Alright, back in action! First up, for personal and professional reasons, Steve Black and I have decided to discontinue our "Spaceman" weekly web comic. It was a blast doing even those few pages with Steve and I'm sure he's got even bigger and better art and comics coming up in the near future. You can keep checking his work out on his LiveJournal as well as by reading his ongoing comic The Manuscript, something he's working on with fellow Panelista, the inestimable Mr. Sean McGurr. As soon as I have the time to fix the coding on the pages the right way, I'll be taking the 'Spaceman' section down, but it will remain up for a few more days.
This was a very difficult decision for me to make, and it has been a trying time here but I have received unbelievable support and lots of good advice from such amazing friends that I can scarcely believe I am fortunate enough to know them. So I owe big debts of gratitude to Stephanie W., Johnny Ampersand and his wife Alice, Sean McKeever, Dara Naraghi, Tim Fischer, Charley D. and of course my incredible wife and best friend Rudy.
Things were definitely a little shakey there for a while, but the support and advice of those friends, a very good visit to the always hospitable home of Johnny and Alice complete with seeing some great new comic work from Johnny and an absolutely incredible gift from Alice (which you'll all be seeing and learning about very soon) helped immensely. Honestly, I feel a lot better and a lot more clearheaded about art and comics than I have in quite some time. For the first time in a long long while I can see a clear road ahead for Spudd. I know just what I want to do and where I want to go, and now it's starting to really feel fun again, and stress-free.
You'll be seeing some changes to this site over the next week or two. Mostly some shuffling around and some re-design to move this more in line with where I want it to be. I would do it more quickly, but I really will be exceptionally busy until the middle of next week. All in good time.
As always, thanks to everyone who checks this site out. Whether you simply look in from time to time or email me and share some correspondence, I really do appreciate the time.
Matt K.
There's going to be an announcement regarding the "Spaceman" strip as well as some rather significant changes to the site coming later this week. I apologize for the lack of detail, but things will be clear soon.
Matt K.
Wow, it's really been a week since I last posted? Time flies. Two things. First, amazingly and strangely enough, Steve Black and I got mentioned on Heidi MacDonald's "News Blog of Comic Culture" The Beat. Really really strange. I guess what happened is that some time on Friday, January 12 she posted something about another online comic but somehow ended up using an image of Steve's art from our "Spaceman" comic. My good friend and fellow Panelista the esteemed Andy Bennett noticed the error and immediately notified Heidi. A day or so later she corrected the mistake and posted a brief little blurb about the real "Spaceman." The whole thing is just so strange because I don't know how she found out about us and her column is a pretty big deal in the really tiny world of comics. So, yeah.
The second thing is that yes, it's that wonderful time again! The fourth page of the super amazing "Spaceman" epic goes live...now!
Matt K.
Awwwww yeah. As promised, my little friends, the next installment in the thrilling "Spaceman"saga plotted by me and illuminated by Steve Black.
Matt K.
I'm just going to say right away that this is a somewhat lame "Best of" list. Literally dozens of smarter and hipper writers, bloggers, journalists, musicians and others have already put together better, more thorough and more wide-ranging lists. You can see them all over the internet, in magazines, and sometimes even on television. My biggest problem is that I never have enough money, or time, to track down all the music I want to listen to. All of my friends have started messing around with LastFM and have even invited me, but for some dumb reason I've been dragging my feet on that one. I live in crappy southwest Ohio, and while we have one sort of kind of decent CD store that occasionally carries a bit of good krautrock or experimental music it is still pretty conventional. Even driving over an hour to Columbus or Cincinnati only improves the situation marginally. To get anything really solid I've generally got to order it online, which I have been doing more and more of, but that requires additional research, reading, and listening. I feel like I've come an awfully long way in terms of learning much more about music and becoming a more discerning listener, but so often I crave more sounds and the delayed gratification of ordering something online and waiting more than a week or two to finally hear can be maddening.
Fortunately, good friends have come to my rescue. Way back in day, when I worked at Barnes & Noble, Matt Reber started feeding me new sounds on cassette tape! Spending time with him was an amazing education in blues, funk, punk, old rhythm & blues, folk and rock. He sort of laid down the foundation that later friends would help build on. At Half Price Books, Bradley fundamentally changed the way I perceived hip hop, turntablism, sampling, and the roots that tie so much modern music together. From him I learned the art of the mix CD and what recontextualizing sounds really means. At that same store, Angela P., in her own quiet and very subtle way continued to challenge my ears by sharing amazing new performers and nudging me toward the notion that I really could enjoy what I had previously never even suspected I would find interesting. I have her to thank for Faust and the Silver Apples among others. Later still, Stephanie W. introduced what pretty much amounts to a new universe of ambient, organic, experimental sounds like Bo Wiget, Luigi Archetti, Loscil, Ariel Kalma, Mountains, Geoff Mullen, Greg Davis, Aidan Baker and more by sending me CDs, uploading mp3s, and showing me places like Other Music in New York City as well as Aquarius Records and Forced Exposure, two online sellers of music that I am absolutely addicted to. Aquarius Records in particular is amazing because you can actually stream good chunks of mp3s and listen in depth to what you're interested in before buying. Additionally, their reviews and comments are really informative and intriguing without ever sounding pretentious, snobby, or elitist. I've ordered from them a handful of times and while they are a little on the slow side, everyone I've contacted there has been really courteous and cool to deal with. Check them out if you're ever interested in new sounds, they've got metric tons of the best stuff.
