2016 Advent Calendar --- day 12

One of my favorite comic artists -- and artists, period -- Frank Santoro.





Seek his work out.  I don't think you'd be disappointed.

My Top 10 Comics [Storylines edition] -- # 1-5

WHO WILL WIN?

 

So, I had a twitter discussion with Brad Gullickson (@MouthDork, co-host of the In the Mouth of Dorkness podcast: @ITMODcast) a few weeks back about “The Best Comics Ever” and how it’s always Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns at the top—kind of like Citizen Kane almost always topping the list of greatest films ever.  It’s hard to argue with not only the artistry and formalistic approach to both of these books but also the impact and influence these two books had, something that still hangs over the comic book landscape thirty years out.  It seems these two books, along with Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, are baked into the top 3 spots, all-time, for comic storytelling.  But do they need to be?  Might there be other works that have transcended the bounds of the field since then (or even prior to 1986)?  Possibly.  I think it would depend upon your criteria, since these lists are always subjective, in spite of any arguments to the contrary. 

Using this discussion as a jumping off point, I decided to come up with my personal top 10 comics.  Some of the guidelines I set for myself were to consider works other than those perennial top 3 (certainly, that introduced a bias against these books, but so be it; I doubt anyone’s going to forget about Watchmen & Dark Knight if I don’t list them here), to attempt not to repeat creators within these ten titles (otherwise, I could easily see Alan Moore flooding my list), and to weigh, heavily, how many times I have re-read these stories.  Also, for the most part, I worked to only include individual collections—whether an original graphic novel or a single storyline from a larger work—but you will notice I failed at that, in a couple of spots. 

You can check out the first post, covering numbers 6-10 +11, here.  The top 5 follow this rambling preamble.  And, hey, feel free to disagree with me and drop a note in the comments with your own top 10.  I’d be interested to see what others feel are the best of the best.  Thanks.

#5:
Pompeii, by Frank Santoro  

I was introduced to Santoro’s work at the 2007 MoCCA Festival in New York, with the initial four issues of the series he created with Ben Jones, Cold Heat.  (check out a spotlight & interview with Santoro, for that series, here).  A student of fine art as well as comics, Santoro utilizes a scaled back, contour line approach to his art that appears simple, on its surface, but is one that can more strongly engage an audience in the hands of a master, which, I feel, Santoro is.  As a writer/artist, he tends to craft quiet, emotional narratives that eschew over-rendering and over-writing, in order to get at the heart of the matter, and he does it magnificently.  Pompeii tells the story of an artist’s apprentice, Marcus, in this ancient city, during the couple of days leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius.  Weaving threads of his master’s romantic entanglements with Marcus’s questioning of his own relationship, this book works on numerous levels and rewards subsequent readings.  Not only do we have the mirroring of the master’s and apprentice’s story, but Santoro similarly crafts pages to accentuate this theme of mirroring, with facing pages often subtly inverting one another, through their layout and subject.  It’s a merging of art and story that is distinct and rare, in comics.  If you’ve never read anything by Santoro, then check this book out.  It’s amazing.

#4:
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Gaiman & McKean have crafted memorably elegant stories together, but Mr. Punch is, in my opinion, their most ambitious collaboration.  Weaving a story of childhood memories, lost in the fog of time, punctuated by the very British tale of Mr. Punch, these two artists created a book that is not only engaging and heartfelt, but also one that does not talk down to readers.  This is a book that does not tie every plot thread with a bow, and, in fact, revels in the murkiness of human memory, postulating various ideas of what “really happened,” as far as the main character’s recollection goes.  There are answers, buried deep within the narrative, but they may not be the right ones, and they probably aren’t the same ones your friend would take away from this book.  And that is worth your time, at the very least.  Plus, McKean is doing the art, so the pages are beautiful to look at while also adding to the mystery and emotion of the narrative.  This book is so damn good.   

#3:
MAUS, by Art Spiegelman  

This book is a masterpiece.  The only comic to win a Pulitzer, an accolade that is well deserved.  Spiegelman interweaves the tale of his relationship with his difficult father, with that of his father’s odyssey as a young Jewish man in Germany, at the time of Hitler, and his subsequent toils in concentration camps, where much of his family was murdered.  It is a poignant, heart-wrenching, complex story that is expertly delineated by Spiegelman, delving into uncomfortable, and tragically horrific, depths of his and his father’s life, in ways I expect most people would balk at.  This is an important story told without artifice, through a medium that—when done as well as Spiegelman does here—can engage its audience, while also enveloping them within the narrative as well as, or better, than almost any other.  I read this book every couple of years, and it never fails to cut me to the quick.  Brilliant.

