I don’t think of myself as a comics guys because there was never a proper comic book shop in the town I grew up in, but sometimes the local pharmacies would sell packs of three random single issues of comics bundled together in a little plastic bag. There was no way to tell what was in there except for whichever issue was facing outward, and given the way comics are serialized you’d always end up with three random episodes of three larger stories—but that made it kind of fun, trying to decipher what’s already happened and forcing myself to imagine how the rest of the story might play out.
Other than that, I’d save up money to splurge on comics on a trip to Halifax or Charlottetown, trying to buy a bunch of back issues that made up a complete storyline. That’s still how I consume comics now, months and months of nothing or very little, and then binge reading as much as I can on a lazy weekend afternoon.
It’s not a bad way to go about it, though I always feel like I’m a few years behind whatever’s cool. If you have a fun comic to recommend, I’d love to hear from you.
Here are some comics I’ve enjoyed recently.
Night Fever by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips
“The shrink I used to know told me something once, about how our minds work… He said your conscious mind just makes excuses for whatever your subconscious mind makes you do… When really, we don’t know why we do things… Even our own thoughts and impulses are not in our control. I don’t know why he thought that would make me feel better.”
Night Fever written by Ed Brubaker, Illustrated by Sean Philips
Image Comics, 2023; 120 pages
Our protagonist is a guy in publishing, off hawking titles to foreign markets at a European bookfair, always schmoozing, but he feels that ennui of middle age. He doesn’t read most of his company’s books, but one captures his attention: a draft dodger describes a savage dream of murder and fire, which happens to resemble a recurring dream the protagonist used to experience, many years ago. They share a sort of shadow self. Sleepless, the protagonist wanders at night, following a couple to a masquerade held in an underground labyrinth. He gives the name of someone else on the guest list, plays poker on that guy’s credit, does well. Rainier, a guy from the masquerade, saves his life on the way out, insists they go after the muggers for revenge. Rainier is cool, enviable, does what he wants and makes it seem like the normal rules don’t apply to him, he’s all id, and our guy is entranced. Our protagonist stops attending the bookfair, helps Rainier in a burglary at a lawyer’s office. The secret reveal (if that’s even what it is) of what the Illuminati are hiding is very funny but also perfectly fitting, you would never guess it but when you see it all you can think it of course that’s what it would be. The protagonist goes too far, enjoying his new life of inhibition too much, and inevitably it starts to catch up with him.
The imagery is a great: animatronic robots, humanlike skeletons exposed, fucking each other in a cellar made of stone, contrasted with mundane images of the city, the bookfair, pigs hanging in the window of a butcher’s shop; two guys sitting on the edge of a roof, a sheer drop inducing vertigo. A bar called Cercle Rouge. Even when there’s no action, the art is always cinematic. It’s Brubaker’s attempt at a giallo, but full of familiar Brubaker themes: fitting into society versus living by your own law, the catharsis of relentless thrill-seeking versus the inevitable consequences.
The Armed Garden and Other Stories by David B
The Armed Garden and Other Stories, written and illustrated by David B
Translated by Kim Thompson
Fantagraphics Books, 2011; 128 pages
Three tales of historical fantasy. The first, “The Veiled Prophet,” tells the story of Hakim al-Muqanna, a humble dyer whose face becomes enveloped in the lunar turban, which he begins to wear as a veil. Those who attempt to look at his face die. He starts to attract followers, teaching them a new religion which he wants to replace Islam with. He builds a small empire, which worries Harun al-Rashid, the legendary Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, who visits al-Muqanna in an embassy only to come away even more afraid. One of the girls of Muqanna’s harem escapes and runs to Harun al-Rashid, reporting that she lifted up the veil while the prophet slept: when she did so, she was transported to a desert where a well that stands as a metaphor for Muqanna’s neck contained the bodies of every martyr since Adam and Eve, whose corpses will be vomited up to fight for Muqanna—soon. The battle comes and Muqanna releases the corpses, and they submerge Harun al-Rashid’s army like a flood, but al-Rashid’s fortress is modelled on Noah’s Arc, and he’s able to float away and secure a weapon to defeat the man who threatened Islam.
