Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White // Harper //  $29.75 // 560 pages
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Krazy Kat aficionados have long placed its creator, George Herriman at or near the center of the development of comics and cartooning.  A prodigious talent, and true comics pioneer – possessed of an unquestionable genius – he produced comics of startling fluidity; words, images and design each blending seamlessly, each reinforcing and supporting the other to create works of lasting strength and beauty.  The concept of the intelligent vocalizing cartoon animal – the “funny animal” – that gave rise to Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Donald and Daffy Ducks and countless others was more or less forged by Herriman, who in the process opened up a rich vein in the American psyche which is still being mined today. 

Here, in Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White, author Michael Tisserand broadens the context of Herriman’s life further, to encompass large swaths of American history, society and culture, and in the process places Herriman’s life not only at the center of the history of comics, but at the  crossroads of America itself at the dawn of the 20th century.  While it has long been known that Herriman was born in New Orleans of mixed “Creole” heritage, with African as well as European forebears, the specifics had always been murky, at best – but no more!  Tisserand, much of whose earlier writing focused on New Orleans, and who evidently knows his way around a variety of New Orleans archives, leveraged his preexistent knowledge, rolled up his sleeves and dug deep, tracing Herriman’s roots back to the 18th century as well as outlining much of his extended family history.  The story includes telling details of much of what transpired in post Civil War New Orleans in order to set the stage for Herriman pere’s decision to uproot the family, move to Los Angeles and “pass” (as white), at which point the book’s subtitle, “a life in black and white” becomes eminently clear. 

And that’s only the beginning!  It’s always instructive to be reminded just how big a force comics were in their early days at the dawn of the 20th century.  Before the movies really began to make their mark on the American scene, before radio, comics – appearing everyday in the majority of the country’s newspapers – were arguably the first mass entertainment, and as such made a tremendous, lasting impact in the popular imagination, and Herriman was there, almost from the very start.  Herriman had been creating and drawing numerous illustrations, sports cartoons and comics strips for well over a decade before coming up with his most famous creation, having seen his first drawings published at the close of the 19th century.  

Krazy traces the highs and lows and ins and outs of Herriman’s extraordinary life, uncovering many heretofore undisseminated facts while also debunking some of the myths and legends that had sprung up to fill various lacunae in his life story.  Not every mystery is solved, to be sure.  Plenty remains for future Herriman researchers to strive to discover.   And Tisserand may be among them, as he is reported to be paying attention to the responses he has been receiving to this work, perhaps for a future work, or revised edition.  But don’t sit on your hands waiting for that day (that may or may not arrive).  

Krazy is an essential work of scholarship that will leave you with an increased understanding – and appreciation – of America , its culture and the central, formative role of comics in it all.

ALSO:  If you’ve read this far, we can all but guarantee that – if you haven’t already – you’ll want to read Chris Ware’s incisive essay on George Herriman written on the occasion of the publication of Tisserand’s biography, HERE.

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The Love Bunglers // Fantagraphics Books //  $19.99 //112 pages

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It’s hard to know where to begin with a work as remarkable as this.  Originally published in six chapters inLove and Rockets: New Stories 3 & 4  in 2010 and 2011, it includes a flashback chapter titled “Browntown”that, in comic book parlance, could be said to be the – or, at least, a – “Secret Origin of Maggie”, as readers are finally made privy to heretofore undisclosed primal scenes at the root of significant swaths of Maggie’s personality and character.  While it may be a commonplace to state that character is forged in the crucible of family, it is rare indeed to be given the opportunity of witnessing an incidence of this that has been prepared with such consummate skill that it achieves the degree of verisimilitude achieved inThe Love Bunglers, sharing such startling psychological insights in the process. 

