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Review: ‘The ACME Novelty Date Book, Vol. 2’ by Chris Ware

Review: ‘The ACME Novelty Date Book, Vol. 2’ by Chris Ware

The ACME Novelty Date Book, Vol. 2: 1995-2002
By Chris Ware
Drawn & Quarterly, December 2007, $39.95

In typical Chris Ware fashion, this is an attractively (and extensively) packaged book – so much so, in fact, that what this book precisely is isn’t immediately clear. Is it some kind of notebook, journal, or calendar, perhaps? No, it’s Ware’s sketchbook, or perhaps selected pages from that sketchbook, from the years in the title.

Drawn & Quarterly published the first volume of the “[[[ACME Novelty Date Book]]]” in 2003, which included sketchbook pages from 1986 through 1995. That book covered most of Ware’s twenties, starting when he was in college in Austin, Texas and following him forward as he developed the early ACME characters and themes. That first book also had a wide variety of materials; Ware was young and trying out different art styles, but he’d mostly settled down into his current mode by 1995.

So Vol. 2, as Ware mentions himself partway through it, is mostly made up of three kinds of entries: drawings from life, journal entries, and some short comics strips (mostly autobiographical). There are also some sketches and ideas for [[[ACME Novelty Library]]], and the occasional joke or reference to older comics, but, mostly, it’s those big three.

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Full San Diego Comic-Con Programming Online

Full San Diego Comic-Con Programming Online

  • News
  • July 14, 2008

Comic-Con International has posted the full schedule for the upcoming extravaganza in San Diego, and it’s overwhelming as expected.

Here’s Friday. And here’s Saturday.

Featured guests and exhibits are way too long to list, but Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat does a good job of breaking down the highlights.

Those two days, by the way, are already sold out, and Thursday’s tickets are just about gone. Get those comfortable walking shoes ready.

And while you’re there, keep an eye out for some of our ComicMix crew, who’ll be reporting on all the big news, and, if we’re lucky, keeping another running tally on slave Leia sightings.

Interview: Wil Wheaton on Writing, Movies and Comics (Part 1)

  • News
  • July 14, 2008

Writer, actor and soon-to-be publishing mogul Wil Wheaton has come a long way since his days as a child actor in such breakout roles as Gordie LaChance in Stand By Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. But even with those popular and well-known performances, Wheaton was really thrust into the limelight as a cast member of the the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he played Wesley Crusher for several seasons.

However, in the years since Star Trek, Wheaton has managed to mostly put acting and Wesley Crusher behind him and reinvent himself as a writer through his website, his work in various magazines and other publications, writing gigs on several comic books and work on manga titles from publishers such as TokyoPop.

Wheaton has also managed to launch a very successful publishing company, and is still a fan favorite at conventions and appearances all over the country. I caught up with the multi-talented Wheaton recently at a non-trendy eatery in Pasadena, CA, to talk comics, his career and his love of writing.

COMICMIX:  Okay Wil, what people really want to know is what you order for lunch.

WIL WHEATON: The ricotta with mission fig here is awesome. I love that, but I get it so much…

CMix: Before you arrived, someone’s cellphone rang and it was the bridge alert from the Enterprise.I looked around and thought you were already here, but realized that you probably wouldn’t have that as your ringtone.

WW: No, my phone plays "Good Times, Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin.

CMix:  That’s a good one. So, you just came back from a convention, right?

WW: Yes, the Emerald City Comicon.

CMix: Are you wearing an Emerald City Con shirt?

WW: You know what, I didn’t have time to get one. This is a "Hanners" t-shirt from Questionable Content, which is one of my all-time favorite webcomics ever.

CMix: Nice. At the convention you seem kind of surprised at the amount of books you were selling. Does that happen a lot?

WW: I never know what to anticipate when I go to a new show.  And I have these internal metrics that I set — sort of like an average sales figure that’s kind of the line for whether or not it’s a successful show, and there are all these different means by which I measure success. 

Is it fun? Are the people cool? Did I stumble across a cool new t-shirt? Did I meet new artists?

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Comics’ Greatest Enigma, by Mike Gold

Comics’ Greatest Enigma, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • July 14, 2008

If you’re interested in comics creators, it’s been a good couple months for biographies. First, we had Mark Evanier’s Kirby: King Of Comics (Abrams, $40.00); now we’ve got Blake Bell’s Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko(Fantagraphics, $39.99). We’ve covered Mark’s book extensively, and our very own Rick Marshall did a swell interview last March.

