Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #111 by Drew Barth

Under the Radar

If we think back to comics during and after World War II an interesting trend emerges. We had the Golden Age of comics and all of the heroes and horror stories that brought—which then led to the adoption of Comics Code bullshit. Violence and death were now outlawed as egregiously un-America in comics. Unless, of course, we’re talking about war comics. The glories and goriness of war abounded in war comics at the time, but a few creators found the ideas of those war comics repugnant. And this is where a book like The Unknown Anti-War Comics comes into play.

Edited by Craig Yoe, The Unknown Anti-War Comics compiles many works published by Charlatan Comics that expressed anti-war sentiments. Featuring creators like Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Denny O’Neil, and Pat Boyette, this collection showcases some of the strongest work from these creators—especially the O’Neil and Boyette story “Children of Doom” at the end of the book. Many of the stories here were included in various Gill-penned anthologies for Charlatan like Never Again, Strange Suspense Stories, and Space Adventures, anti-war narratives that these creators were able to publish under the guise of simple sci-fi fantasies.

Many of these stories still resonate as true today. In the story “Come In, Earth—Please,” Gill and artist Charles Nicholas show us two astronauts coming out of cryogenic sleep after leaving Earth behind to explore new planets a hundred years ago. They are dismayed that they have yet to receive any communication from their fellows on Earth and, in a Twilight Zone-esque twist, discover that nuclear war has destroyed Earth and they may be the last humans left in the galaxy. In the thematically similar stories “No Common Ground” and “Journey’s End,” we see aliens who have fled their home worlds for Earth in search of life free from the violence of their original homes. Met with distrust and the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, tensions wane as children from both sides play together and show their parents the folly of their violence.

Just as comics are apt in depicting violent conflict, comics are also especially apt in encapsulating the theme that war is our path to extinction. This collection reminds us that morality is a subject that comics can explore masterfully.

Get excited. Get rid of the bomb.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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 #109 by Drew Barth

Bring Us Comics

Sometimes we forget that comics are coming from all over the place. I know I’ve grown accustomed to what I can find in my local shop and the webcomics that have been bookmarked on my laptop for a decade, but comics are bubbling up everywhere. From zines found at record stores to the Patreon accounts many creators have set up, comics are becoming increasingly decentralized in how they’re making their ways to us. And this is made all the more evident with two recent Patreons launching: ShortBox publishing fortnightly short comics and no, nothing magazine beginning their own publishing arm for comics.

I’ve talked about ShortBox at length in the past, but it’s worth repeating that Zainab Akhtar is saving comics right now by publishing some of the best work in the medium. With the launch of the ShortBox Patreon, this can continue into the future. And it will continue for a time as ShortBox will be publishing a new eight-page story every fortnight. Only a few weeks old and already we have brilliant works by Lillian Xie and Daniel Isles leading this new format of direct comics. What makes Akhtar’s work all the more brilliant is that ShortBox has a substantial platform and this effort is bringing eyes to these creator’s works and putting money directly in their hands as well. It feels like how comics should just be all the time.

I haven’t talked about zines much, but they will always be the lifeblood of comics that hums just below the surface. The editor of no, nothing magazine, Christian Sanchez, is currently putting out a zine unlike anything I’ve seen before and it is filled to bursting with talent from all over Central Florida. As they have launched their newest endeavor, no, nothing. Publishing, they’re bringing even more of this essential work to the world through their Patreon. As of now, monthly comics are being released from local creators like Macy Thiele and Paul Kortjohn with more work planned in the future along with the continuation of no, nothing magazine along side those comics. As far as local comics goes, this is what a healthy scene looks like: creators helping other creators getting their work into the hands of people who will love that work. Like Akhtar, Sanchez is utilizing his platform to get some of the best comic work in Central Florida and beyond out into the world.

There are countless other Patreons out there for creators we all love, but these two have launched fairly recently and really caught my attention as something nice within comics—creating a crowd-funded small press for work that usually wouldn’t have as large of an outlet. And whether these works are from a creator you’ve never heard of or someone you used to sit next to in a call center, it’s hard not to appreciate comics made with this much love.

Get excited. Get supportive.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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 #106 by Drew Barth

Crafting a Witch’s Story

Man, I really hope there’s nothing historically significant happening today. Anyway, let’s talk about witches and comics. There’s likely as many witches in comics as there are X-Men spin-offs, so that would warrant its own weekly article, but today I’m going to be focusing on a new witch that has come from Boom! Studios this month: The Last Witch by Conor McCreery, V.V. Glass, Natalia Nesterenko and Jim Campbell. As far as actual witches go, none actually make their appearance in this first issue, but you can feel the presence of it looming over every page and character.

The story is admirably focused. From the beginning, we’re introduced to our protagonist, Saoirse, and the idea of a witch living somewhere in the forest on the outskirts of her village. To pass through a hedge in the forest and into the witch’s territory has become something of a dare among the village children and Saoirse is more than happy to oblige before her father catches her and confines her to their cabin to tend to her sick brother. But we know what kind of character Saoirse is—she wasn’t going to sit in her house while there’s adventure outside. And if that adventure causes her brother to suddenly disappear once they finally come across an abandoned tower that may or may not have belonged to the witch? Well, hey, don’t worry about it.

