31 Days of CCS #14: Advocacy Comics

This Is What Democracy Looks Like was published by the Center For Cartoon Studies itself. The comic is free and available as a .pdf, with the idea that it's a work of Graphic Advocacy, or Applied Cartooning, as the school itself might say. The lead cartoonist and writer is Dan Nott, and the project truly has his fingerprints all over it. Nott has an evenhanded authorial voice, even when he's passionate about a subject. He also has a knack for taking large, confusing institutions and breaking them down, piece by piece. In simple language and very clear graphics, he explains how governance works in the US. More to the point, Nott gets across the idea is that democracy, even a representative democracy like the US (as opposed to direct democracy), requires not just voting but a willingness to advocate. It's about raising awareness for what's important to you, finding other like-minded people, and making compromises with others. It's advocacy and consensus-building not just as an individual activity, but with the understanding that the whole point of democracy is acknowledging our participation in a greater society.

Kevin Czap did the cover, and it strikes all of the right notes. James Sturm and CCS grad Nomi Kane (who's done a great deal of political work) were also credited, but I couldn't discern what they did in particular. Cartoonists Summer Pierre and Hallie Jay Pope also contributed strips, with Pierre's strip, in particular, a stirring tribute to the importance of voting. That said, this is Nott's book. The way that he calmly explains why he's right, with a strong emphasis on facts and historical data, makes the book more pedagogical than polemic. Given its stated mission, this emphasis on clarity rather than passion is the right call.

On the other hand, Housing + Transit is very much about passion. Josh Kramer, who's been a tireless comics journalist throughout his career, is angrier and more direct when reporting his stories. He teamed with Nott for a strip about transit issues and with Joyce Rice for a story about Housing problems. Both strips originally appeared in The Nib and were written by Kramer. "Transit" traced the history of a lack of good transit systems in many high-density cities. There was a tipping point where antiquated transit systems simply weren't replaced by cars provided so much more individual, independent access. However, in high-density areas, traffic reduces this efficiency and creates health & environmental issues as a result. Kramer portrays it as something that the public must buy into as much as anyone in order to make it work. "Housing" zeroes in on zoning laws that prevent the construction of housing (never mind affordable housing) in many states, and these laws are often racist in nature, in order to "preserve the character of the neighborhood." The contrast in art styles was interesting. Rice's page layouts were clear and did the job, but lacked the astounding clarity of Nott's pages. Nott knows how to use an open-page layout in a way that still holds everything together and makes it easy for a reader to navigate the page.

Glynnis Fawkes is currently on faculty with CCS and drew this year's recruitment comic, The Brontë Sisters Go To The Center For Cartoon Studies. Fawkes just did a book on Charlotte Brontë, so this made sense. This is one of my favorite of the CCS comics (I'm not sure anything will ever top the one that Kevin Huizenga did), as it imagines Charlotte and Emily Brontë as cartoonists. It subtly gets at the reasons why going to a comics-focused school is a good idea: the availability of resources, both technical and research (the Schulz Library is truly a marvel); stretching skills through collaboration and learning the styles of other cartoonists; and being taught storytelling as a way to strengthen one's work. The sales pitch is funny and charming, with a distinct understanding of the Brontë sisters' background and interests while giving them a modern sensibility. 

Thirty One Days Of CCS #6: April Malig, Josh Kramer, Dakota McFadzean

Last Mountain #5: To Know You're Alive, by Dakota McFadzean. This is an interesting departure for McFadzean, who rarely does autobio work. It's a fascinating addition to the burgeoning comics genre I'm calling True Parenting. Anyone who's a parent knows it's both terrible and wonderful, often at the same time. That's especially true of the toddler years, when kids develop agency but they've not yet reached the age of reason. This comic follows McFadzean, a stay-at-home dad, on a day with his toddler son. McFadzean describes his son as "intense" as a counter to his wife's more cute description of him as a "firecracker". ("Mama will come home RIGHT NOW!") The latter description is applicable when his son did things like get excited by green garbage trucks and the trolley on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. The former description applied when his son hit McFadzean in the back of the head as hard as he could with a block. It's an amazingly rendered scene, as visceral as anything McFadzean has ever drawn.

