Graphic Novels: Baker's "Quality Jollity"

Dreadlocks flying as he talked, Kyle Baker easily held the audience, though none of the other speakers for the New York Comic- Con's humor panel had shown up. Story followed story about cutting his graphic teeth at Marvel and working with Hollywood: "They [Hollywood] said to me," he kvetched with rolling eyes, "'This David story—can you tone down the Israel/Palestine thing?' Hey, it's right there in the Bible…."

King David (2002) is not a humor comic, but like most of Baker's work, there's plenty of humor there. David and followers cringing in the cave where King Saul goes for a pit stop (1 Sam. 24:3) is just plain funny. Reading the holy book is rarely so vivid as working through Baker's hypercolored and lively vision with its distinctly non-Anglo-Saxon characters.

Baker's first solo graphic novel was the 1998 Cowboy Wally Show (reprinted by Vertigo), an over-the-top mockumentary of the entertainment industry through the persona of an unredeemed yet somehow likable sleazebag. The scene of Wally staging Hamlet in a prison is worth the price of the book. Published ten years later, Why I Hate Saturn (Vertigo) channels Dorothy Parkeresque wit in a drawing room/road comedy with boozehound-journalist Anne, intellectual buddy Ricky, nutso yet nurturing sister Laura, and Laura's crazier boyfriend who's out to kill her.

With the deftly plotted You Are Here (Vertigo), Baker wanted to combine comedy and action with a sense of real danger. Career criminal Noel "reforms" when he falls for lovely, New Agey Helen, and he lies to her about his background. But his past and its denizens pursue him, notably a Robert Mitchum—look alike gangster who wants revenge for a bygone romantic rivalry. I Die at Midnight (Vertigo) follows a similar pattern of action/comedy/romance but less darkly. All the titles mentioned so far are for adults.

Baker's comic masterpiece must surely be the all-ages Plastic Man (LJ 5/15/05). Taking the pliable superhero back to Jack Cole's slapstick original, he stretches the concept, literally, in hilariously inventive directions. Plastic Man morphs into vehicles, animals, furniture, a stained-glass window—even graffiti, spouting wisecracks and bad puns en route.

A proud family man, Baker couldn't resist drawing inspiration from his domestic life. The Bakers: "Do These Toys Belong Somewhere?" (see this page) gathers vignettes of nursery chaos into an appealing, all-ages title. But his most recent work breaks from comedy completely: a poignant and chilling depiction of the life and death of a rebel slave, Nat Turner (LJ 5/15/07).

Baker's stylistically versatile art is also featured in Truth: Red, White, & Black (Marvel), written by Robert Morales, which offers a disturbing alternate revisioning of Captain America's origins from exploitative experiments on African Americans, and Birth of a Nation (Crown), a comical race-relations sociopolitical satire from Aaron McGruder and Reginald Hudlin.

Baker uses the logo "Quality Jollity" for his work, an apt description that yet does not go far enough. He has won at least 16 awards, including Eisners, Harveys, and Glyphs; and Plastic Man: Rubber Bandits was picked for YALSA's 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens. For reviews, news, and video clips, check out www.kylebaker.com.

Two harried parents and their three adorably unmanageable preschoolers star in this color collection of gags and vignettes self-published by the artist. It recalls Bil Keane's Family Circus, except this family is less apple-pie-angelic and a whole lot funnier. Baby Jackie spits up in Daddy's mouth as he dandles her overhead. Daddy yells at little Lil to box up her mess of toys—then retreats to his equally junky studio. "Master Ike's Toddler Self-Defense" is a delicious parody of martial arts zen-speak, as describing a stubborn youngster. When Lil's lost baby tooth goes missing, Dad crafts a substitute to put under her pillow, only to be caught later in playground one-upmanship about whether the Tooth Fairy likes rich kids better. Baker draws in various styles, and his more cartoony approach here delivers a visceral and consistently comical appeal. Just the kind of book to slip into the hands of that new parent dealing with diapers and whining. For all ages.—M.C.

In Re-Gifters, fiery Korean teen Dixie woos hapkido dojang—mate Adam with an expensive gift, but Adam's heartthrob is glam-girl Megan. Meanwhile, Dixie's fighting spirit gets the attention of school bad boy, loan shark, and bookmaker Tomas, a.k.a. Dillinger. Affections change as the gift changes hands, and when Adam tries to get Dixie to throw the hapkido championship, Dixie is ready to respond to Tomas's real affection and support despite his reputation. This delightful martial arts romantic comedy shows fine plotting, simpatico characters, and fluid, manga-influenced art. The Plain Janes tells a more complex and darker tale with plainer, Dan Clowes—style art. Caught in a terrorist attack, high schooler Jane changes hair, mindset, and—compelled by her frightened parents—city and school. Spurning the in-crowd, she recruits other outcast Janes to stage guerilla-style art attacks, tagged P.L.A.I.N.: People Loving Art in Neighborhoods. The hyperparanoid authorities are not amused, but P.L.A.I.N. wins over most of the other kids. The premise is intriguing, relevant, and disturbing, even as the resolution leaves more questions. When is an art attack sabotage, graffiti, or vandalism? How can people reinvent their lives despite fear? DC's new Minx line promises eclectic, real-world stories that honor girls' intelligence and assertiveness, and these two titles deliver. Recommended for teens up.—M.C.

