#maybe i am not so dead maybe i am actually in a cool zine project!!! :)

[fansofvow]

Interview with Eve Golden Woods!

Many of you know who is Eve is. She's a writer and artist, a part of Dreamfeel studios whose beautiful game If Found won Best LGBTQ Narrative and Best LGBTQ Indie game at the first ever Gayming Awards presented by EA games. I am really excited I had the chance to ask Eve some questions about herself, her time at Lovestruck and her creative process.

Congratulations on the two Gayming Awards (Best LGBTQ Narrative, Best LGBTQ Indie Game) for "If Found" from your game studio, Dreamfeel. What was the inspiration behind making the game?

If Found... was a game that emerged out of a collaboration between Llaura McGee, the founder of Dreamfeel, and artist Liadh Young. Liadh's background is as a comic artist, and so when they started working together Llaura had the idea of showing off Liadh's art by making a diary game, and using an erasing mechanic she had previously developed to let the player move through the diary in a fun way. By the time I came on board at the start of 2019, the game had already been in development for a while, so in some ways my work on that game was similar to the work I did for Voltage, because it was taking existing characters and concepts and writing a lot of scripts for them. Unlike Voltage, though, my work for Dreamfeel was a lot more collaborative and I had a lot more creative input. I really enjoy taking something and helping to make it the best version of itself that it can possibly be, but I was also really happy that I got to reflect a lot of my own experiences in If Found. Llaura and I both grew up on the west coast of Ireland, and although If Found... isn't autobiographical for either of us, it was definitely really meaningful to be able to tell a story that reflected our own experiences of growing up as queer teens in a similar kind of environment. Since the game came out we've had fans reach out to us and tell us that they also connected to the experiences of the main characters, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes me feel like I achieved everything I wanted to.

You are a writer and a visual artist. Does one come easier to you than the other?

I used to think of art and writing as talents, and I always felt like my art was at a very mediocre level (that's probably still true, lol). So when I was younger I focused a lot more on writing. It was only later that I started genuinely trying to improve as an artist, but when I did, I think I had a much healthier mindset, and approached it as a skill I could learn with patience and effort. Because of that, even though I still have a lot more confidence in my writing, I find art more fun and relaxing, and I don't stress about it as much.

Did you always know you would follow a creative path?

Kind of? Both my parents are artists, and I grew up surrounded by artists and writers, so it was something that was always very familiar and accessible to me. On the other hand, I didn't exactly have a clear idea of how to make it into a career, or what kind of work would be involved. But there's never been a point in my life where I wasn't doing something creative, even if it was only writing fanfiction.

What did your path to working professionally as a writer/artist look like?

I did a creative writing masters in college, but after that I spent years teaching English as a second language. That was really fun and I got to live abroad, but it was so busy and tiring that I didn't have time to do any writing outside of the occasional fanfic. I only started to take art seriously again when I became interested in games and comics as ways of telling stories. I did some critical writing, which led me to speak at a few local events and get involved in zine fairs. That was how I met Llaura, the director and lead of the Dreamfeel studio, and it's also what gave me the confidence to start applying for actual writing jobs.

Is there any work of art, visual or written, that you look to for inspiration?

So many! I try to read and watch as widely as I can, although there are touchstones I always return to, like the works of Ursula Le Guin and Terry Pratchett. Right now I feel very passionate about the actual play podcast Friends at the Table, which manages to combine really thoughtful worldbuilding and storytelling with cool, fun characters and great action scenes. I'm also reading a book called The Memory Police by Youko Ogawa, which has extremely beautiful prose.

Do you have a favorite piece of your own art, whether it is something you’ve drawn, a screenshot of something you’ve written or something else?

My favourite piece of art is usually whatever I finished most recently (I think that's true for a lot of people). Especially with visual art, once a bit of time has gone by you look back on it and start to notice all your mistakes, which is very annoying. But actually I do still really like the first piece of Fiona fanart I did last year. I managed to use some effects to give it a kind of nineties anime quality that I find really fun, and I think it conveys an emotion pretty effectively. That's always one of the hardest things to predict with visual art, whether the different parts will come together to create the exact mood you're looking for.

I also really like the compass I did for Bycatch. Krissy (@xekstrin) was the one who suggested filling it with fingernails, which was such a good, gross idea! As soon as I heard that I knew it was perfect and that I had to try and draw it.

