D&Q; R.Sikoryak's Terms And Conditions

Reading Robert Sikoryak's Terms and Conditions is like if Marcel Duchamp had decided to start doing comics. It's at once a shaggy dog joke and a work that pushes at the boundaries of the comics form. I've read plenty of abstract comics, but the emphasis there is narrative abstraction from a visual perspective. I've also read plenty of comics that remove images and play strictly with the form in terms of panel-to-panel and page-to-page flow with the words playing against that bit of formal experimentation. What Sikoryak does here is have page after page of recognizable, narrative imagery stripped of meaning not by removing text or adding nonsense text, but rather by replacing text with the entirety of Apple's terms and conditions for iTunes. The words are entirely coherent and understandable on their own (if incredibly boring, like most terms and conditions), but they have almost no connection to the images chosen to accompany them. The subtitle "A Graphic Novel" is thus even funnier, as Sikoryak intentionally uses the pretentious and market-driven name for long-form comics to describe something that is in no way a graphic novel.

This work is also different from his comics/literature mash-ups, because there he specifically finds ways to tie the visuals into the original source material. The only concession Sikoryak makes here is that on every page, one of the characters is dressed up like former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was well known for his turtlenecks and stubble. All of his dialogue consists of the terms and conditions of iTunes, as he explains them to the other characters on page after page. What started as goof became a mission for Sikoryak, who deliberately wanted to mold the terms and conditions and fit them in the confines of a book in a way that didn't disturb the original sequences that he adapted in the course of the book. Of course, Sikoryak is a gifted style mimic and challenged himself by taking on so many different kinds of comics, from YA comics to classic strips to superheroes to manga to alternative comics to everything in-between. One could see his skill as a mimic wobble from time to time; interestingly, the most notable misfire was an adaptation of a page from Raina Telgemeier's Sisters. There's a purity and smooth clarity to Telgemeier's line that Sikoryak doesn't quite match here, as his line is a bit on the wobbly and wavy side on this page. He also doesn't get the colors quite right. The same is true for his attempt at Jeff Smith's Bone. Another deceptively-simple looking comic is so smooth and balanced (especially in terms of color scheme) that it's actually difficult to mimic in a way that makes it look like Smith's work.

On the other hand, his goof on a page from Brian Vaughn and Fiona Staples' Saga is not only dead-on, he's able to inject some visual humor in the form of the background characters doing all sorts of perverted things with apples. Sikoryak isn't always able to inject that kind of humor into a page, but it seemed like an obvious fit here. He also really nails the alternative comics in particular, like his pages goofing on Peter Bagge's Hate, Daniel Clowes' Wilson and Seth's It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken. It's also funny to see how successfully he's able to mimic Julie Doucet (down to those stray bits of ink) and Lynda Barry. At the opposite end of the spectrum, his Spawn is hilarious, laying bare some of Todd MacFarlane's affectations as an artist. Sikoryak has a list of the creators, comics or comic strips he used as source material in the book, so it's obvious that trying to identity source material was part of the experience. Indeed, there's definitely something that's a bit "inside baseball" about this book, because I imagine handing the book to a non-comics reading person would utterly baffle them.

While he "quotes" mostly popular comics and best-sellers, most of the source material would be a source of frustration instead of humor. There is a level where that doesn't necessarily matter, because he's not just going for recognizability in his work but also a pure aesthetic impact. In other words, as long as the reader recognizes that something is a superhero comic, or a fantasy comic, or a kid's comic, that's enough of an informational hit to enjoy the book at a base level. That said, it's a book made for a comics fan with a decidedly broad knowledge base that extends into modern-day work and YA work. It's also important to note that the satirical and formal trickery of the book are less important than the images themselves, the way each page is designed and the wide variety of character designs. It's a love letter to the elasticity of comics disguised as hate mail to Apple. That love letter is not quite as satisfying as his other, more complicated comics, but it's certainly a lot of fun to look at.

