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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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One thing about this column, I never know if I’m in a groove or a rut. It’s funny; behind the scenes here, the other writers and I have been talking about doing more long reviews and features, and I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve been doing lately. And yet, I just haven’t finished anything very large or requiring an extended look, so this week I’m just going to burn through a lot of first issues and mini-comics I’ve read lately.
The story is a mishmash of bits of 50s sci-fi movies, the F.F., Challengers of the Unknown, Captain Atom, Red Skull and Fourth World (Discordia?), but as usual, I admire Casey’s ballsiness in hoisting another festive piñata for comics critics and handing them bats. Whether there’s more than stale candy inside is hard to tell right now. Since the nod to Kirby will always be here visually, I’m hoping the stories and ideas move into wilder, more interesting terrain. At least the cover to #2 looks better. Image Comics. $2.99
Rather than taking this as an opportunity for reflection and self-improvement, Laura throws herself in front of a car and barely survives with the help of handsome young Dr. Wilson. Perez is heavy on the graytones here, also adding what I’m guessing is maybe white and gray paint pens for facial lines and other little effects. His use of such storytelling effects as drawn-out siren sounds to divide panels, dramatic silence to add gravity to Wilson’s attempt to save Laura’s life, and a black panel to signify the quiet pause before Laura’s momentous decision to end her life are not new to comics, but they’re all effective choices. Less effective were the floating hearts o’ love from female onlookers as Wilson pushed them aside, and the bystanders drawn in dark gray against the black background. Still, it’s a dramatic, fast-paced beginning. Perez takes his time getting back to Laura and developing her character and potential relationship with Wilson, saving this for #3, as the end of #1 and all of #2 deal with Tildy, the free-spirited, horny, pot-smoking librarian who drives the neighborhood bookmobile. She flirts with, and then gets it on with, a Basque musician to whom she takes a fancy. Perez does an excellent job injecting their conversation with some cultural education for the readers, and while Tildy doesn’t seem completely in control of her desires or her self-image, we’re not made to judge her. We also find, in a scene with Tildy and her friend Alonzo, that she really likes Laura’s band, Soinu, and while that’s not important yet, there’s a real sense that Perez has a huge canvas on which he’s working. It should be noted that the art changes significantly here, with the thick lines and gray tones giving way to many finer lines. The people are rendered pretty much the same, just with a finer outline, but Perez puts in a lot of time adding texture to drapes, clothing, wood paneling. Whether we’re witnessing the Robert Altman of comics very much remains to be seen, but clearly Perez has quite a big story (or several stories) to tell, and I’m looking forward to seeing it unfold. Cliff Face Comics. $2.00
If you can get over that anthropological goof, the story is about a young woman taking care of these talking primates being asked to bring them to Forest Edge High School’s “Banana Sunday” event, which is how the school is announcing that these primates will be attending the high school to learn about human society. Okay, fine. One might think exposing the little scamps to adults, who would tend to be stodgier and less accepting than students looking for any diversion from learning, would be a better bed for comedy, but let’s see how this plays out. Nibot introduces our heroine Kirby Steinberg with a pratfall and bad posture, but lets fly with this hunk of unwieldy, would-be cute verbiage to introduce her foil: “My name’s Nickels, I’m a reporter for the school paper!” “Nickels?” “Yeah, I have a nickel obsession. When we immigrated here, my mom put a picture of Thomas Jefferson on my wall. There was an American flag in the background. When I first saw nickel coins with Jefferson’s face on them, I thought I’d be un-American to spend ‘em! So I hoarded them, and thus earned a nickname….And that’s the last time I’m gonna tell this silly story!” We can only hope. The rest of the story is solidly plotted: Kirby asks primates not to embarrass her, so of course they get into mischief; Nickels goes about trying to crack the story of why these primates can talk; and Kirby meets cute with a boy student. But the gags just aren’t very funny (the little gorilla naps on top of an uncovered toilet to keep cool, creating a huge puddle on the floor; the monkey runs out of the girls’ locker room with an armful of panties—how adorably perverted! Maybe he’ll masturbate onto them from a tree branch in #2!). It’s not quite all Nibot’s fault, though—despite nice drawing of the setting and very fetching human character designs, the primates aren’t very expressive or distinctive, and Coover’s not really able to nail the physical humor effectively. Also, if you’re going to put the little gorilla in almost every scene, having him be asleep most of the time really limits the opportunities for laughs. Ook, save your nickels. Oni Press. $2.99