In this inner-city supernatural adventure, gifted teen rapper Blak must discover his true self and his superpowers. On one side beckons shady rap-and-drug broker Bloko and the fly lifestyle; on the other side, the spirit of Blak's wiser older brother plus his homies, seeress Rosetta, and maybe-girlfriend Essence—herself no mean rhymer either. Then there's the seriously hazardous constellation of surrounding lowlifes—the Wild Dawgs gang, rap rival Vulture, and badass supercop Claw. The fresh, skillful take on the coming-of-age theme features vivid characters, an intense story line, and vibrantly moody and glowing colors. Blak's multinuanced descent into the sewers (i.e., hell) is especially memorable. The dialog is current, with plenty of sharp rap lyrics, and the strong (partly dingbatted) language is appropriate to plot and setting. Some eye-candy ladies but no sex, and the violence is not graphic. A short glossary decodes street slang like "fly": "aesthetically pleasing to the eye; to wear attractive and/or expensive new clothes." One of the few mainstream graphic novels to speak to hip-hop culture, Blokhedz introduces a young hip-hop superhero into the timeless battle of good vs. evil. Recommended for teen collections, especially in urban libraries. Volume 2 is due in the fall.—M.C.

Originally published in 1950 as the first of only two books in St. John Publications' short-lived black-and-white "Picture Novels" series for adults, this pulpy tale of greed, intrigue, and corruption now stands as a pioneering early graphic novel. Down-and-out newspaperman Hal Weber is summoned to Copper City by Rust, a woman who left him ten years before, only to discover that she is now the unmourning widow of wealthy and corrupt business and political boss Buck Masson. Set up by the scheming, cold, and seductive Rust as editor of a paper that supposedly opposes the Masson organization but is secretly owned by it, Hal becomes her pawn in a power struggle for control of the Masson machine. But Rust's idealistic stepdaughter Audrey opposes all that Rust stands for and makes her own appeal to Hal, who falls for her. Torn between two women's charms, Hal must decide which path to take. With crime drama, gorgeous women (courtesy of artist Baker), and unconvincing emotional flip-flops on the parts of Hal and Audrey, this plays like a B-movie on paper, with melodramatic captions taking the place of swelling music. It's more curio than classic, but comics historians will welcome this reissue.—S.R.

For a group of disillusioned Vietnam vets, isolationist utopia in a hidden West Virginia valley is "like heaven"—for a time. But small problems grow larger as the valley children mature and dreams dissolve into violence and flames. When a man tries to escape from the valley to join his estranged wife, he accidentally kills a town teen and is horribly executed by tough-ass leader John for violating the town's isolationist "agreement." Then two state troopers show up, and John kills them also. In a cat-and-mouse game in the underground mine, it's John's son, young John, who leads the other teens to escape and bring help for the rest of the town when the mine starts burning. This thriller combines dark and edgy psychodrama infusing the coming-of-age theme with a blurring of the usual good vs. evil clichés. There are no bad guys—only good intentions gone terribly over the edge. The sketchy art and ocher-crimson coloring evoke a lifestyle badly frayed and heading for disaster. The underpinnings of teens vs. parents and idealism vs. ethics make the title a good bet for classroom use. Strong language; recommended for older teens up in public and academic libraries.—M.C.

In Vögelein: Clockwork Faerie, Irwin introduced the title character, a winged doll who was crafted by a watchmaker in late 17th-century Germany and somehow came to life. Since her creator's death, she has lived with a series of guardians, but as this wonderful second volume begins, she is enjoying a newfound semi-independence in urban America, with her street-cleaner friend, Ezrael, pointing her to people she can trust to wind her each day so that she doesn't run down. Opening with a remarkable and unconventional flying sequence, this volume deals with Vögelein's long-buried guilt and remorse surrounding the death of her first guardian, Alexi, a Romani (or Gypsy) trader, to whom she made a promise she couldn't keep. She confides her turmoil to one of her new friends—a kind, itinerant musician named Mason who reminds her of Alexi—and together they search for a proper way to honor Alexi's memory. Meanwhile, one of Mason's neighbors, an artist, has discovered Vögelein's existence and plots to trap her. Irwin's black-and-white painted artwork has a naturalistic feel and some beautiful designs, and her handling of emotions is nuanced and affecting. Recommended for all collections, for teens and adults.—S.R.

