Short Reviews: Gilbert Hernandez, Ed Piskor, Steven Cerio

Garden Of The Flesh, by Gilbert Hernandez. This notebook-sized comic with an etched cover made of something like suede, is simply Hernandez turning highlights from the Book of Genesis into straight-up, hardcore porn. There's something about this book that touches a nerve far beyond it simply being porn. In a way, it's a distillation of Robert Crumb's adaptation of the whole Book of Genesis, which played up the truly seedy nature of so many Biblical stories, using that distinctive cross-hatching as a way of creating that filthy atmosphere. Hernandez' approach is different: it's drawn in his typical style, but it's also in full color. Hernandez picks up on the erotic qualities of the Bible (especially the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall), qualities that always seemed heightened to me as a child when I read picture book versions of the Bible. The concept of forbidden fruit and Adam & Eve's first encounter with shame are highly charged, and Hernandez both takes these ideas to their logical conclusion and utterly spoofs the ways in which religion shames sex and nudity. Hernandez also seamlessly overlays the structure of pornographic films onto the episodic structure of the Bible. That is, new characters in new situations were constantly being introduced in the Bible in the same way that new actors appear in porn to offer variety to the viewer. Hernandez brings the lust implicit (and often explicit) in the Bible out into the light while putting it in a format that still has an air of mystery, of something forbidden. In that way, he has his cake and eats it too, playing on how things that are forbidden offer a charge but then doling out as much explicit sex as he possibly can in a tidy hundred pages.

Sunbeams On The Astronaut, by Steven Cerio. This is a collection of short, dense and psychedelic pieces by Cerio, whose style veers from rubbery & cartoony to a deeply immersive series of patterns. The sheer density of the pieces and the use of greyscale instead of color made a number of stories difficult to parse, and the insertion of text instead of hand lettering was distracting and took me out of the reading experience. This book seemed to beg for color to help delineate the forms and add some clarity, but what I could parse was fascinating. In depicting what appear to be otherdimensional experiences, Cerio does so with a relentless sense of optimism and adventure. He's created his own mythological pantheon of characters, some darker than others, but each of their stories carries new possibilities. Tonally, the stories veer from whimsical & silly to darker & portentous as he draws from sources like old folk tales and songs by the Residents.

Hip-Hop Family Tree, Volume 4, by Ed Piskor. The latest volume of Piskor's epic, hugely successful historical series of brief, interconnected vignettes about hip hop's origins reaches a logical resting place for the series by the end. After working on the project mostly non-stop for nearly four years, Piskor declared he was going to focus on other projects for a while after the publication of this volume. It's a move that makes sense, considering that the amount of material that he has to cover has grown exponentially from volume to volume. He had the luxury of taking his time in the earlier volumes and making connections between hip-hop and other forms of African-American culture, as well as the fine arts scene, and for spending most of his time concentrating on the New York scene. In volume 4, Piskor focuses on the next generation of rappers in New York, the expanding LA scene, the small but energetic Philadelphia scene, and even what Luke Skywalker was up to in Miami. This volume also goes into some deal with regard to the way Hollywood tried to exploit what many perceived to be a fad, with films like Breakin', Beat Street and Krush Groove.

Russell "Rush" Simmons is still at the center of everything as the most respected and best-known managerial figure in rap. Now in a full partnership with ambitious college student Rick Rubin, their Def Jam records starts to make real money behind Run-DMC and their new star, LL Cool J (who was just sixteen when his first record was released). One thing that Piskor repeatedly emphasizes is how young so many of the key players were, as they went from rapping in front of their lockers in high school to performing live and getting on records. KRS-ONE was a kid living in a homeless shelter when he hooked up with DJ Scott LaRock, whom he knew as a social worker who would stop by the shelter. Salt 'N Pepa were working at the local Sears when a friend suggested they start their careers as battle MCs recording dis tracks. This is a fascinating period because of the intersection between the still wild west quality of rap and the introduction of real money into the equation. While that certainly led some young rappers to go as pop as possible in order to get on the radio, it's interesting that some refused to go soft on principle, even if hurt their chances at success. For the rapper Schooly D, that stance wound up creating gangsta rap, because he wouldn't soften his lyrics for recording.

Piskor sticks to the same visual formula that made the other volumes so fun to read. Every page is a complete statement, meant to be read and digested as a whole. At the same time, four volumes' worth of characters and their stories start to build as formerly background characters like the Beastie Boys suddenly take center stage. As always, Piskor is more interested in the facts as he's able to get them rather than the legends, as he's upfront about Ice-T's criminal activities and other less-than-savory facts about some of the rappers. There's no specific judgment--it's just people trying to get by--other than for perhaps "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the man who introduced crack cocaine into America and created an epidemic of addicts. Piskor leans heavily on Jack Kirby-inspired visuals, like Kirby Krackle in some panels, heroic and distorted poses and other trademarks like splayed hands. One can also see some of Piskor's other influences like Robert Crumb sneak into some panels, but moreso Drew Friedman's merciless drawings of celebrities. Piskor loves drawing old, out-of-touch white executives and uses some of Friedman's trademark liver spots for them. Piskor eliminated some of the more awkward character poses from earlier volumes but also doubled-down on others to create an exaggerated style that matched the idealism of early hip-hop with the gritty reality it emerged out of.

The Complete Clough On Comics at Cicada

I just wrapped up a year's worth of reviews over at Cicada, the literary magazine for teens (and cousin of the more famous Cricket). Here are links to every one of my columns:

1. May/June 2014: Margerite Dabaie, Ed Piskor, Gilbert Hernandez
2. July/August 2014: Nicole Georges, Rutu Modan
3. September/October 2014: Max Badger, Isaac Cates
4. November/December 2014: Liz Prince
5. January/February 2014: Farel Dalrymple
6. March/April 2014: Renee French

Total Culture: Hip-Hop Family Tree

I've been following Ed Piskor's career for quite some time, and he's managed to turn his obsessions into his art. Nowhere is that clearer than with the first volume of what promises to be a five volume history, Hip-Hop Family Tree (Fantagraphics). In many respects, Piskor's theoretical and historical mouthpiece in the book is Fab Five Freddy, the influential graffiti artist who intuitively understood the connection between rapping, graffiti, fashion and breakdancing as part of a cultural whole and their overall vibrancy. This was not a new idea; Richard Wagner created the term Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art") to reflect the way that he thought operatic productions must fuse with music to expose greater cultural truths. It wasn't even a new idea in African-American culture, but rather a continuation of what writer Leroi Jones calls "assimilation-revitalization syndrome". This is when a marginalized culture, but in particular African-American culture, creates a new form of aesthetic expression. That expression inevitably is initially demonized by the dominant culture before it is accepted, assimilated and made popular, often at the expense of the form's originators. One could see that play out with blues, jazz, R&B, and rock 'n roll. What was initially different about funk music of the late 60s and early 70s was that it was in part a joyful expression of the gains made thanks to the civil rights movement. James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud" was the harbinger for a new renaissance of music, fashion, dance, art and literature centering around the communal and improvisational nature of funk music. Once again, however, assimilation came in the face of disco, which took the danceability of certain funk records and fused them with the gay, underground club scene in cities like New York. Putting the music in the hands of producers and taking away venues and jobs for live performers essentially destroyed the funk music, and the crippling poverty and economic recession of the late 70s further stalled gains made by African-Americans. When Ronald Reagan came into power in 1980 and quickly gutted a score of social programs that had been crucial to the development and advancement of the urban underclass, we were left with where Piskor began his book.