 #2:
Love & Rockets [all of it!], by Los Bros Hernandez

Fantagraphics started publishing this seminal comic, from brothers Xaime, Gilbert, and Mario Hernandez, in 1982.  The brilliance of this comic is not only in the beautiful artwork of the Brothers Hernandez, but also in the intelligence of the writing.  Over the course of nearly 35 years, they have crafted long-running narratives that are as complex and fraught and ecstatic and real as any life, and they have done this for myriad characters.  From the magical-realist fantasies of Beto to the poignant Locas tales featuring Maggie & Hopey, Los Bros Hernandez have infused their comics with love and sadness, and all emotions between, along with elements from all genres of literature—with female wrestling, weird aliens, a man with devil’s horns on his head, ghosts (that are very real), super heroes, and most anything else you could imagine, making their way into these stories.  And yet, these aspects never pull you out of the story, and they never undermine the very real truths being revealed through these comics.  The characters found in Love and Rockets are some of the most real people you will ever meet.  And that gets to the heart of what has made this comic such an amazing piece of art—the fact that these artists have allowed their characters to age, and to grow, with relationships changing over time, to great dramatic and emotional effect.  It’s not just the brilliance of Los Bros Hernandez as storytellers that elevates Love and Rockets, but their ability to call back to earlier stories and wring the emotional weight from that with a contemporary narrative that puts the entire lives of characters, and the previous decades’ worth of comics, into a different light.  This may be the best long-form comic series, ever, and you need to read it all.  Now.

#1:
From Hell, by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell  

Alan Moore, early in his career, said in an interview—and I paraphrase—that he didn’t wish to work with artists whom he felt were better writers than himself, because he wanted them to be creating their own new comics, and he was speaking of Eddie Campbell.  When these two finally decided to collaborate, they tackled the murders of Jack the Ripper, laying out a conspiracy that reached as high as Queen Victoria, while examining how these horrific murders echoed up through the twentieth century, all while Moore annotated every bit of it (except for one scene, forcing readers to go back and re-read the 500+ pages to find the clues for that piece of the puzzle).  A fictionalized recreation of these murders, and the man behind them, Moore & Campbell were the perfect team to bring this story to life.  From Moore’s formalism as a writer, and his use of theme, symbolism, and foreshadowing, among other literary techniques, to Campbell’s dark etchings, they manage to completely capture the feeling of this era, and the fear that surrounded these few months of 1888, in London, this is a master class in comic storytelling, while also breaking away from some outdated conventions of the medium (most notably, the opportunity for them to craft chapters as long as they wanted, and was needed, as with prose novels).  If you’ve only seen the film, you have no idea how powerful From Hell is.  Ever since I first read it, this one has been at the top of my list, and I don’t see it ever falling from its peak. 

So, what are your top 10 comic storylines?  Drop them in the comments section and let’s start arguing talking.  Thanks for reading, and take care.

-chris

ZONA #3 from the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency

Since I discovered Frank Santoro’s  comics in 2007 with Cold Heat  (done in collaboration with Ben Jones), I’ve been a huge fan of his.  With a fine arts background and steeped in the history of comics, Santoro is as well known for his art as he is for his opinions on the artform, and, in recent years, has become possibly better known as an educator for aspiring comic artists.  To this end, Santoro ran a correspondence course for a number of years—and, more recently, has run an annual “Composition Competition” through the Comics Workbook tumblr, with cash prizes for the winners—and when afforded the opportunity to purchase the rowhouse next to his own, in Pittsburgh, he raised the money necessary, so that he could start his own comic creators’ residency—the ComicsWorkbook Rowhouse Residency.  One of the ways Santoro works to defray the costs of the residency is through the Comics Workbook auction site, and one of the items available for purchase has been a quarterly anthology comic, with work from Santoro as well as former students of his correspondence course (and resident artists, I must assume).  The most recent issue, number 3, is well worth your time and money. 

The first story, GULLS, by Kurt Ankeny, is one of the most beautiful comics I have read all year.  Using watercolors, adding a soft intimacy to the story, Ankeny relates a day in the life of a mother and son in Paris, where they live.  Sitting on a bench in a park, they both share a longing gaze, searching, still, for that someone who can fulfill their lives and make them whole.  They discuss, briefly, Edouard’s absent father (his parents long since divorced), as well as the many conquests of Edouard, while his roving eye spots a lovely young woman walking along the cobbled sidewalks. 

Soon enough, they go their separate ways.  His mother has a photo shoot, and Edouard has a date that night, for which he must prepare.  At the shoot, the mother realizes one of the models is the woman she and her son saw, while sitting on the bench earlier.  Once finished, she and the model, Marie, discuss her plans (she has a late train to catch, the following day, but no other plans) and the mother invites her to dinner.  Which ends with the two women together in bed.  As they lounge under the covers, the mother receives a call from Edouard—his date went poorly.  This prompts Marie to ask how her date went.   “Lovely,” she says. 

In only ten pages, Ankeny offers readers a trio of well-developed characters, roaming through life as they try to make sense of it all, and try to find love—or at least companionship—along this journey.  It’s an incredibly touching story that resolves satisfyingly, while also leaving narrative threads for the audience to follow, in their own minds, once they turn that last page.  A great read. 

Story #2, ALABASTER TREES, by Jacqueline Huskisson, is an existential Möbius strip that twists your brain into a pretzel and then folds in on itself again.  Huskisson’s confidence in her narrative pulls you along as a young girl (or boy) travels to the strange forest seen from the child’s bedroom window.  There, a wolf (or is it the spirit of a wolf?) greets the child, stating that a price—though not as high a price as the severing of one’s limb—must be paid for entrance.  (Cookies suffice)  The child comes and sits at the campfire, a campfire that smells of every campfire ever, and which affects the child in a significant way, though what that might be is up to the reader. 

