King-Cat Classix
Drawn and Quarterly
The first time I encountered one of cartoonist John Porcellino’s self-published King-Cat zines at a small press show, I remember busting on its childlike drawings and diary-like scripting with my friends: “Jeez, I could do that ... left-handed ... while drunk,” I scoffed. Now that I’m older (and a little wiser), I’ve gained a much greater appreciation for Porcellino’s skills.
This massive, 380-page, heavily annotated tome should offer everybody a chance to similarly reevaluate and appreciate Porcellino’s work.
He’s been writing, drawing and publishing King-Cat since 1989, which amounts to over 65 issues at this point. His work definitely fits into both the folk artist/outsider art and punk rock aesthetics, particularly his early efforts, but you can’t do anything for almost 20 years without getting increasingly proficient at it.
Reading through this collection, you can see the rough, edgy energy and occasionally crude drawings evolve into an elegant, well-regulated crudity before your eyes, becoming a highly refined minimalism. By the end of this collection, the stories resemble the beautiful, insightful work of Porcellino’s recent graphic novels, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man and Perfect Example.
Many of the stories herein are day-in-the-life anecdotes about his childhood and crappy day jobs, pet biographies and adaptations of his dreams. Reading them all in 2007, it’s striking how far ahead of his time Porcellino was. Autobio comics are all the rage now, and blogs and webcomics are filling the roles once occupied by zines and minicomics, making it a lot easier for a lot more people to follow in Porcellino’s footsteps.
Things Just Get Away From You
Fantagraphics
Walt Holcombe has been focusing his energy on animation lately, and, as this hardcover collection of his late-’90s comics work proves, animation’s gain is comics’ loss.
Two long stories frame the contents, each a lighthearted historical epic taking its aesthetic and sense of humor from classic Golden Age animation.
The book kicks off with Holcombe’s debut, the inspired “King of Persia,” a giddily matter-of-fact mixture of an Arabian Nights fairy tale and indie comics, in which the titular monarch must combat his nervousness about meeting a beautiful woman and then quest for a magic jewel to win her love, aided only by his best friend, a camel who’s secretly in love with him.
It ends with the goofy, Moby Dick-like goof “The Red Grampus,” in which scar-faced Captain Nubbins shares a ghost story with his crew about a woman with a magical wooden hand and encounters a killer whale with a peculiar call: “Hoo hah!”
In between are plenty of shorter pieces about bugs in love, the dream-like adventures of a vampire and rival cat-show contestants, all told in round, buoyant designs and an incredibly expressive black-and-white style that flows smoothly from panel to panel.
Satan’s Sodomy Baby
Dark Horse Comic
Eric Powell has created a provocative, willfully offensive one-off spin-off of his acclaimed series The Goon. So provocative, in fact, that the publishers hid the actual title inside the comic, with the logo on the cover reading “Satan’s $@#%* Baby.”
The titular character is a red-skinned, cartoonish devil with a gigantic schlong (Powell draws it bigger in each panel) whose heritage is right there in his name. When a turpentine-huffing, pig-porking hillbilly attempts to have his way with a prize hog, Satan himself appears and takes him from behind, impregnating the poor bastard with his devilish spawn. It’s up to Goon regulars Goon and Frank to catch the beast and shove it right back where it came from, since it may be the Antichrist.
Powell tries a little too hard to be offensive herein, particularly in a sequence where Frank shops for a religion, running through tired stereotypes before hitting an inspired punchline, but Powell’s art is as beautiful as always, even when—especially when?—rendering ugliness.