Okay, Let's Talk "Graphic Novels"

[bruce]

I will have to check out Little, Big, though. What's it about?

According to Amy it's about Myth and Reality and where the difference between the two of them is. It's certainly about fairies in Upstate New York, and goat farms in the Bronx (maybe; Amy thinks it could be Very High Manhattan, while I think I remember it's the Bronx). It's definitely about alcoholism and imaginary friends, and about the hubris of erudition.

It also has a lot to do with the doctrine of similarities. As above, so below, and all that.

Bruce

[looper]

I'm wondering if our expectations shaped our opinions.

Don't mean to throw the thread or anything; just wanted to say I totally agree with this supposition. I know I have seen movies that I did not like because they hit too close to home or because I *thought* they hit too close to home...and if you think about it, we all train ourselves to respond to certain stimuli, don't we? The initial attraction to something is natural, and from there we steadily refine it (it might be called a person's "taste" in music, in literature, etc.). Maybe???

I saw this thread a day or two ago and since then, My, has it grown! As to Debaser's original request for recommendations, I heartily recommend Jar of Fools by Jason Lutes. It basically feels like a short story. Rather than go on and on about it, here are three links...the last two links are about other works by Lutes, but I chose the three links because they were the best representations I could find quickly of his visual style...I guess I would call it economical and yet utterly effective. Anyhoo, I think that describes both his visual style and the overall style of Jar of Fools.

http://www.state51.co.uk/hottips/jaroffools.html
http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxxi/ ... e/p18.html
http://www.silvertree.org/~steve/sketches/jlutes99.html

Read them in order. Absolutely. Out of order will spoil some of the big plot twists.

I agree with this in principle. I've never read the entire Sandman story arc and would like to, in order. But of the ones I have read, A Game of You and Season of Mists were my favorites and I don't think reading them first would spoil enjoyment of the other novels very much, if it all. What do you think, X?

Jonesey, actually A Game of You is reminiscent of the last part of No Time to Squeal. It too plays with the Alice in Wonderland iconography and makes it a bit more sinister.

A couple of comments\questions for Jonesey:

I agree with you about the art and color job for Preludes & Nocturnes. Not the best. Did you notice who the artist was? Sam Keith. I don't know if you liked his art for The Maxx (and previously, for the Wolverine mini-series that was in Marvel Comics Presents), but I did a lot. I'm guessing that his work for Preludes and Nocturnes was done earlier than his Wolverine and Maxx stuff.

Also, the art for Season of Mists is excellent, in my opinion. I can't remember if it had more than one artist, but I do remember that one artist did several issues in that story arc, and in the last issue (I believe), that artist changes his style per the characters involved...many of the characters are gods from various regions of the world, so, for panels involving the Japanese god, the style is reminiscent of Japanese prints. Etc etc.

Does Frank Miller's art look like Mike Mignola's (I don't recall)? I like Mike's work a lot.

[Debaser]

I'm no good at judging art, myself. I'm about as "nonvisual" as you can get without becoming blind, which is, I figure, why my every attempt to learn how to draw has ended only in pain and suffering for myself and those dear to me. Just glancing through the book in front of me, Prelude's art seems grisly and bleak, which is about spot on for the story being told. But, it's certainly not much to look at independantly, I'll admit.

I did really like the art in "Dream Hunters", however, which is a Japanese-themed Sandman episode that was written after the original story arc (I believe), and pretty much has nothing to do with the events depicted therein.

I'd at least read Doll's House, before Game of You, as that story introduces Barbara and explains how she got to where she is. Season of Mists would probably work well enough as an independant sampling. My personal favorite is Brief Lives, which would probably be one the absolute worst books to start with.

I didn't recognize the name at the time at first, but Lutes is essentially the only comic book author a buddy of mind will have anything to do with. I know he has a copy of Berlin, at least. Maybe I should ask to borrow it.

[looper]

Here ye, Jonesey, if you get a chance, check out Season of Mists!

Debaser, haven't read Berlin myself...tell me how you like it if you read it. :)

[Protagonist X]

Random notes:

While many of the issues can in theory be read out of order -- e.g. the one-shot short stories -- their placement in the grand scheme has some order behind it. I read the Orpheus legend before reading any of the issues in which he appears, and I feel like I missed out on some of the foreshadowing in Dream Country because of it. Or take the next-to-last issue, the Chinese-influenced one (One of the very best for art, I thought: way more innovative and suited to the story than most comic books).

