Blog

Notables 2010: Jordan Crane

Jordan Crane, Vissisitude. Uptight, no.3. 2009

Uptight is the sporadic pamphlet-comic series Jordan Crane has been publishing the last few years with Fantagraphics. Many of the comics in Uptight are serialized and clearly destined to be graphic novels at some point, which will be aimed at very different audinces. This can make for jarring transitions between pieces, but all are worth a read. We called out “Vicissitude,” a story of a working-class couple on the rocks, in this issue for its lovely, subtle delineation of emotion through (minimal) expressions and body language. It’s beautifully drawn in a steady line weight, black, white, and one flat gray, which gives it a stark and clean look, despite its convincingly grubby L.A. setting. Of special note: the cover on this issue is just a stunner, as Jordan’s covers (and posters—see his website) usually are.

Age: adult. There’s another ongoing story that’s charming and clearly for kids, “Freeze Out,” but the young ‘uns will have to wait for the trade. “Vicissitude” is not ok for the under-18 set.

Comments

Leave a reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

By submitting a comment here you grant Drawing Words Writing Pictures a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate or irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin's discretion.