Unlimited title has had some good kid-friendly stories.
A book I’d recommend for non-comics readers is Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze, now two volumes, with more to come. Really, really impressive stuff.
The first volume of Astro City, Life in the Big City, is kind of fun even for non-comics-readers. Kirkman’s Invincible is similar, I think–there’s stuff in it that is more enjoyable if you know the comics tropes he’s riffing off of, but it’s perfectly satisfying in its own right.
Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan is extremely impressive; I’m working through Alison Bechtel’s Fun Home right now. But those are the kind of thing that John rightly notes non-comics readers already kind of “know” about.
My real goal would be to get at least some non-comics readers up to the point where they can reasonably process Chris Sims’ Invincible Super-Blog and have their minds blown at least once a week by something awesome. Or at least to become aficionados of great kick-to-the-head shots. So the question is, what’s the gateway drug?
One suggestion: Tales of the Bizarro World.. Another might be Grant Morrison’s run on Justice League, which I think is both satisfying as retro-comics and cleverly self-referential pomo comics all at once.
One thing to stay away from, VERY FAR AWAY from, is Marvel Comics’ current Civil War.
Timothy Burke 11.17.06 at 1:39 pm
On Wonder Woman in the 1940s, by the way, the Absorbascon has just had a fantastic series on this time period in the character’s history. Let’s just say the weirdness goes way deeper than bondage: bondage was maybe Marston’s most vanilla kink.
Jon H 11.17.06 at 1:46 pm
lizardbreath, the “Marvel Adventures” line is good for kids. There’s a Fantastic Four series, a Spider Man series, and an Avengers series.
I just bought subscriptions to each for my 7 year old nephew.
For grownups, there’s always Action Philosophers, previews of which are available on the web if you google.
hapax 11.17.06 at 5:25 pm
I must recommend the wonderful GN review website “No Flying No Tights” (http://www.noflyingnotights.com/) which has separate pages for different age groups. For an elementary age girl, I’d heartily endorse Alison Dare, Meridian (o/p, but you should be able to find it), and Electric Girl. She might like some of the “magical girl” shojo manga as well.
Glorious Godfrey 11.17.06 at 7:13 pm
One of my personal favourites is Danny Elfman, Tim Burton’s long-time associate. He used to be all exuberance, whimsy and bombast (in a good way), then his trademark became mixing orchestral and electronic sound. That grew tired, eventually. He’s matured a lot over the years, and his range puts him up there with the greats. Just don’t buy the track of “Planet of the Apes”. It’s a dog. Jerry Goldsmith’s original is much, much better.
There’s a Polish guy, Kaczmarek. He’s not bad. Twee as all get out, though.
Since he’s kind of ubiquitous these days, one has to mention Hans Zimmer. Unsubtle and by-the-numbers most of the times, he has some presentable work, e.g. “the thin red line”, “the prince of Egypt”. “Gladiator” pops up all the time when his name is mentioned, inevitably. I just can’t forgive his blatant use of the oldest trick in the field, the let’s-impress-the-audience-by-going-for-the-pseudo-classical-feel sleight of hand.
Glorious Godfrey 11.17.06 at 7:13 pm
Oh, fuck, we’re talking comics. Trollish habits die hard, I guess.
I can talk about that at great, interminable length, actually. Since I’m a card-carrying*, unapologetic troll, the words “fuck” and “shit” or variations thereof will appear in, like, every second line. If you don’t mind, that is.
First, a word of advice to the uninitiated. By all means, disregard the advice of comic aficionados who try to convince you that comics are “not for kids”, a “medium with enormous potential” or some such tripe. If they say “graphic novel”, laugh in their faces. In point of fact, comics continue to be mostly shit. The reader base is ever shrinking, ever more insular. What is charitably called the comics “industry” is not a niche market but a dark-recesses-of-the-human-body market, as a visit to any of those timeless shrines to sexism, generally exploitative marketing and every bondage cliché ever devised called “comic shops” will attest.
And I wouldn’t want it any other way, to be frank. I like my stigmata hot and steamy (and festering and purulent), and my hobbies to signal just what an obnoxious, borderline-sociopathic geeky reject I am, yessiree. Comics are still, by and large, written and judged according to servile pseudo-literary criteria, and I just don’t want anybody to think that I’m perfectly capable of reading both “standard” books and comics. Cause in reality when I read about Humbert Humbert going gaga over nymphets my mind goes fucking blank, so I need the help of the pretty pictures.
