Book Review: Ben Katchor by Benjamin Fraser

Benjamin Fraser. Ben Katchor. University Press of Mississippi, 2023. https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/B/Ben-Katchor3

reviewed by Matt Reingold

            Benjamin Fraser’s recent biography of American cartoonist Ben Katchor is the first book to explore Katchor’s lengthy career and vast catalogue. Much like his previously published monograph Visible Cities, Global Comics (University Press of Mississippi, 2019), Fraser draws upon his own training as an urban geographer to consider the ways that cities take on a life of their own.

            Readers expecting a traditional biography that tells a chronological narrative of Katchor’s career will quickly realize that this is not the approach that Fraser employs in Ben Katchor. Instead, each chapter (aside from the introduction and the conclusion) is built around one or two of our senses – sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste – and how they are featured in Katchor’s illustrations of urban life. The cumulative effect created is a work built around showing the ways that Katchor creates an immersive and sensory experience.

            Fraser’s approach focused on the small details in panels like sight lines, noises, the ways that panels abut each other, the beautiful onomatopoeia created with the sounds of eating, and the ways that words can convey multiple meanings. He conducts beautiful close readings of the choices that Katchor makes to draw readers in to the richness of urban life. I left the Fraser’s biography with a deeper appreciation for Katchor’s techniques and world-building approach. At the same time, I would be remiss in not acknowledging that I also feel like I left the work with a limited understanding of the stories that Katchor tells in his comics or the larger thematic considerations that cut across his works (if any such exist). This is a consideration that Fraser, too, recognizes in his conclusion when he suggests that more books about Katchor still need to be written. Nevertheless, I found myself impressed with how Fraser engages with urban spaces and physical geography to analyze comics in a way that differs from other such scholarship. It is an emphasis on methodology, technique, and intention and left me thinking deeply about both Katchor’s cartoons and the urban spaces where I live.  

 

Book Review: Superheroes! The History of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon from Ant-Man to Zorro

reviewed by Dominick Grace

Brian R. Solomon. Superheroes! The History of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon from Ant-Man to Zorro. Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2023. xxii + 322 pp. 26.95, paperback, 978-1493064519. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781493064519/Superheroes!-The-History-of-a-Pop-Culture-Phenomenon-from-Ant-Man-to-Zorro

As the exclamation point in the title of Brian R. Solomon’s Superheroes! The History of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon from Ant-Man to Zorro indicates, this is a book that is enthusiastic about its subject matter. And while Superheroes! is published by a company that deals primarily in books on film and theatre—Solomon does pay a lot of attention to superhero films but does not reference any stage adaptations—the book also and appropriately focuses mainly on comic books, with some passing attention to comic strips. The A to Z reference in the title, coupled with the publisher’s assertion on its webpage that the book is “the ultimate reference book about” superheroes, suggests an encyclopedic coverage and structure that the book lacks.

The book offers a chronological history of the superhero—that is, characters with exceptional powers, rather than the superhero genre or industry per se—each of the sixteen chapters concluding with an “Icons” section focusing on a specific character. As the list of these figures indicates—Superman, Batman, the Flash, the Fawcett Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, Captain America, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Spawn—Solomon's focus (unsurprisingly, but somewhat disappointingly) is on American superheroes, and further focused (also unsurprisingly) on the Big Two publishers and white, male figures (only one woman, only two Black superheroes, only three not published by Marvel or DC—one of whom is now in fact part of the DC stable, albeit renamed Shazam). While American superheroes are (at least in North America) the best-known such figures, and while the comic book superhero was created in North America, a book that is promoted as encyclopedic and the “ultimate reference book” should, I think, have offered a bit more diversity. To be fair, there is more diversity in the chapters proper, but the “Icons” selections are, I think, instructive. Superheroes other than those owned by the Big Two also tend to get short shrift (e.g. Charlton characters are only mentioned in passing and primarily in relation to DC’s repurposing of them). Ironically, perhaps, Zorro, referenced in the title, is discussed only briefly and in relation to the original 1919 pulp story, with no mention of any of his comics, film, or TV appearances.

Solomon begins with the question of definition, concluding that superheroes have three defining traits: some sort of exceptional ability (not necessarily superhuman); service to the greater good; and free agency (that is, they are not representatives of any formal system of law or government). He then lists some of the categories of extraordinariness such figures may possess: either exceptional training or some sort of technological augmentation; some sort of inherent or acquired physical/mental power (e.g. mutation, radioactive spider bite); supernatural/magical power; divine or quasi-divine status. This last perhaps most obviously leads to Solomon’s reiteration of the long-held association of superheroes with modern mythology and his tracing of the genesis of superheroes back to figures from myth (some of whom have, in fact, been folded into modern superhero universes—Thor, Hercules, etc.).