Glass and Nesterenko’s art is delightful. It feels at times like I’m watching an expressive, animated film. Every background is lush and textured, every face distinct with its emotions and intentions that you can spend multiple pages simply admiring what is on the page. But what sets the art of this series apart is the way it works so well with the tone of the story. There is no oppressive darkness here—everything is light and snow and colors that make every character pop within their panels. Even though this is a story that teeters right on the edge of something terrible in its last pages, it never loses its vibrant touch.

The Last Witch is a story to start a new year on. McCreery, Glass, Nesterenko, and Campbell are among the best in monthly comics right now. I’m excited to see where the rest of their work will go over the next few issues.

Get excited. Get witchy.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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 #105 by Drew Barth

Peeking Into the Future

So, the highs of a Senate victory on Tuesday night into the lows of an insurrection on Wednesday afternoon. I’ll rearrange some deckchairs on the Titanic for a bit while I keep talking about comics.

Anyway, DC’s last event, Dark Metal, ended with the multiverse getting a weird upgrade. Instead of the 52 earths we’ve grown accustomed to, we’re back the era of infinite earths and infinite multiverses. What does that mean for the Universe as a whole? More or less, everything is canon again and everything matters. Every episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold? That happened. That time Ted Kord Reagan to drop dead? Canon. John Constantine and Death’s sex-ed PSA comic? The most canon. But with this new well of possibilities, we have the next new event: Future State. For the most part, it’s a look at where the DC Universe is going and what kinds of new stories and characters are emerging from the new multiverse. The first batch of new stories happened last week and the signs are already looking good.

I took a look at two of the new series this past week: Swamp Thing by Ram V, Mike Perkins, and June Chung and Wonder Woman by Jöelle Jones and Jordie Bellaire. Both series give us a glimpse into the worlds of the familiar and the new: Swamp Thing now resides in a world almost devoid of humanity and the new Wonder Woman, Yara Flor, must travel to the Underworld to rescue one of her warrior sisters. While each story does have a sense of the familiar—namely the existential musings of Swamp Thing and Wonder Woman dealing with the Greek pantheon—there still remains something new and interesting at play.

But what makes both series fascinating from just this first issue is how they play with their mythologies. Wonder Woman has always been steeped in myth and this is no different when Yara Flor battles a hydra and takes to the Underworld, but there’s a bit extra here. Mythologies in DC have always all been canon—every pantheon of gods exist next to each other and with this issue, we have the first mention of Tupã, the creator in Guarani mythology. So we’re finally breaking from the Greek and Norse pantheons that many of Wonder Woman’s stories center around into something different.

Likewise with Swamp Thing, we have another side of creation myths. In the past, there have been other characters with similarities to Swamp Thing, the Floronic Man comes to mind, but this is the first time Swamp Thing himself has taken on the role of the creation myth. In his story, every character we see was created by him and his senses border on the omnipotent. He is more than we’ve seen in any other story, which only makes me wonder how long a Swamp God like this can last.

While Future State is only beginning and more stories are coming out every week—the second batch just came out yesterday—these two on their own feel like a solid foundation for even more stories later. They feel like starting points in ways that Rebirth and New52 didn’t years ago, namely since they’re creating these new mythologies with every page. But many of these stories are only going to last for two to four issues, so what happens in our future is still a mystery. I can only hope they can maintain this quality for as long as possible.

Get excited. Get to the Future.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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 #104 by Drew Barth

New Year, New Deep, Resigned Sigh

New year, new reminder to check up on your friends. Deep breaths. Drink more water.

Also, think about comics. It’s the beginning of a new year after continuously living through a year that felt like a painful, strange epoch, so we deserve to take a small break from the state of everything by looking forward to things. This year is looking like more digital cons and the like, but your local comic shop is likely still trying to survive, so let’s look at some of the series coming later this year they can order for you.

Starting off since the first couple issues of this came out yesterday is DC’s new event: Future State. Yes, it is another event that will “change the DC Universe forever” like the past dozen. But, honestly, I do enjoy these massive canon changes and reboots since new writers—Ram V, Becky Cloonan, John Ridley, Stephanie Phillips, Mariko Tamaki, Dan Mora, Leila del Duca, and a host of others—can get their hands on characters and a slate of new miniseries gives new readers an easy entry-point into the universe. What’s most fun here isn’t just the new series, but the new anthologies of stories that can help create a much broader sense of where these characters are going in the future. It should be fun.

Next we have Guerrilla Green by Cookie Kalkair and Ophélie Damblé from Boom! Studios in April. This graphic novel centers around an unnamed woman and her efforts to bring more greenery to her city. The story itself is already sounding fun, but when I found out it was based on the concept of guerrilla gardening—gardening without limits on abandoned and private property—I knew I had to get it as soon as possible. From what we know about it so far, it’ll be a story that also leads into a manual about how to garden guerrilla-style in your own city. It’s time to drag the 21^stcentury kicking and screaming into solarpunk.

