One of the challenges I face when reviewing graphic novel adaptations of other books stem from not always having read the original. Something I might see as a flaw in the adaptation might have been in the original; the message(s) and theme(s) of the original are inherently filtered -- and therefore potentially distorted or corrupted -- through the adapters; many of the visual elements have to be invented wholecloth because the original author didn't feel it necessary to detail what everything looked like... Ultimately, how much credit/blame goes to the original author and how much goes to the adapters? Is it the adaption itself that's good, or was the original so good that even a poor adaption comes across as powerful?

In some cases, I'm able to at least guess that based on what I've heard about the book. In the case of This Slavery, however, I had never even heard of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth's book until getting my hands on the graphic novel adaptation by Scarleet and Sophie Rickard. The original was written in 1925 and details the lives of two sisters when the textile mill they work at burns down and leaves them -- and many other area residents -- without income. That it's not more well-known than it might be is largely intentional because, well... let me talk specifically to the Rickard sisters' adapation for a bit first.

The book takes place in Lancashire, England in some unspecified time before World War I. The Martin family -- sisters Rachel and Hester, along with their mother and grandmother -- are living in poverty, to the point of reading and darning socks in the dark to save money by not burning an oil lamp. Many of their neighbors are in similar situations, so when the local textile mill burns down, many find themselves out of work. The lack of income begins impacting the Martin's health as they can't eat properly or stay warm during colder days. Hester develops a nasty and persistent cough, and her grandmother passes away.

A new mill by another businessman opens. He takes a liking to Hester, and courts her despite her blatant disinterest. She does eventually relent, though, for the sake of escaping her family's perptual poverty. Meanwhile, though, Rachel learns that her birth father was none other than the owner of the other mill that burned down, a fact intentionally hidden from her by her mother. When he offers to buy their silence, Rachel becomes incensed and starts becoming much more active in advocating for workers' rights. The two sisters' lives diverge pretty notably; but Rachel observes that while she is sometimes arrested and thrown in prison for her "agitation" her sister Hester is living in a prison of her own as well.

As the years wear on, though, the two both work for the benefit of the common man. Rachel becomes a powerful speaker on behalf of unions and workers' rights, helping to organize strikes and the like. While Hester largely plays the "good housewife" despite her husband's increasingly abusive treatment of her, she secretly relays notes about his business plans to the workers so they can counter them more efficiently. This all comes to a head after several years, and he physically throws Hester to the curb in anger and frustration shortly before caving to the workers' demands. Although Hester is killed while police are ostentisbly "protecting" the crowd, Rachel continues her efforts and even expands toward the then-just-starting Labour Party.

I am absolutely not doing this story justice in my summary. Despite the surface story really only focusing on the lives of two women, there are so many layers of socio-political commentary and cultural observations, I can't begin to summarize everything. And even more impressive is how this was written a century ago, it still speaks very directly to our collective situation today. There are a handful of wealthy elite living in their fortified mansions largely oblivious to life outside their walls while everyday folks are stuggling to pay for food and shelter and health care.

Capitalism depends on uncertainty. It's part of the system that we are liable to be flung out of work to starve and rot at any moment. And if we object, Capitalism provides for a police force and an army to quell us using lad of our own class to shoot us down... We must accept Capitlism thrives not only on the selfish courage of Capitalists, but the cowardly apathy of workers like ourselves. Just a week's grub is enough to cotnent us to go on in the same old way.

There were several bits of dialogue like that that just rang out like a shot; I could easily fill a page with similar quotes that get right to the crux of issues like that. Barbed and succinct. You are being used and discarded like an old tissue. How much of that is Holdsworth's and how much of is Sophie's, I can't say. Or how much of is basically Holdsworth's, but Sophie tweaked it slightly or gave the dialogue to another character or in a different situation. Regardless, the phrase "spitting bars" comes to mind.

