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A weekly round-up of our tweets about comics and education.

This volume of DMZ is made up of six self-contained stories that take place in the world of the series, but don’t feature the main characters or storylines, so don’t require (as much) context to read. All are good, but we were quite taken by the Nathan Fox-drawn story “Random Fire,” about an attack in a night club. His trademark jewel-toned, color-hold style gets a bit muddy on the uncoated paper, but it’s chaotic and pretty in a way that most adventure comics aren’t.

Army @ Love is another one of the strange, difficult, energetic Vertigo projects to appear lately that just don’t fit a genre. Veitch creates a biting satire of the military and fear-mongering high-alert political class in this over-the-top 15-minutes-into-the future farce. Knowing the war is unpopular means that the Army is on full-out marketing attack, and the troops are going wild.

What makes this story really stand out, though, is the art. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Hyper-detailed scenes of Japanese streets in cotton-candy tones are grounded (slightly) by the skill with which Fisher (the artist) executes perspective and figure work. Dorky, nose-less people nonetheless have real weight and individuality. You never confuse one character for another although there may be dozens (seemingly) in each panel. It’s just a cornucopia of stuff to look at, and it’s quite clear that Fisher knew well and loved Tokyo.

What begins as a seemingly generic lonely-guy indy comic takes a surprising turn when our disheveled, lonely protagonists encounters a glowing fairytale creature in a compromising situation. And there are a few more surprises in this short-and-sweet (and a little nasty) model of efficient storytelling.

Adam Suerte’s Aprendíz is a memoir comic about the artist’s apprenticeship as a tattoo artist. It’s part artistic coming-of-age tale, part behind-the-scenes look at the craft and business of tattooing. Throughout, Suerte reveals himself to be a gifted cartoonist who incorporates styles and techniques of tattoo art into his pages without ever sacrificing clarity—no easy feat—and he is an engaging, self-depracating guide to his own story.

Is “Am I Emo?” comics? poetry? both? neither? The answer is not obvious but it probably depends on your own notions of what “comics”, “poetry”, and visual storytelling are. If this comic makes you question your assumptions a bit, then maybe it’s already proved its value.

Alexey Sokolin’s investigation of the act of drawing is made entirely of hatching lines, scribbles, swooping lines, and, way down beneath it all, hints of representative imagery. It almost looks like what began as a conventional comic mutated as the marks and lines broke free of the images. It’s also interesting the way the comic can read either as a six page comic, a series of six drawings (a sextich?), or six iterations of the same page being increasingly overwhelmed with line.

A weekly round-up of our tweets about comics and education.

There are several things I love about Rasl aside from it being an ambitious, well-told, exciting sci-fi noir adventure (as if that wasn’t enough). It’s published in a gorgeous large format in glamorous black and white, it’s dangerous and sexy, and it’s by Jeff Smith, most famous for Bone, which is now seen as a kids’ comic (not the original intention, but it works). I love that Jeff broke his own mold with this definitely for-adults work.

Somehow, all the times I’ve been in Europe for the sake of comics, and all the times I’ve tried to talk my students into traveling and getting involved in the international comics scene, it never occurred to me to talk to students about studying abroad.

Josh Simmons’ “Jesus Christ” is a wordless mash-up of Bizarro-world parable and monster movie. With no narration or further context, a ball of fire lands in the middle of a sprawling metropolis. From it emerges a mute, centaur-like giant who proceeds to lay waste to the city and its populace. The storytelling is fluid and dynamic, and Simmon’s ability to convey the enormity of the monster is bracing. Simmons deliberately mixes elements from different mythologies to defy any obvious reading. In the end, all we have before us is this escstatic Kali-Godzilla-Centaur with a halo of fire and a title to provoke us.

Anuj Shrestha’s “American Cat” uses a visual strategy taken from Art Spiegelman’s Maus to paint a sad, bitter portrait of the lives of bottom-of-the-rung immigrants. The ending takes an unexpected turn that is more devastating than the violent (but more facile) conclusion you might be expecting.

Satellite CMYK is a sci-fi tale of a bewildering multi-level world, where people’s lives are controlled by a big “them,” and a “Rebel Alliance” works to undo their control. Three men, possibly clones, their lives depicted in monochrome, are assaulted on the same day for a mysterious transfer.

In December of 2006, I had a very interesting email exchange with Jim Valentino, one of the original partners, who served as the company’s publisher from 1999 to 2004. Valentino is the owner of Shadowline, one of the primary Image studios, the author of ShadowHawk, and one of the original Image partners. He has deep roots in self-publishing and independent comics that have clearly influenced his attitude towards publishing at Image.