Minicomics Round-Up: Guerra/Diaz, Taylor, Sikoryak, Alvarez, Purins

Rotland Dreadfuls #10: Sadistic Comics, by R.Sikoryak. Sikoryak is the greatest of all style mimics, and his mash-ups of classic literature and comics never fail to amuse. This comic from Ryan Standfest's Rotland Press is a mash-up of The Marquis de Sade's Justine and William Moulton Marston/Harry Peter's Wonder Woman. Using the covers inspired by the 1940s comics, Sikoryak hilariously skims the plot of Justine, transplanting the many terrors she faced into the type of S&M follies that Wonder Woman fell into. Considering That Marston was fascinated by S&M and bondage in particular (hence Wonder Woman constantly getting tied up), this pairing was low-hanging fruit as far as Sikoryak's mash-ups go. That said, it was the details that made it so funny, down to the chicken on "Just Justine's" bodice (symbolic of France) rather than the American eagle, as well as fleur-de-lis instead of stars on her costume. It would have been nice to have seen this in glorious color, but Sikoryak nails so many other details (his ability to match lettering styles in particular has always astounded me) that it scarcely matters.

Berries, by Whit Taylor.This is a lovely and weird encounter between the legendary Jersey Devil and a ruined stockbroker out to lose himself out in the woods. While the usual caveats apply to Taylor's art (the backgrounds in particular are rough), this is still quite a moving comic because of her focus on facial expressions. Even though one of the faces is that of a monstrous, dragon-like creature, Taylor makes sure that to let the reader know that it's a sad, lonely creature who could express kindness and experience camaraderie if only given a chance--especially since it speaks perfect English. This story is really a mutual expression and expression of despair and how breaking out of isolation is one of the few ways to get through it. The genre trappings really only add to that sense of despair, as the ridiculousness of the Devil's story is given a counterbalance of poignancy by the end of the comic. This is a little gem of a comic.

Two Toms, by Pablo Guerra and Henry Diaz. This mini was the only English-language release at the Revista Larva table at SPX 2015. The Colombian cartoonists had a fascinating anthology, and this mini contained the first four chapters of an upcoming book by Guerra (the writer) and Diaz (the artist). Diaz' work reminds me a lot of Brandon Graham: lots of sumptuously curvy lines influenced by graffiti art and perhaps even some of Graham's primary influence, Vaughn Bode. This is a science-fiction story that banks heavily on the nature of gender and sexuality, as a female researcher mistakenly (at least at first) has sex with an alien who resembled a missing crew member, which leads to all sorts of complications with her higher-ups. It's an enormously appealing and intriguing story, with just a touch of a blue wash to give the comic a bit more flavor. I'll be curious to see the finished version.

The Co-Dependent Tree and Hypno-Spiral Comics #2, by M.Jacob Alvarez. Alvarez is a relentless gag writer whose punchlines often rely on genre conventions. He also picks his share of comedic low-hanging fruit, like the titular "Co-Dependent Tree" being a send-up of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. Alvarez's visuals are difficult to process thanks to the thick line and little variance in line weight that is present in nearly all of his work. A gag about comparing hipsters to bees is difficult to parse because it was impossible to figure out what was going on without the words, and even then that amount of labor killed the joke. Alvarez is at his best when he keeps things simple and direct, like the various "Tattoos I Don't Have The Balls To Get" and "You Got Your Shit Together Charlie Brown". When he returns to that thick and stiff line (to which he often inexplicably adds hatching, making it even harder to quickly process), there's an extra second that divides the gag's visuals and its text. That disconnect lasts just long enough to disrupt a number of genuinely funny lines. My favorite of his stories was the genuinely weird "Chambara Punk", about a samurai-movie loving punk who gets in a convenience-store fight with a lacrosse-playing, knuckle-dragging jock. Here, the thick line seems to make sense with regard to the exaggerated nature of the story's sheer loudness. Alvarez is a funny writer who's trying to find his way as an illustrator and isn't quite there yet.

Zombre #3, by Ansis Purins. This beautiful, oversized comic has all of the standard features of a Purins comic: visceral, disgusting horror; hilarious gags; bigfoot drawing; a highly skilled and controlled line in the service of pure silliness; and over-the-top satire. Visually, this is an exciting book to behold, as the color scheme changes from a blue wash to a green wash to full color and keeps changing from there. Purins makes extensive use of zip-a-tone, which both adds density to each page and gives them a more cartoony quality. That fusion of styles reminds me a bit of Chris Cilla or Mark Newgarden, where old-style and flat cartooning is juxtaposed against weird angles and weirder story ideas that are nonetheless treated with an entirely straight face. There's also a quite coherent storyline here as well, demented as it is. Purins starts all over the place: a lost dog, a benevolent zombie, a hippie park ranger who's terrified of losing his job but still is mostly shiftless, his hard ass boss who is some kind of mystic being, a giant spider and its attendants, and some redneck hunters all enter the same forest. As Purins starts to pull together the threads of his narrative, the story gets crazier and at times terrifying, before resolving into a happy ending. Purins is a longtime cartoonist and is doing his best work to date.

