Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 17:06:01 -0400 From: [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FTP 549 Administrivia: Thanks to all for your patience while I took some much needed vacation time. Here are all the FTP's you missed while I was away. For everyone who just joined us, FTP is mailed out every Monday of the week, so long as it's printed in the corresponding issue of Comics Buyers Guide. Look below for other places of interest on the net. ==== FIT TO PRINT by catherine yronwode for the week of December 11, 1995 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 549: For gift-giving, a couple of good items: Starchild: Awakenings by James Owen (Coppervale Press, P. O. Box 40904, Mesa, AZ 85274-0904): A big, thick b&w graphic novel, available in paper and hardcover, this would make the perfect gift for all the pagans, feral children, and Tolkeinistas on your winter solstice shopping list. The over-arching plot of Starchild belongs to the small but intriguing genre of cursed-family faerie epics, and the drawings are unusual for American comics in that they are heavily inspired by nature. If you liked the natural settings of Steve Parkhouse's The Spiral Path, you will love Starchild. The art work in the opening chapters isn't quite as confident as Parkhouse's, but by the end, Owen' fine-line style has gained considerably in mastery and intricacy, at times resembling that of the young Bernie Wrightson, to whom he obviously owes a debt of influence. Starchild is a tale of fate and choice, of two brothers, two half-brothers, and the son of one brother, doomed by past events and their own wilful curiousity to a moment of climactic confrontation in the dark woods - but, surprisingly, as the story unfolds, not all is sturm und drang: The plot is considerably livened by Owen's knowing nods to ancient Celtic myth and pre-20th century English literature. In addition, for reasons unexplained, one of the major protagonists resembles nothing so much as the Proctor and Gamble Man-in-the-Moon logo, his hair and beard curling outward to frame a hollow circle. Best of all, considerable comic relief is provided by a gently handled parody-homage to Dave Sim ("Serbius HATES horse feed") and by the appearance of an almost unbearably cute male waif in sunglasses named Little Neil who explains story-telling ("A good illustration of this practice took place in China under the last priest-emperors of the Chow dynasty...") Owen could get rich selling stuffed Little Neil toys; i know dozens of female fans who would buy them to cuddle and cosset. Starchild is a wonderful book and gets my highest recommendation. Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood by Will Eisner (Kitchen Sink Press, 320 River-side Drive, Northampton, MA 01060: This is a marvelous 170-page guided tour through time, taking in all the convoluted twists and turns that go into the creation, destruction, and resurrection of a neighborhood in New York City. Those who have read other books in Eisner's long-running series of Dropsie Avenue stories (Beginning with A Contract With God, and encompassing A Life Force, To The Heart of the Storm, and Big City spin-offs like The Dreamer, The Building, and Invisible People) will appreciate this as a a gift for Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa. The story is linear, in the current Eisner mode; vignette-glimpses of life are propelled along the rushing time stream by well-placed newspapers whose headlines, half blotted by snow or rain, proclaim the passage of decades. People are born, play roughly, fall in love, marry, give birth, gain weight, lose their hair, grow old, and die in the comic book equivalent of time-lapse photography. A film on this scale would call for the utmost expen-diture in costuming and set decoration, not to mention a separate budget just for make-up effects, yet Eisner bring the scope and sweep of 100 years to life with effortless, impressionistic ink lines, dwelling on the cut of a dress here, the line of a fender there, the crumble of bricks and cobblestones everywhere. There is no single protagonist in Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, for the neighbor-hood itself is the center of attention. There is, however, a large and varied supporting cast - among them Izzy Cash, Polo Palermo, Abie Gold, Ruby Brown, and the mysterious Miss Rowena - who take their turns upon the stage, contending against ethnic tribalism, bad weather, failed machinery, socio-economic injustice, vermin, drug dealers, and racial intolerance, until they confront the villain of the piece, time itself, before which all must fall Eisner has been a moralizer and a lover of architecture since his first published drawing, "The Forgotten Ghetto," appeared in his high school paper in 1933; 52 years later, he is still hard at work, and this book is among his best. ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Back issues are available. FTP to nspace.cts.com and look in the Comics/About Comics/Comics News/Fit to Print directory. FtP is also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~91mithra AND http://www2.csn.net/~searls. Responses are welcome and should be directed to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] Fit to Print is Copyright Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.