Q&A Part Eighteen

Steve asks: what does it take for a creator to win your trust? What has to happen for you to decide, I will buy this person's work, sight unseen, every time? And what has to happen for this creator to eventually lose your trust?

Gaining my trust is really easy. Just produce around three pieces of work (whether it be comics or even just an online column I follow) that I love. And then keep doing projects that seem interesting. Matt Fraction earned my trust quickly with his "Poplife" column and then Last of the Independents and The Annotated Mantooth. That material was enough for me to say "Okay, I'm a Fraction fan, sign me up."

Of course, the list of creators I trust is small. At this point, I'd say the list is: Warren Ellis, Matt Fraction, Joe Casey, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis and maybe Brian Wood and Ed Brubaker. And I don't buy everything each of them does (or, at least, not right away). I love Casey's work, but I doubt I'll ever buy his Kiss or GI Joe stuff.

And losing trust is easy: fuck up. Do a few things I think are shit. I'll usually forgive a project or two that doesn't wow me, but by three misses in a row (or close enough together), the creator drops down to "We'll see what the project looks like/what people are saying about" status.

I think I'm like everyone else and it's all about results. Build up a solid record of great results and trust is formed that future work will be of equal or greater quality. Produce sub-par work and the trust is lost.

Steve: if you were to do an issue-by-issue analysis of a series/run, what series/run would you do and, um, will you do it, man?

Chad's Challenge part seventeen: Showcase

you've recommended the odd "Showcase" reprint volume from DC to me from time to time. Which volume have you enjoyed the most and why should people read this reprint series? What is the value of these stories that seem antiquated now and share very little in common stylistically with modern comics?

A lot of the Showcase volumes really have mere nostalgic value. I like the Legion one which just came out, and I'm anxious to read more, because I loved the Legion as a kid. And the silver age Superman Showcases have much the same factor that evokes childhood memories. These stories do also hold the value of letting us revisit the history of comics and see how the style of comics has evolved over the years.

Plus, they're breezy as hell. They're quick fun reads, and it harkens back to the day when superhero books were chock full of weird ideas and didn't take themselves so seriously.

But as for actually holding up to the present day, I would recommend the Western adventures of Jonah Hex and the horror stories of House of Mystery. They're short, they're interesting, they're well-told. Showcase's biggest draw for me is that they tell stories in a variety of genres, and between these and recent sci-fi and war ones as well, DC is showing how their rich publishing history has been very diverse, perhaps even more diverse than today.

personally I'm looking forward to eventually picking up the Challengers of the Unknown Showcase, but if you've never read it, you should absolutely check out the Suicide Squad Showcase coming out soon. That was the best ongoing series of the '80s if you ask me and it's a little slice of comics history.

(And that's not even getting me started on Marvel's essentials.)

So Chad: what does it take for a creator to win your trust? What has to happen for you to decide, I will buy this person's work, sight unseen, every time? And what has to happen for this creator to eventually lose your trust?

Q&A Part Sixteen

Steve asks: who's a "mainstream" writer (novelist, screenwriter) who has recently come to comics that you wish would bugger on off back from whence he/she came, and who's a comics writer that has flirted with other formats that you wish would stay in comics exclusively? (and why in both cases, of course?)

1. I've yet to really enjoy anything Brad Meltzer's written, so I guess I'd say him for the first part. Although does he count as recent? I can't say I've read a lot of work by "mainstream" writers in comics. They tend to work on books that don't look interesting to me. As for Meltzer's work, I think the thing that annoys me the most is the narrative inconsistency: issues will have several narrators for no reason at all (I discussed this in-depth in my review of Identity Crisis). And I think that annoys me more for him than it would others because he's a novelist and you would expect him to understand narration by this point. It's amazingly sloppy and amateurish the way he does it. There's often no reason (other than to attempt "characterisation") and comes off like he's writing the script and just goes "Oh, I think I'll have Superman narrate three panels!" I've never seen anything quite like it.

