YEAH!
Buy at Powell’s

Everything about YEAH! (2011, Fantagraphics) is pretty ridiculous.

For most people, Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez aren’t the first two creators that come to mind when considering who’d make great comics for preteen/young teen girls. But this actually happened. And from a mainstream publisher (DC Comics/Vertigo) no less. Then it disappeared into history until it was republished earlier this year.

And you should be glad it was. Like I said, it is ridiculous — for its mere existence — and for the story.

YEAH! is a rock band composed of three young women — spacey guitarist Krazy, sweet hippie drummer Honey and the tough and glamorous Woo-Woo. You want to read this already, I’m sure. But wait — YEAH!, despite being from New Jersey is the biggest band in outer space (it’s just too bad no one on earth has ever heard of them). The women’s ineptly manipulative manager Crusty often gets them into trouble by not revealing the whole truth and they face musical rivals (The Snobs, Miss Hellraiser) and slimy record executives.

This is a delightful amount of fun. Bagge’s writing has the right mix of breathlessness and sarcasm and the silliness he tosses out is playfully weird. The strong lines and retro cartoony fell of Hernandez’s art gives this book a perfect look. But do I really need to tell you Gilbert Hernandez is great? I find the way he draws aliens to be a particular joy.

Now, I know that it’s quite possible that this book doesn’t align as closely with your interests as it does mine (really, “girls in rock bands,” “comics” and “space” is nearly the entire list of stuff I like) so it’s a little hard for me to imagine who wouldn’t like it.

But yes, you’ll like YEAH!.

Life with Mr. Dangerous
Buy on Amazon.com

Amy is adrift. She just turned 26, lives in a nondescript apartment in a nondescript neighborhood working a nondescript retail job at the mall.

The only defining force in her life is a surreal animated TV show. But maybe that’s all she really needs.

Paul Hornschemeier‘s graphic novel Life with Mr. Dangerous (Villard/Random House, 2011) takes its title from Amy’s favorite show, but also reflects Amy’s state of mind. No, the men in her life are generally also fairly nondescript (there’s a pattern here), but she desires trouble, excitement. She’s wanting to take a chance but doesn’t quite know how.

And certainly, this probably does sound like your typical comic about sad twentysomethings, but Hornschemeier’s unblinkingly thoughtfulness makes it painfully easy to relate to.

Amy isn’t always likeable. She frequently comes across as self-centered, even in her insecurity. While she’s clearly been in some relationships with some callous men, her inability to connect makes it clear why there’s a reason she spends most of her time watching TV and talking to her cat. At the same time, her loneliness makes her sympathetic. Amy may have gotten herself into these situations, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to get out of them.

This book would not be nearly as affecting without Hornschemeier’s art. He has a sharp, crisp eye and conveys Amy’s isolation through empty space and tightly framed panels. Even outdoor scenes are closed off by buildings. Much of the book is just Amy by herself, and the subtle changes in her expression as she wordless shifts through emotions is masterful. I also loved the mood that the earthy color palette gave this book. It’s neither vibrant nor drab but just muted, much like Amy’s life itself. It does becomes quietly brighter toward the end as Amy decides to make changes in her life.

Granted, Hornschemeier isn’t necessarily covering new ground with Life with Mr. Dangerous, but I don’t think he needed to. It’s ultimately a heartfelt story about understanding the world through more than a limited perspective and seeing people for who they are. I’m fine with having a few more of those.

(Portions of this graphic novel appeared in Fantagraphics‘ anthology series Mome so you may have read some of it there.)

As a side note, I would like to thank Hornschemeier and Big Planet in Bethesda for the signing last Monday. I’m just sorry than only four people (well, maybe five) showed up. I hope his signing at City Lights in San Francisco tomorrow has a ton of people.

Castle Waiting
Volume II
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The most amazing thing about Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting Volume II (Fantagraphics, 2010) is that nothing really happens.

And yet, it’s completely enthralling just the same.

The bulk of the action — if you can call it that — focuses on Jain moving into the Keep with her baby, Pindar, and visitors from Henry’s past showing up looking for help. But mostly, it’s just the characters interacting — they poke fun at each other, help each other out, chat, eat, explore and play games.