Anyway, back to my "Best Music of 2006" list. It's a bit lame because it is in no way anything close to an overview of any particular genre, performer, or year. This is a tiny handful of what came out and represents what is, to
me, the best and most exciting of the tiny sliver of 2006 releases that I was able to listen to. Once again, all of these titles were released in 2006 except for one which is actually from the 70s but I first heard it in 2006 and enjoyed it so much I had to include it. Finally, I'll include an mp3 from each one of these in the hopes that maybe you'll dig some of what you hear and will by the CD yourself. Don't say I never gave you nothing. Remember though, download these tunes and if you don't like them then delete them. If you do like them, buy the CD from somewhere. That's what I did and that's the decent thing to do. Alright, on to the Best 11 CDs of 2006...
#11 - Sci Fi Party by the Cosmic Jokers
Available from really good music stores and Aquarius
Records
This jam is from 1974, the only non-2006 release on the list. I had been interested in the Cosmic Jokers for some time, but had no luck finding them anywhere in Ohio. In June, when Rudy and I went to MoCCA and visited Stephanie and Kevin in Brooklyn I finally found this at Kim's. Apparently this is the weakest effort from the Cosmic Jokers, more an assemblage of past jam sessions and re-tweaked songs than anything else. Which blows me away because if this is their weakest effort, I can't even imagine how awesome their stronger material must sound.
The Cosmic Jokers are a slab of wildly cosmic tripped out spacey krautrock from some of the biggest names in the field, like Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze of Ash Ra Tempel as well as Jurgen Dollase and Harald Grosskopf of Wallenstein. I am paraphrasing this from the AllMusic site, but apparently the genesis of the Cosmic Jokers was rather scandalous. As the story goes, Manuel Göttsching walked in to a Berlin record store one day in 1974, heard a brain-melting guitar bit oozing out of the store sound system, and asked who it was. Stunned, he found out it was him! In 1973 a producer named Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser organized acid parties at the studio space of Dieter Dierks. Musicians could show up and snag all the hallucinogens they wanted, all they had to do was pay a small fee and agree to jam for a while. These jams were surreptitiously recorded, edited, and released as Cosmic Joker LPs. Completely without the knowledge of, payment to, or permission from any of the contributing players. The best krautock supergroup that never was indeed!
I've selected for you one of the more straightforward tracks from "Sci Fi Party," a stripped down fuzzed out space blast called "The Cosmic Couriers Meet South Philly Willy." It's 5 minutes and 25 seconds of headcooking bliss.
mp3 The Cosmic Jokers - The Cosmic Couriers Meet South Philly Willy
#10 - Night Ripper by Girl Talk
Available all over the place and from Illegal Art
I see this also made the list over at Fragility
Productions which is cool. I knew those boys had taste. This album is simply just a lot of fun to listen to. Girl Talk is Gregg Gillis, apparently a biomedical researcher by day (?) and a DJ by night. "Night Ripper" plunders literally hundreds of top 40 hits, from rock to hip hop to easy listening to r & b and cuts them, mashes them, blends them, chops them and dices them together into roughly 40 minutes of pure party idiocy. And the ballsiest part is that not a single one of the hundreds of samples was used with permission. Yet I bought it at Borders. Hilarious. Half the fun is trying to name the samples, or laughing about an Elton John / Notorious B.I.G. mash-up. No doubt there is some kind of heavy hipster irony going on here, but that part probably flew well over my head, so fuck that foolishness, don't deconstruct it, and just have a good time!
The entire CD is one continuous jam, divided into tracks with silly generic names like "Once Again," "Minute by Minute" and "Summer Smoke." I selected one here for you, so download and enjoy.
mp3 Girl Talk - Hold Up
#9 - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast by Matmos
Available from Matador Records
Bradley W. first hipped me to Matmos just before the release of their last CD "The Civil War." I was instantly hooked because one of the things that most interests me is the electronic creation of music from unorthodox and unexpected sounds, whether it is musique concrete or something more deliberate. Matmos has made a career out of the physical and electronic manipulation of sounds and objects to create unexpectedly catchy and melodic music. "The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast" is a concept album of sorts, series of 10 "sound portraits" (11 on the vinyl) of people that they admire. The subjects run the gamut from Darby Crash, dead lead singer of the Germs, to Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria to legendary producer and knob twiddler Joe Meek. I was lucky enough to see Matmos perform
live in support of this album and the show was nothing short of phenomenal. The stage was littered with lap tops, pianos, microphones, balloons, dry ice, bouquets of roses, drums of every size and shape, and kazoos and they used every one of them in such a serious and diligent way that questioning their veracity as musical instruments never even entered my mind.
It was difficult to pick a track from this album to share with you since I enjoy them all so very much, but I decided to go with the final CD track, a mad sad lament for the last king of Bavaria.
mp3 Matmos - Banquet for King Ludwig II of Bavaria
#8 - Wishingbone by Subtle
Available from...well, you'll probably have to Google it. It's easy to find and a bunch of labels and sites sell it, but their interfaces can get confusing and I don't want to give you a million and one links.
This is a hefty 40 minute EP, the follow-up to Subtle's 2004 CD "A New White." It's quite a strange little collection of sounds and songs, more like a basket of odds and ends than a cohesive unit, probably the result of it consisting of collabos with Mike Patton (?), Fog, Hrvatski and even Beck (??). Still there are quite a few gems hidden away and the EP rewards like a grudging child reluctantly giving up the sweaty Oreo he clutches furiously in his damp hand every time you threaten to ignore him. Or not. Just check this out...
mp3 Subtle - F.K.O. (RMX)
#7 - Exposure (2 CD Reissue) by Robert Fripp
Available from better CD stores and most online retailers
This may be cheating a bit since "Exposure" was originally released in 1979, but this 2006 reissue completely remasters Fripp's original and restores many of the lost and alternate tracks that were either deleted by the artist or blocked by the record label. Fripp dissolved the second incarnation of King Crimson in 1974 and spent the next few years avoiding the music
industry. By the late 70s he was working again, primarily with artists like Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel, and eventually in the studio once again working on new solo material. Strangely enough, "Exposure" was initially conceived of as the third part of a trilogy that started with Peter Gabriel's second, untitled solo album and continued with Daryl Hall's "Sacred Songs."
Confronting a music market that had diversified wildly since the early days of King Crimson, where more than ever pressure was on artists to "move units" and enrich record labels and the music buying public was becoming increasingly jaded, savvy, and paradoxically motivated by an almost mob-like mentality, Fripp released a near-masterpiece of varied songs and styles, electronic and ambient experiments, and sound collages. Looking back, it is almost shocking that the staid Fripp, frequently referred to as the Dr. Spock of Rock, the assiduous little man perched on the stool near the back of the stage at King Crimson shows, could and would release an album that flirted with hard rock, pop, blues, soul, punk, industrial, ambient, and noise all simmered in a soothing wash of his trademark Frippertronics. Drawing on a host of guest performers that included Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Daryl Hall, Peter Hammill (of Van Der Graaf Generator), Terre Roche (of the Roches), Tony Levin, Barry Andrews (of XTC) and Phil Collins (of Genesis), Fripp has never since equaled the complexity and diversity of "Exposure."
The reissue includes a second bonus disc of the album as it was originally intended. Apparently Fripp wanted to use Daryl Hall's vocals on a number of edgier more jagged songs but Hall's record label didn't want their favorite scion of northern blue-eyed soul to have his career sullied by such decidedly non-commercial music so they forced Fripp to substitute other
vocalists. It's an intriguing listen, and one wonders just where Hall might have wandered artistically had he been allowed to collaborate more with Fripp and Eno rather than less.
I'll leave you with a piece called "NY3," a ferocious bit of guitar savagery over a looped recording of a truly terrifying domestic disturbance that Fripp surreptitiously recorded from a neighboring apartment while living in New York City.
mp3 Robert Fripp - NY3
#6 - Nisht Azoy by Black Ox Orkestar
Available from Constellation Records
I saw them open for Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band and before I heard them play I was deeply skeptical. Three of the four members were also members of Silver Mt. Zion, which was a good sign, but when I learned that singing and vocals were an integral part of their performance and that their music was deeply rooted in Yiddish folk ballads and political Yiddish texts I began to doubt. I think that perhaps I wanted to pigeonhole them into some kind of post-rock box and if they weren't going to follow along with that I was going to dismiss it all. I was completely wrong. One song into their powerful performance convinced me that here was profoundly moving music. While everything I wrote above is completely true (their performance included lots of singing in Yiddish and was based heavily on Yiddish folk music) there was something so deeply mournful and viscerally affecting about them. It's really very difficult to describe without
hearing, so I won't waste any time blathering on. Listen to the absolutely chilling "Golem."
mp3 Black Ox Orkestar - Golem
#5 - Ancestral Songs by Daniel (A.I.U.) Higgs
Available from Aquarius Records
Another disc I discovered courtesy of Aquarius Records' biweekly new arrivals list. They put it best when they began their pellet review with the words "Daniel Higgs is a very strange man." Indeed he is. Reading further, I discovered that Daniel Higgs has appended the words "Arcus Incus Ululat" to his name, and calls himself an Interdimensional Song-Seamstress. Hmmm. Although he spends quite a bit of time in the more accessible band Lungfish, he's begun making forays into solo releases and the disc "Ancestral Songs" is his first proper release. Alternating between fuzzy, abrasive, angular noise experiments and a disquieting, unsettling kind of mutant folk, his music calls to mind alien hinterlands full of mist-shrouded forests, rushing violet and orange rivers, quaint fishing villages peopled with giant 5 armed fisherman singing humming sea shanties in paranoia-inducing frequencies, and skies where 3 suns set to make room for 5 moons and stars no human being has ever seen. I'm not really sure how to describe it beyond that. On first listen, some of it may sound a great deal more mundane than that, repetitive and perhaps even dull. But something about that repetition and the tenor of Higgs' voice very soon begin to slide under the fingernails and prick at the inner ear until the listener is slowly tipped out of balance and falling deeper and deeper into the frightening folk music dripping from the speakers. Listen and decide for yourself.
mp3 Daniel Higgs - Living in the Kingdom of Death
#4 - You Are There by Mono
Available from Aquarius Records and probably a number of music stores and online retailers
Yet another musical discover that I owe to Stephanie W., she shared some of Mono's music with me a few months ago and it definitely made me want to hear much much more. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to pick up their most recent release "You Are There" right here in Dayton.
Originating from Tokyo, Japan, Mono has been making music for a few years now and from what I read, it seems that they surpass themselves with each new release. Their music is a tense blending of post-rock and slow droning metal, pierced through with moments of almost sublime beauty. They are often compared to lots of other guitar-based post-rock brands and to be honest, Mono isn't really doing anything the drastically change the genre, but their music is the epitome of everything that is challenging, unique and powerful about post-rock. Always lyric-free and vocal free, Mono will crash down on you with waves of slowly building guitars, shatter that with metal tension, and soothe you back to your senses with a lullaby of sonic beauty. I highly recommend this album, it is simply phenomenal. And if you like what you hear, there are several earlier, almost-as-perfect Mono releases to choose from so do yourself a favor and track those down too.
mp3 Mono - Moonlight
#3 - Hokane by Aki Tsuyuko
Available from Thrill Jockey
"Hokane" by Aki Tsuyuko is simply wonderful in every sense of the word. First, the CD is actually part of a small hardcover book full of art, poems, and little stories that are all integral to the experience of the music. This is supposedly the first in a series of art / music books that Thrill Jockey will be issuing, and they've promised a Daniel Higgs collection in the future. If you follow the Aki Tsuyuko link, you will be able to read what she has to say about the album which is far more articulate and fascinating than anything I could add, so check it out. The book is small but very beautiful, and the art is simple, bright and full of joy and wonder. And if you must know a bit about the music before listening, let me say that it is electronic but very organic, childlike yet complex, and absolutely enchanting. It calls to mind a rather quirky soundtrack to a stop-motion animated educational film on the life cycle of an amoeba from 1974. Listen, and be transported.
mp3 Aki Tsuyuko - Dune and Carinet
#2 - The Sea Swells a Bit by Aidan Baker
Available from Aquarius Records
The sea is vast. Sailing the sea, one can come across an island where a massive and curious beast, plated with armor, hooved, with the face of a camel and the head of a horse, runs about, hither and thither, trampling everything flat until it climbs to the highest point, a small round hummock at the center. There it pauses, plants its hooves, and begins to quiver, its sides heaving like a bellows and trembling as if an invisible army charged back and forth in its innards. This magical beast has the ability to throw its skeleton back and forth inside its armored hide, shaking and jumping its entire body until it begins its harum-scarum circuit of the island once again.
Sailing the sea, one can come across ships as vast as a city yet as empty as the tomb. Rotted timbers crusted with barnacles make an echoing throat for the ghostly cold sea breezes billowing up from the forgotten icelands far to the south. All aboard have long since succumbed to the briny womb of Mother Ocean, only to be reborn, vomited forth again, crawling and clicking and hopping and slithering forth in a riot of segmented legs, oozing maws, stalked eyes, and slime-crusted bodies. One can almost hear the mockery of their voices as they call to their brother sailors, begging them to join and then cursing them to an eternity of nightmares for their flight.