With that safely out of the way, let’s plough into the good stuff that’s sort of out of the beaten path and hence unlikely to be mentioned here:
One of the most talented guys working in comics, and one who does not get the recognition he deserves (for a plethora of reasons, including a certain lack of a readily identifiable authorial voice and a tendency to poop out the occasional sooty turd) is Peter Milligan. The legendary “Rogan Gosh”, about a futuristic karmanaut and the enlightenment of a yob, is almost as difficult to find as it is to forget.
Easiest to get hold of is the trade paperback of “Enigma”, a comic he did with the stupendous Duncan Fegredo on pencils. It picks at the scab of existentialism that’s always been an implicit motive of superheroes and although it’s a bit dated, it still rocks your boat. Envelope girl and Titus Bird rule.
Also easy to find is his run on X-Force/X-Statix (with artist Mike Allred on most of the issues). It went badly to seed eventually, but up until the eleventh issue or so of the X-Statix (i.e. the second) part of the run it’s great celebrity satire. When you buy the trades, check what issues are being collected. There’s an issue, with fill-in art by the delightful Philip Bond, where one of the book’s offbeat characters rummages through the stuff of her fiancé’s former, late girlfriend. It goes more or less like this: “…a dead woman’s shoes. She had smaller feet than me. Prettier too, probably.” That’s as poignant an expression of jealousy as you’re likely to find, especially considering that the jealous woman in question is made of living energy or, as we connoisseurs call it, “Kirby dots”. My sister Amazing Grace is always asking me to read that one to her, while she’s sitting in my lap. Haha. Bitch.
Milligan’s most talented collaborator is perhaps Brendan McCarthy, who is absolutely fucking great, all things considered. He stopped doing comics a while ago, but recently DC comics got him to put out an issue of a miniseries called “Solo”, dedicated to showcasing the ability of specific artists. Getting your hands on this puppy is a bit of a categorical imperative, which only Kantian nihilists would ignore.
Since we are at it, Paul Pope’s issue of Solo is also the kind of comic you know you want to have sex with. Just sayin’.
*: Astute readers will have been wondering where the card is carried, given that trolls are known for shambling around naked. Hint: buttocks are useful.
Glorious Godfrey 11.17.06 at 7:14 pm
On another note, Alan Moore is undoubtedly the bearded wonder. And yet the laurels heaped on “Watchmen” — while great in principle for adding flavour to a dish of “lentejas”– smack of the insecurities I referred to above. The-yes-it’s-superheroes-but it’s-really-serious complex. His best work IMO is “From Hell” (wasn’t it butchered by some movie or the other, lately?). Ponderous and majestic, it displays all the strengths and flaws of his writing, with an overwhelming bias towards the former. More mainstream is his seminal run on Swamp Thing, which in spite of a prose as purple as a hanged man’s tongue is quite fantastic. It’s collected in trade paperbacks. Get the first four…well, first.
Grant Morrison is, together with Moore and Milligan, perhaps the only mainstream (as in: does superheroes every now and then) author whose work rewards re-readings. Get the trades of Doom Patrol (a comic riffing heavily on magical themes and many of the isms of twentieth-century art; the first one is weaker than the rest) or, for more recent output, the trade of We3, created with penciller extraordinaire Frank Quitely.
Jim Woodring is the good shit. I second the motion.
Chicago’s very own Danny Clowes is on my short list of people I won’t behead when I join Al Qaeda. “Ghost World” is a good place to start the love, as is a small comic in hardback he put out recently that’s about a small village and the name of which I can’t be arsed to check right now.
Glorious Godfrey 11.17.06 at 7:14 pm
Concerning comics for children…well, let’s face it, kids are pretty stupid. And who wants them to read comics anyway.
Fortunately, they shed their stupidity with frightening speed. Therefore, ignore all the condescending recommendations you’re bound to get, which will put forward stuff that “the children will understand”. That’s utter bollocks. The important thing is to get them excited, interested. Blow a kid’s little mind and watch it grow as fast as the shockwave. Give your seven-year-old stuff for twelve-year-olds. Some gloriously imaginative Marvel stuff from the sixties and the seventies wouldn’t be out of order. It may be dated, but he won’t notice.