We do find out a bit more about Jain’s past, but there are no major revelations. I found myself not particularly caring about who the father of Jain’s baby is when it’s much more interesting to watch Jain trying to teach Simon to read. Or when Simon shares his secret of how he wins at nine pins with Chess. It’s the small moments that drive this book. Sister Peace’s teasing friendship with Chess is a delight, and Jain’s compassion toward the troubled doctor is sweet.

Medley’s art remains consistently gorgeous — both playful and meticulously. While this is firmly fantasy with its giants and dwarves and imps and all other manner of fantastic creatures, her characters look and feel so full of life they seem like real people (and that includes the ones with animal heads). I love lingering over her images and taking in the details in the folds of clothing or someone’s raised eyebrows.

I loved my time with these characters. It’s such a cliché to say “I didn’t want it to end!” but well, I kept flipping the last page over, unconvinced it was really the end.

Moto Hagio is also a recipient this year of Comic-Con Inkpot Award and this was her first-ever visit to the U.S.

During her interview session yesterday with manga expert Matt Thorn, who translated her comments from Japanese, Hagio was utterly charming and fascinating.

She said she made her professional debut at the age of 20 and gained fame through her vampire story, The Poe Clan. Greatly influenced by American science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark (she specifically cited Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” as one of the stories that had a big impact on her), she tried her hand at sci-fi stories like They Were Eleven and Marginal.

Hagio incorporates a lot of darker ideas into her work. The short story, “Iguana Girl” is about a girl whose mother only sees her as being a lizard, although to everyone else she looks normal. Hagio said she created this story because she was trying to deal with her own issues with her mother, who believed that being a manga-ka was a “vulgar” profession.

Her longest-running story to date is A Cruel God Reigns about a young man seeking redemption after killing his stepfather who was molesting him.

During the audience question-and-answer session, someone asked if she had trouble getting published. She said when she first started out, she was doing comics for a magazine aimed at elementary school girls and her editors wanted energetic, happy stories. Instead, she was turning in depressing stories where people died. Another publisher approached her and it was glad to publish her dark stories. She said she kept right on killing people in her stories after that.

Someone else asked if she liked how sh?jo manga now had a lot of strong female characters, and she said that it’s a good development. Japan has always been male-dominated, she said, and women are expected to get married, have kids and stay at home (she also remarked that she thinks that’s why her job was a source of conflict with her parents). She then went onto say that “The idea that men should do this and women should do this is ridiculous.” That got the most applause of anything she said.

At the end of her presentation, it was announced that she was donating the books of her works that she had brought with her to Comic-Con.

Temperance
Buy at Amazon.com

This is why I read comics.

I think all of us get to a point sometimes with comics where it’s not so much that we’re tired of them but we know what to expect. Things fall into obvious categories or genres. Styles of art, even with they’re distinctive, all begin to resemble each other. And even when these comics are good — or even great — they’re rarely surprising.

Cathy Malkasian‘s Temperance (Fantagraphics, 2010) is just that. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s different and thoughtful. And most of all, surprising.

A mostly allegorical meditation on the allure of conflict and the power of empathy, Temperance follows Pa, the embodiment of war; his deformed daughter, Minerva; her amnesiac husband, Lester; and Lester’s wooden leg, who Minerva crafts into a doll she names Temperance. Minerva rules over the fortress of Blessedbowl and continues to propagate the myths of the righteousness of Pa and the heroics of Lester. Temperance, who remembers being a tree, escapes and meets up with Pa as the society inside Blessedbowl falls apart.

The plot — while still fairly linear — is obviously secondary the ideas that Malkasian is trying to communicate. Pa can be seen as “evil” — and he’s certainly bad — but he’s as damaged as anyone else. Minerva just wants control, but also to keep the love of her husband and to get the respect of Pa, who obviously loved other “daughter” Peggy more. Temperance sees them all for who they are, and the end is nothing short of transcendent.