There's no doubt that Piskor is scrupulously accurate about showing the good, bad and ugly of the world surrounding hip-hop and providing interesting theories as to why rap proliferated the way it did at certain times. For example, a city-wide blackout led to some electronics stores getting looted and dozens of people suddenly getting their hands on the kinds of equipment needed to start spinning records as DJs and rhyming as MCs. I do wish that he had provided a little more historical background regarding hip-hop's cultural and economic roots, especially given that many of his ideas and the ideas of those he discusses in the book are rooted in earlier theories and schools of thought. That said, Piskor manages to juggle an insane amount of information regarding key players, influences, flashes-in-the-pan and backroom players in hip-hop's history. What began as a subculture is now simply culture, fully assimilated and established as the dominant cultural force. Every kid listens to rap, lots of kids use Beats by Dre headphones and wear clothing designed by hip-hop artists. Hip-hop is a dominant form of dance, taught at all levels. The story of hip-hop is the story of culture, post-1980.

If you've read the strips at Boing-Boing, then you still haven't really read the book as Piskor truly intends. Piskor, a design fiend, is using the exact proportions and cover design of the old Marvel Treasury Editions. The lettering, coloring (love those pre-yellowed pages!), character design and overall dynamics of the book are meant to emulate Marvel comics from the late 70s and early 80s. Indeed, parts of the book look like they were drawn by Sal Buscema or Herb Trimpe. The drawings of key early MC Melle Mel often feature the wide-open mouth and saliva lines common to Buscema's figures, for example. This is something that undoubtedly comes naturally for Piskor, who was trained at the Kubert School. That school generally trains artists to become mainstream superhero cartoonists, but Piskor's interest in underground comics combined with his own specific set of obsessions set him on a different thematic path, even as his character design and interest in creating visually exciting pages remained firmly rooted in mainstream comics. That tendency makes a number of the characters have a certain larger-than-life quality, and Piskor doesn't shy away from comparing hip-hop culture to superhero culture in a back-up strip in this volume.

The problem with that approach is that some of his figure work is jarring, with character proportions out of whack, especially when juxtaposing people of different sizes. Piskor also seems to have difficulty drawing children, especially with how they relate in space to each other and adults. There are some pages that simply look wrong as a result of these problems with proportions. For the most part, however, Piskor ingeniously and quickly picks up on each character's distinctive characteristics and plays them up. Rap producer, promoter and manager Russell "Rush" Simmons wore a particular type of hat, had a lazy eye and talked with a pronounced lisp. Piskor mercilessly and often hilariously depicts the ridiculousness of those traits while giving due respect to Simmons' smarts, ambition and sense of timing. The book isn't all about big names and those who would later become big names, though Chuck D of Public Enemy, the future KRS-ONE and Dr Dre all get introduced here, among others, while Russell Simmons' little brother DJ Run is frequently depicted as a background character. Instead, the book focuses on folks like DJ Kool Herc, the first superstar DJ, along with Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. It discusses how hip-hop shows were initially held on basketball courts, rec rooms and other cheap or free public areas as a way of having fun in a relatively safe environment. The relationship between artist and audience was entirely symbiotic and interactive, as MC's literally came up out of the audience to rap while the DJ was busy doing his thing. B-boys would breakdance while the DJ spun records.

Piskor also gets at hip-hop that was essentially a youth-focused activity, with only a few enterprising older men and women entering the game when they saw that there was money to be made. My favorite character in the first volume is ruthless producer Sylvia Robinson of Sugar Hill Records, the woman who pretty much helped create the first hit rap record out of thin air. Rather than do the legwork to find the best MCs in the New York area, she stumbled upon Big Bank Hank (a minor figure who cribbed rhymes from other, better rappers) and created the Sugar Hill Gang and "Rapper's Delight". The other two members of the group joined simply because they came up to the car where Hank was rapping over the Chic song "Good Times" and had the guts to approach and say they wanted to rap, too. Piskor gets across the importance of the record not as a work of art, but as something that shifted the historical importance from DJs to MCs as recording suddenly became every bit as important as performing.

Doing a weekly strip for Boing Boing dictated that Piskor make every page a stand-alone piece. Whether by design or by chance, this structure works beautifully for a comic that jumps from performer to performer yet finds ways to eventually tighten narrative and thematic strings. It also gives the book a propulsive, exciting quality that feels like Piskor is spinning yarns instead of doling out history lessons. He treats the subject with appropriate reverence and gravity but also injects each page with humor, befitting the frequent silliness and lunacy present in hip-hop's early days. For example, the battle between the Sugar Hill Gang and the Furious Five over who would get to use a particular breakbeat came down to them playing a game of football. Pages where we see Grandmaster Flash's reaction to "Rapper's Delight" on the radio are hilarious in and of themselves, as one of the coolest men in the business is agog at this development. Every page depicting rap battles and brutal put-downs is also quite funny and indicative of Piskor's deep research into hip-hop's history and understanding of how important the early bootleg concert tapes were.

Still, the fact that Piskor spends a lot of time with Fab Five Freddy and his connections to "downtown" art culture and figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring shows that his main concern is creating that titular family tree. He's fascinated by connections between artists, managers, rappers, djs, egomaniacal and privileged figures like Rick Rubin who turned a love of punk rock and hip hop into a career, and the people outside of hip-hop circles who immediately picked up on its potential and did their best to either further it or exploit (and sometimes both). He's interested in its immediate and multigenerational impact, as the first MCs and DJs had a quick influence on rappers in high school or living with their parents (the stories of Busy Bee Starski's mom pulling him out of clubs were hilarious) but also had an influence on ten year olds as well. This first volume is about creating something beautiful out of nothing, out of creating a tapestry of sound, self-expression and movement with the most limited of tools and equipment. To be sure, there were egos, beefs and exploiters from the very beginning, but there was also the sense of everyone making up rules as they went along. Piskor expertly captures the energy and excitement of the unlimited possibility to be creative in hip-hop's early days, and it's that Marvel-inflected style that gives him a solid set of visual short-cuts that allow him to keep the story moving briskly without losing the reader.

Sequart Reprints: Macedonia

This article was originally published at sequart.com in 2007.
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You have to hand it to Harvey Pekar. After the success of his movie and the sales of the American Splendor collections, Ballantine gave him the opportunity to do three new graphic novels. The first was Our Movie Year, which was self-explanatory. It was less a single coherent work than a collection of stories he had already done elsewhere related to the movie, plus some new work. These were classic American Splendor stories, featuring quotidian experiences and observations by Pekar. For his other two books, he went in a very different direction. For Ego and Malice, he told the story of someone he had met who he found fascinating. Harv's done this sort of thing before, because he's always been as interested in telling someone else's story as much as his own. Macedonia, however, is a bit different.

Pekar has always been a working-class intellectual, and politics have always been part of what he's written about. It's no surprise that one of his most frequent collaborators has been Joe Sacco, the preeminent narrative political journalist in comics. Sacco's masterwork is Safe Area Gorazde, about the near-destruction of a mostly Muslim town in Eastern Bosnia. Sacco lived in Gorazde, talked to its residents, and told their story through a series of sharply-created vignettes. The book was not just about war, but about the nature of ethnic conflict and the mania it inspires. When Pekar learned about Roberson, an undergrad at Cal-Berkeley, and the nature of her research, he realized that he could create a story that would be a sort of mirror image of what Sacco did.