My personal faves for art were the later arcs: the Kindly Ones, with Hempel, and the Wake, mainly by Zulli, were beautiful. I loved Jill Thompson's turn in a short story and her turn as the penciller for Brief Lives, as well.

By way of explanation about my love of the more idiosyncratic issues: one of the things that attracted me most to the book was that it looked very different than most comics: wonderfully strange covers by McKean, unusual art, none of the usual trappings like captions that needlessly explain something that the art shpuld suffice for, or "* Back in ish #8 of T-Man Crossover! - ed." interjections, or the other cheesiness that drove me away from mainstream stuff.


Funny thing I heard about Sam Keith: someone I know who met him described him as the bitterest human being in the world. Dunno if it's true or not, but the story I was told is that he worked on the 1st three issues, then DC fired him (quite independently of Gaiman's wishes -- Gaiman never had a problem with the guy). Keith had been looking forward to a solid tenure as the book's artist, and then he was cut loose for some reason.

Sandman went on to become one of (if not the) hippest comics of the 90s; Gaiman became a success outside of the comicbook ghetto and was enshrined as an archetype of "writer as rock star"; zillions of mainstream articles were written about Sandman The Phenomenon, citing Gaiman as the genius behind it (certaintly true; it was a very writer-centric comic before they'd even brought the first artists on board). Sandman wound up changing artists -- and hence art styles -- every story arc, to surprisingly good effect.

Keith wound up with a mention on the front page of each issue reading "Sandman characters created by Gaiman, Keith, and Dringenberg," since he and Mike Dringenberg did the initial character sketches to Gaiman's script. The Maxx had a decent run and a cartoon on MTV. And Keith wound up, probably, feeling like Pete Best or Stu Sutcliffe in the middle of Beatlemania, unable to pick up a magazine without reading about the Big Chance That Got Away.

Bummer.

[Roody_Yogurt]

The Maxx was pretty cool.

[Protagonist X]

I followed it for a while, and you're right: it was pretty cool. The art was a helluva lot better than many books from that period. But it got fragmented in the writing as it went on; I'd say that this was the problem with a lot of artist-written books. Not all of them, but most.

It was "pretty cool." But it wasn't something I'd pull out and give to friends who'd never read a comic before and tell them "this isn't just another funnybook, this is something that may well rank with your favorite novels; just try it and let me know what you thought." Sandman... well. Yeah.

I've just discovered, as I organize books and music and software in the new house that some of my Sandman collections are missing: loaned out and not returned. I also found out I own two copies of Brief Lives, but one or the other was usually out in circulation. I can't think of any other things I've read that have appealed to so many different people.

Now, if some of them would just give them back, dammit --

[looper]

Random notes:

While many of the issues can in theory be read out of order -- e.g. the one-shot short stories -- their placement in the grand scheme has some order behind it.

Right, right. I was just thinking that if Jonesey was so discouraged by Preludes and Nocturnes that he didn't want to read any further, then I would recommend one of the *best* story arcs, over the next one chronologically, as a last-ditch attempt at getting Jonesey to dig Sandman. :) But it looks like this might not be an issue.

My personal faves for art were the later arcs: ... and the Wake, mainly by Zulli, were beautiful.

Yeah, I really liked Zulli's work too. Also, one of my all-time favorite issues in terms of art (and story) was the one-shot in which Sandman goes to Arabia during the Thousand and One Nights time period. You know the one?

wonderfully strange covers by McKean

Yeah. :) I understand he does or did album covers.

Funny thing I heard about Sam Keith: someone I know who met him described him as the bitterest human being in the world.

His art has that feel to it, doesn't it?

[Debaser]

You know, searching through old memories of mine, I remember reading an issue of Wizard right around when Maxx came out that had an interview with Keith (this was back before I swore off collecting comics, I still have the first ten or so issues of Maxx, I think). And he was almost hilariously unenthused about his own work. The interviewer kept trying to talk about the plot and the weirdness, and Keith's just like "Yeah, whatever. I don't think it matters what I actually put in the issues, really. It's got a lot of blood and violence in it, so the kids should eat it up."

[looper]

Damn. :)

I remember an interview in Wizard with Alan Moore, and that guy's into mysticism and occultism and such. Strange guy.