More Talk of Comics

[Greg Nog]

Have you read the Eightball comic in question?

[bethany_m]

Also, people react negatively to certain kinds of content in comics (or graphic novels or whatever) that they wouldn't bat an eyelash at in a novel.  I'd say it goes back to 'The Seduction of Innocent' 50's era comics-are-for-kids! mindset, and continues today with the arrest of Gordon Lee: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000314.shtml.  Not to mention books like Blankets and Fun Home being yanked from library shelves.

I don't think that this is good thing, at all, but you would think you might be aware of this stuff if you were a teacher and maybe not hand the 'Ice Haven' story over to a young female student quite so quickly.

[Greg Nog]

Yeah, the thing is, there are a lot of comics with graphic images or descriptions that I think a teacher could get away with and have no problems, but this particular comic (despite being, as I mentioned earlier, totally fucking great and my favorite Clowes thing ever) seems like just the worst possible choice for giving to a 13-year-old student of opposite gender.

I just would have assumed the teacher would say "Huh, maybe I shouldn't hand her a comic in which one of the protagonists is lusting after a teenaged girl, and then later there's small children getting erections and fantasizing about fucking each other."

[jebreject]

Have you read the Eightball comic in question?

No I haven't, so I'll back out of the conversation now.

[Greg Nog]

Sorry, that sounded maybe more confrontational than I meant it, but yeah, it's like the most hilariously inappropriate choice possible for giving to some kid you're teaching.  Like handing your twelve-year-old niece a copy of Lolita or something.

That said, the little kid fantasizing about fucking his friend is one of the single funniest panels in any comic, anywhere, of all time.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Oh yeah and those high school teachers better not be showing the film version of Romeo and Juliet 'cause there's totally girlboob and manbutt in it!

my teacher had to fastforward through that. or rather, she decided to. however, i wasn't in the honors class that year because it conflicted with my latin class. in the honors class, a couple of really smart class clown types (ray and brian--those dudes were cool. i wonder where they are today...) physically restrained the teacher from fastforwarding through the scene. they each got 10 demerits, but the entire honors class got to see olivia hussey's rack. i was so bummed when i found out about it the next day. bummed that i missed it, that is.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Also, people react negatively to certain kinds of content in comics (or graphic novels or whatever) that they wouldn't bat an eyelash at in a novel.  I'd say it goes back to 'The Seduction of Innocent' 50's era comics-are-for-kids! mindset, and continues today with the arrest of Gordon Lee: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000314.shtml.  Not to mention books like Blankets and Fun Home being yanked from library shelves.

god, or what about what happened to mike diana? that story is appalling.

[auto-da-fey]

Jesus, those are both travesties. Mike Diana's Wikipedia page can't possibly be true, though, can it--the first artist convicted of obscenity charges in US history? I'm pretty sure that isn't true, and now I'll be stuck mulling it over for the next few hours.

[jebreject]

Oh yeah and those high school teachers better not be showing the film version of Romeo and Juliet 'cause there's totally girlboob and manbutt in it!

my teacher had to fastforward through that. or rather, she decided to. however, i wasn't in the honors class that year because it conflicted with my latin class. in the honors class, a couple of really smart class clown types (ray and brian--those dudes were cool. i wonder where they are today...) physically restrained the teacher from fastforwarding through the scene. they each got 10 demerits, but the entire honors class got to see olivia hussey's rack. i was so bummed when i found out about it the next day. bummed that i missed it, that is.

we watched that i think in tenth grade english class, and the teacher did not fastforward through any of it. maybe it was even earlier than that, 9th grade? maybe?

[Andrew_TSKS]

in the honors class, a couple of really smart class clown types (ray and brian--those dudes were cool. i wonder where they are today...) physically restrained the teacher from fastforwarding through the scene.

fucking weird aside--i decided to google ray and brian, since they both have rather unusual last names, and found a webpage giving a detailed profile of ray's grandfather and great-grandfather (both of whom had the same name as him).

EDIT: ok, and meanwhile, brian is the golf course superintendent at a course about 40 miles from where we grew up. which makes sense, as he won the golf state championships one year when we were in high school, but still. the internet blows my mind.

[auto-da-fey]

Mike Diana's Wikipedia page can't possibly be true, though, can it--the first artist convicted of obscenity charges in US history? I'm pretty sure that isn't true, and now I'll be stuck mulling it over for the next few hours.

Okay, I'm not coming up with a wealth of counterexamples, which makes sense because it's rarely the artist or author charged with obscenity, but rather the distributor or venue. But I did find one: Los Angeles artist Wallace Berman was arrested and convicted on obscenity charges in 1957 for his piece Temple, which included "an allegorical vision of a woman having intercourse with a penis-headed monster."* So, uh, take that, Wikipedia!