This nicely designed hardcover, a reprint of a book first published by the long-defunct Kitchen Sink, reprints every Sunday installment of the first Batman newspaper strip. With art and stories by many of the same creators working on the Batman comic books of the time, including Kane, Bill Finger, and Charles Paris, these well-reproduced full-color strips feature the same enjoyable mix of action, adventure, detective work, and touches of humor as the more well-known comic books, with better art than the comic books, sometimes featured. Many of the same villains are here as well, including the Joker, Catwoman, and the Penguin. Bonus material takes the form of biographies of the creators, examples of later Batman newspaper strips, and a very interesting essay on superheroes by Alvin Schwartz, scripter of many of the strip's episodes. Sterling has also published a volume collecting Kitchen Sink's three books of the strip's daily installments (Batman: The Dailies 1943–1946), as well as two matching books of Superman newspaper strips (Superman: Sunday Classics 1939–1943; Superman: The Dailies 1939–1942). All four are bargains and recommended for all libraries where there's an interest in golden age comics.—S.R.

Bouncy Chinese waif Mingchao heads for Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. Since this is an alternative 1890s American West, she's packing a gun—a mystical "Eto gun" from her late grandfather that shoots bullets in the form of animals of the Chinese zodiac. Naturally, she accumulates adventures, sidekicks including an Indian girl with a "Zodiac gun," and bad guys after both guns. It turns out that the bad guys are running opium, and the baddest of the lot is the malevolent matriarch Cavanaugh. Is Mingchao's priest friend, Baskerville, in cahoots with Cavanaugh and the opium syndicate? This goofy nine-volume frontier melodrama abounds in fingernail-biting danger for our heroine and climaxes with a major shoot-out in the head of the Statue of Liberty, no less. All ends happily, and Mingchao cheerfully resumes her trek to Hollywood with Baskerville as bodyguard. The lively art combines realistic backgrounds with humorously cartoony characters and conveys the picaresque action quite well. The Japanese title, Etosetora, is probably a pun on the Eto gun. Rated for ages 10+, but better for teens because of the violence—there is no sexual content or fan service. An enjoyable romp for older readers also.—M.C.

First-time graphic novelist Petersen scores right away with this anthropomorphic medieval fantasy. After the war with the weasels, the Mouse Guard, headquartered at the fortress of Lockhaven, turned their energies to protecting travelers from predators in between the mice's hidden villages. When three of the Guard—Lieam, Kenzie, and the brash, young Saxon—are sent to find a missing rice merchant, they uncover a plot to overthrow Lockhaven's mistress, Gwendolyn, and replace the aid and support she provides to the villages with tyranny. Worse, they discover that rebellion's leader is himself a Guard member. The key to victory or defeat for the Guard rests in the legend of an ancient mouse hero, the Black Axe. Petersen's characterizations could be more fleshed out, but his world-building is impressive. His greatest strength is his gritty, gorgeously colored renderings of local flora and the animals themselves, including a fearsome snake and attacking crabs. His mice can be considered cute, but they're fierce warriors. Some blood in the battle scenes will keep this out of the hands of the youngest children, but audiences ages ten to adult will likely be drawn in and eagerly await future volumes. Recommended for all collections.—S.R.

A classic "girls with guns" manga, the original 1990s nine-volume series follows two winsome Chicago gun-shop owners and bounty hunters. Half Native American Rally is a dead shot and skilled street fighter, while tiny former—child prostitute Minnie-May specializes in explosives. With wild action, shoot-'em-outs, masterfully depicted car chases, and more than occasional sexual content, the series retains lighthearted appeal despite a high body count and brutal villains like wily mobster Bonnie, who fits her prosthetic leg with a machine gun. The first volume of this new unflipped edition reprints original Volumes 1, 2, and half of 3. In the new series, Burst, Rally confronts a fugitive who has headed into the Texas outback to pick up hidden mob money. After three mobsters intervene and take off with the cash, Rally, the fugitive, and mobsters' driver-for-hire "Bean Bandit" form an uneasy alliance. When all parties end up at a roadside inn, allegiances shift as fast as pages turn as Rally fights for custody of the fugitive, the innkeeper fights for her family's lives, and everybody else fights for the money. Things get even rougher when Rally learns her beloved car has been stolen for use in a terrorist attack. Sonoda's interest in cars and guns shows in detailed renderings and informative extras. For adult thriller fans.—M.C.

