Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #159 by Drew Barth

One Large Cloud Overhead

I’ve written in the past about influential manga finally getting official English translations and how this is broadening our understanding of how comics work globally. Many of these alternative manga were the touchstones of the medium at the time of publication. And it is work like The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsurita that have done so much for the alternative manga scene in the 60s and 70s that would come to define what manga could do at that time in history.

A collection of short stories collected from Tsurita’s career, The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud shows not only an array of Tsurita’s skills as an illustrator, it also showcases her development as a manga creator over the course of fifteen years. From her earliest stories, like “Nonsense” and “Woman,” both published in legendary alternative manga magazine Garo when she was eighteen, we first see her fascination with life, death, and the idea of succumbing to a cyclical fate. But it is the story “Anti” that Tsurita’s look at death begins to crystallize. In this story, we follow a filmmaker shooting footage of an active volcano before spotting a man struggling to climb out of the vent. The filmmaker does nothing as the man falls and uses the footage he’s shot as the climax of his own experimental film. The laughter following his showing the film to friends after they ask if the man falling was an effect is as haunting as any horror comic since.

The titular “The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud” is one of the shortest pieces, but it’s striking conclusion, shown as the collection’s cover, is representative of Tsurita herself—heading straight toward a defined oblivion. Her own failing health would remain a constant in much of her work in the later 70s and early 80s. The final story in the collection, “Flight,” is about a woman and her fiance as he disappears in a sudden storm on a flight back to her. The story’s lighter ending still touches on the hope of something after death—even if you are never able to see your loved ones again, you may still leave a piece of yourself for them to hold onto.

Drawn & Quarterly helping to bring these manga to an English-speaking audience only helps to make comics a better place. Tsurita’s work in The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud is the kind of work that sticks to your bones. It reminds you of your own mortality without falling into despair. There is sadness—there will always be sadness—but to confront that sadness and embrace it is human nature. We can see the end of things on the horizon, but we ride to it together regardless.

Get excited. Get riding.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331 & 485) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #158 by Drew Barth

Meat Me in the Middle

I adore postmodern advertisements where you know that they know that you know they’re just trying to sell you something, but the whole ad is so deep in its own meta-narrative that you forget that you’re being sold a product. The ad can tongue-in-cheek its way to your heart. We seldom see that intersection of advertisements and a full issue of a comic. At least, not until Monkey Meat by Juni Ba.

This first issue of Monkey Meat is the first part of a five-part anthology series by Ba in partnership with the Monkey Meat Multinational. Through the audience’s familiarity with the Monkey Meat Multinational, its line of products, and the mysteries of their headquarters on Monkey Meat Island, we’re drawn into the process behind their newest creation: Lug’s Soul Juice energy drink. We’re given the story of the island’s caretaker, the Lug of energy drink fame, and how he came to be the sole defender of Monkey Meat Multinational’s headquarters from the ravages of the rest of the island. Immediately we feel a connection to Lug—he’s a working-class lad that we can see ourselves in as he is also beholden to a corporation that both relies on and underpays him. But we also want to be like Lug since he’s big and strong and has all of this energy that we feel like we could experience from his new drink.

The entire issue, the story of Lug and his soul being signed away to the Monkey Meat Multinational, is all building up to the introduction of a new energy drink. We don’t even see it happening despite the hints. This anthology breaks down what an ad is and what it can do in the universe in which Monkey Meat exists as a product and company. On the outside, the book satirizes advertising culture and the ways in which we buy into stories. But we buy into the story of Lug either way. That is the skill of Ba on display. We’re so lost in the story, we don’t know that we’re in an ad until the final panel hits.

While this is only the first issue of what will be a five-part anthology, it is already setting up the mind-bending world we’re going to be living in for those five issues.

Get excited. Get meat.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331 & 485) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #157 by Drew Barth

Results-Driven Workplace

I remember cubicles and commission checks and a constant striving to snag the biggest commission out of everyone, a grinding frustration even as I made enough to populate my desk with Pop figures. Intersecting this feeling with superheroes is where we have one of the most disconcerting superhero stories out in recent years: One-Star Squadron from Mark Russell, Steve Lieber, Dave Stewart, and Dave Sharpe.

The DC Universe is resplendent with hundreds of heroes without even cracking into the Legion of Superheroes. Not everyone can be in the Justice League. Or Justice League International. Or Teen Titans. Sometimes their skill sets are somewhat limited. This is where HEROZ4U comes in: a superhero temp agency that specializes in call center work, security, parties, and whatever else people might need. You still have recognizable heroes like Red Tornado and Power Girl running these offices, but then they’re managing more obscure characters like Minuteman, Heckler, and GI Robot. Everyone has bills to pay.

One-Star Squadron is a comedy series, but it’s one that lures you into a false sense of comedic security before bricking you in the back of the head with sudden humanity. There is the inter-office drama you would expect when enough cubicles are stacked together, but then there’s Gangbuster. Without his memory, Jose Delgado is dumped on the steps of the HEROZ4U office and left to Red Tornado to piece the life of Gangbuster back together. There’s not much there. He was an 80s hero who could fight well and cleaned out some Metropolis gangs, but who is he now but an old man who can’t remember where he lives? That becomes the essential humanity of the series at its beginning: there’s dignity in every single person in the HEROZ4U office, but they’ve been relegated to these odd jobs because there just isn’t a place for them in the Universe anymore.

Russell, Lieber, Stewart, and Sharpe have created a new portion of the DC Universe that still slots right in with all of the other crises or cosmic catastrophes. HEROZ4U feels grounded in reality somehow. It could be the economic anxieties or the feeling of office competition or even the need to just be recognized as someone who matters. One-Star Squadron follows with much of Russell’s previous work in finding that dignity in people in more outrageous situations. The book provides a counterpoint to the more gritty realism some stories lean into to link their work to the real world. But they don’t need that grit; they just need to smile through the tears.

Get excited. Get results.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331 & 485) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.