Many people who read this blog know you as a writer for Lovestruck. When you look back on your time there, what stands out in your mind?

Lovestruck was very important to me when I first started because it was my first ongoing, regular, paid writing work. It gave me a lot of confidence and helped me to get into the habit of writing consistently and rapidly, which is a really useful skill to have. I know I was right to leave when I did, though, because I am just brimming with energy to work on my own projects, and channeling that power into something that you can't control will always end up disappointing you. Also, I made a ton of incredible friends, through Lovestruck itself but then even more so through VOW (@vowtogether), and that is more than worth all the difficult parts.

Is there any character that you would have liked a crack at writing?

Oh gosh, what a fun question! There are so many, but one I do sometimes think about is Axia, just because I know there are a bunch of fans who want her route, and because I had fun writing her as a villain in Zain's route. I can see in my head the shadow of a storyline that takes place after Zain's route is over, where she's in prison and trying to understand how she lost the battle with Zain and MC. I think there's, like, a gap there, where you could see her downfall forcing her to reconsider her assumptions about power, and that could build into a very interesting redemption story. But maybe it's for the best I never got to do that, because I would have wanted full creative control over it, and also I think the story in my head is very different to the sexy, in control, menacing version of Axia that her fans enjoy.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about?

Most of my current work is under NDA, but I will say that I'm doing something very exciting with other VOW members that we should be able to talk about soon(ish). Maybe I can even give a little teaser... It's not a game, but it is something you can read, and my part involves cakes, swamps, and a museum.

Do you have a favorite quote or song lyric?

It's a big long, but there's a section from The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin that has stayed with me ever since I read it:

"For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."

It's such a profoundly radical way of imagining the world, so different to everything I was raised with, but whenever I think about it I feel like I can see something very beautiful and powerful that I hope to come closer to understanding some day.

And of course, "Solidarity forever, the union makes us strong."

I was a big fan of the show Inside the Actor’s Studio. Host James Lipton asked every single guest the same 10 concluding questions. I’ve picked 3 of them:

-What is your favorite word?

My favourite word: for sound, I like words you can really roll around on your tongue. Chthonic, alabaster, insinuation. For meaning, I think simple words that encapsulate big concepts have a kind of power to them. We use them so often we forget how big they are, how much weight they really have, but they give us the space to imagine new possibilities. Love. Freedom. Revolution.

-What is your least favorite word?

I've heard that "moist" is a lot of people's least favourite word but it doesn't actually bother me. My least favourite word is probably one where I feel like the sound doesn't match the meaning. One of the Irish words for rain is báisteach, which I feel has a much weightier and more onomatopoeic sound than rain. Rain is just very flat and uninteresting.

-What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Oh, so many! I love history, and I think being a historian/archaeologist would be fascinating. Or something that had a physical component to it, like being a potter or a carpenter. I don't think I'd be any good, but I'd love to take the time to learn.

What would be your advice to anyone who wants to pursue a creative career?

All the work you do matters. Even the failed experiments, the things you hate when they're finished. It all helps to make you better. Also, creative career paths are often really unexpected, so chase any opportunity that seems remotely interesting. Don't work for free for anyone who can afford to pay, but work for yourself and put it somewhere. On a blog, twitter, whatever. You'd be amazed how many people get noticed and get offered opportunities because of something they made in their spare time. You'll probably have to work another job for a long time, so don't be hard on yourself if you're too tired to devote much energy to creative work. Try to make art consistently, but don't feel like that has to mean every day. Don't chase after celebrities. Make friends with your peers.

#vowtogether #vow interview #writing #art #lovestruck #dreamfeel #iffound #gayming #gaming #mod atlas

[thewritewolf]

Etude Du Coeur

Summary: Working on a last minute research project, it isn't just the topic of their presentation that Adrien and Marinette getting to know better, but each other as well.

This was originally intended for a zine centered around Adrienette, but that... ended poorly and I've finally gotten around to posting it here.

Also, Happy New Year, everyone! Let's see about if we can get started on the right foot this time.

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

“We’re all clear on the plan, right?”

Adrien looked at Marinette, who in turn had her eyes narrowed suspiciously at Alya for some reason. All four of them were shrugging off their winter coats as they stepped out of the freezing cold and into the merely chilly interior of the old library.

“Yeah, chill girl,” Alya said dismissively. “We’re going to get as much work done on our project as we can.” She glanced around the large space of the library, with its tall bookshelves packed to the brim.

