Newave: The Underground Comix of the 1980s
Edited by Michael Dowers
Fantagraphics
The near universality of the Internet in the modern age has granted a strange sense of immortality to contemporary art. There’s a feeling that, no matter how minute or trivial a work is, it will be stored for posterity for far beyond the life of its creator, in some form or another. That’s not to say, of course, that work created in this contemporary context is somehow more worthy of preservation than its predecessors—or even that newly created works are built with staying power in mind (heck, many contemporary artists have happily embraced the concept of the ethereal meme), it’s just that it’s hard to imagine creating a work today that one won’t be able to revisit at some point down the road, should it be deemed worth of re-examination.
It is, in many ways, the polar opposite of the approach that drove much of ‘zine and early mini-comix culture. And while the argument can perhaps be made that nearly every artist is—on some level—seeking greater exposure, there’s something romantic in the sense of hyper-specific culture to which such documents cater. “It makes little difference if fifty or fifty thousand people read them,” Comix World publisher Clay Geerdes writes in 1983’s “The NeWave Manifesto,” reprinted in full in the introduction of this new collection. “Ideas and their expression are the issue, not quantity or quality…Newave is about art, not money.”
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Little Nothings: Uneasy Happiness
By Lewis Trondheim
NBM
At some point, for those lucky enough to realize their dreams, passions morph into careers. A blessing, to be sure, but certainly not entirely devoid of its own built-in curses. The line between love and obligation is often simply a matter of obligatory repetition. It is with that in mind that Lewis Trondheim declared his retirement from the form in 2004. And while deeming his venture dubious would be a touch generous, it speaks to a greater truth in art: transforming a passion into a job oft has the tendency to extinguish that initial spark.
No better is this double-edged sword demonstrated than in the world of the diary strip. Plenty of noble intentions give rise to such things. They can serve as a fantastic tool with which to hone one’s line or pacing or simply help an artist keep track of otherwise fleeting memories. Somewhere along the line, however, such intentions fairly often give way to obligations. Whether for public consumption or private reference, a diary strip holds little value if it’s not maintained.
As with all passions-turned-obligations, the question inevitably arises—has the value of such a pursuit been eclipsed by a sense of responsibility? What value, after all, is there for a reader in a work born of habit? Here, often, is where things get weird, with flights of artificial fancy, or, as is more often the case, simply peter out.
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Hive 3: A Somewhat Quarterly Comic Journal
Ed. by J.M. Shiveley
Grimalkin Press
Hive is a theme-less comics anthology that’s edited by J.M. Shiveley and printed by Grimalkin Press — Shiveley’s ambitious DIY publishing company. To wit, the third issue of Hive is being sold through a Barnes & Noble store. See? Ambitious.
Yes, individual B&N stores have a history of carrying books from small-time publishers, but those titles tend to cover local history and still look like “books.” You know, soft- and hard-cover vanity-pressed books.
None of these terms describe Hive 3 which is folded concertina-style and has a double-sided letterpress cover. Hive 3 is certainly a fat 2-in-1 booklet, which is something I thought I’d never see in a big box bookstore. I’m calling that an achievement.
That said, while printing experiments in comics are admirable, there are some clear issues with the publication style of Hive 3. It’s eye-catching, sure, but there’s just too much going on with the printing of this book that doesn’t make sense for the material. I guess if you’re going to charge $10 for a self-published hand-made black-and-white anthology, it should really have something distinctive going on, but I’m afraid this issue has crossed the line from unique to gimmicky.
To be fair though, a book shouldn’t be judged entirely by its cover, and what Hive 3 presents deep down inside is a high-quality selection of short comics and art.
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Tags: Andrew Drilon, Chad R. Woody, Dax Delap, douglas wilson, Eamon Espey, grimalkin press, Hawk Krall, hive, j.m. shiveley, Joe Decie, John Kinhart, Jon Freihofer, Joshua W. Cotter, Karl Kindt, malachi ward, Mark Leicht, Matt Kindt, Mostyn
Reviews | smorean March 4, 2010 | 
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From the Ashes: A Speculative Memoir
By Bob Fingerman
IDW
The apocalypse is a thing to be feared, right? The horseman, the boiling seas, the mass extinction, all of that Kevin Costner postal service nonsense. From Mary Shelley to Cormac McCarthy, the post-apocalyptic literary landscape has nearly always been dire, at best, a banning together of rogue survivors, in the last glimmers of hope at the prolonging of an otherwise doomed species.
That’s not to say that there’s no precedent for eager the anticipation of such events. Fundamentalist Christian literature, for one, has often heralded its arrival—most notably in recent years is that Kirk Cameron favorite, Left Behind, which all but rolled out the welcome mat for the army of fiery sworded angels.
