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The Year's Best Comic Books

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from: Ruben Bolling

Pure Genius

Posted Monday, Aug. 28, 2000, at 12:36 PM ET

Dearest Ted,

While I appreciate your kind words about my comic strip, they are a bit disconcerting, considering that I disagree with just about every opinion you have on comics. Could my comic be the only one about which you are right? I suppose I should return the "favor" by letting you know that the guy whose taste in comics you will spend the next three days deriding thinks your editorial cartoons are brilliant; you're the only political cartoonist who brings genuine, passionate rage to the table. Take that!

And I also have misgivings about commenting on other cartoonists' work, but not because I haven't been invited to enough Cartoonist Free-Love Orgies (I have, and they're not so hot), nor because I'm jealous of $500k awards (well, it would be cool to settle arguments with friends with a dismissive "How many Genius Fellowships have you won?"). Rather, I just feel that I'm not really sufficiently Expert on the subject. Yes, I'm a cartoonist, but "Comics Reviewers" always make esoteric, historical references to comics like Krazy Kat and Little Nemo in Slumberland, they hold controversial theories on the interrelationship between comics and their geo-political-psycho-sexual contexts, and they certainly would have researched their subjects more thoroughly than I have (I'm posting from a cabin in the remote wilderness, so my background research capabilities are pretty much limited to that old standby: "trying to remember stuff"). I've reconciled myself to the task by deciding that I'm not writing Definitive Reviews of these books but just offering some comments and observations from a practicing cartoonist.

Unsurprisingly, I do disagree with your assessment of The Beauty Supply District. I've always found Ben Katchor's obssessive depiction of a strange world of urban decay fascinating, and while some installments seem a bit repetitive, most bring something fresh within that very limiting conceit.

There are some concepts that are uniquely Katchoresque--a Municipal Birthmark Registry, for example--but even when he thinks of a more conventional notion, like an urban theme park that's an indoor lovers' lane, he handles it in his own totally original, highly idiosyncratic style. If you or I had wanted to develop the idea, we might have told a story about people who attend the park or maybe a fake ad ("Heated Benches! Electric Zephyrs! Stereophonic Crickets!"). In Katchor's hands, the story starts years after the business has gone bankrupt, from the perspective of a bored night watchman and the failed marriage of the developer.

You wondered whether Katchor's drawing style is a deliberate affectation in service to the tone of the strip or just an aesthetic preference. I think it's the only way he can draw, and it perfectly serves the mood of the strip, which is the only way he can write. The vision of the comic is so strong and consistent, it must be wholly ingrained in Katchor's every stylistic impulse. He simply must draw this way; even Katchor's young people, women, and children look like dumpy middle-aged men. The strip is set in contemporary times, and Katchor occasionally utilizes flashbacks to previous eras, but every scene he draws looks like it's Depression era or at least 1950s Eastern Europe. Check out Katchor's drawing of an actual scene in New York City, 1997 that he did for Slate. Tell me that in some ineffable way it doesn't look like a scene from 1939.

Unlike The Beauty Supply District, which is chiefly comprised of one-page stand-alone comics (except for a 24-page story at the end), David Boring, by Daniel Clowes, is a full-blown graphic novel.

The eponymous David Boring is an alienated young man with dual obsessions: a) gals whose body types match that of a cousin on whom he had a crush when he was 13 years old; and; b) a comic book created by his father, who abandoned the family when David was 2 years old. David goes about the odd business of acting upon these obsessions with a grim, aloof resignation.

I'd be interested to get your take on the father abandonment issue, Ted. Many cartoonists (and artists of all types) of our generation have written extensively about it, and it comes up twice in the books we're discussing (also in Chris Ware's magnificent Jimmy Corrigan, which will be discussed tomorrow). The absentee dad certainly has been a central theme of your work. For starters, how do you see Clowes' handling of the issue?

I've read a good deal of Clowes' work, and I found similarities in David Boring to two of his other graphic novels. Like his excellent Ghost World (a movie version of which I hear is being produced), David Boring deals with young friends moving into adulthood while focusing on totemistic objects from their childhood. Some of the best elements of David Boring echo Ghost World: Boring's close relationship with Dot, his lesbian friend, and his romance with the enigmatic Wanda, the girlfriend who literally drives him crazy (well, he was probably already crazy). But like Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, there are some weird, David Lynchian elements that add cryptic mystery but not much meaning. Certainly a bizarre interlude on an island following a terrorist attack seemed strangely out of place.

But Clowes' artwork is, as usual, fantastic (although the version I received was a prepublication, poorly Xeroxed package--I can't wait to see what the finished product will look like). Man, this guy can draw facial expressions like no one else. In a medium in which facial characteristics are not exactly on the forefront (many cartoonists, even in the "realistic" genre, haven't moved far beyond the Archie paradigm in which Veronica and Betty have the same face and are only distinguishable by hair), Clowes gives his characters actual, individualized faces and nuanced, subtle expressions, and this ability is used to great effect in his storytelling. And his technique of interspersing panels from David's father's comic book within the narrative is extremely effective; it's a wonderfully innovative use of the graphic novel form.

