For as long as I can recall thinking about such things, I've been a big proponent of free will. The notion that I, and I alone, control my actions and that any consequences of those actions are mine to bear. As near as I can determine, it was this firm belief in free will that has guided/directed my thinking towards religion, politics, entertainment, and just about everything else. After college, I began mentally exploring that notion further and have come to think of myself as something of an existentialist. While there are any number of variations of existentialist philosophy, the basic premise takes free will a step further by stating that the meaning(s) of our very existence is entirely up to the individual.

I seem to recall seeing/reading an article some years back discussing Krazy Kat in an existentialist (instead of the more typical surrealist) light, but I can't seem to find that at the moment. This particular strip (from December 25, 1919) speaks directly to the two characters' differing approaches to what is or isn't their respective realities. But it's certainly not the only comic that brings up the notion of existentialism.

Time travel is a notion that comes up frequently in comics -- as well as other media, but I'm talking comics here. The two primary notions that tend to come up in some fashion are A) that anything a character does in his/her past is in fact already a part of his/her part and s/he was destined to carry out those actions, and B) history is mutable and subject to change -- a media-centric shortcut to explaining that position is Back to the Future. (There are variations on these ideas, obviously, with alternate timelines and such, but they still tend to generally follow one of those two premises.) It should be needless to say that I tend to favor stories that dismiss the notion of destiny or inevitability. Because of my fairly strong feelings on the matter, I tend to approach stories involving time travel with some trepidation, especially with properties that haven't previously taken a definitive stance on the issue of time travel. Both DC and marvel have wavered back and forth on the issue repeatedly, seemingly dependent on the whims of the writer and/or editor of any particular story.

That said, I can still appreciate a time travel story that holds to the notion of determinism, if it's done well. Steve Englehart, for example, did a fine job in West Coast Avengers #17-24. Technically, it holds together extremely well, keeping multiple storylines/timelines straight and still tying into established continuity on any number of points. I don't agree with the basic premise, but I have to admire the skill with which the story was executed. By contrast, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Knights 4 #15-17 is fraught with plot holes stemming precisely from the time travel aspects of the story, and I disliked that story despite his holding up the notion of free will and some excellent artwork by Jim Muniz.

But that's only an obvious way to see existentialism in comics. Another issue that stands out for me is one that was never published: Captain America #14 by Mark Waid and Andy Kubert. The issue, as written by Waid, recounts a history of the Red Skull -- as told by the Red Skull himself. (Editor Bob Harras re-wrote much of the script before it was published, putting Red Skull in a more typical -- and safe -- role as the bad guy. I wrote about this all in more detail here.) The original narrative is insightful because it is that of a character who believes in what he himself is doing, regardless of the fact that most people would consider those actions "evil." He doesn't consider his actions anything less than justified because of his own goals and that Captain America is an obstacle to them. Although the Skull's thoughts themselves don't necessarily relay an existentialist message, the very notion that his perception of events differs from the title's usual protagonist speaks to the idea that each man is creating a reality based on his own thoughts and opinions.

I think that one of the (subconscious) reasons I took to the Fantastic Four early was that it readily exposed the difference in approaches with Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom. Doom's very character is based in large part on revenge against Reed Richards for a perceived slight back in college. Reed, by contrast, always takes the opinion that the error was Doom's himself and he has never acknowledged that fact -- Doom is, in effect, absolving himself of any responsibility for his situation. The difference in characters are further highlighted by Reed repeatedly taking responsibility for the accident that caused his friends' conditions -- most notably that of his best friend, Ben Grimm. And similarly, Ben does NOT blame Reed for his own state (at least, he didn't by the time I started reading the book; the first dozen or so issues, Ben very clearly and adamantly did blame Reed). Ben has accepted that he elected to take on the risk of piloting that fateful space flight, fully knowing that there was a great amount of risk. The Fantastic Four (the good guys) believe they created themselves, while Dr. Doom (the bad guy) believes he was created by others.