As to Scarlett's artwork, she does an incredible job setting the mood for every scene. The opening, for example, I initially thought was dark and muddy, but we soon learn that was a very deliberate choice to show how they literally are living in a muddied darkness with the lights off. And while there's nothing that gets particularly bright and cheery, the level of color and light sends a clear message to the reader what any given character's situation is. And somehow she always just uses "local color," i.e. the colors she depicts are what they actually would be in real life, not using any kind of emotional color filtering or anything. And the scenes where things get particularly bleak -- when the grandmother passes away, for example -- it's downright haunting.

Surprising to me, too, is that Sophie's linework is pretty thin and delicate, but neither does it get lost in the coloring nor does it seem to rely on the coloring for distinguishing between objects and shapes. I've seen other artists who are excellent illustrators and colorists, but their weak inking skills hinders the story. I suspect if I just saw a page of Sophie's black and white linework, I would assume the same, but her coloring works exceptionally well with her inking style, I am quite impressed.

The book clocks in at over 350 pages, and some of the elements are pretty heavy, so it's not something you can breeze through quickly. But it's absolutely excellent and has a really strong message that I think more people need to hear today in 2026. The book came out back in October from SelfMadeHero, so it should be readily available through your favorite bookstore right now. It retails for $23.99 US. Go pick up a copy, and be prepared to make a side run to the hardware store because, despite Rachel's ongoing message of non-violence, there's a good chance you're going to want some torches and pitchforks when you're done.

These days, cartoonists often take a moment on Martin Luther King Day to honor the Civil Rights activist instead of skewering whatever the topic du jour is. This generally takes the form of a drawing of Dr. King with a quote from him, frequently from his "I Have a Dream" speech. Which is nice, if unoriginal, but I was thinking that it must mark for a noticeable contrast from how King would've been depicted by cartoonists in the 1960s.

You might recall that King, while lauded as almost a saint these days, was considered a very controversial figure back in the day. That's why J. Edgar Hoover worked for years to use every FBI resource available to discredit him at every opportunity, and why he was eventually assassinated.

So how was King depicted by cartoonists back then? What did they say about his activism, his speeches, his death? I did a little searching and came up with the following cartoons, mostly from 1966-1968. Most of those I found weren't particularly kind, but the three that appeared shortly after his death were respectful at least. (The one with the hand-writing was sent to King himself, and remains in his archives.)

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Surrounded Review
https://ift.tt/eYs016v

Kleefeld on Comics: 3D Back Again?
https://ift.tt/sYpQuyr

Kleefeld on Comics: The Dilbert Gauge
https://ift.tt/hf4XtIn

Kleefeld on Comics: What's with Those Weird Color Bars Across the Tops of Old Comics?
https://ift.tt/WRYQpiP

Kleefeld on Comics: Wouldn't It Just Be More Interesting for the Artist?
https://ift.tt/vVPWEHw

When I was in my early teens, I'd hoped I could become a comic book artist. Not only was I interested in comics, but I was one of those kids who everyone always said was a "pretty good drawer." Which only meant that I was just a touch better than average. But before I even realized that I wasn't talented enough to develop a career in illustrating comic books in the first place, I decided that wasn't really a career path for me anyway.

My father was something of an artist himself. Not full-time, but he did the illustrations for a few books back in the day, not to mention illustrating many of the articles he wrote. So while I was growing up, he did provide some suggestions and guidance with my drawing.

I recall at one point talking with him about comic book art specifically. I don't know how exactly the conversation started, but I'm sure it must have been somewhat informal as I can recall the two of us just standing idly in the kitchen while we talked, and we rarely had real talks in the kitchen. I'm assuming we both happened to be getting something to drink or snack on at the same time. In any event, Dad noted that he never liked the idea of drawing comic books for a living because, he figured, if you were working on a monthly book, that effectively meant that you had to draw a complete page every day, and the vast majority of the panels would feature the same character(s). If you're working on Amazing Spider-Man, then, that's six drawings of Spider-Man every day, every month until they fire you. That's 150 finished drawings of Spider-Man every month, and how many different ways can you draw the same guy swinging from the same webline? (I know the math is a little off there, but that was his example at the time.)