Sequart Reprints: Hotwire 2

This article was originally written for sequart.com in 2007.
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There's a lot to like in the new Hotwire, both by contributors new and old. The package is pretty similar to the last volume: lots of lurid, over-the-top and funny comics along with many pages of similarly-grotesque illustrations. Hotwire is editor Glenn Head's reaction to "literary comics" that he feels are pretentious an dull. While there's no editorial in this version announcing his manifesto of sorts, it's clear that Head both is continuing his own personal aesthetic vision while breaking his own rules when he sees fit. For example, there are even more non-story illustrations in this volume than the last, which contradicts Head's desire to present "comics with cool style and great stories". There's a lot here that isn't comics, but it does somehow fit into the anthology's underground, anything-goes, unruly sensibility.

I like the unapologetic, take-it-or-leave-it aesthetic that Hotwire carries. This isn't an anthology designed to win new converts to the world of comics, but rather it's a celebration of a style rooted in the tradition of the 60s underground artists and the 80s anthology Weirdo. As such, it's hard to imagine a reader being drawn to every artist in here, given such an extreme series of artistic choices. For example, Glenn Head's "Tongue Trouble" and Doug Allen's "Hillbillys 'R' Dumb" are the sort of over-the-top, stylized and id-soaked comics that are personally difficult to read. Johnny Ryan's "Sin Shitty" quasi-parody felt like a Ryan Mad Lib (insert your own scatological reference into line A, a taboo sexual act into line B, a vague comics reference into line C), especially since Frank Miller comics are the proverbial low-hanging fruit. Matti Hagelberg's "Zombie Justice" feels more like a Kramer's Ergot or Bete Noire piece than something for Hotwire, given the extreme stylization and scratchboard technique. Illustrations by David Paleo and Stephane Blanquet are the sort of page-jamming, highly-detailed orgies of visceral unpleasantness that my eye tends to gloss over.

On the other hand, the fact that this anthology provides such a fine spotlight for humorists, which is such a rarity in this era of graphic novels and prestige anthologies. It's exciting to see new work by Ivan Brunetti (in his stripped-down but still-vulgar style), Mark Newgarden (with his usual combination of old-style gag format with nihilistic punchlines), and R.Sikoryak (another literary smash-up, this time of Little Nemo in Slumberland with The Picture of Dorian Gray, done with his usual astonishing style mimicry), and Sam Henderson ("Lonely Robot Fuckling"--nuff said). Christian Northeast's "In The Trenches" was a hilarious, deadpan account of a self-serious but unaware small businessman's past. Onsmith contributes an autobiographical story detailing the odd behavior of a creepy neighbor. There's a lot to laugh at in Hotwire, and that alone makes me hope that we get a new edition every year.

Beyond pure humor strips, there's an amazing range of interesting material. The most welcome new presence in this volume is that of Mary Fleener, who contributes a new 10-page story and several of her distinctive illustrations. The latter are in her "Our Lady" series, using her fractal "cubismo" style, with subjects like "Our Lady of Apocalyptic Fixation" and "Uninterrupted Munitions". Her story, entitled "Niacin" will thrill any readers of her old Slutburger series in its depiction of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. This was a hilarious account of Mary winding up in a car with a creep who gave her pot laced with PCP, and her attempts at crawling out of that particular trip. Her thick, rubbery line is a perfect delivery system for the warped, drug-induced imagery that she saw in the story. Hotwire is a perfect home for Fleener's work, and I hope she continues to contribute to future volumes.

My favorite Hotwire discovery has been Tim Lane. His unfussy, naturalistic line is used to tell straight-up pulp stories. "Outing" plops us straight into a bizarre encounter in a bar that ends with a shooting and a car crash. My favorite conceit of the story is that it's narrated by a character who gives us all sorts of intimate information without revealing who he is or most of his backstory. "The Aries Cow" features a character named Muncie and weird stories told at a bar. "In My Dream" has Lane detailing the wacky details of a flying dream and his downfall in it. This sort of anthology is a great showcase for Lane, because his stories act as a sort of anchor for the work in here that are weirder, while still creating an unusual and unsettling tone.