Naturally, parents predominate in scenarios set within the family arena; their characters are asserted and consequently imprinted upon the children.  This scenario certainly plays out in “Browntown”, but intriguingly – and crucially to the understanding of Jaime’s world view and working method and sense of character construction – much of what is revealed here, that is linked to the formation of Maggie’s persona, transpired in her absence, to other members of her family.  Here, the unintentional looms large, as revelations of hidden parental acts become keys in the children’s hands, used to decode their parents’ motivations and values and learn the actual reality undergirding the constructed reality as it had been given to the children by the parents.  The drama here simultaneously reveals the quotation marks around”truth” and the effect that this revelation has on all concerned – in one of the great three-panel sequences (establishing – POV – reaction) in the history of comics as one particular revelation is is registered.  There are the corollary experiences of Maggie’s brother, Calvin (adding yet another layer to this historically significant name…), which, while primarily serving the self-contained narrative of The Love Bunglers, carry the added charge of immediately registering to long-time Love and Rockets readers as being integral to the development of Maggie’s character and personality.  And, finally, the family-is-destiny theme returns with a vengeance in the novel’s climax.  Employing the heretofore hidden sequence of events revealed in “Browntown” as the dramatic catalyst, Jaime triggers the release of thirty years worth of potential energy and converts it  into an emotionally devastating catharsis of great power. 

Upon reaching the conclusion of The Love Bunglers there is an inescapable feeling of finality and closure to the the saga of the life and times of Maggie Chascarillo.  While it is almost certain that we will be seeing more of Maggie in future issues of Love and Rockets, Jaime’s discovery of these hidden pieces of the puzzle of Maggie’s persona seems to have allowed him to at last reach the holistic understanding of her character and it’s fundamental relationship to Ray as its terminus that he had been striving for these thirty years – and communicate this understanding to his readers in this magisterial work.

Black is the Color // Fantagraphics Books //  $14.99 // 72 pages
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A fantastic pen and ink meditation on mortality, 18th century sailor style, but this time from the perspective of the mermaids!  This work puts us in the mind of a cross breed of the work of Tony Millionaire and Dame Darcy with Sammy Harkham as spiritual guide.  Pheobe Gloeckner sez: “(Julia Gfrörer’s) work is spare and elegant, yet the hand of the artist is always evident in her line.  Her characters inhabit cold or desolate environments, often on the brink of inanition or beyond, yet still yearning to love and be loved.”  Here in this 72 page French-flapped graphic novella, we have her most substantial published work yet.

MOME Vol. 1 – Summer 2005 // Fantagraphics Books //  $14.95 // 120 pp.
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This is an excellent semi-regular anthology that is stepping up to meet the demand for new work by the talented  generation of cartoonists that have been filling the pages of annual anthologies like Non, Kramers Ergot, Top Shelf, Rosetta, SPX and others.  A novel feature of this anthology title is its declared intent to feature the same collective of artists every issue, allowing the artists and audience to grow together and build an ongoing identity that is highly unusual for the world of contemporary comics. Only time will tell how this intention plays out when confronted by the realities of a publication schedule, but we can attest with confidence that it’s off to a solid start.

First off:  it looks good!  Designed by Jordan Crane, MOME 1 is a chunky, squarebound 136-page edition that’s formatted a tad larger than the Raw Volume 2 editions which it resembles enough to be considered a successor of sorts.  It also feels, on the other hand, a bit like a comics equivalent to Granta, the British literary magazine that has flourished for over two decades.  It’s printed on a high grade flat white paper, the stories are printed in a variety of color palettes and B & W as called for.  The nature of the material presented in this anthology ranges far and wide, yet the quality and intelligence of the work remains uniformly high throughout.  Kudos to Mssrs. Groth and Reynolds on their editorial discernment.

Here’s a closer look at the first issue:

I Feel Nothing by Gabrielle Bell — A strong opener by a talent who has been doing a lot of growing lately, both in regards to the quality of her artwork and that of the storytelling which it serves.  It’s a simple slice of life tale that contains a story within a story, and a nice deconstruction of a decision via the mechanics of the imagination that effectively demonstrates both the efficiency and the power of comics as a medium of communicating the contents of the human mind. B & W

Passing Before LIfe’s Very Eyes by Kurt Wolfgang  — A visual meditation on clichés.  Primarily on the cliché of “life passing before one’s eye’s” at the moment of death, and then, subordinately, on the clichés that make up this life.  Cleverly employing the trope of smoking, the story manages to escape being a cliché itself, and that’s something of an accomplishment all on its own.  Duo-Tone.