The tedium of that sounded absolutely dreadful, and that's pretty much when I decided I wasn't going to be a comic book artist. (I half-wonder if his comments weren't chosen specifically to dissuade me from trying to become a comic artist. Either to spare my ego from my lack of skill, or to steer me away from freelancing as a career.)

Of course, a lot of artists do find ways to keep themselves interested and engaged in their art. But that's one of the things that surprises me about superhero comics: if you're doing a monthly book where the heroes are almost all white, and largely male, and virtually all have the same muscular body type, wouldn't you want to break up the monotony byt showcasing more minorities in the backgrounds? Just as an artist, isn't it more interesting and engaging for yourself to drawing different-looking characters? Isn't it more interesting if you weren't drawning the same basic body types over and over and over? Isn't it more interesting to draw Asian characters and Latino characters? Isn't it more interesting to draw fat people and skinny people? People with afros and people who are bald? People with dark skin and people with light skin? People with disabilities, and people who are extremely athletic?

It's not a noble motivation, but wouldn't some diversity just make the job of an artist less dull/repetitive? Even if the rationale isn't high-minded, the results for readers would be the same.

Let's go back to an era when you could only get comics from a newsstand. The guy running the newsstand was getting hundreds of periodicals on a continual basis, almost all of which were running on different schedules. Some came in daily, some weekly, some monthly, some bi-monthly, some quarterly... In the days before computers, this would be an incredible amount of work to keep track of what came in when. And it was important to keep track of that because most periodicals were sold to retailers on a returnable basis. That is, if the retailer didn't sell everything he ordered in a given timeframe, he could return them to his distributor for a refund.

Naturally, though, this wasn't a completely open-ended arrangement. You couldn't return something, for example, a year after it was published and expect anything back. You had a window of maybe a couple of months at most, depending on the frequency of the periodical.

Now you'd think that since most periodicals post their publication date on the cover, this wouldn't be an issue. The December 15th issue of the New York Times came out on December 15, right? With magazines and comics, though, publishers frequently tried to look more current than they actually were. So they'd print a date somewhat later than when the book actually went on sale; a book that was actually published in January would have a February date and would (theoretically) look more current than the other magazines next to it with the actual date.

(This got out of hand eventually, and you'd have comics' publication dates off by 6-8 months!)

So to keep track of when comics ACTUALLY hit the newsstands, retailers would literally write the date it came out right on the cover. Here's a copy of Fantastic Four #1. It's cover dated Novemeber 1961, but you can see the "8/9" clearly written under the "R" in the title, indicating it really hit the stands on August 9th.

(Note that local distribution channels worked on slightly different schedules, so not every issue of FF #1 across the country came out on August 9. Some could easily be hand-dated a week in either direction. In fact, I've seen copies of FF #1 dated as early as July 30 and as late as August 21!)

Writing on each and every issue was a bit tedious, though, and retailers no doubt complained to their local distributors. What many of the regional distributors started doing was slapping a bit of paint across the top edge of the comic. So, now, instead of having to make note of the actual date, the distributors could just say, "We're accepting returns on all red-coded books." As they'd change the color with each shipment, it became easy for a retailer to just scan through his inventory and pull out any comics that had a bit of red (or whatever the color was for that week) on the top. Take a look at the top of this Machine Man #10 where you can see a bit of red splotching above the "Marvel Comics Group" banner.

Now, this wasn't done at every distributor, so it's not universal. And since it was done at the regional level, there's no consistency in color or the... ah... delicacy of application. So you can find some issues with what's called "overspray" when the person who was actually putting the color on the books was perhaps a bit too generous, like with this copy of Astonishing Tales #5...