Another remarkable achievement is Jonathan Rosen's "A Massive Stroke of Bad Luck", which is about an aunt who suffered a stroke and was kept alive but in a great deal of distress and pain for quite some time. The top half of each page is a single image that illustrates a few lines of text. The bottom half is a series of images from a sketchbook that "diagram" his aunt's sad state. The grey wash acts as a sort of numbing agent for the reader to the intensity of each page's drawings. The story's best quality is its lack of sentimentality while still getting across the affection Rosen had for his aunt and his concern for her condition.

Not every story here is in-your-face. Carol Swain's "Communicable Disease", is a quiet story about a man in an institution of some kind, where the very words of books fly off the page and his companion starts burying the books when they're empty. Colored pencil seems to be at work here in setting up the air of melancholy and despair. "Last Testament" is a clever, time-jumping story by Chris Estes and David Lasky about Clash guitarist Mick Jones.

Still, Hotwire's main punch comes from its stylization and concentration on the "all that is good is nasty" school of storytelling. Lorna Miller (another welcome presence) retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood that portrays her as a little skank who ends up being eaten--eaten out, that is, by the Big Bad Wolf. Glenn Head's "Oozing Dread" is a hilarious account of Wilhelm Reich's wackier theories regarding orgone energy, orgasms and how they're rooted in alien involvement, all centered around a particular neurotic patient. David Sandlin's "Slumburbia" is a typically sex-and-shame centered story, a sort of echo of Reich's prediction that sexual behavior and activity was doomed to take on a fetished, guilt-ridden quality. Mack White's "Trouble In Tacosa" takes on a western legend, splitting its depiction into the grimy truth on one side of the page and then how it would be portrayed in Hollywood. Craig Yoe's ode to Tijuana Bibles is a sort of day-glo meditation on the surreptitious, anonymous nature of these bits of pornography and the writers who created them. What I get out of it is that these artists weren't all that different in nature to other cartoonists in terms of pandering to an audience and doing it in a sweatshop setting. All told, while not every story in this anthology will appeal to every reader, there should be at least a story in here that will draw in the eye of any reader.

Sequart Reprints: Hotwire

This article was originally published in 2006 for sequart.com
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With Mome, Fantagraphics tried to put together an anthology that would appeal to sophisticated readers who were open to reading comics but didn't necessarily know what to buy. A book for those who read Ghost World or American Splendor and wanted to know where to go next. Understandably, the focus of that anthology had to be on somewhat straightforward narratives. One doesn't find a lot of funny comics in there, even if some strips have a somewhat humorous bent (Tim Hensley is a notable exception). There also weren't a lot of comics in the id-fueled underground tradition, and what comics there were in that style were somewhat restrained. This is not a criticism, but rather a simple observation: Mome has its own aims and certainly can't be all things to all people. Hotwire steps in and picks up the threads missing from Mome, all in a delightfully lurid package.

Editor Glenn Head is quite clear about his goals for the anthology in his introduction. While acknowledging that it was all well and good that comics were now respectable, he missed comics that "felt unsafe, undomesticated, unhinged, even!" Hotwire is his expression of the feeling that "comics with great style and cool stories are already art, and no critic, museum or journal can change that..." Of course, Head breaks his own rules throughout the book. There are plenty of pages that aren't comics, like David Paleo's revolting pin-ups, Sam Henderson's sketches, Craig Yoe's centerfold or Judith McNicol's scribbles. While not stories per se, they contribute to the carny freakshow nature of the book. A book filled with nothing but this sort of thing would have been unreadable, but interspersed throughout they're a nice sideshow of sorts. Hotwire isn't a book likely to win new converts. Most of the artists within are take-it-or-leave-it in terms of their stories, and they don't apologize for it. It's a book meant for people who already love comics without reservation, in all of their cheap and occasionally debased glory.

As a result, there are a number of stories in Hotwire that aren't personally appealing. As a reader, I've never been drawn to a lot of the traditional underground artists. I can admire their nerve and the trails they blazed, but my eyes fall off the page of stories in the S.Clay Wilson tradition. The unleashed id and broken taboos are simply no longer as shocking or interesting in their own right. Thus, the stories by Head and Doug Allen didn't do much for me. My eye tends to fall off the page when reading these sorts of stories, and that was true here. The true highlights of this anthology are stories by the formidable array of humorists. Not all of them are personal favorites, but that just fits in with the rest of the book: there's something for every true fan of comics to either love or despise.