Roberson was a Peace Studies major and when she got into an argument about the inevitability of war, she brought up the example of Macedonia. Conditions were in place for an ethnic civil war to erupt in this Balkan state and tensions were certainly high. However, it didn't happen, and Roberson decided to travel there for her thesis project to talk to as many people as possible as to why. Pekar asked if he could see her notes when she returned from her trip, and created a script that Ed Piskor illustrated. I did an interview with Piskor about the Macedonia gig, where he described some of the special challenges involved.

There's a pleasantly rambling nature to the narrative that reflects the fact that Roberson went over to Macedonia not knowing a single person, nor establishing a single contact. This was kind of a crazy way to approach the experience, but it was calculated to a certain extent. After all, her entire thesis revolved around the idea of the rule of law having a primary role in establishing peace between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. She wanted to test the accessibility of state organs that anyone should be able to turn to so as to avoid disputes.

Roberson does indeed quickly make contacts, including with a local artist who was leading a disarmament campaign. She makes instant bonds with several deans and professors from Southeastern European University, built for Albanians. Part of the reason why an agreement was reached between the two sides was that an access to education was promised for Albanians, along with a police force that was representative of demographic realities in a given area. Roberson was able to speak to a police trainer about this topic. One reason why Roberson was able to gain this kind of access was that many people she talked to were eager for contact from the outside world. They wanted their stories told, wanted to feel like part of the greater world community rather than an isolated state.

Roberson may be an idealist, but she wasn't starry-eyed in what she saw. Tensions still existed. Disarmament was still a process. Macedonians thought the worst of Albanians, treating them as savages. Albanians, given a leg up in certain areas, didn't exactly turn the other cheek. The possibility of violence was always there. She spoke to plenty of folks on the street about what they saw, in addition to officials who were trying to put the best face on things. Despite those difficulties, one thing was abundantly clear: war would have only made things worse, not better. A quick trip across the border to Kosovo made that abundantly clear.

As a comic, Macedonia has certain bumps. One reason why Sacco is so successful with his projects is that he is the reporter, writer and artist. With Macedonia, the comic is a couple of levels removed from Roberson's actual experience. Pekar boiled down her notes and conversations to a script, and Piskor had to take something that was a long series of talking heads into something interesting to look at that also flowed as a story. In addition to the static nature of the story, Piskor had the additional task of somehow illustrating page after page of background information on an enormously complex conflict. The beginning of the book drags as a result of Roberson giving us the history of the conflict in the form of a conversation with her boyfriend, and Piskor runs with this conversation and shows them driving around, cooking--in motion, giving the reader something to look at.

The lack of structure in the narrative also hurts the flow as a reader. Some kind of arbitrary chapter breaks might have been a good idea or perhaps reorganizing the narrative into a series of vignettes like Safe Area Gorazde. That said, Pekar's skill as a writer really comes to the fore in the last forty or so pages. His ability to bring to life the variety of characters Roberson encounters is Pekar at his best. In particular, the French professor Fabian was hilarious--a nasty cynic who was nonetheless enormously generous. Pekar has always especially excelled at fish-out-of-water stories, and Piskor's non-idealized character designs are a perfect match for the odd people that Roberson meets.

Though Macedonia has some structural and narrative problems, its scope and ambition are both remarkable. After the first forty pages, the book starts to build momentum. In the last forty or fifty pages, the reader is totally swept up into Roberson's experiences and the people she meets, and there's a tangible sadness when she has to leave. The last page sums up the themes of the book, as Heather notes that she left herself vulnerable in trusting others, but the result was meeting dozens of people who were enormously kind and generous to her. She was amazed at the openness and frankness of those she met, something she missed at Cal. Saying, "I'd rather end up bruised than untouched", she sums up not just her own outlook on life, but also the outlook necessary for not just peace, but understanding, to blossom in Macedonia.

Sequart Reprints: Ed Piskor Interview

This interview was originally conducted in 2006 for sequart.com. It was my first full-length interview.
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Even the most casual of comics fans is probably familiar with Harvey Pekar, thanks to the film success of American Splendor. Pekar is one of the trailblazers of autobiographical comics, focusing on the insights that can be gained from the mundane details of everyday life. HIs legendarily pessimistic and curmudgeonly aspects were played up in the film, and while these are certainly qualities familiar to every reader of American Splendor, the film glossed over other aspects of Harv's work. In particular, Pekar has always been a working-class, self-made intellectual. Some of his most absorbing comics have dealt with his thoughts on literature, music, politics and history. In addition, Pekar has become as much a biographer as autobiographer later in his writing career. He's written about a war veteran, someone suffering from Asperger's Syndrome, and most recently a forceful personality named Michael Malice. Harv writes the stories, but they're all a form of oral history.

That brings us to his latest project, Macedonia. It's about a student at Cal-Berkeley named Heather Roberson. She spent some time in Macedonia, one of the Balkan states. Unlike nearby Kosovo in the 1990's, Macedonia did not descend into civil war, despite many of the same conditions that led to ethnic cleansing in other Balkan states. For her thesis, she wanted to find out why this was. Before she went over, she met Harvey Pekar, who urged her to take extensive notes so he could do a graphic novel of her experience.

The results are fascinating. It's partly a travelogue of Roberson's experiences, but they are from the perspective of a student, someone trying to stay objective while gathering as much information as possible. Unlike a journalist, she's not quite there to tell someone else's story, but rather to synthesize all of the stories she's heard into an overarching theory. Pekar himself invokes Joe Sacco's classic Safe Area Gorazde, which takes a hard look at near-genocide in eastern Bosnia, which only makes sense. Anyone doing a comic about the Balkans inevitably is going to be compared to Sacco. But Pekar adds a couple of layers of distance here. It's not his experience there, and he's not drawing it. Furthermore, Roberson's aims and methods were completely different from Sacco's. Most importantly, Macedonia is about what went right, even if there are still enormous problems and conflicts. A conflict in a country untouched by war is better than trying to deal with the aftermath of the brutality in Bosnia.

Pekar famously does stick-figure layouts for his comics before handing them off to the illustrator he selects for each story. Robert Crumb has been his most famous collaborator, but there have been dozens of others (including Alan Moore!). His choice of artist often varies according to the kind of story he's telling. He'll choose a more realistic artist for more straight-ahead narratives, and a more abstract artist for more emotional stories.

The man for the job on Macedonia is 23-year-old Ed Piskor. At the age of 9, he saw a documentary that had Pekar reading one of his stories, and he was instantly fascinated. Piskor's knowledge of comics' underground period is matched only by his fierce desire to improve. His work ethic is what helped him get his early gigs with Harvey. After turning around a 4-page assignment in days, Piskor avoided sleep while helping Harv beat a deadline with a 24-page story in the Our Movie Year graphic novel. If that wasn't enough, underground legend Jay Lynch tapped Piskor to collaborate with him on his strips about other underground artists. That's heady company for such a neophyte, but Piskor has met every challenge and continues to improve rapidly.

