This footage comes from the Paranormal Activity in Comics panel conducted at the Minneapolis Indie Xpo on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

The Cross Hatch’s own Brian Heater led the discussion between Sarah Becan (The Ouija Interviews), Ed Choy Moorman (Ghost Comics), Tim Sievert (That Salty Air) and Will Duff (Ghostbustin’ 911).

Topics include ouija encounters, haunted apartments, Bigfoot and the rights of ghosts and zombies.

– Sarah Morean

Manny + Bigfoot
by Meghan Hogan
2D Cloud

This weird and beautiful little comic is as interesting to touch as it is to read.

Maybe you can recall a few years back when elephant dung paper first hit the market.  From the buzz, I thought Mr. Ellie Poo’s paper would be in use all over the place, but Manny + Bigfoot is the first mini I’ve seen made with the stuff.

Poop as paper inspires an odd fascination, but also a whoop of joy from environmentalists and animal lovers.  As noted by the Huffington Post, “…a tenth of the mere 40,000 Asian elephants worldwide live in Sri Lanka, where they’re killed due to their interference with agriculture. There’s no major ivory trade, and Sri Lankans don’t eat elephant meat, so the sole factor that elephants are being exterminated is because they’re a nuisance.”  In other words, having its poop harvested for paper is one way an elephant becomes a useful member of society.  If only it was that easy for the rest of us.

As a vegan bicycle commuter, Meghan Hogan (of the Good Minnesotans) regularly acts on her good conscience, so it’s no surprise that her book Manny + Bigfoot leans the same direction.  It might feel strange to touch a page made of poo, but take the risk.  Her the story has a sweet expression, wonderful colors, and even a touch of mystery.

Hogan’s book begins as a letter.  On the cover, Bigfoot himself holds out an envelope, upon which is the title. When you turn the book over, it opens in a way similar to a letter, and when you get into the story, the plot is introduced with a letter.  Repetition of theme can be done in this way so nicely through books, and I really like that she didn’t skimp on the subtext by merely making a folded and stapled mini.  It wouldn’t hold the same meaning.

The plot is a little hard to follow for all its imagination, but with a re-read or two there’s instant reward.  Manny is a guy who comes home at the end of the day to a driveway full of snow.  It’s too big to deal with, so he goes inside and opens his mail.  What he receives is a letter containing an odd ransom note that beckons him into the woods to save a girl, but he doesn’t seem to know any girls.  Instead, he sticks around the house with his pet bunny.  The bunny is drawn with realistic precision and its adorableness is made all the cuter because the drawings are so small. When Bigfoot shows up later at the house, things really go to heck, and Manny’s sweet little life is torn asunder.

I won’t give away the ending, or offer my own interpretation of events, but suffice to say you need to read this book from cover to cover for the full effect, and puzzle it through for full enjoyment.  It’s a charmer.

I have no idea how she colored this comic or where she learned to draw bunnies, or find such perfect bunny images to photoshop, but the story combined with the art and the bookmaking technique and materials will keep you sucked into this little $5 12-page purchase for a happy half hour, at least, then keep you thinking a few days more.

You can order the book online through her publishing group, 2D Cloud.

- Sarah Morean

And How
by Gregory Corso
Powderfinger Books

The common definition of insanity, as I’ve heard it, is to expect different results from predictable courses. For instance, if you have a preferred route to work, and each day it takes you to the same office, that’s predictable. If you think that by following the same route, you will reach a volcano, that’s insane. By extension, if Steve Urkel thinks that hounding Laura Winslow will somehow get him a date when she says no every time, that’s also insane. Something else must occur to evoke change; he must partake of the Cool Juice and become Stefan Urquelle. You see?

Without directly addressing the subject of insanity, And How is a perfect and eerie portrayal of it. Through use of repetitive imagery and blithe, empty expressions, Gregory Corso builds a weird and fascinating story about a boy’s search for peace, a woman’s search for unity, and a man’s search for Bigfoot.

The book’s first use of repetitious panels was surprising. I thought Corso was being lazy and that his book was just another example of an artist skimping on production time by making the most of a single panel. A close-up of a woman’s face, then her hand holding a page, then her hand holding a page, then a close-up of her face. Similar enough, but changed ever so slightly to cover his tracks. As more panels began repeating, a pattern finally emerged. Soon whole dialogs were carried over multiple pages while re-using the same drawing. The book is broken up by parts, and the last two give completely different conclusions using many of the same drawings – the final insane twist.

There are also repeating symbols and themes. Particularly bees and the geese, flying and buzzing and growing and taking over whole pages as the story unfolds. The combination of repeating elements becomes a kind of circus. In the re-read, I noticed that actually there is a repetitive use of panels on the first page, but I’d blown over it. The first two panels are identical, rectangular, and full of black ink.

Dark and light are also big themes in this book. “The only difference between day and night is what you’re able to see,” says the father to his son. In the final two parts, scenes take place simultaneously in the day and night time. The son is flying a plane over the woods in daylight to help his father search for Bigfoot, the next panel shows the same plane against a black sky with a moon hanging above the horizon, and in the next panel it’s light again. It’s not the passage of time, it’s a device. These and other details makes for the kind of expository reading experience that separate comics from mere fiction. The book plays with visual symbolism in a way that is very truly unique to narrative art.

It’s a nicely drawn book that makes equal use of expansive black space and thin jagged lines. The characters themselves are drawn with bland, cheerful expressions. Their faces are muppet-like, with nearly-triangular noses, wide split mouths, and comically large ears. Their posture is often directed out of the page, rather than into their conversations, so they cheat outward as stage actors might. Each seems to be in his own world, disconnected.

And How won a 2006 Xeric Grant.  It is available for $6 through the artist.

- Sarah Morean