Aidan Baker's CD "The Sea Swells a Bit" makes me think of exactly that. This is an eerie track, well worth listening to but approximately 20 minutes long so be prepared.
mp3 Aidan Baker - The Sea Swells a Bit
#1 - Music by William Eaton by William Eaton
Available from Aquarius Records
This is an unexpected top choice. Browsing the Aquarius Records catalog, I came across the cover to this CD (a deceptively simple line drawing of a sun setting behind some mountains and clouds) and the words "fantastic album of guitar music by a long-haired, Viking-looking dude from the '70s named William Eaton!" and decided to have a listen. True to the description, this CD, a reissue from Japan's EM Records, is indeed a fantastic album of acoustic guitar music by some dude named William Eaton. Apparently he is still around and still making music, although his newer material occasionally ventures perilously close to the New Age-y type stuff, but this refreshing slice of sunny sound from the 1970s is exactly the opposite. A bit rustic, very charming, colorful, dazzling at times...I would never have expected to like this kind of thing at all, let alone like it as much as I did. What sets this CD apart from other, similar titles, is taht Eaton builds his own instruments, and that kind of hands-on involvement with music results in something closer to Hans Reichel rather than something as nauseating as the Narada catalog. Strangely enough, William Eaton's honey-sweet psyched-out strumming is the perfect accompaniment to my favorite book of the year, Drawn & Quarterly's first collection of Tove Jansson's "Moomin" comic strips. Buy that book, buy this CD, sit down on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and be at peace with yourself and the world.
mp3 William Eaton - Track One
Matt K.
Some people really enjoy reading these lists while others find them tiresome and self-centered. I suppose there are a few who probably them find them pompously annoying as fuck. I generally enjoy reading them, whether I tend to agree with the writer or not, so since 2006 was the first full calendar year for spudd64.com, I’m going to be posting my very own "Best of 2006" lists for books, comics, music, and art. I think I first got the idea that these lists didn’t have to be the product of some soulless corporate giant like VH1 or SPIN magazine when I saw that Kyle Wallace and the Fragility Productions crew put their "best of" lists together way back last January. It was a fine list, well done and very entertaining to read. Later on in that same January I saw a few others, most notably an intriguing one by Sammy Harkham, the editor and cartoonist who’s been bringing us Kramer’s Ergot among other gems, for the last few years. Anyway, those lists stayed in my head and I thought it might be fun to write up some of my own. Maybe you’ll find them interesting. Maybe you’ll find them pompous and annoying as fuck. Maybe this will be the only year I ever post them. Who knows? Like Kyle said, I’m not trying to be some kind of tastemaker or act like I know more than you do. Not at all. These are just some of the things I really enjoyed an awful lot in 2006, so maybe I can hip you to something you might have missed but would really like a lot.
Oh, and one ground rule. With one exception on the music list, every single one of these books, comics, CDs and pieces of art came out in 2006. That seemed important.
Numbers are arbitrary, so since 11 is one of my lucky numbers I decided to go with my top 11 choices. Except for this list where there were simply too many great choices and I just had to cram in an extra one for a total of 12. So for the first list, in reverse order (to build the suspense, you see) here are my top 12 favorite books of 2006. This was an interesting list to make because it consisted entirely of illustrated books, graphic novels, and art books. Not one single novel or non-fiction book at all made the list. It’s not that I don’t read anything except graphic novels or big art books full of pictures, although I will confess that the vast majority of my book buying and reading does center on those kinds of titles. It’s just that I don’t tend to read a lot of new fiction, and most of the nonfiction I read is either in a newspaper, a magazine, or online. It should be fairly obvious that my focus is primarily on the visual arts, so it follows that most of the books I acquire or spend any time with are generally visual in nature.
I know you just can’t wait to jump in, so let’s get started. I’ll make sure I include the titles, authors, covers, interior images where possible, a bit about each book and why it rang my bell, and maybe a link or two if you’re interested in learning more.
MY 12 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2006
#12 - Elle Humour by Julie Doucet
Hardcover, 144 full color pages
$39.95
Available from and published by PictureBox Inc.
The first of several entries from PictureBox Inc. that will appear on my list. PictureBox is really lavishing some incredible design work on books showcasing many of the best and most challenging artists and cartoonists working today. They really seem dedicated to the concept of the book-as-object, and it shows in every one of their publications. Elle Humour is Julie Doucet's long-awaited first fine art monograph. Earlier this year, she rather publicly proclaimed that she was more or less fed up with comics, fed up with the lack of respect afforded to their creators, fed up with the complete lack of any kind of financial compensation for what nearly always amounts to hours and hours and more backbreaking hours of work and that she would no longer be making any comics at all. It was simultaneously very depressing news and very exciting news because Julie Doucet is an equally amazing artist. Elle Humour is a beautifully designed little brick of a book, printed on a wide variety of papers, showcasing Julie's collages, drawings, and other visual creations. Nothing at all in the way of comics, but page after page of deceptively simple yet deeply engaging images.
If you order from PictureBox Inc. now, I believe you can get a limited "doodled in" edition as well as a print from Julie Doucet.