My column today is not really a review of Blake’s book; it’s a blather about comics’ greatest enigma. Blake is the ultimate Ditko historian, and his book (and website, Ditko Looked Up) reflects his passion. It’s well-written, well-researched, and wonderously designed by Adam Grano. If you’re into Ditko or comics history, it’s a must-have. Kudos to Blake; that’s my review.

Steve Ditko is another matter. I can’t say he’s been denied his rightful place in history – his is always the third name in the phrase “Marvel Comics as we know them was created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and together they brought comic books kicking and screaming to an adult audience.” If he gets short-shrift, it’s because Steve refuses all interview requests, convention appearances, and celebrity signings. He says he prefers to let his work speak for itself, and I’m sure that’s true. He’s also very shy and has no problem with one-on-one (or two-on-one) conversations in his studio, at the publishing houses, or in restaurants. That’s his prerogative.

On the other hand, he’s a public figure – even inadvertently. This makes him subject of many an article, long-winded editorial (like this), and Blake’s book. I’m told he’s not happy with the attention focused on him from Strange and Stranger; having known Ditko. I’m not surprised. Maybe a little disappointed, but again, that’s his prerogative.

I think from the commercial perspective Steve Ditko’s role in the success of Marvel Comics and its transcendence to the college-student market has been severely underrated. It was The Amazing Spider-Man that put Marvel on the map and in the college bookstores. It was Spider-Man that became the first comic book character to achieve icon status since Superman, Batman and arguably Wonder Woman. That’s the first in a generation. And, maybe, the last to date.

As the 1960s progressed Steve became more and more political, embracing the values of a form of Objectivism so fundamentalist that it even scared its founder, Ayn Rand, who asked Ditko to print a note saying his work reflected his values and not necessarily hers. Objectivism, for the Google-challenged, is the philosophy that holds “there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else.” (Excerpted from The Atlas Society).

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Del Toro’s ‘Hellboy 2’ Diary

Del Toro’s ‘Hellboy 2’ Diary

  • News
  • July 13, 2008

Over at the New York Times, reviewer A.O. Scott takes an almost apologetically positive stance on Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Among the many things he compliments is director Guillermo del Toro’s extensive use of puppets in lieu of CGI.

It’s one of the things I’ve long loved about del Toro’s movies, an appreciation driven into overdrive by the extra DVD wih the first Hellboy movie that explained how the puppets were made.

As part of the Times’ coverage of the new flick, they have extensive excerpts from del Toro’s production diary, as well as audio of del Toro himself explaining the entries.

And of course, don’t forget to check out the multitude of Hellboy 2 coverage right here at ComicMix.

The Lizard King, by Martha Thomases

The Lizard King, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • July 12, 2008

Last weekend, I found myself in southern Florida, visiting my father. It’s something I’ve done a whole bunch of times since he moved down there twenty years ago, but it’s the first time I’ve been there in a July.

It’s hot.

This doesn’t bother my Dad, whose home is nicely air-conditioned, and whose car is nicely air-conditioned, and who is fortunate enough to only need to go to offices, stores, and other places that are nicely air-conditioned. And for me, it doesn’t feel that much different from being there in December, February or March.

Except for the lizards. They’re huge in July. By “huge,” I mean they are five to six inches long, instead of the two to three inches long they are when I usually see them. I don’t mean five or six inches is huge by any other frame of reference.

For some reason, on this trip, I was mesmerized by the way they acted.

If you live in a warm climate, you may be less than charmed by the kind of lizard I’m talking about. They are little, brown (light and dark, or a combination thereof) and they are everywhere. If I lived in Florida, I might regard them with the same disdain I heap upon roaches and pigeons.

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Webcomic News Roundup: Goats Goes Big, Webcomics.com For Sale

  • News
  • July 11, 2008

By far, the biggest item of note this week was announced today, as one of the longest-running webcomics in the ‘Tubes will now be collected in a series of 150-page Goats tomes. If you want to know the whole scoop, you can read my interview with Goats creator Jon Rosenberg here on ComicMix, as well as Gary Tyrell’s mustachioed Q&A stylings over on Fleen.

Here’s an excerpt from Tyrrell’s interview:

Q: Any of your other material — earlier strips, the tantalizingly incomplete Patent Pending and Worlds of Peril, your minicomics (including the long hoped-for Operating Thetan III) — that might now see print as a result of this deal? 

A: Anything is possible, but a lot of the projects you mentioned were ended for good reason. Patent Pending needs to be completely rethought and redone if I ever decide to work on it again, it would have made a better novel than comic I suspect. The Worlds of Peril comics were the inspiration for a lot of what makes up The Infinite Pendergast Cycle, I like to think that it’s the story of what takes place in the aftermath of Goats proper. It’s not canon, though, so don’t be reading too much into that.

