I talked about Carol Lay all the way back in 2017 (see The Giant Licking Machine), but did her a disservice by only featuring a single one of her Story Minutes. I am here to remedy that inadequacy.
In 1990, Lay drew a 5-page story for LA Weekly titled The Thing Under the Futon (read it here – the thing under the futon even has tentacles). « The pay was several times what independent comics paid and the audience was larger and included women », Lay quips on her website, so a one-time story planted the seed for a weekly comic strip called Story Minute, so named because it would just take you a minute to read a story (I might also add that it’s very difficult to stop at reading just one). That eventually was rechristened Way Lay and ran until 2008.
My introduction to the subject at hand.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, the most recent collection of these is Illiterature, published in 2012, and it’s where the strips below have been selected from. Lay picks all kinds of topics as strip springboards, but since I am the one selecting the ones to feature, there’s a definite interpersonal tilt, as I think her forte is her ability to showcase the inner workings of a close relationship by plonking people into a slightly surreal or sci-fi context. The line between cynical and poignant is navigated with ease.
« I kept mostly to the order in which I produced the strips, but I took the liberty of tossing some clinkers or shuffling a few so that they flow better in book form… I also used my artistic license to improve on some of these older works – I’m a better writer and artist than I was when I created these strips… In a sense several of the strips in these volumes are ‘director’s cuts’ in that I’m a better director now than when I drew them. »
« The man who never dreams, goes slowly mad. » — Thomas Dolby
Jesse Reklaw‘s Slow Wave* (1995-2012) was both an early webcomic and a syndicated strip that ran in about a dozen alt-weeklies.
Here’s a historical rundown that Reklaw provided in 2005, musing on the feature’s genesis and its initial decade:
« While I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz (1993-1995), website technology wobbled out into the world. Entrenched in the DIY zine community that had been liberated by cheap photocopies and desktop publishing, I became obsessed with this new independent media opportunity. With help from Ranjit Bhatnagar, I learned how to code HTML, and started an online art gallery at UCSC. I was juggling a double major in art and computer science, so it seemed like a natural fit.
Between classes (and math tutoring, and being an RA, and band practice), I was drawing comics. In order to focus on my drawing, I stopped writing my own material and instead asked friends for stories to draw: they could be anecdotes, fiction, dreams, whatever. All the stories were fun to draw, but I felt an immediate connection to the dreams. They had compelling imagery, their own logic, and a natural dada-like humor. Drawing them was like being there in the dream, experiencing the mind of the dreamer, but also realizing my own perceptions through theirs. It was like floating in that infinite reflection between two mirrors.
In 1995 I moved across the country to icy New Haven, Connecticut for graduate school. I also continued to draw comics, now exclusively dreams that I got from friends and family. I started posting the Slow Wave strip because I wanted regular, updated content for my personal website (called nonDairy.com back then). At the time, everyone was saying “Content is king.” I coded my pages in simple programs like notepad and simpletext (which I still use), building my site in secret, often in the empty hours between midnight and morning. I led a double life as a computer scientist and a cartoonist. Along with the site, I put up a website form to solicit more dream material. A few trickled in at first, but as the Web grew, this became the major source of dream submissions. After I’d drawn about twenty strips, I got the idea to submit them to weekly publications. I found the website of the Association for Alternative Newsweeklies, and discovered a wealth of newspaper addresses and contact info. They seemed to be served from a database, and you could view the records one screenful at a time. Not content to just copy down the information, I wrote a web-spider that downloaded every page, parsed the text from the HTML code, and “reverse engineered” the database for my own use. I sent out about sixty submissions, and was totally surprised to get picked up by two papers: The Rocket in Seattle (now out of business) and the Philadelphia Weekly (who dropped me after a month). It was encouragement enough to keep me going. I probably would have gotten bored with the web-only comic strip after a couple years. The internet had moved on from content anyway, and designers were more interested in animated GIFs and other dancing baloney.
I continued to self-syndicate, and was picked up by enough papers that it seemed possible to make a career out of it. I dropped out of grad school in 1998 (didn’t really like being a Yalie anyway), and started cartooning full time. I also had enough strips now that I thought there should be a Slow Wave book collection. I proposed the idea to a lot of comic book publishers, but had little luck there. I complained on my website about not being able to find a publisher, and within a week was contacted by Kendra Crossen Burroughs, an editor at Shambhala. Kendra had apparently been reading the strip online for a while, and convinced Shambhala there should be a book. Dreamtoons came out in 2000, collecting about two-thirds of the strips I’d drawn so far (not including the one above). Dreamtoons is currently out of print, but there’s lots of used copies floating around out there**. »
An example of how Reklaw sollicited thematic contributions to Slow Wave. It’s safe to suppose that none of the contact details are still relevant, except in dreams.
From a dream by Lauren Fowler.From a dream by Connie Liu.From a dream by DW Wissinger.From a dream by K. L. Wanlin.From a dream by Paul J. Lurie.From a dream by Pierre Dalcourt.From a dream by Isaac Cates.From a dream by Liz Kuzmeski.From a dream by Eli Bishop.From a dream by Sinnicam NodNarb.From a dream by Zach Archer.From a dream by Ryan Budge.
In the ensuing years, poor Jesse’s had, even by cartoonist standards, a terrible time of it, besieged as he was by both physical and mental health challenges. It’s not much of a stretch to surmise that cartooning saved his life, and he’s hardly alone in this. Check out this sobering Comics Reporter interview, (circa 2014) and you’ll get some sense of what I’m alluding to.
-RG
*Slow-wave sleep (SWS) refers to phase 3 sleep, which is the deepest phase of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and is characterized by delta waves (measured by EEG). Dreaming and sleepwalking can occur during SWS. SWS is thought to be important for memory consolidation [ source ]
**Nearly twenty years on, cheap copies are still bountiful.
Looking at my shelves, one would be inclined to believe that I am a huge Keith Laumer fan, which wouldn’t be really true. A few of these books have Richard Powers covers (always worth collecting, even if one is not particularly interested in reading the actual book), but the rest have mostly been purchased after I encountered Laumer’s Retief character… in comic book form.
Which is not to say that Laumer’s Retief series is not worth a read, especially if you like a satirical approach to bureaucracy with a geo-political bent. Jame Retief, diplomat for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne*, is the pragmatic voice in an organization mostly focused on excessive paperwork, meaningless awards, and pompous exchanges (in proper attire, naturally) between planetary representatives, all of this governed by a complex system of protocols and other galimatias. Anybody who’s worked for any kind of big company will be able to relate. Laumer served a stint as a vice consul for the United States Foreign Service, so doubtlessly he accumulated a lot of material for this. The novels rarely ascend beyond amusing, though, and the funny bits sometimes feel like somebody’s trying to be Conscientiously Funny.
Writer Jan Strnad, who has a long list of credits under his belt, having worked for pretty much all major comic publishers as well as contributing articles to The Comics Journal and writing novels, and artist Denis Fujitake** adapted several Retief stories into comic book form in the late 80s. These were published by Mad Dog Graphics. This team did such a bang-up job that I by far prefer them to the Laumer material, and no small element of this adaptation’s success is the clean art by Fujitake that brings to vivid life these characters. There were 6 great issues overall (1987-1988), collected in 1990 into Retief!: The Graphic Album.
Let’s have a look at some of my favourite moments. All of the below are excerpts from Keith Laumer stories by Strnad and Fujitake, drawn by Fujitake, and lettered by Gary Kato.
Apparently Laumer himself has always pictured Retief as having dark hair, so one might even say that these comics are closer to his vision than, say, the covers of Retief novels published by Baen Books, where he’s a sort of ditsy blonde*** with a lot of guns and mostly undressed women. I own a few of these… and yuck, one might as well stick to the electronic version.
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 1 (April 1987)
Page from Policy. Issue number 1 introduces us to the sneaky and unscrupulous Groaci, whose representative Mr. Fith has his fingers and 5 eye appendages in all pies. There are plenty of action scenes in Retief, but Fujitake’s art makes an even ordinary conversation fun to watch.
One of the closing pages from Policy, in which Miss Meuhl satisfyingly suffers a slight breakdown (when your values clash with reality, it’s generally an unpleasant process).
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 2 (June 1987)
Shades of Brain Bats of Venus, anyone? Page from Sealed Orders, from issue no. 2.
Another page from Sealed Orders, in which Retief is shown to be a bon vivant who can appreciate alien fare.