#11 - The Essential Godzilla by Doug Moench, 'Happy' Herb Trimpe and others
Paperback, 440 black and white pages
$19.99
Published by Marvel Comics
Available from finer comic shops nationwide
Totally a guilty pleasure, but this book brought such a huge smile to my face when it finally arrived. This wonderful volume reprints some of the very first comics I ever read as a kid, and to my delight the stories and the art hold up very very well indeed. My good friend Johnny Ampersand remarked that this was the first "Essential" that he read through from cover to cover as soon as he got it, and I understood his feelings perfectly. Basically, this is a big fat phone book sized black and white reprint of all 24 issues of "Godzilla" that Marvel published way back in the late '70s. Due to licensing issues, Marvel was granted a license to reprint these comics only once, so grab this while you can. This fine fine book is pretty much 440 pages of a giant monster fighting other giant monsters, giant robots, giant military equipment, and maybe an alien or two thrown in. That's it. The concept is shockingly beautiful in its simplicity. There is something so perfect and pure about this book. It's like being 9 years old all over again.
#10 - Glomp 8 by many cartoonists and artists from Finland
Paperback, 232 full color pages
$25.00 (I think)
Only 800 copies published by BoingBeing, sadly now totally sold out
That cover is eye-catching enough, but take a look at some of the interior pages from this absolutely incredible full color independently published comics anthology.
My God, that is some amazing stuff! Someone somewhere called this a Finnish Kramer's Ergot which I suppose is an apt comparison, although it is a little arch. This anthology boasts work from Sami Aho, Benjamin Bergman, Roope Eronen, Jyrki Heikkinen, Ina Kallis, Anna-Kaisa Laine, Jan Konsin, Reijo Kärkkäinen, Jarno Latva-Nikkola, Ville Loponen, Piirustuskerho, Hanneriina Moisseinen, Tommi Musturi, Pauliina Mäkelä, Jyrki Nissinen, Henna Raitala, Katri Sipiläinen, Kasper Strömman, Janne Tervamäki, Jari Vaara and Amanda Vähämäki - all of whom are utterly unfamiliar to me but immensely talented. Much of the content of Glomp 8 is wordless, or simply full page art, but when the comics do have text, it is obviously in Finnish. What makes this a non-issue is that there is a convenient and easy to follow English translation running along the bottom of every page.
It's really very difficult to write anything specific about a collection this incredible, this varied, this beautiful, and this challenging. These cartoonists are really pushing the boundaries of comics and visual narrative. That's kind of a tired sentence, and doesn't do justice to the stories and art in this anthology, but writing about Glomp 8 would be about as effective as me telling you about a symphony. It just couldn't compare. If you can find this anywhere, and a few online distributors might still have a copy, by all means grab a copy. You won't be disappointed.
#9 - Nog A Dod : Prehistoric Canadian Psychedoolia edited by Marc Bell, contributions from lots of people
Paperback, 224 full color and black and white pages
$24.95
Published by Conundrum Press, available from really good comic and book stores and probably online too
Marc Bell is one of my favorite artists ever. From what little I've been able to learn about him personally, he's been working with a large group of loosely connected artists and cartoonists in the Vancouver area for quite some time. They are astonishingly prolific, creating scads and scads of limited editions minicomics and zines that are as wildly varied as their creators. Many of these comics are passed from creator to creator, each cartoonist collaborating to add his or her own touches to the book before passing it on yet again. Nog A Dod chronicles that astonishingly fertile scene, reproducing pages and layouts from dozens and dozens of the actual comics themselves, nearly all of which were supplied by the same artists that created them. Marc Bell, Peter Thompson, Jason McLean, Owen Plummer and Keith Jones are just a handful of the artists whose work this fine book covers. Much more than a slab of cultural and artistic history, Nog A Dod truly does serve as some sort of fossil record of one of the most unique and wildly inventive collectives in North America. Paper Rad's got nothing on these dudes!
#8 - Popeye, Volume 1 : I Yam What I Yam by E.C. Segar
Hardcover (a huge one at that!), 200 full color and black and white pages
$29.95
Published by and available from Fantagraphics
When I bought this book, I called it a fine sexy thing. And it truly is. Lusciously designed by upcoming design superstar Mr. Jacob Covey, everything about this book looks and feels wonderful. First off, it is huge. I don't have the measurements on me, but it is only slightly smaller that Brian Chippendale's Ninja and Gary Panter's Jimbo in Purgatory. I'll be amazed if it fits on your bookshelf. Second, it reprints nearly 2 glorious years (1928 - 1930) of dailies and Sunday strips of everyone's favorite old salt, Popeye the Sailor. These strips read as fresh today as they did decades ago, and what surprised me the most was how well they flowed from daily strip to daily strip. Segar's cartooning is sublime, his humor is razor sharp, and the action is nearly as good as anything King Kirby himself did many years later. Even better, flip it open to nearly any page in the book and you can bet your ass Popeye is clocking someone in the jaw. Johnny summed it up best when he said "Popeye doesn't take any shit from anyone!" So true! Fantagraphics is promising one volume a year, for a total of 6 big beautiful sexy hardcover collections of Popeye. We live in great times for fans of old comics like myself.