Subsequent chapters track the genesis of the superhero in comics and media from the earliest examples through to the explosion of superhero appearances on film and TV (chapters eight to twelve, in fact), followed by a chapter on supervillains, and one on famous superhero creators Chapter fifteen, “The Weird and Wonderful,” focuses on lesser-known and odd examples from comics and other media, including various parodic takes on superheroes, such as Too Much Coffee Man. Sadly, Solomon devotes only 10 pages to this section, entirely ignoring major examples such as the underground figures Trashman and Wonder Warthog, not to mention Kurtzman’s various superlative parodies in Mad and elsewhere, such as the Goodman Beaver stories about Tarzan and Superman. Chapter sixteen devotes a mere nine pages to superheroes from outside the USA, entirely skipping major regions such as India, China, and Africa. As a Canadian, I am perhaps overly irked by the devotion of part of only one sentence to Canada and the absence of any reference to Canadian characters other than Cerebus (admittedly, there are not many). Others may have different quibbles about who is excluded, as well as about occasional errors of fact (e.g. I was happy to see Asterix referenced but note that Solomon is off by over fifteen years in his dating of Asterix’s first appearance—which he gives as 1976 rather than 1959, and 1969 for the first English translation).

Basically, Solomon’s chapters are all short and breezy, skimming over the surface rather than offering deep dives. Even when specific characters do get extended treatment, this rarely runs for more than a page or two. In a relatively short survey trying to cover what is after all a huge number of characters, this is not really a flaw, but it does mean that readers should not expect in-depth discussion of their favorite characters, or new insights.

More troubling, perhaps, is Solomon’s general glossing over of the messy complexities of how superheroes were created and who benefited. For instance, Solomon does not question the Marvel position that Stan Lee basically created everything, with figures such as Kirby and Ditko, the former especially, not given their due. Similarly, Siegel and Shuster’s treatment by DC is barely mentioned and skewed favorably.

Overall, Superheroes! The History of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon from Ant-Man to Zorro is aimed at a general audience but offers only a minor addition to the array of books on the subject that are available already. It is not the comprehensive reference book it is promoted as being. Readers already well-versed in the history of the superhero are unlikely to find much here that will add to their knowledge. For those looking for a breezy overview of the genesis of the superhero, this book will serve well, especially as Solomon’s prose style is easily digestible, and his enthusiasm for superheroes is evident.

Book Review: A Cultural History of The Punisher by Kent Worcester

A Cultural History of The Punisher by Kent Worcester, Intellect, 2023. https://www.intellectbooks.com/a-cultural-history-of-the-punisher

reviewed by CT Lim

 It is now almost a cliche to talk about how comics studies as a field has grown. There are numerous books being released almost every month - more than one can read to be updated about the latest research - a very different scenario from 20 years ago when one could possibly read every new book to keep up with the extent literature. But the more the merrier as the growth and diversity of the field can only be a good thing. Other than specific author studies (Brannon Costello on Howard Chaykin; Charles Hatfield on Jack Kirby), gendered readings (Ramzi Fawaz on The New Mutants; J. Andrew Deman on The Claremont Run) and transmedia and seriality surveys (Daniel Stein, Christina Meyer), one particular area that has expanded is the singular character studies. While most would approach a company-owned character via the lens of literature, history, cultural, and media studies, I would argue that the latest book to hit the shelves, A Cultural History of The Punisher by Kent Worcester is looking at the popular Marvel character from the refreshing perspective of political science, in spite of its title. Worcester has earlier co-edited A Comics Studies Reader (2008) and The Superhero Reader (2013). 

The breakdown of the chapters is as such: Chapter 1 asserts the importance of New York City in creating the Punisher and creating the milieu or conditions for his ascendency and popularity. I really enjoyed  the extracts from Welcome to Fear City: A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York (1975). I first visited NYC in 2000 and my reference points were Lou Reed albums, but the 1986 Punisher miniseries by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck would not be far behind them. Worcester argued the latter could be read together with The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Watchmen (1987) as “the turn in mainstream comics towards more adult-oriented offerings.” (p. 141) In hindsight, the NYC I visited in December 2000 was probably closer to the violent cartoony zaniness of Garth Ennis’ rendition of the character which started in that year. 

Chapter 2 sets out the difference between the trigger-happy Punisher and the grim and gritty Punisher. Not forgetting that the Punisher is still a corporate owned character, Chapter 3 examines his interactions with other Marvel characters. Chapter 4 gets into the meat of “the Punisher’s meteoric rise during the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.” (p. 19) This was when the character started becoming a major revenue stream with multiple monthly titles and making real money for the company. Worcester incorporates the idea of production cycle (taken from film studies) and explains how and why the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s was the first of the two Punisher production cycles to date. The end of the first production cycle coincided with the burst of the collecting bubble in 1995. (p. 184)

Chapter 5 takes a step away from the official franchise and looks at the Punisher parodies since the mid 1970s and also the challenges writers have in writing the Punisher when violent crime declined in NYC in the late 1990s and early 2000s. What thus remains as his raison d'etre when the urban crisis and decay have rolled back? Chapter 6 brings us up to speed on the recent series of the last 24 years. Basically, the Garth Ennis stories starting from 2000 are the start of the second production cycle. 

