I wasn't going to let the '80s toy/comic nostalgia craze turn me cranky. After all, I watched the same Saturday morning cartoons as a kid as all my friends did. But when BATTLE OF THE PLANETS is on the front cover of Previews, and THUNDERCATS is on the back, things have gone too fucking far. Even here in America, where nerdkultur has devoured the multiplex, this looks bad. The message it sends is: "Comics aren't for kids anymore. They're for kidults." If you're buying all these retreads, why not go all the way and suck a pacifier too?

Ahem.

PICK OF THE MONTH

SHUTTERBUG FOLLIES (JUN02 2223, pg. 276, $24.95), by Jason Little, from Doubleday

By far the most interesting development of the month is that Doubleday (an imprint of Random House) is returning to the graphic novel market with a vengeance. In sharp contrast to Pantheon (also an imprint of Random House), which has had great success with collections of comics cherrypicked from Fantagraphics' line, Doubleday is releasing two original graphic novels and one adaptation of a prose novel, all by unproven cartoonists.

Actually, it's misleading to call Jason Little unproven. He's been among the most promising of the post-Ware cartoonists for some time. It's just that he had been confining himself to short, formalist experiments, like his riffs on Heimlich maneuver and airline safety instructions. SHUTTERBUG is his first long-form work, and his first without any overt gimmicks.

And it's a corker. Bee, our hero, amuses herself at her photo-hut job by collecting all the most amusing or embarrassing shots, hunting for the "one moment of genuine weirdness per day". When she chances on pictures of what could be a murder, she immediately starts snooping in the finest Nancy Drew tradition. Little calls it "bubblegum noir." The cartooning is clean and clear, like Chris Ware as inked by Bruce Timm.

Little did the strip in weekly instalments, intended for alternative newspapers and also posted on his website. I'm grateful it's being collected, because waiting a week (or more) between pages had been excruciating! This is way too fun a read to be patient for. If you'd like to torment yourself, though, you can read the first 57 pages at beecomix.com right now and get yourself hooked. Kudos to Doubleday for putting this out - and for pricing a 200+ page, full-color hardcover at just $25.

DARK HORSE COMICS / FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

Big month for Tony Millionaire fans. For kids, Dark Horse presents a new collection of his creepy Victorian-style storybook-gone-wrong, SOCK MONKEY, called THE GLASS DOORKNOB (JUN02 0016, pg. 29, $14.95). And for adults, Fantagraphics presents a new collection of his weekly piracy & alcoholism extravaganza, MAAKIES, called THE HOUSE AT MAAKIES CORNER (JUN02 2303, pg. 294, $19.95). No age group is safe from Millionaire's comedy of tragedy. Web site: maakies.com.

DARK HORSE COMICS

It's also a strong month for the Maverick line. In addition to SOCK MONKEY, there's HAPPY ENDINGS (JUN02 0014, pg. 27, $9.95), a 96-page themed anthology that includes work from such creators as Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Mignola, and Harvey Pekar and Joe Sacco. Pekar also has a new AMERICAN SPLENDOR miniseries called UNSUNG HERO (#1 of 3, JUN02 0015, pg. 28, $3.99), about a Vietnam veteran of his acquaintance, drawn by David Collier. And from Dave Cooper, who is having a frighteningly productive year, there's a collection of the kids' strip he did with Gavin McInnes, COMPLETELY PIP AND NORTON (JUN02 0017, pg. 30, $9.95).

DC COMICS

From Vertigo: Little new except Ty Templeton's BIGG TIME (JUN02 0475, pg. 87, $14.95), an original graphic novel in which a homeless man captures his spiteful guardian angel and forces it to confer upon him fame and fortune, which serves as the pretext for a lampoon of showbiz. DC gets credit for commissioning a satirical OGN from someone other than Kyle Baker; but they lose much of it for having held the book up for months due to legal squeamishness. It's a wonder they end up publishing anything at all. There's a story and preview at Newsarama.

From Wildstorm: THE AUTHORITY: KEV, by Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry, is meant to be the first in a series of AUTHORITY one-shots. Given the inglorious way the regular series petered out last month, is there anyone left who still cares?

