Pope Hats #6

by Hartley Lin

Pope Hats is one of those books that I most associate with TCAF, the Toronto Comics Arts Festival, as I think I've bought every issue so far at the festival.  Much of Pope Hats's previous issues were recently collected in the graphic novel Young Frances, and the book's creator, recently did away with his pen name, Ethan Rilly, and embraced his own name, Hartley Lin.

This latest issue is a departure from previous ones.  This issue is much more autobiographical, as Lin muses on becoming a father, moving, finding his relationships with old friends changing, and generally moving into a new stage of his life.

Lin is Canada's Adrian Tomine, and his stories share a similar insight into humanity.  This issue's shorter strips don't allow the space to really dig into and explore any one topic, but the overall effect of reading this issue forms a gestalt image of where Lin is in life.

This was another solid issue in this series.

Pope Hats #5

by Ethan Rilly

There is no comic more associated in my mind with TCAF - the Toronto Comic Arts Festival - than Ethan Rilly's Pope Hats, a title that I've bought almost every issue of at that annual festival.

This year, I didn't even know that there was going to be a new issue, so I was excited and happy to see a nice shiny stack of the new, 64-page issue at Rilly's table.

This issue returns to Frances and Vickie, the two stars of the series.  Last issue was built around short stories that didn't feature these two characters, so it's been a couple of years since we've seen them.  Vickie is in LA working for a TV show where she plays a crimefighter, and without her, Frances is more disappointed with her job and life than ever before.

Pretty much the entire issue is centred on France's daily grind, working as a law clerk for a powerful (and eccentric) figure at a big corporate law firm.  There is constant office intrigue as people jockey for position and quickly turn on one another.  Rumours of big changes sweep through the office, and Frances's boss offers her a large promotion and position of responsibility, but she's not sure if this is the life that she wants.

Rilly's got a very strong sense of these characters, and it seems like he just allows them to take over the storytelling as needed.  There is little in the way of plotting here, yet I found myself immediately drawn back into the story.  Frances is not someone who finds happiness easily, and Rilly does a terrific job of making that clear here.  Her friendship with Vickie, who is her opposite in so many ways, is what makes this book work.

It was great to revisit these characters, and to see how Rilly has grown as a cartoonist and writer.  I hope we don't have to wait too long for a new issue to come out.

Russian Olive to Red King

by Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen

Of all the books I bought at TCAF this year, I think that this is the one that I will treasure the most, mostly because Kathryn and Stuart Immonen really take their time when signing a book.  Kathryn copied a number of words out of a Chekov novel to run perpendicular to the book's title on the title page, beneath which Stuart drew a lovely sketch of Olive, one of the book's protagonists.  It took a little while, but made this a unique purchase.

Russian Olive to Red King is a lovely, lovely book.  It's about a couple, Olive and Red, who live in a large city.  Red is an art writer, while Olive is a researcher.  We are given very few details of their life together, beyond meeting their dog, and learning that Red is not the most communicative of people outside of their relationship.

Olive leaves town for a while, to do some field work, but when flying into (I assume) Northern Ontario, the two-engine plane she is in goes down, and the pilot is killed.  While she is all alone in a wintry environment, Red is left all alone in their apartment, and the rest of the book charts the emotional journeys they take separately, but together.

This is a very poetic book (it was reminding me of The English Patient long before the scene with the cave), and Stuart reveals the story slowly through large, open panels showing landscape and sunset.  Towards the end of the book, the story switches into a section of prose, or prose poetry, more accurately, with sequences of abstracted drawings below them.  The connection between image and words, and how this whole section relates to the rest of the book, is not revealed until the very end.

I feel like I might have appreciated a little more clear resolution at the end, but by saying that, I also think I'm just being a little simple-minded.  This is a powerful and beautiful book.

Pope Hats #4

by Ethan Rilly

One of the most thrilling releases at TCAF this year is the new issue of Pope Hats, Ethan Rilly's exceptional series.  I think I've bought every issue of this series at TCAF over the years, and it's a book I relate closely to the phenomenal event.

This issue, which is magazine-sized, does not return to its regular main characters, Frances and Vickie, but instead shares a number of short stories, many only a page or two in length.