What's most interesting about this comic is McFadzean's understanding of what his son is going through on an intellectual level and actually going through it with him. His son was going through a particularly painful teething process, the result being "he just screams and screams". As a parent, you feel awful. As a human being, it is hard to deal with. How one copes with that fight-or-flight confrontation through tantrums is crucial, and McFadzean feels bad about screaming back at him. There's another scene where he is literally surrounded by his son's screaming word balloons, his own attempts at reason drowned out as he covers his ears, puts his son in front of a screen and crumples into a heap. At the same time, McFadzean reveals his near-instantaneous anxiety over bringing his son into horrible world and compensates by psychologically picking at that wound, seeking out upsetting images. It feels like a way of fighting the everyday anxiety of child-rearing (amplified by a lack of sleep) by distracting oneself from it with actually horrible thoughts and images. The comic coalesces into a bizarre episode (?) of Mr. Rogers on a dark set, with shadowy figures that frightened his son enough to call for his father's help. It was the unknown calling, anxieties swirling for both father and son, as they passed through it. Though Mama came home at last, his son wanted to see the monsters again.

My Dumb Feelings, by April Malig. Malig's comics are a mix of swirling, colorful images (brought to life thanks to a Risograph) and her own pointed, funny and self-deprecatory comments. Lines like "I have a lot of energy, uh, it's just all potential" get at Malig's general discomfort with life. That page has bright orange and pink backgrounds with images of flowers coalescing on the page. It's the ultimate in potential energy. As she talks about on the final page of the comic, there's just a general sense of weariness pervading the comic. She's tired of everything, including herself and her own feelings. She's unsure if she's sad or angry enough about the right things, in the right ways. She has no idea if making something beautiful means anything, and notes that "believing in dumb magic feels as good and valid as believing in anything" else on a gorgeous page filled with colorful talismans. Malig advances no viewpoint other than her own personal uncertainty, which is a statement in itself. Nowhere is there a statement of surrender or inaction; she'll keep right on feeling those dumb feelings and doing meaningless stuff, but she knows she'll never get the Answer to any of her questions. That might make her tired, but at least she's trying, in a comic that can only be described as day-glo existentialism.

The Cartoon Picayune #8, edited by Josh Kramer. Kramer chugged along and published eight issues worth of solid comics journalism, with each reporter out in the field reporting on a story. This is unfortunately the final issue (published in 2016), but it's typically quite good and focuses on a variety of stories. Some are low-key, some are whimsical, and some are a matter of life and death. It's like a comics version of Radiolab or some other unpredictable, informative podcast. This issue features an interview with a man named Tony Burns, who went from homeless (thanks in part to having AIDS) to being the recipient of a government housing program that restored his dignity and autonomy. It's allowed him to become and advocate and assist others in similar situations. Kramer mostly just lets Burns tell his story (the story got a little cramped with tiny lettering at times, and everything about it demanded a bigger page), and it's a testament to putting the lie to the notion that public assistance saps an individual's interest in doing things for themselves. To the contrary, the knowledge that one's basics are at least partly cared for allows an individual to be a contributing member of society. This story fed perfectly into the issue's theme of "Unnoticed". Homeless people are unnoticed and ignored, and it wouldn't take much to help so many people reclaim their sense of dignity.

Laura Brooke Kovac's "Forgotten" is about a scrap-metal dealer who stumbled upon a metal egg that turned out to be one of the lost Fabrege eggs of Russia. What followed was a fascinating history of the eggs, including a note on how much they cost to make for the Tsars and their families relative to the average person's yearly salary. Ellis Rosen's "The Number Stations" is about the cold-war tactic of transmitting codes via short-wave radio to a one-time pad with the corresponding code to relay information. The original messages are available for anyone to tune into, and they continue to be transmitted to this day. The story follows how the public picked up on them, wrote books about and generally pondered their usage. It's an interesting artifact of the Cold War that persists precisely because it's so hard to crack. Finally, Kramer's "Why Grown-Ups Are Playing D&D" is still timely today, as the game continues to explode in popularity. Drawing each person he interviewed as their character as a fun touch, but Kramer gets at the heart of why it's drawing people in. In a world where technology is isolating, the camaraderie and imagination of the game is appealing.