The following day (or is it a week?), back at home—with an alcoholic mom, an oblivious father, and a “useless” baby—the child decides to take its younger sibling out to the forest.  There, the wolf inhales the spirit of the baby and transfers it to the skeleton that resides at its feet.  When the child returns, having deposited its baby sibling at home (despite its loss of a soul), it is confronted by this newly animated skeleton, which decapitates a deer with its bony hands, offering a stream of blood for the child to imbibe.  Drinking deeply, the child awakes, believing it all to be a dream.  But was it?

Huskisson’s art is reminiscent of Michael DeForge’s distinct style.  This stark, and sharp, approach complements the story nicely, imbuing it with a heightened sense of unease and discomfort that makes it resonate, once you finish reading it.  Good stuff. 

The third story, CAUGH IN THE LIGHT, by Paddy Lynch, relates a “night in the life” of old friends, as James returns to his hometown after six years in Asia.  His friend Lauren has offered him a place to stay, if he doesn’t mind the futon, and after cleaning up the two go out to the pub where they all used to hang out.  Over the course of the night, we meet Chris (who is married) and hear of Cathal and Lisa, whom James joins, when they’ve had enough of the pub, while Lauren goes home to get some sleep.  Except that, after James has returned to crash on the futon, he sees Chris leaving quietly, in the middle of the night.  James is worried about Lauren and tries to talk with her about Chris.  But she’s a grown woman who doesn’t have the time, or the desire, to discuss it.  She can take care of herself. 

Over the last few pages more is revealed (through the imagery and snippets of dialogue) about Lauren’s and James’s current plights, and it all seems fated to end poorly.  Until we reach the final panels, and a light at the end of this tunnel is offered up to the readers, providing a wealth of narrative possibilities, and a more than satisfying end to this short story. 

Lynch deftly melds art and writing within these ten pages, enlarging the canvas nicely with the juxtaposition of words and pictures, while also allowing the silences to carry along the narrative when it is warranted.  The more sketchy style of the artwork adds to the characterizations of the players in this tale—especially that of Lauren, who is out on a limb as far as her employment and her love life—and, as with the previous stories in this issue, enhances the overall effect of the narrative.  I was impressed with how assured, and how complex, this story was, most obviously revealed through the dialogue.  This was a great story that, like the rest of this issue, I look forward to returning to. 

The final story, GUILT CAME ALONG, by Tyler Landry, is more a comic poem than a straight narrative—a meditation on guilt through pictures, with an economy of words dotting the images.  And it is beautiful.  Landry is working in stark black and white with this offering, reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s art without aping Mignola’s distinct style.  It’s a haunting tale crafted within a stack of three panels per page, sans gutter, a layout that Landry uses to great effect, allowing the imagery from one panel to bleed into the next, expanding on the meaning of the pictures while enhancing the sense of melancholy and regret that infuses these ten pages, an effect that might be lost in a more traditionally guttered panel layout.  Like the other stories in this issue of Zona, it’s a matter of form following function. 

As with any good poem, this story demands one read and interpret it for oneself.  I could state what I think it all means, but it would be replete with personal biases, informed by my distinct experiences.  Others will bring to this piece their own backgrounds and perspectives, affording them a different, yet just as legitimate, understanding of the story of this main character, an older man walking through the woods.  “Guilt Came Along,” and the whole of this issue, is another wonderful example of the comics being created outside the normal publishing channels of the comic book medium.  Truly amazing work. 

I have enjoyed every issue of ZONA thus far, but this most recent publication, with its wide variety—not only in artistic approach but also in genre and storytelling style—has been the best issue to date.  All of these artists created insightful and engaging narratives—in only 10 pages—that stand with the best comics being produced by today’s larger publishers.  You need to check this out.  Now! 

-chris

THE COMIC GRID - Frank Santoro, David Lapham, and Scott Morse

THE GRID

The first image above is from Frank Santoro.  One of my favorite artists, Frank offers a correspondence course on making comics (and also did a cool contest for aspiring, or non-aspiring, artists to enter their own comics in), and it all revolves around the grid.  Basically - and I may get this wrong - Frank feels that working within the guidelines of the grid gives comic artists a solid base from which to craft their stories.  Allowing the storytelling to reveal itself within the strict panel layout can free people up and also make it easier for readers to read their comics.

Coincidentally, in dong a re-read of Stray Bullets (the next two images, written & drawn by David Lapham) to prepare for its imminent return, I found that Lapham was utilizing this same grid in his seminal series, almost two decades past.  And, yes, the storytelling in Stray Bullets is wonderful, and keeping to a strict grid allows the audience to focus on the story and not on any stylistic flourishes that might come about from a more "free-form" approach to the page.  It's interesting.