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 3 (August 1987). One can’t say the series abounds with buxom women (or women at all, really – aside from the secretary who lost her marbles in the first issue), the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne is manned entirely by, well, men. Fujitake draws beautiful babes, though, few and far and between as they are.
Page from Protest Note, published in no. 3. Retief visits a variety of environments, and Fujitake draws them all with equal conviction.
A fun page from Protest Note with some idiomatic banter.
Page from Saline Solution, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 4 (October 1987). Retief may be a rather refined sort with a taste for fine wine and his own brand for diplomacy, but he does not hesitate to mingle with the plebeian masses – or side with the underdog, which Sam here is a representative of.
Page from Ultimatum, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 5 (January 1988). It must have been a lot of fun to design aliens from a description in a short story, and give them speech bubbles to match (the advantage of hand lettering which, as mentioned previously, is handled by Gary Kato).
The pompous Mr. Magnan (the one in the sort-of baseball cap) has a long stick up his ass, but he’s not without charm, whereas Mr. Ambassador entirely deserves the rag in his mouth (and more).
Page from The Forest in the Sky, published in no. 6.
The hamster-like critters of The Forest in the Sky are adorable.. and voracious, especially their youth.
~ ds
*In French, ‘Terrestrienne’ is feminine (if it were an actual word… ‘Terrestre’ would be the right one) and ‘corps’ is masculine, so there’s a grammatical problem in its title.
** Strnad has also collaborated with Fujitake on Dalgoda, published by Fantagraphics from 1984–1986, which will be the subject of another post as soon as I reread the series. Any day now!
*** unsurprising, given that Baen’s Retief cover model was blue-eyed, blond 1980’s hunk Corbin Bernsen, whom you may recall from L.A. Law.
P.S. There is another comic adaptation from 1989, published by Malibu, with scripts by Bruce Balfour, pencils by Darren Goodhart, and inks by Alan Larsen. One word – ew.
Not long ago, I chanced upon this passage from an interview with the lovely Ramona Fradon, wherein she touches upon her mid-70s work for Joe Orlando‘s ‘mystery’ comics at DC.
« Those were all Joe’s productions, and there was nothing he liked better than to get around the Comics Code. The fact that my drawing was comic helped him get away with more than he could with other artists. He was always pushing the envelope. »
To understand what she means, I refer you to this particular story, which I showcased last fall.
« So when we decided to start running a weekly illustrated personal ad — ‘Lustlab Ad of the Week’ — we knew right away what we didn’t want. We didn’t want to sensationalize what was already pretty sensational, thanks. And we didn’t want to hyper-sexualize what was already plenty sexual. We wanted an artist who could take short, pithy personal ads — short, pithy, filthy personal ads — and infuse them with the kind of playfulness that true kinksters bring to their sex lives. We wanted someone that could make someone into whips and chains and hoods look like someone you could take home to meet your parents.
We wanted Ellen Forney. »
Just like Ramona Fradon, Ms. Forney wields a friendly, extremely engaging and accessible style (as you’ll witness). Here, then, is a modest sampling from the four-year frolic of the ‘Lustlab Ad of the Week’, circa 2004-2007. Feel free to browse.
The feature’s highlights have been collected, in fine fashion, in a snazzy little hardcover entitled ‘Lust‘. (Feb. 2008, Fantagraphics). While it’s out of print by now, affordable copies appear to still be available. If it floats your boat at all, do not hesitate!
Today I’d like to feature a (chunk of) story by James Stokoe, a contemporary Canadian artist. As is the case in many instances, I discovered his work when I spotted Wonton Soup in an excellent comic book shop in Montréal (now, alas, permanently closed — we miss it and its kind owner). Wonton Soup is in black-and-white, which hides Stokoe’s strength (or weakness, depending on how you feel about this aesthetic) – his liberal use of bright colour gradients.
A splash page from Orc Stain, which currently stands at 7 issues, with more having been promised in 2015 and still eagerly awaited by fans of the series. It’s too bad, I’d love to know what happens to the protagonist…
Stokoe also often uses this combination of lime green and purple, anathema to some artists.
Unlike his close friend comics artist Brandon Graham, whose style is sort of graffiti-ish (not that all graffiti have the same art style, obviously), Stokoe favours tons of detail on everything. Given that he’s often drawing some sort of monster and colouring all of that in (what could be argued) rather garish fashion, the overall result often looks like somebody’s grotesque fever dream.