After a childhood of comics obsession, Piskor went on to the Joe Kubert comics school for a year, an experience which both helped and hindered his development. His panel composition is excellent, his faces expressive and his attention to detail meticulous. Like many young artists, he's still learning to loosen up his figures a bit. One can already see his development from this early comic to these preview pages from Macedonia. This is in just the span of a couple of years, and it's clear that he's still developing his style as an artist, but is doing it rapidly. Working with Pekar is a huge challenge, because it's up to the artist to establish the story's rhythms in a milieu that isn't exactly replete with slam-bam action and dynamism. It's clear that Piskor is improving with every assignment, and it will be fascinating to follow his career as he writes his own stories, particuarly because of his rather dark sense of humor. Piskor is obsessed with making good comics and his astonishing work ethic along with his willingness to learn & adapt make him one to watch.
Below is a page from Macedonia, exclusive to this site. Following the image, I talk to Ed Piskor about his training at the Kubert School, his influences, his collaborations with Harvey Pekar and Jay Lynch, and how Macedonia was created.

LIFE AT THE KUBERT SCHOOL AND OTHER INFLUENCES

SEQUART: You attended the Kubert school for a year. Was this a positive experience overall? What do you feel like you learned? How did you relate to the other students; did any of them share your interests in alternative comics?

PISKOR: When I think about my tenure there, I realize that I did learn a lot there in a relatively short amount of time, which was great. That being said, the rest of the experience was about as lame as can be. They teach you to be a hack at the school, meaning that you should take every possible job that comes your way and just crap out everything that interests you the least. . .I really don't agree with this position and I even contribute this idea for the degradation of quality in comics. They had a real racket running with what they chose to teach. The first year they were teaching us how to paste up and make color separations...all kinds of stuff that has been obsolete in print media for a decade already at that point.

We lived in the famous "Mansion", which contained a mix between squirrelly-socially retarded cartoonists, old wanna-be cartoonists who could pay their tuition with cash, and pseudo-jock testosterone seething alpha male cartoonists. The teachers in that first year were mostly former students that need the extra cash from the teaching gig because Archie comics doesn't pay that much. And when it comes to the other students and me relating to any of the regarding underground and alternative cartoonists, believe me when I tell you there wasn't one person that was into it. I still bump into these guys and I have to explain who Dan Clowes and Chris Ware are, which is unbelievable.

The main reason I went to this school was to network with like-minded individuals and I remember Tim Truman's account of meeting [Steve] Bissette, [Tom] Yeates, [John] Totleben, and [Rick] Veitch and how they rallied around all the old EC comics and undergrounds and I honestly was looking for a group of cartoonists who knew what I was talking about. I guess that's an impossibility when you're going to a school that is advertised in Spider-Man comic books. I just mythologized that place for years as a kid and those first batches of students are sort of heroes of mine. The school didn't live up to a fraction of what I expected. I'll do a comic about it someday.

SEQUART: You've mentioned in another interview that your art gets mistaken for being that of a 1960's underground artist, and that's a pretty clear influence on your style. But what I find interesting is that I don't see the specific imprint of any one particular artist more than any others. You mentioned being influenced as a youngster by seeing Harvey Pekar in the documentary Comic Book Confidential. Who were some of the other artists in that documentary that influenced you so heavily? Who are your main influences now?

PISKOR: I'm extremely influenced by Robert Crumb. That guy is tops to me, but every artist in that documentary is someone who I look very closely at for different things. I love Jaime Hernandez's body language, Charles Burns' inking, Gilbert Shelton's whimsy, Art Spiegelman, Kurtzman, and Will Eisner's insight on storytelling, Frank Miller's bravado, the old EC artists' craft at illustration. The only person in that flick that can go fly a kite is Stan Lee...that guy annoys the hell out of me. Nowadays my tastes are leading more and more to old comic strips, so I'm inspired by Harold Gray, Winsor McCay, Bud Fisher, Milt Caniff, and Chester Gould to name just a few. There are also plenty of cartoonists working today who are doing fantastic stuff that makes me excited about the future of the comic book medium.

SEQUART: You mention Crumb as a major influence. Is this in terms of his visual approach, the kind of stories he tells, or his general uninhibited unleashing of his id in his stories, no matter what? Or some combination thereof? What was the Crumb story or stories that really blew your mind? (Your noting that you put in some silent panels to help the story breathe on your own seemed a very Crumb-like move, particularly with regard to his American Splendor stories)

PISKOR: I really can appreciate the obsessive quality in Crumb's work. The level of craft is ridiculously high when it comes to the look and feel of his illustrations. I'm influenced by his complete body of work and the growth he's had as an artist is unparalleled when you think about his first wobbly Fritz the Cat comics that were done in composition notebooks all the way through the years to his HUP comics and beyond. Thanks to Fantagraphics' Complete Crumb Comics, anybody can take a look at that work and watch like 40 years of artistic upward mobility in a single day. I think it's necessary to absorb all of his work to get a true appreciation for his stuff. The guy lived most of his life on paper and for better or worse such a body of work is a goal of mine even if it requires me to be poor, alone, and I can think of worse things than to spend the majority of my life at the drawing board too. He's done dozens of strips that I really love and are blown away by...let me think of a few. I think "That's Life" is up [there as] one of my favorites. That's the one with the blues singer who runs away from his wife, records some music, gets killed and the old stuffy white guys find the recording. His autobio comics are great. I can seriously go on for hours talking about this guy's influence on me.

SEQUART: You mention that there are a lot of cartoonists working today who are doing fantastic stuff. Anyone in particular come to mind that really impresses you?

PISKOR: I'm fortunate enough to have some great cartoonists locally here in Pittsburgh that I meet with on a regular basis and these guys blow my mind. They are Tom Scioli who draws Godland for image, Jim Rugg of Street Angel fame, and Pat Lewis who happens to be one of the best guys working on minicomics today. Some other guys who make me want to chop off their drawing hands out of jealousy are the St. Louis Catastrophe crew (Kevin Huizenga, and Dan Zettwoch mostly) Farel Dalrymple, there's this guy Phonzie Davis who can hypnotize you with his work, Sammy Harkham, Anders Nilsen, John Porcellino, Vanessa Davis, Lauren Weinstein, [and] Matt Bors who does a weekly strip called Idiot Box. I equally love and am viciously jealous of each of these cartoonists along with plenty of others who I can't think [of] at the moment.

AMERICAN SPLENDOR AND OTHER COLLABORATIONS

SEQUART: How long did it take for you to track down issues of American Splendor? What was it about Harvey reading an excerpt (do you remember what story it was?) that inspired a 9-year-old? His tales of mundane life aren't exactly typical kid stuff.

PISKOR: The story Harv read in the documentary was the one where he steals some records from the college radio station and instead of just pocketing them, he creates an elaborate process to heist the wax and ends up accidentally locking them in the bathroom. That story was drawn by Crumb and it was frigging amazing to me. This was around when his first collection through Doubleday came out and the book was easy enough to find at the local mall. I wasn't looking for it, but I immediately recognized the book and was completely confused by the whole thing. I was a mainstream comics fan as a kid but I really enjoyed the parts with Peter Parker and his hard times when the other kids liked the parts with Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin. This led me to think "American Splendor" was Harvey's superhero name, and while reading his stuff, I was constantly waiting for him to disappear into a phone booth and appear in costume but those moments never happened; and I found myself fascinated and I didn't even care that there wasn't a battle in which the buildings in Cleveland were compromised. They also had a sort of horror quality because it gave me insight as to what I could expect as I grew into an adult.