Another artist whose work I admire greatly is Scott Morse.  He, too, utilizes a set panel layout in much of his work - but his "grid" consists of three stacked panels that spread across the entire page.  Like Lapham, Morse will break up his layout when necessary, but much of the work he has both written and drawn (in the Strange Science Fantasy pages above, as well as Visitations, off the top of my head), utilizes this layout.  And, again, the expressive storytelling that is accomplished within the strict panel grid is amazing.  Good stuff all the way around.

chris

Pompeii by Frank Santoro - Book of the year

This, for me, was the comic of the year.  Published by Picturebox, which will be shuttering its doors at the end of this month and is currently holding a 50% off everything sale (codeword: sale), this serves well as a culmination of a publishing collaboration between Santoro and Dan Nadel, who runs PBox.  (though one can hope they will work together at some point in the future, sooner rather than later, and yes, I am well aware they are both at TCJ.com)

My first introduction to Santoro's work was Cold Heat - Nadel gave me the first four issues, along with the first couple 1-800-Mice, at MoCCa fest 2007, when I was just starting out as a "comics journalist" - and, upon my first glance through the comics, I was nonplussed by the art.  When I finally read those comics, though, I discovered my first assumption was completely and utterly wrong.  This was an engaging book that spoke directly to me, and I had to have more.  Pompeii is no different.  

Santoro works in a very "simplistic" style, choosing not to define his characters with incessant cross-hatching or photoshopped color effects.  Instead, he focuses on the core of his characters, using the bare minimum of lines to delineate his images.  And with Pompeii he went even further, utilizing thin pencil lines with occasional ink wash, as well as keeping in some of the initial linework that can act as a shadow of movement for a given figure.  This spare use of lines and dearth of detail imbues the story with a rough quality that propels readers through the story and reflects the mood of a given scene, while also reaffirming one of the themes of the book - that of artists and their relationships with their artistic creations. 

Pompeii also tackles the broad theme of love, offering varying interpretations of that word, and Santoro manages to introduce the complexity of such a topic through these various relationships, showcasing myriad facets of what we call love through the interactions of the characters.  Under the pencil and brush of Santoro, we get very real, and some very tender, moments that all too often are ignored in popular entertainment, whether that be comics or books, television or film, and it elevates Pompeii to a wholly different level, to my mind.  

Dash Shaw made a very astute observation about Santoro's work in Pompeii.  He noted that "[t]he characters' faces are all 100% real and expressive in a way that's absent in nearly every other comic I've ever read.  Most cartoon characters' faces are made out of cardboard.  The people in Pompeii actually seem to have a soul behind their eyes."  I had forgotten about this quote until I finally got a chance to read the book.  And halfway through, I realized I was noticing a similar thing and remembered Shaw's remark.  He nails one of the things that speaks to me in Santoro's art - there is a soul behind his characters' eyes, and it is that, among so many other aspects of his work, that really tugs at my heart when I read a Frank Santoro comic.  Pompeii is no different.  COMIC OF THE YEAR, in my humble opinion.  Either get it through Copacetic Comics, where you can get a copy of Santoro's Blast Furnace Funnies as well, or go to Picturebox and get it for half off.  You will not be disappointed.

- chris

The Indy Graphic Novel Library Project

I managed to finally land a full-time job a year ago.  It's at Fogler Library at the University of Maine, my alma mater.  It has been fantastic.  I was already in love with the campus after my four and a half years there almost twenty years ago, so getting an opportunity to work there, in the library, is amazing.

The library has the beginnings of a respectable graphic novel collection (though they are found in various spots throughout the stacks) including books by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, Chester Brown, Neil Gaiman, Brian K. Vaughan, G. Willow Wilson, and others.  But I really wished they had more.  And then I noticed the suggestions sheet in the main reading room on the first floor.  So, a few months back, I began putting suggestions there.  One a month.  And the library has purchased every one, thus far.

I've steered away from the obvious books and tried to get in some eclectic work from small publishers.  So far, the University has added the following books:

Vietnamerica by G.B. Tran.  No, not a small publisher (Villard), but a book worthy of a wider audience and one I don't believe has gotten the attention it deserves:

Inanna's Tears by Rob Vollmar & mpMann (Archaia Press).  I was introduced to this story by Brett Warnock, when he discussed its online serialization at the Topshelf blog.  Great book that I featured in my Pulse column, back in the day.  Plus, it has a quote from me on the back cover.  So, cool!

Storeyville by Frank Santoro (Picturebox Inc.).  Santoro is an artist who has shot to the top of my must-read list since I first encountered his work in Cold Heat after the MoCCA Fest in 2007 (I believe).  His colors and fine-art background, coupled with a wealth of comic historical knowledge, makes everything he does interesting and challenging.  Great, great stuff.

and the latest addition is Joshua Cotter's Skyscrapers of the Midwest (AdHouse Books).  I only have a screenshot from the online catalog, as I am currently reading it.  At the halfway point, I can tell you the plaudits it has received are well deserved.  Emotional, heartfelt, and compelling - Cotter's story and art mesh together nicely to create something special here.  Well worth checking out.

As more graphic novels get added to the collection, I'll drop them here on the blog.  And if you have suggestions of some great independent graphic novels, let me know.

