31 Days Of CCS, #32: Less Than Secret

I enjoy anthologies that are a true team effort. This is something that's one of the major first-year requirements at CCS, as students are split into teams to make an anthology in a particular style, like Golden Age adventure or romance comics or 90s style Shonen Jump manga work. Because most alternative cartoonists are solo acts, forcing this kind of collaboration can be useful and teach a lot of lessons. Less Than Secret is an anthology from several CCS grads and several other cartoonists. Beyond their contributions in terms of the stories they drew, many of the book's cartoonists had other duties related to publishing. 

CCS grads Rainer Kannenstine and Ben Wright-Heumann served as its publishers. They were there to make sure the book was on schedule, obtain funding and consider distribution. JD Laclede was the editor, working directly with talent and sequencing the stories. Erienne McCray did the design, while Kelci Crawford acted as the crowdfunding manager. Angela Boyle was an anthology consultant, which makes sense considering her years assembling the Awesome Possum anthology. That collective sense of responsibility on what was clearly a labor of love is present and strengthens the overall anthology. 

The theme here is cryptids, or animals that some people claim to exist but whose existence has never been proven. It's fitting that Steve Bissette, the master monster-maker, penned a funny intro explaining his interest in monsters from a young age. Crawford's "A Day In The Life Of Mothman" is played for laughs, as a woman is followed by the legendary creature, whose presence foretells potential disaster. However, she can sense him, and it allows her to prevent a guy from being killed by a car, avoiding a fight at a diner, and preventing her from eating a bad hot dog. Crawford's line is crisp and expressive, with a lot of grayscale shading to add weight to the page. 

McCray's comic about the "Fresno Nightcrawler" (essentially a big baseball with legs) is also played for laughs, as this cryptid is more ridiculous than scary. They added a nice touch having the Loch Ness Monsters as its roommate and Bigfoot taunt it. McCray's line is fluid and a nice match for the kind of dynamic silliness that this ridiculous creature (wearing a fedora, even!) demands. Wright-Heumann is a horror guy, and he did a sort of Western/fantasy fusion with a family of Elves fending off a group of chupacabra mysteriously attacking them. The ending is grimly clever. His scratchy line was appropriate for the subject matter, though the extensive use of grayscale was distracting at times. This was a story that cried out for color. 

I'm not crazy about comics that insert huge blocks of typewritten text, but Angela Boyle's cartooning is so sharp in her story of the odd little elwetritsch that it wasn't too distracting. Moreover, using that text as the main character's interior monologue actually made this a useful device, commenting on the comic set around it. Boyle manages to sneak an entire murder mystery into this little comic with an unassuming old woman and her strange "pet." Ian Klesch and Andrew Small's story about how a lycanthrope used a dating app to fool a woman into being his prey was funny and grisly. The figure drawing was crude at points in a way that was distracting, and some of that was due to over-drawing in an effort to bolster a shaky line. 

Rainer Kannenstine's piece about the Dover Demon went in yet another direction: how messing with weird cryptids is likely to bite you in the ass in horrible ways. It's the story of a bully who attacks the creature in the forest with a ball, then gets his head crushed in revenge. He used some digital effects in interesting ways, including a "syrup brush" for some of the background fills that added to the story's atmosphere. Jess Johnson had perhaps the silliest story in the book, as an emo kid is befriended by his sister's new boyfriend: "JD," or the infamous Jersey Devil. Johnson turned the creature into an actual hockey player and made this a romance/family story where everyone took JD's presence for granted. It's hard not to see Johnson's strong shojo manga influence, giving this a radically different look and feel from the other stories in the anthology. However, it's not a slavish adherence to the style; rather, it's a launching point into Johnson's own style. 

There's plenty of backmatter in the anthology, including full biographies and behind-the-scenes stuff that's somewhat interesting, but at 20 pages (compared to 90 pages for the rest of the book) it feels like a lot of padding. That said, the interviews asking each creator why they chose their cryptid, their creative methods, etc. was at least thoughtfully done. Overall, this is a breezy anthology that I wished had been a bit longer. 