Worcester explains:

While their version of Frank Castle still preferred decisive lethality over due process, the character now manifested an absurdist aspect that previous creators had eschewed. The first cycle achieves a kind of pulpish modernist realism, until its final act at least, whereas Ennis and (Steve) Dillon opt for cheeky jokes, glossy visuals, and postmodern bombast. Their story verse offers a giddy fantasia in which sadism, machoism, and gore serve comedic rather than ideological ends, and the grim and trigger-happy templates are fused. (p. 207) 

It is also during this production cycle that we see “the locus of production and consumption has migrated from print to screen, and from screen to iconography.” But Worcester’s main contention is that the Punisher “also embodies a raw, populist anger that presents an uncomfortable fit with business models and strategic plans.” (p. 20) In a way, this answers Worcester’s key research question: why are so many of us fascinated by the Punisher? (p. 20)

Witness the co-option of the Punisher by the alt-right, Trump supporters, Unite the Right and Blue Lives Matter. (p. 3) In fact, Worcester started this book in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected. (p. 239) In Southeast Asia, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was known as the Punisher way back in 2002 when he was the mayor of Davao. He even used comics to spread his 'war on drugs' campaign in 2016. 

Where are the political science aspects I initially referred to? They are most evident in Chapter 1 where Worcester used a four-box matrix to study vigilantism - fiction, non-fiction, less violent and more violent. He concluded that this is inadequate in helping us understand the vigilante’s underlying goals and proposed an alternative typology taken from H. Jon Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg’s Vigilante Politics (1973). There are three types of vigilantism - crime-control, social-group control and regime control. No surprise that the Punisher is a crime-control vigilante. (pp. 54 - 55) 

(a drawing Tan Eng Huat drew for me in 2009.
He was one of the artists for the
seventh series of The Punisher
written by Rick Remender between 2009 and 2010,
the second production cycle.)

Comics studies have incorporated trauma studies. (or is it vice versa?) Recent books include Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories, and Graphic Reportage (2020), edited by Dominic Davies and Candida Rifkind. A more niche study is Visualising Small Traumas: Contemporary Portuguese Comics at the Intersection of Everyday Trauma (2022) by Pedro Moura. Worcester referenced Comics, Trauma, and the New Art of War (2017) by Harriet E. H. Earle in his first chapter on trauma culture. But the true strength and value of this book lies not in theories but Worcester’s close reading of the primary texts. He “harvested nearly five decades’ worth of comic books and graphic novels to show how a binary-minded rageaholic ended up with a lively, sometimes ridiculous, and often socially resonant storyverse.” (p. 14) Worcester took from political theorist John Gunnelll’s concept of internal history and also the late Martin Barker’s advice of needing subtle and cautious research instruments so as to be able to grasp the flow and stresses of the stories to bring out the maneuvers and moments of decision that make the stories meaningful. (p. 15)

In that sense, Worcester also dwells into the current approach of seriality as he does not just use the trade paperbacks and compilations, but the actual monthly floppies and the very useful letter columns to gauge readers’ sentiments and response to the Punisher’s body count and arsenal over the years. 

Another thing I like about the tone of this book is that Worcester is clearly a fan of what he writes about - comics and pop culture. You catch glimpses of it when he quotes Jane’s Addiction. (p. 236) 

Singular character studies in comics studies have been around for a while. From Will Brooker’s books on Batman to recent ones by Ian Gordon (Superman), Brian Cremins (Captain Marvel), Kevin Patrick (the Phantom), Paul Young (Daredevil) and Scott Bukutman (Hellboy). Worcester’s take on Punisher is a much welcomed addition. Now if only there is a good book on Judge Dredd…

(This review was edited on April 19th, after originally being posted by the author on April 11; a version of this review will appear in print in IJOCA 26:1)

Book Review: Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration by Ytasha L. Womack

 

reviewed by Charles W. Henebry, Boston University

Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration by Ytasha L. Womack. New York: Epic Ink, 2023. 176pp. https://www.quarto.com/books/9780760375617/black-panther

Judging by its cover, lavish illustrations, and meager page count, you wouldn’t think Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration lived up to the scholarly ambitions of its title. Yet Womack manages to pack a surprising wealth of cultural references and oral history into this slender volume. Having myself analyzed the Panther by reference to the aims of his creators, I was fascinated by Womack’s reader-centered approach to the character. Prior scholarship has problematized the Panther’s status as the “World’s First Black Superhero,” given Marvel’s all-white creative staff back in the sixties. Womack implicitly responds to this criticism with a moving account of the lived experience of the superhero’s African-American fans who, in that same era, encountered the new character at the newsstand and argued with their friends about how he was connected to the Black Panther Party. And she ties this oral history to developments in contemporary history and culture, from Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister of Ghana, to the cosmic jazz of Sun-Ra. In so doing, she encourages us to think of the Black Panther not as corporate IP, but as one of the shared myths of our culture: “I’d reason that the Black Panther myth is bigger than its creators, an idea held by fans, writers, pencilers, and the awed alike—a myth that channels love and liberation.” Having previously published a book on Afrofuturism, Womack is well situated to deliver in this effort to claim the Black Panther as a genuine expression of the African-American experience.

While the first chapter contextualizes the creation of the Black Panther in the ferment of the late 1960s, the book is organized not by timeline but by topic: “The Panther Mystique,” “The Wakandan Protopia,” “The Modern Goddess and Futuristic Warrior Queens,” etc. Throughout, Womack works suggestively rather than analytically: in the chapter on political power, for instance, she juxtaposes the Panther with real-world political figures ranging from MLK to Mandela, but does not explicitly argue any particular parallel or connection. Some may see this as a virtue, in that it invites the reader to take an active role in making sense of the Panther’s cultural resonance. But I would have liked a more detailed account, especially in regard to lesser-known figures like Kwame Nkrumah. Without such detail, the reader is hardly in a position to weigh the real significance of Womack’s musings.

