Gah! This whole week has been one of just trying to keep my head above water, so I'm signing out today with a mashup. You know the rules: Text from today's Garfield, art from today's...

Evil, Inc.

No Pink Ponies

NPP particularly amuses me because the characters and setting are all related back to comic books. Which makes this discussion completely plausible, particularly with the turnaround snark at the end.

Cubicles is Red 5's latest offering in their "Digital First" line of titles. Unlike their previous/initial release, Bonnie Lass, this book is being presented as a single graphic novel. Given that Walter Ostlie's Cubicles is broken up into distinct chapters, I would presume it's being released as a graphic novel instead of four individual issues to avoid a drop-off effect.

The story is about Wally and Ost, two cubicle-jockeys in a giant mega-firm called, appropriately enough, Cubicles. They're what you might call layabouts, but they stumble on a plot by the CEO's future son-in-law to "take over the company and enslave countless worlds." So the son-in-law sends them off on a mission that's sure to get them captured by pirates or killed or both. After a few pencil fights, a giant space squid attack and some paperwork, they manage to save the day and bask in the glory of another spaceship's exhaust.

The book is definitely one of the more comedic ones I've seen from Red 5. While others might be light-hearted and fun, Cubicles is distinctly shooting more directly for comedy. For the most part, it is pretty amusing. The gags aren't always pitch-perfect in execution, but the never fall flat. And, given that this is, I believe, Ostlie's first published graphic novel, I think that's saying something.

The biggest issue I had with the book were the imaginary/dream sequences. They were rolled right in with the main story, and it wasn't as clear as it might've been that there were just daydreams. I mean, I like that they launched right into them as if it were really happening, but the reader has to rely on the dialogue to understand when the character snaps out of it. I think there might be a better way to clue in on that visually to show the dream sequences abruptly ending. To be fair, though, there was never any question that they were dream sequences; I just think the visuals could've spoken to that a little more.

Red 5 also happened to announce this week that the aforementioned Bonnie Lass will be getting the printed treatment in September, so between these two books, it looks as if their Digital First line might have a solid foundation as a platform for more and different ideas. Cubicles is available on the web, iOS and Android platforms via comiXology. The first chapter is available free and the entire graphic novel is $3.99.

• This has been around for a few weeks but, in case you haven't read it yet, Gary Groth has a rather scathing piece on Jim Shooter's attempts at re-writing comics history. More specifically, his place in it. It's a bit long, but worth the read. It was the Kirby art fight of the mid-1980s that really got me interested in the creators originally, so I remember much of what was talked about at the time and my recollections definitely line up with Groth's. Despite his sometimes off-putting tone, his version is decidedly more accurate than Shooter's. I might add, though, that his final question, "Has anyone falsified a moment in comics history more persistently than Jim Shooter?" might be answered with "Stan Lee" and/or "Bob Kane."
• This was actually posted before the Independence Day holiday, but Danny uploaded the most unusual image with a patriotic theme that I've ever seen in a Marvel comic.
  
• If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know I've got an interest in comic fandom, so I have to point out this Call For Papers (CFP) for a special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures that will focus on "Appropriating, Interpreting, and Transforming Comic Books." The deadline for submission is April 1, 2012. I'm already noodling what I might want to write up to send them.

With my book recently being listed on Amazon, I put up a small promotional sign outside of my cubicle at work. Not that I think anyone from the office will buy a copy, but it rounds me out as an individual. ("Sean writes too?")

A co-worker walked by and spotted it for the first time this morning. He stopped to ask about it, and he made some comparisons to baseball fans. And it came out that he had a baseball signed by every Latino hall of famer in Cooperstown except Roberto Clemente. I'm not much of a baseball fan -- I really don't care for the sport at all, in fact -- but I did read Wilfred Santiago's 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente so I not only knew who my co-worker was talking about, but his relative significance to baseball. I was able to respond with, "It's really unfortunate that you're not going to get him to sign it either." Because, thanks to that book, I also know he died back in 1972 in a tragic plane crash. Ultimately, I came off sounding like I know what I'm talking about, despite not knowing what I'm talking about.

So, there you have it! Proof positive that comics are good for you!

I just started watching One Piece over at Hulu about a week, maybe a week and a half ago. I'm a little over 40 episodes in now because, wow, am I enjoying it! I wish I had started in with this much earlier.

I don't want to do a full-on review -- I haven't even seen a tenth of the episodes yet and haven't read any of the manga. I gave it a pass when I first heard about it for two reasons: 1) the pirate theme which first caught my attention seemed pretty limited at best, and 2) the logo sucks.
Seriously, I read that as "One Peg" for the longest time. The silhouette totally doesn't work as the letter "I" here, especially when it's colored differently. Plus, the "E" looks too much like an anchor and not enough like an "E", especially when compared to the other two that are shown.

But I finally gave the anime a trial run, and I was hooked almost instantly. The notion of establishing a close group of friends like that has always been a theme that appealed to me, and the character of Luffy is particularly refreshing. He's not exactly naive, but just exceptionally forthright about everything in a manner that almost sounds naive.