From the DCU: collected crossovers - buy 'em by the pound. Also there's a couple of new Elseworlds, and clearly they've given up and are taking the piss. One casts the JLA as the critters from the island of Dr. Moreau. The other, by Howard Chaykin, casts Kyle Rayner in the role of Thomas Nast, patron saint of political cartoonists and bete noire of "Boss" Tweed. Until a ring and lantern "crafted by the King of the Leprechauns a millennium ago and powered by a piece of the Blarney Stone... gives Kyle the power... to bring down the corrupt political regime he could only mock in the pages of the daily paper."

This is dopey beyond belief for countless reasons, but mainly because Nast loathed the Irish, and it's this prejudice that more than anything motivated his campaign against Tweed...

IMAGE COMICS

New issue of AGE OF BRONZE (#14, JUN02 1371, pg. 105, $3.50), Eric Shanower's stunning and comprehensive recounting of the Trojan War.

The first issue of the Image LIBERTY MEADOWS comic features Brandy's tits in the foreground and an American flag in the background. If she were only carrying a sword, this cover would have everything.

The third collection of POWERS is LITTLE DEATHS (JUN02 1407, pg. 125, $24.95). It includes the Warren Ellis ride-along story, which wasn't ever going to be collected, I thought. Cute, but almost all his dialogue is cribbed from his columns.

The successor to BIG BANG COMICS is WORLD CLASS COMICS. For people who can't afford comics from the '30s to the '50s, these books file the serial numbers off some well-known superheroes, pastiche the art styles of yesteryear, and present themselves as the next best thing.

I may hate this brand of nostalgia even more than I do straight revivals like BATTLE OF THE PLANETS and MICRONAUTS. The superhero comics of what I refuse to call the 'Golden' Age are, with only a few exceptions, uniformly terrible - crudely drawn, indifferently written, barely even coherent. (Have a look at THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES if you don't believe me.) Their sole virtue was in their manic, teenage energy, and that is of course the one thing WORLD CLASS COMICS can't replicate. Which makes it the comics equivalent of a Ramones cover band.

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel has cut its solicitation text to the bare bones. This will give me a handy excuse to stop writing about the company.

I will just mention that Kyle Baker has been roped into doing the origin of Captain America. You'd expect that TRUTH (that's the title) must be a comedy, but since they compare it to ORIGIN (the Mutant-Ivory costume drama about boy Wolverine) I'm afraid they're all too serious. Will this be the book that strikes Baker's name from the Artistic Roll Call?

A FINE LINE PRESS

Bless the Xeric Foundation - it's helping Donna Barr get THE DESERT PEACH back in print with a new line of trade paperbacks, starting with SEVEN PEACHES (JUN02 1946, pg. 208, $19.95), collecting the first 7 issues. The conceit: Erwin 'The Desert Fox' Rommel, mastermind general for the Nazi Afrika Korps, had a gay younger brother named Pfirsich, to whom he has given command of a non-combat battalion full of misfits and losers. Pfirsich is as flamboyant as being technically closeted allows, and ignores World War II as much as he is able to. Comedy hi-jinks ensue.

This sounds both outlandish and in terrible taste, but astoundingly it works. Barr is your genuine history wonk, and though the central conceit of the book is fiction, she insists the book is always grounded in reality - especially at its least plausible-sounding. Pfirsich's insistence on staying civilised in the midst of war is winning and sometimes touching. And Barr's cartooning is first-rate - her figures are as lively and as natural as Harvey Kurtzman's. My only caveat on this book is that it took Barr a few issues to find her tone. Her earliest issues were too slam-bang, and had some breaking-the-fourth-wall gags that just didn't work. But even from the first, THE DESERT PEACH was a work of rare spirit and humanity. It ought to be much better known.

Web site: stinz.com.

AARDVARK-VANAHEIM

Dave Sim's tour of the world's monotheisms, the essay "Islam, My Islam", was to be only two instalments long; it is now up to five with no end in sight. I'm sure it will help foster cross-cultural understanding in these tumultuous times. Meanwhile, in the comic that is now a vestigial appendage of Sim's rants, there's a lampoon of Sigmund Freud, renamed with stunning originality Sigmund Fräud. Sim recently intimated that he might go off the monthly schedule he's stuck to for 20 years. I hope he doesn't, because CEREBUS really can't end fast enough.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

More James Kochalka than I can bring myself to think about.