The book’s greatest strength is its oral history of fans. Besides childhood memories, the interviews offer up a variety of insights as to the Panther’s political and cultural significance. A few of those interviewed are famous; many others are identified by Womack as authors or artists. In a few cases, we are provided with no more than a name, which left me wondering what principle Womack used in choosing whom to interview.

Another strength is the book’s format: lavish full-color images predominate throughout, ranging from comics panels to news photographs. Comics are a visual medium, and it’s wonderful to see scholarship illustrated in this way. Too often, due to the cost of permissions, comics scholars see their work go to print with no illustrations whatsoever. In Black Panther as well as in an earlier book on Spider-Man, Epic Ink neatly solved the permissions problem by partnering with Marvel Comics.

But I can’t help but worry that this cure is worse than the disease. Rights holders like Marvel are unlikely to partner with scholars who train a critical eye on their history, so in the marketplace of ideas, such scholarship will be text-only and hence at a disadvantage relative to visually attractive puff-pieces. Womack’s wholeheartedly celebratory account—which interrogates neither the politics of the character’s early decades nor the politics of Marvel’s creative team—does little to allay such concerns. Interested readers will have to seek out that richly problematic history elsewhere.

Book Review: All-Negro Comics (the 75th Anniversary Edition)

 reviewed by Cord Scott, UMGC Okinawa

Chris Robinson, editor.  All-Negro Comics (the 75^th Anniversary Edition). ANC75.com/Wizrob.com, 2023.  $33.95 (hardcover). ISBN 979-8-218-13590-4. < https://www.crob.info/all-negro-comics >

For many comic books of the Golden Era of the 1940s, the stories and artwork have a certain lack of quality to modern readers.  The stories seem formulaic at times, the artwork adequate but limited in originality or detail, and stereotypes are often utilized to simplify the stories for the readers or just because they are part of the common visual vernacular.  It is not surprising that All-Negro Comics at first glance might seem of little overall impact.  In terms of business success, it was true. But historically, this could not be further from the truth.  This comic, originally produced in 1947, might not have had a lasting impact for the average (white) comic book reader, but when analyzed against the history of the era as well as that of the comic book industry, this Anniversary Edition allows a much fuller picture of its long-term impact. The purpose of the comic was, as journalist and the original editor Orrin Evans wrote, to “tell, teach and tribute” a mission this reprint edition continues. The reprint project, funded on Kickstarter < https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1084996367/all-negro-comics-75th-anniversary-edition> raised over $35,000 from 656 people to bring the comic back into print, with copies given to several school and public libraries. The Kickstarter page also has more details on the restoration work done on the comic book scans.

The book is structured in three sections.  The first 50 pages are the original All-Negro Comics number one.  The stories as they appeared in the comic included “Ace Harlem,” a detective (written by Orrin Evans and inked by John Terrell); “Dew Dillies” written by Cooper about how semi-mythical entities act and interact; “Ezekiel's Story,” a two-page essay; “Lion Man” by George Evans where a scientist/hero strives to keep uranium safe for the UN from unscrupulous villains, “Hep Chicks on Parade”; “Lil Eggie”; and “Sugarfoot and Snakeoil” by Cravat, in which two travelling men look to gain a meal and a place to rest.

The second part of the book consists of brief essays on the impact of the comic on the African-American community in more recent years.  In the first essay, Qiana Whitted noted the significance of a comic book written, illustrated and meant for an African-American audience in an era where legal segregation was still the norm.  Many of the artists came from the Philadelphia School of Art and had had interactions with Evans previously.  Whitted also noted the history of African American centered comic strips from “Sonny Boy San” in the Pittsburgh Courier, and “Bungleton Green” from the Chicago Defender.  While newspapers may not have the same significance in the era of the internet, in the 1940s they were fundamental in providing news and entertainment centered towards an underserved segregated community across the country.  Unfortunately, Evans’ bold idea never made it past the first issue.  David Brothers stated in his essay “Hip Hop and Comic books was my Genesis” that the idea of African-American characters, especially those not merely as sidekicks or stereotypes, was fundamental in his own creative path.  Shawn Pryor’s essay “Finding My Path” states that racism still exists in the comic book industry despite the progress made, albeit now in the form of monetary compensation, and unstated continuing policy from an earlier era of editors which rarely hired black creators.

The third section of the book starts on page 66, and features new storylines created from the original characters.  Ace Harlem now struggles to deal with the issue of “white benefactors” who see themselves as betters for helping those less fortunate, while attempting to camouflage their own racism.  The new Lion Man story features issues of stereotypes and propaganda that dominated so many of the early comics and twists it to work for the character.  His faithful sidekick/ward Bubba still remains, but is not so much a hinderance but a imp working for Lion Man’s interests.  The essay in this later section is “Nana’s memory quilt” by Samantha Guzman.  The story discusses both the inevitability of death, but also how items such as quilts can help to preserve not only memories but also family history.  This later aspect is one that has traditionally been overlooked when dealing with cultures with written, as opposed to oral or pictorial histories.  Finally, the last significant story featuring the Dew Dillies centers on “Platypus and the Swan.”  The moral of the story is that both animals swim and have significance in the world despite their perceived aesthetic qualities.