How much are you into sentai and giant robots? If you’ve been reading long enough, you’ll know I am. So James Harren and James Stewart will be bringing us their new series in March from Image: Ultramega. Not only is this going to be a culmination of everything we love about kaiju and series like Ultraman, but it’s going to be working with comics in a fun way as well. Instead of the standard monthly thirty-ish pages, we’ll be getting nearly double that every couple months. It’s providing a nice in-between from the standard monthly model and what November is doing with its releases.

A new graphic novel from Fantagraphics is always good news, and Stone Fruit from Lee Lai looks like it’s going to be the kind of book that I’ll cry multiple times over. Centered on Bron and Ray, a couple that gravitate back and forth from one another as they attempt to repair their broken family bonds while also playing the weird aunts to Ray’s niece. It is the kind of story that already looks like it’s going to be some of the most emotionally resonant work of the year and we still have to wait until May to read it.

Speaking of waiting, we’ll have to wait until June for Pascal Girard’s new graphic novel from Drwan & Quarterly: Rebecca and Lucie In the Case of the Missing Neighbor. After witnessing two men carrying something into a van and hearing that a home health worker in her neighborhood has gone missing, Rebecca puts her eight month-old daughter, Lucie, in her carrier and begins investigating. This looks like it’s going to be one of the more humorous books of the year as we have some hard-boiled detective work coupled with diaper-change stake-outs.

Another Drawn & Quarterly release that’s likely going to be another favorite, Guy Delisle returns with his summer job saga, Factory Summers. This is Delisle’s chronicle of his time working in a paper plant as a sixteen year-old as the industry was increasingly outsourced overseas. He deals with the ire of factory workers as he was able to get his job through his dad as well as a toxic culture that permeated nearly everything in the factory. A different kind of coming of age, this looks like it’s going to be an interesting take on what a summer job looks like.

And finally we have Celestia, the new graphic novel from Manuele Fior published by Fantagraphics. A futurist tale that focuses on the past clinging so desperately to the past that it becomes like a prison and the new generation that will have to lead people in a new way. It’s the kind of graphic novel that feels most pertinent in a time like this. But it is still the story of two characters, Dora and Pierrot, as they leave their home and hopefully push their world in the right direction.

And actually finally, maybe Saga will return this year? It’s less a prediction and more of a hope.

The beginning of the year always brings some new comics into our minds and this year is no exception. We’re likely going to see the results of lockdown free time and stress bubbling up into our stories this year. And next year. And the year after that. And likely for the next decade or two. But now is the time for new comics and hope.

Get excited. Get back to your local shops.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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 #103 by Drew Barth

Crossing Into Reality

When a comic starts off with a quote from Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, you know it’s going to be fun. When you couple that quote with an event in which every superhero suddenly lands in Denver in a fight so massive they have to bubble the entire city to keep the mayhem from getting out, you have a different kind of fun. That kind of fun is Crossover by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe, and John J. Hill. I’ve talked about first issues at length in the past, but it’s always nice to jump into a new series that is doing so many things well right from the start.

Okay, so what the actual hell is Crossover? For the most part, like I said in the beginning, it’s superheroes landing in Denver and having it out. But what happens after that? As this story is set in the real world, akin to DC’s Earth-Prime, casualties and widespread carnage the likes of which no one has seen before. The explosion of superheroes eventually causes one of them to shut off the whole of Colorado from the rest of the world while their crossover event takes place. From here, we’re introduced to Ellipses—a woman whose parents were in Denver when the crossover event happened and who still dresses in a domino mask and yellow trench coat despite the new stigma against superheroes. The world has taken a turn for the weird with a pre-Comics Code fervor against comics complete with religious protests and a firebombing.

What is really interesting in this first issue is how far Cates, Shaw, Cunniffe, and Hill go when asking about the reality of comics. This first issue outright asks if we the readers or Superman is more real in our reality. It’s a Morrison-esque analysis on our perceptions of reality intertwined with comics. And with a first issue, the creative team is here looking to see where they can bend that reality as this is our world, more or less. People carry around issues of Hulk, Rawhide Kid, and Supermanin Provo, Utah and feel incredibly ordinary. But then there’s a looming threat somewhere out of sight that has the entire world on edge. Wait, no, that’s ordinary too. What isn’t ordinary is the idea of crossing over, of the comic characters coming through the veil of reality into our own world. As this is the first issue, that hasn’t been explained just yet, but it also doesn’t feel like it needs explaining as much as it needs examining.

From some of the creative team’s previous endeavors with God Country, it’s hard to resist the hooks dragging you deeper into this first issue. It wants to show so much more, but knows that it needs to keep something hidden just outside of the panel to draw you into the rest of the series. Outside of world-building, those hooks are the most important thing to begin a series with, and this one has so many to bring you in.

Get excited. Get real.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) 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.