31 Days Of CCS #19: Brainworm 3-5

Brainworm continues to distinguish itself as part of the continuum of CCS anthologies led by students over the years. So much of the CCS experience encompasses opportunities that are difficult to come by later in one's career, and the ability to easily collaborate is one of them. Having access to one's peers as critics, accountability partners, and creative partners as part of a difficult but rewarding experience is one of the biggest draws of living in White River Junction. There's also often an urge for a creative person when faced with an assignment or deadline to want to work on anything except their assignment. I've always had the sense that being able to blow off steam like that in a creative and productive way is a big reason why there have been so many anthologies at CCS over the years, but I'd also imagine having the opportunity to make something as good as Irene or Sundays presents its own challenge.

Brainworm's editor is Kat Ghastly, a second-year student. One can always tell that Ghastly's got a lot of different gears going, and her ability to wrangle consistently solid and interesting contributions is a credit to her as an editor. Brainworm is also a record of sorts that touches four different graduating classes, giving it its own unique identity regarding a specific period of time. Each issue is themed, and the third issue's theme is "Surprises." There are some fun incidental drawings from Leise Hook and Emily Zea, followed by a cute strip from Erienne McCray. The latter involves an octopus trying to get adopted as a pet, and McCray's line and use of blacks drives the cute factor home. Katz's strip combining the myth of Noah and the Trojan War was absolutely hilarious, especially with regard to the mumbled dialogue.

Cuteness and weirdness are interspersed neatly by the editors throughout the comic. Emma Hunsinger's dryly humorous bit about a skeleton woman who maintains high-fashion status is its own self-reflective commentary. Surprise monster payoffs from A.C. Rooks and Rainer Kannenstine mash that cute/horror dichotomy effectively. There's a long series of drawings from a number of artists for a "Trickster Battle Royal" that looks like it was drawn on post-it notes, but the reproduction was too small to discern most of the details. That's too bad, because there seemed to be a lot of clever ideas here. The two MVPs of the issue are Kristen Shull and Tim Patton. The former's autobio comics are among the most heartfelt and authentic I've read, especially with regard to sex and relationships. This one's about the horrible feeling of knowing that someone is in love with you when you don't feel the same way in a casual relationship. Patton's scrawled pencils start with a cutesy metaphor about a monster eating orange-creatures and then quickly turns the subtext into text by way of narrative captions. The reader is informed that all of his comics are really all about sex, love, and above all else: survival. "Absurdist constraints" are just there to hold into place that essential idea of barely being able to hold it all together, with one's vices both helping and hurting. This is as raw as it gets and Patton goes all the way while using an interesting layout that also harmonizes his text with funny drawings.

The theme for #3 is "Bad Romance," which is a wheelhouse category for a number of these contributors. Issy Manley's story takes the theme and bends it first toward romance comics tropes and then to EC horror comics. Of course, it's all about a relatively mundane event (power going out in winter, neighbor being sent to help) that's ratcheted up in everyone's imaginations to create tension and paranoia. Katz's comic uses a combination of extremely spare cartooning in some parts of its open page layout and then beautifully intricate linework to tell the story of an old woman receiving care from a volunteer. The story grows increasingly strange until the truly bizarre climax. Not surprisingly, Shull's comic on the subject is excellent. This is less about a specific relationship and more about her relationship between herself and her own body as she felt herself aging a little. More to the point, it's about the persona she felt she created in response to her feeling less desirable; it worked so well in attracting friends and lovers that she felt it wasn't ever really "her;" she had become her own shadow. Shull's line is perfectly suited for this kind of story. It's clear and slightly cartoony without being overly stylized.