“Good…”

“We’ll probably need to split up to handle this though.”

“Wait no! That’s not what we-”

“I’m pretty sure there is a computer bay in the back,” Alya said over her shoulder as she grabbed Nino’s arm and all but ran that way. “Good luck with Adrien!”

“Wh- Alya!” Marinette yelled after her, but a nearby librarian shushed her. Looking irritated and a little panicked, she slowly turned to him. “So, um… looks like they wanted some space to themselves?”

Adrien laughed. “Yeah, those two are really into each other. Hopefully they actually do what they’re supposed to and don’t just… well... play super penguino all day.”

To his relief, she laughed with him at his joke, but she still seemed uncomfortable. Her hands stayed latched to the straps of her backpack as she wandered around the mostly empty library, Adrien following behind a couple steps behind her. Besides a few lonesome stragglers, the only other people they saw as they tried to find the ideal spot was Rose and Juleka. Only Rose, tired rings around her eyes, managed a quick smile and half-hearted squeak of joy when she spotted them before returning to their project.

At least they weren’t the only ones who had put this off until the last minute.

Eventually, they got a spot next to a merrily burning fireplace. He had known that Marinette didn’t like the cold much, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise. They left their coats and bags on the library table and although Marinette didn’t realize it, they were well protected under the semi-watchful eyes of a kwami. If nothing else, Plagg would make sure his cheese supply wasn’t stolen.

There wasn’t a whole lot of time to talk as they kept apart while looking for books. Adrien didn’t mind that, though. Talking or not, he liked to spend time with his friends in person. It also didn’t escape his notice that he almost never got any alone time with Marinette - and what few times he did get usually ended up in embarrassment for one of them. Like when they got chased across Paris by rabid fans, or when Adrien pretended to be a statue.

He winced. Not his best moment. Hopefully today would turn out better. After all, they were stuck together for at least the next few hours. Who knew if Nino and Alya would be meeting back up with them? Maybe Marinette and Adrien would be stuck together for the rest of the entire day.

All in all, as he sat down across from her at their space in front of the fireplace, saw her face scrunch up in adorable concentration as she began poring over a book and making notes on her laptop, the idea didn’t bother him in the slightest.

It was forty minutes into their study session before his attention started to falter and he looked for something to distract himself.

“Marinette?”

She fumbled the book she was holding, nearly dropping it. She only barely managed to catch it, but in the process closed it with such force that it echoed in the contemplative quiet of the library. With a wince, she set the book down and briefly glanced at him.

“Y-yes?”

“So… you don’t like the cold?” Although he kept a pleasant smile plastered on his face, he was screaming on the inside. Could he have come up with a lamer ice breaker? Science has yet to decide, but data is pointing in that direction.

“Y-yeah… I’ve never really liked it but it has been especially bad ever since-” Her eyes widened and she suddenly threw her hands over her mouth.

Naturally, this got him curious.

“Since… what?”

“Oh, just, um… since a little over a year ago. I, uh… I don’t know what happened exactly, but I got, ah, got even worse with the cold!” She laughed nervously before petering out. “So… yeah. Me and winter? We don’t get along.”

Adrien chuckled and spared a glance at the roaring fireplace to his left. “I can see that.”

With that conversation arriving at a dead end, Adrien tried to come up with some other topic. There had to be something that could get her talking for a while.

“Fashion!” Poor Marinette had been trying to take a book out of a stack when he blurted out that word and only managed to keep the stack from falling over by leaping up and hugging it. He winced. “Sorry. I just remembered I’ve been meaning to ask you about your fashion projects and stuff. I don’t get updated on them much.”

“Oh…” Marinette blinked in surprise. “Well, I’ve been juggling a lot of projects lately.” She put her hand on her face as she stared into the wood of the table in front of them, deep in thought. “Christmas is coming up after all and I… may have bitten off a little too much this time.”

“Really?” Adrien’s eyebrows rose. “How many people are you making gifts for this year?” He flashed a teasing smirk. “Am I one of them?”

“Well… yes.”

Adrien blinked in surprise. “Wait, really?”

“Of course!” Marinette frowned and looked at him with concern. “...Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I guess I figured you would be busy with everything else.”

“I’ll always make time for my friends.”

Adrien smiled softly at her. “Thanks.” A thought occurred to him. “Do you need my measurements?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that-” Again, she suddenly froze and cut herself off.

