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Posted Tuesday 17 June 2008 at 4:28 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: Gunnerkrigg CourtI’m really digging the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell. Despite its dark mood, it’s got a great blend of warmth and humor along with some imaginative storylines.
It’s the story of Antimony Carver, a girl who starts school at Gunnerkrigg Court, and the adventures she has. It has robots, ghosts, gods, heroes, faeries, and schoolwork. Annie’s laid-back demeanor is an effective counterpoint to the fantastic things she witnesses. At first I was a little doubtful about Siddell’s artistic chops due to the prdominantly simplistic art style, but this sequence put those concerns to rest. Creepy!
It’s also going to be collected in hardcover, assuming the publisher’s financial problems don’t deep-six it.
A few of my favorite pages in the strip:
Anyway, fun stuff. Check it out.
Posted Thursday 5 June 2008 at 10:54 am
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: Prince ValiantFantagraphics Books plans to reprint Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant series in hardcover starting in 2009:
Prince Valiant will be presented in an oversized color hardcover format, with two years per book, beginning in 2009. This presentation will be of higher quality than the 50 trade paperbacks Fantagraphics published, which collected all of the strips with art or story by creator Hal Foster. At two years per book, it will take 16-17 volumes just to reprint the full page strips with Foster art.
I’ve become a huge fan of Foster’s strip, and I own the 40 trade paperbacks they printed a decade ago (the other 10 feature the post-Foster work). The paperbacks were of middling quality; the black lines often were reduced to near-vanishing, and the coloring jobs were erratic (the earlier printings of the earlier volumes were pretty good, but they seemed to switch to a lower-quality coloring technology later on). Still, at about 2/3 original size (keep in mind that “original size” was a whole newspaper page) they were pretty good, much better than not having them at all.
If the new hardcovers are of similar size and they upgrade the print quality, then I’ll be happy to pick up the new volumes, too.
(Some company – I think in Germany – printed the first three years of the strip in full-size, black-and-white hardcovers some years ago. I decided to pass on them when I saw them mainly because they were quite pricy, not in color, and the first three years aren’t exactly the high point of the strip. Still, I’m sure someone appreciated them!)
Posted Tuesday 11 September 2007 at 11:30 am
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: For Better or For WorseLast week, the comic strip For Better or For Worse started running some flashback strips, framed by Michael telling his daughter about how his parents met and his early childhood. Some of the strips were newly-drawn, but other were re-runs of the strip’s earliest days, from circa 1980.
Apparently this is because FBoFW was originally intended to end this month – creator Lynn Johnston had planned to retire once Michael’s children got to the same ages that Michael and his sister Lizzie were when the strip started. But plans changed, and instead FBoFW will continue as a flashback strip with occasional new material. Johnston said in an interview:
My initial plan was if I could not find someone else to continue the strip, I would not continue it at all and leave the space.
But they felt that because the strip had begun in only 150 papers that many papers had not seen that initial work and readers would probably enjoy it. So they talked to a number of their editors, and they were receptive.
But apparently another factor is that Johnston’s getting divorced, and so the motivation to retire to spend her retirement with her husband is no longer there.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. For a long time, FBoFW was an excellent comic strip, and Johnston was one of the best artists in the business. I think she’s disappointed a lot of her readers in recent years (as I’ve commented on before). Apparently the current-day strip is going to be “frozen in time”, so the story won’t move much further ahead. This is disappointing because it means there won’t be much closure to the strip, something which Johnston had a rare opportunity to provide in a comic strip: Certainly the strip was going to end with some dangling stories, but it could have gone out on a high note: Perhaps a wedding anniversary for John an Elly, or retirement (which they’ve discussed in some strips). Instead it’s going to go into “zombie mode”, with extensive reprints and occasional new strips. But even if the new stuff is enjoyable, it feels like it will be a strip dying a slow and uncomfortable death.
It’s hard to begrudge anyone from wanting to continue their career – as with sports athletes, I don’t believe stories of retirement until the person actually retires. But I hope she’ll either go back to doing all-new material, or just give the strip a big send-off and end it, because this approach seems like a sad fate for a once-great comic strip.
(Thanks to my Dad for pointing me at the links about the strip, both of which are worth reading.)
