The Stuff of Life
Buy this book

When I saw The Stuff of Life: A graphic guide to genetics and DNA, I thought it would be another great book in the genre. Heck, it was both blurbed by Hosler and illustrated by Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon, who previously worked with Ottaviani on two books, T-Minus: The Race to the Moon and Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards. Unfortunately, I was severely disappointed.

First, I found the premise silly. The framing sequence has an alien named Bloort 183 reporting on human genetics to the king, Floorsh 727. Aliens with goofy names? Ok, maybe they wanted something visually interesting, since this is a comic. Nope. The aliens are stalks with a flower on top with an eye in the middle. They’re lumpy and boring.

They feature in a very text-heavy, yawn-inducing introduction. Why does a book on genetics start with the formation of the planet Earth? I thought I was in the wrong volume. The overwritten text doesn’t work well as comics — the pictures illustrate the words instead of integrating with them. The art is quite good, actually; it’s a shame that the small size of the book and the copious amounts of text don’t show it off better.

By the time they start the genetics information, they’re throwing concepts, facts, and specialized terms at the reader rapidly. The alien nattering becomes a distraction instead of a way into the pile of jargon.

I’m not sure who the audience for this is. Younger readers will be put off by the relatively advanced vocabulary. Older readers (college level, for example) will likely find the comedy aliens too silly. I only made it 25 pages into the 150-page book before I gave up — it was making me sleepy. I will say, flipping through the rest, it seems very thorough and in-depth in covering its subject, but I was too bored to continue. There’s an excerpt at the publisher’s website if you want to see more.

edited by Ed Choy Moorman
Bare Bones Press, 176 black-and-white pages, $10 US

This benefit anthology (proceeds go to RS Eden, a substance abuse treatment facility in Minneapolis) is loosely themed, keeping with the title. The ghost approach was reinforced by the first piece, an odd wordless thing with small pen-and-ink drawings by someone called Hob featuring the ghost of a brontosaurus (or whatever they’re calling long-necked dinosaurs these days). It sets things off with a good tone. Other stories are less connected, being only about memories, or losing a loved one.

Pieces that stood out to me: Maris Wicks draws cute little formless ghosts in a short series of funny strips about living in a haunted house. (Turns out she’s illustrating Jim Ottaviani’s upcoming book from First Second about women who worked with monkeys, which means I’m now looking forward to it even more.) Lucy Knisley contributes a story about going to an outlet mall and passing by the boarding school she once attended, but I’d already read it in one of her books. Jessica McLeod’s story, featuring the ghosts of dead tomato plants, was adorable.

Some of the stories are little more than doodles, with the kind of scratchy naive art I’ve given up reading. Others appear intended for somewhere else (the Japanese folktale, the knight slaying a beast). The editor’s piece, about music-driven memories, also appears in Side B (see below).

A practical note: the table of contents lists only the artists’ names. The stories themselves may have a title or may have nothing at all. All entries in an anthology should have the story title and author’s name clearly listed in the same format whenever the stories change, and so should the table of contents. Since so many contributors to these kinds of projects may not be well-known to the readers, full identification should be used in all cases. Without it, I had to flip back and forth between story and table of contents to see who’d drawn what I was reading.

Secret Identities

Secret Identities
Buy this book

edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma
New Press, 200 black-and-white pages, $21.95 US

This Asian American Superhero Anthology has an admirable purpose — to address under-representation of Asians in comics and demonstrate the abilities of Asian American creators — but the results are too often uneven.

Some of the characters are utterly generic, heroes that have nothing to recommend them beyond their ethnicity. Other stories were barely a prologue, just establishing a premise or introducing cast members when they ended. (The best of this bunch is The Citizen, by Greg Pak and Bernard Chang, which features President Obama activating an Asian American hero to kill Nazis. It’s of a distinctly more professional level in both art and writing than some of the other pieces.) Instead of a showcase, sometimes this seemed like a pitch book, a try-out for getting more work.

The history-influenced section, “War and Remembrance”, is the longest in the book and the best. Some stories focused on downturns of oppression, especially during the section set during the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. I don’t dispute those feelings, but it’s a bit weird to see stories that demonstrate no hope, no view for a better future, especially those set in the past. I would think that the existence of this book serves as a small counter-argument for that view.

It seemed to me that some of the heavily shaded entries were designed for color reproduction, and the result when printed without was dark, muddy, and hard to read. There is a short color section, but it’s used for character profiles, a kind of who’s who of ideas for other comics.

I liked the revisionist take on the Green Hornet by Gene Yang and Sonny Liew called “The Blue Scorpion and Chung”. It’s got a drunken racist crimefighter and his hard-working chauffeur, and it’s really about the despair of sacrifice.

There’s one section dedicated to “Girl Power”, either female creators or characters or both. Lynn Chen and Paul Wei tell a folklorish story dealing with body image that was a pleasant change of pace while still keeping with the theme. “Sampler”, by Jimmy Aquino and Erwin Haya, is an odd piece about superpowered costumes with a distinct look that suits its fashion focus. The rest of the book is as typically male-dominated as other superhero comic projects and companies, with women showing up as girlfriends or scantily clad superheroines when they appear at all.