There are four comics in particular that stood out. Michael Kupperman's "The Scaredy Kids", Lauren Weinstein's "The Call", R.Sikoryak's "Mephistofield" and Mack White's "My Gun Is Long". The first is a tour-de-force of absurdity, as the title characters encounter The Bittern, Jungle Princess and other characters who introduce themselves by crashing through windows. Lines like "Nearby, an ant makes love to a paperclip" are thrown into the narrative as part of Kupperman's all-out assault on conventional storytelling. Every panel is packed with visual humor, wordplay, dada asides and/or over-the-top colors. Kupperman's sheer relentlessness is what makes his work stand out, and is perfect in this venue.
Weinstein's story would have fit nicely in her Inside Vineyland collection. It's a nightmarish tale of a young girl listening to a record of her favorite story, but the needle skips on an evil queen screaming. The scream takes on its own reality and draws the girl in, as she meets a sort of angelic figure who shows her the universe. She eventually returns back to her own world, but a later encounter with that same note leaves a permanent impression. Weinstein's loose, almost vibratory line adds to the story's hallucinatory quality.
Sikoryak is known as an astonishingly skilled style mimic, and his particular shtick is retelling works of classic literature by merging them with well-known comics characters. This time around, he combines Dr Faustus with Garfield to get "Mephistofield". He tells the story just like Jim Davis does a daily strip: three panels, with the third containing a punchline. The colors are appropriately flat and Sikoryak's perfect use of every Davis tic and style choice is a hilarious pairing with the grim cautionary tale of Dr Faustus. And of course, Garfield as the personification of evil is more than appropriate...

Mack White's "My Gun Is Long" is the amusing marriage of hard-boiled noir and conspiracy theory. It stars the real Lee Harvey Oswald, his double Alex Hidell, strippers, Jack Ruby, and a desperate attempt to dodge killers. The stark black & white imagery and unadorned figure work match the paranoia and claustrophobia in this story, but it's White's skill in channeling Phillip Marlowe that propels the story along.
There are plenty of other delights in here: a David Lasky-drawn biography of the Clash; a creepy Carol Swain story about a circus; a stripped-down Ivan Brunetti story; and Onsmith's demented tales of rural Oklahoma. This anthology didn't get a lot of notice when it was released, which is unfortunate because there's so much strong work in here. In particular, having a regular anthology that features humorists so prominently is something that the comics world has needed for quite some time. It'll be interesting to see if Head can produce future volumes that are as fresh and compelling as this.

Anthologies: Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, Cartoon Crier

One of the priorities at the Center for Cartoon Studies that's pounded into its students' heads is the need to publish. Publish minicomics and work on your short-story chops before you can get to that ambitious graphic novel. Better yet, band together and publish anthologies. From the very beginning, CCS students and then alums have been publishing anthologies, many of them themed. Sundays is the best and probably the best known, but there have been a couple of dozen other CCS-related anthologies that have seen print. For the most part, the quality and professionalism of each anthology has improved with each passing year, as alumni continue to improve and the best young students contribute as well. The reader gets a sense that these aren't just filler stories, but rather examples of cartoonists truly putting their best foot forward.

Lies Grown Ups Told Me, edited by Nomi Kane, Caitlin M, and Jen Vaughn, is yet another quality anthology assembled by two CCS alums and the former Schulz Library librarian (Caitlin McGurk, now at Ohio State). Not everyone in the anthology is or was associated with CCS, but it's a good 90% of the book's contents. The anthology's theme is simple, yet proves to be fertile ground for its artists. There's not a single clunker in the whole book, even those strips whose draftsmanship isn't in the same class as the best artists in the books. Some of the very best CCS draftsmen are featured here, including Nomi Kane, Dakota McFadzean and faculty member Jon Chad. All three members of that trio do not disappoint. Kane's story is hilarious, as she repeats as a matter of fact that pregnant women shouldn't swim with dolphins because their sonar can detect the gestating baby, leading them to corner the women and kidnap the babies to raise them as their own. Until she says this out loud to her friend, she believes it to be true. Kane's figure work is pure eye-candy: expressive, amusing and packed with clever details. Speaking of detail, McFadzean's story about his grandfather's claims of being able to draw the best Donald Duck is both warm and wry, bringing past and present together in a simple satisfying manner. There's a clean elegance to his line that nonetheless always conveys warmth and emotions just below the surface. Chad's story about his parents inadvertently realizing that a television show that signaled bedtime meant putting him to bed whenever they wanted is a pretty simple one by his visually lush standards, though he still manages to throw in some clever flourishes.