2. Grant Morrison. I've yet to really experience anything non-comic of his and I know he's won an award or two for his playwriting, but the motherfucker was born to write comics and time writing other stuff just seems like a waste. He lives and breathes comics as a writer in ways no one else does (no, not even Alan Moore--although, he'd be a close second for me). So, yeah, I think he'd be best served by sticking with comics exclusively. Now, I could change my tune about that when his novel eventually comes out or I read his plays.

Steve: you've recommended the odd "Showcase" reprint volume from DC to me from time to time. Which volume have you enjoyed the most and why should people read this reprint series? What is the value of these stories that seem antiquated now and share very little in common stylistically with modern comics?

Chad's Challenge part fifteen: format

what is your preferred format to buy comics in? (singles, trades, hardcovers--then what type of hardcover, I guess)

I want to say that it depends on a lot of different factors really, but that's really crap. I mean, if a hardcover and a softcover came out at the same time, I'd prefer the hardcover, but probably buy the softcover because it was cheaper. So for me hardcover vs. softcover really boils down to read it now for a high price or read it later for a cheaper price. And that's something that really depends on the book, on the creators involved in it, on how much of a price difference, how long of a wait, etc.

However, given the option, I think I would always prefer to read comics in single issue format. I like the serialized nature of the stories; I like reading them in installments.

I also like that that format allows me to spread my purchase out over the course of a few months. It's much easier for me to afford a fifteen dollar story if I pay for it in five months, rather than all at once.

And I'm more likely to take a risk on one issue of a story than an entire trade of it, which means singles let me try different things, I get more variety.

Hardcovers do make it feel more like a literate experience than single issues, but that's just being elitist. Comics in their purest form will always mean single issues to me.

so, Chad: who's a "mainstream" writer (novelist, screenwriter) who has recently come to comics that you wish would bugger on off back from whence he/she came, and who's a comics writer that has flirted with other formats that you wish would stay in comics exclusively? (and why in both cases, of course?)

Q&A Part Fourteen

Steve asks: So: we both I think tend to follow writers more than artists, but what would you say it takes for an artist to catch your eye? what qualities do you look for in the artwork of those creators you follow?

I think storytelling tends to be what attracts me most to an artist. How well does the artist tell the story.

Honestly, I know this shouldn't influence what artists and I like and dislike, but their ability to produce steady work tends to make me like an artist more. The fact that guys like Steve Dillon and Sean Phillips always meet the deadline makes me respect them more.

But, then again, I like Ashley Wood's art and that goes against those two points a lot of the time.

I'm actually pretty forgiving of art because I do read comics for the writing primarily. And I can't say I've got a comic primarily for the art in the past five years, probably longer than that. A good artist always strikes me more as a bonus than anything else.

Steve: what is your preferred format to buy comics in? (singles, trades, hardcovers--then what type of hardcover, I guess)

Chad's Challenge part thirteen: cancellation for the best

(So several days ago, Chad asked me the question below, but then some book came out and I got too busy to answer it. So here I am finally getting around to it.)

Has there been a book that teetered on the edge of cancellation that eventually turned to crap and made you wish it HAD been cancelled earlier?

No. I've tried and tried to think of a scenario when this might have happened, but I can't.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of the books I have loved that have been cancelled were saved from suckdom BY their cancellation: Automatic Kafka (where could it have gone, really?), Chronos, Chase, Doom Patrol, Hourman, Manhunter (the Mark Shaw series)... so many books that I loved ended early and I reflect on them and realize they could only have turned to crap had they kept going.

(That's true of TV shows I loved which were cancelled as well. Firefly... would any more of it actually have been an improvement? can you top the arc you see in the two seasons of Sports Night?)

The only book I can think of that I followed which was even SPARED from the axe was the most recent Manhunter series, and it actually managed to improve when it was saved, I felt.

There are plenty of other books I followed that reached a natural conclusion, which I felt could have been better: Transmet and Starman, for example. Shorten their conclusions, and you have a much better book, in both cases. Grand Guignol in starman could have easily cut two or three issues, as could have the space saga, which would have made the pacing a lot better. And Transmet's pacing too was a bit out of whack in the end, a bit too decompressed.

