45 Days Of CCS, #33: Edea Lee Giang, Noah Mease

Edea Lee Giang submitted two comics this year, both of which were very interesting but also kind of raw. Coextinct is an interesting zine that's not really a comic--it's illustrated text. That text is typeset, further distancing it from being a comic. It's a fascinating topic, however, starting out with when the California condor was saved from extinction, the California condor louse was exterminated. Giang brings up the point that exterminating a parasite is not as easy a decision as one might think, largely because historically people have done a terrible job in estimating the impact on an ecosystem after such a decision. He leaves us with an open question of whether only "cute" animals deserve to live and right we have to make this decision. This is well-written and well-composed, but the drawing is really weak. Giang either needed to go more abstract or simplified in his drawing or provided better-realized versions of the things he was trying to draw. 

Turbidity Current is a fantasy action romance comic. The character design is ingenious, as the leads are anthropomorphic sea creatures. Youni is a red sea urchin with a penchant for weaponry who brings requested samples for experiments to Mimi, a bigfin squid who's a scientist. Youni's frustrated because Mimi on the one hand has no time for her, but on the other does very thoughtful things for her. She's a puzzle, but when Youni confronts her, they are attacked by a bizarre assassin. The clever fight scene is tied into their romantic argument in a satisfying way. Once again, it's the basics that are problematic in this comic; the color overwhelms the line on almost every page, and this is the rare instance that a legible font would have been been better by the hard-to-read lettering here. Giang clearly doesn't have the drawing chops to do exactly what they want at the moment, but a comic that emphasized the writing and favored clarity would have been preferable. For example, a simple color wash that didn't kill the linework would have been preferable to what felt like trying to add too many elements.

Noah Mease is a first-year student at CCS who shows a great deal of promise. Hymn To Myrrh is a clever, unfolding pamphlet that opens with six voices extolling the virtue of the substance myyrh. Upon opening the pamphlet up all the way, it turns into an illustrated commercial, where every image is that of a different radio extolling the virtues of myrrh in the patter of a radio ad. This isn't quite a comic, but it is interesting and shows off Mease's design chops. "Where Be Dragons" is a tantalizing showcase of Mease's use of color in an open-page layout with his characters the Nameless Mage and his Deer Friend as they explore a territory filled with dragons who have a certain wisdom to convey. Mease's color sense is sharp and uses negative space in interesting ways, especially in when to drop out line and when to emphasize it. Hermes And The Flies is perhaps the most interesting version of the CCS Aesop's fable assignment I've ever read (at least since Joe Lambert's Turtle Keep It Steady). Printed in landscape, it reminds me a little of Tom Gauld, as Mease uses a minimalist line to zip through several fables, most involving the god Hermes, flies or both. Mease is ambitious in adapting eight separate fables, but he's even more ambitious in his transitions between stories. This is smart cartooning, all-around.