Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948

Some nights after I’ve had a really rough day, I sigh at my Kindle, I sigh at the books on my nightstand, and then I pick up a Nancy book and read until I fall asleep. As I wrote about the previous collection:

Being completely new to the strip, I was surprised by how much I laughed and how downright wacky and borderline avant-garde some of the jokes were (witness Nancy making de-signs). If you’ve never read the strip, I highly recommend this collection (gorgeous design) and the classic essay, “How To Read Nancy.”

Filed under: Nancy

Lynda Barry, The Freddie Stories

I love this book — I first read it in the 1999 paperback edition put out by Sasquatch Books, but now Drawn and Quarterly has re-issued it in hardcover with new artwork, a new afterword by Lynda, and about 50 extra strips.

Something that has been in the back of my mind popped up when reading this book — I think I enjoy reading comic strip collections more than I do “graphic novels” or plain ol’ comic books. There’s something kind of magical about watching a story unfold in these four-panel segments.

The genius of Lynda’s strip style is that she can cover so much in four panels — the strips aren’t even what you would consider typical cartoons, something like Garfield or Nancy with speech balloons and visual gags — the narration often takes up at least half to 3/4 of the panel, and then the drawing is rarely an illustration of the narration, but rather, some sort of juxtaposition, a glimpse of the scene, or something that pushes the story further or comments on it and makes you go to the next panel. So, there’s interplay between the narration and the panel underneath, but THEN there’s the jump to the next panel, where a lot can happen. She telescopes time in a really interesting way. And THEN there’s the jump that happens when you turn the page.

In the chapter “Blood in the Gutter” of Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud talks about the importance of “the gutter” — the space in between panels — and how the gutter “plays host to much of the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics.”

Here in the limbo of the gutter, human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea. Nothing is seen between the two panels, but experience tells you something must be there. Comics panels fracture both time and space, offering a jagged staccato rhythm of unconnected moments. But closure allows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality.

I might argue that there are three elements that act as gutters in The Freddie Stories — the line between the narration and the rest of the panel, the space between each of the four panels, and then the space in between the page spreads. I think this highlights why I love reading strip collections so much, this one in particular — we’re given so many breathing moments, spaces in which we can fill in the gaps and use our own imagination to make the story our own. It highlights the real magic of the inherently interactive experience of reading — the words and the pictures need us to make them come alive, they need us to fill in the gaps…

Filed under: Lynda Barry

Comics Sketchbooks: The Unseen World of Today’s Most Creative Talents

It’s Nice That:

The revelations in sketchbooks can make the creator vulnerable – stripped bare of glossy finish, we can all look a bit rough – and it’s interesting in a book like this which pages the artists chose to present. Some use their pages to practice, others to fantasise. Some show obsessive neatness, others get messy. The ones that show process are fascinating to follow, and their annotations are exciting to decipher. But the pleasure of this book mainly comes from the feeling that seeing cartoonists trawl faint blue pencil for the perfect line to ink is akin to being let in on a great secret.

Filed under: sketchbooks

“The Bat-Man” by Tony Millionaire and Chip Kidd, from Bizarro Comics #1

Tony Millionaire on pitching ideas for Batman:

I had one [pitch] where Batman went completely broke. His corporation went completely broke. He was like, ‘should I throw this Batarang? These cost me $550 each. I’m not really sure I can afford to throw it. I should probably just run.’ And he had to sell all his cars and ride a bicycle around. If anyone sees him on a bicycle with his costume on, they’ll catch him, so he can’t even wear that anymore. He just has to wear a t-shirt and run around. They said, “no, we’re not going to do that” [laughs]. I’d like to do a story about the real Batman, what a real Batman would be like. Just some guy, who’s not really that rich. He’d just run around and try to figure out where the crime is. In my neighborhood, all he’d be doing is running up to cars where they’re selling drugs out the window.”

Filed under: Tony Millionaire (via)