Gutter Space #20: Holiday Bullshit

25 Wednesday Dec 2013

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Cards Against Humanity, Comics, Funny Pages, gutter space, Holiday Bullshit, leslie salas, Sequential art

Gutter Space #20 by Leslie Salas

Comics in the Real World: Funny Pages as a part of Holiday Bullshit by Cards Against Humanity

This Christmas, my brother did something awesome and—without telling me—signed me up to receive 12 Days of Holiday Bullshit, as presented by Cards Against Humanity.

Imagine my surprise (and confusion) when I got the first cleverly-decorated envelope with a cleverly illustrated re-imagining of a Partridge in a pear tree. The contents of the envelope chastised me for trusting total strangers with $12. Since I hadn’t given anyone online $12, I quickly deduced this must be the work of my brother—who managed to get me on the list before it sold out (after only 6 hours!).

While the arrival of my gifts wasn’t exactly punctual (USPS is slammed this time of year), I did have a lot of fun getting presents via snail mail: surprise expansion packs for Cards Against Humanity, a lump of coal, a new card game, some posters of artistic interpretations of trump cards, a donation to public school classrooms, and best of all, a one-shot publication of a Funny Pages zine.

The Funny Pages features some of my favorite cartoonists—Allie Brosh, Jess Fink, Zach Weinersmith, John Allison, Sam Brown—and also introduced me to some new names and comics I’ll definitely be writing about in the new year.

I’d like to talk about the publication as a whole and the potential consequences of sending 100,000 people this print comic (and making the entire publication available online via tumblr). I’m sure each of these cartoonists donated their work for the cause—it gets their name out into the world and can help increase their readership.

For instance, Allie Brosh (of Hyperbole and a Half) has the entire back cover of the zine. Since she just published her first book, this is like free publicity and/or a collector’s item for hardcore fans. Other cartoonists, like Erika Moen, have taken this opportunity to educate a widespread readership, in this case, about safe sex. Many of the cartoons offer cultural critiques about the holidays, while others comment on Cards Against Humanity as a game.

Overall, the collection of work is eclectic and fun, and I highly suggest reading it. If you’re one of the 99,999 other people who got the zine in print—keep it! If only for a lovely memento of seeing some of the best-known webcartoonists’ work in print.

Happy holidays, everyone.

___________

Leslie Salas (episode 75) writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Gutter Space #19: The Art of Adaptation

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Comic Books, Gutter Space

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Adaptations, cartooning, Franz Kafka, graphic novels, gutter space, leslie salas, Peter Kuper, Sequential art, The Metamorphosis

Gutter Space #19 by Leslie Salas

The Art of Adaptation:

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,

adapted by Peter Kuper

A topic which I was shocked to realize I hadn’t yet covered in Gutter Space is the art of adaptation of prose into works of sequential art. I’ve done a great deal of research on adaptations in general and their pedagogical benefits in various levels of schooling for improving visual literacy (or just plain literacy in general) and creating an excitement and love for reading—but what I’d like to focus on today is an artist’s reimagining of a classic novella. In this case, Peter Kuper’s take on Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

Part of my favorite aspects of reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the ambiguity involving Gregor’s condition. We know he is a bug—but what type, exactly? A dung beetle? A cockroach? What is it?

In Kuper’s adaptation, given it’s inherent visual element, he had to make a decision, and stick with it. Some of the magic of the mystery is lost, but in it’s place, we are granted a rich interpretation of Kafka’s haunting story.

Poor Gregor, stressed by work (and capitalism in general), wakes up late one day. He wakes up an discovers he has a problem.

He can’t roll out of bed. He can’t move very well. It’s hard to see. And suddenly he realizes—he’s turned into a bug.

But look! Rather than being stuck in Gregor’s head, we get much, much more. The period furniture, the wallpaper, the painting on the wall, Gregor’s suitcase of textiles on the dresser, the key in the door—it’s all there for us to see. Kuper’s art style is reminiscent of old woodcut etchings.

Although Gregor is clearly a very large bug, as established in the image above, Kuper nonetheless enjoys shifting the sizes of things based on perspective. When Gregor feels attacked, he becomes very small. His attacker, in the case of the example below, becomes magnified in size, all the more intimidating.

The emanata by Gregor’s human-ish head—those little white lines—express Gregor’s surprise, and the emanata surrounding his body give the impression that he is shaking in fear. The negative space created by these lines is effective because of the rich darkness of the surroundings and the subjects of the panels—Gregor himself, and the boots coming to stomp him.

