Comics About Cartoonists • Edited by Craig Yoe • 192 pages • $39.99 retail in hardcover • IDW Publishing, on sale January 22^nd

The creative life has its own circle of hell. The blank page, the blank canvas, the empty stage, all exist to remind us of our failure. When one is a professional with a deadline, the taunting is even more painful.

For those of us in the audience, it can also be excruciating. I don’t like songs about how difficult it is to be a rock star. I don’t like novels about how misunderstood teaching assistants can’t get laid.

But then it can also be fun. The Stunt Man is a wonderful movie about making movies. My Favorite Year is a laff riot about writing television shows, and it’s one of my favorites. All That Jazz? It’s show time!

And now, Craig Yoe has put together an anthology of comics about creating comics, Comics About Cartoonists. It collects sketches and finished stories, newspaper strips and comic book covers from some of the most celebrated creators of the last century.

The book has comedy, horror, and romance. It has work by Jack Kirby, Winsor McKay, Steve Ditko, Ernie Bushmiller, Jack Cole, Al Capp, Milton Caniff, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Charles Schulz and lots, lots more. It has deep personal insight into the real lives of working stiffs, and also what happens to cartoonists when aliens attack.

To meet this deadline, I read the whole thing in one sitting, and that’s not something I would recommend to you, Constant Reader. There are only a few plots. Cartoonist has no idea, so he fells asleep and his characters have an adventure. Cartoonist isn’t appreciated by his editor. Cartoonist stumbles on plans for an alien invasion. Beautiful girl doesn’t realize that the dumpy guy who looks like the cartoonist is beautiful on the inside. I’m sure I would have enjoyed these stories more if I read them one at a time, instead of in a lump.

And then, it has Basil Wolverton, with a story that not only exhibits his energetic wit and exuberance, but dialogue that is so much fun it should be read out loud. I would pay for Childish Gambino to record it.

My favorite comic stories about comics were the ones Cary Bates and Elliott S. Maggin wrote themselves into with the Justice League. Yoe also doesn’t include Grant Morrison’s appearances in Animal Man. The rights were most likely not available, and all of these are too self-consciously meta for the book’s shaggy-dog aesthetic.

On the other hand, the book’s endpapers are old ads promising to teach you — yes, you! — how to make big money and attract beautiful women as a cartoonist. “Cartoon Your Way to Popularity and Profit” says one ad that goes on to promise you a “Laugh Finder.” That ad alone is darker and more meta than anything on the market today.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

The Shadow Fan podcast returns for Episode 15 and this time around, Barry Reese reviews “The White Legion” (radio episode 03/20/38) and “The Devil’s Paymaster,” which wraps up Theodore Tinsley’s epic Prince of Evil series. Barry then talks about the Prince of Evil storyline as a whole and why he thinks it ranks among the greatest Shadow stories of all time.

If you love the greatest pulp hero of all time, then this is the show for you! Proudly sponsored by Blue Coal Anthracite!

Join the conversation about pulp’s greatest hero today at http://theshadowfan.libsyn.com/the-devil-s-paymaster

Cover Art: Mike Fyles

Pro Se Productions has shared a sneak peek of the cover to the upcoming Pulp Obscura title, The New Adventures of The Griffon by New Pulp Artist Mike Fyles.

From Pro Se Productions’ Tommy Hancock:
Flying Your Way, VERY SOON– From Van Allen Plexico, Chuck Miller, Rich Steeves, Don Thomas, Phil Bledsoe, S. E. Dogaru, Mike Fyles, Sean E. Ali, Russ Anderson, and edited by David White…. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE GRIFFON-From Pulp Obscura!

Okay, who’s to blame? Somebody has to be responsible – stands to reason. I mean, it’s always somebody’s fault. We’re not that somebody, you and me, so it has to be one of them! The hippies. The nonconformists. The others. Them!

Take this nonsense about global warming or climate change or whatever they’re calling it this week. What a load! So the ice caps are melting. Even if that’s true, and as far as I’m concerned the jury’s still out, but even if it is true… So what? You telling me we can’t handle a little more water? What are we, sissies afraid to get our socks wet?

There’s a newspaper in London – I forget which one – that said that global warming stopped years ago. Sounds right to me.

But you know what I think? I think that under those ice caps there’s some kind of big furnace, maybe atomic powered, that’s causing the ice to melt. Who put it there? Maybe the commies. I personally believe that the International Communist Conspiracy is not out of business, not by a long shot. It’s just biding its time, waiting for the right opportunity.