Usagi Yojimbo presents a difficulty for us as editors of BAC. Every issue is strong, and they form such a tapestry when read one after another that it’s difficult to pull out any one bit and say, “this is the best Usagi.” “Traitors of the Earth” has the advantage of being a relatively short, self-contained story, and “Saya” is even more so. Both are compulsively readable, and good places to start if you’re not already reading the series.

Jan was in an accident and has a trade-in robot body while his real one is in the shop. It might be connected to terrorists. That’s the crux. But it’s also drawn with great elegance in pen and ink wash, and told in a naturalistic, confident, cinematic mode. The dialogue is strong and believable. It’s just a stand-out all around, and I hope there’s more where this came from.

Jesse Reklaw’s Ten Thousand Things To Do gives you an over-the-shoulder look at the day-to-day life of a cartoonist of a certain age and it’s not very glamorous, though the existence of the very work itself is a testament to the passion Jesse brings to cartooning.

A weekly round-up of our tweets about comics and education.

In Henrik Rehr’s book-length abstract comic you can detect traces of brush and pen lines and conventional marks—such as cross-hatching and drybrush—that are associated with representative art, but there is no clear narrative to be found. Instead, Rehr’s pages take us on a voyage of constantly mutating layouts where even the rectangular panels are skewed, overlapped with other panels, or almost overwhelmed by stormy, heaving backgrounds.

On day two of the conference, four comics teachers (including me) presented their programs and approaches. I’m a relatively veteran comics teacher. I’ve been teaching regularly since 2001 (and started in 1998), full year courses, workshops, seminars, you name it. So what was most striking to me about these presentations was how distinct each approach was. There’s a part of me that believed, until then, that there was a narrow band of ways to approach teaching comics well (and obviously a lot of ways to do it badly). Clearly, I was quite wrong.

The central character, Ruth, has an enormous collection in bugs in jars that she obsessively rearranges, and Perry, her brother, is compelled to obey a small wizard he hallucinates. The thing that sets this book apart, though, is the sensitive and deep understanding Powell conveys of mental illness. He’s long worked with developmentally disabled people, and his experience and empathy show.

Two pages, four panels, twenty words. Beautiful.

Recently, I was a guest at a comics teaching conference in Finland. As far as I know, it was the very first of its kind; attendees and presenters all taught not reading comics, but making comics. I’ve never had the chance before to compare teaching methods and philosophies with such a diverse (and large) group of peers. It was eye-opening (and I wish there had been some such conference before I finished DWWP!). It was so full of valuable information, in fact, that I’m going to divide this report into several parts, and run the next parts over the next week.

Office 32f is a more-rare outing for Park, a piece of pure fiction. It reminds me of Gabrielle Bell’s work where she spins off from autobio reality in the midst of a story and heads into surreal fiction. Here, Park allows her insecurities about her work habits and productivity to take concrete form as she imagines a tiny office hidden behind her baseboard full of tiny people whose job it is to observe and report on her. Or is it?

Jason Overby is a true original—at a time when our medium is cranking out all kinds of diverse and innovative work—whose comics take the form of a meandering essay on the uses and meanings of comics, art, and life.

Webcomics can be very hard to get into mid-stream so it’s great to have this collection of Chris Onstad’s Achewood which you gives you a complete arc as an introduction.

Sarah Oleksyk, “Previously Possessed,” MySpace Darkhorse Presents, online issue 13, print volume no. 3, 2009. I guess MDHP was a really great anthology! I feel like every other one of these Notables have had that cover hanging up there at the top. Well, and here’s another one. Sarah Oleksyk is a BAC vet, and we Read More

This ambitious activity combines life drawing with cartooning by having students draw live models directly into narrative scenarios in sequeqnce on a single sheet of paper. A major goal is to see how the spontaneity and expressiveness of life drawing might be harnessed into the service of comics—comics teachers observe all the time students who don’t have the skills yet to draw from their head, or who are too caught up in a particular drawing style, yet when they draw a human figure from observation they can produce lovely, confident drawings.

People talk easily about “literary” comics (me among them), but there are books for which that comparison is truly apt. Danica Novgorodoff’s Slow Strom is one of those. A story of an unexpected encounter between two out-of-place characters (a female firefighter and an illegal Mexican immigrant) in a giant storm, the work evokes contemporary American literary fiction and independent film. It’s low-key, but with passion simmering under the surface.