Most of the contributors play the theme for laughs, and the sheer variety of lies they later discovered makes for a lively book. Some are a bit more sobering than others, like Tom Casteel discovering that hard work and dedication doesn't always pay off in "Patrol Boy of the Year", or Cody Pickrodt wondering why on earth he thought his dad thought it would be funny to pretend that he died after a rough-housing session with his two young children and no other adults around. Saying things to scare kids is another running theme, as Beth Hetland's sister freaks her out with tales of the "The Undertoad" living in the ocean, Bryan Stone's grandmother keeps him from exploring the forest by telling him that "Red Eyes" lives there and will eat his dog, and (worst of all), Andrew Greenstone's parents keep him in line by telling him of his "other brother" Igor whom they killed and buried in the backyard because he was a naughty boy. Ben Horak's "Sweet Trap" was along those lines but even better because the threat was silent. He and his brother kept raiding the cookie jar, and his frustrated mother put up a bunch of wires and other junk on it, saying "Now I have to do something drastic!"  There's a hilarious two page spread of Horak and his brother imagining what kind of trap their mother might have set, when the reality is that it was just a hoax.

Overall, the tone of the book is breezy and affectionate. That's best encapsulated by Lena Chandhok's "Earth Girls Are Easy", an account of watching that movie as a preteen with her grandfather and younger sister. It's a lovely story because it captures the moment when Chandhok realized that she was suddenly on the other side of the divide of adult and child, knowing something that her younger sister didn't. I liked that the editors reached out to plenty of non-CCS artists as well, like letterer/caricaturist Rick Parker's illustrated story about being accused of cutting up a garden hose, Jesse Lonergan's hilarious account of being duped as to the origin of broccoli, and the superb Scottish artist Lorna Miller chiming on in on the reasons why she was told not to pick dandelions as a child. The editors do a nice job of alternating the truly silly stories with the slightly more contemplative or serious ones, though the tone throughout is fairly lighthearted. 

Another CCS anthology with precisely the opposite tact is The Cartoon Crier, edited by Cole Closser, James Sturm and R.Sikoryak. This is a free, 36-page comics broadsheet that's a collaboration between the National Cartoonist's Society and CCS, with the theme being sadness and crying. This is a fascinating snapshot of contemporary newspaper cartooning and the next young wave of cartoonists, as the editors plumb the depths of veterans like Mort Walker to find those strips that defy conventional punchlines in the service of expressing misery. I imagine this project owes much to the Comics Editor of King Features Syndicate, Brendan Burford, who is also a small-press cartoonist. He contributes a strip theorizing how cartoonists transformed from garrulous men-about-town in the early part of the 20th century to the more introverted and downbeat characters of recent years, and guesses that the influence of Charles Schulz had the biggest impact. It's obvious that the hand of Schulz can be felt in many of the modern strips when they do turn away from gags.

Consider Lynn Johnston, whose series of strips regarding the death of a family dog is absolutely shattering. Like Schulz, the strips have the rhythm of a comedic strip, but she eschews punchlines in some for portents, while the punchlines in other strips later take a dark turn. Sturm provides an example of a brutal strip by the Family Circus' Bil Keane that technically contains a gag but only in the bleakest of terms. In general, the strips by the CCS cartoonists are more interesting and daring than the NCS strips, which is understandable given the total freedom they have. While there a few CCS veterans and some other outside artists, most of the contributors to this comic are either current students or 2012 graduates, and they give a fine accounting for themselves given this format. April Malig's simply-drawn strip about her difficulty controlling her tendency to cry is clever, especially given her solution. Sophie Goldstein's full-page "Potato Baby" is hilariously depressing as it doucments the ridiculous travails of the tile character. Rachel Dukes' slickly-drawn "Lucky Dog" is even more over the top, as it addresses the side issue of the lonely life of the cartoonist. Closser's own "Little Tommy Lost" and his activity page are evocative of classic newspaper cartooning. The former is an homage to Milt Caniff-style adventure strips, while the latter goofs on being maudlin. Donna Almendrala's Nancy pastiche is hilarious, expertly evoking the cadence of that strip while staying on theme. (She also had a strong strip in Lies Grown Ups Told Me.) Max Riffner and Dakota McFadzean are two cartoonists whose slick draftsmanship is clearly strong enough for syndicate work, even as their strips here both take enormously dark turns.