But that's not really answering the question is it? I guess my "no" from the very beginning still stands.

I'm very interested in hearing your reply to this one.
How much longer are we going to go on this? I'd say we should try to go to twenty, but i leave for California on Wednesday, will spend most of Tuesday afternoon packing, and will spend most of tomorrow catching up on grading before I go.

At the very least, you should answer one more question, since that puts us at fourteen, seven each, one for each day of a week of posts.

So: we both I think tend to follow writers more than artists, but what would you say it takes for an artist to catch your eye? what qualities do you look for in the artwork of those creators you follow?

Q&A Part Twelve

Steve asks: What is a book that you think could have been saved from the chopping block had the hype machine gotten behind it, if only it had gotten a bit more notice?

I've loved a lot of comics that have been cancelled, but, honestly, most of them wouldn't have been saved by marketing. Fans love to think that if only their favourite neglected title got a bigger push that it wouldn't have died a slow, painful death. Except did they not notice that most of the books that wind up cancelled get that way after a slow decent down the sales charts? Now, I'd understand if the book began really low and held the same numbers, but most books start out at a semi-decent position and then just keep shedding readers, suggesting that in most of these cases, something is "wrong" with the book itself that the people reading it stop--something that marketing can't save. And, honestly, name a series that's been cancelled in the past five years worth saving that didn't get a pile of good reviews, proving that those are just as meaningless.

Now, in some cases like Automatic Kafka, it's easy to see why some people would stop reading (while I disagree with those reasons, I can see why someone would find the book to be a pile of garbage). In others, not so much.

The only book that pops into my head that may have been saved is Mr. Majestic. I don't remember a BIG PUSH behind that title, but it seems like the perfect book for all those people who wanted a proper Superman book. Self-contained issues, big heroic adventures, fun but also tragic at times . . . it had everything the average fanboy CLAIMS to want. The final three issues break from this, but that was because the book was on the way out, so why not do something interesting, you know?

I'm not convinced that marketing could have saved this title, though, if only because, well, it wasn't Superman. It was the Superman book everyone wanted, but, you know, it wasn't actually Superman, so fuck that shit. The book failed more because it didn't have decades of continuity and built-in appeal than anything else. That's why a lot of books die, really. Most of the cult hits have the good reviews, the companies doing some pushes and . . . they still die. Some books just aren't meant to survive, I guess.

Wow, I'm just a bundle of joy tonight, ain't I?

Steve: Has there been a book that teetered on the edge of cancellation that eventually turned to crap and made you wish it HAD been cancelled earlier?

Chad's Challenge part eleven: overlooked books

Chad asked: What is the one comic that you think is absolutely brilliant, but no one else seems to notice and why?

absolutely brilliant in a literary sense or absolutely brilliant in the sense that it's a fantastic comic? Hell, I'll just give you answers for both.

Brilliant in a literary sense would be Jar of Fools. I think it's odd that Adrian Tomine, Seth, Chris Ware, Chester Brown, and Daniel Clowes get all kinds of accolades, and the work of Jason Lutes goes unnoticed. Jar of Fools is such a fantastic bit of fiction; it's got great character development and interaction. The people are all mired in tragedy and trying to fight their way out of it, trapped by the circumstances of their lives, and they deal with it by coming together. It's absolutely heartwrenching, beautifully drawn, and chock full of symbolism.

(and wait, did you mean why do I think it's brilliant or why do I think no one notices it?)

I think no one notices it because, in the end, it's not necessarily ABOUT anything; there somehow manages to be more plot in It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth or the average Tomine short story than there is here. Also, it just came out too long ago. Newer works by these artists, even Lutes, have gotten attention, but this work has slipped through the cracks... and it's just as good as Jimmy Corrigan, yet more accessible. I don't get it.