Thanks,
chris

FYC Replay: Cold Heat with Frank Santoro

This book was a complete surprise to me. I had contacted some publishers prior to going to the MoCCA Festival in 2007 and Dan Nadel at Picturebox replied and told me to stop by. He handed me the first four issues of COLD HEAT, along with a couple other books, and we talked comics for a bit. I didn't think much of the art inside as I glanced through it, but when I finally got the chance to read these books weeks later, I was completely blown away. Frank Santoro (along with Ben Jones) have created a frenetic kick-ass comic that speaks directly to me. Since doing this spotlight for the Pulse, I've had the chance to speak with Frank and hear him speak at SPX and other venues on comics, and the man is really a genius. The thought he puts into his comics and his art is amazing and I would urge you all to check out his posts at The Comics Journal or at the now-defunct Comics Comics site. They are well worth your time.

I've rambled on enough, though, so here's my piece on Cold Heat for the Pulse from early 2008.

Enjoy,
chris

For Your Consideration: Cold Heat

By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE: When I came home from the MoCCA art festival last year, one of the books I brought with me was Cold Heat, and when I finally got to read these first four issues, it was the book that impressed me the most from my NYC trip. Amazing and surreal, BJ (Ben Jones) and Frank Santoro set the bar high and manage to reach new heights with Cold Heat. You need to check this out; it’s like nothing else on the comic racks.

The 411:

Cold Heat 1-4

Storytellers: BJ and Frank Santoro

24 pages, two-color

Picture Box Inc.

What It Is (with apologies to Dave the Thune):

Being a teenager is tough and when your life starts to collapse in from all sides that difficulty becomes exponentially greater. Cassandra Bennet – known to friends and family as Castle – is in the middle of a crisis time, though she’s not yet aware of that. It begins when she breaks up with the man she’s been seeing, the CEO of Comptek where Castle has been an intern. Never really more than a physical relationship, Castle walks away when Comptek is bought out and everyone, including the CEO, is laid off. Though the CEO now has plenty of time to do nothing, Castle still has school to think about. Now jobless and single, she walks home, bothered by the fact that she forgot her CD player.

Arriving home, Castle’s father greets her with the news that her “boyfriend” killed himself. Momentarily flustered, things become clearer when her dad explains that Joel Cannon, the lead singer of her favorite band Chocolate Gun, has committed suicide. Teenagers seem to feel music more strongly than others, and Castle is no exception. This revelation of her hero’s death sends her running to her room. As the news of Cannon’s suicide spreads, Bob Blainerd, one of Castle’s classmates, decides to have a Chocolate Gun ceremony. Everyone will be there, there’ll be drugs, and Castle quickly agrees to attend.

Castle arrives at the party and quickly eases into the moment. The party is an opportunity for these kids to vent their frustration at losing their favorite singer, a place where they can let loose all the pent up energy coursing through their bodies and find relief in a glass of alcohol or deep conversation.

One attendee who gets a wide berth from the others is Terry Wastmor. The son of a powerful Congressman, he wears his privilege on his sleeve and, in a drunken stupor, tries to take advantage of one of the girls at the party. The girl fights him off and leaves Terry dumbstruck outside the house where he lies down to sleep. Castle finds him and covers him with a jacket, leaving him to find whatever solace he might discover in his dreams.

But when Terry is found dead in the morning, things go from bad to worse as the police start their investigation, seeking to speak with everyone that was at the party. Terry’s father is incensed that his son died like some junkie, preferring to believe that one of the kids passed Terry some bad dope, absolving himself and his privileged boy from any responsibility. Eventually, the police will get around to speaking with Castle, and with the state of mind she was in after Cannon’s death and all the drugs at the party, she can’t be sure she didn’t kill Terry. Can things get any worse for her? If not that, they will certainly become more complicated.

BJ (Ben Jones) and Frank Santoro have created a surreal fiction with their collaboration on Cold Heat. Sucking readers in, this tale, of which the initial four issues are available with a graphic novel completing the story to see print this summer, incorporates so many disparate threads that it’s hard to pigeon-hole this book. Starting from a base of teen angst, these two storytellers bring in themes of corporate greed, political corruption, sexual discovery, the over-medication of our youth, and aliens as our masters – aliens that used Joel Cannon as a channel for their message. It is a smorgasbord of plot threads and thematic elements, and these two creators manage to bring it all together in a quirky reading experience that is as stimulating a read as I’ve experienced in comics. By utilizing these varied narratives, BJ and Santoro keep their readers thinking, working to make the connections being laid out by these artists while seeking the underlying story being told. It’s exciting and unexpected and will keep readers guessing.

The artwork for Cold Heat is like nothing else on the stands. A simple (or simple-looking) style using a minimum of lines to create its scenes, I imagine many people would gloss over the pages believing it the work of a neophyte artist, and they would be wrong. Once started, the drawings will pull readers in, the clean simplicity of the linework allowing the audience to project themselves more readily into the narrative. This lack of detail also gives readers a sharper glimpse into the design of each page, something lost in many of the overly rendered books found in comic shops today. The smooth curve of Santoro’s line and the way he and BJ design some of their panels imbues the imagery with an expressiveness not easily achieved in this two-dimensional artform.

The two-color palette utilized in Cold Heat also adds a lot to the art and to the story. The blue and pink hues with which BJ and Santoro color the comic can highlight pieces of a picture or a significant image within a panel, and when they merge the two colors it creates that odd psychedelic effect everyone has experienced when looking at a blue and red pillow or some other like-colored image. The varying tones they utilize also soften some moments while accentuating the seriousness of others. It is yet another piece of the puzzle that allows Cold Heat to stand out next to all the other comics being offered on a monthly basis.