At the centre of the book is a long story, 'The Nest', about a pair of aging parents who have to deal with the fact that their daughter has returned home from university unexpectedly, and suffering from a mental illness.  The parents do their best to adapt their lives around having to look after their child - the father takes an early retirement - and they never let their optimism wane.  This is a touching story, and Rilly handles it very well, with sensitivity and humour.

The rest of this book is equally perceptive and enjoyable.  An aging drummer feels ambivalent about having his band reunite for an Asian tour, and then can't complete the tour anyway.  In a science fiction series, a forager continually alienates everyone around him, for no good reason.  The people in Rilly's stories make decisions that are bad for them - they move into basement apartments with difficult people while abandoning their youthful ideals, they play poker on their phone way too late into the night, they destroy their own artwork, and they use time travel irresponsibly.

Pope Hats is a terrific series; I only wish that Rilly worked a little quicker at producing it.

Supermag #1

by Jim Rugg, with Brian Maruca and Robin Bougie

Supermag is not an easy project to define, but then, none of Jim Rugg's comics work fits into easy classification.  His books Street Angel and Afrodisiac are both brilliant explorations of genre, but he plays so much with the medium that they are neither parodies of the superhero genre, nor straight examples of it.

With Supermag, Rugg has created something like a comics magazine, filled with short strips that show off the versatility of his skill.  Many of the strips are just one or two pages long, and don't really end.  In many cases, I was just settling into a longer story when I realized that Rugg had already moved on to something else.  He's very good at creating character in a limited amount of space, so I often found that to be disappointing - especially with his more 'slice of life' pieces - imagine reading one page of an Adrian Tomine story, and you can understand what I'm talking about.

Rugg also plays around with some of the classic comics genres, like war comics, but subverts or twists them, such as in his story about the US Army's top golfer, who is used to fight off an air attack.  We get an army ape attacking a meeting of Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, and Hugo Chavez.  We also get an appearance of the Bald Eagle, a character from Street Angel.

Rugg is a terrific artist with a strong eye for design.  I'd like to see him settle into a longer piece of work again, as I feel he can create some very powerful long work, but it was nice to go through this book to see how truly talented he is.

Pope Hats #3

by Ethan Rilly

I was very excited to be able to pick up the latest issue of Ethan Rilly's excellent comics series Pope Hats at Word on the Street last week.  This book festival regularly disappoints, but with this single purchase, it was all worth while, even braving a bit of a downpour.

Pope Hats follows two women, Frances and Vickie, who have both spent years trying to establish themselves in their chosen professions.  Frances is an insomniac law clerk, and Vickie is an aspiring actress.  Last issue, Frances received a promotion, splitting her time between serving the kind and reasonable Seagull, and the imperious senior partner Castonguay.  Now, she finds herself completely snowed under by work and the exhausting oneupmanship, back biting, and careerism that define her workplace.  Vickie, meanwhile, has finally landed herself a part in a TV pilot, and is planning a move to California.

The book follows a slow and meandering path through the two womens' daily lives, although it is clear that Frances is the main character and the heart of the series.  We also get to see much more of her co-workers, including the unfortunate lawyer Nina, who has watched her billable hours decline because of her colleague's active sabotage, and who resorts to having to gamble on the Machiavellian intentions of Castonguay.

Vickie has a sizeable presence in this issue, but she still remains a rather elusive character.  When sober, she is capable of insight and self-reflection, but she is rarely sober.

Rilly's work reads like the best of Adrian Tomine's.  He presents snippets of quotidian existence, making good use of humour and a clean, natural drawing ability.  His plot moves slowly, as life does, and he cuts quickly from scene to scene to maintain momentum.  The more magical realist elements of the first issue (like the ghost that Frances talks to) are gone from the series, as Rilly focuses his story on the contrasts between Frances and Vickie.

Rilly rounds out this issue with a trio of narrated strips.  There are two comics adaptions from Spalding Gray's Morning, Noon and Night, and an interview with the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.  They are odd choices, but they are also good reads.

I look forward to reading the next Pope Hats, whenever it may come out.  If it sounds like something you would like, it is solicited in the latest issue of Previews - let your comic shop know you want it!