SEQUART: You've done a lot of collaborative work in your brief career. Has this been a conscious choice, or were you just given opportunities you couldn't turn down? Would you prefer to do more of this in the future, or do you have your own big project simmering in the back of your mind?

PISKOR: In a lot of ways I'm just letting things happen as they may. I'm excited and lucky to have worked with Harvey as well as Jay Lynch (another prominent underground cartoonist). These projects have sort of fallen into my lap but were definitely too cool to pass up. I want to do plenty of my own comics as well but I really need to focus on the writing portion more because I'm missing some vital skills required to tell great stories on my own. Slowly though, I think I'm starting to figure it out and it's possible that I may pick up some great habits from the people that I work with.

SEQUART: The earliest work on your website seems to be a lot more heavily rendered than your work with Pekar. Was this the influence of the Kubert school coming into play? Are you consciously working towards a different style, and do you see a particular evolution of that style?

PISKOR: This is all just a constant learning process for me. I have no clue what I'm doing, and I'm basically just progressing on an intuitive path as opposed to creating a specific style. I'm sort of blindly hoping that it will emerge eventually as I continue to absorb more great works of others and I think that simple life experience plays a part in the evolution of artwork. The older stuff definitely had a lot of Kubert school programming in there and I confess that I still need to shake a lot of the conformist practices that were beat into my head while I was at "Superhero University".

SEQUART: Going back to collaborations, I was really impressed by the pieces that you did with Jay Lynch. Along with Justin Green, I always considered him to be the most underrated of the underground artists of that era. How did this collaboration come about? What's the division of labor here--does Lynch just write them, or does he do layouts? Did you consciously alter your style for these strips? They seem a lot more polished and self-assured than some of your other material, and I was wondering if that's just your style maturing, having the time to do them right or a conscious decision to do something different.

PISKOR: When I was sending out packages of strips to all of the small press companies, anthologies and other publishing venues I also sent out dozens of packages to my favorite cartoonists who I though may have some insight as to what I was doing wrong because I was steadily being rejected by these companies. Jay Lynch called me days before Pekar called me and explained this idea for a comic book that he had but he said he didn't have the confidence to draw the stuff on his own and couldn't sacrifice the time because he needed to keep a roof over his head. He provided these things for each story that he called roughs, but I have to tell you that these things are print quality. Beautiful pages. But he wanted me to draw them closer to my style, which puzzled me but I was more than happy to oblige. The look of those final strips were a mixture of working off of his great compositions and just a little more experienced construction on my part. The pages were pretty dense too, just because I had a terrible overcompensation complex with Jay to try and make him happy with the outcome of the strips. I think after a while cartoonists become confident enough to leave extraneous detail out of their work, I'll get there someday.

SEQUART: I've read and enjoyed your Isolation Chamber minicomics, particularly your rather dark view of the world and a sense of humor to match. But I also am fond of the human touches you threw in there, like playing with your younger sister. You've said that these minicomics are a way of working out your inner anger for a limited audience, but do you see yourself trying to cultivate a larger audience as a writer in the future, and if so, what kind of story do you think you'd want to write for such an audience? Is it odd to draw stories for others that don't have the same kind of anger you work through in your own comics?

PISKOR: It would be great to have a substantial audience who like my stuff. I don't see a lot of people enjoying those particular comics nor do I even want to many of those in the wrong hands. It was very important that I controlled the distribution on the Isolation Chamber minicomics. I have some stories that I'm working on that I think may appeal to a decent number of people and I'm also pretty certain that most other cartoonists aren't qualified to handle the particular subjects I want to deal with, which is the only reason to devote a year or more on a book in my opinion. My collaborations are a completely separate thing. Those are stories that I would never be able to tell on my own, which is the only reason to collaborate in my opinion. It's fun to work with Pekar because the guy is not a taskmaster at all with me and I don't think of our working together as odd by any means. I'm young, I'm going to have plenty of time to do my own comics. I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.

SEQUART: What subjects are those that you think you're particularly qualified to handle or are specially interested in?

PISKOR: I don't want to go into much detail but I will say that I guarantee you I know more about computer/telephone hacking than any decent cartoonist working today, and this is going to play a major part in the next big project that I'm currently writing and can't wait to produce after the Macedonia book.

WORKING WITH HARVEY PEKAR ON MACEDONIA

SEQUART: How did you get the gig for Macedonia? I know you turned a couple of stories around very quickly for Harv for Our Movie Year, but what else do you think Harvey saw in your style? What made him pick you in the first place, and what do you think made him pick you for Macedonia? As you know, Harv selects his artists based on the kind of story he writes; what do you think it was about your style that made him think you'd be a good fit.

PISKOR: I think the main reason was that Harv was just impressed with my speed in which I produced the Our Movie Year strips. He likes my artwork and he sees the improvement that is happening to the quality because of the steady workload. I think the evolution of style before his eyes may be interesting to him because it is a topic of conversation between us every now and again. I'm not sure what he saw in me initially to make him want to work with me. I did send him a few autobio strips heavily inspired by him so maybe that was helpful. Even then he was constantly aware of the increasing skill and craft that was visible with each strip I'd send him. I hope I'm not coming across as being too egotistical or something on this particular question. I'm just grasping at straws. I have no clue why the guy likes me or anything.

SEQUART: What sort of reaction did you expect to get from Harv when you sent him your story? What were some of the helpful things people said to you when you sent them your early comics, and who were some of the artists who helped you?

PISKOR: I wasn't even sure I was sending the comics to his actual address. I just saw this address on the front cover of a Dark Horse comic and I couldn't conceptualize why he would have the balls to put a real address on the front cover. It just became part of my routine when I'd send submissions and it was fantastic to actually hear back from the guy. I don't know what I expected, but I can sure tell you I never thought in a million years that I'd be in charge of drawing a whole graphic novel for the guy.

Some of the most helpful people probably don't even remember how encouraging they were to me but it sure meant a lot. I recieved great feedback from Peter Bagge, Bill Griffith, Denis Kitchen, Adrian Tomine, Rick Altergott, Steve Bissette, and a slew of other guys. Not many people were in positions to put my work in print but just by responding to me in constructively critical ways they created some incentive to keep me working on new stuff. There are some really popular guys that give me first dibs on jobs that they have no time to do which is really cool.

SEQUART: Let's get into the process of making Macedonia. What is the nature of the collaboration? Did he do stick-figure layouts of what he wanted first? How much influence did you have on the story and the way pages and panels are composed? Has there been a lot of give-and-take in the creative process? Is Harv very particular about the way things look, or does he give you the story and let you go?

PISKOR: Harvey asked Heather to keep some detailed notes on her trip to the Balkans. She complied with him by providing hundreds of pages for us to create the comic. From her notes Harvey put together his famous stick figure scripts which I received and completely deviated from. Each panel he wrote was so dense there was no room for the characters to breathe and it was very important for me to help pace the story in hopes of making the experience less cumbersome to the reader. There were also spots where I thought some silent panels that were pure storytelling would help the mood of the story. He's given me total carte blanche to tell this story in an interesting way, and so long as it comes across perfectly clear to the reader he is happy. He hasn't asked me to change a thing, which is a huge relief. He's the only experienced guy in comics who would trust a newbie punk like me with such a task.