Issue #5 finds the teddy-man stepping aside for a regular-looking guy on his own quiet journey through a world only superficially ours, but the effect is the same. However, it’s clear that Rickheit has developed further as an artist and storyteller, the panels larger, the designs more ornate, and the storytelling more relaxed and confident. Strange things still waft through the book, including an almost beautifully delicate monstrosity that calls to mind something from Jim Woodring’s Frank, but Rickheit takes a little more time to let these images sink in, to better effect. There is also a greater emphasis on the horrors of of the human body, with a naked woman who may or may not have a head being hooked up to some bizarre gizmo, and the man entering this strange world through the anus of another odd creature. “Cochlea and Eustaschia” looks to be an ongoing feature, dialogue-heavy for a change, of two precocious twins in a bizarre house, here interacting with an oozing, uddered torso they find in a drawer. As stated before, there is a preoccupation with the human body, but with the girls there is now more of an overt sexual charge running through the story, supremely heightened with the contrast of the curvaceous young women in a setting of stifling, severe furniture and obsessive crosshatched textures. In #6’s lead-off story, “Madam Mollusk,” Rickheit further merges the ghastliness of people and objects when the teddy-man pulls a beautiful, blindfolded woman from a casket, pulls up her nightgown and reveals two cabinet doors in her torso, which fold open easily for the rearrangement of intestines. “Cochlea and Eustaschia” appear thrice more, with Rickheit’s same concerns: anal probes, deadpan humor, archaic interior design and hideous creatures going about unfathomable tasks. One could call it redundant, but like the aforementioned Frank, the imagery is so rich the stories remain a treat. “Hail Jeffrey” calls to mind Harlan Ellison at his least restrained: pitiable retainers attending to the whim of a cruel, child-man despot. It might be a political allegory (the final caption reads: “Isn’t it obvious?”) but the events are so objectionable it is likely to offend many from either end of the political spectrum. A fascinating, alive series. Chrome Fetus Comics. $2.00-$2.50 each. Finally, any Chris Ware fans really should get the just-released Quimby the Mouse Wooden Toy if you haven’t. I’m not a big toy collector at all, but aside from the handsomely produced, two-headed, hand-painted Quimby and the head of his love, Sparky the Cat, there is a lovely, 32 page hardcover Quimby story by Ware inside the beautifully designed box. In pale orange hues, we see Quimby at the end of the line, alone and unable to get out of bed, until by a twist of fate or the cracking of his mind, his long-dead brother arrives to take him on one last journey, at the end of which he may or may not see his true (but definitely complicated) love Sparky again. Though the tiny size (maybe 3”x4”?) makes Ware’s imaginative design work impossible, it’s as clearly drawn, involving, and heartbreaking as one could want. Dark Horse Comics. $29.99
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Godland #1 by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli grabs you with a cover so hideous in design and color combination that one almost has to admire it. And the cover turns out to be a harbinger of Scioli’s approach on art. Scioli’s chief, perhaps only, inspiration is Jack Kirby, and for an aesthetic dead end the King would wholly disapprove of, he does a pretty good job of aping Kirby’s style. The kosmik kaveat here, though, is that Scioli’s doing late 70s Kirby here, as inked by Vinnie Colletta and whichever bimbo was sitting on his lap at the time. All kidding aside, much of the art is saved by Scioli’s exuberance and the state-of-the-art coloring of Bill Crabtree. The Martian sequence, while pretty much just red, red, red, is particularly effective.
Tear-Stained Makeup #1-3 is an ongoing mini-comic series by Marcos Perez, whose Carl Is the Awesome and Mercury Lounge I reviewed 
Banana Sunday #1 (of 4) by Root Nibot and Colleen Coover is, well, a huge disappointment all around. Believe me, from the solicitation I thought this one was going to be a winner, but it just didn’t work out that way. The title itself is a miss—are we referencing an ice cream concoction, because if so, it’s a banana split. Nibot shows a similar lack of attention to detail? Research? Sense? with the persistent error of calling the two apes and one monkey starring in this book simply monkeys. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to get something that’s pretty common knowledge right. We know what carnivores are, we know that dolphins aren’t fish, and we know that gorillas aren’t monkeys, right?
Chrome Fetus Comics #4-6 by Hans Rickheit are some of the strangest and most unsettling comics I’ve read. I’m not sure how long he’s been producing them, but #4 features one-page strips from 1999, all self-contained and often appearing by themselves in anthologies, but telling a kind of story when placed together like this. A tall, dapper man in trenchcoat and teddy bear head moves through a kind of dream world with its own cruel logic. Example: he sees his birdcage is empty; finds a small, grotesque creature of baleful eye, brain-like contours and randomly placed teeth and claws gurgling in the corner; digs in and pulls out a kitten. Punchline: the kitten is placed back in its little cage, no home for a bird at all. This is typical of the book; the teddy-man has adventures of a sort, but without dialogue and with few sound effects and no facial expression at all, the better to disturb the reader with the nightmarish creatures, random violence and cruelty, and games of reality manipulation. “Space Filler Funnies” are anything but; rather, they’re even more highly concentrated blasts of Rickheit’s id.