His voice took on a teasing quality. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, you are a big fan of my work after all.”

There was a glimpse of a blush spreading across her cheeks before she buried her face in her hands. She groaned.

“Aw, I’m sorry Marinette.” His smile faded. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

After a few moments she sighed and uncurled herself. “It's fine. Just a little... embarrassing is all.”

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “That seems to happen a lot when we hang out.”

“I guess that means we’ll have to hang out more to break that curse.” Her eyes widened as if she was surprised at her own words and she immediately began to backtrack. “I mean- that’s not the only reason we’d hang out! If you even want to hang out, it's totally cool if you-”

“Marinette?”

“Yes?”

“Breathe.”

“R-right.”

While she took a few calming breaths, he added, “Let’s just see if I can get through today without embarrassing you any more and we’ll see how you feel after that.”

She giggled, and Adrien thought it was one of the best sounds in the world.

“Well, what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. What, um, what do you do for hobbies?”

“Oh, well I’ve got…” He held up his hand and counted down on his fingers. “Fencing, piano, basketball, modeling, and sometimes voice acting.”

“Wow! That all sounds pretty fun. It’s got to be interesting at least.”

Adrien shrugged. “I guess so.”

“...Are they not?” Marinette’s enthusiasm dampened.

“Well, they would be by themselves. Fencing is a great way to stay in shape and I like playing the piano sometimes. It’s just…” He ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back in his chair. “I can’t just enjoy them. I’ve got to be the best at them or be perfect. Otherwise Father chews me out about it.” He leaned forward again, shaking his head as he hunched over the table. “That kind of takes all the fun out of it.”

“Oh,” Marinette said simply. “I never thought about it like that… That sounds exhausting since that takes up pretty much all of your time.” He gave her a curious look and she cleared her throat, a slight blush creeping onto her cheeks. “Or, um, that’s what it sounds like. It’s not like I’ve memorized your schedule or anything.”

“Of course.” He smiled at her. She said the weirdest things when she got nervous. Feeling a little mischievous he added, “Posters of me all on your wall? That’s fine. Keeping track of what things I do? Now that’s a bridge too far.”

“If only your fans could see you now,” Marinette said, shaking her head sadly. “They’d see how mean you really are.” Adrien laughed and she quickly joined him.

“You two seem to be getting along alright.”

Adrien jumped at the sudden new voice, his eyes flying open to reveal Alya and Nino approaching their table. There was a calculating gleam in her eye, while Nino simply wore a pleased look on his face as he looked between him and Marinette.

“How is the research coming along?” Adrien glanced between them and allowed himself a smirk. “You… have been doing at least some research, right?”

“Chill, bro,” Nino said, rolling his eyes. “We’ve been supes on top of things. We just wanna make sure you dudes are on the level too.”

“Say, blondie.” Alya surprised him by pulling up a seat next to him rather than next to Marinette. Instead, Nino had taken that spot. “Have you been a long time fan of the Ladyblog?”

Adrien blinked and tried to keep up with the sudden topic change. “I- um- yes?”

“Cool, cool. Did I ever tell you about Darkblade and Syren?”

“I… read the articles.” Plus he'd been part of the fights, but he wasn’t about to say that.

“Yeah but this part I didn’t write much about. My girl-” she gestured across the table toward Marinette, where Nino was grinning and pointing toward her “-really took charge during those akumas.”

“Alya-” Marinette began, whining. Her face was getting red with embarrassment, but Adrien was intrigued. He knew that his classmates had been close to ground zero in those akuma battles, but he wasn’t sure what exactly happened to them after he transformed.

“During Darkblade’s attack, our girl rallied the whole class and fortified the capital building. That’s probably why we lasted as long as we did while Ladybug and Chat Noir fought the knights.”

“Oh wow, really?” He looked over to Marinette. “That was pretty brave of you, Marinette!”

“Then get ready for this, blondie.” Alya pushed up her glasses while her best friend groaned and faceplanted the table. “During Syren’s attack, she got us all to higher ground and then jumped into a garbage bin.”

“A… garbage bin?” Adrien blinked, running it over in his head. Nope, still didn’t make sense. “Why?”

“Well, she started paddling off to go get help. The cure fixed everything before it was too big of a problem, but it takes guts to go onto akuma-infested waters with nothing but a trash can for a ship, right?”

“That is pretty gutsy of you, Marinette,” Adrien addressed the mass of flattered embarrassment that was his study partner.

