[comics] What We're Still Loving: The Helm

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We're a bit late to the party on this one. But we stumbled on it in meeting a wholly witty person. Therein lies the tale.

During OryCon last, we stumbled upon a man billing himself as J.R.R.R. Hardison. Little did we know. He was promoting a book … but I'll not get ahead of myself. To promote himself, he was distributing copies of the comic he wrote, The Helm (with heroic art and Frazetta cover homage by Bart Sears). I thumbed through it, and, as though by fate, a sequence hooked itself right into my cortex.

It's just after our main character … Mathew Blurdy … has gone through the worst part of his no-good, very bad, terrible day. Not only has his girlfriend dumped him, publicly and humiliatingly, at his place of work … a DVD rental shop … his inability to keep it together there immediately and subsequently cost him his job. A miserable mess, the now-unemployed, now-nodding-lonely, 30-year-old, overweight manchild manages to intersect with an eerie, almost-comically portentious garage sale. A whim draws him hither, where he meets the titular artifact, which calls to him in only a voice he can hear.

Mathew is the Chosen One. But The Helm's vision is cloudy, that day … and once it sees what doughy clay it has to work with, tries to reject him, all but saying I said GOOD DAY, sir! And, in the frame after, after the garage sale's equally-creepy proprietor (who figures mightily in a crucial way much later) tells him bluntly to put the merch down unless he intends to buy, a bronze, chiseled hunk of a brick house appears as though fated to be, and asks to look at a sword. The Helm, tellingly, speaks not to him.

The hunk so distracted, the chunk steals away with The Helm.

That, friends, the sort of deft comic timing I enjoy. The joke may not be complex, but the telling is timed like a precision time piece. And that's the sort of comic timing that made the comic worth the possessing.

I've read it many times since; if I was going to write about it, I want to do it justice, but the subtext that sticks with me is that Mathew Blurdy is terribly believable. He gets the superpower, he slowly learns to pay the cost; like most mortals, he certainly didn't genetically know what to do next and stumbles about with it like a 6-year-old kid who just got the keys to a Lamborghini. But somehow, chaotically, when the moment presents itself, he goes with his considerable gut and shows he has what he needs just when he needs it. He ends the adventure changed a little, but not significantly, and The Helm, realizing it's stuck with him, does the best that it can with what it has to work with.

Everything and everyone in this play is so perfectly imperfect.

It's that comic timing and grasp of the absurdity that is people that give me high hopes for Jim's upcoming novel, Fish Wielder. The wit of The Helm's writing shows an aptness for writing sharp satire. I don't think I'll be disappointed, but the wait … the book's due out in August of this year. But, if the story's good enough for Piers Anthony to glowingly recommend it, and if the comic's good enough for Harlan Ellison to be delighted by it, then it ought to be good enough for anyone.

Holy crap, Jim! You did all the LOLs!

Contact Jim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jim.hardison.75

[comics] What We're Loving: They Call Me Black Fist

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The cover of the slender volume is most evocative and lets you know exactly where you stand with it.

Blaxploitation/Rockabilly/Fighting Manga? SHO'NUFF!

There are those of us … and you know who you were, don't be apologetic, because it was awesome … who would live for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, because that's when our local TV stations would fill those unprofitable hours with cheapass content. Like B-monster martial arts movies.

Especially those. 

Well, Pharoah Bolding has a treat for us, because in his hero's little debut adventure, They Call Me Black Fist, he's mashed up those so-bad-they're-good Saturday and Sunday afternoon adventures with a healthy dash of nostalgic affection for those styles, blaxploitation, and deserving of a soundtrack of Carl Douglas.

Everybody was Kung-fu fighting. The fallout is an affectionate satire and pop-culture deconstruction you'll take right to heart.

The story, while witty, is very straightforward; enigmatic, good-hearted but stern-valued martial artist with a pompadour that's on its own mission from God finds himself in a jive situation, which needs taken-care-of in short enough order when an absurd villain invades his local comic shop to steal all the free stuff on Free Comics Day with the idea of storing them and making money off them when he can sell them in 10 years time … without so much as even reading them.

The villain is evil … but at least he plays the long game.

Our hero, teaching a hard lesson, and teaching it hard.

But the gauntlet is totally thrown. The justice, as someone once said, is brought-en; on the way to that justice and a lesson in comic-shop etiquette, one rare, near-mint ninja three-pack gets severely downgraded, one comics shop gets seriously trashed, and one comic shop owner descends into near shell-shock. Furious action obtains, with specific moves hilariously called out.

The story is funny and enough just as it stands, but what really makes this little comic desirable is production values that put you back in the day; the weathered movie-poster style front cover is a bit of cosmic deftness that even comes complete with a price sticker straight from the spin rack at the supermarket and ad reproductions that include that back page Johnson Smith Co mail order mall … remember the X-Ray Glasses that sold for a dollar? That sort of thing.

And the inside back page? I never thought I'd see an ad for Chuck Norris Action Jeans ever again.