Thirty Days of CCS #1: Josh Kramer

Josh Kramer's comics journalism reminds me most of what Josh Neufeld is doing, as well as Brendan Burford's old Syncopated anthology. Kramer is still spinning a comics narrative out of a particular subject, only he's doing so in a closely-sourced and tightly-reported. This kind of slow, expansive journalism flies in the face of factoid news, but it's always the best kind. Issue #7 of Kramer's journalism anthology, The Cartoon Picayune, collects some of his most recent pieces published in places like The Atlantic. Cartoon journalism is more than just a novelty at this point, because its best and most devoted practitioners have shown that they can make a news narrative come alive.

As a draftsman, Kramer is solid and competent, but lacks the sheer chops of a Joe Sacco or the polish of a Matt Bors. Nevertheless, it's clear that his time at the Center for Cartoon Studies taught him how to draw with clarity, eschewing any kind of overdrawing that might interfere with his narrative. In that regard, he reminds me most of Neufeld, who's smart and innovative in terms of his storytelling techniques but devoid of technical flash. Kramer's "Counter-Shading" is a great example of telling a story with a significant visual component and bringing it to life with cartooning. It's about the history of camouflage in World Wars I and II, focusing on the "Razzle Dazzle" ships the US used to throw off U-Boat attacks, as the color schemes of ships would be deliberately confusing. Stories about Japanese sniper, US towns that threw painted nets on top of themselves to throw off enemies, and the use of a "ghost army" consisting of decoys and deception were all fascinating. Kramer makes no particular judgments regarding this history, only making a connection between technology and trying to stay ahead of one's opponents through trickery. He efficiently gives examples of each type of camouflage, with the diagram of a typical Japanese sniper being especially illuminating.

"Tundra Green", about the history of the criminalization of marijuana in Alaska, similarly takes no sides. It cleverly goes from the specific to the general, as it focuses on a man named Irwin Ravin, who intentionally got himself arrested for possession in order to challenge state law. The article recounts the fascinating history of the tension between state law and traditions against federal law with regard to personal liberties, while talking about how a particular strain of pot grown in Alaska might have a potency level that further mucks up rulings. This piece was far less visually interesting than the first one, with lots of talking heads and charts.

On the other hand, "Our Favorite Orbits Are Getting Crowded With Space Junk" is highly interesting on a visual level. This sort of story is what Kramer does best: delving into a meaningful, fascinating but unusual topic about which the Ideal Reader (an educated person who doesn't know about this subject) is a perfect target. That's because Kramer provides that reader with all they need to know, both in terms of the basic facts and the ramifications of said facts. In this case, it's about how the space junk that we've thrown up in earth's orbit is starting to cause collisions and accidents. Zeroing in on just how small a piece of space junk can be and still cause tremendous damaging was both sobering and vividly presented. The ramifications of this were also chilling: the potential destruction of communications , weather and navigation satellites. A number of potential solutions were pointed out, but what the article really gets at is that this is a topic that needs to be taken more seriously, and soon.

There are also a couple of smaller pieces by guest-artists. Emma Woodbury Rand's "The Grey Ghost" is all about a particular rum runner during prohibition whose garb and M.O. were so outrageous as to practically make them a super-villain. The fact that they were never caught only adds to the legend, and Rand's use of blacks and dynamic lines plays up the mystery and action aspects of the story. Craig Schaffer's "A Pagoda In Pennsylvania" is all about the ways in which importing a style of architecture into America can create a unique synthesis of styles and promote aesthetics as something as important as sheer functionality. Schaffer's line here is clear and naturalistic, as he really just had to get across the beauty of the building in question.