“It’s been nice chatting, but we should probably get back to our end of the research.” Alya and Nino quickly got up and started walking away. “Good luck you two!”

Adrien waved but once they had left he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Did they even ask about how far along they were in their research? He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure.

Still, what they had said had given him something to think about as he slowly got Marinette talking again. He knew that he was the one who had given her the nickname of their ‘everyday Ladybug’, but he hadn’t realized just how apt it was. She had a lot of the qualities that he so loved in his lady - bravery, natural leadership, creativity.

That revelation stuck in his head as they worked, stayed in there for hours and hours. By the end of the day, it was still at the forefront of his mind.

Maybe it shouldn’t have come as any surprise when Marinette asked, “So, um… this was nice. Spending time with you and everything. I was wondering if… maybe, if you could find the time and felt up to it… if you wanted to maybe get a coffee or something with me?”

That he replied, “That sounds great.”

#Miraculous Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrienette #Alya Cesaire #Nino Lahiffe #Love Square #ml fanfiction #My writing #Etude Du Coeur

[arecomicsevengood]

AGING ALTERNATIVES

We live in a culture that worships the large-scale spectacle of the obvious. Partly because of this, the most affecting thing a person can do is something with a large amount of effort behind it, delivered to a small audience: An elaborate meal cooked for a loved one, a labored-over zine in an edition of ten. But of course, time has this great leveling effect, and attempting something large scale can easily crash and burn, and in so doing become something only for a limited audience.

There is an ongoing conversation being had about older comics but they are almost always superhero comics, with some weird eighties genre trash thrown in. This conversation includes a great many alternative cartoonists, but it is very rare for a forgotten art comic to slide its way into the discussion. There’s numerous reasons for this: The larger the print run, the larger the chance a work will find its way to a bargain bin. But also, artists are competitive, and largely inclined to promote themselves or their peers. Once an artist is no longer producing work, they are rarely championed.

Obviously, not everyone finds their way into “the canon,” but you would think that work intended to be somewhat personal would end up being valued enough by individual people that you’d hear about it now and again. The case for alternative comics is the same as it ever was: It’s an artistic medium that can do anything, and it’s released in the fairest most egalitarian way, via mass production, for it to find people who will support it. The art is immediately striking in a way that gives it an edge over the written word, but it’s distributed to shops across America rather than galleries, and so should have long life after its initial release. Of course, the vision falters due to the reality that most of what gets produced is pretty bad, and not really expressing anything particularly unique or individual, and this only goes unspoken at the time of a work’s release due to admiration for the amount of labor that nonetheless went into it.

But what ends up happening in retrospect is this thing where banal superhero work gets reevaluated, with certain aesthetic decisions dictated by the technology of the time (like the coloring) becoming romanticized and recognized as things of beauty, while tons of black and white comics made by people who were desperately trying to push the medium forward and make something that works as art or literature get tarred with a blanket dismissal, associated with either the indulgences of the highest-profile practitioners or simply casualties of their pitiful attempts at graphic design. Only the small handful of practitioners whose publishers have steadily championed them and kept their work in print get to escape this fate. But obviously, if you’re working at something risky, you might end up working with publishers who are not economically viable in the long term, or, if they are, it’s because they’re being subsidized by projects way more commercial than yours.

There’s plenty of stuff which had a large enough print run for copies to be found, but functionally exist at the level of visibility of a zine. But, while I might be interested in extending the same amount of charity I would to someone making work with no hope of commercial success, to engage with the work honestly means that the fact that it was attempting to find its place in the world of commerce must be taken into consideration when thinking about the goals it set out to fulfill. That so much fails to meet these commonly-held goals can make one feel pretty depressed about the medium, and maybe this is another reason for people to avert their eyes: When you’re talking about superhero comics of a certain vintage, while they might not have attempted to be art, at least the people making them got paid.

Obviously, The Comics Journal has been fighting this fight for decades. I am sure all of the books I am going to write about, they have already covered, and they probably came to the same conclusions, and depending on the writer, they might’ve been more entertaining to read than I will be. But I want to offer these reconsiderations in light of all the other reconsiderations being made, that are coming to the opposite conclusion of what The Comics Journal would’ve. It is easy to look back at the 1980s now and say, for instance, that Elektra Assassin is a better comic book than American Splendor.  There’s a discrepancy between what is the best work being produced at a given historical moment and what is the most exciting scene to be a part of. I like to think if I had been writing for the Comics Journal in the early nineties, I wouldn’t have gone all-in praising Palookaville, but I get that in the moment it would’ve felt important to do so. Now, of course, there is very little that feels exciting at all, in the context of real-world community, due to the global pandemic. This is an incredibly lonely moment, and nostalgia has a powerful allure.