Where I connect least with the series is that the main characters all have a singular, driving ambition. To be king of the pirates, or the world's greatest swordsman, or whatever. I don't know that I've ever had that kind of driving force in me. I try to do well at what I do, of course, but there was never a burning desire to be the best comic book writer or anything like that. I suppose the closest I have to that is just to be the best me that I can be, which isn't so much a destination like in One Piece but an ongoing journey.

In watching the episodes, one of the themes thus far has been that you can conquer your obstacles through sheer force of will if you're powerful enough. I like to think of myself as pretty strong-willed in the first place, but I wonder if a guiding principle or quest of sorts would improve that.

(And here you thought anime was just a form of entertainment!)

I picked up the first Unwritten trade a little while back. I had it tagged in my Amazon shopping cart, but I honestly can't remember why I put it there. Did I just hear good things about it? Did I come across a great interview with one of the creators? Did somebody recommend it? I don't know. Regardless, by the time I actually ordered and read it, I couldn't remember anything about what I might've heard about it. Not even a basic plot outline.

But I read it and enjoyed it a fair amount, so I ordered the second trade, which I just read this afternoon. I still think it's done well and I'm mostly enjoying it, but part of it isn't sitting well with me any more.

The basic plot revolves around Tom Taylor, the son of a famous author who disappeared several years ago. The books which made him famous are pretty analogous to the Harry Potter series (both in terms of genre and theme) and the main character is named Tommy Taylor. So Tom Taylor goes around to conventions doing talks and signing autographs, and generally being miserable because his father made such a big name for him that he's not able to make one for himself. Then weird stuff starts happening and things go to hell pretty quickly.

One of the main ideas of the series, from what I've read thus far, is that books have power. The best books, and the most widely read ones, start to take a literal form and help to shape the world around us. One of the questions in the book is whether Tom Taylor is, in fact, his father's biological son or merely a literary construct given real form.

The idea isn't wholly original, of course. Variations on the theme have been used in comics before; Tales to Astonish #20 had a more literal approach where things written out on a typewriter actually happened and John Byrne's She-Hulk was very conscious of the fact that she was appearing in a comic book being written and drawn by Byrne.

But, despite that, there's a lot to be said for the particulars of the execution here. The story unfolds well and Mike Carey and Peter Gross do an excellent job emulating the styles of various other books. But something about it is bugging me.

Maybe the continued references/allusions to Harry Potter? The books aren't called out by name, but the similarities are too close and persistent for coincidence. I mean, I get why Carey is using the analogy -- he's trying to clearly show just how big a global phenomenon these books are. Imagine if J.K. Rowling had nephew named Harold Potter? That guy would never hear the end of it, right? So I get what Carey is trying to do. And continuing that beyond the initial chapters? Sure, makes good sense within the context of the story.

But I really get tired of it.

Not because it's repetitive or distracting or anything, but because I really don't like the Harry Potter books/movies. I'm sorry, but I just think they're exceedingly average, pedestrian novels and the movies were just plain bad -- visual highlight reels from the books with no coherent story. And you know, that's fine that there are mediocre books out there and bad movies, but I'm well past annoyed by the decade-plus of constant media hype about it. I am glad the books have gotten so many kids to read -- I was just talking with a friend online yesterday about how reading trash is preferable to reading nothing at all. (For clarity's sake, at the time, I was talking about the worst of harlequin romance novels. I don't think Rowling's work is trash; it's just relatively banal.) But why so many people have gotten so excited about these stories for so long, I just don't understand. I can at least understand where, say, Twilight's or Avatar's popularity comes from, even though I don't care for either personally; for the life of me, I can't see why so many people have gravitated towards Harry Potter though.

Which is unfortunate. I like the ideas and execution of The Unexpected but my annoyance with the Potter analogies, I guess, just runs deep enough for me to be bothered by the book despite it's good qualities.

I last attended a Wizard World convention in 2008. That was, I think, the last year before they really got into competition with the ReedPop conventions. I was, at the time, surprised just how much of the convention was still focused on comics, but with the ReedPop shows getting really high marks from a comics perspective, and several publishers pulling out of the Wizard World shows, I started largely dismissing them out of hand.

But the S.O. got a postcard last night for August's Wizard World Chicago and was interested in going because one of the slated guests is a long-time hero of hers: Pam Grier. She also rattled off a list of celebrities that I might know or recognize: Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Bruce Campbell, Ray Park, Louis Gossett Jr., etc.

So, I flip over to the website to see a complete list of attendees. Sure enough, there are plenty of actors and actresses beloved by the geek set. But mixed in among the special guests, I caught names like Mike Grell, Bill Sienkiewicz and Brian Azzarello. I keep scrolling down and there's actually a pretty substantial list of comic names in attendance. From old school pros to up and comers, from mainstream print publishers to indie web folks.

Hmmm. May be worth hanging around the convention for more than Grier's autograph. And here I thought I was going to go through 2011 without hitting the con circuit at all!