Posted Monday 18 June 2007 at 4:29 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips, Reviews
Darby Conley’s strip Get Fuzzy is fun for reasons other than that its fictional head-of-household Rob Wilco is a fanatic Red Sox fan, though that helps. Rob is an advertising geek with two anthropomorphic pets: Satchel Pooch is a kindly and responsible dog, but his memory isn’t so good and he frequently misunderstands what others are saying. Bucky Katt is a nasty-tempered siamese cat with a long, deadly fang. He’d greedy and self-centered, and often tries to run scams past Rob and Satchel, but he’s pretty naive about how the world really works.
This, as they say, is their story.
The episodes mostly revolve around Rob and Satchel trying to deal with Bucky’s shenanigans: Trying to con or extort money out of Satchel (or, less often, Rob), his ongoing feud with the ferret next door, or just being generally offended at things around him. Better yet, it often comes with clever wordplay, sometimes feeling like some twisted version of a Marx Brothers film. For instance:
(Click to view the strip)
The latest collection (which came out at the beginning of the year) is Get Fuzzy: Scrum Bums. Though the strip doesn’t change a whole lot over time (Rob stopped wearing glasses a while ago, and the Red Sox haven’t won the World Series for a few years now), it’s still quite funny. I think I enjoy when Rob gives Bucky his comeuppance the most, especially when Bucky doesn’t quite realize that he just pulled a fast one on himself.
Despite his clean linework, Conley’s art reminds me more of some of the odd styles from the early days of MAD Magazine: His characters are distinctive and usually kind of funny-looking, with a wide variety of facial expressions. He also makes extensive use of forced perspective, which puts the animals on equal footing – at first glance, anyway – with Rob. Conley’s style is not the sort that I’m usually into, but he’s certainly capable enough, and his writing and characters more than make up for the strip’s sometimes-repetitive panel style. And his art style is certainly distinctive on today’s comics page.
He manages to mix moments of pathos in with the silliness, too. For instance, Satchel learns that he’s actually Canadian, and Rob takes the pair on a trip to meet Satchel’s parents and see where he came from. The trio shares a quiet moment once they’re there:
That’s about as quiet as Bucky gets. Really.
Get Fuzzy has accreted a huge supporting cast over time, many of whom are hilarious. A recent strip sequence featured many of them gradually moving in with Rob and company, until Rob finally put his foot down. Since many of the animals tend to be on the dim side, they all had bizarrely ineffective ways of dealing with each other. My favorite relatively-recent addition is Mac Manc McManx and his impenetrable British accent; although I wonder whether he might offend the occasional British reader, he also demonstrates how the spirit of Chico Marx continues to influence our culture. (Kidding! I’m kidding! Sorta.) I think he embodies the strip’s fundamental zaniness and tendency for its stories to veer out of control in bizarre ways.
Overall, Get Fuzzy keeps me coming back to see what ridiculous plan Bucky’s cooked up this week, and how it goes wrong and throws everyone out-of-sorts until things settle back to normal. Silliness unleashed is how I like my comic strips, and hardly anyone wears a leash in Get Fuzzy.
Related Links:
Posted Saturday 5 May 2007 at 10:31 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: Calvin & HobbesBill Watterson’s great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes ended in 1995 (wow, that long ago?), but it’s still the subject of comment and satire. For instance, I recently received this (uncredited) strip in my mailbox:
I remember back when the strip was ending, there was a lot of conjecture that the last strip would somehow “cut the cord” of Calvin’s childhood by having him realize that Hobbes wasn’t a real tiger. (My own conjecture involved Calvin coming home from college and finding Hobbes in the back of his closet.) Of course, the real final strip was upbeat and optimistic, which was much more appropriate for the strip.
Apparently people still wonder whether Watterson had planned some other end for the strip, but such conjectures appear to be unfounded:
It was conceived in an article in the Washington Post on November 19, 1995 written by Frank Ahrens called “So Long, Kid: An Obituary For a Boy, His Tiger and Our Innocence”, after Bill Watterson had announced that the final Calvin and Hobbes cartoon would be printed on December 31st. In it, he speculated about the final strip.
I’ve always admired Watterson’s integrity with respect to his strip. Really, the only thing I regret is that he hasn’t come back to give us more of his wonderful work since. On the other hand, considering what a disaster Berke Breathed’s strips have been since Bloom County ended, maybe I should be glad he’s kept to himself.