The strips I enjoyed most were those that directly addressed the problem of representation and spoke to individual experience. For instance, Tak Toyoshima’s one-pager where his character Secret Asian Man talks with Larry Hama. Or the page where Greg Pak talks about his goals, art by A.L. Baroza. (The writer is credited as Keith Chow; there are two more of these short interview pages in the book, talking with Gene Yang & Michael Kang and Greg Larocque.) I wish there had been a lot more of this kind of material, but that would have been a different book, one about the work of Asian American creators, without the superhero hook.

Side B: The Music Lover’s Comic Anthology

edited by Rachel Dukes
Poseur Ink, 232 black-and-white pages, $22.99 US

As with Ghost Stories, I would have liked to have seen a design element introducing each story with a title and author, but at least here, most of the stories do that themselves. The theme, comics about music, is a great one, as well as immensely challenging. You can’t convey sound through a silent paper medium, so the artists must instead cover the emotions raised.

I was generally impressed by the high quality of the work here. Even with the pieces where I didn’t care for their chosen style, I could see skill underneath (as opposed to the “I drew better than this in 4th grade” feeling I sometimes get in these cases).

Brian Butler had an interesting collage-like piece about life as an indie band. Dominique Ferland’s two-pager about meeting in a club says it all in a short space. Joshua Rosen starts out talking about having to come up with an idea for a comic music anthology (boo! to too much self-referentiality) but it turns into a piece about how music matters differently to us as we age. Elizabeth Gearhart’s accomplished lines and toning illustrate the story of an opera singer’s ghost and a cat told in verse! Impressive and cute!

Many of the pieces are semi-autobiographical, or seem that way. I liked the approach, since made the book feel like hanging out chatting with friends. Lucy Knisley ponders technology changing our musical memories (and this one I hadn’t read before). Katie Shanahan talks about having tastes outside of the usual, open-mindedness, and acceptance. Cindy Hui and Joe Laquinte share family memories in an imaginative piece that uses comic symbolism to capture emotion. Andy Jewett remembers home taping from the radio; it brought back strong memories for me, and the urge to find my old homemade cassettes. Jamie Campbell has two pages on music in soundtracks, combining with visuals. Megan Rose Gedris’ piece on muses helped me understand why some young comic makers are also into other arts.

Other contributors you might recognize are Jeffrey Brown, Todd Webb, Jim Mahfood, and Ryan Kelly. There’s music as proposal, music as elegy, music as lifesaver. Several of the pieces, as expected, are about favorite songs, bands, or albums. Only two mention downloading in any way, which surprised me. (One’s about the Rock Band video game, which was cool.) Then again, many of the stories are about memory, and online music is still relatively new. With stories about record shops, mixtapes, and listening to entire albums, the book is almost a time capsule of how things used to be. Lawrence Gullo’s “Summer 1968″ sums it up: music is about freedom.

So far, the best anthology I’ve read this year. Get a copy and see for yourself.

A Slow Start and Other Problems

The show opened over an hour late. Explanations varied: cash registers weren’t there, badges weren’t there, publishers’ books weren’t there. The organizers extended closing time an hour, but that didn’t help people, like me, who had evening appointments they couldn’t miss. It totally bollixed up the programming schedule, too. I heard someone saying that the experienced show folks left the sponsoring museum organization last year, so the organizers may have had to re-learn some skills.

Matt, Rivkah, and Johanna at breakfast diner

I had had breakfast beforehand with Ed, Rivkah, and her friend Matt Bernier, also an artist. (His minicomic Out of Water, the story of a boy and a dolphin based on a Greek myth, reminded me of Craig Thompson’s Goodbye Chunky Rice. He’s also contributed to Flight 5.) That was good, because I was fortified for the delay, and they were wonderful to talk with as we waited. I’m eagerly awaiting Rivkah’s next book, a huge autobiographical tale about coming to recognize when a relationship is bad for you and how to escape.

And who should appear in line behind us but Douglas Wolk! We’ve both contributed to the same two websites, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him before. Later, I also met Rick Marshall while chatting with Gary Tyrrell during a much-needed rest break. Otherwise, the show was big enough that I didn’t find anyone I hoped to bump into. It was definitely a place to make arrangements and phone calls instead of relying on chance.

Once we got in, the show was much warmer than I expected, which meant that promotional postcards came in very handy as substitute fans. There was no air conditioning in one big barn-like room, although I’m told that it was much improved over last year’s upstairs sweatbox.

People in line before opening as far as the eye can see

I was also disappointed by the lack of identifying table numbers. Many of the artists I was interested in finding had been diligent about posting where they’d be, and I noted down the numbers… but digits were nowhere to be seen on the tables themselves, and it was very hard to see where one table stopped and another started, so counting was impossible.

Oh, and because I kept tiring myself out, I didn’t check out any programming, although Ed did. He’ll have a post later.

Exciting Books

Some of the books I was most looking forward to buying were by Lucy Knisley. I have fallen in love with her art. Pretty Little Book is, like Radiator Days, a collection of journal comics, but in color this time! (Which means it’s the same price for fewer pages, but oh so pretty. And funny.) I also got Heart Seed Snow Circuit, her graduate school application project, a large-format comic with a talking apple, snowman, and refrigerator who discuss hunger, passion, and creation, all with food undertones (as I’ve come to expect in Knisley’s work). Thought-provoking and inspirational. Although an essay in comic form, the unusual characters are well-cartooned and keep the reader interested.