#7 - The Mourning Star, #1 by Kazimir Strzepek
Paperback, probably about 120 black and white pages
$13.00
Published by and available from Bodega Distribution
I do my best to keep up on the minicomics and small press scene, but every now and then something comes out of the blue, totally unexpected, and is so blindingly good I wonder how in the world I missed the buzz. The Mourning Star #1 is that kind of book. I don't know if it was solicited or not, if it appeared in any comics shops or not, or if there was any advance notice, but suddenly it was there. I think I first found out about it when I read Tom Spurgeon's fine interview with the creator, Kazimir Strzepek, which you can and should read right here. I was instantly intrigued. I mean, when you see art like this -
- or even better, this -
- you gotta find out what's going on. Seriously, look at those two little guys and that ghost fighting that centipede! That part of the book was every bit as thrilling and super-awesome as that little tease leads you to believe. In a nutshell, this is the first volume of a multi-book saga about a strange planet populated by all sorts of weird races, all of whom are struggling to rebuild their civilizations after a comet slams into their world and decimates nearly everything. It sounds so simple, and is hardly an original plot at all, but the characters are so delightful and endearing that you find yourself immediately caring very deeply about what happens to them. For every battle with a giant centipede, there are quiet moments beside a campfire in the middle of a scary wilderness where the characters reminisce on what they've lost and try to hide their sadness. It's a great great read and I'm really looking forward to all of the future installments.
#6 - Art Out of Time : Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900 to 1969 edited by Dan Nadel
Hardcover, 320 full color pages
$40.00
Published by and available from PictureBox Inc.
PictureBox strikes again, this time with a strange but wonderful cultural document collecting and reprinting some of the strangest forgotten comics you've never seen. From Dick Briefer's bizarrely funny "Frankenstein" -
- to Fletcher Hanks' mindboggling "Stardust the Super Wizard" -
I promise this book contains hundreds of pages of comic books and strips the like of which you have never, ever seen before. The reproductions are true to the faded colors and worn paper of old musty comics and newspapers and that heightens the sense that you are opening some moldering archive of forgotten gems. This collection is also notable for reprinting a nice chunk of underground genius Rory Hayes' nightmarish and surreal comics. It's a dense collection, and it will take you several sittings to work your way through it, but the work is well worth it.
#5 - Me A Mound by Trenton Doyle Hancock
Hardcover, 164 full color pages
$65.00
Published by and available from PictureBox Inc.
Yet another entry from PictureBox Inc., this one a lavishly produced and exquisitely designed fine art monograph from Trenton Doyle Hancock. I am absolutely fascinated by art like his because Hancock has created a dense, elaborate yet internally logical personal mythology and is using his imagery to bring these narratives to life. Hancock's world is one of the Mounds, half-plant half-animal creatures that resemble black and white striped hills -
- and, strangely enough, the Vegans, the epitome of evil. This book is absolutely jam-packed with all sorts of paintings, drawings, comics, trading cards, booklets, essays and other strange concoctions detailing the history (so far) of the Mounds and the Vegans, their (possible) mutual father Homerbuctas, and their ongoing conflict. It's really just too dense and complex and unusual to describe in any satisfying way, so check it out yourself. It is pricey, but it is well worth every penny.
#4 - Ulysses : Departures, Journeys and Returns by Andrew Schoultz
Hardcover, 180 full color pages
$29.95
Published by and available from Paper Museum Press
I know, I've already gone on at length (several times) about Andrew Schoultz and how much I like his art. If you've been following along then you probably understand why this book, the first and only collection of his art (outside of various web sites) was such a thrilling thing for me. In some ways, Andrew, like Trenton Doyle Hancock, is illustrating his own personal mythology using a very carefully developed, unique and specific visual vocabulary. The style and the subject matter differ drastically though, and Schoultz has done a lot of public art and installations. Here are a few pages from the book, to give you a better idea of his art.
Amazing stuff. The book is a real treasure as well.