(Note: Some of the comments to this post seem to think I’m presenting the strip above as a real Watterson C&H strip. That wasn’t my intention; I know the strip above was created by someone else, almost certainly as satire, and is not a real Calvin & Hobbes Strip. I think it’s amusing anyway.)
(Update March 2011: If you’re looking for something more in the spirit of the real Calvin & Hobbes, take a look at this later entry.)
Posted Friday 16 February 2007 at 11:04 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: PogoFantagraphics Books to publish the complete Pogo comic strips in hardcover starting in October 2007.
Fantagraphics published 11 softcover volumes reprinting the early Pogo strips during the 90s. They were pretty entertaining. I’m not a huge Pogo fan (this announcement doesn’t excite me nearly as much as the complete Peanuts series announcement did), but I’ll be on board for the first few volumes, no doubt.
(via Comics Worth Reading.)
Posted Thursday 4 January 2007 at 3:22 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips, Reviews
Tags: PicklesPickles is a rare comic strip in that it can make me laugh out loud. It’s the story of a retired married couple, Earl and Opal, and their extended family (their daughter Sylvia, her son Nelson, their cat and dog, and various other friends and relatives). I guess I would describe Earl and Opal as being tolerably married: Earl is a wise guy with too much time on his hands and not a whole lot of energy, while Opal is cheerful and motivated but won’t put up with Earl’s guff. (I’m reminded of the joke: “Retirement: Twice as much husband, half as much money.”)
The new collection came out last year: Let’s Get Pickled! It’s more of the same, but that’s not a bad thing. Creator Brian Crane has a clean line and a straightforward, Peanuts-like approach to panel layout. Most of the humor is in the characters rather than the pictures. This strip sums up Earl and Opal’s relationship pretty well:
(Click to view the strip)
The strip has lots of jokes about Earl and Opal’s sketchy memory and generally being elderly. I suppose whether all this is funny will depend on your point of view, but I usually find the humor to be tasteful:
Roscoe and Muffin are pretty hilarious at times, by the way. To some extent they’re similar to Percy and Pooch in Sinfest, although Roscoe is more befuddled than he is hyperactive, while Muffin can be downright mean to anyone but Opal. Sylvia I think mostly doesn’t know what to do with her parents, while Nelson loves his grandparents but frequently gets taken in by Earl trying to play tricks on him.
Earl is really the heart and soul of Pickles, which means it’s a very smart-alecky strip, which is probably why I like it:
Pickles reminds me a bit of Fox Trot in its cast of characters trying to one-up one another (or retaliate against those who already have), but I think Crane is a better artist, and his repertoire of humor is broader. It’s also not nearly as well known, which seems a shame. If you haven’t already, I suggest checking it out.
Earlier Pickles collections:
Posted Tuesday 2 January 2007 at 6:42 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips, Reviews
Tags: FrazzIf there’s a true inheritor of the mantle of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, then I’d say it’s got to be Jef Mallett’s Frazz: Well-drawn (with more than a hint of Bill Watterson’s style), intelligent, and occasionally-off-the-wall, it’s got that tension between childlike fun and cynicism down pat.
The second collection came out last year: 99% Perspiration. The setting is Bryson Elementary School, and our titular hero is the janitor of that fine institution. But Frazz is something of a renaissance man, an avid bicyclist and jogger, he also earns money writing songs. And he’s got a crush on Miss Plainwell, one of the teachers. Bryson is populated by a variety of teachers, from the grouchy Mrs. Olsen to Frazz’ friend Mr. Burke (he and Frazz are just hopeless at basketball, by the way).
Frazz mostly plays goalie for the school’s student population, propping them up when they get run down and giving them perspective when their youthful exuberance and, uh, creativity run away with them. Frazz has a special fondness for Caulfield, a brilliant kid who finds school boring beyond belief, but who loves hanging out with Frazz.
Mallett’s one of the better artists working the comic strip page these days, and some of his gags have a certain wonderful simplicity:
(Click to view the strip)
Mallett’s sense of humor often takes an intellectual bent; you’ve gotta appreciate a guy who can mix zaniness with intellectual/cultural trivia:
Lest the comparisons to Calvin and Hobbes get laid on a little too heavily (and there are plenty more at the Wikipedia article), my feeling is that fundamentally Frazz is a funny, creative strip which feels more textured than most strips around today, and Mallett is just a darned good artist. While there are stylistic similarities, I assume they are mainly an homage to Watterson, whose strip I think Mallett admired (as did we all), as he pays homage to a few other people in the strip, too.