Probably my favorite is Drawn to You, a collaborative comic by Lucy with Erika Moen. They each drew themselves, sending pages back and forth online. It’s like reading a combination interview and letter series. They discuss why they do autobiographical comics, gender distinctions, sexuality, and compliment each other. It’s fascinating, in part because it stays so interesting even though it’s just two representations talking.

Chris Pitzer and Mike Dawson at AdHouse table

I also picked up these great-looking titles, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet:

• Johnny Hiro, collecting the three previous issues with a lot more
• Lamar Abrams’ Remake, which looks like silly action fun
• Side B, a music-themed anthology
• Ghost Comics, a benefit anthology out of Minnesota
• Undertow, a story about not fitting in the 1950s. Author Ellen Lindner now lives in England, which I found fascinating.

Many Minicomics

Top of my list for minicomics were new issues of Jumbly Junkery by L. Nichols. I was complaining about non-descript covers on earlier issues, so I was tickled to see the day-glo pink skeleton on yellow background on the new #7. That’s certainly not going to be overlooked!

The longest story in #6 really touched me, too. It’s about scientists inventing a time machine, and in the future, the traveler discovers that souls can be measured by quantum physics and as a result, science and religion have become one. As someone else who gave up the hard stuff for creative functions, I could really identify.

Cathy Leamy (Geraniums and Bacon) put out “Greenblooded: An Introduction to Eco-Friendly Feminine Hygiene”, which I had to have just because of the unique subject matter. She’s right, no one talks about this stuff. I learned a lot. Not willing to give up traditional products for the alternatives, but it’s good to know they’re out there.

Tim Kelly caught my eye because he had a puppet named Max the Meanie. He draws comics about it. He also has done diary comics about his daughter, who has autism, so we talked about the manga With the Light, which covers the same subject.

(I have a lot more to talk about, but that will have to be a second post, since I’m over 1500 words here already.)

Upcoming Promotions

Raina Telgemeier had postcards promoting the collection of Smile, due out in February. The cover takes a minimal approach, featuring a smiley face wearing braces. I can’t wait to read the whole story!

Hope Larson’s new book, Mercury, will also be out in 2010. I know nothing about it except for the intriguing postcard image she had, but it’s by her, so I’ll buy it.

Matt Loux, who looked younger than I expected (but then so did everyone), told me the third volume of his Salt Water Taffy series, The Truth About Dr. True, is due out a little later than expected, probably September.

I missed saying hi to Neil Kleid, although NBM had promo booklets for his upcoming book The Big Kahn. It’s a nice presentation with a substantial chunk of story, and it worked — I want to read more.

End Thoughts

I closed the visit with a very nice sushi dinner at Japonica with my brother and sister-in-law. I like coming back to family after comic shows, because it grounds me.

On the way back to the airport, I wound up sitting next to a young woman who leaned over and gave me information about a subway stop. I asked her, “how could you tell I was a tourist?” She replied, “You smiled at me.”

My very deepest thanks to Jim Ottaviani, for giving me a place to sit when I really needed it.

Reading other people’s reports, I feel like there was so much I missed. Heck, Ed and I came away with almost totally different stacks of reading material. (Time to swap and share!) I don’t mind — I’d rather leave wanting more than feel burned out early — but I wish the environment had been more conducive to browsing (lower temperature, places to sit down, easier table navigation).

The biggest problem I saw at the show was that of pricing. Minicomics are more often $5 than $1, and books start about $15. Which means it’s a lot harder to sample widely (unless people pay attention to the press badge, which is the only reason I came back with as much as I did). I spent $60 right off the bat on must-haves (six books), which made me pickier afterwards. With news that table fees are increasing to $400 next year, I fear for what that means — artists will have to have higher-priced items just to have a chance to make a profit. For a normal visitor paying a $10-15 entry fee just to have a chance to shop, this becomes a pricey weekend.

The biggest hope I saw was that there is no reason to fear for the future of comics. All these young creative people were almost too much for one huge room. It’s astounding, what’s being done out there, and even though I exhausted myself physically, I feel energized by it all.

The Previews cancellation pages used to be full of reason codes 2 and 6. That’s “will resolicit” (which I usually took to mean “the creators are running later than we expected, but you’ll see the book eventually”) and “sold out” (never a bad reason). Now, it’s all 4s (“cancelled by publisher”, which sometimes means “we can’t afford to do it with those numbers”) and the dreaded 3s (“cancelled by Previews”). That last one means “we didn’t get enough orders to make Diamond enough profit”, and even knowing that they were cracking down this year, I had no idea it would grow this quickly.

Hope Falls
Buy this book

Take, for example, Hope Falls. The miniseries, written by Tony Lee, had a collection planned for release this year, but it fell victim to “not enough orders”. Yet Markosia is still publishing it — they’ll sell it through Amazon, Diamond UK, and direct themselves.

That’s just one of many. Rumor has it that Diamond’s in trouble, like most companies in this economy, and it’s understandable that they need to tighten up, but driving customers to other venues doesn’t do Diamond’s customers, the direct market comic shops, any good. And having to stay on top of the status of various projects individually in order to figure out who you’ll get it from and when … that’s no fun. It defeats the purpose of centralized orders, whether from retailer to Diamond or reader to retailer.

