Great Anthologies Create Not So Strange Bedfellows

I love anthologies. If you look over at the piece I did on the Forbidden Planet UK blog on Danny Hellman's Typhon, you'll discover why I love them - in a nutshell, it's the variety I suppose. But I also love new-takes on existing characters, as evidenced here on an earlier Batman post, and Marvel's Strange Tales has both these things going for it, Strange Tales is an anthology-comic, and it has a variety of new-takes on existing Marvel characters; by Peter Bagge (Neat Stuff and Hate) Nick Bertozzi (Houdini: The Handcuff King), Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt (co-founders of the hugely succesful Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School ), Nicholas Gurewich (The Perry Bible Fellowship), Norwegian cartoonist Jason (Low Moon, profiled here), James Kochalka (Monkey versus Robot), Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed to Thrizzle), Junko Mizuno, (Pure Trance). Paul Pope (Batman year 100), Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix), and Dash Shaw (Bottomless Bellybutton).

It's a stellar line-up, complete with cartoonists who have heightened the profile of the artform beyond the pages of publications and the interweb. Japanese artist Mizuno's Gothic-Kawaii drawing style, a mixture of super-cuteness, and blood and syringes, appears on clothes and in gallery shows, and Paul Pope has designed a Pulphope line of clothes for DKNY and Diesel.

As with any publication of this sort, I have my favourites; Paul Pope and Jose Villarrubia's cover is excellent because it takes itself seriously, alerting the reader that although the Marvel Universe will be treated slightly flippantly, it won't be disrespected. This is a very clever piece of marketing which is especially important to a significant band of readers who are not particularly welcoming of indie cartoonists. For those readers, Paul Pope's cover and introductory story will prove a gateway to this comic's tone and Strange Tales #1 itself will surely prove a gateway comic to a world of indie-illustration for the uninitiated comic book reader. And with any luck, it will also establish a demand for more work in a similar vein beyond Strange Tales #1,2 and 3. I love the sub-text of Leavitt and Crabapple's She-Hulk (coloured and lettered by Star St.Germain), and what could easily be a jarring-juxtaposition of artistic styles, between Molly Crabapple's silky-thin, embroidery-like drawings, and Junko Mizuno's solid-lined Spiderman (translated by Aki Yanagi, and adapted by C.B. Cebulski), becomes a delight in the context of this anthology. I just adore Dash Shaw's Doctor Strange, for reasons to numerous to mention, and Michael Kupperman's Namor is equally brilliant. I think of all the stories in this volume though, my favourite is Jason's Spider Man, I read it about 3 or 4 times and each time I read it it seems funnier and more clever.

My only criticism of the comic, and it is a slight one, more a grumble really, or a gripe, and not even a full gripe, more a gr... or an ...ipe, is that a page or two of the work is 'Not Brand Ech-sy'. I mean, don't take that the wrong way, I loved Don Heck's comic at the time, but that style of parody isn't really what an indie-collection is about. What I mean is I don't like the pages that are more a parody of the character, than an indie-interpretation, as much as I do the rest of the comic. So whilst the majority of the illustrators have combined the more cartoony indie-look with a certain amount of psychological depth, one or two have delivered nothing more than a superficial parody. As I have said though, this is an anthology and whilst I might not love all the pages, there is still more than enough great work here to keep me delighted and eager to read the next comic in the series. All told, it's pretty fab.

All Artwork ™ and © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Jason Comics and Books

We never really see any work by Norwegian cartoonist Jason (John Arne Sæterøy) in the UK, much. Although, history tells us, with his recent comic, Low Moon, appearing weekly in The New York Times that before long either the Independent, the Observer or the Guardian will soon 'discover' him and run the comic along with a five-page article.

It is irritating that the British press have little or no idea what is actually going on in the world of cartoons, but it's hard to blame them. I suppose they resort to large articles about the cartoons of French cartoonists like Sempe and US cartoonists like Chris Ware because they don't see an equivalent in Britain itself - but then that's really because they have no idea where to look. Let's face it, the cartoonists they employ to draw the little single-panel cartoons and the like are not really 'cartoonists' they are 'gag drawers' - they don't create lasting work of any substance. At least not any that the British public gets to see. Behind the scenes though, some of those same cartoonists, who have to make a living producing the sort of inane rubbish the British press puts on its pages, do actually produce 'real' quality work - comic strips, mini-comics and even books - but it remains, thanks largely to the culture, hidden from view.

Hopefully, when the Independent or the Observer does finally 'discover' Jason, perhaps this time at least, the end will justify the means. That's because Jason almost always refers to himself as a 'European cartoonist', and that may well alert Britain's press to the fact that Europe, including Britain, houses cartoonists who do produce interesting work. And that 'cartoons' can be so much more than those ghastly little throwbacks to a by-gone age, the single-column gag cartoons (these are different from 'magazine cartoons'.

There is no such problem in the US however, where Fantagraphics have long championed Jason's work and the next month or so will see the award-winning cartoonist signing his new book in Canada and the US, and attending several other events including the annual MoCCA Festival Kick-Off Party, art show.

I think, on the whole, even though the line-up has been somewhat predictable with Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Megan Kelso, Seth, Jason, et al, that the New York Times Funny Pages has been a resounding success. Over here it did lead to a large newspaper reprinting Chris Ware's Building stories and that was good news because the papers had started to put the public off the idea of cartoons by publishing the drawings of people like David Shrigley, which merely mimic substance.

Anyway, just in case the British press haven't looked in on the Funny Pages at The New York Times recently, here's a look at some pages from Low Moon. You can download them here, at The Funny Pages, in pdf format, and you can also grab the opportunity to register for free and become a regular visitor.

Jason's latest book, Pocket Full of Rain, is, as usual, published by Fantagraphics who broke Jason's work in the US with the American edition of Hey, Wait..., which was nominated for two Harvey Awards, as well as being cited as the second best comic of 2001 by Time.com. You can order up some marvelous Jason titles from Fantagraphics, here: