Zeta wrote:And if you're looking for comics that are truly works of art, read Sandman or Bone or Calvin & Hobbes.
I kid you not, you just named three of my favorites. Seriously.
I've been meaning to picking up the last Bone trade (since it's worthless to try to acquire the single issues, as Smith changes so much making the TPB anyway), but I haven't had the money or time. And when I did, last week, my comic shop guy said they had to re-order them. I guess the last issue sold like shit, but I'm thinking it's because a lot of people wait for the trades (like me) and the final storyline was delayed so much, as opposed to an actual lack of interest.
I've always loved Calvin & Hobbes and own all of the collections. I agree Watterson is a bit eccentric. I think it was here, at this forum, where someone linked to a good site full of his interviews and things.
I've only recently been getting into Sandman, but yeah, it's really good.
The only Sandman I've ever read (and I'm sure this is rather vague) was the book illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, that was about a Monk and a Kitsune. And dreams or something. It was pretty cool.
I really like Neil Gaiman's writing. I've read American Gods, Neverwere, Coraline, & most of the stories in Smoke & Mirrors. He's probably my favorite modern writer, alongside Terry Pratchett and Phillip Pullman.
Ngangbius wrote:^Nor, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Nausicaa's pretty good and it's definitely got streaks of Miyazaki brilliance, but it's still obviously one of his earlier works. The characters are mostly one-dimensional and I fucking hate Nausicaa herself.
Maison Ikkoku certainly isn't as ambitious as Nausicaa, but it achieves everything it attempts almost flawlessly.
Although I have to say that Bill Watterson is quite the hypocrite. He judged comic books as a childish medium, when he constantly complains about people being prejudiced against comic strips and seeing it as a childish medium. Heh. "My work is a fantastic achievement because it's published in newspapers instead of in books". Oy.
Actually I think his usual reference to comics being "childish" (nay, juvenile?) is the way the mainstream monthly comics are all the same sort of super hero stuff that we've all come to be sick of. Calvin & Hobbes ended quite a while ago really, so I don't know what he'd think of the comic industry now. I don't think it's gotton much better economically speaking (and still very little of it interests me), but it's definitly got more variety.
But in general, comic books as we know them in America (and so as Bill Watterson would know them) are mainly appreciated by children and nerds (and child nerds), whereas Calvin & Hobbes is appreciated by darn near everyone. That's why it's a fantastic achievement, not because it ran in a newspaper. In fact, in the 10th Aniversary Book (the source of most of those writings) he suggests that comics would be better served by a new format, a monthly/weekly/whateverly book or newspaper-style volume that contains only comics, which we all know is exactly the format that's allowed comics to thrive in Japan. I don't know if he's looked into the Japanese side of things, but moreso than anything else, Watterson doesn't consider the newspaper format to be good for anybody.
I read the first 3 Bones awhile back and loved them. I only own the third one though and I pretty much forgot the entire storyline. I guess I'll someday buy the first two and a the four. Then go from there. Not today though.
Grant, I was wondering if you'd read Maus. Especially seeing as you were talking about literature, and Maus won the pulitzer for lit. I wonder what happened to Spiegelman? He was the art editor for the New Yorker for awhile, but he's not anymore. Last I heard, he was publishing a comic in the London Review of Books, but it hasn't been in there for quite awhile. I wonder what he's up to?
When I was talking about literature, I was commenting on fanfiction. The only reason comics were ever brought up was because I tried to use it as a way to support my initial argument, in that fanfiction is inherently flawed, like ongoing superhero comics, because you're working with someone else's characters and must base the characterization on their previous works. Even if you write something brilliant, you're still held back by the fact that you have to keep the characters in line with what they've done before and this, I think, holds it back from being true to the author. This is just my opinion.