The first minicomic is going to be reworked slightly to serve at the intro chapter for Infinite Typewriters. The second one could theoretically be included as an extra in one of the other volumes. I don’t have any plans to produce OT3 at this time but if I can fix some of the plot issues I could see it appearing in the future in some form, either as a standalone or as an arc of Goats.

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Review: This Week in ‘Trinity’ #6

Things started to coalesce in last week’s Trinity #5, and issue six keeps moving in the right direction with DC’s big three coming to realize there’s a big problem building, and they’re at the center of it.

This issue has dueling narratives, one part featuring Tarot now hiding out from Morgaine Le Fey’s wolf monsters. Tarot continues to see weirdness in her tarot cards, but she dives into it, seeing Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman appear on the cards and in her dreams.

There are some obvious elements in the cards — Superman on The Sun, Wonder Woman on The Earth and Batman on The Moon — but also a few more mysterious ones. Batman appears on The Magician, and Superman shows up on The Hanged Man, with the drawing making him look like Christ on the cross. Hmm…

Meanwhile, the big three themselves are up in the JLA space station trying to figure out what’s going on and not having much luck. The brand left on Diana’s shoulder by another of Morgaine’s monsters gives them worry, and again Kurt Busiek’s character moments are done quite well.

The two narratives come together as the heroes and Tarot both talk over the nature of the trinity, and their identities as heroes, how they each represent different faces of the same ideal. One strange aspect is that in Tarot’s dream, the people around each of the heroes have no faces, like the Question. Hmm…

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Manga Friday: Stories for Girls, But Not About Getting Boys

Manga Friday: Stories for Girls, But Not About Getting Boys

  • News
  • July 11, 2008

Half by accident, I realized my manga reading this week included four shojo books – for girls – but that none of them were about dating, boys, or relationships. That’s probably not as unlikely as I think it is, but it’s my theme for the week, and I’m running with it. (Think of it as a nod to Alison Bechdel’s Movie Rule.)

Sunshine Sketch, Vol. 1
By Ume Aoki
Yen Press, June 2008, $10.99

Sunshine Sketch is mostly in 4-panel style, though it doesn’t seem to be primarily a gag strip. (Or, at least, if there were supposed to be jokes in each strip, most of them sailed over my head.) The beginning of each section is generally in a more standard page layout, though – and there’s an eight-page color section in the front, for any readers who need to ease into black and white slowly, like a cold pool.

Yuno is a first-year high school student, moving into an apartment complex near her prestigious arts-focused school and quickly becoming friends with her three housemates: Miya, Sae, and Hiro. (And once again I have to wonder – is it really common in Japan for thirteen and fourteen-year-olds to live on their own in apartments when they go to high school? Or is this an accepted fictional trope, something that happens a little bit in life – like a few Americans go to elite boarding schools like Choate – but happens a lot more in fiction?)

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The Weekly Haul: Comics Reviews for July 11, 2008

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  • July 11, 2008

All around, a great week for comics even in the face of a few serious missteps. And while the latest Secret Invasion was quite good, it was the monthlies that really kicked into high gear. Let’s get to the reviews…

Book of the Week: Justice Society of America #17 — This book hit a pretty serious lull in the middle of the Gog storyline, as Magog went away and Gog (an apparently benevolent god) made his presence known.

The latest issue is all about that old axiom, be careful what you wish for. Gog is on the peacepath, so to speak, and turns his focus on the members of the JSA, granting their deepest desires.

But his altruism cuts both ways. Damage gets a new face and Pieter regains his sight, while Starman becomes sane ("not a good thing") and Power Girl is transported home… wherever that is.

It’s a slickly done issue by Geoff Johns, who crafts an extremely dangerous story without a whiff of a villain. This series had been needing a kick in the pants, and this issue was a big swing of a steel-toed boot.

Runers Up:

Captain Britain #3 — Even better than Secret Invasion is this spin-off title, which has the Skrulls invading Britain as part of their global conquest. This is one jam-packed issue, with epic fight scenes, tough decisions and even a believable turn from Merlin.

The expected rebirth of Captain Britain was goose-bumps good, and my only complaint is that this Skrull battalion is all fighting and no subterfuge, as they don’t utilize that huge shape-shifting advantage.

The Goon #26 — A classic gangsters-at-war story. Think Miller’s Crossing, except with monsters, zombies and filthy humor. Eric Powell maybe goes a bit too far in places, but all in all it’s a damn fine issue, and his art is brilliant as ever.

 

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