But I’d like to ensure the nostalgia we feel compels us to fight for what’s human, rather than allow us to simply surrender our past to the colonizing forces of corporate interests. In the interest of the human, I will not make any grandiose claims for the works I’m writing about. I’m not describing anything as a masterpiece. These instead fulfill the humble virtues of being charming, cool, interesting. They didn’t upend my value system of what the comics medium could be. But, since it was all of the Picturebox releases that shifted my perspective on comics on its axis when I was in college that caused me to ignore some of this stuff, that its virtues can endure after such a flip is itself notable. Anyway, I have no reason to have written such a long preamble. I could’ve easily just made separate posts for each comic I wanted to talk about, but all this additional context seemed important to me to articulate. All of these are books I bought online over the past few months.

Shuck Unmasked, by Rick Smith and Tania Menesse

Feel like the main thing holding this comic back is a certain lack of joie de vivre to its line. There’s a certain cuteness to its designs that seems reminiscent of Jeff Smith or Goodbye Chunky Rice era Craig Thompson but it’s a little bit stiff in ways those cartoonists aren’t. The mask Shuck wears resembles the face Chester Brown draws himself having in Paying For It. I feel like this is maybe the only comic I’ve seen that frequently has dialogue that’s misspelled in an attempt to capture phonetic dialect and presents that through lettering that feels like a font. There’s a sense of being rounded instead of being scratchy, a lushness that feels hinted at, but also tamped down. There’s a literary flavor to it, an attention to the language, a deliberate and delicate sense of stately melancholy that’s present.

The Shuck of the title is a demon, living on Earth, tasked with making sure the dead don’t escape the afterlife and roam around. Despite his horned form, he’s able to wear the mask of an old man, and fit in with his neighbors, which include a little girl, with whom he develops a bond. There’s a gentle quality to it, but also a sense of darkness that prevents it from being cloying, an interest in the esoteric that suggests the profound. The premise could be a recipe for sitcom-ish stasis, but actually the status quo shifts quite a bit, over the course of these self-published comics, collected into a book by Top Shelf.  It feels like each individual chapter should be reread a few times before proceeding on; the chapters have a nice density to them. That’s the funny thing about a lack of velocity to the line, it suggests a studiousness with which to approach it, but doesn’t invite the eye to return to it. Two issues of a sequel were self-published afterwards, I would read those.

Tales Of Woodsman Pete, by Lilli Carré

I’ve heard a couple people call Lilli Carré the best cartoonist of her generation. The first time I heard it said, I had never read anything by her, but I was struck by the assertion because there’s so many heavy hitters in that cohort I’m not comfortable making such declarations about anyone. There’s a collection of Carré’s short stories I’ve checked out from the library, but I found that collection inconsistent, with notable highs that didn’t still didn’t quite bowl me over. This could be partly an issue of format - Few cartoonists of Carré’s generation have a short story collection of their work available, and it might not be the best way to examine the work and see its strengths.

(A sidenote irrelevant to the larger thrust of this conversation - I started keeping a google doc of what years cartoonists were born, and have a my own idea of “generations” of cartoonists in terms of whose work it makes sense to consider alongside one another. 1960-1967 is one cohort, then 1968-1975, then 1976-1982, then 1983-some point unclear to me at this point, there’s a generational divide for sure but I don’t yet know the rules of it. I lump Carré in with Eleanor Davis, Dash Shaw, and Michael Deforge, rather than the slightly older group which includes Kevin Huizenga, CF, and Sammy Harkham. That’s not to say the people championing Carre are making the same distinctions, these generational lines are weird and arbitrary and some people are “on the cusp” and everyone chooses their own peers to a certain extent. However, I do think these generations are important or useful to think about, in terms of who came up with access to alternative newspaper strip jobs vs. the Xeric Grant vs. Tumblr, and it’s just generally interesting to think about what was around to serve as an influence at a formative age. People born after 1967 have had very few opportunities or chances for institutional support, by my reckoning. Over time, more people became acclimated to making uncompromising art, and there also became way less economic opportunity for people making work intended for adults. I suspect the forthcoming generation will be more inclined towards making content for kids because they grew up with things targeted to children, and they can be part of the push to make that stuff more diverse. This coincides with all of the economic infrastructure except for libraries being obliterated.)