Next up: “The Armed Garden.” Rohan, a humble blacksmith in Prague, is visited by the spirits of Adam and Eve, and launches the Adamite sect. All men are Adam, all women are Eve, bread belongs to all mankind, and people should cast off their clothes to wander naked. Meanwhile, John Zizka and the Taborites are also rebelling against Catholic authority, out there in Bohemia doing all that cool wagon fortress shit. Rohan wants to join their causes together, but Zizka doesn’t have any use for a bunch of naked hippies. A weeklong debate sees many Taborites become Adamites, but the Taborites have a military and the naked Adamites are forced to flee. They go off to make their own paradise in the wilderness which of course devolves into filthy hippy commune stink… or does it? Zizka eventually calls on them for help against a crusade, and while Zizka’s talking goose is able to to enter the Adamite ‘paradise,’ he finds the Adamites have regressed too far back to creation: actually becoming the rocks and trees and soil. Rohan has gone even further back, into the cosmos. Zizka battles Rohan, who is now in the form of a star, it’s rays his beard-tentacles. Zizka is victorious, but is tempted by what’s beyond, and is blinded by Chaos.
“The Drum Who Fell in Love” is set in the aftermath of Zizka’s death. His followers send for a knacker, a tanner, and a drum-maker to turn Zizka’s skin into a drum. The Zizka drum’s rumblings lead his troops onto further victories, but Zizka grows tired of war and falls for a drummer-girl as the army collapses.
It’s strange. David B, a French cartoonist, is deeply interested in heretics and revolutionaries, but the stories are rather conservative, anti-revolution. Still, the stories are so trippy and fun you can’t help but enjoy yourself. The imagery is closer to what Scott McCloud calls iconic, simple rather than complex, which works to allow you to envision the details for yourself.
On the Camino by Jason
On the Camino, written and illustrated by Jason
Fantagraphics Books, 2016; 182 pages
The pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago is not something I’ve ever wanted to do—I don’t consider myself a Catholic—but still something I think about sometimes, because of the Roland/chansons de geste connection (Roncevalles, where Roland was ambushed by the perfidious proto-Basques, is on the trail).
On the Camino is about fifty-year-old Norwegian cartoonist and anthropomorphic animal Jason’s journey on the Camino. He has trouble talking to fellow pilgrims, struggles to be present in the moment. He meets Hemingway, even though this is set in the era of instagram. Jason’s Camino is one of hostel life, fomo, sore feet, washing socks, the eternal struggle of making friends and first introductions, but also slowly getting to know people, and the weird intimacy of running into the same people day after day while carrying out similar routines. He picks up and reports little anecdotes. Everyone asks the same questions to each other: “Where did you start? Where did you spend the night? How far will you go? How are your feet?” He learns to be by yourself. He’s not a Christian, which is kind of weird to me. I guess you can still do it, it still has the same power over you, but it strikes me as strange. He finds different things to draw: Vacant Spanish houses, landscapes, church architecture. Subtle variations in the design of the group hostels. His imagination going from subtle (a bartender in a Charlie Brown shirt) to becoming more powerful as he goes on: imagining a director on a movie set giving him instructions, Cinderella and some dwarves pop up when he realizes he’s in a fairy tale village, a Dali painting landscape (Dali grew up in the region), a comedic windmill repairman.
I’m working on some posts about the election for next week and the week after. I’ve to mention it here or I’ll procrastinate and not finish them, again.
And again, if you have a recommendation for a comic book I might enjoy, let me know.
More from Adam’s Notes:
The proto-Basques were "perfidious"? Not how I read Roncesvalles. Rather, with a well-timed, and well-earned, "sneak attack" they gave Roland (and Charlemagne) a well-earned comeuppance.