There’s dirt-cheap b&w collections of old Marvel comics, called “Essentials”. Natural choices would be the Essential Fantastic Four, volumes 1-4 (especially #3, where Jack “King” Kirby was on a roll), Essential Doctor Strange #1 (ditto for Steve Ditko), or Essential Spider-man (not so good, but kids love ’em). A bit more expensive and in colour is the trade paperback “the life and death of Captain Marvel”. You know your offspring’s education won’t be complete until you expose him to the joys of the time-mind sync-warp
Glorious Godfrey 11.17.06 at 7:14 pm
BTW, the winner of Dave’s captioning contest is fucking great. “Helloe Batman, du bist mein Rockstar!” “Dieter! Das ist Krazytalk!”. That’s the secret of the universe, for all to see.
On a less jocular note, Crooked Timber gets shit points for still carrying on about the neocons. They are pathetic mendacious has-beens that have been consigned by reality to where they belong, i.e. a place where nobody has to take them seriously. Daddy’s inner coven of “realists” has been called in to sort out the mess, and the question is how much this debacle of a war will be prolonged as a result. If Nixon’s groping for “honourable peace” is any precedent, it could take a while.
radek 11.17.06 at 7:27 pm
Hernandez brothers’ Love and Rockets!!!! Heartbreak Soup and all the rest if you want the whole story in the book form.
Also Daniel Clowes and Peter Bagge.
Timothy Burke 11.17.06 at 9:10 pm
Why has Jacob Levy not yet appeared in this thread?
Also, I contest Glorious Godfrey’s assertion of the stupidity of kids. My 5-year old knew that Reed Richards used the Ultimate Nullifer to bluff Galactus when we did the trivia portion of Marvel Ultimate Alliance Stage Whateverthefuck tonight. Kids these days are way smarter than we were: I think I was 10 before I knew about the Ultimate Nullifer.
John Holbo 11.17.06 at 10:13 pm
It would be great to include the Ultimate Nullifier in a new edition of Hirsch’s cultural literacy dictionary. In general there should be a lot more superheroes in such a thing.
bad Jim 11.18.06 at 6:01 am
In the hundred years since Twain’s time, our progress has been has been something to celebrate, hasn’t it?
Twain’s sensibility, though, was so delicate that it seems not to have survived the twentieth century.
Russell Arben Fox 11.18.06 at 8:57 am
“It would be great to include the Ultimate Nullifier in a new edition of Hirsch’s cultural literacy dictionary.”
Except that the Nullifier really isn’t that big a deal, is it, John? I mean, Galactus just kept on coming back, trying to eat Earth. Really, it’s just another McGuffin.
Matt Weiner 11.18.06 at 10:41 am
Reading the description of the Nullifier (wow, comic books have some convoulted story lines) reminded me of Daniel Clowes’s The Death Ray. (Soon to be….) I realize this is ass-backwards.
clew 11.18.06 at 6:12 pm
Girl Genius.
Jon H 11.19.06 at 12:26 pm
loquacious godfrey writes: “Therefore, ignore all the condescending recommendations you’re bound to get, which will put forward stuff that “the children will understandâ€. ”
It’s not so much about what “the children will understand”, it’s more about avoiding the comics with the graphic rapes.
Glorious Godfrey 11.20.06 at 7:19 am
It’s not so much about what “the children will understandâ€, it’s more about avoiding the comics with the graphic rapes.
Absolutely.
Glorious Godfrey 11.20.06 at 7:22 am
Crap. I wanted to add this link:
http://blog.newsarama.com/2006/11/16/mainstream-superheroes-and-sexual-violence-unsurprisingly-not-mixing-well/#more-1703”
Long URL, I guess.
Tom Scudder 11.20.06 at 8:30 am
The film version of From Hell was made 100% better (which still doesn’t make it good) post facto by the film version of Lord of the Rings.
Glorious Godfrey 11.20.06 at 9:03 am
The film version of From Hell was made 100% better (which still doesn’t make it good) post facto by the film version of Lord of the Rings.
Boy, you got that right. Tawdry pseudo-gothic aesthetic, excessive action scenes (I didn’t know that elves had the powers of Spider-man) and above all, a downgrading of Tolkien’s two-dimensional but solemn characters into one-dimensional ciphers. Aragorn looked like a great guy to knock back a few pints with, but not like teh fokkin’ king from teh profesies!1!
And he’s actually a good actor, like much of the cast. Shit directing all across the board.