SEQUART: Did you have any contact with Heather Roberson throughout the process? How did Harvey write the script of the whole experience? Did he use notes, photos, tape recordings, etc? How long did the whole process take, from when he first contacted her, then wrote the script, then gave it to you? How long has it taken to draw, ink & letter it? Did you receive part of the advance for the book deal?

PISKOR: I did provide Heather with pencils of the pages for a while and we'd go back and forth. I wanted her approval on the progress until I was comfortable, and she was very happy to criticize. Heather did provide Harvey with plenty of notes and dialogue suggestions for the story. It was a breeze for him to write. She also provided me with a bunch of photos of all important buildings from the book. He wrote the story as I drew it. I can tell you that around MOCCA 2005 I had penciled about 20 pages and as of this interview it's around (or shortly after) MOCCA 2006 and we pretty much have the thing wrapped up in a bun so my conservative guess is that it took us a year and a half from the time her notes were taken. I'm not sure exactly when Harvey first met Heather though. I actually was fortunate to receive a page rate on this book, which I'm very lucky for since this is a rare thing to come by in alt comics. Harv is taking great care of me on this book, and I won't soon forget it. I'm gonna have the funds to draw my own comics and live without having to shovel crap at some 9-to-5 gig for a while.

SEQUART: It seems the biggest challenge you must have had in drawing the book was taking a relatively static story and try to make it interesting. The first 20 or so pages are a whole lot of medicine for an audience to swallow, as Heather basically delivers a lecture on Macedonian history to her boyfriend. Yet you try to break this up by seeing them go through their day: driving, cooking, eating etc. Were you trying to give the reader something to look at, and was this your idea or Harv's?

PISKOR: It was my idea to try and keep the characters moving. The Harv script is very undetailed when it comes to setting, character direction or situation a lot of the times and this batch of pages was a perfect example. Thanks for bringing it up. In the wrong hands this part of the story could have just ended up being 20 pages of talking heads filibustering to one another. This part of the story was a tough one to set, because it does boil down to a 20 page conversation. At least the words are interesting or else we'd have trouble.

SEQUART: What was it like for you as a huge Pekar fan to work with him? What was he like to work with?

PISKOR: It stokes me out. I really never expected the guy to get back in touch with me after I sent those initial strips. I thought that he was probably deluged with slimy jerks pursuing him for work and thought my work would be in that shuffle. Whenever he calls me up, it flat out makes my day because the guy is an important creator to me. It's a blast working with him.

SEQUART: Last question of my interrogation. Early in the book, Harvey points out the elephant in the room when he talks about Joe Sacco. How much of an influence was Sacco on how you did the book, and how do you think the overall experience of Macedonia compares to Sacco's work? I find it very interesting that someone as pessimistic as Harv would think to focus on the mirror image of what Sacco does (go to some of the worst sites of conflict on the planet and figure out what's going on)--it's very hopeful in its own way. And it fits in with the guarded optimism at the end of Our Cancer Year, with the various youths from war-torn parts of the world coming together. What does working on Macedonia mean to you as an artist?

PISKOR: I love Sacco's work, but I consciously didn't look at his stuff since Harv first mentioned this project. I think if our book is compared to Sacco, there is now way for ours to hold water to that guy, because the stories he does are much more intimate to him. I'm a suburban kid from Pittsburgh, who's never been out of the eastern time zone, working from photographs and a script. It's possible our story would be much richer if I would have made the pilgrimage to the Balkans, but I'm sure the publisher wouldn't fit the bill on that. I also do think our story is very different in more ways than it is similar. One example is the overall journalistic approach that Sacco is known for, our story is pure Harvey Pekar in that the conversations that Heather has with people carry the story. The book doesn't have any spiritual value to me but it is the culmination of a lot of hard work and gives me a decent sense of accomplishment. Hopefully this is the beginning of a long, fruitful career.

Sequart Reprints: 10 Great Minis From MoCCA 2005

This article was originally published in 2005 at sequart.com. It was my first-ever column on minicomics.
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Readers only vaguely familiar with the concept of mini-comics will be relieved to know that it's nearly impossible to pin down what is and isn't a mini-comic. Generally, they are small (but not always), usually relatively brief (anywhere between 8 and 80 pages), hand-made, frequently self-published, and often with personal touches like silk-screened covers, hand-stitched bindings, etc. Often, they serve as a sort of proving ground for young and/or inexperienced artists, though there are several accomplished artists who publish nothing but minicomics. The line between minicomics and zines is often blurred, but they often share similar content, a similar aesthetic, and the same sort of autobiographical self-expression.

The ten mini-comics I picked for this list were chosen based on how substantial they were (I skipped over some worthy 8-12 page minis simply because there wasn't enough "there" there), notable aesthetic or narrative qualities (preferably both), and formal elements unique to the world of minicomics. The artists range from absolute newcomers to those who have books from major publishers.

1. VAGABONDS #1.5: OF TWO MINDS, by Josh Neufeld (http://www.JoshComix.com). $2, 16 pages. Neufeld recently won a Xeric grant for A FEW PERFECT HOURS, distributed by Alternative. It's a collection of travel comics he had done over the years in his two-man anthology, KEYHOLE, and various other places. But Neufeld is also well known for doing a number of collaborative works (AMERICAN SPLENDOR the highest profile), and this mini is an exceptional collection of such stories. Neufeld adapts the poetry of several authors to comics, the most notable being "Time of Arrival". This is a single page with a 4x6 panel grid arrangement. The entire grid taken as a whole is an airplane, and Neufeld chops up the words of the poem into individual panels that comprise the plane. It's a clever formal trick and an effective means of getting across the poem's intent. Neufeld also did a story drawn with his non-dominant hand, imagining that such a person existed in his mirror and setting the story from the point of view of that character, and also draws a page using dialogue from an issue of Superman and completely recontextualizes its meaning with his new art. The mini is attractively packaged and extensively notated.

2. SATISFACTORY COMICS #6, by Isaac Cates & Mike Wenthe (isaac.cates@aya.yale.edu). $3, 28 pages plus extras. Full disclosure: Mike Wenthe is a long-time friend of mine. However, the work that he and his partner have produced speaks for itself. The duo has long thrived on experimentation with the form for their attractive minis, with other participants drawing panels for inclusion, providing built-in story constraints or throwing in random elements for the Cates-Wenthe team to work into their stories. As one might expect, jam comics are frequently better in theory than in practice, and some of their stories suffer from a lack of narrative cohesion. However, their output in the last year or so has shown considerable and sustained growth. Their latest effort is so jam-packed with different kinds of stories, ideas and clever geegaws that the result is a sort of miniature version of the comics issue of McSweeney's that Chris Ware edited. This issue features two comics based on a map created by a group of creators; an autobiographical story about online game addiction; a detective story wherein each page must mirror the form of a stanza of a sestina; an adaptation of Job 41, and a minicomic tucked into the front cover and a random shuffle comic paperclipped into the back.

3. NO PUNCHBACKS, by Kelly Denato & Christine Nimocks (http://www.nopunchbacks.com). $5, 28 pages. Amazingly, this is the debut comic for this duo, although initially No Punchbacks Press contained more contributors. Denato is an animator by trade, and it shows in her story, "Nanni-Nanni Boo-Boo". It's a wordless tale about a man who buys a bird and a fish from a pet shop whom are already friends, and how the fish is taken away. Her style resembles CHUNKY RICE-era Craig Thompson and Sara Varon, with a clean, assured line creating a cartoony world. Nimocks is a fine artist whose style and content is radically different than Denato's. She employs a scribbly line and deals with more autobiographical subjects, including internet dating. This is a remarkably accomplished first comic, with attractive packaging and smart storytelling. Interestingly, the duo was inspired by past visits to MoCCA to create their own comic.