Thirty Days of CCS, Day 3: Eleri Mai Harris, Josh Kramer, Bryn Adams

The Cartoon Picayune #6, edited by Josh Kramer. The theme in this post about CCS cartoonists is "comics reportage". A slowly but steadily growing arm of comics, CCS has Dan Archer out in the field, doing some innovative and daring reporting. Kramer was the next adherent, and each issue of his reportage magazine The Cartoon Picayune has looked progressively more confident. This issue's theme is "Small World", and it's highlighted by "Reef", a story by cartoonist/ecologist Adrian Pijoan. It's certainly the best story I've seen from this former student of the Sequential Artists Workshop, as it goes into great detail regarding the microbiology of reefs and how climate change has had a direct impact on the death of reefs. Pijoan talks about the biology of the reef and its symbiotic relationship with microorganisms that give them color and cause them to become thriving ecosystems. These ecosystems, in turn, protect cities from storms and attract fish for harvesting. Pijoan has greatly simplified his drawing technique, allowing for the stark simplicity of his black and white drawings to jump out at the reader. He also expertly unloads a lot of information on the reader while making each page interesting to look at with a related narrative.

Bill Volk's "Fernando And The Furries" is about that particular geek/fetish group, but it focuses on something other than the specifics of their interest. It's really about a sandwich shop owner who catered to a Furry convention and later went out on the street to try to protect a couple of Furries from a random street harasser. After he got hurt for his troubles, the Furry community rallied around him in gratitude, and later sent him money when his shop was failing. The real thrust of the article is the way in subgroups can use their collective influence for good, especially when an otherwise persecuted or misunderstood group is made to feel respected or simply human by a "civilian". At a time when the cruelty and bullying behavior of now-culturally ascendant geeks is dominating cultural discourse, Volk captures a heartening and kind anecdote.

Other stories include JTW bringing light to the works of Henry Darger and Jackie Roche talking about how Robert Todd Lincoln (President Lincoln's son) was saved by the famous actor, Edwin Booth (the brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth). The former story is compelling but suffers for the lack of color that made Darger's work come to life. The latter uses greyscaling to provide an appropriately gloomy atmosphere regarding the relationship between the Lincolns and the Booths and add an inspiring capper to that history. Roche has a knack for capturing the likenesses of key historical figures in a dynamic manner that allows them to breathe on the page as part of the story rather than just stand still in an inert manner. It's the difference between cartooning and illustration.

The Battle of Lake Champlain, The Best Beer In The World, and Counting Turtles: Field Notes, by Eleri Mai Harris. A native of Tasmania, Harris works around her limited drawing skills with a spectacular use of color, impressive research skills and storytelling instincts that transform history and journalism into compelling narratives. Counting Turtles Field Notes is about a volunteer scientific group that tags turtles in a Florida preserve to monitor their activity over time. The cheerily-colored comic (almost a bit too cheery in some spots for a Florida swamp) is as much about the thrill of the chase in trying to chase down water turtles as it is about science, conservatation and the biological aspects of ecology. The time that Harris spent with this group is obvious, making this an oral history document experienced in the flesh.

The Best Beer In The World is very much in this vein as well, as she interviewed a husband-wife brewing team in Vermont. It actually turned out to be quite an exciting story, encompassing the impact of a hurricane that led to massive flooding in Vermont and the destruction of their brewpub. The story is about innovation, simplicity and the ways in which scarcity can lead to an almost fetishistic desire to possess something. Visually, it's a stunner. The different colors Harris uses for both story and narrative captions are a simple matter of choice, but they make text and image pop out on every page. The story would greatly suffer without them.

Harris' best comic is The Battle of Lake Champlain. It's a detailed story of the naval battle that essentially decided the postwar borders of the War of 1812, fought between the USA and Britain. She uses that simple line of hers and mixes it with the red of Britain and the blue of America (she notes that the colors aren't entirely historically accurate, but she did it for the sake of clarity) to create an absolutely gripping account of espionage, sabotage, naval engineering feats, military strategy, military culture and how the vagaries of nature can turn a battle instantly. Using a great deal of primary resources like letters and other direct communication, Harris brings an immediacy to the battle missing in most historical accounts of war that rely solely on the tactics and outcomes of a battle. Injecting it with humanity on both sides makes the subsequent US honoring of their vanquished foes all the more understandable. Without a doubt, this is one of the best minicomics I read in 2014; it's a perfect blend of style and substance.

