Hole In One

A few months ago, U of I scholars and employees Damian Duffy and John Jennings released an original graphic novel, The Hole: Consumer Culture, through their CU-based comic publisher Eye Trauma Comix. This local dynamic duo plans on releasing more books in the future, and working with Krannert Art Museum, organizes comic themed exhibits to increase awareness of this medium.

Damian Duffy took time to speak with me about The Hole and his love of comics.

Matt Knicl: What inspired you to get into comics?

Damian Duffy: When I was six, my dad bought me a reprint of the two part Spider-Man story where Gwen Stacy dies. A bit later that year, I got a hold of some old Amazing Spider-Man issues when John Romita Sr. was drawing them. Once I tore through that stash, I started making my own comics. Maybe I was too young to realize you can just buy more comics, I don’t know. In a more mature time, like 14-15, I really started to get a sense of how much untapped potential there was in the medium for personal expression. Understanding Comics helped that epiphany along.

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Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the writer and artist of Hole: Consumer Culture will be speaking at the Urbana Free Library, 210 W. Green St, Urbana Saturday, from 1 to 3PM. Topics include, of course, comics!

For more info, visit here >>>>

Putting The “Fun” In “Funeral”

There’s a lot to be said in support for the coming-of-age narrative. As many do, they have first-person narrators, an arresting technique - the reader “comes along” with the narrator. The story is an oral tale, and we are listening as they speak. It is hard to discern who the narrator is in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. In many English classes, one is asked to never assume the writer and speaker are the same, but with a character named after the author, as well as author information that calls Bechdel an “archivist of her own life” it is safe to assume that this is the true life story of Bechdel.

Image courety Houghton Mifflin

Fun Home is the story of Bechdel’s father, a gay man living precariously in the closet, who she believes killed himself by jumping in front of a truck. The story shifts also to talk about Bechdel herself, from her coming out as a lesbian to her OCD childhood ticks. Family vacations and early work become the playground for Bechdel’s story, and we are moved through time, so instead of one big story about her sexuality and her father’s death, the narrative is compartmentalized to focus on specific aspects of her life.

The most fascinating aspect of Fun Home for me was Bechdel’s relation to fiction and reality. Throughout the text, she compares parts of her life to famous literature, and even brings in Wind in the Willows and The Addams Family. What is astounding about this project is how she is able to look back on her life as though it were a novel, and analyzing the “characters” of her “story”, she can make meaningful connections and observations with them. Read the rest of this entry »

All For Some

I recently read The Last Musketeer, an alternative comic by Norwegian cartoonist Jason. I could try to explain the premise in my own words, but the product description does it well:

“Jason’s fourth full-color album may feature his loopiest premise yet. Set in the present time, The Last Musketeer stars the by-now centuries old musketeer Athos, who has been reduced to a suavely dressed but useless near-panhandler trading on his now almost extinct fame. All this changes when one day the Martians attack Earth. Suddenly there is a need for swashes to be buckled, and Athos leaps back into the fray with a vengeance. The Last Musketeer is a vintage sci-fi adventure with a unique twist from an internationally acclaimed cartoonist.”

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Justice Society of America #12 (DC) - In this issue Jakeem Thunder returns and the JSA “reaches out to the next wave of legacy heroes: the new Mr. America, Judomaster, Amazing Man and more!” I think I would like this series much more if the roster didn’t change every three issues and relationships are weren’t manufactured and forced, rather than earned. But in team books like JSA, I seldom look for relationships and more at the juxtaposition of various characters. JSA works because of who the team members are, not necessarily what they do. Kingdom Come Superman just has to be in the book for me to want to read it, and if he doesn’t develop as a character, there are a dozen other people on the team I can turn to. Read the rest of this entry »

From Rags To Riches, From Riches To Rags

One of the exciting things about the comic book industry boom of late is the ability publishers are having to tread new waters. Ideas and concepts that wouldn’t have been marketable in the medium years ago are now given the shot to reach a wide audience.

Comic books are not just for comic book nerds anymore.

I am not a listener of Rap or Hip-Hop. Given the choice I’d rather listen to suburban white kids screaming in the background of complaints about how their parents aren’t “fair” - but that’s just me. When I came across Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm I was skeptical. How could I enjoy a book about a subculture I knew nothing about? Read the rest of this entry »