Another Stupid Wizard Article

Bwa ha ha! Wizard is plugging an article on “How to Get Your Girl to Read Comics”. Leaving aside the assumption that all of their readers are heterosexual males… I’m not sure I believe anyone immature enough to read Wizard magazine would *have* a girlfriend. But the picture shows her holding a huge stack of Marvel, DC, and Image collections. I don’t really think most women are going to be as interested in The Punisher, Invincible, and Green Lantern as they might be in something, oh, non-superheroish. What about indies? Art comics? Manga? Works in other genres, like science fiction or romance? Heck, if you must show superheroes, what about Birds of Prey or Wonder Woman? And if you’re going to be that terribly cliched, go with Sandman and Strangers in Paradise.

What I’m Looking Forward To

Eh, enough griping. Let’s go to things I’m positive about, starting with Venus Capriccio Volume 2. It surprises me no end that, just when I’m ready to give up on all DC publications, I’ve found a couple of their CMX manga series I really like, this one and The Name of the Flower.

Suspended in Language
Buy this book

If you haven’t read it before, be sure to check out Jim Ottaviani’s Suspended in Language (GT Labs), a true-science graphic biography of Niels Bohr, the father of quantum mechanics. The art is mostly by Leland Purvis with additional work by Jay Hosler, Roger Langridge, Steve Leialoha, Linda Medley, and Jeff Parker, talented artists all. It’s a fascinating example of just how wide-ranging comic storytelling can be.

I’m looking forward to The Big Kahn, by Neil Kleid and Nicholas Cinquegrani, from NBM. When a respected rabbi passes away, his family finds out that for 40 years, he’s been lying to everyone: he’s not even Jewish. It’s a story about grief and faith and family and finding one’s own way. An online preview is available.

My gracious, how the mighty have fallen. Tokyopop has two pages of Previews, that’s it, with 12 listings. It’s a far cry from the days where they’d have page after page, one or two books per.

The Surrogates: Flesh & Bone
Buy this book

Top Shelf is preparing for the late September debut of The Surrogates movie with a re-release of the graphic novel with a new cover; a new prequel story, Flesh & Bone; and a super-deluxe hardcover containing them both. Good for them!

The Middleman graphic novel The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse (Viper Comics) promises to serve as conclusion to the much-missed TV show. I want to read the comic, but it will only remind me of how much I miss the series.

Peter David’s book about Writing for Comics (Books section) is updated and revised. I don’t know about specific changes, but I thought the first one was pretty good, so I’ll still recommend this version.

What are you anticipating?

My first impression was of the staff. Everyone was polite, friendly, and seemed excited to be there. There was a great positive atmosphere from everyone; not just staff, but artists, volunteers, and attendees. I’ll say this up-front so I don’t repeat myself a hundred times; every person I talked to was pleasant, upbeat, patient, and just all around nice.

I have to admit I’m always a little anxious about approaching an artist’s table, because I know the person has put a lot of hard work and money into the books on the table. So I feel bad when I look at a comic and it doesn’t interest me for whatever reason. I mean, it’s a very intimate experience, when the artist is right there in front of me and I’m walking away. I want to say, “I’m sorry, you’re a nice person, your comic just doesn’t connect with me.” What I really appreciated at SPX was that nobody there was pushing the hard sell. Each table I approached, the artist explained what their comics were about, asked me to take a look, and then just let me look through their books and merchandise. Even if I didn’t buy anything I was thanked for looking. After the second or third time this happened my anxiety dissipated and I was able to start browsing in earnest. This made the convention a very enjoyable experience.

I did have a few books I wanted to get signed. I gave my copy of Knights of the Lunch Table to my seven-year-old nephew, who loved it as much as I did. I had Frank Cammuso sign the book for him. This makes it the first signed comic of any kind in my nephew’s collection.

Andy Runton signed my three Owly books and put a very nice sketch of Owly, Wormy, and friends in each book. He also gave me some great tips on using a brush pen. I like practicing calligraphy and he helped to see what I was doing wrong.

Rob Ullman signed the dozen items I had. He’s a fellow Richmonder, but I always forget to bring his books to the local comic show. So I finally got all my stuff signed. I also picked up some great books I didn’t have (see below).

What was amazing wandering around were the number of self-published people with bound trade paperbacks to sell. It’s a good indicator of where I think the comic market is headed. There were plenty of mini-comics and pamphlets, too. My problem was I seriously underestimated the amount of cash I needed. I would have liked to pick up a few more comics to sample than I did, but my empty wallet had the final say. I did pick up business cards from all the artists I liked so I could check out their websites. Here’s what I did get and just some quick thoughts or impressions.

Raina Telgemeier – Picked up a collection of Take-Out comics, the first chapter of Smile, and a new mini-comic called Outreach. All of these are slice-of-life stories. I’ve already read through them and really enjoyed them. I wish I had a couple hundred more of these to read. JDC: Raina’s big news of the show was having Smile picked up by Scholastic/Graphix, so she’ll be finishing the story for print publication in color. Yay! It’s due out in 2010.

Jim Ottaviani – Picked up Levitation, which is about the history of the levitating person magic trick. It’s a great book with tons of reference material listed in the afterward. I also picked up Dignifying Science: Stories about Women Scientists and it looks equally as good.

