The Quixotic Engineer

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics continues to be a fascinating read. This is, in large part, because so much of his analysis of comics can be directly applied to video games, a new medium currently sorely lacking in critical vocabulary. McCloud has a knack for asking the right questions, and the further I read the faster the little wheels in my head begin to spin. The first chapter of the book asked the question “what is comics?”, which led me to question the definition of video games.

→ Read more

Over the holidays, I picked up a copy of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. It’s a comic about comics as a medium, and the concepts and vocabulary (abstraction, closure, transitions, etc.) that define it. McCloud avoids using specific artists, styles, genres or themes as a template, focusing instead on a critical universal examination of the artform. As someone who recently rediscovered comics, it’s been a truly fascinating read. The book also interests me because I can relate many of his ideas to another nascent medium that is of particular interest to me: video games.

→ Read more

While I’m a relative neophyte to the world of comics, I’ve become a rather big fan of two series: Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and Jeph Loeb’s Batman stories (such as The Long Halloween.) Both revolve around a stoic world-weary anti-hero, and they share a certain dark sensibility that I rather enjoy. If you were to combine the mystery, folklore and occult of Hellboy with the familiar faces of the Batman universe, the result would be the mini-series Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City.

The story begins in a cellar in 18th century Gotham, where a group of robed cultists (including a young Thomas Jefferson) prepares to sacrifice a young woman to gain control of a demon they have summoned. The ritual goes awry and the men flee the evil presence they have unleashed, locking the girl inside with it. Scarred by what they have seen, they decide to dissolve their group and forget the incident.

→ Read more

As part of my ongoing exploration of graphic novels, I just finished reading “Batman: The Long Halloween”. I can’t say it was the type of book that I had initially pictured myself reading. Traditional superheroes were, in my mind, characters that fans loved too much to let go of but had long lost their innovation. How many times could you watch Superman defeat Lex Luthor before you moved on to other things?

Despite my preconceptions, I was confronted with Batman graphic novels at every turn in my search for reading material. Books such as “The Dark Knight Returns” and “The Killing Joke” kept popping up in lists of highly recommended titles. A little casual research told me that Frank Miller, who later penned 300 and Sin City, revitalized the campy character in the 80’s with a darker, more gothic interpretation. This spark set off a firestorm of creativity, leading to some of the best graphic novels of the era. I instantly felt a mild discomfort in my paradigms, perhaps due to the shifting.

→ Read more

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”

– H. L. Mencken

For reasons I can’t quite fathom (although it might have been more than one person professing their undying love for Watchmen to me in the space of a week), I took the time this week to explore a medium that I had long neglected: comic books. This first foray took the form of the postcyberpunk comic Transmetropolitan.

I was very impressed; Transmetropolitan follows the Hunter S. Thompson-esqe gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem on his mad quest for truth in the politically corrupt world of the future. It deals with themes of dissent, censorship, propaganda and journalistic integrity, and is a profoundly human drama (absent of solipsistic robots and intergalactic space battles.) Furthermore, it’s nice to see a hero armed with nothing but a typewriter, a lot of drugs and the truth.

I could say more, but to be honest I’m still letting what I’ve read swirl around in my head a little. I will however say that if, like myself, you haven’t opened up a comic book in over a decade, Transmetropolitan seems like a decent place to start.

Since I enjoyed Transmetropolitan so much, I went ahead and ordered a few graphic novels off Amazon.ca, namely Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Those should be arriving towards the end of January, and I’ll be perusing Y: The Last Man until then.