It took a while for Frazz to get my attention, but it’s got it now. It’s one of the gems of the comics page. Funny, charming. Check it out.
(You can also buy the first Frazz collection, Live at Bryson Elementary.)
Posted Friday 22 December 2006 at 4:39 pm
Filed in: Comic Strips, Computers
Here’s a very cool “map” of the IP address space circa 2006 in the web comic xkcd.
What surprises me about the map is how much unused space there is. Had you asked me before I saw this map, I would have said I thought the IP address space was nearly filled up.
Here’s why:
IP addresses are 32 bits long, which means there are about 4 billion possible IP addresses. That works out to less than 1 address per living human. Okay, so not everyone is going to have a computer on the Internet – certainly most people in third world countries won’t – but that still works out to about 13 computers per US citizen. Certainly every US citizen isn’t going to have 13 computers, but many people will have 2 – or more – 1 at home and 1 at work. And companies have lots of computers acting as servers, and universities have lots of computers sitting in labs for general use. And on top of that, I knew that top-level slices – 1/256th of the IP space (each with about 15 million addresses) – had been allocated to companies, such as Apple, and therefore that a large slice of the space had been allocated but was probably not being used (if you think Apple has 15 million computers in use on its campus, you’ve got another think coming). Among all of this, I would have guessed that we’d use up the IP address space sometime in the next 10 years.
Instead, about 1/4 of the top-level subnets are not allocated at all.
I think I basically grossly overestimated how many computers there are: Probably there’s less than 1 computer in the US per citizen (there were about 190 million in early 2005), and less than that across the rest of the world. And fewer top-level slices had been allocated to companies than I’d thought, so there’s less potentially-allocated-but-unused space. Plus, the use of NAT on local networks means multiple computers can share a single IP address, which I think is a common setup for home networks where all the machines are clients (rather than servers). This is how my home network is set up, for instance.
I still wonder if we’ll run out of IP addresses in my lifetime, though. Especially if we have some sort of nanotech breakthrough where we have large numbers of very small computers which all need their own unique network identifiers. “I’m sorry, the singularity had to be delayed because we ran out of IP addresses.”
Posted Friday 22 December 2006 at 11:07 am
Filed in: Comic Strips
Tags: For Better or For WorseLea Hernandez criticizes the comic strip For Better or For Worse‘s current storyline, which involves the house Michael and Deanna are renting having a fire. Hernandez lost her own house in a fire in September, so this hits close to home for her.
When I read the beginning of the FBoFW storyline – before seeing Hernandez’ post – my reaction was “Geez, isn’t this kind of over the top?” FBoFW’s appeal is mainly that it’s a slice-of-life story about its characters, and while there have been a few exceptional events (Michael and Deanna hooking up because she was in a car accident, for instance), I think this story has the potential to go rather too far. Especially since it’s coming on the heels of an extended episode in which Elly’s father Jim had a stroke. It’s one trauma too many.
By the way, the For Better or For Worse web site is, uh, one of the more poorly-designed pro sites I’ve seen lately: Extremely busy design, so much going on it’s very hard to focus on individual items. And it’s all compacted down to a small amount of screen space. It could really use a redesign to make it more spacious and friendlier.
Apparently creator Lynn Johnston has also been writing letters from the characters for a couple of years, I guess to flesh out the story beyond what appears in the strip. Although I enjoy the strip a lot (I own all the collections), that seems excessive to me; I’m only really interested in what actually appears in the strip. Rather than writing all those letters, wouldn’t it have been more fun (for the readers, and lucrative for her) to have spent that time drawing a FBoFW graphic novel or something?
The comments by others in Hernandez’ post are pretty harsh regarding FBoFW, not unjustifiably so. I think it’s still a fun strip, but it loses its way from time to time. I have read (as commented on in the thread) that Johnston plans to end the strip when Michael’s kids are about the same age as Michael and Deanna were when the strip began (probably in about a year), so I guess one could see the next year or so as being Johnson tying up loose ends. That could be a good thing… or a bad thing. (Having dealt with Jim’s stroke, I think it would be a very bad thing if she decides to squeeze his death into the strip’s final days.)
Mostly I wish Johnston would tone down the traumatic episodes and get the strip back to being a fun slice-of-life piece again.
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