Anyway, I would consider Maus art, literature, whatever you want to call it. Aside from it being brilliant, the best part about it is that it just wouldn't work in any other medium. There needs to be more comics like this. There needs to be more authors/artists like Spiegelman working in the industry. Unfortunately, because 90% of the market is recycled superhero garbage, most brilliant artists and writers stay away. This is exactly what I meant when I said that many gifted creators don't work on comics because they feel as if they're above it, because of the general perception of the medium. Maus should have been a wake-up call to many such creators; it should've showed them that sequential art has a lot of potential for many things that prose simply can't express properly. I think it probably convinced some creators, but not nearly enough.
There are others that I feel could potentially be viewed as art or literature, in my opinion. Bone is great, but I have yet to pick up Crown of Horns. I have a feeling that it probably still won't tie up all of the loose ends and inconsistencies through out the series. I imagine Jeff will probably continue to tweak and edit some things in future rereleases (such as a color version, perhaps?); it still feels like a work-in-progress. Sandman is really great, too, but I've only begun to look into it. So I can't properly judge either of these two quite yet on how I feel about them.
I was a little let down by the ending of Bone. It's not terrible or anything... it's just not nearly as brilliant as the earlier volumes. It just seems a little too rushed, maybe? I kind of wonder if maybe Smith tied his hands by forcing the trilogy structure on himself.
You should definitely check out Blankets... Pop will also vouch for its greatness. Derek Kirk Kim's "Same Difference" is pretty good, too, and it's available to read online as well as in print. ( http://lowbright.com/Comics/SameDiffere ... eIndex.htm )
Ngangbius wrote:^Nor, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Nausicaa's pretty good and it's definitely got streaks of Miyazaki brilliance, but it's still obviously one of his earlier works. The characters are mostly one-dimensional and I fucking hate Nausicaa herself.
Maison Ikkoku certainly isn't as ambitious as Nausicaa, but it achieves everything it attempts almost flawlessly.
Ahh, so you finally checked it out, then? I still prefer Nausicaä to Maison Ikkoku, although they're both very high on my list of favourites. If you've been reading the new editions, you'll soon see that the whole philosophy behind Nausicaä does a complete 180 around the last two volumes, mostly because Miyazaki had done the comic over a 13 year period and his political views had changed over that time. At first the comic seems to boast the idea of an idealistic nihilism, but the conclusion seems to refute just about everything Miyazaki had been trying to establish before, and I find that in itself to be one of the most interesting things about the story.
But I don't think you'll like Nausicaä herself any more as the series goes on. I should've remembered that Gibbon is afraid of strong women.
At first the comic seems to boast the idea of an idealistic nihilism, but the conclusion seems to refute just about everything Miyazaki had been trying to establish before, and I find that in itself to be one of the most interesting things about the story.
Now that does sound interesting. How many volumes is it? I've got the first three. Also, over which 13 years was Miyazaki composing this thing?
I should've remembered that Gibbon is afraid of strong women.
Strong women are fine, it's stupid women that scare the mortal shit out of me, especially the ones with power.
The comic is seven volumes long. He wrote it from, I believe, 1982 to 1995, but he would take as much as two years off at times when he went to work on certain films.
And yeah, Kushana is mighty fine. I've actually been kind of looking forward to the dub of the movie, where her voice will be done by Uma Thurman. The only problem is that in the film, she has half her fucking body blown off.
The movie was made in 1984. Normally I'd recommend watching the movie first, because as great as it is to see the characters animated, it's a big dissapointment compared to the comic and easily Miyazaki's worst movie. Not only does it barely cover two volumes of the manga, it also completely excises the Doroks.
However, the DVD's release has been pushed back to January 2005, presumably to coincide with the English release of Howl's Moving Castle, so... whatever.
When I read it, it was the older edition, which I thought ended at four volumes--I haven't missed anything besides a different translation and unflipped art, have I?
No. Look at the first page with all the publishing information in those volumes and it'd tell you "this book covers volumes 1 and 2 of the Japanese editions" or something. They're getting a reprint in their original volume size and with unflipped art at some point.