4. SEE SAW, by Sara Edward-Corbett (http://www.greenfog.com, http://www.partykausa.com). $8, 35 pages plus extras. The artist is the most impressive member of the Partyka collective, and her strips here are reprinted from the New York Press. She uses a thin, precise line but balances this with heavy blacks and cross-hatching, giving these tales of schoolchildren an extra weight. The strips are about brother & sister Georgie & Olga, psychopathic Chucky and lovesick Meals. Georgie is an ultra-intelligent little nebbish, while his sister is constantly paranoid. Her dreams of being killed by a gangster octopus (complete with mask) are vivid, and while we feel her fear, the whole set-up is still hilarious. The comic is hand-stitched, with a "cootie-catcher" enclosed in the back.

5. APOLLO ASTRO #9: JOURNEY OF GEORGE, by Jack Turnbull. (http://www.jackturnbull.com). $5, 30 pages. Turnbull abandons his anthology-style for his mini and devotes an issue to his Walking George Potato character. The simplicity of the George and Veggie characters are balanced by Turnbull's lavish backgrounds and the Dreaded Bellpepper Storm Toucan, not to mention a gorgeous silkscreened cover It's a simple story, well-told, that owes as much to Dr Seuss as it does to Chris Ware. Turnbull's biggest strength is his ability to draw out every ounce of expression from his characters using just a few lines. He took a chance using characters that had mostly inhabited one-off strips and plugged them into a larger narrative, and it worked well. This issue is part one of a larger story.

6. COUCH TAG #2, by Jesse Reklaw. (http://www.hobocomics.com). $2, 20 pages. Reklaw is the artist of the syndicated dream strip, SLOW WAVE. This mini has a simple premise: it's about the thirteen different cats Reklaw had during his childhood. What makes this such a great read is that this is really an autobiographical account of his family, but telling it through the device of when certain pets were around and making that the focus of the narrative makes the side details all the more intriguing. Little touches like designing different logos for each cat's introduction and skipping long periods of time between pets make this a great read.

7. THESE THINGS THESE THINGS, by Jeffrey Brown. (http://www.theholyconsumption.com). $4, 36 pages. Brown's scratchy art style and his focus on his love life in his major works for Top Shelf have made him a love him or leave him sort of artist. Personally, I can't get enough of his comics and their lack of adornment when dealing with major drama. Beyond his graphic novels, his minis are often just as compelling for very different reasons. Brown lets his sense of humor show more in his minis, and tells different kinds of stories. This mini deals with some of the events in ANY EASY INTIMACY, providing a sort of closure as Brown deals with yet another broken relationship, the quest to find the artist who performed a particular song, and a book tour with some fellow artists.

8. SUMMA CUM LAUDE, by Eve Englezos & Josh Moutray. (http://www.icecreamlandia.com). 10 pages. The comics that this duo creates are unlike anything else out there today. This latest work, a little bridge between issues of the sublimely strange Icecreamlandia, is designed to look like a minature diploma case. As you open it up, the pages fold out accordian-style, revealing a bizarre science fair. For some reason, the adults are all in 18th century aristocratic dress (complete with powdered wigs and corsets). The dialogue follows from this absurd set-up ("Why, yes, it seems pretty obvious to me now that the dinosaurs were in 3-D.") As always, the realistic, clear-line art belies the insanity of the set-up.

9. A CASE IN TOKYO, by Damien Jay. $10, 22 pages. This comic wins the "most beautiful mini" award, hands-down. Printed on a heavy cardstock and hand-assembled, the coloring process used to illustrate this creepy little story makes the whole thing feel like a children's book gone horribly wrong. The story describes a mental patient who in fact may be possessed, and the momentary clarity she displayed in this state. Her clarity was so incisive that everyone couldn't stand to be around her, until the spell faded and "she became a stupid person once again." While a very quick read, the visuals alone make this a worthwhile purchase. Jay gets the most out of the minicomic format, using every hand-crafted trick in the book.

10. ISOLATION CHAMBER #2, by Ed Piskor (wimpyrutherford@hotmail.com). $1.50, 16 pages. Of the comics on this list, this is the only diary strip. Diary strips (much like personal zines or blogs) can get boring quickly if the author simply devotes it to standard quotidian concerns. It's important to establish some sort of angle early on to differentiate it from other kinds of autobiography. Piskor does this through establishing his voice loud and clear in the early going: he's a curmudgeon who knows a lot of strange people, and isn't afraid to dish. He manages to inject sincerity into his description of his relationship with his baby sister without seeming overly sentimental. He struggles with what to put in his journal and what to censor, some interesting interactions with his parents, and a local group of comics creators. There are weird stories about his interactions with junkies, talks with Harvey Pekar and his feelings about becoming semi-famous. At the end, Piskor announces that the cartoon journal took up all of his time and discontinued it--an interesting statement in itself. Piskor is a real talent and has an interesting voice; it'll be interesting to see what he does after he finishes up his work with Harvey Pekar.

TCJ Post #29: Wizzywig Volume 3: Fugitive

Rob reviews the third volume of Ed Piskor's hacker saga WIZZYWIG, titled FUGITIVE, over at the Comics Journal.

High-Low At SPX and 12 Artists To Seek Out

I will be at SPX, perhaps the premier alt-comics event, this Saturday, September 26th in Bethesda, MD. I'll be part of the Critics' Roundtable at 3:30pm in the Brookside Conference Room, along with Gary Groth, Douglas Wolk, Sean T. Collins, Chris Mautner, Tucker Stone and Joe "Jog" McCulloch and moderator Bill Kartalopolous. I really enjoyed last year's panel and I'm looking forward to having a discussion with so many esteemed critics. I'll also be hosting a Debut Cartoonists panel, spotlighting new work by Hans Rickheit (THE SQUIRREL MACHINE), Eleanor Davis (THE SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE), Ken Dahl (MONSTERS), and the great Zak Sally (LIKE A DOG).

Here's my annual list of artists to seek out at the con. This is obviously not any sort of exhaustive list of artists that I like or will seek out on my own. Consider it a survey of new artists, significant artists making their first appearance at SPX, artists with interesting new releases, artists deserving greater exposure and folks whose work I simply admire.

1. John Porcellino. One of the greatest exemplars of minicomics as a viable format of their own, separate from potential collections. He'll have not just a collection of KING-CAT out from Drawn & Quarterly called MAP OF MY HEART, he'll also have a brand-new issue of the series. SPX is one of the first stops on his extensive book tour of the country celebrating his 20th anniversary of his career. His extremely spare line is a testament to how one can be devastatingly expressive using a minimalist style. Porcellino will also have original art for sale. This is his first appearance at the con since 1997, and a generation of cartoonists has been strongly influenced by his approach. He will have a 2pm spotlight on Saturday in the White Flint Amphitheater and will be signing at the D&Q table on Saturday from 11:30-1pm and Sunday from 1-3pm. Sally will moderate the spotlight session, and I should note that he's most certainly another artist to seek out.

