It's the start of a new year in Previews-time, so let's start it off on the right foot with a...

PICK OF THE MONTH

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL, by PHOEBE GLOECKNER, from FANTAGRAPHICS, pg. 276, NOV012366, $18.95.

Phoebe Gloeckner's comics sear themselves onto your brain. Her first collection, A CHILD'S LIFE AND OTHER STORIES, chiefly recounts episodes from her adolescence; of being seduced by her cunning, Me-Generation bastard of a stepfather, and of falling in with hustlers on the streets of San Francisco who would have no qualms about, for example, drugging her and trading her unconscious body to strange men for more drugs.

These episodes were harrowing, and Gloeckner is unsparingly honest about them. Fantagraphics publisher Kim Thompson puts it well: "Phoebe looks square in the face of extremely disturbing subject matter, but she has this illustrative style that's so beautiful. It's like going to a movie that looks like Merchant-Ivory but turns out to have a Charles Bukowski story." (Gloeckner has a master's degree in medical illustration, and she sometimes uses that hyperreal style to devastating effect in her comics.)

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL will tell the whole story of her adolescence, beyond the glimpses we got in A CHILD'S LIFE. It's poised to capture mainstream attention, in part because the book isn't quite a comic - it's a hybrid. As a New York Times interviewer wrote, "Gloeckner's book is largely text that periodically bursts into comics the way a musical bursts into song: with no warning whatsoever, as if it's normal." This may well be comics' next breakthrough book, and deservedly so. She's in the top tier of cartoonists, and soon everyone will know it.

Click here to visit Gloeckner's official website.

DC COMICS

At one time or another, you have probably heard some apologist for the entertainment industry claim that they "give the people what they want."

This is untrue. They don't give you what they want; they give you what they've got, dressed like what you want. Here's a textbook example.

Casual readers, as we all learned in the early '90s, are repelled by crossovers and events and anything that makes reading comics too much work. They want adventure comics that are easy to find, simple (not stupid) and cheap. Otherwise they'll just watch television, which is ubiquitous, simple (usually stupid) and free.

To address this, DC has come up with a loss-leader called BATMAN: THE 10 CENT ADVENTURE. It's a fine idea that should give former comics readers a nice nostalgic buzz. And DC is the only company that can afford to do it. (Marvel tried some giveaways, but the impact seems to have been negligible.) It ends in a cliffhanger, to drive people into specialty shops in search of the conclusion.

Only problem is, the conclusion plays out over a two-month-long Batbook crossover event called BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER.

IDIOTS!

Casual readers will see the hook in this bait and not bite. As well they shouldn't - even hardcore maniacs are begging relief from crossovers, what with JOKER: LAST LAUGH coming right on the heels of OUR WORLDS AT WAR. Idiots! Evolve, damn you! Somebody stop DCU before it crosses over again!

TRANSMETROPOLITAN has a new trade paperback out, titled GOUGE AWAY (pg. 90, NOV010634, $14.95), which finds gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem in imminent danger of being censored by a devious president and co-opted by a frothy, tame media.

I say this up front because most recommendations you'll see for this book will stress the horrible violence, outlandish concepts and nasty humor. But that's the candy coating. There's a lot of it, yes, but I submit that any book containing an epigraph by H.L. Mencken does have an agenda, and a subversive one at that.

DC Direct is selling soft dolls of Sheldon Meyer's SUGAR & SPIKE, a classic '50s kiddie comic book widely considered on a par with LITTLE LULU. Says the blurb: "It's hard to over-praise Meyer's work, as he was a natural-born cartoonist who infused his strips with an abundance of charm. Today SUGAR & SPIKE is one of DC's features most frequently requested, by fans of eclectic vintage material, for reprinting!"

So why don't they?

Okay, they may be testing the waters with the "facsimile edition" of SUGAR & SPIKE #1 (pg. 85, NOV010604, $2.95) that's due in May. But still, LULU was reprinted in its entirety, in handsome oversized hardcover editions, years ago. Why is DC futzing about with soft dolls of characters modern readers have never heard of on account of never having seen the material?