Tales Of Woodsman Pete is a smaller object, of digest proportions, that Top Shelf released, early in Carré’s career. It’s worth noting her style nowadays is far more experimental and minimal, although I suppose at the time her work might’ve been considered pared-down, closer to folk tales than novels. This comic follows a woodsman, who monologues to no one, speaking to the trophies he’s made of his kills, in a series of short strips. This is juxtaposed against bits involving Paul Bunyan and his ox Babe, who share a camaraderie between them that doesn’t truly abate Bunyan’s sense of loneliness. It is, like Shuck, a gentle thing, and is able to conjure up some emotion, but I wonder if the sense of tweeness present within it is something Carré feels she’s outgrown? That’s not to say I object to it, just that I recognize a shift away from that stuff. I believe Carré is a Calvino fan, this stuff might be closest to the early stories in Our Ancestors, but Calvino’s work became far more overtly experimental afterwards. I don’t know, I still don’t have a bead on who Carré is or where she’s going. And that’s great, why should I?

Hectic Planet: Checkered Past, by Evan Dorkin

In high school, I read a Hectic Planet comic called The Bummer Trilogy, and liked it a lot. That was a single issue collecting three short stories that were the last work Evan Dorkin would do with the characters. While in retrospect, high school is probably the ideal age to read this material, those strips still feel more mature, in a sense of being personal, than much of Dorkin’s work. He’s written some superhero comics for the big two that never did much for me, and he has some collaborative genre comics I’ve never read, but he’s most associated with his humor cartooning, which I have kept up with despite only finding them intermittently funny. There’s always a sense of Dorkin as a performer of his material, where the humor tends to feel angry, but his most self-consciously autobio material is about the fact that his psyche is a dumping ground for assorted pop culture detritus. What’s interesting about this material is that is, in fact, still kind of immature, but it’s moving away from the science fiction premise, to be present enough to make jokes and talk about feelings. It’s the falterings towards finding a voice and having confidence in it, a youthful move towards what might not be maturity, but is, at least, work. So chunks of this are about a dude who’s heartbroken because he caught his girlfriend cheating on him and so he’s annoying all of his friends by complaining all the time and he’s thrilled to meet girls who like the same bands as he does and he goes to the grocery store and only buys junk food and while this might sound dumb, in context, it’s the beginnings of a worldview that feels fairly true to life for someone who would’ve been that age, at that point in time.

So, considering the era, and the sense of a science fiction premise being abandoned, it might make sense to think of this comic as following in the footsteps of Love And Rockets, albeit from an East Coast Jewish male perspective, and nowhere near as good. It almost feels like if a low-budget eighties sci-fi movie had cast a stand-up comedian in it, and when the budget got cut, they let him fill out the runtime with his routines and riffs, in an attempt to make it a star vehicle in case he ever got cast on SNL. Slave Labor put out a lot of alternative comics, and they all kind of got looked down upon to one degree or another. Much of what they published is both really poorly drawn and nakedly chasing whatever youthful subculture audience they could. Dorkin is easily one of the better artists they had, but the desire to be cool according to the terms of the subculture of the times makes for comics that feel dated now. All the characters in this book are really into ska, the back of the book has all these images taken from ska compilations and 7-inches featuring the characters. But that’s also interesting, because sensing the book’s quest to find its readership lends such authenticity to the young adult milieu, of what it means to be on your own and trying to find your people. It’s from a moment in time when talking about young people put a work in dialogue with alternative culture and not major book publishers, who due to generational differences, would not have understood any of the things this comic is about.

(This piece is sort of a variation on what I talk about in my article in But Is It… Comic Aht 2, by the way. There, behind a beautiful Lilli Carre cover, you can see me talking up more explicitly “all-ages” comics Slave Labor published, like Zander Cannon’s Replacement God, and Scott Roberts’ Patty Cake. Halo And Sprocket was a little bit later than the time period the article focuses on, but I liked that as well. Maybe the most interesting thing I’ve read from Slave Labor that wasn’t all ages and was never collected into a book would’ve been Jon Lewis’ series Ghost Ship. I also like the issues I’ve read of Bernie Mireault’s The Jam, which ran at multiple publishers, and I would like to read more of.)