Jim8Ball – Picked up the first two issues of Tail of the Samurai Cat and he gave me the third for free. A nice parody of Lone Wolf and Cub. I’ve already finished these and liked them. JDC: I didn’t even see this table!

Rob Ullman – Picked up Teeny Bikini #5, Grand Gestures #1, From the Curve #5, and Atom-Bomb Bikini #5. Grand Gestures and From the Curve are slice-of-life books that I’ve already completed and enjoyed. The Bikini books are sketch books with a focus on good girl art.

Mariko Tamaki – Picked up Emiko Superstar, apparently the last of the Minx books, it looks good. JDC: I think Token will be the last Minx, due out early November.

Jay Hosler – Picked up Optical Allusions, The Sandwalk Adventures, and Cow-Boy. All look excellent. Since my seven-year nephew likes science and comics I plan to pass these on him. (Except Cow-Boy, that’s mine.) Jay also did the artwork for all the SPX badges. I got him to sign mine. I plan to laminate it and use as a bookmark. (This was the also the first convention I attended as a member of the comic press.) JDC: I loved Jay’s image for the press badge of a woman in a fedora interviewing a talking comic book. I should have had mine signed, too. And I hope Ed enjoys Sandwalk, since I pressed it on him, given his love of philosophical discussion.

Frank Naif gave me a copy of Super Secret Bungling & Crookery. Just finished this and liked the humor a lot. I was in the military so I can appreciate his frustrations with the government bureaucracy. The art is simple but effective for the humor.

T.J. Kirsch gave me A Murder of Crows. It’s an interesting story of a Vietnam vet dealing with his experiences. I wish the piece was a little longer.

Jane Irwin was extremely generous and gave me a copy of the first volume of Vogelein. It looks intriguing. Wait, there are footnotes at the end! I’m sold. Seriously, I’m a sucker for comics with that much thought put into them.

Fanfare/Ponent Mon – Deb Aoki from About Manga was running the booth for them. She was generous enough to give me copies of Times of Botchan volumes two and three. I was really glad to see and talk to her. We were both at NY Anime Fest the prior weekend, and I missed getting a chance to met her there. I love Jiro Taniguchi’s art so I can’t wait to read these. I believe I now own every book Fanfare has published in the US.

I also attended the Critic’s Roundtable discussion with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos. The panelists were Rob Clough, Gary Groth, Jog, and Tim Hodler. There wasn’t a lot of crosstalk. The hour went quickly. Bill had a chance to ask about five questions and get a response from each member. I won’t give much detail on the panel, since my understanding is that the panel was recorded and either the audio or a transcript will be made available soon. Basically, each guest discussed what they tried to achieve when reviewing a comic. What they thought of the current state of comic reviews and criticism. Some of the common problems they saw in comic reviews. Also, mainstream versus comic press coverage and reviews of comics. I enjoyed the panel and wished they had an hour to discuss further issues. I would also have liked to seen the panelists ask questions of each other.

Overall, I really had a good time at the show and will definitely be back next year. JDC: Thanks, Ed, for the company on the trip. And I ditto your feelings! Great time, great comics!

Better Zombies Through Physics takes off from the thought experiment of Schrodinger’s Cat to postulate a business selling zombie pets. It’s illustrated by Sean Bieri to bring out all the humor, and the result is hilarious.

His American Indian-like clan is camping on the grounds of an urban estate owned by a nouveau riche lord. On the evening of a large party, the baron’s baby son is stolen and later found dead. Obviously, there are echoes of the Lindbergh kidnapping, one of the defining stories of the twentieth century, but the tale has been refashioned to play up the culture clash between the civilized and the aborigines.

Finder: The Rescuers
Buy this book

A stodgy cop without detective skills, Jaeger’s opposite, asks him for assistance, but their two worldviews are so different they almost can’t communicate. There’s a huge difference between knowing the truth and wanting justice based on it, and following the law based on what you can prove. It’s all complicated by conflicting cultural rituals surrounding childbirth, Jaeger’s lack of legal status (and rights), and oddly intriguing details like a kudzu vine that grows TV screens.

Another subtext of the story is the barely hidden, sometimes violent hostility between male and female. The book opens with a scene that ends “If there are too many of anything, it’s the girls you have to kill.” Jaeger is reintroduced showing a girl (who idolizes him a bit too much) why a banana-shaped knife is considered a male weapon. (She had thought it looked like a crescent moon, a traditionally female symbol.)

The mother becomes a living ghost during the ordeal, tormented by her loss, while the father gives orders. He’s a practical man, hardened by a horrific childhood experience and used to losing those closest to him. They grieve differently and try not to blame each other. It’s not surprising that birth, an expression of love, can also drive hate. We often see it expressed these days in sitcom-style, the mother screaming in pain as she labors, “YOU did this to me!”, but there’s truth behind the joke. And still the risk of death for the woman giving birth.

McNeil’s art is moodier than ever, drawing night and its shadows with crayon texture. This is her most difficult and darkest book in art and especially mood, since crimes don’t have easy answers. Sometimes all that’s left is how those affected have been reshaped.

