Category: Books & Comics

Patricia Storms (again!) for the heads up on Comic Art magazine! I too have already subscribed and am hunting for the first four issues.

New Yorker regular Jack Ziegler’s new collection of food cartoons, How’s the Squid?, is some tasty ink indeed.

Like recent Cullum collections, Abrams publishes a lovely volume of 122 Ziegler offerings to satisfy any cartoon appetite.

Take the man running from an ice cream cone hailstorm with the caption “Who among us dares tempt the wrath of Ben & Jerry?”

Or the restaurant patron being eyed by an angry chef as he reads a ‘misfortune cookie’ reading “You’re next!”

But by far my favorite cartoon in the collection has to be on page thirty-two. A woman, man and child are looking at a toaster and its newly burnt toast. The top of the cartoon reads “Fatalism…” The woman says “It is God’s will.” The man remarks “Had the toast been destined to be edible, it would be so.” And the child says “B-b-but…” followed by another caption reading “and the seeds of doubt.”

To be honest, I’m not sure exactly why this is so funny, but I laughed out loud for approximately two minutes after reading it the first time. A really big loud laugh. My wife chortled and guffawed too, but neither of us can explain why it works.

I think that’s representative of a lot of Ziegler’s work. Somehow he defies cartoon convention and finds laughs where no one knew to look.

Cartoon and cooking fans alike would do well to add How’s the Squid? to their humor menu.

I just bought a new load of cartoon books from Amazon. A new Cullum, some Gahan Wilson, and a new Ziegler that I’m very excited about.

Part of my deal with myself was that before I ordered them I would have reviewed The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker.

Ahem.

So my new books are arriving tomorrow and I’ve amended my deal thusly – I will review it before they arrive.

And it’s a fairly daunting task. The book weighs almost ten pounds and boasts 68,647 brilliant cartoons from men and women I’ve admired for years.

OK, the book actually only boasts 2004 cartoons, but the accompanying 2 CDs carry every cartoon The New Yorker had published up its release.

Let’s talk about the book. Like I said, sure it’s big and heavy, but it’s hard to explain just how imposing the whole vibe of the book is. I mean, there it is, right on the cover. THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER. It’s like the cartoon library of congress on my bookshelf.

I can’t seem to get past the feel that it’s a weird sort of reference book, to be placed next to dictionaries, atlases and the like at my local public library. But it’s also a history text. No matter what “it” was, you can probably see what was going on and how we felt about “it” for the last 80 or so years. And then again it’s just this great big cartoon collection to be browsed and shown to my incredibly patient wife who’s trying to read her magazine thank you very much.

If you’ve been collecting New Yorker books all along, many if not most of the cartoons will be familiar to you. But the fun is reading along and recognizing old favorites and then discovering something new hidden amongst them.

The book is organized chronologically by decade and includes lovely introductions by the likes of Ian Frazier and John Updike. Also included are more in-depth looks at New Yorker cartoonists including Arno, Addams & Booth, as well as forays into popular topics like nudity and the space program.

Most importantly the cartoons are presented well and are just a hoot to read.

Now on to the CDs. (And you thought the book was daunting!)

On the inside front cover rest 2 compact discs chock full of some of the most brilliant cartoons ever made. Many of which you’d be hard pressed to find unless you have an 80-year old stack of New Yorkers in the next room.

The discs include Adobe Reader 6 and are fully searchable which is a great deal of fun. For example, in the 2nd disc alone I found:

20 cartoons containing “Anderson”

100 cartoons about or referencing a potato

7 cartoons that include a Volkswagen in some way (only 7?!)

334 hippie-related cartoons

and 32 cartoons pertaining to jazz

Pretty neat!

There’s so much stuff here that I could forage for weeks and not really be able to review the entire offering, but it’s a lot of fun trying.

My only complaint here is the appearance of the cartoons themselves. I know there’s only so much subtlety a monitor can show, but, as even Mankoff admits, there’s just no substitute for the medium that the cartoons were created on and for.

Still, they look good if not great, and the sheer cartoon overload helps to placate complainers like myself.

So, I’ve dared to critique The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (just in time too!) and I think I was fair. If you’re a fan of the cartoon arts you probably own this already. If you’re not already a fan, borrow a friend’s copy and you soon will be.

Lately I’ve been trying to really get into graphic novels and see what all the hub-bub is about.

I’ve tried Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, Watchmen, and even some Batman with Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

All of them had their good and bad points, but I have to admit, none of them were really simply entertaining before I turned out the light at night.

So, in an effort to give myself some just plain fun reading, I was pleased to find, collected in graphic novel form, The Infinity Gauntlet from Marvel.

I had read the six-issue series back when it was originally published from July to December of 1991 and I’d really enjoyed it. Throughout the years as my piles of collected comics shrank, The Infinity Gauntlet books always found their way into the “save” box and back into my attic.

Here’s the quick and dirty plot synopsis: Power-hungry Thanos comes to possess the Infinity Gauntlet (a big glove with 6 jewels on it) that gives him God-like powers over everything and everyone. In an effort to impress Mistress Death he wipes out have of the universe’s population prompting our Marvel heroes to unite behind Adam Warlock to save the day.

There is, of course, plenty of fighting, lots of dialogue like “it matters not” and “prepare thyselves for battle most fierce” and by the end it’s pretty goofy, but it’s also a fun read.

(If you’re interested in more of the plot, there’s a good review here!)

OK, the art suffers a little at the end under Lim’s direction, and the plot’s kinda hokey, but for about a week I picked up a graphic novel and really enjoyed myself.

Reading it some 14 years later when I’m a responsible adult, husband and father, instead of a gawky college sophomore, I’ve certainly noticed more flaws, but basically The Infinity Gauntlet is a collection of better than average comics with some nice art and I’m glad to see it in a graphic novel format.

I’ve never been a huge Batman fan (I’m more of a Spiderman guy), but on the recommendation of another blogger (bloggist? Anyone know the correct term here?) I gave Batman: The Dark Knight Returns a read during my continuing “Let’s Give Graphic Novels a Chance” read-a-thon, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

Meh.

It’s not bad, but it’s not great either.

While I loved Miller’s art (honestly, it’s just breathtaking), sometimes the story sorta crapped out one me. I very much enjoyed the notion of an older Batman with aches and pains, but Robin the girl wonder grated on me pretty quickly. I liked the more complex story and plot, but got really tired of the Reagan stuff. The graphic realism and grittiness was a lot of fun and a welcome change, but then the banter of the Mutants and the Sons of Batman bored me.

And pretty much that’s how the book went for me. Every time I found something I really liked, I found something soon after that balanced the equation again.

I know most of your comic book, I’m sorry, graphic novel aficionados see this volume as one of the best examples of the genre, but to me, Mr. Casual Reader, it’s a mixed bag.

I wanted to really love this, but if I’m to be completely honest with myself, it’s not something I’d pick up again. And yet I’m not giving up on the genre. I got a pile of stuff from the library this morning and I’m looking forward to digging in.

And I guess, in that way, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was a success.