AMAZE INK / SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS

DORK (#10, JUN02 1981, pg. 214, $2.95) is Evan Dorkin's catch-all title, and it is the funniest funnybook on the market. If you are not already reading it, I have no use for you.

Web site: houseoffun.com.

CARTOON BOOKS

BONE VOL. 8: TREASURE HUNTERS (hardcover: JUN02 2116, pg. 246, $23.95) is the newest collection of Jeff Smith's well-loved kids' fantasy comic. After this, we'll only be a book or two from the end. People tend to take BONE for granted these days, but I'll bet they won't once the climax has come into view. Smith has very cleverly confounded expectations before - just look at how very much darkened this formerly light-hearted frolic has gradually become.

DOUBLEDAY BOOKS

In addition to SHUTTERBUG FOLLIES, there's NARCISSA (JUN02 2225, pg. 277, $15.95) by Lance Tooks, and an adaptation by Emily Ryan Lerner of IN THE DRINK (JUN02 2224, pg. 277, $15.95), a novel by Kate Christiansen that was chosen due to its resemblance to both BRIDGET JONES' DIARY and Kyle Baker's WHY I HATE SATURN. I couldn't find out anything about Lerner or Tooks, except that she's appeared in ACTION GIRL, and he illustrated a primer on the Black Panthers. In the absence of further information, I'll wait for these to hit bookstores.

DRAWN & QUARTERLY

Michel Rabagliati follows up his well received PAUL IN THE COUNTRY with a full-blown graphic novel, PAUL HAS A SUMMER JOB (JUN02 2227, pg. 277, $16.95). As the publisher says, "Rabagliati has an appealing graphic style that is a cross between Seth and 1950's UPA cartoons and he has a rich, clever storytelling approach that is reminiscent of Dupuy & Berberian's "Monsieur Jean" series in D&Q". Though personally I don't find his style quite as appealing as Seth's. It's semi-autobiographical, it's contemplative, it's Canadian - in short, it's a typical Drawn & Quarterly comic.

There's a Rabagliati section of D&Q's web site.

EDDIE CAMPBELL COMICS

Eddie Campbell Comics finally presents BACCHUS VOL. 7 & 8: EYEBALL KID DOUBLE BILL (JUN02 2277, pg. 291, $16.95), not the last of the series but the last of it to be collected in trade paperback form. BACCHUS irreverently drags the God of Wine and his Olympian cohort into the modern day - Campbell likes to refer to it, tongue-in-cheek, as his 'superhero comic'. This volume may live up to that description more than most, as it comprises a couple of showdowns with the nineteen-eyed, malaprop-prone, all-powerful Eyeball Kid.

Web site: eddiecampbellcomics.com.

EUREKA PRODUCTIONS

GRAPHIC CLASSICS VOL. 3 spotlights HG WELLS (JUN02 2281, pg. 291, $9.95). What's interesting here is the line-up of cartoonists, some of whom are rarely sighted nowadays, such as undergrounders Dan O'Neill and Shary Flenniken, who scandalised Disney as members of the infamous Air Pirates; M.K. Brown, a great obscure female cartoonist who's like Rick Geary (also in this volume) with a dash of Bill Plympton; and Milton Knight, whose misogynist Fleischertoon-style HUGO was one of Fantagraphics' first books.

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

MYSTIC FUNNIES #3 (JAN02 2286, pg. 292, $3.95) is "the first new R Crumb comic of the 21st century", and also, sez Fantagraphics, "the most eagerly-anticipated comic of the new year". I must say, I'd be anticipating it more eagerly if I hadn't read MYSTIC FUNNIES #2, which was, with the exception of a break-the-fourth-wall interlude with Mr. Natural, stale as could be. A computer fed with Crumb's old work could have written it. Could the dean of underground cartoonists be spent? Well, people asked the same thing in the late '70s, and Crumb came roaring back with WEIRDO. Besides which, one bum comic does not constitute a slump. If this too breaks no ground, though, it may be time to worry...

Also by Crumb: THE R CRUMB SKETCHBOOKS VOL. 9 (hardcover: JUN02 2287, pg. 292, $39.95; softcover: JUN02 2289, pg. 292, $18.95), covering the years 1972 to 1974. For most any other cartoonist, this would be massively indulgent. But what makes Crumb special is that comics are his first language. The sketchbooks are what he keeps instead of diaries, and they can be read as a sort of psychic autobiography.