Also, the overarching construct that Boring is "starring" in a movie of his own life is very interesting. When a forgotten character reappears at a critical moment, Boring worries, "Such narrative symmetry cannot bode well." I think we often see ourselves as protagonists in an ongoing story. When things do not go according to what would be considered a well-conceived storyline for me, I often get puzzled: "I couldn't find my keys, then there was unbelievable traffic, then my cab got a flat tire, but I still made it to that important meeting on time? That was certainly a poorly plotted scene." Or: "By a bizarre coincidence, I met the perfect person who can help me with something very specific I'm working on, and then he disappears suddenly! Then what was the point of introducing that character?!"

Well, I've digressed into a fictional internal monologue; I can see I've written enough.

See you tomorrow,
Ruben

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from: Ruben Bolling

Pure Genius

Posted Monday, Aug. 28, 2000, at 12:36 PM ET

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The Beauty Supply District, by Ben Katchor and David Boring, by Daniel Clowes

Ruben Bolling creates the weekly comic strip “Tom the Dancing Bug,” which is distributed to 70 publications, including the Village Voice, the Washington Post, and Salon.com. Ted Rall's cartoons appear in the Village Voice, the New York Times, and more than 100 other publications. This week, they discuss four new comics books: Ben Katchor's The Beauty Supply District (click here to buy it); Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (click here to buy it); Daniel Clowes' David Boring (click here to buy it); and Ilan Stavans' Latino USA: A Cartoon History (click here to buy it).

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Reader Comments from The Fray:

If I may add the obvious to the two gentlemen's discussion of the work of Ben Katchor: the guy loves cities, especially New York. Sweetly and without irony--thank God. Even if you don't have the pleasure to hear him state that flat out in one of his charming lectures, it's obvious from his strips, which are all about the semi-hidden pleasures of cities past and present, the type of odd niches that can exist only when there is a large and cosmopolitan population. In many cases, the context of his work, the detailed street backgrounds, are the main subject. So if you don't like cities, like perhaps Mr Rall, Julius Knipl probably won't work for you.

--George Grella

(To reply, click here.)

[And there was more enthusiasm for Katchor: Michael Lewyn agreed with Mr Grella, saying "When I read Mr Katchor and then I realize that I don't live in NYC, I want to start crying." And Adam Morrow thought he "brings to life all of the wonderful historical details that one ignores in daily life--the fact that each stranger you pass on the street has a fascinating story to tell (as does every fire escape and curbstone), and that this is a story you will never get to hear. Katchor gives his readers a glimpse of what those stories might be."]

I was the staff editorial cartoonist for City Pages, the alternative weekly in Minneapolis, for ten years. I looked at the possibility of syndicating my stuff to the alternative weeklies around the country. But I gave up on the idea because I soon discovered that the editors of those papers were basically so left-brained, so verbal, as to qualify as right-hemisphere-retards. They were utterly visually illiterate, had no appreciation for anything except words words words. Unfortunately for those of us artists who are politically far left of center, the most verbal, least visually intelligent editors in the country seem to be those who are most politically to the left. I think this malady has spread to many of the editors of mainstream dailies, as well, many of whom can't see the value in any kind of cartoon that isn't almost entirely word-based. In a true cartoon, the words and images interact in such a way that neither the words or images by themselves deliver the message of the cartoon. In a true cartoon, you have to look at the picture and read the words for it to even make any sense at all. In Rall's "cartoons", like those of Tom Tomorrow, Groening, Lynda Barry, et al, the images are unnecessary. This is why the Left in America will never pose any real threat to the status quo: their visual stupidity puts them out of touch with the masses.

--Wag

(To reply, click here.)

[Note from the Fray Editor: This Book Club brought a lot of very knowledgeable comics fans into The Fray, showing varying levels of enthusiasm. Reuben Nisenfield said "it's like Griffin and Sabine by Kevin Smith". Many were concerned to distinguish between comic books and comic strips collected into a book. There was this spirited defense of Chris Ware's work from Walter Biggins, and praise for Daniel Clowes too.

In general, Ted Rall proved to be a--how best to put this?--thought-provoking critic with the Fray-going public, perhaps even controversial. Try this ("sloppy vendetta journalism") or this ("one of the strangest critics I have ever read") or this ("A more interesting topic might be: Why are Ted Rall's cartoons so frequently based on demonstrably false premises?") And here, Danny Hellman says Rall sued him for making a joke about him--we suggest you read it before posting anything too rude about Mr Rall.]

(9/2)