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Sad Animals
by Adam Meuse
Self-Published
Depending on your mood, you will either find Sad Animals mildly amusing or totally hilarious. When I bought it a few weeks ago I thought it was clever. Today though, it’s really entertaining me. I don’t know how the gags got funnier, but they did.
Sad Animals has been sitting near the register at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis for over a year now. I took my sweet time buying it, for sure. I mean, it’s kind of a breezy read. You could easily finish the whole mini just waiting for Michael Drivas to bag your books. When I finally broke down and got it, Drivas was kind enough to tell me the history of Sad Animals and its legacy at his store.
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Burn Collector #14
By Al Burian
In its purest form, a zine ought be regarded as a clearing house for ideas, a thrown against the wall approach to literature, largely—or, more preferably, entirely—devoid of outside editorial oversight. Its an approach that Al Burian has seemingly become rather comfortable with, one which manifests itself in issue 14 of Burn Collector more than in many other recent issues of the seminal Chicago zine.
While Burian’s near-poetic true life tales have long been the selling point of his sporadic publication, there’s a clear joy in the seeming abandon with which the author culled together the rather dissonant approaches into a single volume. The issue begins in a fairly standard manner, with musings on the Chicago Transit Authority (not the band) and the happy resurgence of house shows in the area. All the while, however, the pieces are supplemented with Burian’s own crudely-drawn strips, sometimes complimenting the text, and other times simply playing out as their own contextual tangents.
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The Lady’s Murder
by Eliza Frye
Self-published
Eliza Frye has an overwhelming talent for constructing beautiful images. I sat next to her at APE in 2009 and was totally awestruck by her work. Dumbstruck even. Still, fans kept flocking to her table, chatting her up, and I wondered ‘How does anyone know what to say to someone whose artwork is so goddamn gorgeous?’ Fandom is an art all its own, I tell you.
Her background as an illustrator and character artist comes across strongly in projects like The Lady’s Murder. In it, she takes a rather sexy poem from S. Albert Chatman and uses his idea to build a bony story structure from which her gorgeous art hangs lush and wild.
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Copper
By Kazu Kibuishi
Graphix
At the close of Amulet: Book One, there’s a clear sense that the reader is standing on the cusp of something huge—author Kazu Kibuishi has offered up mere hints of the world he plans to explore over the course of his story. The sheer possibility of scope is reason enough to be compelled to pick up further volumes of the story, and—along with Kibishi’s stunningly rendered fantasy artwork—has led artist like Jeff Smith to declare themselves big fans of his work.
The expectation of such scope is also something a detriment upon picking up Copper. Where much of Amulet’s appeal lies largely in Kibuishi’s slow but steady reveal, Copper’s stories subscribe to a form of storytelling akin to that of the syndicated strip. Each story in the book presents a new universe for the titular boy explorer and his worried but obedient talking dog, Fred. And then, after a page or two, that window is closed and our protagonists are back at square one in a new world.
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Market Day
By James Sturm
Drawn & Quarterly
“How would all of this come together as a single rug?” Mendleman asks himself, wandering through the bustling rows of his local market, in search of some place that might purchase the hand-woven goods slung over his should. At this moment, it becomes clear that Market Day is more than simply a story about a struggling craftsman in early 20th century eastern Europe. It’s the story of an artist—an allegory, really, for the seemingly perpetual struggle of the artist community. It’s a struggle which author James Sturm—and, likely nearly every other 21st century cartoonist—has no doubt grappled with at some point in his career.
The next two pages form a spread, in which the market’s bodies and buildings melt away, forming a rug pattern. Mendleman draws the inspiration for his craft from the world around him, and his reward is the admiration of his peers-it’s a currency that serves little use when there is a pregnant wife to support at home—one whose physical shortcomings assure that she’ll never be able to contribute meaningfully to the economic well-being of the couple’s growing family.
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Driven by Lemons
By Joshua Cotter
Adhouse
There’s nothing new, of course, in the idea of issuing one’s sketchbook for the world to see. The release of Robert Crumb and Chris Ware’s volumes helped set the bar for modern, commercially released cartoonist sketchbooks, and a handful of books, including, most recently Peter Kuper’s Diario de Oaxaca and Al Columbia’s Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, have helped redefined the parameters of the space.
Where once sketchbooks were conceived of as private works—the visual equivalent, perhaps, of a personal diary—the line has since been blurred. Today a sketchbook can prove every bit as successful a commercial endevour as a graphic novel, so it should come as no surprise that contemporary artists often begin them with the ultimate goal of releasing them largely intact.
Joshua Cotter showed me Driven By Lemons for the first time in an uncompleted form at SPX 2008. I had been downright ecstatic in my praise of Skyscrapers of the Midwest, and in a couple of months would place the book atop my year end list. Cotter happily presented a little sketchbook with methodically detailed pages, fluttering between narrative and abstraction. It was a downright sight to behold, even while a good chunk of its pages remained blank.
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