The Crooked Cuyahoga, by Bryn Adams. This second-year student (class of 2015) has a style similar to that of Harris or Kramer. The actual drawings are simple, slightly wobbly and on the cartoony side. However, this landscape-formatted comic was cleverly designed and executed, and it's clear that a lot of thought went into how each page was composed. Adams takes advantage of the format with lots of shots of Cleveland's Cuyahoga river stretching across not just one page, but both pages of the landscape pages. On some pages, she lets time or space stretch out on the top half of both pages while drawing a narrative on the bottom half. Some pages are entirely taken up by maps or diagrams, while others are two-page splashes of important images, like the infamous one of the Cuyahoga catching fire in the early seventies.

What I really like about this comic, and the trend established by Sacco and continued on by the journalists noted here, is the use of primary sources and oral histories. Adams interviewed Frank Samsel, who had a great deal of insight into Cleveland's history and how its river came to be so polluted. He also happened to invent a device that did much of the work of the river's clean-up, working with a crew for several years aboard his clean-up boat. The comic has broader implications in how ecology and economics interact and have frequently been at odds with each other, and how these implications play out in the life of a city. Adams is remarkably and entertainingly thorough in detailing the history of the city and its relationship with its river and status as a trading hub and then a manufacturing center, and how losing its industries only left it with the legacy of pollution. Adams' use of blue and spot blacks livens up the otherwise bland appearance of her line art, which mostly acts as a means to an end in terms of getting across information and providing the basis of her clever formatting ideas. Adams is certainly a promising comics journalist, one whom I could easily see grappling with a longer and more complicated story.

Thirty Days of CCS #19: Adam Whittier, Josh Kramer, Andy Warner

Josh Kramer's fifth issue of his comics journalism comic The Cartoon Picayune continues its steady improvement, thanks in part to the participation of two polished artists known for their powers of observation and history. Andy Warner's "Sex Workers of the World, Unite!" is an even-handed history of the sex worker movement that was born in San Francisco. It's a movement designed to gain rights and legal protections for all classes of sex worker, from stripper to porn actress to prostitute. Warner did the legwork of getting interviews from a variety of different points of view and key members of the movement. Starting from a place of at least being sympathetic to the plight of sex workers led Warner to making a number of fine distinctions in the internal conflicts within the movement, which I found fascinating. As always, Warner's naturalistic style is clear and bold, with an emphasis on thick lines and spotting blacks as a way of drawing in the reader's attention, and a slightly cartoony style used for character design.

The other major story in this issue, Emi Gennis' "The Radium Girls", fits into her interests by being about unfortunate and unusual deaths but also snugly fits into this issue by unearthing the facts regarding the radium poisoning of female factory workers and the astounding callousness with which the Radium Dial Company treated these young women. Radium poisoning, which was in fact encouraged by the factory owners when they told the workers to swirl the radium-laced paintbushes in their mouths, is an especially painful way to die, but the company sandbagged and died until the end. Gennis' elegant, clear and decorative style frequently used an open layout and distinctive lettering, making it an appropriate pairing with Warner's piece. Kramer's own "Feeding the Meter" is much sketchier and lighter by contrast, which makes sense for this short story about a food truck owner's struggle to stay solvent in the face of onerous new laws. Erik Thurman's "Seoul Grind" is about the explosive coffee shop market in South Korea, how shops struggled to find out the best ways to make coffee and how shops manage to survive in the face of stiff competition. It's less a story than an interesting anecdote, one suited for just a couple of pages. This issue really seems to get it just right, mixing past and present while juxtaposing certain commonalities between both while getting at issues with some resonance.

