The Year's Best Comic Books
Dear Ruben,
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StumbleUponIf you weren't such a close, personal friend, I'd have to kick your ass. There's also the significant problem that we're the same size, which means I might suffer unacceptable levels of physical trauma while attempting to do so.
Not to wallow on the Clowes book, but I basically gave the thing a Valentine while pointing out a few faults, and suddenly you're spinning it like I trashed the thing. Basically I found David Boring fascinating, but pointed out a few structural issues I found problematic. But now I've just had my post-morning coffee revelation--you haven't disliked ANY of the books we've reviewed this week ... in fact, you haven't even taken issue with any significant aspects of them. Are you really such a bright-eyed optimist? Or do you really think they ALL rock the Cashbah, to coin a vintage 1982 phrase? Or could it be that you're REALLY trolling for more free review copies of expensive advance pressings of comics, all the better to be quickly sold at the neighborhood used bookstore? After all, no created work is perfect ... a failure to find fault is automatically suspect ... unless it's all part of your diabolical plot of self-enriching greed!
Comic critic, heal thyself!
Now, it's on to Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan. Once again (yawn), it's time for Full Journalistic Disclosure:
1) For several years now, Chris Ware has garnered considerable critical praise and won countless awards within the incestuous confines of the alternative comics business. Long having observed the sad facts that Billy Wilder's finest film (The Big Carnival) was his biggest flop, George McGovern (a decent, kind guy with good ideas) didn't beat Richard Nixon (Satan), and that the Grammys only go to wankers, I perceive an inverse relationship between quality and lowest-common-denominator success. The Ware hype, much like that of the '90s movie The Piano, has only served to raise the bar higher.
2) One year ago, I authored a feature about Maus/New Yorker cartoonist Art Spiegelman for the Village Voice. Unlike most such pieces, it wasn't a love letter. Chris Ware, a protégé of Spiegelman's, wrote an incredibly heartfelt, shrill letter to the editor in which he took issue with my piece (quelle surprise!) but also critiqued my own work in terms that made it painfully clear to all that he had never once in his life seen a single example thereof. This classic example of the Bob Dole School of Criticism, in which one critiques what one has not personally observed, is characteristic of even greater idiocy than the belief that one deserves to be elected president because his father was once president, or for that matter, senator.
Ruben, despite the above-stated biases, when you strongly urged me to give Ware's work a chance, I did so. Although I have since come to understand that we don't share the same tastes in popular culture (for instance, I'd pick any of Ivan Brunetti's or Peter Bagge's comics over most of the books we've reviewed this week), I was willing to overlook your ownership of Bruce Springsteen's collected works (on CD, as if prerecorded tape wasn't sufficient!) to seek out his stuff.
And the thing is, I WANTED to like Ware's work. I really did. His books are drop-dead gorgeous, the colors are awesome, the drawing crisp and clean, and his esoteric graphic and literary references to turn-of-the-century advertising as engaging as the countertop of a suburban Wendy's restaurant. But Ware's stunning wall of artifice, his refusal to step out from behind the yellow curtain and be himself, not to mention his stunning pretentiousness always got in the way.
I've reread the Jimmy Corrigan collection four times, and now I understand the problem: Ware's not a cartoonist; he's an illustrator.
Reading Ware's ersatz cartoons is like watching a movie in which the film's logo suddenly pops up on screen in the middle of dialogue, or that alternates between color and black-and-white, or with dialogue that changes volume from a whisper to a scream for no reason whatsoever. Such pompous devices as alternating frame sizes, directional indicators (arrows point the way to the next panel, except when they don't), stretching dialogue across whole panels so that the word "THEN" takes up more room than the next 15 words and flashback sequences that come and go without graphic or textual clues make it impossible to stay focused on the action, or lack thereof, for more than half a page at a time.
I don't know whether Ware understands cartoon narrative structure or whether he's chosen to deconstruct it, but the final result is the same: impossible-to-follow, breathtakingly cold, and oddly cool in a hip, pomo, dumb way. Ware's an amazing illustrator and a kick-ass designer--I'd hire him in a second to do book jackets, CD covers, and avant-garde advertisements. But he doesn't draw cartoons, which can be a tricky point when one is presenting himself as a cartoonist.
I suspect that many readers will also find the general tenor of the work--somber to the point of boring--rough going. My wife, like you intrigued by this book's Übercool jacket design, picked up my review copy but put it down after a few minutes, complaining that reading it was like wading through mud. Ware's work is the comic equivalent of Joyce's Ulysses--no one's ever read it, and those who have know that it sucks, but it sure looks great on your bookshelf.
Once again, we're dealing with a cartoonist who's attempting to deal with an absentee dad, in this case through a somewhat unappealing alter ego. (Get ready for more of this kind of stuff as fatherless Gen Yers come of age.)
Much of the plot is incredibly trite and predictable, such as when a sequence when it becomes clear that Jimmy's mom was a slut who did it in exchange for tenners on the bedside table from a countless series of slimy guys. Didn't we see this sort of thing in tons of '70s slasher films? As for flashbacks to the 1892 Columbian Exposition, it's really cool that Ware can draw those purty period portraits. But so what? They're the graphic version of a 22-minute guitar solo. OK, so Ware sure can draw. But what can he SAY?
It has been written elsewhere that the fundamental difference between the way Chris Ware and I dealt with our respective father issues is that Ware adopted an air of quiet resignation and passivity while I seethed with anger and resentment. But the latter isn't really true, and neither is the former. Ware's work, rather than depicting alienation, is itself deeply alienated and therefore disturbingly soulless. Either there's no there in Ware, or there is and he just can't figure out how to let it out.
Gary Numan, call your office.
As usual, Ruben, it's been fun. And unlike our usual bull sessions, we get paid for the privilege, which is super cool! I hope you survive your rural respite.
Now, to recap my views about this week's comics:
1) Ilan Stavans' and Lalo Alcaraz's Latino USA--my top pick. Educational, informative, and entertaining. Loud, brash, and snotty--just my cup of tea. Where else can you pick up a cocktail-party knowledge of the American Latino experience? Absolutely essential for anyone who needs to catch up on the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group.
2) Daniel Clowes' David Boring--my second choice. Daring, fun, and impeccably crafted, albeit with some structural flaws, still well worth checking out.
3) Ben Katchor's Julius Knipl: In my opinion, redundant and therefore strictly optional and therefore too expensive in this unnecessary hardback edition. A must for hard-core Katchor fans; others should browse in the bookstore.
4) Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: You'll either love it or hate it. I hate it, finding it ponderous, pretentiously passive-aggressive, and painfully trite and boring. Ruben loves it, reveling in Ware's undeniable talent as an artist. My retort: Not every great artist makes a good cartoonist.
That's it for me. Voracious critics will get their next shot at yours truly in the spring, when a collection of my cartoons from the last five years, Search and Destroy: Cartoons by Ted Rall, will be published by Andrews & McMeel.
Now over to you: Wrap this sucker and off and let's go do some real work for a change!
Very truly yours,
Ted
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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The Week's Best Editorial Cartoons
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)