Brilliant as in "a good comic"... well, I've got two for you. 2 Sisters by Matt Kindt (from Top Shelf) and Night Trippers by Mark Ricketts and Micah Farritor (from Image). Both books use a lot of flashbacks to flesh out a rich history, both have a ton of cool genre action (spies and pirates in 2 Sisters, vampires in Night Trippers), and both have really great character-oriented drama in them as well.

And they don't seem to get noticed because... a lot of shit comes out each month that is good and some of it just gets lost in the shuffle. These guys don't have the biggest names, so their work didn't get as much hype. It's sad but true that the nature of hype in most forms of literature/entertainment is that the things that were probably already going to do well STILL get the majority of the hype/advertising.

so I'm taking your question then, putting a bit of spin on it, and sending it back to you. What is a book that you think could have been saved from the chopping block had the hype machine gotten behind it, if only it had gotten a bit more notice?

Q&A Part Ten

Steve asks: if such an anthology were to happen, something for comics comparable to the Norton Anthology of British Literature, what are five works (short stories obviously, or excerpts even though I hate when excerpts get put in anthologies) that you think would HAVE to be included, and why?

Holy shit, I don't know. If there's one thing I know it's that I'm not NEARLY well read enough to answer this question in an intelligent way. But, I'll give it a go.

The biggest problem I see here is debating whether or not 22-page stories can be included, which I think is a must, simply because it has been the standard size of comic issues for the past few decades, so I'm going to make my choices with a limit of 22 pages, but only in the case of single issues. No 22-page excerpts from longer works.

As well, I'm going to limit my choices to what I've actually read. I mean, obviously you'd include some of Will Eisner's Spirit work, but since I haven't read any, I'm not going to include it. So, my choices will probably skew toward the recent and the superhero.

1. The last part of Codeflesh. My own personal pet favourite, I'll admit, but still worth inclusion, because Casey and Adlard do some very interesting and original things in the final chapter of that story.

2. Issue four of Watchmen. Of all of the issues, this is the most self-contained one, in my opinion, making it the best choice (if you were to take an issue from Watchmen). It happens early on enough in the series that while it advances the plot, it's separate. As well, the way Moore and Gibbons play around with time is quite interesting and worth looking at.

3. One of the chapters from Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. I don't have my copy here in Windsor, but great visuals, interesting use of narration and nice, short chapters.

4. That famous Crumb-drawn American Splendor comic that I can't remember the title of. You know the one.

5. And, fuck it, Marvel Boy #4, because I think it's plays around with panels and art a lot, plus for all of the various reasons I love the series. (Although, you know that if I was teaching a class on comics, this series would be on the course near the end.)

Steve: What is the one comic that you think is absolutely brilliant, but no one else seems to notice and why? (For example, my weird obsession with calling Codeflesh insanely fabulous, when about fifty people seem to have read it and remembered it.)

Chad's Challenge part nine: out-of-print

Chad asked me, "What is the one comic you've wanted to teach, but couldn't because it's difficult to find/out of print?"

And the answer is... there aren't any? There are things that I've wanted to use that are out of print or hard to find, but I've managed to make it happen. I've had to use some secondhand copies or internet scans of things that aren't readily available for purchase. And I'm willing to use these technically illegal copies to get around this problem you mention for several reasons.

1) I'm not making any money off these copies
2) they don't get to keep these copies
3) they are not things that are readily available for purchase
4) it's for educational purposes
5) I'm exposing the students to this material, and in a way it is working as promotion for the work to a previously uninformed audience

A good example would be "Soul of a New Machine" which I use in my writing courses. It's a single issue that is available in trade, but I can't require my students to pay $20 for a trade that they're going to read 22 pages of. But it's worth reading, and the students get a lot out of it, so I'm willing to break the rules to use it.

Another example would be "Shoot" which has never even seen print, but which I found online and give to my students to read. That's definitely something that wouldn't be able to be used in my classes, but it's such a good story that I found a way to make it work.

I guess, what I'm saying is that the availability has never really been an issue as much as length or cost.

