I'm a little late to this game, but I figured I'd do a brief rundown of the webcomics I follow and try to say something about them. Some of them are quite popular and well-known, but I'll try to say something about them anyway.
xkcd: I'm pretty sure everybody knows about xkcd, but it's still worth talking about. There are very few people who make a full-time living out of their webcomic, and Randall Munroe is one of them. In addition to being a hallmark of geek culture and fans of graphs, xkcd also does a lot of things that push the technological and conceptual limits of comics, such as xkcloud, the live-updating comic that followed the Rosetta Probe's landing on a comet, pixels, Lorenz, frequency, time, click and drag, and a bunch more that I can't find the link to right now.
Dinosaur Comics: this is an odd one. It's a serial comic where the art and panel layout never change, only the text. Is it a brilliant deconstruction of narrative and temporal perception in static visual media, or is Ryan North just really lazy? We may never know. This comic also inspired the indie-published short story anthology Machine of Death, which is really cool.
PvP: One of the few surviving members of the swarm of early 2000s Comics About Videogames. What's interesting to me about this one is that it began as a pretty classic "nerd" comic, in the sense that the characters were merely an avenue for the writer to make jokes about whatever game they were currently playing, but eventually evolved into a more traditional comedy-drama, with a cast of rich and relatable characters. Games are hardly mentioned these days.
Girls with Slingshots: This one just recently wrapped up (sort of), and is currently in the process of re-releasing its earlier comics in full color, so it's the perfect time for you to pick it up. It's a relationship comedy-drama comic in the style of Dykes to Watch Out For, but with an arguably even more colorful cast.
Penny Arcade: I really don't know how well-known this comic is outside of the "gaming" community, but its gotta be one of the most successful webcomics of all time. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik went from a pair of guys who make funny pictures to being two of the most influential people in the gaming industry. They founded PAX, the largest gaming convention in the world, and Child's Play, a charity that has raised over 33 million dollars to date! In addition to the main Penny Arcade strip, they also have several other projects going, including more serious, story-based, large-format comics, and The Trenches, a collaboration with Scott Kurtz, creator of PvP. What's interesting to me about The Trenches is seeing three guys, who all sort of stumbled their way into professional comics creation, building a brand new comic from the ground up in a much more "professional" manner. It's interesting to see the differences between the sort of natural growth of their original comics, compared to the more planned-out approach seen in the Trenches. It's not better, necessarily, but it's certainly different.
Camp Weedonwantcha: This comic was created by Katie Rice, winner of the Penny Arcade Strip Search competition. I think it sets an interesting precedent for a new kind of "publishing" on the web, where up-and-coming artists have the opportunity to gain from the popularity of established creators. Katie has another comic, Skadi, which I actually haven't read.
Questionable Content: I don't know if I have anything to say about this one, except that it's smart and funny and you should read it.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things: This is a hilarious comic whose whole schtick is to poke fun at the stereotypical Gruff Muscle Man that's so common in movies and videogames. An interesting thing to note about this one is that the creator (whose name I should know, but I only know her by the handle Coelasquid), is a professional animator. She has a full-time and very demanding job working in television, but still makes it a point to put out a comic every week. You have to admire that kind of dedication. She also has a new project called Platinum Black, which is again a more serious, large-format comic. That one updates.... less regularly.
Awkward Zombie: Katie Tiedrich is the only comic artist I know of who has a degree and a job in a non-art-related field. Those who've been reading the comic long enough have followed her as she went off to college, and then graduated and got a job. Seeing someone so committed to two very different (and, again, very demanding) interests is inspiring. She's also the only comic artist I know of who's still doing hourly comics.
Lackadaisy: A lot has been said about Lackadaisy, I don't need to sing its praises any more... but I'm going to anyway. Tracy Butler brings a greater level of care and attention to detail and historical accuracy than in any other comic I'm aware of. Which is probably why she averages less than a page a month. That she's able to update so rarely and still maintain such an avid readership is a testament to just how good this comic is.
The Abominable Charles Christopher: This, in my opinion, is the most criminally underrated comic out there today. Karl Kerschl (another example of an industry professional, drawing this in his spare time because it's a story he deeply cares about) has crafted an elegant universe where goofy, Pogo-style antics somehow fit seamlessly beside a sprawling mythological epic.
Beret: A comic by a Ringling grad, and yet another working industry professional! The whole schtick of this comic is wonderful. Kent Mudle uses word balloons in a way not quite like any other comic artist. It creates a unique, sort of punctuated tone and style of reading, as though the whole story is happening in slow-motion.
Spinnerette: This is a somewhat bizarre case of a person trying to do a classic superhero comic in a web format. We tend to think of superhero stories as being the sole domain of the Big Two, there's something that's at first almost uncomfortable about reading an indie superhero effort. Of course, the parody factor is strong here, which should be clear enough from the protagonist's name and power set. But I think ultimately this is meant as an honest and serious attempt at a brand new perspective on the superhero genre, and the creator KrazyKrow does it quite well. A female hero identity that's passed down from generation to generation, and ultimately adopted by a man because there were no more female heirs? Genius.
Pictures for Sad Children: this is the last one I want to talk about today. It was one of my favorite comics, before John Campbell (creator Hourly Comic Day), apparently fed up with people complaining about late Kickstarter rewards, and disillusioned with capitalism in general, removed the entirety of the comic from his website, and also burned the remaining kickstarted books. The whole ordeal is terrifying to me, because people jokingly say that "nothing ever gets deleted from the internet", but there are now only a handful of the original comics to be found on stray blogs and image hosting sites. All that art is just... gone. What does that mean for the future of comics?