As with any review of Golden age comics, there are aspects that still stand out for their inappropriateness.  While Whitted noted that Evans was trying to balance stereotypes with strong characters who were equals in the comic book world, there was still a considerable amount of sexism, be it from calling a female character “sugar” or “honey” to the original Sugarfoot’s object of desire, Ample Mae, and her well-proportioned and commented-upon figure.  The concept of taking the original comic and creating new stories was interesting.  It showed the impact of the original as a springboard to the present.  One of the areas that could have been expanded would be the history of the creators, and their backgrounds and other works.

In all, the book is a starting point for a research area that is significant, but not well-developed. One could then also at the impact of newspaper artists and their contributions to beyond comics.  Did any of the artists have connection to Army newspapers such as the Blue Helmet or the Buffalo, both of which catered to (segregated) Army units during World War II?  Or the black superhero artists of the 1970s-1980s? This book, as with so many others, offers a good reference point, but is not the whole story.

Letting the Everyday Speak its Own Power: The Works of Von Allan - A Review Essay

 by David Beard, University of Minnesota Duluth

Canadian graphic novelist Von Allan (a pen name) persistently plays with the tension between the mundane and the enchanted in his work, which is usually self-published. In Love, Laughter, and Loss, Allan funnels the enchanted and the emotionally powerful through stories that emphasize the mundane, sometimes for humorous effect, sometimes for tragic. In Wolf’s Head, probably his best work to date, the fanciful elements of a science fiction tale are masterfully pulled into a grounded, emotionally realistic story about a child grappling with their mother’s legacy. As Allan has moved into nonfiction (both in his public writings for the Ottawa Citizen and in participating in the documentary I Am Still Your Child), he continues to pull us deeper into the everyday, hoping to find the meaningful, and the tragic, therein.

 In Love, Laughter, and Loss, Allan works through two modes of storytelling. In the first half of the book, he inverts our expectations of fantasy storytelling. Traditionally, we have read high fantasy like the Lord of the Rings and then seen those gorgeous fantasy worlds translated, often unsuccessfully, into the tropes and tricks of roleplaying games. The “halflings” in Dungeons and Dragons are a way to recreate the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings without violating copyright; role playing games are like a strainer, sucking the depth and elegance from high fantasy so that it can be brought to a table with dice and miniatures.

 In his stories, such as “The Cowardly Clerics of Rigel V,” Total Party Kill,” and “The Two Magic-Users,” Allan tells us stories that begin with mundanity of role playing games. What would, in high fantasy, be the story of two wizards becomes the story of “two magic users.” In starting from the limitations of the tabletop roleplaying game, Allan makes us chuckle at the deflation of the genre.

 That same tendency (to start with the mundane) also undergirds Von Allan’s attempts to show us tragedy in Love, Laughter, and Loss. In a story about the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft (“When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains”), Allan begins with a simple dream of lost love. It’s only at the end of the dream that we see that the dreamers are actually spacecraft. Similarly, “I Was Afraid For My Life” begins as a story about a boy and a dog, only in the last pages revealing its powerful statement on race, violence, and policing.

 In all of these works, Von Allan’s commitment to pulling the fantastic and the tragic into the everyday makes it easier for him to tell a story that creates a laugh or packs a punch.

 Wolf’s Head is a stronger work than the bits and pieces collected in Love, Laughter, Loss, and so deserves a closer look. Wolf’s Head begins, in a way, where “I Was Afraid For My Life” leaves off, and its introductory page is remarkable in that it uses texture to convey the energy of the moment. The figure in the foreground is angry, and the play of texture behind her propels her forward. The lines radiating from something like an explosion of color represent, in texture, what she is feeling inside: Lauren Greene’s anger is propelled by the structural racism and violence inherent in policing, especially after the events of 2020 in Minneapolis. Her conscience won’t abide her participation in that system, and so she quits.

 I love this panel because it really shows the nuanced ways that Allan uses both the extraordinary and the simple to communicate. In a longer work like Wolf’s Head, the interplay between the fantastic dimensions of his stories and the tiny details of life in his art are what makes his voice unique in contemporary comics.  

 When Lauren finds a new job, Allan deploys those same texture techniques (crosshatching and some computerized spotting) to create a muddy picture of the place where Lauren now works. Instead of being propelled forward, Lauren is caught in the muck and darkness of her new life.

Allan introduces us to Lauren’s mom with the same techniques. I absolutely adore this first image of her mom (all solid colors and dark, thick lines), in sharp relief against (again) the complex textures of the apartment hallway and doorframe. On first, quick read, it’s possible to miss the oddly shaped musical note coming from her bag.

 That “bag” is the touch of the extraordinary in the Wolf’s Head story. Lauren’s mom works as a janitor in a research & development firm (Advanced Research Projects Corporation). The singing shoulder bag is actually a shapeshifting machine, an ARPC invention that has achieved self-awareness. It protected Lauren’s mom from an explosion at the factory and becomes her companion and guardian. When Lauren learns about her mom’s self-aware machine (and the goons from ARPC who want it back), she and her mom get into a fight about what to do next. Their reunion is possibly the most touching moment in the book. The goons kidnap Lauren to get at her mom. While Lauren’s mom is interrogated, she passes away from a heart attack, and Lauren is left with the self-aware machine and the ARPC goons in hot pursuit. The machine protector steps up and saves Lauren from the ARPC.