This system lasted for about 10-12 years, primarily through the 1970s. As comics became more and more collectible, and with the emergence of the direct market, this was clearly unacceptable to readers. The publishers themselves then began color-coding their own books, so the regional distributors wouldn't have to. But, so as not to put an ugly color bar on their covers, which they viewed as a primary sales tool, the color bars were put on all the interior pages. But by running them at the very edge of every page, a retailer could still make out the colors without having to open each book.

Keep in mind that this was all done because comics were being sold on a returnable basis at least in some meaningful capacity. These color codes weren't really being used by the direct market because their books weren't returnable in the first place, but they still had to deal with the overspray and color bars because the books still came through the same channels. Once the direct market became, for all practical purposes, the only real way for individual customers to purchase comics, this color coding system was no longer necessary. This color system was only being used to tell retailers when they could return the books; with the non-returnable set-up of the direct market, this was a non-issue. Publishers eventually dropped the color bars entirely since effectively none of their books were getting returned anyway.

Not coincidentally, I expect, the color bars ceased around the same time when publishers began emphasizing the collectibility aspect of their books with foil, die-cuts, embossing, and the like. It was part of a general realization that their comics were no longer going to a mass audience, but almost exclusively to people who were collecting them. But that's another set of issues entirely!

I initiallly thought I might re-post some various bits and pieces I've written about Scott Adams over the years, pointing out how he was a racist and sexist asshole years before he got Dilbert canceled. But I came across this anecdote from 'Ride Theory' on Mastodon in the wake of Adams' death. It doesn't speak to the worst aspects of Adams' ideas and demeanor, but I think it does a fair job of illustrating how Adams -- even before his most egregiously awful rants -- pretty much always peddled in bitterness and spitefulness.

In the 1990s, I worked as an office temp. I logged a lot of hours in a lot of different offices, and I had an instant and accurate way to sense how dysfunctional and toxic a workplace was as soon as I walked in.

I took note of how many Dilbert comics were pinned up, and where.

If I saw one or two Dilbert comics scattered around, I knew people had their gripes and complaints about their co-workers, but it was nothing too serious.

If virtually every cubicle had more than one Dilbert comic pinned up, I knew everyone working there disliked each other. The atmosphere probably wasn’t going to be too terrible for me as a temp, but I wouldn’t want to work there permanently.

Whenever I saw a disproportionate number of Dilbert comics in one cubicle, I knew to avoid that person. They were clearly the asshole in the office, and they were usually on a hair trigger. I once saw a cubicle that was practically wallpapered with Dilbert comics, including several where he had labeled the characters with co-workers’ names, and then pinned them on the OUTSIDE of his cube. Yikes! Steer clear of that dude!

If there was even one Dilbert comic pinned up to a communal bulletin board, watch out! The hatred went from workers up AND management down.

God forbid someone had used the photocopier to enlarge it; that meant they wanted everyone to see how much they hated everyone.

In this last situation, I would usually call my agency at the end of the day and ask if they had any other assignments.

If I saw Dilbert plush toys, I’d just tell my agency I couldn’t continue the assignment.

The Dilbert gauge never failed me. The more Dilbert comic strips I saw, the nastier the place was.

I worked at a one place where Dilbert was banned. Specifically, just Dilbert. Sounds extreme, but the bosses knew exactly what Scott Adams was peddling, and they didn’t want any.

That office ran smoothly and was among the nicest.

So Dilbert was my canary in the coal mine. I can’t think of another comic strip that functioned like this. Cathy was drawn almost exactly as badly as Dilbert, but the only thing I learned from seeing that strip in an office was the person pinning it up had body image issues. Peanuts meant the person had self-esteem problems. (Or, contrarywise, they identified with Snoopy.)

If anyone had ever pinned up a Mutts strip or Zippy the Pinhead or Nancy, I would have wanted to hang out with them in the lunchroom. Even Tumbleweeds might have been a welcome change. Sadly, it was almost always fuckin’ Dilbert, all the way down.