Poor Gregor. Locked in his room.

We empathize with Gregor because he still embodies a recognizable form. Even though he is a bug, his posture and his facial expressions showcase what we understand as being sad or melancholy. Given the experience he’s been through, we sympathize. Have we all not been rejected at one point or another?

But there’s more to this. Look!—That’s Prague in the windowsill. Although it’s never expressly stated that The Metamorphosis takes place in Prague, there are enough references to the fog and the vague shapes of old buildings that many scholars have assumed the setting is in Kafka’s hometown. Looks like Kuper has done his homework, and made an artistic choice to yet again solidify what the original author simply alluded to.

Another interesting decision Kuper has made with his adaptation is his willingness to play with the presentation of text. In the sample below, the caption does not read in a standard prose format, but instead the sentences mosey around the borders of the panels, following Gregor about as he learns to utilize his new body.

Kuper’s interpretation of Kafka is an interesting one, and adds to the richness of our understanding of the original text. Check it out sometime, and let me know what you think.

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Gutter Space # 18: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, by Zach Weiner

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

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cartooning, gutter space, Humor, leslie salas, openmindedness, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Sequential art, serious, SMBC, teaching, unexpected, webcomic, Zach Weiner

Gutter Space # 18 by Leslie Salas

Utilizing Humor to Teach: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, by Zach Weiner

I’m a big fan of comics that like to teach random facts in unconventional and humorous ways. Comics like xkcd fit this bill, but so does Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a daily webcomic by Zach Weiner.

While all of the characters in this comics are drawn in a particular style, there are no recurring characters and there is no serialized plot. Each comic stands alone, and the humor ranges from silly to dark to seriously introspective social commentary. In addition to the occasional literary joke, there are also jokes about discourse analysis, physics, economics, statistics, life in academia, the possibilities of extraterrestrial life and life after death, to name more than a few topics.

SMBC has an openmindedness that I enjoy. The site regularly features LGBTQ couples, biracial couples, and polyamourous relationships. The joke of the comic almost never relies of the characteristics of the couple. It is simply a fact that—to be honest—should be overlooked and unnoticed by readers.

I like to think of SMBC as a random exercise in amusement and learning. You stumble across unexpected nuggets of wisdom along the way, but overall the experience is interesting and fun. This has gained SMBC a lot of attention over the years, and qualified it at an award-winning webcomic. Take the time to check it out, and let me know what you think.

___________

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Gutter Space #17: Metacomic Case Study (Cyanide & Happiness)

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

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cartooning, gutter space, insignificance, leslie salas, meta, models, pixels, Rob DenBleyker, scale, Sequential art, webcomic

Gutter Space #17 by Leslie Salas

Metacomic Case Study: Cyanide & Happiness, by Rob DenBleyker

It’s been much too long since I’ve written a review about a webcomic, so just in time for Thanksgiving let’s put our lives into perspective with Cyanide & Happiness’ “Depressing Comic Week” comic 3373. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Cyanide & Happiness, these comics, by Rob DenBleker, have a reputation for their often surprisingly dark humor. DenBleker pushes boundaries for acceptability, often cartooning what many people may consider inappropriate or outrageous. Consider it part of his charm.

Similarly to xkcd (which I’ve talked about here and here), the art style employed in Cyanide & Happiness is that of slightly-detailed stick figures, and the comics often transcend the space of their panels and website, utilizing the tools of the Internet to enhance their storytelling.

In comic 3373 (I refer to it’s number because there are several “Depressing Comic Week” comics—in fact, there’s a whole book of them), an optimistic protagonist is interrupted from his excited, “I’m gonna go do something great with my life!” by the creator of the comic, who responds with, “Seems unlikely.”

The Creator then goes on to utilize panels of 500 x 500 pixels, zooming in to the center pixel of each to illustrate the scale of the Universe, the solar system, and the insignificance of a single human being, especially with respect to the billions who have already died. He showcases this on an impressive visual scale, even scaling one drawn person to represent 1,000,000, because, as he says, “[H]onestly this comic is getting kind of tall. Let’s not overdo it.”

This raises the audience’s awareness of the comic—that it is indeed pixels projected onto a scrolling screen in a web browser. And so we, the audience, are made more aware of our own existence. As we scroll, our understanding of our insignificance only deepens.

The ending—well, I’ll save that, for you to read yourself. But I’m left with an unsettling awareness of DenBleyker’s deliberate use of metafiction to drive home a point.