Now whether or not you agree with me on how much responsibility we have for our own actions is immaterial here. But I think it's an especially intriguing notion to examine how some of my core belief system ties in to what I like to read. As I write this, I am the product of every decision I've ever made, and so I'm left to wonder who would I be if I had made different choices? Would I have taken to the Fantastic Four -- or, indeed, comics in general -- if I was more determinist in nature? Would I be reacting differently to events in my personal life the way I am? Would I even need to be dealing with the same things with a different outlook? Certainly interesting, if ultimately unanswerable, questions.

But let me put the question to you: how do your personal philosophies impact your choice of comics reading? I don't expect answers here, mind you -- I can only address the issue now because of the insane amount of navel-gazing I've done on the topic -- but it might be something worth examining for your own personal edification.

Self-actualization through comic books! Who knew?

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

Kleefeld on Comics: Flashback: The Quest For Identity Prelude
https://ift.tt/3hzxrZj

Kleefeld on Comics: Symbolism
https://ift.tt/3AVblYR

Kleefeld on Comics: Art Nouveau & Comics
https://ift.tt/3khwxCD

Kleefeld on Comics: Defacing Old Comic Strip Art
https://ift.tt/3elDkr6

Kleefeld on Comics: Two Geeks Talking
https://ift.tt/36Gs5p2

I recently spoke with Kurt Sasso of Two Geeks Talking about my Webcomics book. We had a great chat, and he asked a lot of good questions. As I've said in many places before, I hope that my book and whatever discussion it generates helps to get people talking about webcomics more broadly. There's a lot of fantastic work being done, and it really needs to be discussed more, separate from the discussions of such-and-such print creator is doing a webcomic now or such-and-such webcomic got picked up by a print publisher.

While Kurt's questions were interesting and speak to the content of Webcomics, I was also particularly appreciative of some of his final questions which spoke more to me as a creator. I was especially struck by his asking if I thought I was successful. Particularly in light of Webcomics being nominated for an Eisner this year, it's hard to argue I'm not, even though I generally don't feel successful per se. It's something I've been reflecting on a fair amount since he asked. How I can objectively be defined as having success, but not internalizing that at any level. I think I'll be noodling on that for a while longer yet.

In any event, take a listen. Hopefully, you learn a few things and, even more hopefully, it will help encourage more people to talk about webcomics! And Webcomics! 😀

Here's the original art for the March 11, 1936 installment of Gasoline Alley...

You might notice a black line running through the whole strip about 3/4 of the way down. That's actually not uncommon to find syndicated comic strip art from that era defaced in such a way. Why? Well, here's what the ebay seller who I originally saw selling this years ago said to explain it...

The black line through the lower section of the art is typical for daily comic strips from the 1930s-1940s. During this period, strips were run in two different sizes (full and reduced). The full size strip was originally shot with the bottom copyright notice and made available to newspapers which ran the strip full size. The line was then drawn across the lower section of the strip (effectively creating a new bottom to the panels; with some strips, a blank piece of paper was glued across the bottom) and a second copyright notice applied for papers running a reduced size strip. This is why nothing much happened in the bottom of many 1930s-40s daily strips and why the artists made sure to sign above where the reduced size line would be inserted.

No bothering with marking up the copy because once the original was shot for use in synidcation, it had no further use as far as anyone was concerned.

It's not quite as blasphemous as using the acetate animation cels for Snow White to go "sledding" across the slick hallway floor, but it's still hard to believe shortcuts like that were taken.

A few decades back, Jim Steranko published his own history of comics (appropriately titled The Steranko History of Comics) and one of the more noteworthy aspects of the project was citing pulp novels as a direct precursor to comic books. Although he made a compelling case, the idea hasn't really taken hold in the comics community for whatever reason(s).