BJ and Frank Santoro are also able to merge the color scheme with the swirling looser lines to convey the mental state of the characters. When Castle returns home from the Chocolate Gun party and crashes on her bed, the first panel of the page makes it appear as if she is floating on her pink bed in a rippling blue pond, set adrift by the events crashing in upon her. On the following page, the final panel has Castle once more lying on her bed as it bobs along on a pink pond, while swirling around her are the faces of those that attended the party. It’s a wonderful use of the comic page and a fine example of the unique quality of comics to communicate emotion that is so often cheaply achieved in movies through a manipulative score.

I picked up Cold Heat at last year’s MoCCA art festival and must admit that upon first glance I wasn’t sure what to make of it. When I got home and finally dove into my stack o’ stuff from the festival, Cold Heat was the book that affected me the most. This is an incredibly engaging series deserving of more attention. Once you begin reading you’ll be surprised at how quickly it sucks you into its world of aliens, music, teen angst, and political corruption. This is one of those books that aims higher than most and achieves its aims. Hopefully, in book form it will find the audience it so richly deserves. While you’re waiting for that, go over to Picture Box and check out these first four issues. It’ll be well worth your time.

An Interview with Frank Santoro:

Chris Beckett: Why comics? What attracted you to this storytelling medium?
Frank Santoro: Besides the typical "I always read comics" answer --it was really the mentoring I received as a teen from my friend Bill Boichel, who runs a comics shop here in Pittsburgh called Copacetic Comics. His store in the 80s was bigger and had couches & you could just hang out and read. His knowledge of comics was seemingly unlimited and he had really great taste. Plus he was excited, so excited, about the form and it was infectious. He still is. Bill is also a filmmaker and he was able to draw parallels & really educate me about the inherent differences & unique qualities of comics. And then he rounded up the kids who hung out at the store and got us to put together our own anthology which he published and then sold at the store. That was a huge deal for a bunch of 15 and 16 year old kids. Plus Bill had a better knowledge of art history than my teachers at my high school. He turned me on to "fine artists" like Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and the German Expressionists and then would pull out a Michael Kaluta comic or a Jeff Jones comic and say "Look, Jeff Jones is really into Gustav Klimt too, you can see it.” I was really lucky. Bill was a more than willing teacher and I was just like a sponge, soaking it up. Thanks to him, I never saw a difference between "art" and "comics." I still don't.

Beckett: There are a lot of plot threads introduced in these four issues of Cold Heat, and it all flows along naturally as if it is being made up as you go along rather than a story that's been meticulously outlined – similar in feel to much of Gilbert Hernandez's work. I'm curious how much planning has gone into this series and how much "open space" you've given yourselves with the story, and whether this is a conscious choice on your parts or just the way you tell a story?
Frank Santoro: I'm a big fan of the "things are not what they seem" narrative school. Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson. They all wove unexpected twists and turns into the fabric of their extraordinary stories. I think comics, as a medium, inherited this approach from the pulp magazines that championed this school. Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi Fantasy and even Romance comics have utilized this "style" and I think comics just have it built into the engine, so to speak, it's so prevalent. I think Ben and I are simply exploiting this and using the standard 24 pages per issue rhythm to build tension and play with expectations. But, as most readers have probably guessed, we're not actually writing the stories --the aliens are.

Beckett: Please pardon my limited artistic lexicon, but many people might describe the rendering style in this series as simple. This cleaner style can often be more engaging than some of the overly rendered work found on comic racks, and I was wondering how you developed this style and what you feel it brings to a story like Cold Heat?
Frank Santoro: As Alex Toth said, "Make it so simple, you can't cheat.” I think a lot of drawing --in "fine" art, in the illustration world, in comics, everywhere --relies on using detail, shading, cross hatching and other weird marks (think Rob Liefeld) to cover up weakness in the essential lines that define shape. If you look at Roy Crane or Jaime Hernandez or Frank Quitely they don't cheat, they can't. It's right there. There's nothing obscuring the strength of the lines. And that's what
I'm going for. I learned how to draw by focusing on "contour line" drawing, which uses no shading or cross hatching. It's all about the lines. It looks simple, but really, it's hard to pull off. It's also just personal taste, I like more "open" styles of drawing rather than detail heavy ones.

Beckett: The soft red and blue palette used in Cold Heat is very distinguishing. What was the thought process behind using these colors and, from a creator's point of view, what did you hope to achieve through the use of this spare palette?
Frank Santoro: I wanted to use a contemporary palette, something that looked liked it was made today. I also wanted to distinguish it from other comics out there. There are a lot of muted colors in comics nowadays because those colors are easier to create with Photoshop and the full color digital process than they were in the old four color process days. (see my article on color in ComicsComics#2) Beyond that, I wanted to bring it back to the bright, "Pop" colors that comics were known for until about the mid 90s. And I also wanted to use color symbolically. Generally, in Cold Heat, the scarier stuff is BLUE and the more light hearted passages are PINK. Most comics today overdo it with the color. I don't use Photoshop; I make all my color separations by hand. (If you YouTube "Making Cold Heat" you'll see what I mean) Also the pink and blue color scheme has an "electric" feel to it that lends itself to the over-the-top story that Ben and I are trying to tell.

