Ceto’s Comix.India Cavalcade 1

DISCLAIMER
The column you are about to read may appear to contain a bias – the books mentioned within and the creators almost entirely American, European and Japanese. The column was written in English. I urge you to consider 2 things – that I do not discriminate in any way with this medium and that I support any effort at creating sequential art in any format, genre or language. It might appear that I ignore the superhero genre for the most part, but that is simply because there are few deserving books in that genre rather than any wilful disinterest. It might also appear that I am ignoring Indian comics in this column but there has been nothing major launched in the last month on the Indian comic scene that has come to my attention hence I have nothing to note. I intend interviewing Indian creators and profiling more Indian comics in later columns.

A monthly column in a noted comic website – So for simple measure I’m just going to put little bold headings and follow through with my musings, thoughts and ejaculations for the month.

COMIC BOOK JACKASS?
I rarely watch TV. Not due to any indifference, although I am completely oblivious to TV shows and channels, but I prefer to read and sleep. In mid-November, I was at a friends place flipping channels when I came upon a show ‘Dare to Date’ – all right – foxy girl, an airhostess (she was really pleasant, no seriously!). And her date for the night was a bespectacled young lad (I’m a ‘uncle’ now to the rest of India – my! how the years fly!). So the Laddio, who also happened to be a comic book fan, met her in a book store in a mall and brought a stack of digests over to her to read – Superman and Batman – and started showing it to her… She was stunned and mildly irritated (Told you she was nice!). After badgering her to read for awhile, she asked him – if he liked the characters so much “how come you don’t have a body like that!!” Or something like that.. I was drinking beer at the time and laughing so hard that I thought I might have misheard.

STRIKE THE POSE
I stand with my hands on my hips a lot – I don’t know when I started it, but it’s been a while. Try it – gives you loads of confidence.. Tilt your chin up and look left towards the sky and pretend there’s a meteor threatening Earth and you’re the only man who can stop it – be careful to keep an eye down every few seconds, you might miss your bus!!

READING?
I read — you know.. I read — it’s not a bad thing though there is a time and a place.. A friend told me he was going up Mt. Kilimanjaro when he took a 2 hour break and read Ann Rand’s Fountainhead. (drumroll) You get my point.

THE LAST FOUR WEEKS PICKS FROM THE SCANSHEAVENS
I pick stuff I notice from the weekly lists – this is not inclusive and I confess I sometimes miss reading a few books until they’re in their second or third issue but I strive to put the word out on any and all good books that come to my attention. I don’t offer a rating system but if I mention it here, it’s worth a dekko.

Abstract Studios
Echo #17 is a comic in high gear – This is one book that can’t come out too quickly for me.

Avatar Press
Supergod #2 – ‘Praying to be saved by a man who can fly will get you killed.’ is the tagline for this series. Krishna destroys most of India and then nukes Pakistan with their own missles… yeah I know – whattosay!! I was won over from the moment I saw the ghats burning in #1!!
Waiting on Crossed #8 for awhile now – but Crossed #7 had my vote for the most searing piece of horror I’ve read in a long while – Page 19 says it all.
Absolution #4 by Christos Gage and Roberto Viacava is a knockout of an issue in a series which initially seemed to
retread old territory. Avatar Press keeps me high flying every month!!

Boom Studios
The Unknown – The Devil Made Flesh #2. I love the original mini-series – The Unknown. Both it and the sequel made a real splash with me. Try it along with another recent offering by Mark Waid – Irredeemable #8. What more need I ask for? Another mini-series of Potter’s Field!

Dark Horse
Hellboy – The Wild Hunt wound up last month with #8– Say hello to the rightful heir to the throne of England and Mike Mignola is picking up threads from way back in the early Hellboy books.
Citizen Rex #6 – I just chalk it up as another confusing but somehow thoroughly engrossing series like Berto’s Sloth, Girls and Speak of the Devil.
Beasts of Burden #3 (of a 4 part mini)– Spin-off from a DH anthology – this is one great horror title by Evan Dorkin
and Jill Thompson staring a band of —- dogs and in this issue two very wily cats?
Groo – The Hogs of Horder #2 – Sergio Aragones doesn’t put out enough Groo titles every year. This hilarious series
swings a sword at —– well you can guess it —- the ‘recession’!!

DC
The Mighty #11 – Peter Tomasi & Keith Champagne write while Peter Snejbjerg and currently Chris Samnee draw this grim and thoroughly involving series. There’s a twist in #11 which I never saw coming…. Went back and re-read the entire run.
Jonah Hex #50 – The western and horror comics always showed much more inventiveness and masterful storytelling than the super-hero comics from way back – maybe it had something to do with the western and horror genres evolving so much in the movies. With such a high bar to match and exceed, they just pulled out all stops. With issue 50, drawn by Darwyn Cooke and written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, I am just blown away…

Image
Invincible is just going strong with #68– Image’s flagship title is a lesson in great storytelling beating anything
else being put out in the superhero genre.
Underground #3 by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber caught my interest from the first issue up. A nice claustrophobic
piece – Read it in the dark by torchlight!!