But I will say that the availability issue would be helped a great deal if what McCloud said at the lecture on Friday is true, and Norton is in fact looking at putting out an anthology like their other comprehensive anthologies. If that would happen, I'd be ecstatic.

So here's my question: if such an anthology were to happen, something for comics comparable to the Norton Anthology of British Literature, what are five works (short stories obviously, or excerpts even though I hate when excerpts get put in anthologies) that you think would HAVE to be included, and why?

Q&A Part Eight

Steve asks: how would you define the national identity of Canada when it comes to comics? how are they set apart from American comics, and who has been most influential in shaping Canadian comics?

Canada and national identity . . . not a tricky area at all. One of the biggest questions in Canada is often what does it mean to be Canadian? And damned if I know, honestly. Because of our history, we don't have a strong national identity, more numerous regional identities that are all trying to fit in with the others while maintaining their uniqueness (well, the fitting in part is up for debate most of the time). As such, this problem has often spilled over into the arts, asking what makes Canadian literature Canadian or, in this case, Canadian comics Canadian?

Now, I've always been partial to the "it was made by a Canadian, so it's Canadian" argument, but that doesn't actually explain much beyond the person's place of birth or country they've chosen to live in. In a way, I like the fact that there isn't anything explicit about being Canadian, nothing you can point to and say "That's Canadian!" because that just seems like an artificial limit. If you look at countries with stronger identities in comics, you can see those limits. The Brits are known for that detached, literary take on superheroes, which comes from the culture, but it also creates an idea of what a British comic is supposed to be--and any Brit that doesn't write that way may not get much exposure because they don't fit into the idea of what it means to be a British comic writer.

That said, I don't really pay attention to Canadian comics as a rule. I also don't pay attention to American or British or German or French or Japanese comics as a rule either. I tend to just go for what seems good, no matter where it's from. I think the only place where I distinguish Canadian from everything else is in my music collection, which is about one-third Canadian. So, I can't say who's influenced Canadian comics the most, really. I mean, I know who a lot of the popular Canadian creators are and all, but most of them are popular for their work in the US market like Todd McFarlane, Darwyn Cooke, Stuart Immonen, and Bryan Lee O'Malley to name only four (because I am lazy).

If you look at those four creators, does anything stand out as a common creative trait? If anything, looking at Canadian creators, the common trait I see is a unique vision each has. Because Canada is meant to be such a plurality, it makes sense that there is no unifying trait of a Canadian creator, rather each just does his or her own thing without thinking (consciously or subconsciously) about how it fits into a national framework.

Or maybe I'm talking out of my ass.

Now, Steve: What is the one comic you've wanted to teach, but couldn't because it's difficult to find/out of print?

Chad's Challenge part seven: manga

Chad asked me: what has your experience with manga been? Do you follow any series/creators?

I read a lot of different manga a few years ago when I worked at Waldenbooks. It was a good way to spend my lunch break, especially since I could zip through a whole volume in that thirty minutes. Manga and GNs were my "area of specialty" and I wanted to have enough knowledge about them to be informed when I spoke with customers.

But after reading a lot of manga, I realized that very little of it actually was something I was interested in.

I've read probably seven or eight volumes of Fruits Basket, the first two or three of DNAngel, the first two of Battle Royale (something I would read more of if I could do so for free), all of Cowboy Bebop, two or three Lupin III's, the first Lone Wolf and Cub (which I would read more of if it weren't printed at a miniscule size that's impossible to read), all of Tokyo Babylon, two volumes of Descendents of Darkness, the first two of The Ring, Ohikkoshi, the first volume of Eagle (which I would read more of if given a chance), and the books Drawn and Quarterly has put out by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

I WOULD read more of some of those, as I said, and I would read a few other series too: Barefoot Gen, Akira, Adolf, Buddha, maybe Death Note since I've heard good things about it...

But I would only read those things if I had a chance to do so for free.
And really, it's not just manga that I don't have a taste for. I can't really get into most of the comics from Europe either. I'm not an international kind of guy, I don't think. I prefer the comics of the British Isles, Canada and the US; I think that's just the way I'm hardwired.