There's better news. I finally met Pharoah at Fanaticon (see that blog entry which is immediately before this one) and found that the affectionate humor in the work is only natural … in person he's just as affable and humorous as the jokes he tells in the story. And, as promised on the next-to-last page, Black Fist will return … we got to lay eyeballs on some blue-pencil sketches that got us very excited.

Black Fist will return … and we'll be there for him.

If you want to be there for him, dial your Stargate to http://www.pharoahbolding.com/.

[What We're Loving] Brett Carville's "Life Of Craig"

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There are a few things I've been holding back because reasons, and one of them I really regret holding back on is anything Brett Carville does.

We met him again at Artist's Alley Comic Fest. We'd met him previously at Linework NW and started liking what he did then. He showed us more of what he did, and we must say we like it much.

Life of Craig: A Planet Called Wilma is the first chapter in what promises to be a SF epic, seen through a cracked glass with a layer of satire. The story opens as we approach a desolate place of apparent doom … a planet called Wilma. The population, aside animated skeletal beasts that walk about cracking wise, are the Cougars, a line of rather grotesque female aliens, and their male counterparts, who are, well … useless.

The Cougars are dying out, with no virile-enough male to provide the sufficient spark. They have a problem, and they know it, and begin to come up with a way to solve it … they've tried every male species they can find, and none are good enough. They come from a galaxy far, far away but, as foreshadowing might suggest, not sufficiently far enough away to keep them from coming our direction. Striking out on an expedition, they depose their autocratic queen, but not before she, in an indirectly literal way, puts a stick in the spokes of the plans of the remaining Cougars … and that's where the fun really starts …

Looks like someone's not goingto be seeing Good Morning God
today…

Meanwhile, in Sarasota, Florida, our soon-to-be hero, Craig, is living, and … he's afraid … dying there as well …

Living the dream, such as it is, in Sarasota

… trying to find some direction, getting his first kiss from Elizabeth, and trying to make sense of the legends that cats are killing and eating people, and how those play into his dreams.

The most remarkable thing about Brett's comic is the style. The produced book is very slick and finished, and reading it gives me the feeling that I'm reading one of those strange stories that I used to read in Heavy Metal when I was a teenager … the style really took me back. The sensibility of the story, with its grotesque characters and its compelling strangeness, could certainly have leapt out from between the pages of that magazine. It's intense, but in all the right ways. 

The depth of technique and the accomplishment of the work is all too evident in the landscapes and wide views, which sort of speak for themselves, as this page shows …

The work is something that's clearly ready for prime time, and a work I'd like to keep an eye out for. Brett and his co-writer Jason Thibodeaux are clearly talents to be reckoned with, and bold enough to stand out. I hope they do.

A Cougar of Planet Wilma.Also, a time to worry.

[comics] What We Saw At The First Artist Alley Comics Fest

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Southeast Portland can hide things, tuck nifty things behind other nifty things. These things are worth the effort in finding.

Comic-cons, for instance. Oh, they're there. Hidden behind awesome little comic-cafes. I give you the corner of SE Powell Boulevard and 59th Avenue, on the border of South Tabor and FoPo.

This is a building containing a hair salon (The Phix), our comix cafe (The Spritely Bean), a print shop, and a good-bad-for-you food cafe (the mighty Steakadelphia). Behind, there, you see a tent or two peeking out? Why, yes you do. Let's explore, shall we?

When we get cross the wide, wide demesne that is SE Powell Boulevard, this is what we see.

This is the First Annual Artist Alley Comics Fest, presented by The Spritely Bean and supported by some worthy supporters, one of which be +Muse Art and Design . The artist alley, as I understand it to be, is an area of a comic-con where artists set up to sell, see, be seen, and meet fans and interested people. Much goodness for sale there. Being that this is set up in the parking lot behind Spritely Bean's building, it's like being in an alley, making this a true artist alley.

Well played, SB, well played.

One of the sponsors, Muse, sent along one of their people to rep the shop. This is one of them:

The tie of the day.

… our friend Vaughn Barker.  I've told you about Vaughn, the alter-ego of Valentine Barker here: http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2015/03/pdxart-illustrator-vaughn-barkers.html, where you can go to find about about his awesomeness and his art and his general Zenitude, so he's worth your time. But this time, it's kinda about the tie.

That is one hell of a tie, man. Straight up.

The hair salon has the delightful name of The Phix. They had a backdrop up and they were showing off some of their work. We almost missed all of that pageant, as we showed a bit more than halfway through the afternoon, but we did see this fellow …

Character? Yes. Comic? No.

… who was as rockstar with his attitude as he was with his hair. Damned affable, too, as far as that goes.

Being tucked away in Southeast like it was, I was worried that there was going to be a gentle response. Adam and Huynh were taking a bit of a chance, I thought, and since I love, so far, everything they do, I was a little anxious for them.

I shouldn't have worried.