MARVEL COMICS

There's no need for me to comment on the latest iteration of the AVENG- er, the DEFEN- er, the AUTHOR- er, the ULTIMATES. However, I do note with interest that it made the cover. Remember six years ago, when Marvel tried to conquer the direct market by buying a distributor? It was a disaster, and when they finally had to slink back to Diamond (by then the only major distributor left), Diamond penalized them by denying them any cover spots. Diamond seems now to have relented. Say what you like about Joey and Bill - and I do - but this is symbolic of how thoroughly they've effected Marvel's redemption.

The new HOWARD THE DUCK (#1, pg. 151, NOV011798,$2.99) debuts, only Howard isn?t a duck anymore, due to a potential legal dispute with Disney. (Nothing to do with the movie, as I first reported. We were, of course, just keeping you all on your toes.)

Way back around 1979, Disney decided that Howard looked actionably similar to Donald Duck, and wangled Marvel into an agreement mandating a new, and unattractive, design. Marvel, creator Steve Gerber has noted incredulously, was not even allowed to propose an alternate redesign. (Marvel was not exactly overblessed with business acumen, circa 1979.) The only way to sidestep the problem was to change Howard's species.

So Howard is back - but will the series have any bite left? The blurb promises: "Just as the original series dealt with the important matters of the day, the new HOWARD tackles the big issues - starting with that scourge of the modern world: Boy Bands!"

Are they kidding? If there's one thing I hate about the New Marvel, it's that I can never tell when they're kidding.

I have no love for boy bands, but really, everybody has lampooned them. When even the JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS movie has done it, it has well and truly been done. And didn't Gerber spend a lot of time in the original series reviling disco? How is this different? Let's hope he's just warming up...

WIZARD ENTERTAINMENT

It's a good sign, maybe, that the alternative market has so grown in importance that even Wizard wants to horn in on it.

Thus the debut of "Wizard Edge: The Hottest Buzzbooks!" (What the hell is a 'buzzbook' - CLAN APIS?) The blurb sounds mostly like Wizard-as-usual, as it's headlined by Kevin bloody Smith, and is fixated on other-media tie-ins (learn about comics writers who've sold scripts to Hollywood! "Find out how to obtain the rights to a licensed title"!).

However - and it causes me physical pain to concede this - it might be decent. Until recently, Wizard's web site had some pretty good coverage of independents, and presumably that's now being funneled into Wizard Edge. The features on such "newer creators" as James Kochalka, Tony Millionaire and Andi Watson reflect a willingness to go far afield from typical Wizard fare. It ain't gonna challenge The Comics Journal, but it might usefully serve as an introduction to alt-comix.

Vital stats: pg. 199, NOV012074 (Kevin Smith/BONE/LIBERTY MEADOWS cover) or NOV012075 (the BUFFY/SIMPSONS/STAR WARS cover), $4.99.

ABSENCE OF INK COMIC PRESS

In the first issue of Farel Dalrymple's POP GUN WAR, an angel plummeted to earth and landed in a city, conveniently near a fellow with a chainsaw who obligingly sawed his wings off. Our protagonist, a little black boy, salvaged the wings from the garbage and strapped them to his own back... and from there on things got weird. In the last panel we were promised "NEXT ISSUE: a dwarf, a monk, and a fish."

There might not have been a next issue (#2, pg. 212, NOV012091, $2.50) if Absence of Ink hadn't offered to publish it, and for that we thank them. The dream logic's intriguing, and the art's nice too - it's in ink, I think, but it retains some of the softness of pencils. Samples may be seen in this interview.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

9-11: EMERGENCY RELIEF (pg. 216, NOV012111, $14.95) is the small press WTC benefit book, in which cartoonists give their accounts of the attack. Will Eisner heads up a long list of contributors that includes some of my personal favorites (Jessica Abel, Tom Hart, Marc Hempel, etc.). The money goes to benefit the Red Cross.

