Getting There/Getting Where
by Robyn Jordan
Naptime Press

Getting There/Getting Where is an autobiographical comic by Robyn Jordan.  The topics addressed are (generally) jury duty, acquaintances and riding the subway.

This mini is short and sweet.  Just a simple little 16-page collection of stories from a cartoonist who is able to tell pleasantly compact stories and lay out an attractive page of art.

Even if the admittedly mundane subject matter doesn’t interest you, I’m certain that Getting There/Getting Where will pique any reader’s interest in Jordan’s work.

I found this mini very satisfying to read — basically because it just is what it is.  Each of the stories stands on its own, says what it means to say and that’s that.  Jordan doesn’t get too lofty or allegoric or stuck in her own head when she writes autobio.  She’s got a very clear and concise style, and I like that about her work a lot.

Getting There/Getting Where does not appear to be the first in a series, nor the prologue to a tell-all graphic novel.  It’s just a nice little comic by a very talented cartoonist.

It’s nice to read a short autobio comic once in awhile that doesn’t have any aspirations to be more than it is or make some broad nauseous statement about specialness of life.  Sometimes it’s nice to read a comic that sounds just as simple and unpretentious as it would coming through the artist’s own mouth — like just another anecdote you might hear once at a party.  Not life-changing, but certainly memorable and a good way to pass the time.

Jordan’s art is very clear and well-balanced.  She does an awful lot of cross-hatching, but it never muddies the page.  Her lettering is a wonderful all-caps font that has its own weight, size and space.  I love that — rather than bulk up a panel with text or compress the font against its nature — she sometimes lets the text flow from one panel’s word bubble to the next, as is the case with the book’s first story “Hustle Below.”  The downside is that this can make the reading experience feel choppy with unnatural breaks, but it really makes the page look so much nicer than it would with any alternative treatment of the lettering.

Getting There/Getting Where is 16-pages long, with black and white art, a cardstock cover, and a list of fake blurbs that really made me chuckle.  The book can be purchased for $3 and is available through the artist.

- Sarah Morean

Like many of the best—and worst—ideas, this one was born out of some half-buzzed conversation over a round of draft beers. We were telling stories. Subway stories. The strange events that unfold every night—often in the wee hours—in the subterrean tunnels that snake below major metropolitan areas.

Everyone in the city has at least one—some are funny, some are scary, some are just odd. But in a place like New York, where nearly all residents rely on public transportation on daily basis, they’re one of the things that bind us together.

We asked a few of our favorite indie cartoonists to share their subway stories with us, and have received some tremendous work in response. For the first round, we cast the net around New York, a city with vibrant communities of artist and underground dwelling weirdos. We’d love get more artists—and metropolitan transit authorities—involved, however. If you’re an artist interested in contributing a strip, please drop us a line at dailycrosshatch@gmail.com. We’ll happily send you the details.

Our first subway story comes from a long time Cross Hatch favorite (and fellow Queens resident), Raina Telgemeier. Telgemeier is likely best known as the artist behind Scholastic’s recent adaptations of those perennial favorite YA books, The Baby-sitter’s Club. The publisher has also set a 2010 release date for Smile, the long-awaited collection of Telgemeier’s terrific auto-biographic Webcomic of the same name.

Telgemeier has also created work for DC’s Bizarro World, the Flight anthologies, and the Del Rey published X-men Manga book, Misfits. Check out her strip, after the jump.