Obviously, the origins of the comic book owe much to MANY different sources, and it's all but impossible to value the degree to which one source affected comics' development over another. But one source that I've long felt was overlooked was the Art Nouveau movement that was popular from around 1890-1905. It was at a time when printing became cost-effective enough to use it as a cheap promotional tool, so artists trying to make living began adapting Art Nouveau techniques to produce more work faster. And one of the methods of doing that was by eliminating excessive cross-hatching and shading that typified printed illustrations and simplifying figures and forms to their outlines.

I first made the connection while reading ElfQuest back in the mid-1980s. Wendy Pini's Glider tribe, and Winnowill in particular, reminded me of Aubrey Beardsley's style from almost a century earlier...   Because of the reduced linework in Art Nouveau -- despite all the extra flowery bits often put into the background -- it was easier to crank out work quickly and many commercial artists adopted the style to earn more money. Indeed, the "classic" artists that are trotted out during Art Nouveau discussions -- Alphons Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, etc. -- were commercial artists producing works for advertising works for companies. Many of their pieces shown in the art history books are ads!

I recently stumbled across the work of one Alberto Della Valle. I can find very little information about him online, but he was apparently a commercial illustrator in the late 1800s and early 1900s working out of Italy. Most of the works of his I've found are book cover illustrations and, while not particularly historically significant in light of Art Nouveau pioneers, still seem well executed in and of themselves. That these covers were largely for pulp novels ties back in with Steranko's ideas on the origins of comics. Stories about pirates and heroes and adventurers, coupled with simplified line illustrations seems to make for an obvious bridge between pulps and comics.

Della Valle seems to have been a fairly small-time artist, who's main notoriety comes from having illustrated the covers to several Emilio Salgari novels. If anyone has any more information on Della Valle, I'd certainly be interested to hear it.

And with that said, I'll leave you with a small collection of Della Valle covers. Take a look at them and see if you can't easily imagine these pictures leading to whole comic book stories.

Yesterday, I caught this editorial cartoon from Ed Hall...

I've thought holding the Olympics this year was a bad idea since jump. I've been even more against it the past couple weeks where they've seen a significant surge in cases of COVID in/around Tokyo. I've unsarcasticaly said that I think the most significant news that will come out of the Olympics this year will not have to do with the athletics at all, but the rash of COVID cases that will inevitably result. So I thought this was a clever cartoon, showing that the true "winner" of the Olympics this year will be COVID itself.

But I did briefly question why the three winners were not stereotypical athletes, but rather three fat people. My guess was that Hall was trying to say that COVID will affect more 'regular' people in the area more than the athletes themselves, so he drew them as "definitely not athletes." I figured that since they were drawn overweight, but it wasn't done in a particularly comical manner, nor were they drawn as morbidly obese. I just read all three figures as "non-athletes."

But then, over on Twitter, Laurakeet pointed out to me that the cartoon is fatphobic. Not so much the weight of the figures themselves, but the negative judgements many people associate with obesity: laziness, dirtiness, thoughtlessness, etc. She saw it as Hall ascribing those negative traits to COVID by showing them as overweight. So I dug around to see if Hall himself had anything to say on the topic. Sure enough, he had the cartoon posted on his Facebook page and, when someone flatly asked why they were all fat, Hall responded, "because covid is a lazy, opportunistic virus." He went on to suggest that (though he didn't state outright) anti-vaxxers are stupid, tying into the same poor image of overweight people.

I've talked before on this blog about how editorial cartoonists need to be experts in symbols. Ben Garrison got roasted last week because he got the symbols of a recent cartoon so completely wrong and backwards that the overall cartoon conveyed the exact opposite message that Garrison was seemingly try to send. Cartoonists often have to distill broad ideas and concepts down to a single illustration, which means they need to know all of the baggage that an image -- a symbol -- carries with it. (Heck, that I used the term "baggage" just now is a symbol in and of itself!)