The lineup of veteran cartoonists, CCS alumni and CCS fellows here is killer. Sturm's autobiographical strip about getting older, drawn in the form of a superhero comic, is thoughtful and smart. Sikoryak, the comics/literary mashup master, this time around puts together Dilbert and Herman Melvile's Bartleby The Scrivener, an inspired pairing given that both address workplace ennui and forms of rebellion. Scribbly autobio specialist David Libens contributes a marvelous strip about a kid visiting the grave of his dead pet and telling her a secret: that he no longer uses a potty seat. It's a strong use of detail, as Libens has a knack for translating how little kids talk into comics form. Melissa Mendes has a typically strong but understated story about a girl who sees her dog die in an accident, with the last panel showing her back to the reader as she processes the grief by drawing pictures of her beloved pet. Jon Chad goes literal with an ingenious, thin-lined strip about a "scientist" who takes us through a series of background sight gags about how and why humans cry. Joe Lambert's "Retainer" is yet another example of the artist's increasing complexity and maturity, even as he continues to explore the dynamics of children and teens. Ariel Bourdeaux, the 90s comics veteran who recently graduated from CCS, contributes a funny strip about crying listening to children sing, and the embarrassing feeling of being spotted in public in a bright room, crying uncontrollably. Laura Park's story about someone recalling their mother being sent away before their fifth birthday because of mental illness is all the more heartbreaking when the final panel reveals that she was glad because she knew that she'd get the biggest slice of cake. Robyn Chapman's story about a woman who is unable to cry after a childhood as a crybaby is restrained yet powerful.

The broadsheet also contains commentary by Shaenon Garrity on the saddest comics she's ever read, while Andrew Farago compiles the results of a survey of cartoonists about the same question. Overall, The Cartoon Crier isn't necessarily a compelling read from page to page and strip to strip, as many of the syndicated strips are still rather banal. This comic is better read like a regular newspaper section--with some brilliant strips, some reliable favorites, some interesting discoveries, and a good deal of dross. Its goal of comparing and contrasting two entirely different worlds of cartooning and finding common ground was an interesting one, especially since Schulz is an influence on nearly every cartoonist. What's most impressive about it is that the youngest cartoonists really took this assignment seriously and did their best work. It's not unusual to be impressed with CCS cartoonists after reading an anthology, but it's rare that every contributor does their best work. It's this group that's the true backbone of this anthology.

Classics Remixed: Masterpiece Comics

Rob reviews the long-awaited collection of R.Sikoryak lit/comics mash-ups, MASTERPIECE COMICS (Drawn & Quarterly).

R.Sikoryak has long been a highlight of the many anthologies he's appeared in over the years, from RAW to DRAWN & QUARTERLY to HOTWIRE to MONKEYSUIT. He's perhaps the most notable chameleon in comics, a master mimic who can draw in any style or genre. His longtime interest has been comics' periodic attempts at adapting classic literature. Most of those attempts have been fascinatingly horrible, as anyone who's ever read most issues of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED (or anyone who's ever attended one of Sikoryak's slide-show lectures) can tell you. Sikoryak's shtick is to adapt works of literature mashed up with classic comics. What's most interesting about the choices he makes is that he strives to match up themes from both worlds of art, often in surprising ways. It's a stunning collision of so-called "high" and "low" art, done with an affectionate nod and wink to both.

The results are both hilarious on their very face and deadly serious in how devoted Sikoryak is in depicting details. He strives to match not only the lines of the artists he's parodying, but the way they were inked, colored and lettered. The book is designed as though it was a collection of issues of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, down to the covers, cheesy ads ("Draw Homer", "Lit" [instead of Grit], etc) . It's separated into five sections--two sections of short stories and three longer stories. Probably the crown jewel of this collection is "Dostoyevsky Comics", a mash-up of "Batman" and "Crime and Punishment". Sikoryak draws a clear line between Batman as loner vigilante and Raskol as a man above the law, meting out justice to someone who richly deserves it. Rethinking Raskol as Bruce Wayne, having his chest symbol as the head of an axe instead of a bat, drawing the pawnbroker as the Joker, the inspector as Commissioner Gordon, etc. inspires both laughs as to the cleverness of his design and a real sense of connection between the two works. Sikoryak's aping of Dick Sprang-era Batman gives it a remarkable silver age feel. Genre comics have extremely simple structures and are mostly designed for children, which means that they have to have a clear set of themes and character types that immediately resonate. These characters aren't built for deeper story ideas, however, which is why using them as a framework for richer stories is such an incredibly clever idea.

