By Darryl Ayo
Welcome back to Freestyle Friday. I’m going to talk about a handful of comics. Are you ready? Let’s go:
Archive | July, 2011
Chk chk chk
27 Julby Kevin Czap
Maybe you’ve heard of that band called !!!. Like the title to Pootie’s new hit single, it’s a name that is sure to give radio disc jockeys the world over pause. Most of us (especially us, being comics afficianados and enthusiasts) are familiar with the concept that their name implies, but !!! is really not something that can transition into spoken language very smoothly. The accepted pronunciation is “chk chk chk” although I guess the official word is it’s open to interpretation.
Save Comics.
25 JulBy Darryl Ayo
Comics can never die, so they can’t be in need of saving. This article is specifically about the North American comic book paradigm, particularly as created for, and distributed by, the Direct Market. Before you read further, I have no qualifications. I am just a person with a laptop.
Classroom in the sky
21 JulBy Darryl Ayo
“Thunderjet,” 1952. Written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by Alex Toth for FRONTLINE COMBAT #8.
Oh Lawd
20 JulBy Darryl Ayo
“Abe Lincoln,” 1952. Written by Harvey Kurtzman, drawn by Jack Davis for FRONTLINE COMBAT #9.
When I say that EC Comics tended to write in a fashion that was highly cliche by this point, I wasn’t kidding. For instance, Spoiler:
Lovefest – John Paul Leon
20 Julby Kevin Czap
Recently I got around to reading an issue of Static Shock I have lying around, and just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Cinematheque. These two things combined led me to think about how much I love the comics of John Paul Leon. Naturally.
The small things that change
19 JulBy Darryl Ayo
“Ace,” 1952 written by Harvey Kurtzman, drawn by John Severin for FRONTLINE COMBAT #6
Every now and every then, I remember that the perfect North American comic books are the 1950s EC Comics. MAD was the best, but EC’s line included a lot of wonderful specimens of comic bookery.
Alex Toth to modern comics: GO TO HELL
18 JulBy Darryl Ayo
Bear with me.
I just picked up a tiny bit of Alex Toth and I’m going all out right about now.
Webcomic Wednesday 02: Cucumber Quest
13 JulBy Darryl Ayo
I learned about this comic just around the time that it began. I was at my weekly drawing group and my friend remarked that a mutual friend was “obsessed” with this mysterious web artist. I was immediately intrigued and was told about Gigi Digi just days before she deleted her Deviant Art gallery. Very exciting, this idea of scarcity and rarity on the internet. Gigi Digi was tired of Deviant Art and decided to burn that bridge. At the same time, she was just beginning her webcomic Cucumber Quest.
And here we go:
Talking to you
13 Julby Kevin Czap
Something that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is conveying narrative through use of the second person. That is to say, making comics that aren’t about an event or characters doing things directly, but rather focus on speaking directly to the reader. There are many comics that do this for educational or instructional ends, such as Ikea booklets and airplane safety guides, or Will Eisner’s old PS strips. These examples are all pretty utilitarian though. As someone who likes comics to mess with them a bit more, I wonder how much room to play around there is in something like this.
comixcube.com 