Andy Warner's The Complete Brief Histories of Everyday Objects is a skillfully assembled mini that uses a consistent design model to deliver interesting stories about the origins of common objects. He manages to find intrigue in objects like ballpoint pens (which initially sold for an outrageous $12 apiece as part of a speculative demand bubble), cinnamon sticks (which were protected and monopolized by Arabs for nearly 3000 years thanks to a monster story) and the safety pin (created in a rush to settle a debt). I especially liked his piece about the bath tub, which is less about the tub and more about legendary writer H.L. Mencken gleefully spreading misinformation about its origins. This makes him the father of fake trivia. Warner then ends each two-page piece with bonus "fun facts", cramming additional research into one row and creating punchlines with single panel commentary. 

Adam Whittier's Phoenix: The Ford Pinto Story, is a tirelessly researched history of the Ford Motor Company's disastrous and dangerous Pinto model that was responsible for several deaths due to the way its rare gas tank leaked and exploded, even at slow speeds. Whittier documents the culture of auto makers at the time, which was that "safety doesn't sell", which led to the Pinto being rushed into production to compete with foreign competitors. The comic directly quotes the many outrageous things said and done by Ford executives, led by Lee Iacocca. Whittier makes some interesting story choices by going with a bright, whimsical drawing style as well as the decision to make "Phoenix", the Pinto prototype, have anthropomorphic qualities. In the context of the story and Whittier's rendering choices and (especially) color choices, having Phoenix talk made sense. In a story with events that were hard to believe (balancing profit over human lives), the fantasy element of Phoenix (as well as the prototype Edsel that came around telling Phoenix the real story) fit right in with larger-than-life characters like Ford and Iacocca. Balancing that fancy with direct quotes and stringently-researched hard numbers gives Phoenix the unusual distinction of being a critical documentation of corporate culture that's also entertaining. Whittier also touches on the idea that trying to recreate historical scenes always adds a fictive, narrative element; putting a talking car in there simply heightens that for the reader and allows Whittier to create a sort of Candide-like character whose fate is controlled by others.

Whittier's A Most Unfortunate Face is a smaller minicomic that shows off his facility for creating grotesque character designs, something that plays into Phoenix on a lesser scale. Whittier's exaggeration is limited to that character design, because he's careful not to overstate his case by using erroneous information that overinflated the number of people who had died in Pintos. Phoenix isn't Whittier's attempt at doing a Ralph Nader-esque Unsafe At Any Speed screed. Indeed, he is even-handed and understanding of certain aspects of corporate logic, especially when it's driven by consumer demand for cheaper products that don't sacrifice certain luxury add-ons. He condemns Ford and Iacocca for the lengths they went to in ignoring the pleas of their safety engineers and their sheer arrogance in how they thought a jury would never punish Ford. Whittier also notes how this trial was the flashpoint for making safety something that consumers would start to demand. This is a solid piece of historical writing, one backed up by primary documents and that has a carefully considered point of view that focuses on historical context as well as the events themselves.

Comics Journalism: Cartoon Picayune, The Illustrated Press Chicago

At the moment, comics journalism is still a movement that's in its infancy. Joe Sacco is its progenitor and exemplar, but not all journalism involves international hot spots and war crimes. Josh Kramer is an interesting case to me because, like Dan Archer before him, he came to the Center for Cartoon Studies in an attempt to sharpen his skills as a cartoonist and storyteller in the service of his already keenly-developed skills as a journalist. As Darryl Holliday astutely observed in The Illustrated Press: Chicago, print may be dying off, but journalism existed before print and will continue to exist in new formats. Observing the world around you, telling the stories of others whose voices might not otherwise be heard and generally trying to connect reader to place and time in a direct fashion while offering new perspectives can and is being done in any number of ways. Comics journalism frequently lacks the immediacy of other kinds of journalism, but this can work to its advantage when comics seeks to provide reflection and thought. Let's look at a few different but allied examples of this in action.