Marvel
Criminal – The Sinners #2. Tracy Lawless is back…
Powers v3 just started – long overdue – let’s hope they keep a better schedule than Powers v2. All in all – worth the wait through and through!!
Punisher Max v2 #2 – Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon put out a new Punisher storyline – It’s both of them at their wickedest… ?
The triple wicket of Deadpool Team-Up #898, Deadpool #18 and Deadpool : Merc with A Mouth #5 deserve special mention for NOT becoming another pain-in-the-ass multiple plodding soap-opera series on a ‘name’ character like almost ever other multiple pain-in-the-ass multiple plodding soap-opera series that has been put out since the 70s…

Oni Press
Stumptown #1 – Greg Rucka is in fine form with this little thriller.
It Girl #1 – Mike Allred and Chynna Clugston-Major. I love CCM’s Blue Monday stories and while this isn’t written by CCM, it’s pretty funny in its own right.

TwoMorrow Publishings
Modern Masters v20 – Kyle Baker – All Kyle Baker – the kind of in-depth interview the Comic Journal does best – only it’s book length!!

Vertigo
Fables – Witches is the title of the current arc and when we last left off in #90, Baba Yaga was going up against Bufkin in the 4th part of the 5 part arc. Fables #91 releases on December 16th! Waiting on it!!
Sweeth Tooth #4 – Jeff Lemire – This is an unusual treat – even more unusual to see it being published by Vertigo.

Wildstorm
Red Herring #3 – Nice even thriller by David Tischman and Philip Bond. Unusual fare for Wildstorm and like Mysterius the Unfathomable, I hope they put out more like this.

MANGA PICKS
I have five fingers!!! So five picks this week..
1) Vagabond: Sumi – Pen and brush art (Sumi) from the Vagabond series!! (Viz Media)
2) Sweet Body – A collection of pin-ups by Happou Bijin (yummy)
3) Appollo’s Song by Tezuka (Vertical)
4) Ghost Talker’s Daydream (Dark Horse)
5) Musishi by Yuki Yurishibara (Kodansha-Del Rey)

DRAWING COMICS FACTOIDS
Chris Ware draws a comic dairy.. the few pages I have seen are an eye opener – his discipline is amazing.
Alfredo Alacala was known to draw AND ink 80 pages a week….
Tezuka’s works number around 700 odd volumes – the currently published Complete Tezuka only reprints about 400 of these.
Still think about doing the 12 hour comic challenge – but I accept I am too lazy to do so. I hope there are less like me out there.

WRITING COMICS
Sinclair Lewis said to a class of writers – ‘Just go home, sit down and write, write, write…..”
Mike Baron recommended a single book to me – ‘Elements of Style’ by Strunk and White.
I recommend ‘Adventures in the Screen Trade’ for anyone who wants to be a screenwriter.
There are plenty of books on ‘Drawing’, ‘Understanding’ and ‘Reinventing’ comics.
There is no book on ‘Writing’ comics.
You do not need to read comics to write them!!
You are on your own from here on…

THE STATE OF INDIAN COMICS – THE PROLOGUE
I see the state of Indian Comics lies in the hands of all those hundreds of self-loathings self-driven creators who are making a conscious effort towards creating original work that on maturity will have a market soon enough.
– up next — THE REVOLUTION WILL BE SELF-PUBLISHED

WE SHOOT COMIC SNOBS, DON’T WE?
For a while, I was a comic snob. I was disgusted with superhero books in general and generally ignored almost every supe-book that came out. I read a lot of manga, European comics, collected a cupboard full of manga and independents. Then one fine day I had a chance read at Ultimates 2 #9 (Grand Theft America) and fell right back in.

I still ignore vast chunks of DC and Marvel’s lineup – I’ve not bothered reading Blackest Night or Dark Reign. I know that they’re there and I just leave them at that.

THE COLLECTOR
I met comic collectors all the time – mostly people who read and collect any books of a particular character. Most
of these encounters are particularly hilarious for me because they are pretty easy to predict. .
1) I always hear this from a collector – “See I am coming all this way. I cannot go back empty handed” as a prelude to asking me to sell something I have no intention of selling.
2) The fidgety behaviour on finding stacks of comics. They just dive into the piles and boxes that are scattered around your room and look through them despite you politely asking them not to do so. Think Uncle Scrooooge diving into cash – only it’s in Glomgold’s MONEY BIN!!
3) The presumption that their stuff is worth a lot. I don’t need to explain this.
4) A mentality that involves selecting firsties (first issues/first volumes) over books that are actually great fun!!
5) They refuse to share or divulge information about where they buy books.
6) Large collections of trades and singles of the following characters – Batman, Super-Man, Spider-Man, X-Men. No
cognizance of any other work done by any other creator in comics. This isn’t always the case though. I got a surprise in meeting a collector recently who told me he loved ‘Groo’ after parading all the above names.

MY CHRISTMAS LIST
1) Asterios Polyp – David Mazzucchelli
2) Kaput Zoesky – Lewis Trondheim and Eric Cartier
3) I am Legion – Fabio Nury and John Cassaday
4) The Beats – Harvey Pekar
5) Cartoon History of the Modern World – Larry Gonick
6) A complete set of Iznogoud – Goscinny (in the original French)
7) A complete set of Valhalla – Pete Madsen (in the original Danish)

CETO’S COMIX.INDIA CAVALCADE
I will be posting a complete review of any comic I buy every month. If you’d like me to review your own comic or
webcomics, you can send me the book by pdf or send me the links to the same to this email id: anicetopereira(at)gmail(dot)com. I muster a whole lotta enthusiasms for this job!