Beckett: The cover design for the series is very distinctive as well and really stands out in my opinion. Do you have any background in design work, or is it just a matter of your aesthetic sensibilities coming to the fore when creating these covers?
Frank Santoro: The covers are where Ben and I really "jam," moreso than on the inside pages where our back and forth is more centered around the layouts. Ben also had a really specific idea about making something that looked, quote, "so retarded" for the first issue that it would just scream to be picked up, something that looked totally different from everything else on the racks. Basically, the covers are drawn by me and "remixed" by Ben. I feel like I have a decent design sense, but Ben is just a killer designer, he puts me to shame. Also Dan Nadel suggested we use the super glossy cover stock to set us apart from most other alternative comics covers which, to me, are stuck in this mopey, quiet rut. And I thought that was an awesome choice. So many alternative comics people told us they hated the glossy cover stock and that sort of told us we made the right choice. It seems like to me most alternative comics covers these days are soft and muted, they usually have a matte cover stock, and look like wallpaper. What happened to loud and fast?

Beckett: What other projects are you working on that you would like to tell readers about?
Frank Santoro: Um, I'm working on some more Cold Heat side projects with other artists. Jon Vermilyea is doing another one because his first Cold Heat Special was so fantastic --and I'm talking with a couple other folks who shall remain nameless. These are turning out to be really fun. I'm writing the Specials based on conversations I have with Ben and then I'm laying out the pages for the guest artist to draw. Besides that, I'm just focusing on putting the final touches on the
Cold Heat collection that is due out this summer. Oh, and I've got two pages in the new oversized Kramer’s Ergot. Just me, solo.

Holding the Center - "Reading" Sam Kieth's ALIENS

It's funny how, once something is in your head, you begin to see it everywhere. It's understandable. With a new understanding, you become more aware. Anyway. That's what occurred this past week.

One of my favorite blogs is the Comics Comics blog from the guys at Picturebox. They know comics - not just what is good, but the process, the history - and the insights you can glean from the posts at the site are fantastic. Definitely worth checking out if you love comics.

Anyway. Frank Santoro - whose books Storeyville and Cold Heat (with Ben Jones) are two of my recent favorites; great, personal comics that don't look like anything else on the stands - likes to write about process over at the Comics Comics site, and recently he's been discussing the "center" of the comic page. How (if I may paraphrase), if you utilize a 6-panel or similar grid, then the center is being given up to the gutters, and the prime portion of real estate on that page, the involuntary focus of the page, is lost.

Santoro goes into this in more depth in his two recent Comics Class posts - Class #1 and Class #2 - and does a far more informed job than I of discussing the importance of the center. It's intriguing and I would recommend hitting the links, and then put Comics Comics into your RSS feed.

This relates to my "Halloween month" revisiting of Mark Verheiden's initial ALIENS trilogy from Dark Horse in the late 80s/early 90s. I hadn't read them in years, and after watching Ridley Scott's director's cut of the original ALIEN, I was excited to dive into the longbox. I'll write about the stories therein later. But what I found interesting was a particular page of art from the third series, subtitled Earth War and drawn by Sam Kieth. The page in question is this one:



This is a complex layout, considering the reading of the panel does not follow the traditional left-to-right/up-and-down path. It goes down the left side of the page, and then jumps back up to read down the right side, despite the lack of dialogue in that final panel.

It made me think of debates I hear on some of my comic podcasts, where they lament the fact that there is no more centralized office where new artists get to learn about comic storytelling from masters of the form, similar to the mythical stories we hear of the Marvel bullpen where artists like George Perez interned with Rich Buckler while learning from others working in the same space. Some artists today want to create these elaborate page layouts, but then we, as readers, don't know how to follow the action on the page.

But Sam Kieth's layout for this page works perfectly, and he is ably assisted by Jim Massara who did the lettering for this series. You can follow the action with my rudimentary photoshop arrows below:



In the first panel, we have a marine reaching into a hole where a second marine has fallen. Our eyes follow the word balloons as they wrap around the first marine's head, following the final balloon as it stretches out into the second panel below, leading us directly to this marine's head in that second panel which is blown through by the alien. The trajectory of the alien's inner mouth (what is that called?) and the blood and brain matter sends our eyes away from the center of the page down to the bottom left corner. The blood spatters all the way to the edge of this panel and our eye falls into the bottom left panel, which has the second marine turning away from the spattering blood and brains - which tie this panel in with the previous one above it. Our eyes then naturally cross over to the panel beside this one - and it is important to note that these two panels at the bottom left of the page are as wide as the second panel right above it, the single gutter going up the right side of these panels effectively demarcating the left and right of the page. In this fourth panel, our eyes are raised up toward the top of the image by the retreating bit of food the alien took with it and the word balloon that falls out of the upper boundary of this panel. And this leads our eye over to the final, tall panel on the right and to the alien hanging above the marines. The dripping blood from the alien's mouth then leads our eye back down to the bottom of this panel and the two marines looking up into its hideous maw.

I was really impressed with how this page was laid out. I know I have encountered some difficulty in reading recent comics, mainly because enough thought has not been put into the layout of the page.