The Cartoon Picayune #3 and #4, edited by Josh Kramer. Kramer's modest but steadily evolving minicomic is the nexus of small-press journalism at the moment. Both Holliday and Warner printed stories in this tightly-edited, heavily sourced anthology. Kramer isn't against printing personal or less politically charge pieces, so long as they are up to the standards of the publication. The third issue (Spring 2012) features "The Man Who Built Beirut" by Andy Warner (which I reviewed here ) and Holliday/Rodriguez (see below for my comments on their comics). It also has a vignette that's essentially a series of interviews regarding DC charging extra for plastic or paper bags as a "clean-up" tax. Kramer is very limited as a draftsman but certainly knows how to put together a comics page, and this two-pager provided a variety of viewpoints before zeroing in on why it was important. Ethan Lener's "Julia Vericella: The Girl Who Plays Solitaire" is an interview told in first person from teh point of view of the interviewee, and it's a quick glimpse into the mind of someone who is restless and creative.  Both of these pieces were a nice contrast to the longer, splashier work in this issue.

#4 (Fall 2012) continues the mix of personal interest stories, more focused news stories, stories with a political and even activist slant and even a human interest story. "Rattled!" is a humorous, first-person account of the writer's participation in a rattlesnake race in Texas. Matt Diffee is a sharp and funny illustrator who makes some wider satirical points about Texas but mostly uses the strip for self-deprecatory purposes. Holliday & Rodriguez return for another story printed to better effect in their book. Colin Tedford's "The Story of Jake Tuesday" is fascinating for the way it celebrates a bit of local culture and history, and how the titular character who inspired the yearly celebration found that the holiday transcended his own particular tale of life and death. "Bethesda, Maryland" is Jess Ruliffson's straightforward interview with a Marine in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It seeks to do nothing other than let a soldier tell his story, both of how he was injured and how he is recovering, in an effort to make this bit of hidden information visible to the public. Kramer's slowly growing more and more ambitious as he is even starting to pay his correspondents; he's accepting limited advertising in order to do so.

The Illustrated Press: Chicago, by Darryl Holliday and E.N. Rodriguez. This sixty-page comic is a sort of self-determined PhD project in comics journalism by Holliday (the writer) and Rodriguez (the artist). It should be noted that this duo gets more in synch as the comic proceeds; breaking up the writing and drawing tasks put them behind the curve a bit in terms of producing something that reflected both of their sensibilities in equal measure. The book is essentially a love letter to their city of Chicago, though in many instances it's tough love. Arranging the book in a seasonal manner and taking it upon themselves to cover many different neighborhoods in a city that's clannish and gentrified, Holliday & Rodriguez tell their stories in a restrained, humane and dignified fashion. Even when writing more in an activist tone, Holliday is always even-handed and avoids hyperbole, relying on Rodriguez to fill in the blanks in terms of tone. Rodriguez never abuses that trust by going over-the-top in how he depicts events. Both writer and artist covered all of their events together and in person, making it a true collaboration.

It should be noted that the production values for this book are top-notch, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. The colors look great on the nice, thick paper. Holliday provides perspective on each story. The opener, "Wedlock", takes on a fascinating event: people getting married to inmates one day a year at the Cook County jail. It's a highly charged concept, but Holliday typically plays it low-key, letting the anecdotes speak for themselves. Neither artist nor writer had found their feet as of yet; the story is too wordy and the lettering is shaky at best. Rodriguez was also clearly an illustrator without much experience in drawing comics at the time of this story. His actual draftsmanship was fine, but the way he drew figures relating to each other in space was awkward. "Chess Records" takes an entirely different approach, with limited text and full-page illustrations in its depiction of chess players on Michigan Avenue. It's a simply-told account of the ways in which people in different walks of life come to play and why.