Ooh, and again that spawns an interesting new question: how would you define the national identity of Canada when it comes to comics? how are they set apart from American comics, and who has been most influential in shaping Canadian comics?

Q&A Part Six

Steve asks: What do you think an editor's role should be in the creative process, and what editors would you say have been the most influential, for good or for bad? (I'm not really talking about the EIC's really either, but more the street-level editors.)

My answer to the first question is that I have no idea. I really don't. However, I'm not alone as Steve Grant writes in the most recent Permanent Damage.

I'm not sure which editors have been the most influential, really. The best I can go by are what books I like keep having the same editors and the stories I've heard. It's hard to say really, because you can't tell, as a reader, how much of the final product is the editor. Tom Brevoort has said on numerous occasions that creators get the credit and editors get the blame, and I think there's a certain amount of truth in that, if only because the editor is the final judge of quality. Of course, if you see the same bad writing from a specific writer, can you blame the editor? Sure, why not, because he/she still hired the writer.

With that in mind, I have no idea where I'm going with this. Some editors that stand out in my mind as good, if only because they tend to edit good books: Axel Alonso, Stuart Moore, Scott Dunbier . . . I don't know who else. I honestly don't pay that much attention to who's editing what book, especially with Marvel and DC stuff.

As far as negative influences, there are a few people who stand out. Pretty much anyone editing anything with an "X" in the title at Marvel during the '90s seems to have had a negative influence in the long-term. That's about it, really, that I can point to with any confidence.

Again, as a reader, it's hard to tell (or care, as a result) how much influence an editor has really. Whether or not that's a good thing is a good question.

But, my question for you is: what has your experience with manga been? Do you follow any series/creators?

Chad's Challenge part five: events!

Chad asked me: What is your opinion of the event-driven stories at Marvel and DC? (The practise more than the stories.)

And it's really a pretty simple question to answer: it depends on the situation. I judge each event individually. There have been some that have been hamfisted editorial-driven crap and there have been some that have been really intriguing, creator-spawned concepts. There have been some that have been strongly united and there have been some that have been thinly tied together.

I've been a fan of event-driven stories in the past: I loved Invasion and Armageddon 2001 back in the day. I was a big fan of Secret Wars. I still think Identity Crisis is one of the most interesting books to be published by the big two in the past few years, and 52 was very interesting. I've hated other event-driven stories: War of the Gods, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis. And others I think were interesting ideas but failed in execution, Our Worlds at War being the clearest, most recent example I can think of.

And some recent Marvel ones sounded like they could have been good, and I am interested in checking them out: Civil War and the Hulks.

So, in the end, I've been burned by them before, but I haven't let that prevent me from trying new ones when they come along and when they seem interesting, because in the right hands they can be very interesting. Editorial input can hinder a creative process, but it can also heighten it, and event-driven stories are prime examples of both.

That then leads me to my question for you: What do you think an editor's role should be in the creative process, and what editors would you say have been the most influential, for good or for bad? (I'm not really talking about the EIC's really either, but more the street-level editors.)

Q&A Part Four

Steve asks: So Chad, tell me a comic writer/artist whose work is critically acclaimed but that you absolutely refuse to check out, despite the hype. What is it about their work that makes you reluctant to try it, even though its quality is so lauded.

Despite hearing many great things about Craig Thompson, I've never had the urge to check out his work. I don't even think I've flipped through one of his books, actually. Anytime I've seen Blankets in comic and book stores numerous times, but passed it over without a thought. Why I do this is probably because I'm not a fan of those autobiographical types of comics. I tend not to like autobiographies period unless it's about someone I'm interested in ahead of time (same with biographies). Why would I want to read about someone's life without some prior interest or hook? That said, I've also picked up at least one Chester Brown book that is autobiographical, so . . . I can't say for sure why I haven't read any of Thompson's work. Just instinct, I guess--something which I've learned to rely on since it's usually right (I seem to have a good sense for picking out comics, books, CDs, and DVDs that I'll like without any prior knowledge). Someday, maybe I'll check out something by Thompson. Who knows.