However, going back to his earlier work, one finds a more stripped-down style without the tons of cross-hatching. Case in point – the aforementioned Wonton Soup, published between 2007 and 2009, and collected into one book (Wonton Soup: Big Bowl Edition) in 2014.
The blurb on the back describes it as ‘[something] that can be pitched in high concept terms as Iron Chef meets John Carpenter‘s 70’s comedy Dark Star‘.
I love made-up food, which is something both Stokoe and Graham’s worlds are rich in, so of course this series was right up my alley of street snacks. Not all of it is great, and the sexual exploits of Deacon, the co-pilot of our ‘space trucker-cum-chef’ protagonist, can get weird, to say the least (I could live without the whole storyline about the sex bear, frankly), but it still makes for really fun reading. Here is my favourite chapter (quite abridged and subsequently summarized). Is this over-the-top? Absolutely. Having recently watched a few episodes of recent Iron Chef, though, I can say that the latter is more bombastic than a competition between a space trucker and hive mind Twingos from Nebula 5, with a giant omniscient tongue for a judge (a vast improvement over judges in Iron Chef, frankly — where do they find these people?)
It starts with Johnny Boyo visiting his old school for chefs, which he quit a year ago to travel and get a taste of what’s out there on other planets….
When he comes upon a student forcibly evicted from one of the kitchens for having prepared a particularly lacklustre mango chutney chili. Jonny catches the bowl that’s flung after the body and tastes the chili —
“I remember you!” exclaim the Twins.
First refusing to participate in the challenge, Johnny reconsiders (after some encouragement from his old teacher).
The Twins are faster and fancier, but Johnny has some tricks up his sleeve (or in his holster, at any rate).
One of the twins decides to sacrifice his delicious sister (years of food absorption through pores marinated her deliciously!), but does this help him overpower his adversary?
And there you have it. If you’re of the cross-section of people who love food, comics, and are not averse to vulgarity, I recommend giving this collection a go.
« With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. » — Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death
And now, a piece from — gasp — 2022! It’s at once most timely and a link to the dim past, with WOT? favourite Rick Geary drawing nimble parallels* to Mr. Poe’s famous tale of arrogant (and happy and dauntless and sagacious) Prince Prospero’s well-earned comeuppance. This other great plague, however, isn’t greeted with hubris by our everyman protagonists. While Poe provides the spirit and the starting point, Geary wends his own way, bless his soul.
Ahoy Comics‘ series of Poe-themed anthologies are of course uneven — such is their nature — but their peaks are joltingly, exceptionally good, and they make the whole enterprise quite worthwhile.
A Tale of The Great Plague appeared in Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Death no. 4 (Jan. 2022, Ahoy Comics).
-RG
*and also, you might say, to The Fall of the House of Usher and perhaps even The Tell-tale Heart. Clever chap, this Geary.
Today, Paul Reubens (born Paul Rubenfeld on Aug. 27, 1952) celebrates (in the coolest style, to be sure) his seventieth birthday. What’s he got to do with comics? Well, he obviously reads them, and his alter-ego, Pee-wee Herman, once met legendary small-scale comics hero Bazooka Joe.
This momentous occasion took place on the back of card no. 18 (of 33) from Topps’ delirious Pee-wee’s Playhouse set (1988). Introductions were arranged by that dapper bon vivant, Mark Newgarden.
This is happily one of those rare occasions when the word ‘Fun’ is accurately evoked. While Mr. Reubens wasn’t directly involved with the conception and concoction of this splendid ‘Pak’, he signed off on every aspect of it — no generic licenced product, this.While the front of the cards bore the standard, time-tested ‘photographs with captions’ images, the backs is where the anarchic action was. Here are a few samples. Note the unbleached cardboard, which adds a certain primitive je ne sais quoi.“Remember — you are an ARTIST!”The Puppetland Band, those adorable beatniks, were always favourites.Cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Kazimieras ‘Kaz‘ Prapuolenis write in!
Funny, I would have expected Françoise Mouly‘s french to be better than this. Perhaps that’s why she moved to NYC. A sheet of stickers… featuring, front and centre, Roger from Monsterland (‘Look’ was the secret word that week).Temporary (sorry) tattoos. It was just to difficult to pick just one sheet, so here are two. The “Pee-wee Copter”, front and back.If you think you recognized the distinctive stylings of messrs. Charles Burns on the front and those of J.D. King* on the back… kudos on your discerning eye, keen one.