"Inside The Crawford Coal Plant" plant reminds me more of Dan Zettwoch's strips about outdated technology than a standard piece of comics journalism. It's beautifully colored and gives the reader just a quick glimpse of a piece of technological history that's about to be put out to pasture."Night Watch" sees Rodriguez step up his game considerably in this account of nuns drawing attention to immigrants being deported. It portrays their protests very matter-of-factly without explicitly agreeing or disagreeing with it, letting the images once again speak for themselves. The composition, the rendering and the character design were all sharp and bold, aiding the piece's overall impact greatly. "Home In One Place" is perhaps the best story in the whole book. This interview with Holliday's uncle is a survey of the city's history in a single neighborhood, documenting its rise and fall. What makes the story work as a comic was Rodriguez telling the story as we follow the uncle as he walks his dog, from left to right in each panel. This gives the reader something to grab onto and propels what is otherwise a static interview forward nicely. The use of color is muted but not to an extreme degree, as swashes of blue and green brighten up brown buildings. "The Clash On Wabash" details the ways in which a crowd and the police clashed at a NATO protest, using one or two images per page to get the story across. "Degrees of Literacy" is another static interview, this time hamstrung a bit by being set at a cafe. Rodriguez tries some tricky angles and foreshortening to liven up the visuals, but this proves to be a bit distracting. Overall, Holliday & Rodriguez are an ambitious, conscientious and thoughtful pair of journalists who are evolving into solid storytellers. Not everything worked well in this book, but it was clear that the two were well aware of their shortcomings and strove constantly to improve and try new approaches that gave their source material the respect they felt it deserved.

The Comics Journalism of Josh Kramer

Cartoon Picayune #2 by Josh Kramer. Kramer, like Dan Archer before him, had journalism on his mind when he went to the Center for Cartoon Studies. Unlike Archer, whose comics have a political bent, Kramer seems to prefer human interest stories. The second issue of his journalistic anthology series finds him including other correspondents, but all of them are subject to his rigid rules regarding sourcing and quotes. Even if the stories are drawn as a narrative with dialogue, Kramer makes a point of making the reader understand that his stories are "rigorously reported". The Cartoon Picayune reminds me most of Brendan Burford's Syncopated anthology, which features similar first and second person reporting styles. Unsurprisingly, Kramer's reach is a local one, with stories about a local high school ski jumping team, a gubernatorial primary, a day camp for rock, and the evolution of a local brewing company.

"Fly By Night" is hampered by being the second part of a story about that ski jumping team. The angles he was approaching did become quickly evident, however, like the young rookie girl and the team's star who was trying to beat the best jumper in the state. When Kramer is drawing diagrams or depicts motion, his art is certainly up to the task of getting across his ideas. His major flaw as an artist is depicting different faces. In this story that features so many different characters, this is a significant problem. I think Kramer is cognizant enough of this problem to get around it by emphasizing emotion through using lettering and body language. Kramer is admirable in that he doesn't try goosing the results of his story to make it more dramatic, which is especially unusual for a sports-related story. Instead, Kramer is more interested in the mechanics of the sport, how the kids got into it, and the minutiae of how a ski jump meet is conducted. In terms of the action, Kramer is best at drawing sharp angles, which made him perfect for depicting the actual jumps.


"School's In For Summer" sees Kramer change some of his approach a bit, giving his characters tiny white circles for eyes. There are still some awkward drawings of characters in some panels, but there's generally a better balance between character and background. The story itself is a quick but thorough examination of a "school of rock" summer program, going through the program's goals and interviewing some of the kids. Kramer also did a separate mini called One Place, One Cheese, which details the process two local cheesemakers go through in creating their product, as well as providing other details about their lives. In each of his stories, Kramer has a way of letting his subjects speak for themselves without adding his own editorializing as to why they're interesting or significant. The simple choice he makes to write about them indicates that he thinks they're worth of reportage.

Bill Volk's story about the history of Iron City Beer in Pittsburgh, "'arn", suffers a little from letting the new CEO talk at length without really challenging any of his premises. Volk's cartooning is quite lively, however, and the slightly grotesque touch he added to his character designs was an interesting choice. The folksy reporting style of James Sturm and the delicate character drawings of Katherine Roy were a perfect match in the depiction of a day in the life of a candidate for the governorship of Vermont, "Honk and Wave". Given that this was a story consisting entirely of talking heads, it was to Roy's credit that she made it so interesting to look at. Kramer certainly did a nice job as an editor, balancing three different kinds of stories in the sort of anthology that's quite rare. Kramer's rock-solid standards as a journalist and his editorial eye are a great foundation for his work; it will simply take time and experience as a cartoonist to bring that aspect of his work up to the rest of his standards.