It’s this use of the Internet, the scrolling function, pixels, and the author’s intrusion on the comic that I find fascinating and wonderful. DenBleyker has turned a comic into a depressing infographic that is both thought-provoking and humorous. And he makes it look tongue-in-cheek and effortless. Impressive work.

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Gutter Space #16: Cartooning through Delicate Subject Matters (Marbles, by Ellen Forney)

20 Wednesday Nov 2013

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bipolar, cartooning, Ellen Forney, Graphic Novel, gutter space, leslie salas, Marbles, Memoir, mental illness, Sequential art

Gutter Space #16 by Leslie Salas

Cartooning through Delicate Subject Matters: Marbles, by Ellen Forney

Part of what makes cartooning such a powerful medium of expression is the ability to tweak one’s words and pictures to express tonality and nuance in a way that words and pictures alone cannot. This is most clearly illustrated when writers+artists(=cartoonists) cover delicate subject matters—such as Ellen Forney’s discussion of her bipolar disorder diagnosis in her memoir, Marbles.

Forney does not beat around the bush about her diagnosis. After giving her audience a taste of her constant mania, we get the slap-in-the-face news and it’s weighty implications. Once we focus on the image in the magic eye stereogram of “let’s take a look at the symptoms”—she emboldens the image:

How does she deal with this news? What does it mean? What are it’s implications?

At first she handles it rather well—and attributes it to joining “Club Van Gogh.”

And soon she runs away with the idea.

Forney draws herself in a typical manic fashion—surrounded by stars and bright emanata, she is excited and vibrant and full of life, jostling around, knocking things over, starry-eyes and happy.

But note the sword precariously perched above her. It’s not literally there. Damocles’ sword is just a metaphor, as are the stars and the swipes and the dotted lines and the squiggles. But all of those extra marks add meaning—they enrich the reading experience and clue the audience in on the internal happenings in Forney’s brain.

This continues on when Forney “revvs” from neutral to high gear and gets swept away into becoming manic.

She draws herself as literally being swept away, when in reality the distraction and excitement is all figurative. The illustration is compelling and insightful for those who have never experienced the highs of losing control while being manic.

The lack of control is dizzying. Even Forney’s eyes and face are starry and unfocused. She is a blurry whiz of energy, and we see that by how she’s presented herself on the page.

Conversely, we get the stark stillness of her plummet to depression.

She is an amorphous shape, wrapped in a blanket, laying on a couch.

The simple act of getting out of bed is a tremendous victory.

And still, panel by panel, with the tiny changes between them, it’s clear that there is a heavy weight of depression. It’s oppression, and her immobility. The panels lack detail and shading. There is no richness or depth during depression, and we get that through her illustrations.

Forney also covers some of the unforeseen side-effects of bipolar disorder, such as the awkwardness of telling family members.

And the frustrations of finding a treatment plan that works for her.

She uses humor as a buffer for the sensitivity and intense personal nature of her diagnosis. But what is more telling are the additions to her illustrations. She includes sound cues and a director’s “cut” for her disappointment. She turns herself into a pill bottle, surrounded by mountains of pills and an excessively long list of failed treatment plans.

And there is her sheer frustration.

The small illustrations in the background are more telling than anything else I’ve discussed. She uses each of these images as themes throughout her memoir—moods like rainstorms, a merry-go-round as a tool for discussing the various types of bipolar disorder, the constant emotional rollercoaster—we’ve seen these symbols before, so when we get to this panel on this page, we sympathize with her even if we haven’t experienced any of these ourselves (let alone all of it at once).

Marbles is a powerful account of a woman learning to live with a diagnosis and telling her story through the best tools she has available: her voice and her art. By putting both of those tools together, she expresses more than either could alone, resulting in effective storytelling about a sensitive and personal subject matter.

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Gutter Space #15: When Worlds Collide: Bone, by Jeff Smith

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

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art styles, Bone, Graphic Novel, gutter space, Jeff Smith, leslie salas, Sequential art, Worldbuilding

Gutter Space #15 by Leslie Salas

When Worlds Collide: Bone, by Jeff Smith

To springboard off my post last week about how differences in art styles can affect the reader’s ability to perceive differences between characters, I’d like to take some time to discuss the differences between the way characters are drawn based on where they are from. One of the best examples of this is Jeff Smith’s Bone.

Bone follows the protagonist, Fone Bone, as he gets lost in a new uncharted land and has the adventure of a lifetime. As he searches through miles and miles of desert (with only a few supplies—a map, a canteen, a bedroll, and a copy of his favorite book, Moby Dick), Fone finally encounters a lush valley.