Catalina Rufin, Jess Johnson, and Liz Young all tell variations of the same story. It's about younger versions of themselves finding themselves in abusive relationships where partners told them what to do, what to like, and what to say. They were demeaned and insulted. For each artist, they had to find their own journey to self-actualization. Johnson's story is interesting because she was so shaken by her experience that she wasn't even sure what she liked anymore, so she undertook a furious self-tutorial to figure it out that culminated in getting a cute Adventure Time-themed dress. There's also a trio of monster/horror -related strips from Rainer Kannenstine, Tim Patton, and William Prentiss. Ghastly's own strip involves a couple going to hell that feels highly autobiographical.

Issue #5's theme is "Doppelgangers." This was the most interesting and consistent issue to date. Zea and Daniel Foulfellow both use variations on doppelgangers pursuing or threatening the original versions with dramatic tension. Ivy Allie takes that idea and turns it on its head in a hilarious way. Lillie J. Harris' story about a brother and his twin is a story I've already reviewed back in her recent entry on High-Low, but I wanted to note how it really anchored the rest of the issue, along with Andi Santagata's "The Time Knife". Johnson and Shull both offer stories about how apparently twin versions of themselves were wandering around town, but Johnson at least met hers in real life while Shull was left wondering if they blacked out and dressed like a banana for a weekend.

Tristan Scilipoti's "What It's Like To Have Sex With Yourself" starts as an "erotic visual essay" but winds up being about dysmorphia and self-loathing. It's an unflinching, raw story. Ghastly's "Horrorshow" is about that feeling of "someone else driving the bus" when feeling disconnected and detached from the world. Patton's "Gemini" strip is a variation on Aristophanes' speech on androgyny from Plato's Symposium (humans being one being split into two). Coco Fox's strip about a murderous doppelganger takes a hilarious turn with a beautifully expressive line. Overall, the balance between horror, comedy, and personal stories made this the most fully-realized issue of Brainworm to date.

31 Days Of CCS #13: Nhi Luu, Jess Johnson, Donna Almendrala, Kori Michele Handwerker

Nhi Luu is a first-year CCS student, and her mini Latchkey Kids serves as a preview of a larger work. She uses a thick, expressive line that's also quite scribbly in this story of two sisters who find themselves lost in a haunted hotel. Not much more than the premise is established in the mini, but Luu lets us know that the older sister is dissatisfied to be on a working vacation with her parents, and the younger sister is a kid who wants to have fun. The undercurrent of anxiety and dread that emanates from K.C. (the older sister) when her parents don't answer their phones and haven't returned by midnight is a palpable one. It's that kind of existential fear felt when a loved one is away and you're terrified they might die. It's also unclear what's going on in the hotel, but there's a late scene that's both funny and creepy: when Mai (the younger sister) leaves her crayons to mark their path, hands reach up from under the floorboards to take them away. The thickness of Luu's line would seem to indicate maybe using a color wash later in the process because the figures really cried out for it. The mix of YA familial tension and mystery leaves the reader wanting to know more.

Similarly, Jess Johnson's Student Council Yearbook features bits and pieces of a longer work about a slightly fantastical scenario involving the student council of a school. Of course, Johnson's work is highly informed by manga tropes, so there's a lot of drama, flashy uniforms, and odd relationships. Johnson spots a lot of black into her comics, which adds to that sense of dramatic confrontation. Johnson's line is really thick in this comic, and there are times when it doesn't seem she has total command over that line. Some figures look wobbly and half-formed. There are clearly plenty of ideas here, so hopefully, Johnson can clear things up on the page and also perhaps consider color.

Donna Almendrala graduated from CCS in 2012 and she's worked on all sorts of clever, genre-oriented projects. She's doing these nicely-produced series that have a lot of color touches, focusing on some of her favorite subjects. Food Fanzine #1 isn't just recipes (though that's part of it); it's also stories and memories about food. For example, "Pizza Spaghetti" is a recipe for a rich, meat-based pasta dish. But the story is really about growing up and trying to connect with your far-away family by making beloved dishes. A strip about favorite ice cream flavors is about how eating it can momentarily distract from workplace stressors. The guest spots from Maia Kobabe and Alena Carnes were perfect fits in this kind of emotional narrative surrounding food.