Aside from the other books in the Finder series, McNeil has also drawn for

• Queen & Country: Operation Stormfront, written by Greg Rucka
• the Hedy Lamarr story, written by Jim Ottaviani, in Dignifying Science, an anthology about female scientists
• the Frank Ironwine story, written by Warren Ellis, in Apparat, a collection of pulp genre story experiments

Along with Jim Ottaviani’s Wire Mothers, this book initiates GT Labs’ new series exploring “the science of the unscientific”. This time, it’s an exploration of stage magic.

Levitation
Buy this book

There’s a surprising amount of scientific knowledge needed to make impressive illusions work, and this book shows you how some of them accomplish their tricks. A good show requires experimentation ahead of time to make improvements and work out the bugs.

Then there’s the component of human nature. A brash American wants to buy the secret of the levitation trick from its developer, but his principles outweigh money, so much research and even a bit of gall is necessary to get the American what he wants. Toss in showmanship and a pretty girl or two, and voila! Magic! I never would have guessed that’s how the trick was done.

Janine Johnson’s art is lovely, with what looks like a watercolor wash giving everything an old-fashioned feel that’s well-suited to the material. Her panel choices are wonderful, balancing mid-range location images with close-up insets, often focusing on a magician’s hands. Figures are realistic, caught in the proper moment of action to give a feel of movement. It’s very easy to read, a sign of true skill. Like a magic trick, her art requires study to understand just how much work went into it; otherwise, the reader just follows along, enjoying the show.

Find out more at the publisher’s website or through this interview with the creators.

Levitation is now available for order through comic shops with Diamond code MAY07 3508. This review was based on a draft online preview copy.

I love Jim Ottaviani’s work. His true-science comics are entertaining, educational, and eye-opening. Now he’s back with two new books, part of a series exploring “the science of the unscientific”.

The first explores a basic human need: love. As always, it’s a true story, about “one man’s quest to prove that love is real, that it’s learned, and that it matters.” Science history books are interesting reads in part because a modern reader often has a different perspective. The idea that someone would need to prove that love is needed for the proper development of a person seems obviously ridiculous to me, but in the 1950s, behaviorists thought otherwise, and they had to be proven wrong.

Wire Mothers
Buy this book

That’s not the only difference between then and modern day — the frequent smoking, not to mention the fears of anti-Semitism, are also convenient reminders that we’re reading about a different time.

Professor Harlow was studying abnormal psychology when he began investigating how primates learn. A lot of coincidences drove him to work with monkeys, the result of poor office locations, lack of rats, and family connections. He quickly found that monkeys quit learning when they were isolated, and that discovery, coupled with disdain for scientists who preached on what they knew little about, led him to argue against the atrocious idea of the Skinner box, raising children in a ventilated incubator. He also objected to the substitution of the word “proximity” for “love” in scientific literature, an amusing quirk that I suspect was meant all too seriously for some.

The human component of the story is enhanced by the contrast between his love for his work and his increasing distances at home. The third sign of a different era is his expectations that he could focus on the job while his wife put up with his silences. Thankfully, he seemed to learn from his experiences as well.

I wasn’t previously familiar with the work of artist Dylan Meconis, but I’m told she has contributed to both Flight and Girlamatic. Her style here is cluttered (appropriate to the period) but still clear to read, with lumpy, down-to-earth figures. I find that appropriate for a story about trying to restrict the grand flight of love to an experiment.

Find out more at the publisher’s website or through this interview with the creators.

Wire Mothers is now available for order through comic shops with Diamond code MAY07 3507. This review was based on a draft online preview copy.

Love and Capes will put out issue #3 for Valentine’s Day; here’s the cover.

Andi Watson does manga! He’s posted half of his “Princess at Midnight” story (25 pages), which will be appearing in The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga.

Earlier this week, I told you about Jim Ottaviani’s upcoming Levitation. Now I have a picture of the promotional poster for you. Click on the small version to get a better view of the art by Michael Kaluta.

It’s going to be a novella, about 50 pages of story plus the usual background material and endnotes. It explores stage magic, that blend of psychics and psychology, and will be illustrated by Janine Johnston, who did some of the art for Jim’s earlier book Fallout.

This is only one of four books he’s working on for next year. The second is part of a series with Levitation dealing with the science of the unscientific. It’s going to tackle love, revolving around a series of experiments Harry Harlow did about the need for affection. Both are planned to be out in April.

The other two he’s writing will be published by noted young publisher First Second. One is about Feynman, and the other deals with the three primate researchers who worked with Louis Leakey: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas (part of whose story was previously included in Dignifying Science).

I also found out the secret origin of the GT Labs name. It turns out that General Tektronics was where, according to an early volume of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, a certain spider bit a certain teenager.

Ottaviani’s most entertaining book yet is full of schemes and, as guest star P.T. Barnum is told, “humbug” as dinosaur hunters plot against each other for status and money. O.C. Marsh is buying up antiquities while Edward Drinker Cope considers Marsh a gloryhound who only wants his name in the papers. Charles Knight, illustrator, helps brings their bone discoveries to life with his artistic reconstructions of what the beasts might have looked like.

Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and
Thunder Lizards
Buy this book

Those who do their own field work are contrasted with those who have crews to do dirty work while they claim glory and hobnob with politicians. Although the story is historical, the question of whether promotion is a necessary evil (to gather funds through attention) or a base desire of those with the wrong motivations is a very modern one. Those with purer motives take comfort in being uncorrupted by money, but that money would come in awfully handy when they’re working hard and struggling with debts.