*Richard Candida Smith, Utopia and Dissent: Art, Poetry, and Politics in California (University of California Press, 1995), 226-27.

[hannah]

haha

[Good Intentions]

Don't tell me, tell Wikipedia. I've checked, and the article hasn't been changed yet.

[Good Intentions]

Achewood back into good form with a vengeance:

http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=10292007

[Augo]

I read this last night right before I went to bed and I couldn't get to sleep because I was laughing my ass off thinking about "playing carwash."

[Almanzo]

I just broke down and ordered the entire run of Love and Rockets Vol. 2 from Fantagraphics for $40. It's a pretty killer deal, and it will be nice to have the individual issues instead of waiting for the trade paperbacks or buying the Ghost of Hoppers collection - though the cover to that one is attractive.

I have a 38-title pull list that covers a bunch of good monthly stuff.

Today I bought Anders Nilsen's Don't go where I can't follow, which looks sad enough that I wanted to hang myself right there in the store. I need to get it read before the time change kicks in and seasonal affective disorder ruins me. I have mixed feelings about Nilsen in general - it seems like every year, there's a new indie guy that basically draws stick figures and scribbles that it's fashionable to intellectualize and buy - but then I saw his Dogs and Water which definitely had style and was interesting.

[Greg Nog]

Oh, hey, I don't think I mentioned "Bookhunter" here.  It's amazingly good.  It's by Jason Shiga, who apparently has done a few different things, though I'd only read his single issue B&W comic "Fleep".  That one was about a guy trapped in a telephone booth, surrounded by concrete, with no idea how he got there.  It was really, really cool.  Thirty pages of deductive reasoning applied to a situation that looks ridiculous at first, but ends up being way more serious than his goofy-looking art leads you to believe.

Anyway: Bookhunter's the same kind of deal.  The art is pleasingly round and funny-looking, kind of like a friendlier Tom Hart.  And the subject matter is about a bunch of Library Police trying to find a stolen book.  But the actual writing is deadly serious, incredibly detail-oriented, and totally badass.  It's basically a really fun police procedural mixed with a history of books and printing presses.  I can't recommend it enough.

And OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED YOU CAN READ THEM ONLINE.

I definitely recommend getting the ink-and-paper versions over the online ones, but if you want an internet-based taste:

Fleep
Bookhunter

[DCDave]

Fleep is awesome!

Thanks Greg!

[YojimboMonkey]

I stumbled across Fleep a while back, it was completely rad but I knew nothing else about it or its author.

Thanks Greg!  You rock

[Andrew_TSKS]

i'm now really interested in that guy's stuff. i'll keep an eye out for it.

[Almanzo]

Books I'm particularly into lately:

Welcome to Tranquility - it's been a great and charming book, and is probably the best at turning the whole "meta-usage of fake old comic strips" thing into a working part of a series instead of a gimmick. All of the characters are retired superheroes living in a sort of planned community, so their backstories are filled out with stylized New Frontier-esque "old footage" of them in action in the form of strips. This is fashionable in books these days, but I haven't seen it used in such an effective, natural, and non-gimmicky way in any other title.

Black Summer - I love Ryp's art - it's just so wormy with detail. This is quasi-typical Ellis fare, but it's done exceedingly well and I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm a sucker for these less escapist, more pragmatic and realistic  Watchmen/Ex Machina-style hero books, and the whole, "What if a superhero murdered the president?" concept is great.

Grant Morrison's run on Batman - after a weak and weird start, this has finally gotten great with #666 (outstanding) and then this last arc. Like the creation of MTV2 to play videos in a world where MTV no longer does, Morrison writing Batman feels kooky and experimental even though he's basically doing straight stories that return to the heart of the character. He's best when he either goes uber-traditional or uber-insane.

[das kranke Tier]

Oh man...I've been out of the loop for years and only recently gotten back in through tpbs.

Yesterday I got "Saga of the Swamp Thing", though and so far that just kicks ass.  I was having a Moore craving and this is hitting the spot.

I've got a copy of "Watchmen" coming in the mail, as every copy I've ever owned has gotten fucking swiped.  I can't believe I've gone so long without a copy around...now to thrust it upon the ladyfriend.  I already did so with "Identity Crisis" and she really liked that, so I don't see it being possible that she doesn't enjoy this. 

Next week I should be getting "House of M" and "Prelude to Planet Hulk", both of which I'm uber-stoked about.

I can't believe I let sooooo much pass me by over the years.

[DCDave]

Planet Hulk was waaaay better than House of M.

[Swimmy]

Is this a good place to link this?

[jordanmichael]

Planet Hulk was waaaay better than House of M.

Also acceptable:

_____ was waaay better than House of M.