The Constructivist 11.20.06 at 1:55 pm
I think Nakazawa Keiji’s Barefoot Gen should be on any list of world-historical comics. Read it before you mock me. Unfortunately my reading abilties in Japanese are at pre-school-levels, so there may be many better ones not yet translated into English.
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman should definitely be on the must-read list.
I would put Alan Moore’s Watchmen and V for Vendetta there, as well, and suggest that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Promethea (Moore’s answer to Sandman) will be soon.
What is it with the Brits? Grant Morrison seldom does wrong. Couldn’t say what his best work is.
The Authority is worth a read, as is Preacher.
GG, what do you have against that Understanding Comics dude?
Wondering if the US will ever catch up to Japan in comics production and popularity….
Glorious Godfrey 11.20.06 at 3:06 pm
What is it with the Brits? Grant Morrison seldom does wrong. Couldn’t say what his best work is.
Yeah, he’s generally quite good. I would have recommended “Flex Mentalo” if the single issues hadn’t become as difficult to find as the true stone of Scone.
He can be a weeee self-complacent at times, though, and he’s not into what we may call well-structured narratives, going instead for the somewhat-surreal-with-emotional-honesty shtick. Since his optimism does not sit well with my jaundiced view of human nature*, sometimes his stuff just falls flat.
GG, what do you have against that Understanding Comics dude?
Nothing, really. It’s a very worthy effort. Guy has his head a bit up his arse throughout, in an “am I not being teh groundbreaking?” kinda way, but you can forgive him. A friend of mine who’s into theatre borrowed it from me, and he went all “wow! What a dissection! Gotta incorporate some of this into my work!” Artistic cross-pollination and all that. Bah. Wanker.
Problem is, you can talk about the potential of “sequential art” till the cows go home, it changes the field’s parlous state not one bit. Superheroes (which in principle I don’t dislike at all) still reign supreme. The “hot” creators are for the most part movie, teevee and best-seller circuit dudes** who are well beyond their prime (pulling the rape routine every so often), the readers the scions of the direct market distribution model, a shrinking base of obsessive-compulsives who would turn the books into ongoing trivia contests if they had their way. Comic shops are guaranteed to terrify any healthy human being who’s been involved in consensual oral sex at least once in his or her life***.
More importantly, as Robert Crumb famously put it: “it’s only lines on paper, folks!” Comics don’t need to go out of their way to assert their hipness before the mainstream. Expressions like “graphic novel” are just laughably precious.
Wondering if the US will ever catch up to Japan in comics production and popularity….
I don’t think so, but I don’t care. As I said, I like my every activity to make people around me feel better about themselves. For not being me, that is.
*: itself highly contrived and stilted, obviously.
**: or worse still, wannabes in all those fields.
***: not to be implied as an indication of my personal distaste of such fine establishments.
The Constructivist 11.21.06 at 3:34 am
I’m with you on the ridiculousness of “graphic novel” as a genre (or marketing) designation.
As Andrew Ross put it of another pulp genre that was getting a lot of academic attention for awhile, maybe getting out of the Gernsback continuum is not such a great idea (in the process of reading cyberpunk’s late capitalist postmodernity against early SF’s progressive modernity). Seems like Rob McDougall has been making a similar argument about early U.S. comics over at his blog.
In that context, Gaiman’s 1602 is a pretty interesting take on what he likes about the Marvel universe (and America)…and a clever take on Stan Lee’s (just a wee bit self-serving) claim that Marvel Comics produced America’s modern mythology, at that.
cw 11.21.06 at 1:28 pm
OK, as usual for a Holbo post, it’s 1/3 comprehensible (meaning not comprehensible) on first reading. Mr. H: Pick ONE topic. Write about it clearly (no digressions, no obscure allusions, no links to some tenuously related web pages are supposed to give context). Post it. I want to want to read what you write, but you make it way too hard.
cw
Matt 11.22.06 at 8:21 pm
This will be off the page soon, but I want to hereby assert that one of the best series of all time was the early days of Marshal Law, and that Sorry, the Nearly Man was one of the best characters, and that the Jesus Society of America was clearly the best group. And that Marshal Law showed how to answer the green lantern view of policy well at the Public Spirit’s press conference- nice straight-forward questions like, “Can you move the earth out of its orbit?” “Do you have any special animal or insect senses?” and “Do you go around with a bag over your head at night raping women?” How I’d love to see such questions asked of Bush or, better, Dick Cheney.
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