#3 - The Eternals Omnibus by Jack Kirby
Hardcover, 392 full color pages
$75.00
Published by Marvel Comics, available from lots of comic stores
Quite honestly, this is the book I waited decades for. I actually didn't read any of Jack "King" Kirby's work on "The Eternals," or any of "The New Gods" for that matter, until I was well into adulthood. However, the comics I read as a kid and the stories that really thrilled me were the ones that carried on Kirby's cosmic legacy, using his characters and concepts and trying them out in every permutation imaginable. I first came across Kirby's Celestials in "The Mighty Thor" issue #300, a comic that pretty much blew the top of my skull off. At that time, I didn't know Jack Kirby from Jack Palance, but it is a testament to his magnificent creativity that even twice removed from the master's pen, his ideas had such a monumental impact on me. "The Eternals" is where much of that began. It's been called a Chariots of the Gods meets the Marvel Universe which, like most comparisons, falls far short and is a bit of an injustice, but it does give you a taste of what these comics contain. Giant gods from outer space, the epic of human prehistory and history, ancient civilizations, titanic conflicts, evolution...this comic has everything and more. It's definitely an acquired taste, and Kirby's dialogue is a little rough sometimes (even now, reading "That's funky corn, Sersi!" makes me cringe just the tiniest bit) but for me, "The Eternals" and "The Fourth World" are the two crowning achievements in 20th century sequential art. Even more amazing, Kirby's influence extended well beyond comics. Take a look at this panel and tell me what sci fi movie virtually plagiarized this image...
Yeah, pretty obvious. As I said, this is a pricey book and not for everyone, but for me having every page of Kirby's sadly unfinished Marvel masterpiece between two covers is just about as good as it gets.
#2 - Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka
Paperback, 832 black and white pages
$24.95
Published by Vertical Inc., available from most good comic stores and book stores
This really probably should have been the best book of 2006 since I ended up going with what was really more of a sentimental favorite. Due to a sad lack of quality English-language versions of his work, most Americans associate Osamu Tezuka with the lovably cute and definitively all-ages Astro-Boy comics and cartoons. Astro-Boy is an excellent manga and a true delight to read, but it is hardly the best example of Tezuka's incredible cartooning skills. His "Phoenix" saga, what he considered his life's work, is magnificent and his 8 volume "Buddha" epic, also published by Vertical Inc., is nothing short of astounding. Ode to Kirihito seems to distill everything that is challenging and sublime about Tezuka's work into one massive brick sized volume. In a nutshell, this is the story of Dr. Kirihito who has been studying a bizarre and disfiguring disease. Only when he himself is struck down by the disease does he begin to question what it means to be human and what it means to treat others with humanity. This is definitely an adult work and contains scenes of everything from disease and deformity to rape and violence, yet it is an immensely powerful and deeply affecting tale. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and to everyone who enjoys reading. Even if you have never touched a comic or any manga in your life you will find something of value in this book. I am so thankful that Vertical Inc. published this in English. Hopefully they'll continue to dig even more deeply into the thousands of pages of untranslated manga from Tezuka and continue to bring us more masterpieces from the master of them all.
#1 - Moomin : The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Book One by Tove Jansson
Hardcover, 96 pages
$19.95
Published by and available from Drawn & Quarterly
Waiting for this book was dreadful! Drawn & Quarterly announced its publication months ago, and then they delayed its arrival for an extra 2 months. When it finally arrived, it proved to be worth the wait and then some. For all you doubters I will state right now that yes, there is nothing terribly deep or philosophical or profoundly meaningful in these comic strips. Still, they are enchanting, slightly surreal, a bit odd, refreshingly unique, utterly original, and very affecting in its own quiet way. You don't need to have read any of Tove Jansson's Moomin novels to enjoy these comic strips although that will enrich your enjoyment. Anyone can sit down with this big and beautifully designed book (and just look at that wonderful cover!) and jump right in. These comics originally appeared in the United Kingdom sometime in the 1950s (I think) and have never been collected or printed in the U.S. There's no real continuity in terms of the novels, these are just further adventures of the Finn Family Moomintroll and all of their friends in Moominland. Lovingly printed on thick creamy paper, the art is simple yet incredibly captivating. Tove Jansson was as gifted an artist as she was a writer and like the best of stories, these will delight readers of every age.
Well, I hope that wasn't too pretentious and that maybe you saw something in that list that you hadn't heard of and seemed interesting to you. In a day or so, I'll have the next "Best of 2006" list, "Music."
Matt K.
As promised, the second installment of the weekly comic "Spaceman," written by me, drawn and colored by the inimitable Steve Black, is up and running. Something's going to happen...something wonderful...
The first "Best of 2006" list is coming tonight. It will be my "Best Books of 2006." Tune in then.
Matt K.
It's here!!! It's here!!!
Oh man, my Guest Artist spot on Partyka is up and running! 9 brand new never before seen drawings are debuting there, plus 27 of my favorite older pieces! This is so cool, and such an exciting thing for me. Huge thanks go to Shawn Cheng (a part of the mighty Partyka machine) for extending this incredible invitation to me and for being so supportive of my work. So, for all of you, click on this link here, scroll down a little bit to where you see the words "Guest Artist" and a smaller yellow and orange drawing of mine, and that will take you to the gallery of art entitled "The Eschaton According to Spudd," an amusing bio of me, and more stuff. And then email me and let me know what you think. I'll start posting the new images here in a week or so, one at a time. What a great way to begin 2007!
Matt K.