At one time, during Pee-wee’s heyday, I dated for a few months this girl from a, to put it mildly, conservative family. Her little brother was expressly forbidden from watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse, for fear that ‘it might turn him gay’. Live and learn… do check out this smart list of The Best 25 Pee-wee’s Playhouse Moments.
Happy birthday Paul, and a great weekend to you, Pee-wee!
Bonus time: in a case of ‘biting the hand that feeds’, Topps issued this snarky entry as part of its 1991 Wacky Packages series. Concept, writing and layout by Mark Newgarden, painted art by John Pound.
– RG
*a grateful tip of the hat to Mark Newgarden for the inside dope!
« Somebody said that drawing a page of comics ought to be as easy as writing a letter to a friend. So I did just that. I took a bit of paper and drew in ink whatever came into my head. I tried to surprise myself. If I made a mistake it would just have to stay there.» — Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland‘s habitual style is easy to recognize, and co-admin RG and I are both fond of it. But there was a time when the normally meticulous Bolland decided to do something different, something much more sketchy and spontaneous. The result was the vaguely Armenian-sounding Mr. Mamoulian, who doesn’t look much like one of Brian Bolland’s ankle-biters (unless one is the proud owner of a perceptive eye)… until he encounters some pretty women, which are a dead giveaway.
Mr. Mamoulian, a pervy sort of ‘older’ (40-ish?) guy prone to bouts of nihilism and crippled by self-doubt, engages in the sort of things listless people do, when they are not quite sure how to occupy their time*: sit on park benches while others are at work, shuffle stuff around their apartment from point A to point B (and back again), enjoy a cuppa, and stare at the ceiling after waking up in the middle of the night. He is obsessed with feminine beauty, but uneasy with the ramifications of being obsessed with it. Rattled by the passage of time, irked by life’s idiosyncrasies, trapped in and by his body, he’s nevertheless a silly and rather comforting presence as we follow him on one of his aimless traipses around the rainy countryside, witness one of his exchanges with his imaginary naked lady friend (Bubbles Bourbasch), or coo at his surprisingly congenial friendship with punkette Evelin Shit-Face.
* These days, of course, one just stares into a cellphone/binge-watches a show on whatever streaming service, which is prompted by the same impulse, but it somewhat less romantic.
The proverbial beautiful English weather.
The early days of the fragile friendship between Mamoulian and Evie (who, for all her punky pretensions, is a rather well-mannered, thoughtful young woman).
Mamoulian is silent – does he condone Mr. Carstairs’ patter? Disapprove of it? Probably a bit of both. In the end, it’s his behaviour that matters – Evie is a person to him. As for Mr. Carstairs, he’s a spot-on portrayal of a first-class hypocrite.
Here Mamoulian’s reflections are reminiscent of the philosophical musings of Marc Hempel’s Genital Ben.
Mr. Mamoulian is arguably a peephole right into Bolland’s id, but it’s not at all an uncomfortable experience (unlike, say, peeking into the mind of Chester Brown, who creeps me out in a big way), even when the strip goes creepily dreamlike, or addresses uncomfortable topics (for some, the couple of bondage-related pages – not included here to avoid ruffling feathers – would be it; apparently ‘Bolland is noted by some for his use of bondage imagery‘, though I honestly think that’s a bit of an overstatement). In the end, Mamoulian’s character is casually tapping into many sources of frustration and confusion that rattle around most human heads. He is relatable.
Bolland calls Mr. Mamoulian ‘not very good’, but I obviously disagree with this assessment, as you’ve probably noticed by now. I love the sketchiness of the art, its surreal energy. The strip is, by turns, hilarious, depressing and always very, very British (and not just because of the continuous tea-drinking). I believe we can all relate to Mamoulian’s struggles with being alive, and the notions of freedom and art. We also get tantalizing glimpses of punk and metal scene through Evie and Steve’s interludes.
Mr. Mamoulian’s first encounter with Bubbles (off screen), who is later to visit him at night as her imaginary nude self. Interestingly, it seems to be her name, not her looks, that stuns his imagination.
One of American Suzy’s many conceptual experiments.
