Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 22:24:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "'Joseph P Witek'" <[j--it--k] at [stetson.edu]>
Subject: My ICAF/SPX98 (quite long indeed)

It seems as if the runups to my ICAF presentations are fated to be ever
"interesting."  Last year I huffed and puffed my way into the conference
center at 1:59 for a 2:00 panel--my cab driver and I had bonded over our
mutual ignorance of the Georgetown U. layout.  This year I arrived at
around noon Thursday (having caught my 6AM flight) thinking that my talk
was scheduled for the next afternoon--a quick glance at the program showed
me that it was in fact in about 45 minutes.  Nevins had told me it was
slated for Fri. afternoon, and I, trusting and oblivious as I age into
absent-minded professorhood, never checked the revised ICAF programs
online.  My own fault, of course, but that's not what I told the ICAF
crowd . . .

On the other hand, one of the advantages of aging into absent-minded
professorhood is that it's easier to say "what, me worry?" and go with the
flow.  The paper was read in due form, the polite ICAF crowd refrained
from throwing footwear (no doubt foreseeing the need for their stout
brogans for the endless circling of the tables in the SPX salesrooms), and
I was able to set my mind to hearing the papers of my colleagues and to
buying gigantic piles of comics. Since I live in a small town where, if I
don't special order it, I don't get it, last year I tried simply to catch
up on the most glaring omissions in my comix library.  This year I was
able to sort for:

1) comix in the true stories/autobio/historical vein. You (or at least I)
can't keep up with everything, so it makes sense for me to at least try to
stay abreast of the real-lifers. These included:

Spain, "My True Story" (bought at the excellent local comics shop).  What
do we need to say about Spain?  I have most of this stuff in some form
already, but these stories are superb, and well-worth having in a
collection.

Ted Rall, "The Worst Thing I've Ever Done."  High concept, with some
gripping stories, but, just between you, me, and the lamppost, I think Ted
Rall sucks as a cartoonist and as a writer.  His stiff style sometimes
fits his own cartoons, but the variety of different tones and emotional
weights in the stories here seem to beg for a more flexible style, and
Rall just is clunky in fitting his words to his pictures.  My first
extended exposure to Rall's work, and undoubtedly my last. 

Furtwangler and Haspiel, "Celia Learns to Protect Her Baby."  Cutting-edge
contemporary health education outreach comix at its finest, folks, and I
got Dino to sign mine and promise not to sign any others.  If The Feckless
One will actually keep his word, I may actually be one-up on Nevins and
the Comix Collection of Doom.

James Sturm, "Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight."  I'm pretty sure this
isn't an actual "historical" comic, but, damn, it sure feels like one, and
hasn't James Sturm come a long way as a writer and cartoonist?  I liked
"The Cereal Killings" real well, but this mature work is heartening proof
that potential sometimes really does bear fruit. 

Madison Clell, "Cuckoo" #7 (a tip from bart via Jon Lewis).  Autobio
stories of living with Dissociative Identity Disorder.  The raw, highly
expressive drawing style fits the harsh emotional content very well.  This
issue features a sort of everyday nervous breakdown for a DID sufferer as
well as a graphic child rape scene--not exactly the sort of thing I yearn
to read in my odd free moments, but undeniably powerful, and an 
interesting branch of the contempo autobio genre. 

2) Comix which I need as examples in my current project (an investigation
of page design in comix narrative). Some examples:

Amok Group, "Cheval sans Tete: Le Double" and Cava & Raul, "fenetres sur
l'occident." Wow.  Beautifully produced objects chock full of a
fascinating variety of approaches to the combining of words and images.  I
won't even try to summarize/describe these; they need to be
seen/held/read/looked at.  Interesting that the Amok folks have no trouble
talking about these as "comics," while the closest thing in English, RAW
magazine, was willing to call what they did anything but.  

various, "Formaline."  A massive (and cheap) European anthology of minis,
8-pagers, undergrounds, you-name-its, many of which are in English.  I'll
be dipping into this one for a long time.  Thanks to Makr for the tip on
this.

Jason Little, "Jack's Luck Runs Out."  Las Vegas noir with a mind-blowing
design conceit: the characters are modeled on the face cards in a deck of
playing cards.  The coloring alone on this stylish book has given me a lot
to think about on the connections between design and the creation of
meaning.

Ruta Modan, "The Somnambulist: A Silent Movie." A panel-per-page mini by
the Actus Tragicus member, notable for its obsessively textured
backgrounds and its Gorey-esque feel to the story.  Also bought Modan's
"How to Make a Good Script Great."  The use of spocket-sided panels for a
retelling of a movie script makes this one useful to me.
  