2. Colleen Frakes. One of my favorite graduates from the Center For Cartoon Studies (along with Chuck Forsman, Sean Ford and the rest of the Sundays gang), Frakes' recent WOMAN KING was simultaneously lovely and disturbing. I'd also seek out her older TRAGIC RELIEF minicomics.

3. Carol Tyler. One of the greatest working cartoonists makes her SPX debut. Her YOU'LL NEVER KNOW is my top comic of the year. She'll be signing at the Fantagraphics booth on Saturday from 12-2pm and Sunday from 2-4pm. Tyler is also a delightful storyteller, so be sure to check out her spotlight on Sunday at 1pm in the White Flint Amphitheater.

4. Josh Neufeld. This long-time SPX attendee is basking in the glow of the well-earned acclaim that his AD: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE has received. One of the best books of the year, Neufeld will have his own spotlight panel on Sunday at 2pm. Neufeld is a perfect example of a generation of cartoonists whose career dovetailed with SPX, going from self-published minis to illustrating Harvey Pekar to his own series with small publishers to a book deal with Pantheon.

5. Ken Dahl. Also known as Gabby Schulz, Ken Dahl has an acidic sense of humor and stunning chops. He will be debuting MONSTERS, a collection of stories about herpes, at the show, and will be on the panel I mentioned above. Simply put, Dahl is one of the best cartoonists to emerge from this decade.

6 Dina Kelberman. IMPORTANT COMICS was one of the weirder and more compelling minis I read this year. Her comics have a sort of absurdist quality that I admire, and the way she uses unusual page & panel compositions with a minimalist line is unusual. She'll be part of the Aesthetics of Mini-Comics panel on Sunday at 4:30pm.

7. Ed Piskor. Piskor is unusual in that he's a young artist heavily influenced by the underground generation (as opposed to the alt-cartoonists of the 80s and 90s). He's also had an opportunity to work with legends like Jay Lynch and Harvey Pekar, but his own voice is unique. He's taken his underground sensibilities to write about another underground culture: hackers. Seek out the first two volumes of his WIZZYWIG and watch him on his Source-Based Comics panel at 1:30pm on Saturday.

8. Eleanor Davis. Davis is another artist on my short list of "best emerging talents of the decade" thanks to her compelling minicomics and short stories in MOME. Her Toon Books entry, STINKY, was one of the best comics of last year. Her new book, THE SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE, is aimed at older kids, which makes sense given her style of art.

9. Jon Vermilyea. Eric Reynolds discovered his minicomics at San Diego a few years ago, and his subsequent comics for MOME have been simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Like Dahl, Vermilyea has incredible chops and a flair for the grotesque.

10. Jeff Zwirek. His BURNING BUILDING COMIX, an Ivan Brunetti-inspired work, was one of the more clever comics I read last year. I'd recommend getting every issue to fully appreciate the level of detail he puts into his gag work.

11. Will Dinski. Dinski gets my vote for best currently self-published artist. His new comic, COVERED IN CONFUSION, is typical of his recent remarkable hot streak: funny, dark, tragic and uniquely formatted. Someone needs to give him a book deal.

12. Matthew Thurber. Thurber's 1-800-MICE is one of the best comics of the decade. That about sums it up. It's an exemplar of comics that have a lot of genre elements, humor, deeper themes, dense plots, absurdist elements and unforgettable characters. Seek him out at the Picturebox booth.

Trespassing: WIZZYWIG Volume 2

Rob reviews the second volume of Ed Piskor's hacker epic WIZZYWIG, titled HACKER (self-published).


Ed Piskor is one of my favorite young cartoonists, in part because his subject matter is such a left turn away from his peers. He's also unusual in that he takes a lot of his inspiration directly from underground artists like Robert Crumb and Jay Lynch, as opposed to more contemporary influences. His most recent project, WIZZYWIG, is a scrupulously-researched fictionalized account of the history and culture of phone phreaking and computer hacking. The series' protagonist, Kevin "Boingthump" Phenicle, is a composite character inspired by a number of famous hackers. This volume, HACKER, moved Kevin from his phone "phreaking" (illegally accessing phone lines) to hacking after he acquired his first personal computer.



Piskor used a variety of narrative strategies to keep readers invested in Kevin's story, even if they don't have a particular interest in the subject. He managed this with time jumps (seeing Kevin in prison in the future even as we follow him as a teen), a harsh and accusatory second person narrative device, a "free Kevin" radio show hosted by his friend Winston, a series of interviews with other hackers familiar with the legend of Boingthump, a muck-raking TV investigative reporter, as well as dialogue-driven episodes. For a story that mostly involved a lot of sitting around computers, Piskor always found a way to propel his narrative forward. When his characters had conversations, Piskor often had them walking and in different poses from panel to panel--anything to keep a reader's eyes moving across the page.


My favorite aspect of Piskor's art is his character design. He revels in the grotesque, creating characters with slumping postures, unkempt hair, shaggy eyebrows, and bad skin. Kevin's frequently blank eyes reflect both his slightly sociopathic nature and a Little Orphan Annie/Harold Gray tribute. Kevin is very much a "can-do" character like Annie, using his wits and skills to outfox adults. For Kevin, skirting the law was more a matter of testing the limits of his abilities than any real desire to cause harm, whether it was ripping off software for redistribution or delving into the deepest bowels of the phone company. Unlike Annie, Kevin wound up paying for his mischief in the harshest manner imaginable.


Piskor's attention to detail is exacting in giving the reader a sort of survey of the history of hacking and the internet. With his TRS-80 computer, Kevin hooked into early bulletin board systems (BBSs) but quickly grew bored, even when screwing with a particular BBS whose members hated him (as an aside, having a member with the ID "Godwin's law" who compared Boingthump to the Nazis was a stroke of genius). This led him to copying game software for quick resale, but a virus he stuck into each game as a joke ("Boingthump owns your soul, sucka!") wound up as an augur of his eventual doom (as well as getting his ass kicked in the short term by angry gamers). When a teacher of Kevin's invites him to be part of an inaugural computer science course at his high school, Piskor inserts the narrative of a jealous classmate who rattles off some more of Kevin's hijinks. Kevin later managed to talk his way into the phone company's inner office to steal all sorts of useful information, which he used in small ways (altering bills, charging phone sex numbers to people's lines, etc) for his own amusement. That is, until he learned that the phone company was aware of his computer accessing theirs, which sent the FBI after Kevin.


The sequence where we see Kevin try to deal with life on a day-to-day basis in prisonwas harrowing, and Piskor added the extra detail of encouraging the reader to go back to his strip about prison life about 240 more times in a row to get a sense of what it was like for him. The book took on a darker tone at this point, with fewer short vignettes and gags. We simply follow Kevin around as he tried to stay employed following prison while still being able to play around on the side with various programs. When he realized that one of his programs had been tampered with and another worm released, Kevin understood that he was in real trouble. The book ends as he's on the run, a far cry from his care-free days in front of his computer.

I'm excited to see this series build to its conclusion, especially given that the next volume, FUGITIVE, will feature Kevin finding ways to skirt the system once again, this time in trying to find a way to survive without getting caught by the authorities. As a reader, we already know that he will eventually slip up again and wind up back in prison, and I'm curious to see how Piskor will resolve Kevin's case in the final volume (INMATE). The whole series has been a way of fictionalizing interesting anecdotes regarding information access, so seeing a tutorial on subjects like how to create a new identity will be interesting to read.