In terms of style, both in terms of art and storytelling, I suppose this strip fits comfortably into a set of British semi-autobiographical strips from the mid to late 80s – Eddie Cambpell’s Alec and Glenn Dakin’s Abraham Rat, for example, both of them also gloriously funny and contemplative and excellent. As a matter of fact, Mr. Mamoulian was first published in Paul Gravett‘s Escape Magazine* (read a lovely article about it here**), home of Cambell and Dakin’s strips as well…
* Mr. Mamoulian first appeared in Escape no. 11 (1987).
** To quote from the aforementioned article, Glenn Dakin in The Comics Journal no. 238, October 2001, explained that Escape “provided a focal point for people. People would meet up and discuss their dreams and ideas and get together as friends or have arguments and fall out and sometimes even if somebody annoys you or if somebody didn’t seem to have respect for your work, that would be enough to fill you with enough anger to go out there and try to prove them wrong.” Recently, John Bagnall told me, “To some readers at the time, Escape Artists were sometimes generalized as the school of strips “where nothing happened”, but their approaches were actually much more disparate. As for the social scene, there was a loose sense of unity when we would meet up in London, though naturally not everyone got on well or were even huge fans of certain people’s work.
« Contained in these works were not only all the important philosophical developments of modern society… there were even answers to as yet unposed questions. » — Cypher has an epiphany
This week’s topic reminded me of the crucial role an enlightened comic shop owner, especially pre-internet, could play in one’s edification in the medium. Case in point: while I can’t consider him a mentor, my old comic shop guy, being adventurous and open-minded, made a lot of obscure titles available, without necessarily pushing them on his customers. And in a world of ‘super-heroes or bust’, such availability is crucial.
Which brings us to Mr. Brad Teare (b. 1956, Moscow, Idaho). I’ve always had special fondness for comics that bloomed outside the usual channels, like hardy plant life rising up in cracks and miraculously subsisting on nearly nothing.
You know, like this.
From what I can tell, Teare’s first professional comics work appeared in a non-consecutive pair of issues of Heavy Metal magazine, during that blessed but oh-so-brief ‘Tundra‘ period when surprisingly enlightened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman published, at considerable loss (between 9 and 14 million simoleons), some of the finest comics of the 1990s.
Eastman had purchased Heavy Metal in January, 1992. In the March issue, Brad Teare’s Cypher made its first of two appearances in HM, in marked contrast to the magazine’s prevalent ‘dystopias with titties for arrested adolescents’ aesthetic.
The following year, Teare self-published (under the Crypto Graphica banner, out of Providence, Utah, pop. 7,000 or so) Cypher no. 1, with a cover clamouring that it contained the ‘Complete Cypher Trilogy!’. Teare intended to produce further issues, but the market evidently wasn’t built for it. The book is so obscure that even the Grand Comics Database (GDC) has never heard of it. But my comic shop guy did place an order, and found at least one receptive reader eager to snap up a copy. I waited and waited for a second issue, but in vain.
This is Cypher no. 1 (1993, Crypto Graphica). Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the artistic technique of ‘scratchboard’? I have indeed!This back cover one-pager from Cypher no. 1 has never been reprinted, I believe.
Then, four years down the road, Gibbs-Smith, “a proud independent publisher and distributor“, founded in 1969, also Utah-based… and still around, assembled and issued a compact (22,5 x 16 cm) hardcover Cypher collection, gathering material that Teare must have intended for at least a couple more issues of his series. Aside from an oddly ‘meh’ cover, overworked and underwhelming, it’s a gorgeous package. It also has managed to fly below the GCD’s radar all these years.
Cypher finds himself new employment. This is the version from Cypher no. 1; perhaps because of the smaller format, the collected edition replaced Teare’s lovely, expressive hand-lettering with a computer font.A spooky sample from ‘Minotaur‘, from the 1997 Gibbs-Smith collected edition.
In the meantime, Teare kept his hand in, providing a pair of highlights to DC/Paradox Press’ well-written but frustratingly visually scattershot The Big Book Of series (1994-2000), also finding success as a freelance illustrator (Random House, The New York Times, Sony, Turner Interactive, Flying Buffalo) in all manners of media.