Wolf’s Head is at its best in the small things – Lauren’s search for meaning after leaving the force, her reunion with her mother. The story of the self-aware machine is the tiny twist that helps bring Von Allan’s gift for bringing the everyday into view. It’s difficult not to read this touching, loving mother-daughter relationship in Wolf’s Head without a sense of Von Allan’s interest in mental illness in families. His 2009 work, the road to god knows, is no longer in print, but the narrative arc (of a mom separated her from her child) resonates.

 In the road to god knows, the separation between child and parent is more painful than the separation in Wolf’s Head. In the latter, Lauren’s mom finds and comes to care for a sentient machine – anything, including reconciliation with Lauren, is possible in such a story. In the road to god knows, parent and child are ruptured by an illness that cannot be removed, only struggled with.

 In an interview with the CBC after Allan won recognition as a “trailblazer,” we learn that his late mother had schizophrenia; in other of his writings, he has addressed mental illness. In interview and essay, Von Allan’s penchant for crafting a picture of a realistic world helps him communicate the complexities of living with mental illness. In his writings for the Ottawa Citizen, Allan (writing under his real name as Eric Julien) shares his relationship with his childhood friend,David Thomas Foohey. Allan lays the facts of Foohey’s life on the table for the reader: his struggles living with older, blind parents who divorced; his struggles losing those parents (in 2004 and 2008). His depictions of Foohey’s attempt to grapple with mental illness are straightforward:

In Dave’s case, the medication emotionally “flat-lined” him. He phrased it this way: all of his emotions, not just the sad ones, were shunted off. Not sad, not filled with loss, but equally missing out on happiness and joy. There was just nothing at all. As a result, Dave gave up on the medication. He never did try another.

No hyperbole, no drama – whatever emotion you draw from Foohey’s story, you draw from the straightforward presentation of Dave’s story.

 Allan knows that his power as a storyteller comes from letting the everyday speak its own power, whether in the short stories of Love, Laughter, Loss, in the longer works (the road to god knows and Wolf’s Head), or nonfiction essays like “Dave’s Story.” Across his diverse works, by placing his focus on the everyday, Allan makes me laugh, makes me sad, and gives me hope.

 References

Von Allan Studio website: https://www.vonallan.com/

“Julien: Dave's Story — and the Agonizing Dilemma of Mental Illness.” Ottawa Citizen July 4, 2022

Love, Laughter, Loss. Ottawa: V. Allan Studio, 2021.

the road to god knows. Ottawa: V. Allan Studio, 2009.

Wolf’s Head. Ottawa: V. Allan Studio, 2021.

 “Trailblazers: Eric Julien.” CBC Interactive. March 23, 2019

I Am Still Your Child. CatBird Productions 2017

“Childhood Innocence” Does Not Need Rescuing Here : Growing Up Graphic book review

reviewed by Cecilia Garrison, 

California Institute of Integral Studies

Alison Halsall. Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis. Ohio State University Press, 2023. https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215548.html

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis is a refreshing and honest assessment of the importance of accurately and frankly acknowledging that childhood innocence is a Western invention. And also, that children, no matter where they are from or who they are, deserve to see themselves depicted in comics and can use the graphic narrative medium as a means to develop a broader and more realistic world view. Alison Halsall, fresh off the success of her edited volume The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader winning the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work, writes Growing Up Graphic with four objectives in mind. First, Halsall aims to explore comics and graphic narratives as a medium heavily invested in representing the reality of the social, political, and cultural experiences of childhood and youth. Graphic narratives, she argues, are a particularly useful means of sharing these experiences across national and cultural borders, because the “unique verbal/visual interface” (28) of these narratives seems to translate across the borders more easily. The second objective is the navigation of comics for young people throughout, within, and around “discourses of nation, belonging, ableism, and identity” (3). Young people are shaped by the communities and countries in which they live, and the politics of those spaces, and they deserve to have a space in that discourse. Third, she observes and contends with the trend in children’s publishing to diversify published content, providing young readers in the Global North with a more intersectional lens through which to see the world when consuming media. Comics and graphic narratives for children use the personal and the local to aid young readers in understanding broader narratives. And finally, she considers the readers themselves as a source of tension. Halsall meets all her stated objectives with aplomb and a frankness that makes the book hard to put down.

            Halsall’s text refutes the harmful ideas that comics and graphic novels are somehow lesser and should not be consumed by children or young people because of supposedly harmful and corrupting influences. This idea has existed for decades; today’s censorship of LGBTQ and African-American graphic novels echoes Fredric Wertham’s 1950s crusade against comics. However, Halsall argues that the world in which we all live requires more and more of children, particularly in terms of communication and critical thinking skills. Visual literacy, comprehension, and interpretation are increasingly necessary aspects of communication. More libraries, schools, and curricula for young readers find the navigation of graphic texts to be a valuable means by which students and readers can develop these and other skills, while also developing a love of literature, art, and reading from a young age. Not only do graphic narratives provide opportunities for young readers to develop the aforementioned skills, but the particular graphic narratives Halsall addresses in Growing Up Graphic (which include such titles as War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay, Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, 7 Generations by David Alexander Robertson, and several of Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels, including Guts and Drama) provide young readers with new and engaging opportunities to learn about human rights discourses, world events, and ways in which children are and can be active agents in the world around them, providing the groundwork for those readers to become more empathetic, compassionate, and culturally aware.