Malkasain mostly works as an animation director, including on various Nickelodeon projects as well as the Curious George animated series. While Temperance is far from being for children, her animation background shows through in her the designs of her characters, with their exaggerated, distinctive bodies and facial features. Her shaded, pen-and-ink drawings have a fluidity and beauty that gives Temperance a quietness that belies the sometimes horrific subject matter.

Malkasian has crafted a deep world with a fully-realized society. It never feels like it’s just a backdrop, and the glimpses we have of life inside Blessedbowl are fascinating. She did more than she needed to in creating interior and exterior lives for everyone here with sparsely furnished rooms and towering outside walls.

The message here isn’t the most original and the book does have somewhat of a tendency to ramble in trying to make its points, but there’s such hope and lightness of spirit here that these are tiny complaints. This is an amazing example of what comics can be.

[Review copy provided by publisher.]

Still, no one seemed particularly excited about it this year. I was, more or less, but it wasn’t the all-consuming “I can’t wait!” excitement I’ve had in the two previous years. Basically, MoCCA (when I finally got it into my head what days it actually was) became a good excuse to get out of town for a couple of days.

I remember spending brunch last year on the Saturday of the show studying a print out of the long list of debuts that Robot6 had posted. That blog had three posts this year, as far as I can tell, on MoCCA, and none of them were that extensive. The Beat had a little bit more, but still, it didn’t seem like there was really that much new stuff. (A lot of the coverage of MoCCA seemed to be more about events surrounding it — pre-parties and signings and after-parties and such — than the show itself.)

And my experience with the show kind of made that clear. I mean, certainly, when you go to a bunch of these things that are all centered along the Mid-Atlantic, you’re going to see the same creators again and again, quite often with the same comics. But I saw very few mini-comics that I hadn’t seen before. When I compare it to last year, where I felt like everything I saw was new and exciting, this just felt like more of the same.

The bigger publishers — First Second, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc. — were doing good business and my web searches seem to indicate that’s why a lot of people were there. Don’t get me wrong — I was delighted to have Mike Cavallaro sign my copy of Foiled!, but I’m not someone who really cares about getting books signed all that much. If I want books from these publishers, well, that’s kind of what Amazon is for. (I know that sounds terrible, and I’m only partially serious, but you get my point.) The bigger-name guests like Frank Miller also kind of seemed out of character for the show.

So what do I think happened this year?

I think the change to April — even though people knew it since last year — threw some people off. Comics take time and when you’re used to knowing you need to have something done by June, you may be hard-pressed to get it done by April instead, even if you have a good amount of warning.

I also know exhibitors weren’t too happy about various issues last year — floor layout, the heat, and even the building itself. I don’t know their reasons, but there are a handful of people that I’ve seen in the previous two years that weren’t there this year. (A friend overheard on the train home that exhibitor space didn’t sell out — which would explain the random round tables occupying some of the space in the back.)

MoCCA this year faced some competition — both from Boston Comic Con and Stumptown Comics Fest in two weeks. The economy being what it is, I think some West Coast creators that may have done MoCCA otherwise had to pick between the two and stuck with the one that was closer to home. (That happened to me — last year, I had every intention on making it to Stumptown this year.)

And about that: I’m not necessarily blaming this all on the economy, but I have noticed that so far this year, some other events have seemed a little scaled-back. I think last year, we were all hurting but we had plans in place and were able to go through with them. This year, we’re still hurting which meant we had to make some choices. Maybe solo creators couldn’t afford the table fees; maybe they didn’t have the funds to get their comics printed. And so that left the “bigger” indie publishers — who are in the one part of the publishing industry that’s not entirely sucking — to pick up the slack.

I don’t really know, though. I think MoCCA’s in transition and I think that’s OK. It’s still a good show and I think it will continue to be a good show, even if it changes into something else (on Geek Girl on the Street, I mentioned I think there’s absolutely room for a “literary” comic con, and if that’s the direction MoCCA moves in, that’s cool).

Still, I think for me, if next year is a choice between going to Stumptown and going to MoCCA, I’m going to Stumptown (mostly because I’ve never been).

But Drink & Draw Like a Lady was blast and I’m glad I came here just for that.