This dusty subject is given life and verve through the personal politics of the participants, and it’s the details that make it fun. For example, instead of plain text, Barnum’s comments are printed in display type, similar to a circus poster. The toned art is expressive, fluid to read, and perfectly captures the emotional involvement of these early paleontologists. It’s ironic that today, I recognized images of their discoveries but hadn’t previously heard of any of them. Lives end; science and art endure.

There are notes at the end of the book telling which elements of the story are factual and which fictional, with more in the former category than you might expect. The GT Labs website has more information, including preview pages. Jim Ottaviani’s previous book was Suspended in Language.

As Bohr was finishing college, physics was entering a revolutionary state. Einstein and Planck had introduced relativity and the idea that measurement couldn’t be exact. Building on their foundation, Bohr used his invention of quantum mechanics to improve the classical model of the atom. He became a leader in theoretical physics, with just about every Nobel Prize winner coming to his institute. Later in life, he moved into political work, helping intellectual refugees on the eve of World War II and using his celebrity to argue for arms control after development of the atomic bomb.

Suspended in
Language
Buy this book

Leland Purvis’ distinctively thick line is well-suited for a biography, since it foregrounds the figures in a panel, drawing the reader’s eye to them. The visuals and text combine in such a way that it’s difficult to separate the two, unusual for a book with separate writer and artist. For example, early on, the political state of Bohr’s homeland of Denmark is explained through the visual metaphor of Hamlet followed by a towering Queen Victoria hiding childish figures of FDR, Churchill, and others under her skirts. (They were young then, not yet adults ready to take their place on the world stage.)

Throughout, there’s a playful tone, with noted physicists as characters who talk to the reader when needed. This approach suits Bohr’s character, as a writer who loved language and argument, and the theories he was essential in developing. Just as a physicist can’t observe an experiment without affecting it, one can’t read this book without being affected.

The idea that one can’t know everything was a radical revision that spread from science throughout culture, and the book’s reader similarly needs to acknowledge that they can’t understand everything. All these ideas are brought together in a sequence near the end that incorporates the reader into the space/time of Bohr’s life.

There are sample pages at Leland Purvis’ website. The GT Labs website has more information, including preview pages. A physicist reviews Suspended in Language. Jim Ottaviani previously wrote Fallout.

Szilard fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and began trying to convince others of the possibilities resulting from atomic fission and its resulting energy, both good and bad. Throughout the 40s, he and other scientists worked to find the funding and material, especially uranium, for their experiments in the field, all the while arguing over whether the rules of science and publication of data had changed because of the war.

Fallout
Buy this book

Fallout has art by Janine Johnston, Steve Lieber, Vince Locke, Bernie Mireault, Jeff Parker, Chris Kemple, and Eddy Newell, with a cover by Jeffrey Jones.

The focus of the book then changes to Oppenheimer’s leadership of the Los Alamos laboratory, where the need for secrecy becomes even more pressing. It’s especially galling on those who escaped from the prison of fascism to be restricted under military oversight. It’s also a stretch for those used to operating on a theoretical basis to worry about how to accurately build such a devastating weapon.

Later, Oppenheimer participates in an inquiry to determine whether he is a security risk. Various incidents that have been reported against him and his response are run in text columns, juxtaposed against the images of his testimony to the panel. His clearance was revoked, preventing the “father of the atomic bomb” from working with the Atomic Energy Commission. Although the incidents took place 50 years ago, the idea of a secret tribunal turning against someone for being too liberal is disturbingly timely.

Fallout captures little-known elements of scientific history in an easy to understand, enlightening fashion. By making the names behind the facts into more three-dimensional people, Ottaviani sheds new light on how war affects science.

The GT Labs website has more information, including preview pages. I previously reviewed Dignifying Science, a biographical anthology about female scientists written by Ottaviani.

Dignifying Science includes stories illustrated by Donna Barr, Stephanie Gladden, Roberta Gregory, Lea Hernandez, Carla Speed McNeil, Linda Medley, Marie Severin, Jen Sorensen, and Anne Timmons, with a cover by Ramona Fradon and Mary Fleener.

Dignifying Science
Buy this book

The book starts off with two pages on the best-known female scientist, Marie Curie, illustrated by Marie Severin. Her words, in a letter to her brother, state, “We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves,” as the art shows her near freezing to death, illustrating her sacrifice for her work. Her dedication, combined with the immense struggles she faced, sets the tone for the stories to follow.

Next is the most famous of the book’s experimenters, although not in the expected way. Carla Speed McNeil’s beautifully clear artwork tells the story of Hedy Lamarr, the famous movie actress, who had a patent on control systems for torpedos that used frequency switching. Without her invention, we wouldn’t have that essential modern device, the cell phone. Plus, her story contains a dramatic escape from the control of her husband, a munitions manufacturer.