Taking a moment to look at Fone, we can see that he looks rather cartoony. He’s all white, doesn’t really have any clothes, and his features are simplified. His feet don’t have toes. He doesn’t have hair or nostrils, but he does have expressive eyebrows and a bulbous nose. His four-fingered hands are typical of old-school comics and cartoons—much quicker to only draw four fingers than all five.

However, when we see the valley, it is rich with detail. There are clearly different types of trees and fascination topographical variety. This world that Fone has come to the cusp of, is unlike the boring and vast nothingness of the desert. So it only makes sense that it’s people should look differently also.

Enter Thorn, the beautiful young woman that finds Fone Bone and helps him (and his cousins, who have also come to the valley) out. Fone helplessly falls in love with her, and for good reason. Look at her! Look at those lovely lashes, those muscled thighs, those five-fingered hands. She’s drawn in rich detail, and clearly comes from a world much different than his own.

Unlike some of the other characters that live in the valley, Thorn does not discriminate against Fone and his cousins based on their appearance. Almost every new character makes some sort of comment about how strange they look, but once the weirdness is addressed, the people of the village grow used to the Bones and accept them as guests and visitors.

It is in this manner that Jeff Smith visually addresses the weirdness of people who come from different places. The vastly different drawing styles, combined with the characters’ recognition of the difference, helps the reader navigate the cultural, economic, and societal differences between these two types of people. Overcoming these differences is a recurrent theme throughout the graphic novel Bone, and adds an element the realism of prejudice in this fantastic setting.

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Gutter Space #14: Portrayal of Perception: Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli

06 Wednesday Nov 2013

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Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli, Graphic Novel, gutter space, leslie salas, Sequential art

Gutter Space #14 by Leslie Salas

Portrayal of Perception: Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli

It’s hard for me to play favorites when it comes to graphic novels, but the one book I just cannot stop raving about is David Mazzuchelli’s Asterios Polyp. It’s the first book in several years that made me genuinely upset me at the end. Wholly and totally upset.

Yeah. Like that.

Asterios Polyp is a stunning graphic novel. It is one of the most well-thought-out and well-paced works I’ve ever read—ever. Notice the lack of distinction in mediums. It’s a powerful work of art, and it seems that the full decade Mazzcchelli spent writing it was totally worth it.

One of the many stunning things that Mazzucchelli does well in Asterios Polyp is the way he visually portrays perception on the page. In some instances, people are depicted in the manner in which they see the world. Angular, structural, detailed, soft, round, impressionist, tactile—each person sees the world a little bit differently, so they look the way they see.

And when two different people find a common ground, they blend beautifully.

This visual trick is used recurrently throughout the graphic novel, as a clear way to show highlight whether or not two characters are on the same plane. For instance, when the title character, Asterios, and his wife, Hana, have an argument, a bitter line is drawn between their worlds in a very he-said/she-said fashion

But despite these arguments and when the character’s don’t see eye to eye, there can be a softening effect of emotions, where the barriers wear down and both characters are back on even ground.

Back on Even Ground I find this fascinating from the perspective of how visual literacy can be incorporated to strengthen sequential art. Just by looking at the pictures, we know what is going on. We don’t need the symbolism explained to us; we intuitively “get it.”

And that kind of “getting it” can really set a good work of literature apart from the rest. There is much to be said about the merits of a novel or poem that makes the reader work to understand it’s meaning. But there’s also value in the simplicity of understanding and the accessibility of a storyline or device. Asterios Polyp is by no means a simple book—it is intellectually stimulating and emotionally charged. But the simple trick of the portrayal of perception really adds depth to the story, and provides a unique lens for which to view the fractured and unified world around us.

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Gutter Space #13: On Taking Webcomics Seriously

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

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gutter space, internet culture, leslie salas, social media, webcomics

Gutter Space #13 By Leslie Salas

On Taking Webcomics Seriously

This week on Gutter Space, I don’t have a comic review for you. Instead, I’d like to take a moment to muse on something a talented former intern of mine mentioned. She saw my column on The Oatmeal, and noted that it was, in her words, “really refreshing to see him [The Oatmeal] considered as a serious storyteller rather than a just guy who makes funny pictures on the Internet.”

I don’t think she realized it, but my talented former intern really nailed what I’m trying to do here with Gutter Space. I review literary and independent (print) comics alongside webcomics. I put them both on equal footing, give them both equal critical attention. Each comic has something it does well—some element we can learn from to use in our own craft, regardless of the medium we work in. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and what we might take away from each of these things.