Previewed at Comic Book Resources are stories from two of our most demonstrative cartoonists: Tom Beland and Dean Haspiel.

CROSSGEN COMICS

Mark Waid's fourth and latest title is SAURIANS: UNNATURAL SELECTION #1. It's about human-sized lizards, and was inspired by the creatures that infest the swampland around the Florida Crossgen compound. The descendants of Sarcosuchus imperator, these shambling crocodilian horrors are trained to devour any writer who tries to escape before creating the requisite two dozen...

Sorry, I've just been informed that I can't proceed without a "rumor barrier," whatever that is.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

Even apart from DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (noted above), it's an astounding month at Fantagraphics, as their roster includes two legends that changed the way we thought about comics: Bernard Krigstein and Gil Kane.

In the '50s, comic book artists weren't expected to have their own voice. EC gave far more latitude than most publishers- they didn't force artists to conform to a house style, and even let them sign their work. But even there, artists were expected to follow the editor's breakdowns. Bernard Krigstein, best known for his stint at EC, only really ever got to cut loose there once.

But once was all it took. "Master Race," from IMPACT #1, was so sophisticated in its storytelling that it forever changed the way his peers saw comics. It's one of the most analyzed comic stories ever, and it hasn't been exhausted yet.

Krigstein's story is told in B. KRIGSTEIN VOL. 1 (pg. 276, NOV012365, $49.95) the first volume of two, covering his life up until he quit comics in frustration in the early '60s, to return to his first love, fine art painting. This massive book reprints some of his breakdowns, many of his pages, and a handful of his most important stories.

Gil Kane was a peerless action cartoonist, a dynamic yet elegant figure artist and storyteller. The tragedy of his career was that, due to the low-rent nature of comics, he never got a script that quite exercised the whole of his brain. Two of the projects that came closest were the secret agent story HIS NAME IS SAVAGE! and the sword & sorcery series BLACKMARK, both collaborations with Archie Goodwin, and both ill-fated attempts to escape the comics distribution system. Now Gary Groth, one of the late Kane's best friends, is rescuing the latter from oblivion with the collected BLACKMARK (pg. 276, NOV012363, $16.95). It reprints the original paperback, out of print for 25 years, and the sequel, which was only printed in a mangled version in Marvel Preview #17.

New LOVE & ROCKETS (vol. 2 #4, pg. 278, NOV012368, $4.95). Always good.

Lastly: last month, I suggested that subscribers would be getting the coffee-table-sized COMICS JOURNAL WINTER 2002 SPECIAL. I was most likely wrong about that. I also didn't hype the book as much as I ought, because I wasn't sure how much comics there'd be. Fantagraphics has since released a more complete contributors list, and it's so big that I don't have room for it. Read it here. It's the finest anthology lineup I've ever seen. The TCJ SPECIAL's order code is OCT012449, and it costs $19.95 for 120 pages.

FIVE O'CLOCK SHADOW

Israeli-born twin brothers Tomer and Assaf Hanuka bring forth BIPOLAR #2 (pg. 279, NOV012385, $2.95). Assaf's style is comparable to Eduardo Risso (100 BULLETS), and Tomer's bears some resemblance to Al Columbia (BIOLOGIC SHOW). It's a hard book to put a finger on, but it bears watching. See art samples at Tomer's website.

HOTEL FRED PRESS

Roger Langridge's FRED THE CLOWN (#2, pg. 284, NOV012411, $2.95) is silliness in high style, and badly needed it is too. The first issue contained tales of the lovelorn; dead-on mimicries of old Fleischer cartoons, Dr. Seuss, Windsor McCay and Edward Gorey, among others; and quite a bit of verse, including the following limerick:

There was an old lady from Ealing
Who stapled her dog to the ceiling.
When people asked why,
She replied with a sigh:
"It suited the way I was feeling."

Many Fred the Clown strips can be found at HotelFred.com.