From The Big Book of Urban Legends (Dec. 1994, Paradox Press/DC).From 1997, a typical spread from the charming Dance, Pioneer, Dance! Written by Rick Walton, it offers a slightly fictionalised account of the westward migration of Brigham Young and a band of his fellow Mormons.From The Big Book of Vice (March 1999, Paradox Press/DC). A fascinating bit of history!
Though he’s nowadays a celebrated and prolific painter of the Utah landscape, he hasn’t altogether turned his back on comics, bless his soul. The final chapter of Cypher (to date?), ‘Sub-Wayward’, introduced, in the story-within-a-story tradition, scientist turned reluctant underground hero The Subterranean. And so, long story short, we find ourselves with a Teare book that’s readily available (for the time being)!
« This comic details the thrilling origin of The Subterranean from his humble beginnings at HyperLabs in New York City to his role as sole defense against a terrible evil perpetrated by the Thanatos twins, former colleagues at HyperLabs. This character of The Subterranean is a spin-off from the critically acclaimed graphic novel Cypher. »
Given that I grew up in the days when PC games were just starting to be a thing (what a pleasure it is to reminisce about Secret Agent, Crystal Caves, or Jill of the Jungle…), anything pixelated immediately gives me a warm rush and a sense of pleasant nostalgia, be it the quiet appeal of Toyoi Yuuta‘s art or modern ‘pixel art’ games that go for that retro feel (the dark glory of Blasphemous, the cozy feel of Stardew Valley!). As for comics, I suspect most are drawn on a computer these days, but few of them use pixel art per se. One look at Plastic Dog, and it was puppy love, especially given its acerbic sense of humour.
Henning Wagenbreth, born in 1962 in East Germany (which is perhaps what partially gave him a lifelong anti-totalitarian stance), is an illustrator/graphic designer who actually excels in a number of techniques. Lambiek Comiclopedia touts him as ‘German pioneer in comics created with the computer‘; I don’t know enough about the development of electronically-drawn comics specifically in that part of the world to state that with certainty, although this is as good a time as any to mention that Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz‘ wonderful Shatter (1985-1988) is usually credited as the first significant comic book created on computer. Topic for another day, no doubt.
Be as it may, Wagenbroth did something interesting: he designed the strip Plastic Dog in 2000 specifically for perusal on early pocket computers (such as Pocket PC or Palm OS), which had a black and white screen of 160×160 pixels. In 2004, colourized versions migrated to weekly newspaper Die Zeit, printed within its pages, but also available as downloads on their website.
The French publisher L’Association released a 26-page collection of Plastic Dog strips, translated into French from German by Eugénie Pascal. As far as I know, no official English translation exists, aside from maybe one or two random strips (probably translated by Wagenbreth himself). The following pages are scans from this French edition.
Dead Wood. Plastic Dog calls the police to report a stolen wooden cabinet, to find that it’s been removed by the Tree Liberation Army, who bury their ‘felled, deported, dismembered and abused’ friend in the tree cemetery.
The Killer Cars. Plastic Dog goes out to search for his missing child, to find the latter in pieces after being attacked by driverless cars gone rogue. In the final panel, PD says ‘tomorrow, we’ll buy you a nice new body’.
Nothing Ever Happens. ‘A grey day, pure boredom’, bemoans Plastic Dog, ‘I am always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and everything is so predictable…’
In his never-ending search for new experiences, Plastic Dog stumbles upon a device that proffers guidelines to achieve maximum happiness. Its instructions are not devoid of poetry: ‘give all your money to be eaten by zoo animals’, ‘do 15 squats on top of a chemical factory’, ‘make three loafs of bread laugh in the middle of the night’, ‘plant wind instruments in the garden’. The final piece of advice (‘withdraw into solitude and practice patience’) is what seems to defeat PD’s enthusiasm (seems like in his world, getting lost in the desert is the only way to solitude…)
The following is the last PD strip, and readers are thanked at the bottom for their many emails and downloads. There’s also something about a free TV as a reward, but I wouldn’t bank on it 😉
A family visit to the zoo! Touted as the last surviving specimens by the guide, these animals may not quite be what they seem. The flamingo complains, ’12 hours standing on the same leg!’, but Plastic Dog argues that having to constantly hang upside down is much worse.
Wagenbreth recently had an exhibition at Montréal’s UQAM university, which to my regret I completely missed… due to finding out about it far too late (i.e. now). Here is the poster for it:
~ ds
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