Barbara McClintock (art by Lea Hernandez) won a Nobel Prize for her work with corn genetics, and Biruté Galdikas (art by Anne Timmons) studied orangutans in Borneo. Jen Sorensen’s usual thick-line style illustrates the story of Lise Meitner, showing some of her experiments that were key in understanding atomic fission and energy. Rosalind Franklin’s story is drawn by Stephanie Gladden with inserts by Donna Barr, Roberta Gregory, and Linda Medley. The style changes indicate changes in perspective, with Franklin’s rather prickly personality discussed by her colleagues. This inability to get along easily with others likely accounts for her work in determining the structure of DNA being overlooked.

The GT Labs website has more information, including preview pages. I previously reviewed Two-Fisted Science, another biographical anthology written by Ottaviani.

Two-Fisted Science includes stories illustrated by Mark Badger, Donna Barr, Sean Bieri, Colleen Doran, David Lasky, Steve Lieber, Lin Lucas, Bernie Mireault, Scott Roberts, Scott Saavedra, and Rob Walton, with a cover by Paul Chadwick.

Two-Fisted Science
Buy this book

This, Ottaviani’s first collection, is something of a grab bag. He seems to be feeling his way, presenting more familiar stories and gathering experience at comic scripting. The content varies in subject matter and length, from Donna Barr’s two pages of bookends to Bernie Mireault’s three-part story of some of Richard Feynman’s escapades in safecracking.

Feynman stories make up a large part of the book. I don’t blame Ottaviani for wanting to have anecdotes about such a colorful figure illustrated, but as a result, the material may be familiar to many people with a passing interest in physics. That said, my favorite piece in the book is David Lasky’s lengthy story of how Feynman fell in love, got married, and sadly watched his wife die.

In other stories, Scott Roberts brings welcome humor and caricature to the story of Galileo’s battles with the church over his telescopic investigations, while Sean Bieri turns Newton and Leibniz’s fights over calculus into a literal barroom brawl. Later, Steve Lieber’s gorgeous figure work shows Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrodinger debating quantum atomic behavior under Nazi observation.

The GT Labs website has more information, including preview pages.

There’s also a chapter on the EC science fiction comics — although it sounds as though it’s more accurate to describe them as science-less morality tales — and DC’s Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. The latter were primarily twist stories that turned on some scientific facts while ignoring others. Most of the discussion in this chapter is about time travel, including the Grandfather Paradox.

The Science of
Superheroes
Buy this book

The last chapter praises the “one comic book writer [who] never cheated his audience” because “he used real science and real technology in his stories.” Surprisingly, they’re talking about Carl Barks writing Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. There are four stories briefly discussed, which aren’t really enough to give an overview or justification of the praise to someone not familiar with the stories. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier for the reader to find reprints of the Silver Age superheroes talked about in the rest of the book than it is to read the duck stories without some searching.

There are also two appendices: The first mentions material that wasn’t covered in the book and why it was left out. The second is a collection of brief interviews with creators, including Len Wein, Mark Wheatley, Brett Booth, and Max Allan Collins.

The book is written in clear, direct prose that lays out everything you need to know, whether it’s the laws of science or the history of a particular superhero. I found the origin sections enjoyable to read even thought I already knew most of them. For example, the Superman chapter begins with a history of the character from a social and cultural perspective before pointing out some of the scientific problems, like how Superman can lift a building without it falling apart. (I do have to quibble with their phrasing that no one ever asks these questions. I have come to learn that for every possible question that never occurs to me, there’s a fanboy out there somewhere who has thought about it — and usually come up with an answer that he wants to base a story around.)

The authors conclude that Marvel’s characters were more likely to be based on inaccurate science than DC’s, because DC’s writers were more familiar with popular science theories and science fiction. In contrast to that theory, though, the Atom comes in for the biggest roasting, perhaps because his comic tried so hard to be plausible by using scientific technobabble. The telephone travel trick (where the Atom rides electric current to travel across phone lines) really means that he’d turn himself into a black hole.

One of the shorter chapters is the one covering the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, since instead of becoming transformed by gamma or cosmic rays, if treated scientifically, the heroes should have died. To fill out the section, the authors give us a more plausible (given what we know now) origin for the Hulk, involving steroids and fluorescent gene modification. I would have liked to have seen similar treatments for other characters, since I appreciated the imagination and realism that went into their rewrite.

There were some flaws in the book. For the most part, only the “Silver Age” versions of the heroes are covered. The authors don’t seem to realize, for example, that the issue of Flash’s eating habits has come up with the newest version of the character. Also, I thought that the discussion of evolution in the X-Men chapter was perhaps a little too simplified. The topic had already been discussed a couple of times elsewhere in the book. While it’s necessary background for the discussion of mutation I was expecting, it wanders a little far afield for my tastes. I’d have liked to have learned more about gene therapy or genetic engineering, both of which are barely mentioned but relate well to the characters.

The authors say they want more attention paid to science in comics in the first appendix. I was thus surprised, when they mentioned the state of comics as a whole, including the diversity of what’s being published, that they didn’t mention the true science comics like those done by Jay Hosler or Jim Ottaviani. Books like Clan Apis or Dignifying Science are both entertaining and factual.

Overall, the book has just the right tone — straightforward, educational, but not too stuffy or serious. They aren’t making fun of superheroes or poking holes in the stories, but using them as springboards to teach readers more about the principles behind the concepts. At the same time, they aren’t bending over backwards to make the heroes “realistic” or believable; they understand that some things are done for the sake of interesting or exciting stories. The publisher’s website has additional information.