In some instances, laying down a work of literature into a comics template made the original work more palatable. I've always thought that the "The Scarlet Letter" was a glorified bit of soap opera, albeit one designed to expose hypocrisy. The purple of that prose was made much more palatable in "Little Pearl", a mash-up of that book and Little Lulu. Reimagining Pearl, the product of adultery, as the scamp Little Lulu and Tubby as the meddling Roger ("a short, ugly husband") was another stroke of genius. Like in the other entries, Sikoryak makes sure to emphasize the story elements that translated best to comics action, playing up the most delightfully sordid elements of the story. Sikoryak's mastery of the fluid, cartoony John Stanley line may have been his single best imitation in the entire book. He manages to keep the action of the story consistent with a Little Lulu adventure as best as he can, down to Tubby/Roger being foiled at the end.


In "The Crypt Of Bronte", Sikoryak illustrates the ways in which Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" used a number of the same stock shock twists as 1950s EC horror comics, with characters meeting horrible ends in ironic ways. Beyond the inspired decision to conflate the housekeeper as the Crypt-Keeper as a narrative device, Sikoryak cleverly managed to highlight the most lurid (and scandalous, for the time) elements of the story: fights, overwrought emoting, forbidden romance, long-sought revenge and unexpected reversals of fortune. What better way to tell such an overcooked story than in the style of Jack Davis, one of the most expressive of the EC stable of artists? This story does tend to get a bit bogged down in the sheer Gothic density of detail from Bronte (and at 15 pages, it's the longest story in the book) and at a certain point the uncanny evocation of EC comics is no longer enough to prevent a bit of tediousness from creeping in. It was no easy task boiling down the story to its essential elements, and Sikoryak actually seemed to score more direct hits with the shorter stories.


In the "Classics On Parade" section, "Blonde Eve" is one of the funnier entries in the book, combining Blondie and the story of Adam & Eve from the Bible. The connections are numerous: the blonde temptress, the obsession with food (seeing the apples piled up on Dagwood/Adam's arms was especially amusing), the wrath of god/Mr Dithers, etc. "Inferno Joe", which brings together the Bazooka Joe strips and Dante's "Inferno", boils down that book's essence and turns
it into a series of bubblegum wrapper gags. Each strip features Joe visiting another circle of hell, but Sikoryak manages to tie the gags into the moral lesson regarding the sinners therein. "Mephistofield" is a hilarious pastiche of Marlowe's "Dr Faustus" and Garfield, with the title cat playing the seemingly-subservient but ever acidic demon with aplomb. Casting Jon, the loser who can never really get over, as the doomed Faustus was yet another pitch-perfect choice on Sikoryak's part.

In some ways, Sikoryak seems most at home distilling modern works of literature. "Little Dori In Pictureland" is one of the most technically dazzling achievements in the book, nailing the classic Winsor McKay style while retelling Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Sikoryak draws the obvious connection between Dorian Gray's living a fantasy life and Little Nemo's dream life, with both reflecting a certain turn-of-the-20th-century aesthetic. "Good Ol' Gregor Brown" draws another clear line between the eternal loser Charlie Brown and Kafka's doomed Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of "The Metamorphosis". What's especially trenchant about this strip is seeing Snoopy as a maid at the end, seeing the dead coackroach and cheerily noting "Happiness is a pest-free home". It's one thing to connect the misery of the two characters; it's another to use the occasional sentimentality of Peanuts to highlight just how grim Kafka's story was. "Action Camus" cleverly told the story of "The Stranger" through a series of old Action Comics covers from the 1950s. The Stranger and Superman are characters are both above morality in certain respects and men of action--though the choices each made certainly put them in different camps.

MASTERPIECE COMICS is a series of parodies that strives for something more than just surface recognition on the part of the reader. Those surface qualities still make up the bulk of the jokes and the appeal of these comics, as the reader will marvel at Sikoryak's ability to mimic any style successfully. However, every aspect of the pastiche has obviously been carefully thought through, even if it's just one or two elements (like Beavis and Butthead as the stars of "Waiting To Go", or Ziggy the innocent in a tumultuous world playing Candide) that are emphasized. This series of sight gags actually helps crystalize the central themes of these works of art, even as Sikoryak by design strips away dialogue and cuts away huge swaths of story. Still, Sikoryak surpasses old-school attempts at adapting classic literature into comics by recontextualizing it in the form of parody while still getting across the most salient details of the stories. It's a comic to marvel at and delight in as both a technical and thematic achievement, even if that enjoyment at times is more of craft than art.