Part Time by Jeffrey Brown — Well, to be honest, this one’s a bit of a let down:  yet another strip about being unable to come up with something in time to meet the deadline.  Yes, it’s self-reflexive, yes, there’re a few clever twists on the theme, and yes, it has a few laughs, but the main thing to recommend it is that it’s by Jeffrey Brown, who is seemingly blessed with the uncanny ability to produce unfailingly enjoyable comics about his personal foibles.  B & W.

Life with Mr. Dangerous, Part One by Paul Hornschemeier — This piece is, in effect, an extreme close-up on the psyche of its sole protagonist, a twenty-something woman living alone, who is, it appears, not entirely in touch with her own emotional core.  In it, Hornschemeier successfully carries out the difficult trick of letting us know more about her character than she seems to know herself.  This is accomplished through his well-conceived orchestration of dialogue which consists entirely of one-sided conversations and narration which consists entirely of introspection, with the counterpoint of a delicate delineation of subtle variations in her facial expressions and body language.  With “Mr. Dangerous,” Hornschemeier continues to build a body of work that demonstrates that he, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, has fully digested the advances in rendering psychological nuances in comics pioneered by the work of Clowes and Ware.  Full color.

The Beast by Anders Nilsen — With “The Beast” —  the most difficult and challenging work in this anthology —  Anders Nilsen clearly stakes his claim to be in the avant-garde of contemporary comics.  An intriguing montage of a borderless 4-panel comics grid overlaid on a sequence of double-page spreads of landscape photography, this multivalent metaphysical investigation demands multiple readings — each of which may supply the reader with a different interpretation:  first to come to light is the obvious yet superficial political commentary; next, perhaps, an examination of  delusional consciousness; digging deeper, a personal eschatology; cultural historians with a background in comics may find this story to be a descendant of the worlds-within-worlds/no-one-sees-it-but-me genre that were the staple of the pre-superhero (1959-61) Marvels authored by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, which grew out of the anxiety and paranoia of that most intense period of the cold war which led up to the end game of the Cuban missile crisis, and so, perhaps, reveals the burgeoning of a related if more complex strain of paranoia and anxiety growing out of contemporary global conflicts.    The main thing, finally, is that Nilsen is struggling to construct a radically open form of comics that fully engages — if not outright requires —  the interpretive powers of the reader to complete.  Full color.

Dance with the Ventures by Jonathan Bennet — This thoroughly enjoyable story — expertly placed to provide a moment of soothing relaxation after the arduous struggle with Nilsen’s “Beast” — convincingly recounts the details of a morning’s urban idyll, seamlessly meshing visualizations of the interior psychological components of the tale with the external Pekar-esque drama.  B & W.

Eddy Bear “Takes His Share,” “Tanya” & The Mom in “God Bless America” by Sophie Crumb — This triptych of tales —  interspersed through the final third of this volume — takes on the classic urban themes of alienation vs. conformity, material comfort vs. independence, immigration and integration.  B & W.

221 Sycamore Ave., Part 1 by John Pham — It is appropriate, perhaps even inevitable, that John Pham, one of the reigning masters of the graphic architecture of the comics page, should produce a story whose thematic elements incorporate architectural concerns.  In 221 Sycamore Ave., Pham — at least from the evidence provided by the first part printed in this issue — effectively communicates the feel of the lives lived at this address.  Tri-tone color.

Overpeck by David Heatly — Building on his large body of work dealing with his dreams, “Overpeck” takes the game one step further by creating a dream locale — Overpeck — where a continuing cast of characters will carry out “lives” in a world of dreams in which cause and effect, narrative and characterizations will all be subject to the language and laws of dreams rather than that  of “reality.”  A great idea that’s off to a good — if disturbing — start.  Full color.

The Jewels of the Sea by Andrice Arp — As stated in its sub-title, this is “a story from ancient Japan” (well, as a note at the conclusion makes clear, it is actually two stories from ancient Japan, the second subordinated and integrated into the first).  It is a classic tale of love and power, clever trickery, and mythological creatures.  A fitting conclusion for collection.  B & W with pantone grey.

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