Steve: What is your opinion of the event-driven stories at Marvel and DC? (The practise more than the stories.)

Chad's Challenge part three: most important comics

So Chad asked me: You said that Eightball #22 and Jimmy Corrigan are the most important comics in the past five years (or so). Why these books?

Well, first of all, it's impossible to talk to any comics artist (and I mean an artist working in comics drawing something other than superheroes) that hasn't been influenced by Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware. Every artist I've ever spoken to has brought them up. Their stuff is just so innovative and really does more with the medium of comics than anything else you've ever seen. Ware especially really plays with the notion of how to even read the page of comics, so much so that even his indicia for his books are part of the CONTENT of the story and that you can't just zip right through even a page of his stories. You really have to examine each page of art to even figure out the flow of it, because of how elaborately crafted it is. And Clowes even doing a comic the size of Eightball #22, which is more than twice the size of a regular comic, and each page containing many different strands of story at once, is incredibly inventive.

And both stories are just so labyrinthine that they require a lot of you as a reader. Eightball #22 (which Clowes has repackaged as Ice Haven) is a series of interconnected stories in a particular town following a wide cast of characters and centering vaguely on a kidnapping case. It's very much like Winesburg, Ohio or Spoon River Anthology (or Short Cuts or Magnolia, if you prefer). It's an incredibly complex and subtle plot that doesn't spell it all out for readers, but it's not about the story really. It's about the characters and they all feel very real, every situation, every bit of dialogue.

And Jimmy Corrigan is like a Faulkner novel in its complexity and the way it jumps around in time. We see Jimmy Corrigan as an adult meeting his father for the first time, and we see Jimmy's grandfather as a child years in the past, and it's all incredibly moving character work that is intricately plotted out and expertly laid out on the page.

Basically these are the kinds of comics that made people sit up and go "wow, comics ARE literature!" much more than Maus or anything Eisner did or even the more recent media darlings like Blankets, Fun Home, or Persepolis. Don't get me wrong; I love all of those books. But they're honestly pretty simple to understand; like McCloud says, they use comics as their megaphone only.

But Jimmy Corrigan and Eightball #22 play with the medium just as much as they do tell a story, and the stories they both tell are much deeper than any of those previous examples. Faulknerian is a really apt description I think.

So Chad, tell me a comic writer/artist whose work is critically acclaimed but that you absolutely refuse to check out, despite the hype. What is it about their work that makes you reluctant to try it, even though its quality is so lauded.

Q&A Week Part Two

So, Steve asked: Tell me three books recently released in TPB or HC that you WISH you had the money/time to check out but haven't.

1. 100 Bullets: Not necessarily RECENT (although, since it's still ongoing, I'm going to say it counts), but, aside from The Invisibles, this is the Vertigo series I've been meaning to buy for the longest time. I plan to get the entire series in trades, so I haven't been in the biggest hurry. Actually, I've been putting it off partially because I'm afraid that I'll catch up before the series ends and will have to wait around. I'd rather put off the whole thing until I'm sure once I start, I'll be able to own the entire series.

2. 52: I figure I'll get all four trades, so I can read the entire thing. I saw the first trade in the shop the other day and ALMOST bought it. But, because of money concerns, I put it back down.

3. Ultimate Galactus deluxe hardcover: Recently released from Marvel, this collects the three "ultimate" mini-series by Warren Ellis and I've been waiting on this one for a while. I'll probably get it in the next few months, but it's on the backburner because of the same money concerns that prevented me from getting the 52 trade.

Now, Steve: You said that Eightball #22 and/or Jimmy Corrigan is/are the most important comic(s) in the (sort of) past five years. Why this/these book(s)? (You don't have to do both if you don't want to.)