So I guess the moral here is: Scott Adams was a thin-skinned, egotistical monster who wrote and badly drew a hateful comic strip called Dilbert, and all his “humor” punched down, and he used sock puppet accounts to brag about his own genius, and was a racist, and he thought Donald Trump was great but for all that, if I were forced – I donno, at gunpoint, maybe -- to utter one nice word about Scott Adams, I guess I’d say that for a few years, he was... USEFUL.

Anecdotally, I seem to have noticed an increase in comics done in 3D recently. It could totally be some kind of attention bias thing on my part, but I don't think I'm totally off-base either since even Marvel seems to be getting in on the deal, as evidenced by the recent release of Fantastic Four #51 redone in the 3D format.

It's a trend that ebbs and flows periodically, but the first anaglyph 3D image (i.e. the first 3D image created using the 'standard' red/blue filtering technique) dates back to 1853. Because of production costs, it wasn't really developed as a media form unto itself until the 1890s and it wouldn't be until the 1950s that it became cheap enough to make it into the pop culture zeitgeist. While the popular form it has historically taken has been though those squared off cardboard glasses, in more recent years further production cost reductions has meant you can get readily obtain sturdier, 'permanent' glasses that can used over a longer timeframe.

Speaking personally, the 3D technique was always a form that frustrated me because I wore prescription glasses and the cheap cardboard stereoscopic glasses never fit well over or under my 'real' glasses. I could get them to work, but it often involved having to physically hold the cardboard glasses over my regular ones leaving only one hand for holding the comic in question AND turning the pages. It was only a couple years ago that I happened across a pair of lens that, instead of having their own frames, could clip on to an existing pair of glasses and finally make reading 3D comics a practical option for me.

I think, though, the bigger "problem" with 3D comics is that it's largely a novelty gimmick. This recent i> Fantastic Four #51 book for example. It reprints the original Jack Kirby/Stan Lee comic from 1966; it's frequently used as one of the best single-issue examples of their work from that period. The 3D effect has obviously been done retroactively here, but thanks in large part to Kirby's dynamic drawing style to begin with, it works well. Kirby naturally drew with a very strong sense of depth to his comic panels, so applying a 3D effect to his work is relatively easy. But here's the thing... it's the exact same story. Whether the 3D effect is there or not, it reads exactly the same in terms of the storytelling and the emotional beats.

Don't get me wrong, the 3D effect is generally done well here, but it doesn't really add anything to the story. Some of the characters do pop out visually a bit more in some panels, but they don't really need to thanks already to Kirby's drawing style. The one page where I think it might have been really interesting to see a heavy 3D effect applied -- the big collage splash page shown here -- has the weakest 3D effect, realy only visible in having the figure and word balloon floating on top of the collage. The collage itself looks pretty flat. I don't know how much could really be done with this since, again, they're applying the 3D effect retroactively and the page was very much NOT designed for it, but it would have been the page with the largest potential impact if it could have been done really well.

All of which is to say that when people see a story like this, they look at it and say, "Hey, neat!" And they look at the next one and say, "Hey, neat!" And for the third one, they say, "Hey, neat!" And there's never anything more than that. So after the third or fifth or twentieth story where they see the same effect done in the same way for the same impact, they eventually get to the realization that the extra effort of wearing 3D glasses isn't worth it for just one more "Hey, neat!" and they move on.

I suspect there's some way the effect can be legitimately designed into the story to provide something truly additive. Something beyond just adding the illusion of depth. Maybe where the reader is given a perspective unavailable to the characters. Or maybe some kind of faux animation that results from the red/blue dichotomy. Something that takes advantage of the unique aspects of anaglyph stereography to do something with the story that simply is not possible without it. I certainly haven't played with the form enough to know what all is possible. But what we see here today is pretty much the exact same implementation that people might've seen back in 1853. And until someone comes up with a new use for it, every time it circles around to pop culture again, it will continue to remain a short-lived "Hey, neat!" gimmick.