3) More or less random attempts to strike out into something new. I
achieved this by buying things at almost-randon and, on Saturday, by
walking up to the likes of Makr, bart, and Mark 'C' Rogers and saying,
"What's here that I should know about?" I came up with:

Metaphrog, "Strange Weather Lately"#4.  Introduced to the friendly male
half of the Franco-Scottish Metaphrog duo by Brad!, I plunged on this one,
described by its maker as "representative of what we do, because it's
totally confusing." Quite true. Rather interesting visually, though.

Gregory Benton, "Hummingbird" & "Dose Eckies."  Makr had been touting the
former at the last SPX, and it's good enough, particularly if you're
partial to dream sequences of Volkswagens stuffed with intestines.  The
latter is a foldout color mini--a very interesting format, and my only
comic requiring a rubber band to keep closed.

Coober Skeeber #2.  I know, I know, you've all had it for eons.  But I
loved it nonetheless, especially for James Kolchalka's Hulk story, the
best story by the Self-Dubbed One I've ever seen.  Notably brilliant also
was Robert Boyd's Dr. Strange story, easily the class of a fine bunch of
offbeat takes on Marvel comics.  The image of Moon-Boy in a suit
mourning Devil Dinosaur stays with me . . . 

An unlooked for #4 were the freebies pressed into my hands by generous
friends and colleagues:

Mack White, "Villa of the Mysteries" #3.  I felt bad about taking a free
copy from Mack, since his are exactly the kind of comics I'd like to see
my bucks go for.  Mack is of course one of our most (if not *the*
most) deeply learned, technically adept, and hilariously funny paranoid
madmen in comics.  Let us know what we need to do to keep you working in
comics, Mack; the hordes of imitators churning out stories of
hermaphrodites, priapic dwarfs, and interdimensional Westerns are just no
substitute for the real thing.

Dean Haspiel, "Billy Dogma" #2 & 3.  This guy's graphic chops, verbal
imagination, and design sense are truly amazing, and if they're not
exactly under what those of a fascist bent might call "complete control,"
it takes about 5 minutes in Dino's company to see why that's exactly the
way it should be. The superhero as autobiography . . . .

CNBI, catalogues on Caran d'Ache and the wordless comics of Le Chat Noir.
Thrust into my paws by Jean-Pierre Mercier, director of the French
national comics museum (say that last phrase a few times and weep, US
comixfolk), no doubt in an effort to redress the ignorance I displayed in
my ICAF talk.  These are beautiful objects and obviously rebut the
increasingly threadbare contention that comics are an essentially American
form. 

Igor Prassel and Jakob Klemencic kindly gave me copies of Stripburger 17
and a collection of essays on comics and animation in Slovenian (with
English abstracts).  Impressed with the graphic vigor and high
intelligence in these, I went out and got the Stripburek anthology and the
Handi-burger issue myself.  I have to say it's gratifying to see people
who are both creatively making comics and are willingly to think
analytically and speak articulately about them.  I see more
English-speaking cartoonists who are willing to talk that way, too.  I
know that there will always be those who think creativity and analysis are
mutually exclusive, but by the evidence I've seen that just ain't so . . .

Other stuff I picked up that don't fit any of the categories but are just
good comics:

Dylan Horrocks, "Hicksville."  I'm waiting to sit down and read this
straight through, just to see how long it takes.  If you haven't got it
yet, just get it. Dylan also graced us with a comprehensive and
fantastically informative survey of New Zealand comics.  The only way it
could have been more exhaustive would have been if he had actually brought
along in packing crates every person who ever put pen to paper in, on, and
around New Zealand.  Maybe next year . . .

Top Shelf anthologies #5 & 6.  I didn't know about these, for some reason,
and they're the kind of thing that makes me think sometimes that every art
student in the country is making comix, and getting better and better at
it.  Someone fill me in on Pete Sickman-Garner (offlist, if you prefer),
and is Warren Craghead proof that people shouldn't imitate Chris Ware, or
something else?

Scott Gilbert, "Comix by Scott A. Gilbert," "Lies," and "Hero." Scott's
brilliant use of blacks in the story "Comanche" just proves how
appropriate it is that people like him get rich while soulless
pap-merchants like Frank Miller can't get their work published.  Wait a
minute.  Oh, shit.  Never mind.  Great stuff nonetheless.

The ICAF/SPX conjunction was just excellent, with the academics
appropriately poised above the moiling anthill of SPXers, roiled from time
to time as the Chris Oarr entourage marched through the throng barking
authoritatively into walkie-talkies.  Lots of SPXers made it to some ICAF
sessions, and while the Bethesda facilities were not as plush as the
Georgetown digs, the convenience made it more than worth it to have the
two events in the same place.

I bought lots more comics and did lots more stuff, and will mention here
only the highlight of grilling bart (incredibly hirsute with a full .25" 
of fluff atop the noble cranium) at dinner on his votes for the 100
greatest comics.  No Justin Green?  It's a mighty pillorying there will be
when this comes out in the Journal, folks.
 
Rusty