I didn’t think comics should have to credentialize themselves or apologize for being comics. Over the last couple of years, however, I’ve been reading some illustrated sequential tomes that actually seem like novels.

Most recently, I picked up David Small‘s memoir Stitches. Not only was it fantastic, it felt like I had read a novel: the detailed evocation of place and time through little details; the powerful, painful moments of childhood torment; the powerful characters; and the sense it left me with – I absorbed and appreciated much of its greatness, but I will be coming back to read it again.

But here’s what floored me. I read the whole thing in 45 minutes.

This is not meant to belittle the book. It’s fantastic.

The art is great. Small is largely known as an illustrator of children’s books. He marries a fantastic gift for faces and expression with a very cinematic sense of perspective, framing and storyboarding.

The story is gripping and rewarding. It was powerful, and I’ve been thinking about it all day… since reading it last night in 45 minutes.

There is now so much amazing illustrated work being published across so many genres, choosing to read literary fiction almost seems spoiled to me – like watching a silent movie.

Go get Stitches. Treat yourself.

(If you need more convicing, David Small’s website has more art, interviews, etc. to give you the flavour of it.)

I just stumbled across the apparent foofarah that TV’s Community actor Donald Glover is campaigning for an audition in the upcoming movie reboot of Spider-Man, and he’s (gasp) not white.

I love comic book movie adaptions and I’m a huge Spidey fan, but as much of a geek as I am, I only get hung up on the details that matter.

Yes, he’s always been drawn white, but in terms of impact on the character or story, Peter Parker’s ethnicity or family culture was never more specific in the books than “working-class New York.”

Frankly I’m much more dismayed that a reboot means they’ll likely waste a whole new movie re-hashing an origin instead of crafting a good story.

***

At the other end of the plausibility spectrum, I couldn’t believe it when I read that the upcoming Captain America movie has cast somebody (trust me, it doesn’t matter who) as none other than mad scientist Arnim Zola.

Zola was one of the freakiest artistic creations of Jack Kirby, who wasn’t exactly known for his restraint or attachment to realism.  He wasn’t exactly famous, though. Even as a life-long Marvel comics fan, all I really knew about the character was that he was that guy with a little box for a head and a face on his chest. Sound goofy? Weird? Oh yeah. Don’t believe me?  Click to reveal the craziness:

Frankly, the only cool thing about this character is how utterly ridiculous he is.

Do I have any faith that a major Hollywood studio is going to put something that nuts in a movie?

Well, let’s just review what happened a few years ago when Kirby’s greatest creation was brought to the big screen.  In the comics, Galactus is a 30-foot tall cosmic mo-fo who eats planets.

Pretty nifty-looking, huh?

So how does Hollywood portray him?

A cloud. Oooooo…. menacing.

Given that, I give you my prediction for the best we can expect for the 2011 cinematic Arnim Zola. You were warned!

26 fantastic illustrations. Check ‘em out.

Props to Phronk for this link.

Wow.  Even after a strong recommendation I was surprised how good this was. Guy Delisle has a very Canadian sense of humour and captures the weirdness of travel in a way I really appreciated.

I find autobiography in comics to be a very hit and miss proposition. For some reason, though, (maybe since Delisle was so isolated during his time in North Korea) there’s something about this work that seems very immediate and confessional. As a reader, I share his frustration with never really learning anything about the people of North Korea. It is both amazing and a little terrifying that the state is so completely in control that a foreign visitor living there for months really sees no cracks in the veneer. Highly recommended.

2. Kick-Ass

I’m excited about this for several reasons.

First, although I’m not a huge fan of Mark Millar’s work in the Marvel Universe, this series of his (or mini, whatever it was) got a lot of raves in print. With a few notable exceptions, I think comic writers do their best work in their own sandboxes. Hopefully the tone of Millar’s writing that I found too “mean” for the MU is better suited to his own characters. I can see it working better in film.

Second, although I love all kinds of comics/graphic novels, I can’t read them all. I do manage to see almost every Hollywood adaption of anything remotely comic book related, however. (It’s a holdover from the drought of decent fantasy in cinema when I was a kid). The pattern I’ve noticed is that by and large,  my favorite comic movies come from work I haven’t read. Road to Perdition. Ghost World. And probably the best example – V for Vendetta. All of them great movies made from great comics that might have been on my radar but never made it into my collection.

Finally, I’ve been waiting to enjoy a Nicholas Cage in a movie since, what… Raising Arizona? Now that’s a drought.

Anyhoo… I do loves me a good trailer, and this is at least the third version I’ve seen. It’s probably the most mainstream cut I’ve seen (complete with the gun-glam shots), but it still looks pretty decent, and from what I’ve read the content is going to know people for a loop if they’re expecting Mystery Men: TNG.

As an aside: A typical WASP Ontario boy, I never really “got” the Quebecois swearing through blasphemy thing… until I heard the zinger in that trailer:  “With no power comes no responsibility.”

Delicious sacrilege. Osti, tabarnac!

No, I haven’t joined a cult.

I did make a bit of a pilgrimage on the weekend, though.  Toronto’s FanExpo is a number of geeky conventions all housed under one roof : Comics, Gaming, Sci-Fi, Horror and Anime.

The crowds were insanely dense (estimated 70,000 over the weekend) but amazingly well mannered and chipper (despite many folks spending hours in various lines).  The whole celebrity/autograph thing was kind of underwhelming (not really a letdown as I had no huge expectations) and the shopping was… well, shopping.

More entertaining were the costumes.  They ranged from entertainingly bad to slavishly accurate, funny to frightening, and everything in between.  My favorites were the low-tech Star Wars crew including a garbage can R2 and Darth Vader using an old cassette player as his chest “control panel.”

The real highlight for me though, was meeting and talking to some amazing comic artists.  First I stumbled across an artist whose work I had long admired but who I didn’t even know by name.  Attila Adorjany does illustration for games, but (I discovered) also does webcomics, paints, and doodles like a mofo.

While I pored over original sketches from his work on the card game Inn-Fighting, Attila told me about getting gagged by Lucasfilm attorneys, his webcomic, and the financial risks of spending so much time at conventions surrounded by tons of cool ways to blow your money.  I encourage you to check out his site or his photostream.

A friend had asked me to say hi to Michael Cho – a name I recognized as being a comic artist, but that I wasn’t really familiar with.  Holy crap!  He is now one of my favorite artists.  I was completely blown away by the fantastic two-colour prints he had there.  Not only were they some of my favorite characters, they were also rtraction’s corporate colours.  Clearly it was a sign for me to buy three for my office. When I got home and checked out more of his stuff on his site I was even more impressed.  Now I need to get some of his work in comic form.

Both Attila and Mike are Ontario talent – and there were sooo many other local artists at the con with fantastic work on display, it was really impressive.  Too many to mention…  but I will leave you with one more of my favorites, a Hulk/Bluto mash-up courtesy of Darryl Graham.

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