Desert Dreamin' #2 sees Almendrala doing what she does best: draw cute animals. This is the story of a new mother owl who realizes that feeding her kids is going to be way more difficult than she had expected. Almendrala's combination of clear, naturalistic detail and cartoony grasp on motion and exaggeration make this comic a breezy delight. Indeed, the comic's comedic touches take it beyond the realm of simply being cutesy, especially when the owl is struggling.

Kori Michele Handwerker's career has been split between genre stuff, queer (and specifically trans) romance, and comics about the importance of pronouns and other signifiers of identity. Their Books About Gender Make Me Feel A Way is interesting because it's all about Handwerker's struggle with reading other people's experience being trans, in part because are worried about being triggered. More to the point, it's really a comic about what they really want to write about and what they're afraid to write about. Dancing around the issue of just how much ink to spill is difficult for any cartoonist who chooses to work in memoir, but even moreso when navigating these emotional pitfalls. They don't come to any particular conclusions but do wind up reading a book they were avoiding on the subject (Maia Kobabe's Genderqueer). That mere act sparked this particular comic, and it seems clear that it might just be the beginning.

31 Days Of CCS #2: Gilmore Girls Fanzine and Doug Catches Up

A time-honored CCS tradition is creating fanzines for favorite TV shows, bands, and other pop culture. It's a very CCS thing to do, as it's collaborative, it's project-oriented, and it provides a fun way to blow off creative steam when not working on one's thesis. Considering that all of the equipment needed to whip out a comic is available at their fingertips in CCS's amazing lab, the urge for a project like this can be satisfied quickly. It also seems like fellow Keren Katz is at the center of a lot of these projects these days, be it comics or wacky dance performances or musicals. One person can mean a lot to a community as a catalyst, and Katz is truly a miraculous walking whirlwind.

Most of the fanzines from CCS have been about shows I don't know. However, the Gilmore Girls Fanzine (edited by Katz and Jess Johnson) is very much in my wheelhouse as a show I both love and love to hate. Of course, living in a small, quirky Northeastern town like White River Junction makes it easy to relate to the small, quirky setting of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, with its vast array of cranks, weirdoes, dreamers, and artists. The heart and soul of this comic is Jess Johnson, who edited it but also provided a lot of interstitial material to bind its stories together. There's a funny segment imagining Lane, the childhood best friend of Rory, one of the main characters in the show, going deep into different kinds of manga to read in the same effortless, encyclopedic way she knows about rock. Johnson even ties this into Lane joining a comics circle in the same way she joined a band in the show.

Natalie Wardlaw zeroes in on Rory's romantic life and all of the horrible men she dated. She turned up the angst and even the undercurrent of physical threat presented by her Stars Hollow boyfriend Dean, based on a scene where he tangled with a bad boy at Rory's private school.  Rachel Ford's funny story digs in on the small character details and makes fun of the way that Lorelai, the mother of Rory, pretends to be humble but secretly revels in her relative glamorousness in town. Julia Alekseyeva talks in all seriousness about how seeing a bookish girl on television was very important to her as a teen, and she longed to have the same kind of relationship with her mother that Rory did with Lorelai. Pop culture and simply having the feeling of being seen can have a powerful effect.

Of course, funny strips by Emma Hunsinger and Kat Ghastly balanced that devotion as they imagined what the show was like, having never watched it. Ghastly imagined that cannibalism eventually would become a plot point. Isabel Manley and Ortal Avraham both get at the heart of the show: that putative protagonists Rory and Lorelai are both self-centered narcissists in the same way that Lorelai's mother Emily is. The tenor of this fanzine is at once loving, devoted, skeptical, and mocking: a perfect description of the Gilmore Girls fanbase. Now, pardon me while I start my essay on why Rory and Lorelai were the real villains of the series...