INSIGHT STUDIOS GROUP

Here's a switch: a cartoonist jumping ship from newspaper syndication to the direct market. The comic strip really must be doomed. Anyhow, Frank Cho is sick of prudish editors censoring his cutting-edge beaver jokes, so he's converting LIBERTY MEADOWS into a comic book only - but not before ending his strip with a major cliffhanger. I must admit, it's a savvy ploy that will likely drive new readers into comics shops. But if he were really smart, he'd spread out the cliffhanger over two months' worth of seven interconnected titles, the way the really big companies do. After all, those really big companies didn't get that way by being completely blinkered and pigheaded, did they?

Am I perseverating? Sorry. Moving on...

MEANWHILE STUDIOS

The first issue of Troy Little's self-published comic CHIAROSCURO came out last month, and now I feel even more rotten about having made cheap jokes about the name. This is a remarkably assured debut. (Just ask the Xeric Foundation, which just gave Little a grant.)

Little says in #1, "I've had so many false starts in creating my own comic over the years ... and then I came across CEREBUS. CHIAROSCURO might have only been six pages long and filed with my other unfinished comics if it weren't for that book." Dave Sim's influence on Little is transparent (that lettering! those panel borders!), but not overpowering. Actually, the cartooniness, the angular line, and the (natch) chiaroscuro is more reminiscent of Zander Cannon (REPLACEMENT GOD).

As for the story, it's about an artist who's paralyzed by the thought of his own potential, which sounds a little autobiographical. The danger is that it will get stuck in the slacker miserablism that's stereotypical of alt-comix, but there are hints of spooky doings in the shadows that promise to elevate the plot beyond that.

Issues #1 (JUL012143) and #2 (pg. 292, NOV012442) can be had for $2.75 each. Check them out. Little now has a website.

ONI PRESS

Kudos to Oni for sticking by Greg Rucka's Taliban arc in espionage series QUEEN & COUNTRY. Most comics companies, after the attacks, couldn't cancel titles fast enough.

Kudos also for Oni's campaign to get all of Jay Stephens' weird and delightful work into print. ODDVILLE is a collection of Stephens' old weekly newspaper strip, featuring the first appearance of Jetcat.

SIRIUS ENTERTAINMENT

There's a new collection of Mark Crilley's excellent kid's title: AKIKO VOLUME 5 (pg. 302, NOV012499, $12.95). The story, what I've seen of it, is like STAR WARS, except that, being a genuine thing of the imagination, it floats in precisely the way STAR WARS doesn't. It's whimsical and cheerful, and Akiko, a levelheaded and capable fourth grader, makes an admirable heroine. TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

Josh Simmons' HAPPY #1 (pg. 309, NOV012528, $3.50) is my blind pick of the month. Top Shelf rarely lets me down, and I'm always in the market for satirical comics. True, the phrase "disturbing exposé on the dark side of the American Dream" always bodes ill for subtlety, but maybe it's just the blurb that's overwrought.

BOOKS: FRENCH IMPORTS

Guy Delisle's ALINE ET LES AUTRES (pg. 338, NOV012737, $21.95) - in English, Aline and the Others - comprises 26 wordless short strips about women, one for each letter of the alphabet. Mostly they're stories of courtship gone wrong, and mostly they involve something impossible happening to the body - think Bill Plympton, only less frenetic. If the art were any simpler, it would fall to pieces, but I think Delisle pulls it off.

Here's a sample page, featuring the worst case of vagina dentata on record. You've got to love the touch of those last two panels.

SPOUTNIK (#3, pg. 338, NOV012739, $14.95) is a handsome Francophone anthology that is trying to attract English speakers by providing a translation booklet. Since so little of this stuff gets properly translated, SPOUTNIK is a good way for us monolinguists to find out what's going on in the Great Elsewhere.

MAESTRO (pg. 338, NOV012738, $22.95) is a book by famous 19th-century French caricaturist Caran D'Ache, and judging from D'Ache's proposal, he intended this as the very first graphic novel - in 1894. Unfortunately, only about a third of the tale was finished. It was first recovered and published only two years ago. If you're interested in the roots of the medium, here's a big one. You can see sample art here.

Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist.

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