Pope Hats #2

by Ethan Rilly

It's been more than two years since I bought the first issue of Pope Hats at TCAF, and in the intervening time, creator Ethan Rilly has secured a publisher (the bastion of quality, Adhouse), and has vastly refined the aim and scope of the comic.  This new issue does not require that the first has been read - it's pretty easy to pick up the characters from the previous issue.

The main story focuses on Francis, who works as a law clerk at a high-powered Bay Street firm in Toronto.  She receives a pseudo-promotion, as she is moved under the purview of Marcel Castonguay, a major player in the firm, who is also a workaholic, and pretty eccentric.  Frances is not too happy about the promotion - she isn't all that ambitious, and is prone to anxiety, which is keeping her up at night.

Her roommate, Vickie, is as always unconcerned about this, or just about anything else.  Rilly keeps the story tightly focused on Frances, and it works as a very strong character study.  Gone are the more supernatural aspects of the comic (previously, Frances was visited by a ghost), and the humour is ironic.

There is a second story in the book - Gould Speaks, wherein a man taking a bus from Toronto to Montreal (a good eight hour journey) muses on a variety of things, including hair smudged windows, apparently out loud.  The book ends with a pair of one-page strips, for a total of forty pages of comics.

Rilly reminds me of Adrian Tomine here more than any other cartoonist, although with the focus being on employment and other external constraints on the spirit, instead of relationships.  There are some great insights in this comic, and reading it made me feel very happy that I decided on a career path that never led me towards working in an office environment.  These people are nuts, and lacking balance.

Pope Hats is a great comic, proving once again that I live in one of the premier cities for indie comics.  Toronto is less prevalent in this issue than the first, but it's still a thrill recognizing the landscape in a comic.  I can't recommend this book enough.

Superior Showcase #1-3

by Nick Bertozzi, Mike Dawson, Dean Trippe, John Campbell, Maris Wicks, Joey Weiser, Farel Dalrymple, Jim Rugg, Brian Maruca, Laura Park, and Dustin Harbin

So, here's the thing with a lot of independent cartoonists who have 'indy cred' in certain circles:  they just want to write regular superhero comics.  With a couple exceptions, these are pretty much just normal superhero stories, and don't do much to say anything new or unique about the genre.

The perfect example is the brilliant Farel Dalrymple's story about Hollis, an overweight Batman-type.  If you read this as a Batman story, it would not be even the slightest bit different from how it appears here.  I'm not sure what, aside from Dalrymple's wonderful art, makes things indy.  I'm also not sure why I'm bothered by this, though.  I think I just feel like complaining a little today.

So, to focus on what I liked in this three-issue mini-series.  In the first issue, there is an Ace-Face story that I'd already read by Dawson, and a cute enough Robin-esque story by Trippe.  The second issue had that Dalrymple story, and really, that was about it.

The third issue is by far the stand-out, starting with a cool Street Angel story by Rugg and Maruca.  Street Angel is a cool comic general.  This story has her dealing with a Japanese monster movie creature in a ninja hospital.  It's always fun when she's around...

The best story in this whole series though comes from Laura Park, an artist I am completely unfamiliar with.  Her quiet little piece about young siblings who appear to be raising themselves is understated, evocative, and just about perfect.  It is a very sweet story, and it makes me want to learn more about Park and see more of her work.

THB: Comics From Mars #2

by Paul Pope

I've never read any of Pope's THB comics, mostly because I was sleeping on him when he started the series (I'm sorry to say it), and because they've never been collected.

When my comic store secured a stack of these, which were released with little fanfare at the Baltimore comic convention the other week, I figured it was time to dive in to this series.

Of course, so far as I can tell, this comic, which contains seven short stories, has nothing to do with the main THB series, or if it does, it doesn't matter.

This is a very cool collection of comics, although many of the stories are very ephemeral. In some cases, like the 'tone poem' that makes up the fourth entry in the book, that somehow ties in to the work he has done for DKNY.  It's very pretty, but I'm not sure I get it.

Other stories are more straight forward.  There's a funny tale of a cartoon mouse and cat, and the film director who is frustrated that their careers have moved them beyond the ability to make good mouse and cat movies.  There's a story about a young boy who's interested in David Bowie, and a superhero-like story about El Pollo Diablo the Chicken Devil.