A person who's become a dear friend to me, +Donna Barr , creator of Stinz and The Desert Peach, proved that the tiny-con could work, and work well, even out at the end of the road. The Clallam Bay Comic Con, a small event, was none the less energetic, complete with dealer's room, panels, and a party. See here for her result: http://donnabarr.blogspot.com/2015/07/small-but-fierce-2015-clallam-bay.html.  The micro-cons are a boon because you can have all the creator-awesome without all the corp-overhead, and this is the sort of place where the indies can be the stars of the show.  Linework NW proved that it could shine as a vibrant smaller-sized, creator focused and driven event.

And now, AACF proves that small can be beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, and that tiny can have a big attitude. And nothing but indies! I'm going to show off individually what I got perforce, but there were big and small productions, and if you didn't come on over with a huge budget there were nifties, small comics, and things to get at a whole range of prices. There was brilliance available for a $20 and awesomness available for a $2 bill.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get as many pictures as I could. Seen and enjoyed but not pictured:

Coffee. The Spritely Bean is a coffeehouse, of course, and Adam and Huynh's fine wares were available. I enjoyed two of their divine cold brew iced coffees, bold, velvety and just the thing for the über-humid afternoon. Also, macarons! I had heard about them, trendy as they are, but I'd never had any before then. EXQUISITE! Best cookie ever. Wife asked for a Italian soda, it was mint and came back Amalfi-style … it was like drinking a York peppermint pattie.

Jake Richmond. One of my more favorite recent discoveries is Modest Medusa, by Jake Richmond. Follow that link there for the skinny on the snake girl. I got to meet Jake and had the a great chat with him. He's part of a crew of SE Portland illustrators (Including Barry Deutsch and Ben Hsu) who were there en cartel, madly creative people who do work which tends to move into your mind and live there. He has a generous spirit and talked at length with me about his creation. There was also a Chocodile, which I consumed. Modest is right … they're quite tasty.

Brett Carville. I've also written about Brett, who is another recent favorite discovery of ours and just one of the nicest guys you'd want to meet. We'd seen him at Linework and it was amazing to see him here too. I got a look at something he's doing called Life of Craig, and I'll have more to write about that in another post in a few more days.

Donna Barr proved that you could have a comic-con anywhere. Linework NW proved that if you made it all about indies, it'll have meaning and velocity.

AACF proved that if you hold it … especially in Portland … they will come.

Hail, Eris.

[comic] What We're Liking: Modest Medusa

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This one is for all the mistfits out there, or anyone who loves one. I qualify two ways there, so I'm smitten, and it's not a modest thing.

It is a Modest thing, though, and as far as that goes, meet Modest:

Just your normal 5-year-old girl, really. Loves Pokemons, Nintendo, and is a confirmed Chocodile addict. She loves manga and when she finally goes to school, is bewildered at the lack of magical girls there.  She's apprehensive about the world around her, but takes it on because, when you're five years old, what else are you going to do? She's got a mother and a father from different worlds (Dad's a vampire, Mom's a giant snake), and she finds herself in an incidental family somewhere in a place that vaguely resembles southeast Portland.

She's also a medusa. Which explains the snakey hair.

The strip, eponymously named Modest Medusa, has been running for four years now, debuting in January 2011. It traces the perambulations (if a little girl with a snake-body can be said to have such things) of a 5-year-old medusa girl who stumbles from her world into ours, rooked over here by a pair of mean-girl mermaids, and enters the world of her accidental father figure - a comic version of the artist, Portlander Jake Richmond - through his toilet.

His apartment waterlogged, he moves to another room, and as Modest stays, a completely different life. It has to be seen to be believed. In the four short years of the comic's life, it has swung between adventures heroic, fantastic and fatal and dryly humorous and banal but always with the viewpoint of a little kid just trying to figure out where she's going to fit in. Just like other little kids, her arrival causes tragic disruption (though in ways at times quite hazardous for her new friends).

Where Modest Medusa really shines out, though, is in a subtheme that's quite unexpected … and that takes the form of the reaction of the world around her. Here, the comic operates on an evolved level, because while other characters in the world do see that she is, in fact, a snake girl with snakes for hair, they seem to be little bothered by it. Like the characters in the Pooh stories who accepted Eeyore for what he was and loved him without trying to change him, adults and kids regard her as a little girl - and with her particular talent for winning friends, she soon finds some sort of place.

Jake Richmond has made her a kind of a totem for those us who just don't feel like we belong exactly anywhere but won't let that stop us. She's a fully realized character who finds herself in a world she didn't make.

I don't know about anybody else, but that speaks to me. In Modest's world, the gaze of a medusa won't turn you to stone, but she might melt your heart just a little.

GET IT: The comic is available in toto for you to read at ModestMedusa.com, (Facebook for Jake Richmond so you can be updated every MWF) and can be found in bound, very well-done book format at The Sprightly Bean comic cafe (Facebook). Jake Richmond is also part of Patreon, the website that allows people to actively support comic artists by becoming regular patrons of the artist.