But as much as I hate the commies, I don’t think they’re melting the ice. Ask yourself this – who stands to profit? Obvious, when you think about it. The liberals, or progressives, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week. Simple logic. They convince us that the climate’s changing and they say that’s bad and that gas and oil and factories and cars are responsible. Then, wham-o! They lead us to their buddies, the mooches and takers, the nonproducers, who try to sell us on the idea that we have to replace our fuel sources with sunshine and wind! Bottom line, they turn a nice profit while we work on our tans.

I’m telling you, something has to be done.

And that reminds me. Comic books! How long are we going to let this filth pollute the minds of our young? It’s been going on for…what? Ever since the end of World War II, maybe earlier. A real doctor – not one of your liberal pseudo-doctors, but a doctor with a medical degree and everything name of Doctor Fredrick Wertham wrote a book proving – I’ll say that again, proving! – that these comic books cause juvenile delinquency and sexual perversion – you know what I mean – and crime in the streets and disrespect for authority and who knows what else! Got so bad, a United States senator name of Estes Kefauver held hearings on the matter. Oh, he knocked the wind out of their sails, Senator Kefauver did, and a lot of these comic book publishers went out of business. But not all. Just the other day, I saw somebody on the bus reading a comic book. So we still got a big part of the job to do. We shouldn’t rest until nobody even remembers these comic books!

•   •   •

Wayne LaPierre, of the National Rifle Association, blames gun violence on the media and the mental health care system. Sound right to you?

RECOMMENDED READING: The Ten Cent Plague, by David Hadju

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases Looks At Comics Creators Looking At Themselves

The Nao of Brown
 By Glyn Dillon
206 pages, $24.95, SelfMadeHero/Abrams

Somewhat lost amidst the affection showered on Chris Ware’s Building Stories was Glyn Dillon’s triumphant return to the comics form with the impressive Nao of Brown. Dillon began making a name for himself at Vertigo with a variety of works, notably the Egypt miniseries and then walked away to work in film. The tug of comics was strong enough to lure him back and commit nearly three years of his to producing this lengthy graphic novel.

Making his writing debut, he presents us with the story of Nao, a half-Japanese/half-English twentysomething who is yearning for a normal life and love but struggles daily with purely obsessional compulsive disorder, a secret she shares only with flatmate Tara. Her mind is filled with images of committing extremely violent acts and rates them on a scale from 1-10. As we open, she’s using Buddhist meditation to control her impulses and takes a job selling Japanese collectable toys at a small shop run by her friend, Steve, totally oblivious toward how he feels for her.

Instead, Nao is drawn to a large bear of man, Gregory, who repairs washing machines. Engineering a meeting, she damages the flat’s machine so he can come fix it. They begin to date, a tentative start at best given his own issues. He has some deep pain he masks with alcohol so we have two damaged souls looking for love and saving.

Throughout this beautifully illustrated work, Dillon presents a parallel story in Nao’s favorite Ichi style. While it features a protagonist named Pictor, who tries to rescue his family after being turned half into a tree by a being called the Nothing, it also has father figure Nobodaddy, who looks somewhat like Gregory. Here, Dillon shows his versatility, channeling the influence of Moebius and Miyazaki although the sequences don’t always work or really enhance the main story.

Tara, Steve, and the mothers to Nao and Gregory are fine, underdeveloped supporting characters. Contrasting the relations between the lovers and their mothers might have given this a little more substance but it’s nice to see positive familial relations and good friends in a story like this.

This is a slice of life style story as we meander from the shop to the flat to dates to Nao’s OCD and imaginary tale. We enjoy this because Dillon, younger brother to noted artist Steve Dillon, takes his time and makes us care about these characters. His naturalistic style emphasizes body language, setting, and mood through watercolor work that is a delight to look at.

He does not dwell at length on any of the themes raised in the story and this is far from a moral tale about OCD, despite the unique take on the mental disorder. He told The Comics Journal, “I was learning to meditate as well. In this meditation group there were other students saying how they couldn’t stop their minds from racing when they were trying to meditate, and there seemed to be parallels between that and OCD that all interested me at the time.” We get into Nao’s head and see what she gets out of meditation, what she sees in Gregory, and how she copes day in and day out. The coping and self-absorption, though, blinds her to other issues such as Steve’s infatuation or Greg’s personal demons, which eventually are thrown in her face.

As a tyro writer, though, he does not successfully build up to a strong climax, but let’s things happen and then we hurry through the crisis and then leap four years ahead for a too-tidy ending. A compelling character study, I find his overall message elusive. While entertained by the characters and enthralled by the art, the conclusion suddenly feels predictable, undercutting the rest of the book’s strengths.

Dillon’s return to comics is a most welcome one and if The Nao of Brown is an indication of what he’s interested in exploring, I‘ll be there to see what he uncovers.