Superman and Batman have a long history of working together, and this enjoyable volume collects some of their most notable team-ups. It opens with their very first pairing from 1952, in which the heroes accidentally learn each other's secret identities while on a cruise. Four of the duo's most memorable adventures from 1950s and 1960s issues of World's Finest Comics follow, full of unself-conscious fun, exemplified by the story of the Composite Superman, a villain who gains the powers of the entire Legion of Super-Heroes, dons a costume that is half Superman's and half Batman's (split vertically down the middle), and sets out to humiliate both heroes. After decades of camaraderie, the pair's 1986 first encounter in DC Comics' new, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity finds them wary and untrusting of each other, but they bond again in a 1999 tale in which they share personal tragedies. The final story is a postmodern parody of the first, set in the Bermuda Triangle. Artists include Curt Swan, Neal Adams, and John Byrne, while Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale provide a short vignette on young Bruce Wayne's trip through Smallville when Clark Kent was a boy. Great for DC Comics fans; recommended for all collections.—S.R.

The histories en estampes (picture stories) published from 1833 to 1845 by Swiss writer and educator Topffer are important precursors to the modern graphic novel; a pirated edition of one of them, published in New York in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, is often regarded as the first American comic book. This volume is the first complete collection of Topffer's comics works, ably translated and annotated by Kunzle (History of the Comic Strip: The Nineteenth Century). Originally intended to amuse himself and his students and told in lively illustrations and narrative captions without dialog (and hence without word balloons), Topffer's stories are primarily freewheeling farces spiced with fantasy elements, formal invention, and social and political satire. They involve caricatured heroes such as social climber Monsieur Jabot and lepidopterist Monsieur Cryptogame in ever-escalating series of absurd adventures and complications. Kunzle provides historical and biographical context for the works in his simultaneously published companion volume, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Topffer (Univ. Pr. of Mississippi). While definitely more accessible, even riotous, than their remove from the present might suggest, Topffer's comics are unlikely to draw a large audience of modern comics fans. But this volume and its companion are essential for comics scholars.—S.R.

Anyone doubting the wide, wild variety in graphic novels will be set straight by Pawuk's massive guide, with plot summaries for over 2400 titles organized by genre, subgenre, and theme. Icons identify award winners, core titles, reading levels, and media tie-ins. There are author, illustrator, and title indexes plus a short subject index. Appendixes list additional sources of information and major comics publishers, and an introduction in comics format gives brief general information about graphic novels and adding them to library collections. Note that this is a genre guide, not a comprehensive book on graphic novels in the library, and the focus is on titles popular with readers, winning critical acclaim, or considered classics. The list is not a guarantee of "safe" or "clean" content, and while age levels are provided, annotations do not include details about sexual content, nudity, graphic violence, or strong language. Moreover, Pawuk does not "rate" the titles—inclusion is intended to imply "acceptable for library collections." (The icons for "core title" and "award winner" may be used as rating indicators.) Pawuk is a public services librarian at Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., OH, and has organized and participated in graphic novel panels at ALA and comics conventions. Highly recommended for readers' advisory functions and for collection development. Aficionado patrons can also use it to broaden their reading.—M.C.

The amount of Japanese manga available in English has become truly staggering, and this excellent comprehensive encyclopedia fills a major need. It contains entries for over 1000 series and stand-alone manga volumes translated into English, including suspended and out-of-print publications, bilingual manga published in Japan, and American periodical comics series never collected in book form. (Manga-influenced works from the United States, Korea, and elsewhere are not featured.) Each entry encompasses basic citation information, an age rating, a one-paragraph review, and a quality ranking from zero to four stars. Many reviews are by former Viz editor Thompson; two dozen other reviewers also contribute. Yaoi and explicit adult manga are segregated into separate sections after the main alphabetical listings. Thirty-eight thematic entries cover such genres and topics as science fiction, mystery, magical girls, dojinshi, and transgender stories, often noting untranslated classics but including extensive lists of English examples. A glossary, bibliography, artist index, and good introductory material round out the volume. An extensive sample reveals only a few minor instances of incomplete information. Any fan will disagree with some of the star rankings, but this volume—highly useful for reference, readers' advisory, and collection development—is strongly recommended for all libraries.—S.R.

CORRECTION: In the print 5/15/07 column introduction, p.73, Maison Ikkoku should have been listed as having 15 volumes.

Reviewers Needed: Library Journal is looking for reviewers in both graphic novel and manga formats, in all genres, for the web-only Xpress Reviews section. If you are interested, please email the following information: name, affiliation, contact information, areas of graphic novel/manga interest, titles that you are currently following, and a writing sample to Ann Kim, Special Projects & Graphic Novels Editor, akim@reedbusiness.com.