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Jim Henson's Tale of Sand
Tale of Sand is a graphic novel adapted in 2011 by Ramon K. Perez from an unproduced film script written by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl.
I've been putting off writing about this book for a while, because I still can't form an opinion about it. On the one hand, it's got all the hallmarks of classic Jim Henson: a whimsical narrative style, a fantastical setting, lighthearted yet subtly twisted humor, all grounded by a lovable protagonist. But on the other hand, the book is a complete clusterfuck of unrelated symbology, strung together through a series of disjointed events. The work is a Mind Screw in the purest sense, and as such is inherently unsatisfying.
The problem, as I see it, is that I can't for the life of me figure out what Tale of Sand is supposed to be about. It's far too surreal to just be a classic adventure story, and too high-concept to be written off as irreverent, Monty Python-esque comedy. Jim Henson doesn't really have a penchant for just doing "weird for the sake of weird." But if there is some deeper allegorical meaning to all the elements of this story, I just can't find it.
In the book's Foreword, a quote from Jerry Juhl ascribes the Tale of Sand script to a sort of cultural paranoia in the late '60s, saying a lot of people were writing stories "...about people trapped in situations and thinking they got out, and then discovering that they didn't." In the Afterword, Lisa Henson suggests that the story is a reflection of the fears and uncertainties that her father felt as an aspiring artist trying to break into Hollywood. Either or both of these interpretations may be true, I suppose. But it still doesn't relieve the itching feeling in the back of my mind that I'm missing something bigger.
...
I've been speaking so far as though Jim Henson was the sole creator of this work, but something certainly should be said of the artist, Ramon Perez. (Jerry Juhl of course was also an important member, but as I am largely unfamiliar with him as an artist, and am less clear on what aspects of the final product are his contribution, I don't have much of anything to say about him.)
Perez breathes life into the story through the graphic novel form. His art dances on the border between cartoonishness and realism, creating the perfect environment for the surreal narrative of Tale of Sand. Perez also cleverly avoids the pitfall of simply creating storyboards for a film. He makes it a point to take full advantage of the comics page, and give Tale of Sand a signature look and feel that lets the book stand as a complete work of art on its own. But at the same time, the book is acting as an elegy for the film that might have been, for a vision that might only have been able to be properly realized in the hands of Henson himself. Pages of the original script are interwoven into the very scenery and landscape of the story, as if to remind you that this book, like all creative works, is only one interpretation, one possible result of the artist's original, pure creative vision.
Maybe that's the point of the whole thing. Maybe Tale of Sand is a story so personal, it only ever really made sense to Jim. Maybe what Tale of Sand is about, is every individual's endless struggle to find what it's about.
... God, that sounds pretentious as fuck.
I've been putting off writing about this book for a while, because I still can't form an opinion about it. On the one hand, it's got all the hallmarks of classic Jim Henson: a whimsical narrative style, a fantastical setting, lighthearted yet subtly twisted humor, all grounded by a lovable protagonist. But on the other hand, the book is a complete clusterfuck of unrelated symbology, strung together through a series of disjointed events. The work is a Mind Screw in the purest sense, and as such is inherently unsatisfying.
The problem, as I see it, is that I can't for the life of me figure out what Tale of Sand is supposed to be about. It's far too surreal to just be a classic adventure story, and too high-concept to be written off as irreverent, Monty Python-esque comedy. Jim Henson doesn't really have a penchant for just doing "weird for the sake of weird." But if there is some deeper allegorical meaning to all the elements of this story, I just can't find it.
In the book's Foreword, a quote from Jerry Juhl ascribes the Tale of Sand script to a sort of cultural paranoia in the late '60s, saying a lot of people were writing stories "...about people trapped in situations and thinking they got out, and then discovering that they didn't." In the Afterword, Lisa Henson suggests that the story is a reflection of the fears and uncertainties that her father felt as an aspiring artist trying to break into Hollywood. Either or both of these interpretations may be true, I suppose. But it still doesn't relieve the itching feeling in the back of my mind that I'm missing something bigger.
...
I've been speaking so far as though Jim Henson was the sole creator of this work, but something certainly should be said of the artist, Ramon Perez. (Jerry Juhl of course was also an important member, but as I am largely unfamiliar with him as an artist, and am less clear on what aspects of the final product are his contribution, I don't have much of anything to say about him.)
Perez breathes life into the story through the graphic novel form. His art dances on the border between cartoonishness and realism, creating the perfect environment for the surreal narrative of Tale of Sand. Perez also cleverly avoids the pitfall of simply creating storyboards for a film. He makes it a point to take full advantage of the comics page, and give Tale of Sand a signature look and feel that lets the book stand as a complete work of art on its own. But at the same time, the book is acting as an elegy for the film that might have been, for a vision that might only have been able to be properly realized in the hands of Henson himself. Pages of the original script are interwoven into the very scenery and landscape of the story, as if to remind you that this book, like all creative works, is only one interpretation, one possible result of the artist's original, pure creative vision.
Maybe that's the point of the whole thing. Maybe Tale of Sand is a story so personal, it only ever really made sense to Jim. Maybe what Tale of Sand is about, is every individual's endless struggle to find what it's about.
... God, that sounds pretentious as fuck.
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