Furthermore, Halsall questions the Global North belief that childhood and youth are and must be innocent – that children should be protected from anything that may burden the innocence of their youth. Childhood, Halsall argues, is a largely Western concept, and that the Global North conception of childhood as something which should be stable and protected is in conflict with the experiences of hundreds of thousands of children both within the context of Western societies and beyond. This conflict is present throughout all five chapters of Growing Up Graphic.

In her first chapter, Halsall explores the use of childhood in war, bringing the reader through an analysis of Michel Chikwanine’s Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls Are Used in War, Sharon E. McKay and Daniel Lafrance’s War Brothers: The Graphic Novel, and Jean-Philippe Stassen’s Deogratias, A Tale of Rwanda to ask readers to reflect on the ontology of victimhood, the lives of those – especially children – who are caught up in wars not of their own making, and the impacts of power, control, and change. She calls upon these texts to defamiliarize standard historical narratives and the ideas of childhood, as they instead point out that history is far rifer with personal and political violence and trauma, and that childhood “transforms in relation to war, a social and political crisis” (34). The children involved in armed conflict cannot be seen from the Western perspective of childhood as brimming over with innocence, they are shown through these narratives to be complex; neither agents nor at-risk victims, but perhaps both at the same time. They can be agentic without being responsible, vulnerable without being entirely victimized, etc.

This vein of complicated agency continues into the second chapter, with a question of how graphic narratives about immigration, diaspora, and refugees, such as Morten Dürr and Lars Horneman’s Zenobia, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, Matt Hyunh’s “The Boat,” Reinhard Kleist’s An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar, Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, and George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, can explore migration ethically, rejecting the instinct common in Western literature to represent refugees and immigrants as “passive victims waiting to be ‘saved’” (58), instead exploring them as fully complex individuals shaped by the circumstances in which they find themselves. This effort humanizes the refugee crisis and the protagonists of these texts, allowing young readers to ground themselves in another young person’s lived experiences. “Here” and “there” become less disparate as young readers read, and they are able to conceptualize immigrants and refugees as something more than victims without agency, awaiting saving from the Global North.

The theme of agency and refusing to see marginalized protagonists as victims in need of saving continues throughout the text. Chapter 3 of Growing Up Graphic focuses on Indigenous texts from Canada, exploring the way that texts such as Katherena Vermette’s A Girl Called Echo, David Alexander Robertson’s 7 Generations, and Michael Nicoll Yahulanaas’s Red: A Haida Manga explore the healing powers of language and visual storytelling to explore myth and worldview, and address the generations of systemic violence and genocide faced by Indigenous communities. While this chapter addresses and acknowledges injustices, both past and present, the texts analyzed within seek to empower Indigenous youth, providing a narrative that emphasizes cultural affirmation, renewal, and hope while responding to a history of colonial violence. The texts encourage young readers to question historical narratives, resist the erasure of violence and colonialism, and work against the continued racial stratification and systematic injustices. Not only does the use of graphic narrative offer Indigenous writers and readers catharsis and critical reflection, but it also provides non-Indigenous young readers with valuable perspective while not viewing Indigenous peoples non-agentic or their lives and stories as something to be relegated to a history book.

Chapter 4 takes particular umbrage at the concept of protecting the innocence of childhood by highlighting the powerful importance of quality representation of queer identity in texts for young readers, complicating the idea that children must be separated from any knowledge of sexuality. Halsall argues against both an ideal of a stable, protected childhood and a stable sexual and gender identity, acknowledging that both of these concepts are likely to fluctuate, change, and have different meaning for different people over time. She examines texts such as Mariko Tamaki’s Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Hubert and Marie Caillou’s Adrian and the Tree of Secrets, and Ngozi Ukazu’s Check, Please! to understand how they normalize the queer experience, reorienting the narrative of queer media away from the trauma and crisis often associated with queerness to the conflict ubiquitous in young people’s interpersonal relationships. The context of this chapter within the rest of Growing Up Graphic is interesting, because the texts Halsall examines here are creating narratives wherein existing as queer is not, inherently, a crisis. However, the texts themselves are seen as a crisis, as political and cultural groups continue to try to protect young people from anything perceived as sexual. Such groups harken back to “the pervasive myth of the implied Romantic child reader, whose purity is necessarily incompatible with sexual awareness and experience” (131) and consider such texts inappropriate for young readers. These texts, however, are continually and increasingly important for readers, as they seek to orient themselves in relation to the world around them and develop broader views on many issues.