Steven Weissman has done another graphic novel, WHITE FLOWER DAY (JUN02 2305, pg. 294, $14.95), with his 'Yikes!' cast of macabre grade-schoolers (says Fantagraphics: "Think Our Gang meets the Universal Monsters, with a tad of Speed Racer and Peanuts thrown in for good measure"). Not having read any of Weissman's long-form work yet, I'm going to cheat and refer you to the Artbomb review of his last book, DON'T CALL ME STUPID.

The Comics Journal (#246, JUN02 2285, pg. 292, $5.95) interviews the ubiquitous Dave Cooper.

COLONEL JEFFREY PUMPERNICKEL (CD: JUN02 2284, LP: JUN02 2283, pg. 292, $15) is sorta kinda a concept album (the plot is tenuous, like in Frank Zappa's JOE'S GARAGE), performed by a slate of indie-pop favorites (Guided By Voices, the Minus 5, etc.) and sporting booklet art by by Jim Woodring, Peter Bagge, Kim Deitch, Joe Sacco, and Adrian Tomine. By all accounts it's barking mad. Official web site: coloneljeffreypumpernickel.com.

There's a new issue of LOVE & ROCKETS VOL. 2 (#5, JUN02 2304, pg. 2304, $3.95). I don't have to tell you savvy persons what LOVE & ROCKETS is, do I?

Rick Altergott's THE DOOFUS OMNIBUS (JUN02 2302, pg. 294, $16.95) collects nearly all the adventures of the midgety ninny with the taste for used ladies' unmentionables. This isn't anywhere near as crude as ANGRY YOUTH COMICS, but it is proudly lowbrow and it is acclaimed by the same people (Bagge, Clowes, Crumb, etc.). Altergott's skill is undeniable - his art's uncanny resemblance to Wally Wood's is much remarked upon - but I have to admit I don't really see the point.

HARCOURT BRACE & COMPANY

With his book FLOOD, Eric Drooker, along with his comrades at WORLD WAR III ILLUSTRATED, revived the woodcut novel, a proto-comics form that was in vogue in the '20s, usually wordless, allegorical, and left leaning. BLOOD SONG: A SILENT BALLAD (JUN02 2351, pg. 299, $20) is his second graphic novel, about a woman and a man in the Big City, her a refugee from a sudden military occupation of her island nation, him a street saxophonist being persecuted by the law. However the politics of that strikes you, there's no denying that Drooker is a stunning artist, a worthy heir to the tradition of Franz Masereel and Lynd Ward.

Web site: drooker.com.

MEANWHILE STUDIOS

A new issue of Troy Little's Xeric-winning comic CHIAROSCURO (#4, JUN02 2405, pg. 308, $2.75). If you miss CEREBUS from back before Dave Sim went crackers, you ought to check this out.

Web site: meanwhilestudios.

MEATHAUS COMICS

New issue of Farel Dalrymple's anthology MEATHAUS (#6, JUN02 2406, pg. 309, $7), featuring Dalrymple [POP GUN WAR], Tomer Hanuka [BIPOLAR], James Jean [Vertigo cover artist], and Ralph Bakshi [that FRITZ THE CAT movie adaptation that Crumb resents]. Ralph Bakshi? What's he doing here? Anyhow, these will be experimental comics, but at $7 for 128 (admittedly digest-sized) pages, you can afford to give it a shot.

Web site: meathaus.com.

NBM

New issue of ODDBALLZ (#3, JUN02 2419, pg. 310, $2.95). The title is awful and the packaging is inadequate - the creators' names aren't even on the cover of #1 - but it's a terrific book. I've raved enough about Lewis Trondheim in this space, so instead I'll turn to Manu Larcenet, whose work is new to me. His serial, 'Astronauts of the Future', is about a pair of elementary school kids, a boy and a girl, who are convinced that the world has been infiltrated by aliens or robots in human form, and mean to ferret them out. If Bill Watterson were to get over his prejudices about comic books long enough to try doing one, it would turn out a lot like this - and if you miss CALVIN & HOBBES as much as I do, you really ought to be reading ODDBALLZ.

Once again, the previews for #1 are here.