It's nice to see some new work from Pope, and I hope to see more soon.  It's probably going to be hard to find this comic, but it can be ordered from the Adhouse website.  It's worth it.  (While you're there, get a copy of Johnny Hiro - the best comic they've ever published).

Ace-Face: The Mod With the Metal Arms

by Mike Dawson

This would be a good example of a convention impulse buy, based on the fact that I like Adhouse books, the publishers of the amazing Johnny Hiro.  I'm not sure if the stories in this book were published before in the Project: Superior anthology or if this is the first they've appeared, but this work was new to me.

Colin Turney was born without arms, and his strange scientist uncle crafted a pair of metal, super-strong arms for him.  Of course, he gave adult-sized arms to a baby, and so Colin had a rough time of it growing up.  Once he became fully grown, he fought crime in 60s London, before moving to the US and becoming a college professor.

Ace-Face gives us a few different stories from Colin's life, and they are charming and interesting examples of indie superhero comics.  The book also has a couple of stories about 'Son of Ace-Face', Colin's indecisive and easily frightened son, and his exploits dealing with the noisy stoop dwellers of Park Slope.  There are also two stories featuring Jack and Max, a pair of super-powered brothers who always fight.

This is a quick, fun read.  There's nothing here that is going to stick with me, but it was a nice diversion on a summer's afternoon.

Afrodisiac

by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca

The character of Afrodisiac really stood out when he appeared in Rugg and Maruca's classic Street Angel series, and returning to the character in this slim hardcover was a really good idea.

This book is designed (brilliantly, I might add) as a series of excerpts from the lengthy publishing history of Afrodisiac, a blaxploitation character who supposedly had comics, cartoons, and toys based on his adventures through the seventies and into the early eighties.  Afrodisiac is a super-pimp, with a large stable of girls to watch over.

In the different comics, designed to mimic different styles from that era, his origin always changes.  What remains constant is that he's one cool badass.

What I like about this book is the amount of time and effort put into its aesthetics.   Pages are artificially yellowed, and Rugg works in a number of different styles.  There is very little substance to the book; it's all flash, and that's exactly what it's supposed to be.  This is one hell of a cool book.

Johnny Hiro

by Fred Chao

I read the first three stories in this collection in their original, single issue format, and was instantly drawn to Fred Chao's charming characters. When I saw that the collected edition had two new stories, as well as some 'deleted scene' style single page stories, I knew I had to pick it up.

Johnny Hiro is 'half-Asian, all hero'. He's an early 20s busboy at a sushi restaurant who lives in New York with his wonderful girlfriend Mayumi. Stuff happens to him. In the first issue, Gozadilla (a Godzilla stand-in) kidnaps Mayumi out of their bed in a bizarre plan for revenge. In the second, Hiro (no one except his parents call him John or Johnny) has to steal a lobster from another sushi restaurant, and is pursued by knife-wielding kitchen staff. The third involves 47 ronin accountants and the Metropolitan Opera. The fourth involves another sea-food related chase across the city.

The final story, which I guess would have been the fifth issue, features the cast of Night Court (with Judge Judy acting as a stand in for Harry) dealing with Hiro's legal troubles, which stem from the damage done to their apartment by Gozadilla.

Chao's stories are whimsical and often sentimental. His humour is easily enjoyed, and the reader begins to really like Hiro and Mayumi. At the core of this book, it is about a young couple struggling to make ends meet in New York. The giant lizards and other strange threats are incidental to the story of their love for each other. At times, Chao's writing may get a little too sentimental, but he clearly loves his characters.

Also of interest in this book is the way in which it is very much a product of New York. The city is as central to the story as it is in a Brian Wood comic. Mayor Bloomberg makes a couple of appearances, and hints at his third term plans (this comic came out before the election). Also on hand, in addition to Judge Judy and the Night Court crew, are Gwen Stefani, David Byrne, Grand Puba, and Coolio.

Chao's artwork is clean and straight-forward, sometimes showing manga influences. The book is a great read, and easily one of the best of 2009.