All of the texts encourage perspective taking, empathy, and compassion in their readers, and the fifth chapter’s emphasis on health crises furthers this objective, while also often providing information, awareness building, and consciousness raising about what are often otherwise undiscussed parts of people’s lives, especially when those in the midst of the health crisis are young people. Texts such as Raina Telgemeier’s Guts or Smile, Cece Bell’s El Deafo, and Tory Wollcott’s Mirror Mind: Growing Up Dyslexic provide the creator and perhaps the reader with some measure of control over what can often be a situation in which the person affected has little to no control. Not only does Halsall address the way these texts can normalize experience of bodily difference, chronic and/or severe illness, or mental variance, she also speaks to the way that the texts respond to the silence around many of these conditions, redefine the meaning of health, and affirm the agency of those who may have such a condition, especially in the face of families or medical professionals who may attempt to remove such agency or voice. Halsall returns to the message of refuting the victim paradigm, emphasizing texts that move away from the protagonist needing rescue from their condition. Not only do graphic narratives provide the same benefit of socio-emotional education around disability that they do the other topics discussed in Growing Up Graphic, but Halsall also points out the ways in which graphic narratives as a whole can be an accessible form of learning for those with developmental disorders, learning disabilities, or other conditions that may impact information acquisition, retention, understanding, and/or processing (179). These graphic narratives challenge the idea of children as apolitical and needing protection from troubling topics such as health crises or disability, instead giving children the language necessary to approach medicine and their bodies with agency and information.

Halsall leaves the reader anticipating more – more comics and graphic narratives, more from comics studies, more from Halsall herself, and, unfortunately but realistically, more children in crisis. She concludes with an impact statement about how the COVID crisis has highlighted discrimination in a variety of forms across the globe and the unequal distribution of safety and power across homes and nations, and the ways in which graphic narratives are already being used to address various aspects of the pandemic. Still Halsall asserts, the children don’t need protecting from the realities of COVID any more than they do from other world crises, they need understanding, information, an outlet, and compassion. From an explosion of digitally available comics about the experiences of people during the course of the ongoing pandemic, to being used to provide information about mitigating the risks of the virus, Halsall anticipates that COVID comics will continue to prove all the ways in which comics provide young readers with a humanizing glimpse into the experiences and challenges faced by young people all the world over.

Book Review - Fall Through by Nate Powell

 reviewed by CT Lim

Nate Powell. Fall Through. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2024. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/fall-through_9781419760822/

So what do you do as a follow-up after creating the biggest books of your career? Well, you go for broke as Nate Powell has done here with Fall Through. Let's back up a bit. 

If you have been following comics or comics that have won acclaim and awards, Powell's previous books on American civil rights icon, John Lewis (the March trilogy and its sequel, Run) are as respectable as you can get. Notices in the mainstream media, national TV coverage and good reviews in all the right places. National Book Award winner!

But just like the Sex Pistols, who broke up after releasing one leave it or take it album, and right after their one-and-only shambling USA tour, Powell decided to go back to his punk rock roots which most of us have no clue about and what a story he has to tell. (although like a true punk, Powell, through his lead character, is critical of the Pistols for being the manufactured group they were).

The connections between comics and punk are not new. John Holmstrom, Love and Rockets, that cover of Sub Pop 200 by Charles Burns. Recently, I reread old issues of Peter Bagge's Hate, the run in which Buddy was managing a band and how everything just self-destructed while on tour. The story did not age well. 

The synopsis of Fall Through reads something like that: an "all-new trippy original graphic novel that's a love letter for fans of the indie punk scene of the 90s. Fall Through is one trip after another as a band, held hostage by their lead vocalist, are forced to repeat the same sets, same stops, same tour over and over again until one of the band members realizes what is happening and has to make a choice—the music she's struggled and fought so hard for, or reality?"

So what are Powell's punk credentials? Because it is all about street cred in punk rock. The notes say: "As for his music career, Powell was introduced to the hardcore punk community in 1991, played over 500 shows across North America and Europe in various bands, including underground legends Soophie Nun Squad and Universe, and managed the do-it-yourself label Harlan Records from 1994 to 2010."

Not bad although I have not heard of Soophie Nun Squad and Universe. But then again, most people in Singapore have not heard of the dumbass band I was in in the late 1980s, the Primitive Painters. But punk is an attitude, a way of thinking, an approach that I returned to from time to time. I can be good for only so long, but I can’t be good all the time. Punk prevails.

Fall Through captures that spirit quite nicely. How punk brings us together and pulls us along, but we need to return to real life after some time. But that is also not forever as the call of the punk goddess sirens will beckon us over and over again. Why do you think after slogging for 25 years as a chump and all burnout at work and having to take a year off of no-pay leave that I am attending gigs almost every weekend? Why would they even tolerate me and let through the door when immediately once I enter, I raise the median age of the room? Why bother when I need to know where the nearest toilet is and always look for the op corner (that's the old people corner). Why bother indeed when I have no chance in hell to chat up the cute punk women no matter what my loins say?

But. Punk embraces and punk can be inclusive.

To his credit, Powell has a compelling narrative (or beat, yes, we got the beat!) that drives the story. Something weird is going on, almost like a curse that keeps the band on the road with no end in sight. It's not all punk philosophy ramblings like what I have written above. I like it but I am not sure those not in the scene can get the references and the drift. But who cares? Powell doesn't over-explain or over-romanticize those days and nights of wine and roses. Being in a punk band can be stifling despite rhetoric of independence and freedom of expression. Pretty much like in a cell group or commune. There are equal parts of love and loathing, much like everything else in life. 

Reading Fall Through is like reading A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 by Aaron Cometbus and Scott Satterwhite and Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1989 by George Hurchalla. The only thing missing is a 7” as part of the book. 

You just go along for the ride. And it is good to be on the road. While it lasts with the wind blowing against your face. You squint and you drive straight on. 

Stand aside, open wide.