I like to think of this column/blog as a place where we can look between the cracks and find something valuable lying in the gutter. Indie comics and webcomics don’t really get as much hype and attention as more mainstream superhero comics have (at least here in the US), but I’m hoping we can build some awareness of the fact that there’s some really awesome stuff going on with independents publishers, imprints, and on the Interwebs.

The latter of which—comics created and “distributed” over the world wide web—are the most fascinating to me because of the sheer volume and diversity of what the Internet has to offer. There are many self-published webcomics which have amassed and retained a massive platform of readers and fans over several years. There are occasional updaters, there are beautiful projects that have been abandoned mid-plot, and there are archives of writers’ and artists’ personal and creative growth through their art. It’s a fascinating study in the evolution and power of the medium.

And perhaps what I enjoy most about studying webcomics is that they’ve become a staple of Internet-culture. We see rage-comics and memes; friends post links to poignant, funny, sad, or enlightening webcomics on Facebook and Twitter; the best ones go viral on Tumblr and Reddit. If you’re on the Internet (ahem), then you’re already exposed to webcomics in some way or another. So if this field is becoming such a large part of are continually shifting and growing culture—why shouldn’t we be taking it seriously?

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Gutter Space #12: Trauma and Watercolors

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

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David Small, gutter space, leslie salas, Stitches

Gutter Space #12 by Leslie Salas

Trauma and Watercolors: Stitches, by David Small

Many of us have our own ways of dealing with stress and trauma. Some of us paint, write, sing, play an instrument. Others may run, play a sport, go to the gym. And some turn to cigarettes, booze, brothels. For David Small, though, he deals with a traumatic medical condition and his dysfunctional home though a blank canvas and his pen.

In his watercolor memoir, Stitches, Small envelops us in his world of lies, deceit, horror, and loneliness, and the escape into illustration.

This book is undeniably beautiful—and rightfully so. The author is an award-winning author and illustrator of picture books for children. When I first saw this graphic novel as my friends and I browsed through the (then) small section of sequential art, I flipped through the pages, wondering what they would hold.

I could not put it down. I sat on the carpeted floor and devoured the memoir while my friends left me, and came back, and left again before I finished. And I had to sit. And wait. Before I was okay enough to try and find them.

Given Small’s profession as an artist and illustrator, it makes sense that much of his story would be told without words. Small relies on the power of quiet images strung together, allowing the reader to make his or her own sense of the sequence.

This memoir is filled with many things. Anger. Frustration. Misery. The struggle of overcoming barriers, or being oneself, of being heard. But this memoir is not pedantic. It does not ask me to feel sorry for him, it does not tell me to loathe a particular character. It is the essence of “showing,” rather than “telling,” and therein lies it’s power. With all of the sadness and all of the hardships, there is also hope, and a tentative trust for the future.

Read, and find out why.

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Gutter Space #11: Imagination as a Coping Mechanism in Comics Essays

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

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gutter space, leslie salas, The Oatmeal

Gutter Space #11 by Leslie Salas

Imagination as a Coping Mechanism in Comics Essays

Perhaps many of you have heard of an Internet entity known as The Oatmeal, a man (Matthew Inman) who writes funny webcomics, draws posters everyone wants on their cubicle walls, and even fundraised enough money to save Nikola Tesla’s lab and turn it into a museum. The Oatmeal’s most recent endeavor has been to rename the holiday that occurred on Monday to something a bit more appropriate, but that’s not what I’d like to focus on for this week’s edition of Gutter Space. Instead, I’d like to talk about one of his older essays, which happens to be my favorite, entitled:

The title itself is intriguing, but when paired with the first three panels, you realize that The Oatmeal intends to take you on a ride.

The Oatmeal braids this story of this broken cat (and fifteen other cats) with the chilling tale of how he was woken up early one morning to discover that his house was on fire.

The Oatmeal compares horrible events with ideas from his imagination that take the edge off reality and to cope with extenuating circumstances. He uses a powerful refrain throughout his essay: “This is not the truth, but it’s how I like to remember them,” to ground us as readers into the playful and humorous imagination of the speaker, and the knowledge that the speaker recognizes the truth but willfully chooses to assign his feelings to an alternate reality.

“When Your House is Burning Down, You Should Brush Your Teeth” is a touching essay that bridges the thin, narrow line between fiction and nonfiction in order to tell a compelling and heartfelt story of humor, danger, and love. The quality of the storytelling is literary, and showcases the power that a talented sequential artist can yield.

If you’d like more from The Oatmeal, take a look at his books.

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