Kori Michele Handwerker and Pat L's Doug Catches Up is less a fanzine than it is fan-fiction, imagining an older Doug Funnie returning to his old town of Bluffington years after he had moved away. Doug was an interesting cartoon in the way that it addressed pre-teen angst and issues in a direct, honest manner, even if its visuals and details were absurd and cartoony. That's lost a bit in this black and white comic (although the cover preserves it), but the creators otherwise remain true to the spirit of the show. Doug has a long talk with his former bully, Roger, where he reveals that he's bisexual and engaged to another old friend of Doug's named Chalky. The entire comic has a tone of gentle forgiveness, understanding, and self-examination. As Handwerker notes in the afterword, the comic isn't a manifesto about the true nature of the show's characters or about forgiving bullies; rather, it's a logical extrapolation of how some of the kids might have turned out and dealing with issues that are more openly spoken about in today's culture (like coming out, or coming out as trans and using different pronouns). The artists really nail the visual style of the show to such a degree that this could easily serve as an updated version of the show.

Thirty One Days Of CCS #17: Jess Johnson, Angela Boyle

The Odds Are Good Vol. 1 and Ragna Rock, by Jess Johnson. Johnson has a fun, propulsive and high-energy style that moves her comics along at an agreeable clip, no matter what the genre. All of this is aided by a strong sense of comedic timing. The first issue of The Odds Are Good is a romance comic, or rather the beginning of a "very long story of a very strange date". The protagonist, Daisy, is asked out on a date by someone she considers to be a friend, not a potential sexual partner, and she "bluescreens" and says yes. When she learns that he's been into her for years, she's horrified. Johnson takes that awkwardness and runs with it, incorporating all sorts of pop culture references and a wide array of visual tricks that heighten and comment on the situation on hand. For example, she uses Pokemon captions to narrate Henry running across her in the kitchen, as "Wild HENRY appeared!" that eventually results in a brain meltdown where she starts babbling about a mutual show they liked--which she feels leads him on even further. Johnson's art is informed by a number of different influences, including manga and a variety of different webcomics series, but she's not defined by any of them in particular. Instead, what's clear is that she's a skilled storyteller who packs a lot of images into each page and panel without losing clarity.

Ragna Rock is a post-apocalyptic comic that offers little in the way of backstory and doesn't need it. Instead, the reader is slowly fed information about its four female protagonists and their mission--delivering a "package" to a certain location as they navigate alien invader-infested areas. This is a comic defined not just by character, but by relationships, as Johnson extensively flexes perhaps her best skill--creating witty dialogue in the form of banter. There are plenty of well-designed action set pieces that mix in well with said banter, which only enhances the action. The big reveal at the end of the story ("the package") was clever and fit in with the "never say die" ethos of the characters. Overall, there's a fluidity to Johnson's story telling that makes it a great fit for serialized and extended storylines.

Artema The Exile #1 by Rachel Cholst and Angela Boyle. Boyle was an interesting choice to illustrate a genre fantasy story, but it works because of her background in doing stories about nature. The comic starts at the end, where an elderly version of the titular character is standing before her (unstated) goal, then it flips back to her childhood. She's part of a people called the Komai'i, who live in a sustaining land  called Chema'i. The story begins when Artema receives her name from the land as a child, and continues through her training as a warrior. This is in contrast to her mother, who is a healer. There are two key moments in the story: first, when Artema falters in her first combat and gets injured; and second, when a humiliated Artema takes revenge and slaughters a tent full of her enemies unawares. The latter went against her people's beliefs, hence the "exile" part of the title.

This issue was mostly just premise-setting and world-building. However, Cholst and Boyle also do a lot of nice character work with Artema. She's an iconoclast who's quick to anger. She finds it hard to accept her people's law that they can never strike first or fight in anger. She beats up a guy who says women are inferior warriors. Boyle gives her great backgrounds to work against: craggy mountains, gloomy caves, and vast deserts. Her character work is a little stiff at times in terms of showing figures moving and interacting with others in space. However, she has a nice sense of the dramatic when it comes time to the battle scenes, with several striking poses that set the tone for what was at stake. I don't have a real sense of where the story's going yet, but I'm guessing Cholst will continue to test Artema's violent nature against the beliefs she was taught.