CSotD: Holiday Shopping Tips #2
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Today we roll out the big guns, and big in a couple of ways. First of all, they are large format books, which allows you to see the artwork pretty much as the artist intended.
Second, they are big guns in that we've gone from "Oh, this will be fun! Thanks!" stocking stuffers to serious "Oh my god I can't believe it!" level presents. These are coffeetable books in more than simply size and contain some serious art.
Now, before we get into it, a note on today's graphics: When I am Emperor of the Universe, all scanners, regardless of size, will have flush beds and removable lids. But I am not in that position yet and my scanner is pretty inadequate in its ability to handle anything that can't be folded into a letter-size piece.
So what you see is a lot less than what you get, and these page scans are for demonstration purposes only.
And a second admission: A lot of what follows is for the benefit of people who, like myself, enjoy comics but are not immersed in their history. Those who are seriously aware of these root sources will likely react to my commentary with, "Yeah, well, we told you that."
Indeed you did. But I hadn't seen it. So let's have a look:
Speaking of merciless interplanetary despots:
I came to "Flash Gordon on the Planet Mongo" without knowing a lot about the strip, except that Alex Raymond's "Rip Kirby" is one of my favorite stops at Daily Ink. And that is such a well-written, deftly-crafted strip, I also brought with me an assumption that this revered strip would be quite different than the slightly daffy movie serials of the same name.
Heh.
Turns out the serials and the strip were produced hand-in-glove, and that, given that Flash Gordon's initial strips were pretty influential in the process of inventing the superhero genre, there was a certain amount of "making it up as we go along" involved here, so that strips are in fact very much like the serials and appear to have been written by a somewhat over-excited eight-year-old. You can almost hear "and then and then and then" floating between the panels in a breathless pre-adolescent rush.
(again, pardon the scan quality — clicking will make them more legible but won't make them as sharp and impressive as in the books)
As the strip progresses, which is to say, later in this gorgeous volume which spans 1934 to 1937, the leap from peril to peril slackens a bit and we not only get a little bit of coherent pacing but even a smattering of lucid exposition among the thrilling exploits, while the artwork has also settled into something more like what Raymond would become famous for:
This book is an awful lot of fun, but it sure defies snobbery.
And then there's the reverse:
My rule about (animated) Popeye cartoons as a kid was generally that, if it didn't start with the tossing ship and the two doors opening and closing over the credits, it wasn't going to turn out to be one of the "good ones."
I've certainly heard a lot of chatter about the wonders of Popeye in comic strip form, but given the complete evisceration and purification and pasteurization of Popeye by the time I ever saw him in strip form as a young lad, my expectations for "Popeye Volume 4: Plunder Island" were pretty low.
Well, blow me down.
The surreal insanity of the old Popeye — that "Jimmy Durante on acid" sotto voce commentary, as well as his simple, pragmatic approach to problem solving by beating the crap out of the bad guys — is alive and well.
As is the constant imposition of J. Wellington Wimpy, restored here to full schnorrer status.
While I expected Flash Gordon to be somewhat more keenly crafted than its movie-house incarnation, I expected Popeye to have lost the delightful insanity that made those old cartoons not only delightful to begin with but infinitely rewatchable.
Vintage Popeye is every bit as apt to make you wonder exactly what vegetable he was pulling out of that can. This volume caused some seriously long nights at my house.
And then there's this
The camp value of Flash Gordon and Popeye make them delightful fun, but Hal Foster's "Prince Valiant Volume 5: 1945-1946 (Vol. 5)" is simply an artbook that belongs on the coffeetable alongside the Chagal and the Maxfield Parrish.
Then again, it is also an adventure book that belongs on the playroom floor being read and dreamed over.
It would be a tragedy for anyone to buy this as an artbook to be kept away from small grubby hands. As noted before, small children were welcome in Foster's studio. They deserve access to his work today as well.
In this volume, Aleta, the Queen of the Misty Isles, is Valiant's prisoner, but over the course of their trip through various perils, they are drawn together and it is no spoiler (unless you've never read the strip at all) to reveal that they marry partway through the volume.
While Aleta is an extraordinarily beautiful woman — both in how Foster draws her and in how she is perceived by everyone in the stories — she's also attractive as the same embodiment of courage and resource seen in GB Shaw's heroines and in the more sensible of the Munro sisters in "Last of the Mohicans."
And the artwork and storytelling complement each other nicely. The luxurious Fantagraphics volume shows one of Foster's sketched panels full size and it is huge, explaining how he was able to work such detail into his work.
Every panel matters, whether he is depicting battle:
Or fair maiden:
But what I particularly enjoy is how matter of fact it is, by which I mean that he takes a fairly normal scene, in this case of Aleta directing her father-in-law's household staff in planning a dinner, and not only makes even nameless, one-shot characters look real, but lavishes the same attention to detail on the stone walls and background acoutrements of the castle:
As said, any of these books as a gift would get more than a casual thanks.
Assuming that, once they arrived and you saw how much better than this that they really look in person, you didn't somehow sort of forget to give them away.
Back to our usual hijinks tomorrow. Thanks to those who provided review copies for these two postings. And, if you have decided that your holiday giving needs to be more high brow than this, I present the menurkey:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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