Chad's challenge: my last trip to my LCS

So Chad issued a challenge to me that we do a week of posts with one of us posing a question to the other, the second person answering the question and then posing a new one to the first. Basically, this is just his clever attempt at getting me to post more, but I'll go along with it.

His question to me was "What did you buy on your last trip to the comic shop?" However, I'm going to cheat and not answer that question. My last trip to the comic shop was for the McCloud lecture, and I bought a copy of Understanding Comics for a friend. So I'm going to explain instead what I bought at the previous trip, since it's more, all-new stuff.

Countdown 42-- Countdown is a book that I think I would like better if it were a bit more tightly plotted. It's got some interesting characters and some great ideas for stories, but the execution hasn't been that great. With all the balls in the air, some of them have been falling to the ground. The Piper/Trickster story could be good on its own, while others could be good if given more attention/direction (Mary Marvel, the Challengers of the Beyond, and maybe Jimmy Olsen). But they all need more room to breathe and they all need to stop moving at a snail's pace.

DMZ #21-- This storyline of DMZ has been my least favorite thus far, but it's still not that bad. Day 208 is an interesting look at the history of the war, but this particular episode seemed rather needless, like the perspective we were given here didn't really add anything to the overall arc.

Green Arrow Year One #1-- A great look at the origin of the hero by the creative team that brought us the Losers. I was a big fan of that book and its realistic take on geopolitical intrigue (although it did descend into James Bond territory by the end, when it had started out more like Jason Bourne). And this book has a very similar feel to those early issues of Losers. I am a big fan of Mike Grell's retelling of the origin of this hero in The Wonder Years, but this does not feel like a rehash in the slightest.

JLA Classified #40-- Fantastic. Milligan's Kid Amazo story has definitely been worth the wait. Yes, the "free will v. predetermination" themes have been incredibly overt, but it's not trying to BE subtle. It's trying to smack you over the head with these themes and does so in a comedic way. And I LOVE the portrayal of the JLA here, that they are basically the villains of the story and seem to thwart the main character from getting what he wants, a normal life.

Justice Society Of America #7-- Eh. I'd go into detail, but it's not really worth the time too. Standard superhero fare. By the numbers. I have to remember to stop reading this book, not because it's bad but because it's not good. It just is. And I have plenty of other books that I could be spending my money on instead.

100 Bullets #84-- A good single issue, but not in the sense that it is new reader-friendly. Instead it's a "game-changer," a single issue that gets you looking at the playing field as established previously in a brand new way. This issue definitely made me think that perhaps all the time I've spent rooting for Graves was a mistake. The Minutemen get involved in some pretty shady stuff here, making you see that no one in the 100 Bullets universe is really on the side of the angels.

Superman Confidential #5-- This story arc will read much better in trade. Cooke's work is very reminiscent of New Frontier, and Sale's of Superman For All Seasons. It's a good story, but it just comes out so rarely that I think I would enjoy it more if I had waited until it was complete to read it.

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #20-- Sad to see Sean McKeever leave this book, but he left it in a very interesting place (resetting the Peter/MJ relationship to it's "will they/Won't they?" state) and in very capable hands (David Hahn has been a great replacement for Takeshi Miyazawa, who I thought was irreplaceable, and Terry Moore will pick up the ball and run with it I'm sure).

Ward of the State #3-- a short little mini by Image that wasn't bad but in the end is rather inconsequential. an interesting story idea (what if a foster parent was using her kids as a crew of hitmen?) that could have used more development. this final issue didn't give us enough time to think through the revelations we were shown, and this whole mini would have been a lot better if it had been spread out over four issues instead of just three.

Wasteland #10-- I actually bought this book a few weeks ago when it came out, but I waited until now to read it. I always do that, because I want to give it a fair shake. It's a read that requires a bit more out of you, being a post-apocalyptic tale in a future world with a language distanced from ours (much like Finder, another favorite of mine). It's a book worth reading every time, and this issue was no exception.

Now Chad, I ask you:
Tell me three books recently released in TPB or HC that you WISH you had the money/time to check out but haven't.