Unlike Garrison, Hall isn't using his symbols incorrectly in that there's at least some understanding equating "fat" with "lazy." (I missed that connection, but I'm also an audience of one. And while it's not a connection I normally make, I'm at least aware that it is a connection some people do.) The problem is that the stereotype of "fat = lazy" is false and offensive. It's like claiming all Irish people are drunks, or all Jewish people are greedy misers. Yes, those were indeed used as caricatures for many years, but they're broadly considered reductive and offensive.

As is "fat and lazy."

You all know I've run several marathons, right? Do you know how many people I've see during those races who were visibly overweight? Honestly, neither do I because there have been too many to count. And there is NO WAY you're going to tell anyone who's even attempted a marathon that they're lazy! Weight has no connection to any other personal traits. Not hygiene, not happiness, not intelligence, not disposition, not even health! People have different natural metabolisms, their bodies store energy differently, they may have extenuating circumstances (e.g. having had their leg shattered when they were hit by a car) preventing them from "just exercising more." The only thing that being overweight means is that you're overweight.

So for Hall to deliberately fall back on that stereotype is degrading. It's perpetuating a decidedly false stereotype that we really should have done away with years ago!

Hall's point about COVID competing in this year's Olympics is clever and funny. That he chose to use the symbol of fat people to indicate laziness is neither.

Over the weekend, I pulled out my old Sega Genesis and fired up Flashback: The Quest for Identity. I remembered it being a great game, and I was pleased to see how well it holds up. It had a really good storyline, some excellent design work, and the graphics still look pretty decent considering it came out almost 30 years ago.

But what surprised me was that the manual included an original 14-page comic that acted as a prelude to the game itself. It was evidently contracted by Delphine Software to Marvel Comics. It was written by James Moore, drawn by Mike Harris and Frank Percy, and lettered by Rick Parker. The cover was by comic veteran Mike Grell. There are no credits to Paul Cuisset who wrote, designed, directed, and partially programmed the game, so I suspect he was only consulted minimally at best for the creation of the comic.

I noticed several bits about the comic that strike me as interesting. First, the game itself centers around the hero, Conrad, who wakes up on a jungle planet with no memory of who he is or how he got there. As the gamer, your first job is to figure out who Conrad is and why so many people are trying to kill him. The comic, chronologically set before the game, largely answers that question. I don't think that takes away from the game play per se -- the comic can only relay so much in 14 pages after all -- but it's curious that it would be explained right off the bat.

Second, the comic provides Conrad with Sonya, a love interest who mysteriously vanishes (presumably captured) near the end of the comic. There's also mention of a friend Ian who left suddenly just before the comic takes place. In the game, Ian makes an appearance and helps Conrad out. There is, however, no mention of Sonya in the game; in fact, there's hardly any mention of women in the game at all, and the couple that do appear are older, overweight and appear in the briefest of cameos. I can somewhat understand where that might've come from within the game, but why then introduce a totally new character for this comic? The only answer I could hazard a guess at might be that the cover art was done with a rather generic blond thrown in, and Moore wanted or was asked to explain her appearance on the cover art through the comic. (Since the image itself would otherwise be quite at odds with the dearth of females in the actual game.)

There was a remake of the game in 2013 that seems to have addressed some of the disconnects between the comic and the original game, although I don't believe the remake includes a comic prelude of any sort.

As a minor point of curiosity, a few speech balloons unnecessarily break out of the confines of the panel borders on pages six, seven and nine. All of them could easily have fit within the panel borders, and would've then been more consistent with the rest of the comic. Similarly, the gutters begin to disappear on the last two pages and we're provided with one action panel -- the only one in the comic -- in which the art breaks the boundaries of the panel border. None of these are a huge deal, but it does seem a little incongruousness with the rest of the comic. The only possible explanation I can think of is a looming deadline that caused the last pages to be whipped out more quickly than the others.

Anyway, here's the comic if you're actually interested...