This is what I appreciate from Frank Santoro and other artists like him, and like Sam Kieth in this example. I also found it interesting to note that Kieth, whether conscious or not, refused to give up the center of this particular page. You'll notice that the dividing line between the right and left of the page is off-center, nudged toward the right. And it is telling that the main focus of this page - the alien's attack on the marines - is found within the center, as noted below.



These are things I didn't think about when I was just reading comics. But now that I'm trying to write comics, I examine the books more closely than I ever did. And having teachers like Santoro to show the way at Comic Comics is certainly a help.

chris

SPX 2009

The Small Press Expo was last weekend and Dan and I hit the road for Bethesda. A few months ago, if you had asked us, we weren’t planning on having anything new for the show. But a lot can happen in a few months. Once we started talking about doing a new issue of WARRIOR27, it turned out we would have the craziest and biggest issue yet for SPX 2009.

As usual, we wanted to have a variety of stuff for the anthology. Little did we know. Our friend Matt Constantine, who put us up for the weekend at his place in Fairfax and with whom we had worked before (he has a short prose piece in our second issue from 2006, which was our first year at the Expo) also contributed to this issue.

In the end, we went with a multimedia extravaganza of different pieces for this issue. Dan wrote three short stories illustrated by three very different artists and put them into a standard size comic. I contributed a short prose story, “Fractured,” which was in a smaller chapbook. Dan and Travis Dandro (who created the freaky and sometimes disturbing comic Mr. Gnu) created a mini-comic that folds open telling a story from “the mall” and which has, on the back once it’s completely open, a game board wherein one must make it through the mall with money left. The mini-comic went into a small baggie, while a die, money, and two Homies (playing pieces) went into another baggie, which when stapled to the first rested nicely over our issue wrap. We also had a CD-ROM of a color comic done by Matt and Paul Petzrick and a b/w preview of a webcomic, also written by Matt with art from S.A. McClung. It was a load of stuff in various formats, all for $6 (or $5 on Sunday). It’s a pretty fun bundle, and the Homies pulled people in.

Overall, the show this year was better than last year. There were a lot of people saying this, and I think it’s a matter of everyone having had a year to adjust their budgets/spending/whatever. It was amazing to hear EVERYONE saying that last year was a rough one and that 2009 was so much better. I would have liked to have known that last year, having left MD disappointed and thinking it was just us. Too often, we find ourselves living in a bubble, believing that what we’re fearing or feeling is unique to us, when, in reality, our experiences aren’t all that unique at all. But I digress (can’t get too preachy here).

From the opening bell on Saturday morning, the show was packed. People were everywhere and you could tell it was going to be a good show. We had our second best sales, breaking three figures, which was nice. It also felt good to sell at least one copy of everything on the table, including copies of issues 1-4 of WARRIOR27, a copy of the Arcana horror anthology, DARK HORRORS 2, in which Dan had a story published, and a few other things.

Like most though, we’re not here to make money. Maybe a little to recoup our initial expenses. But for the most part, the big draw of SPX is getting to catch up with friends like Justin Fox, Mike LaRiccia, and G.B. Tran, having an opportunity to talk directly with publishers and editors like Chris Staros at Top Shelf or James Lucas Jones of Oni, and getting to make new friends like Adam Umak, Julian Lytle, and Frank Santoro. It’s a very cool atmosphere and it can really invigorate you.

I had a great conversation with Frank Santoro (check out his COLD HEAT series, done with Ben Jones and published by Picturebox) about art and comics and how the whole page works, or can work, in a comic if you’re willing to see things in some way other than just a panel to panel progression. I told him about this mini-comic idea I’ve had burning in the back of my mind for three years now and he’s got me convinced to just go ahead and draw it, which has been the big stumbling block for me. Like he said, Wally Wood and all those masters had swipe files for reference because they needed to be fast and accurate. They would find whatever image they needed, get the perspective and proportion from the picture, and draw it in their own way in order to keep drawing. Utilizing something like that in order to manage the perspective and such of the images, while creating my own style (if I can hope for such a thing with this project) should help me get over this hump. I plan on having COMPARE & CONTRAST at the Expo next year.

Some of the highlights of the show for me:

- Catching up with friends, as mentioned above.

-Getting to meet Mr. Phil & Charlito from the Izzer.

-Talking with Adam Umak from the Legion of Dudes.

-Having an opportunity to share a preview of the short story Ape will publish as part of their UFO anthology with Chris Staros, Chris Pitzer, and others.

-Getting a chance to see my old buddy from college, who was not around last year. Hey, John.

-Meeting online friends for the first time in the flesh, like Sam Costello from the Panel & Pixel Boards, who is the brain behind the Split Lip horror anthology. Check it out.

-Finally picking up TO THE HEART OF THE STORM and THE NAME OF THE GAME by Will Eisner for $5 a piece at the CBLDF table. Can't wait to read these.

-And having Gahan Wilson check out our books and wish us luck.

SPX is over for 2009, and I’m already thinking ahead to next year and what I might have. Not only do I want to have that mini-comic, but I’ve got another idea rolling around that I might try to get done. And, I need to follow up with publishers, reviewers, and others to keep my name out there and see where this little trip will take me.

chris