SECESSION

Trina Robbins' SHE DRAWS COMICS (JUN02 2475, pg. 325, $12.18) is a 40-page comic made for the catalogue of an exhibition of female cartoonists' work arranged by Robbins at a Viennese museum called Secession. It's drawn by 28 women and written, near as I can tell, by Robbins (the Previews blurb says the artists co-wrote it, but the Secession web site says they were "reflecting and representing different positions along a script drafted by Robbins," whatever that means).

I have to admit, I admire Robbins' advocacy but I've never warmed to her comics, and I'm a bit trepidatious about her aims here. She says, "The result I think, is the visual voice of Cartoonist Everywoman between covers." Surely distinctive artists like Mary Fleener, Donna Barr and Diane DiMassa are most interesting as individuals, not as facets of some baseline Cartoonist Everywoman?

You can view the gallery's website here.

SHUCK COMICS

A new issue of the charming SHUCK (#3: BIRTH OF THE SULFURSTAR, JUN02 2480, pg. 326, $2.95) tells how the pagan horned god of the title came to be. As ever, extensive previews can be found at sulfurstar.com.

SPARKPLUG COMICS

Sparkplug offers a collection of Jason Shiga's FLEEP (#1, JUN02 2491, pg. 330, $5). It's about a boy who wakes up in a concrete-encased phone booth, and must plot an escape before his air runs out. I really like Shiga's pitch: "FLEEP is everything I wish that a comic strip could be. It's ambitious, mysterious and utterly masturbatory. About a quarter of the strips feature the main character working through various math problems. They are some of the most dramatic math problems you'll ever see in a comic strip." Now that's marketing. You can read some of it at moderntales.com.

I feel obligated to mention Dylan Williams' REPORTER COLLECTION: LITTLE BLACK (JUN02 2490, pg. 330, $8), since REPORTER won a Xeric and is reputedly one of the essential minicomics. But since I rarely read minicomics, and since the solicitations text and Williams' website are thoroughly unhelpful, there's nothing much I can say.

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

THREE FINGERS (JUN02 2520, pg. 334, $14.95), by Rich Koslowski (THE THREE GEEKS), is a mockumentary on animated cartoon stars, essentially the VH1 BEHIND THE MUSIC version of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? Lots of positive buzz around this. There's a preview at Comic Book Resources.

LAND OF O #1 (JUN02 2521, pg. 335, $3.95), Michael Slack's first comic book, portrays "a dystopian third world America" ruined by over-consumption and global capitalism. Maybe I'm just being hardest on my own side, but this sounds pretty ham-fisted. Then again, it did win a Xeric grant. The cover art does look interestingly grotesque, like something off a Residents CD-ROM.

MAGAZINES

I'VE GOTTA LIVE WITH THIS GUY! (JUN02 2611, pg. 348, $19.95) is either a sign that cartoonists really are the rock stars of the 21st century, or that the fan press has lost all sense of proportion. It's a collection of interviews with the significant others of creators like Will Eisner, Alan Moore, Dave Sim (oh dear) and dozens more, festooned with "personal photos, mementos, and never-before-seen art... Once you've read this book, you'll see: You only thought you knew them!" Brought to you by TwoMorrows: We're Not Stalkers, We Totally Swear.

BOOKS

THE LANGUAGE OF COMICS: WORD AND IMAGE (JUN02 2708, pg. 360, $18) is an academic collection of essays released earlier this year, aimed at codifying the unique alchemy of comics that RC Harvey terms 'verbal/visual blend'. The book consists chiefly of nuts-and-bolts analysis, so while the prose is for the most part accessible, the book is overall, as you might expect, rather dry.

ONE HUNDRED DEMONS (JUN02 2742, pg. 363, $24.96) was a colour strip that Lynda Barry did for web magazine Salon, based loosely on the Buddhist belief that "each person must face and overcome 100 demons in a lifetime". I didn't expect to like this, since I've grown weary of the faux-naïf tone Barry uses in her main strip, ERNIE POOK'S COMEEK, but blessedly Barry here addresses her readers as an adult, not a child.

This strip reminded me why I liked her in the first place. If it were up to me I'd keep her doing this, and retire ERNIE POOK, which, as you say in your language, 'jumped the shark' when the beatnik-poet poodle showed up. You can find many of these strips at Salon, in the Mothers Who Think section. The first one can be found here.

Chris Ekman is a political cartoonist.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.