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The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.
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Friday, September 3, 2010
Two More Hits from AdHouse Books
Mort Grim and Bumberboy Loses His Marbles
Over the last several months, beginning with Josh Cotter’s Skyscrapers of the Midwest and the much lauded Project: Superior anthology, AdHouse Books has assembled a string of impressive publications. Chris Pitzer seems to have stepped up his publishing efforts and chosen solid up and coming creators to position AdHouse as an alternative publisher difficult to ignore. Think about it, take the roster of creators starring in Project: Superior, an impressive James Jean sketchbook, the Isotope award winning Josh Cotter, and now the double punch of an enigmatic first outing by illustrator Doug Fraser and Debbie Huey’s first book collecting her adorable Bumperboy mini-comics, and you’ve got a handful of great books by a small publisher who had barely published a handful of books before last year. And Pitzer has a few more books in the pipeline that I’m excited about, including Hope Larson’s Salamander Dream.
Mort Grim, Doug Fraser’s “graphic novella” featuring a motorcycle riding Grim Reaper, is a dynamic and striking first effort. This is not Marvel’s overly detailed and ornate Ghost Rider; Fraser’s art is chunky and bold, with a freshness that shows a love of comics, but not necessarily a blind devotion to the rules of comic making. You can see a dynamic boldness of Kirby or Miller, but there’s something else that took me a little bit to put my finger on – there’s a hint of the iconic boldness of Soviet-era propaganda posters. You know, the strong fisted figures featured in posters proclaiming the superiority of Soviet youth, Soviet workers or Soviet sports figures. There’s a page where a waitress dives headfirst, arms stretched out in front of her, into a speeding car. Over the course of three horizontal panels, she is transformed from an awkward sprinting aproned cafe worker into an unbreakable golden-hued statue slicing through both wind and car. She’s suddenly a force of nature.
But the real force in Mort Grim is the reaper character. He is boldness and grimness personified, especially on the title splash page. His fleshless knuckles grip the handlebars of his bike as it flies through the flames of a highway crash. Even the bike, probably an early Harley or better yet an Indian, itself is grim; the headlight is broken into a pattern of long sharp teeth and the hand shifter near the front clutch is topped with a genuine 8-Ball. Mort Grim patrols the lonely highway looking for his next soul, and in this book it’s a farmer who is rushing to finish his crops for the season.
The color scheme in Mort Grim consists of yellow, black and gray. It’s a nice choice and one that helps set the tone of the book. The skies, for instance are a light yellow, with stocky clouds that almost look like cars or half submerged whiskey bottles thickly outlined in a darker yellow. The fierce yellow of the flames and the charcoal gray or black of the title character is a strong contrast compared to the warm peaceful tone of the light yellow fields. What works best in this book, and I apologize for beating this into the ground, is the boldness of the design. It’s stiffer than the art of Kirby or Miller, but strangely alive with movement and emotion. When a semi trailer collides with the farmer’s truck, it’s a violent crash that almost jars your hands as you hold the comic. The windshields of the semi shatter in a pattern that resemble eyes and the broken grill look suspiciously like teeth. The three vehicles involved in the crash are as living and breathing beings locked in a painful embrace.
Mort Grim is a 32 page comic, with typical (meaning deluxe) AdHouse attention to detail. The thick cover is an eye-catching orange and white with a just noticeable grinning reaper in the “O” of the title. It retails for $5 and will be available in fine comic shops everywhere. Check out AdHouse Books.com for details. You can also visit Fraser’s webpage to check out his work.
Bumberboy Loses His Marbles by Debbie Huey is quite a departure from Mort Grim. Here, grim and gritty is replaced by fun and whimsy. Huey has self-published a series of mini-comics featuring Bumberboy and his dog Bumperpup. Bumberboy Loses His Marbles is actually published with funds from a Xeric Foundation grant and in association with AdHouse Books.
Bumperboy Loses His Marbles gets the most important thing right; it’s an entertaining story with likeable characters. You’ve got to start with that. No amount of bells and whistles or shiny paper is going to make anyone of any age stick around if the story seems contrived or calculated for an “all ages” market. Huey, and creators like her, understand this. In Bumperboy there’s no complicated back story that you have to buy into, you simply dive in on the first page and learn the details as you turn each page. It’s such an elementary thing, but it’s surprising how many creators don’t get this.
Thankfully, Huey invests her time in the story and the characters; the art is stripped down to the essentials. It reminds you of an actual children’s book, with easily recognizable shapes and settings. There’s an economy of line that puts the focus on what’s important to the story. At times, it almost feels like an early Mario Bros. videogame. Bumperboy’s house is mushroom-shaped Bumperboy and Bumperpup hurtle through tunnels as a form of transport between worlds when they are searching for the lost marbles.
A later section reminded me a bit of the excellent “all ages” manga, Hikaru No Go. Somehow, Hikaru makes the ancient game of Go exciting and suspenseful. Here, Huey manages to do the same thing with the game of marbles. There are good and bad characters and as the tournament heats up, you find yourself cheering on the good characters like Bumperboy and Gordy, while jeering at the cheap tactics of Frederik the cheating bird.
The first part of Bumperboy is online as a preview. Go to Debbie Huey’s
website to check out the preview. Her site is really excellent; there’s a character index and my favorite character in Bumperboy, Gordy, even has his own blog!
Bumperboy Loses His Marbles is a 96-page perfect bound and it retails for $7.95. You can purchase it from Huey’s website shop or at finer comic shops everywhere.
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Well, now it’s another year or two until the last Harry Potter book. We had to buy two copies of this latest one (and the last one as well), because we couldn’t agree on who would get to read it first. Rather than brave the Friday at midnight crowds, I went out Saturday morning and picked up our reserved copies. Kate read the whole thing in almost one sitting. I read about a third of it on Saturday, between hooking up our new iMac computer and transferring all of our MP3s over to the Mac. I’m still not done with the book, although I will be by the time this column is loaded. I’ve really tried to savor it, since it will be so long until we get the final book. I’ve liked this one so far. I haven’t made it to the death that everyone but me is talking about, but I’m pretty sure I know who it will be this time.
We also saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Friday night. Man, Johnny Depp nailed that role. I’d be happy to go out and watch it again, just to watch him as Willy Wonka. This is the first movie in a long time that I’ve enjoyed in the theatre.
Next week there will be no Past the Front Racks, as I’m taking the week off. This Friday is my birthday and then we’re going to Lollapalooza on Saturday and Sunday, so I’ll be taking a mini-vacation away from the computer for a few days.
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