Billy Graham
Selected Works: Essential Luke Cage/Power Man Vol. 1, Marvel Masterworks: Black Panther

Billy Graham is an art monster. He helped define Luke Cage for the first sixteen issues of Hero for Hire and he worked on what is still the best Black Panther story of all time: Don McGregor’s Panther’s Rage. Prior to that, he worked at Warren and banged out some perfectly solid horror comics work.

This guy draws great comics, with a Gene Colan’s figurework meets Jack Kirby’s explosive action sort of thing going on. He has these wonderfully proportioned and fairly realistic figures doing insane Kirby judo throws and flips. Characters have genuine facial expressions, often exaggerated for effect but still reasonable, and idealized bodies. Graham can even draw people of different races without descending into caricature, a gift that some modern artists can’t even match.

More than that, though, is that Graham’s art is raw. There’s this looseness or roughness that make his pages really interesting. They aren’t unfinished or lacking in detail, but the detail they do have is rendered in a way I don’t see too often. His work is chunky and scratchy, and I always feel like if you could wipe away the color, you’d see pencils that were worthy of being shot straight from the board.

Graham’s Kirby-influenced realism was vital for both Cage and Panther at the time, I’d say. The two books depicted a Marvel universe that varied from being even more street level than Amazing Spider-Man to being about half as cosmic as Fantastic Four. Graham’s art split the difference. Cage and Panther were both grounded, but not so grounded that they couldn’t expand into more comic book-y situations. If you look at something like Daredevil, which has been banging the Early ’80s Frank Miller Drum for entirely too long now, you see a series that has been defined and limited to one style. Graham was just street level and cosmic enough to make everything work.

two men stand, one’s gotta go
created: In the truck with the windows down–why is he playing Beanie Sigel?

–Black History Month piece. Long story short: Black History matters. Knocking it out in 350 words or less this month.

–Cat Shit One looks great. Weird that they didn’t call it Apocalypse Meow, but I figure that name is both basically unknown and out of date, since CSO isn’t in Vietnam.

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one falls down to the ground
consumed: I broke a tooth! Not even a cool chip on the front teeth that gives me roguish charm, just a straight up broken tooth that no one will see until it gets infected and kills me in my sleep. Did y’all know there are dentists that are closed Fridays? Anyway, in and out this week, cause I got so much trouble on my mind. Next week will be back to biz as usual.

–The Realist is genuinely amazing.

–Jeff Parker and Erika Moen’s Bucko is off to a good start.

–Kyle Baker interview

–Jog talking Ditko is great. Ditko’s a guy I love for Amazing Spider-Man more than anything else. I need to branch out into his other work sometime soon.

–This Archaia book Cyclops, by Matz & Luc Jacamon, caught my eye. Anyone read it? Or The Killer? They sound ill, but you know, floppies these days. I’d rather cop trades or digitally, but that brings an entirely different set of problems (space, mainly).

–Money Making Jam Boys mixtape! Black Thought, Dice Raw, Truck North, Sugar Tongue Slim, and PORN? I’m there.

-For everyone interested in Catherine, and I hope that’s everyone here, the demo is live on the Japanese PSN on PS3. This is a good tutorial to get your free account made. I downloaded it on Sunday (I think?), but haven’t found time to play it yet, ugh. This weekend fa sho.

–Persona 3 Portable is on sale on PSN right now. Twenny bucks. Looks like P3P slipped out of stock (out of print?) on Amazon, too, so get on that if you haven’t.

-Shaky Kane and David Hine’s Bulletproof Coffin is finally complete on Comixology. Two bucks each? I think? Click.

-I like this post about Egypt.

-I really enjoyed this look at Memphis Bleek’s career. At the same time, I dunno if I’m gonna download the mixtape.

–This bit about the future of bandes dessinées in the US was neat. My only request for the future of BD over here is “more please.”

–Jack Davis Flickr motherlode.

-I’ve been playing Final Fantasy Tactics and NBA 2k11 exclusively. Gotta get back to P3P in a couple weeks and see about writing a little bit.

-When Sean Witzke talks about movies, you just need to sit and listen.

-I’ve been bumping Yelawolf’s Trunk Muzik 0-60 all morning. It’s good. I wish the “I Wish” remix was on it, but hey, it’s still ill. And I know I talked about that joint a couple weeks ago, but it sticks with me.

-“Au contraire mon frere one pure pain giver/ Don’t ingest this, it might cause corrosion of the liver”

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one walks down to the road
David: Rap music and britpop i guess
Esther: Whatever comics people read when they go on vacation!
Gavin: Azrael 17, Secret Six 30, Time Masters Vanishing Point 6, Invincible 77, Irredeemable 22, Daken Dark Wolverine 5, Deadpool & Cable 26, Hulk 29, Ozma Of Oz 4, She-Hulks 4, Ultimate Comics Thor 4

Matt Baker
Selected Works: It Rhymes With Lust, Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour (forthcoming)

Matt Baker’s another creator whose name I’d heard in passing but never realized was black until a couple years ago. C’est la guerre, right?

Baker’s a master of good girl art. There’s the obvious, of course–pretty girls in comics are great as a general rule. But on top of that is something a little less obvious. Drawing pretty girls isn’t as simple as heaving bosoms, full lips, big butts, and pokey nipples. You can’t just draw smiles and long legs. You need to be able to draw grins and gams. Skintight clothes are all well and good if you’re lazy, but good artists will throw in fantastic looking dresses, interesting heels, great hats, fabulous hair, and a good sense of humor. What’s more–no two women will wear the same outfit. Proper good girl art requires a certain level of skill that simple T&A-centric art doesn’t.

Baker had all of it down pat. His Phantom Lady work is top notch, as goofy as it is sexy and heinously violent. There’s another strip of his that I like called Canteen Kate. Kate worked with a bunch of Marines, and her stories are somewhere between Milton Caniff’s Male Call and I Love Lucy. It’s all slapstick and goofy pratfalls, but it’s enjoyable.

Baker knew what he was doing, and he excelled at it. The thing is, good girl art is good for comics, period. It shows an attention to detail that needs to be present to make good comics art. Look at how John Romita turned Amazing Spider-Man into the most exciting romance comic ever, due at least in part to some good girl stylings. You can’t hack this stuff out or else people will get bored.

I could look at Matt Baker’s work all day long.

Jackie Ormes
Selected Works: PattyJo ‘n’ Ginger, Torchy Brown, but the only thing you’ll find in print is Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist by Nancy Goldstein

I don’t know half as much about Jackie Ormes as I wish I did. I was introduced to her by Cheryl Lynn and her Ormes Society. This essay by Karen Green helped quite a bit, too. (I also bit the images from there.)

I like that what Ormes represents as a person is reflected in the content of her strips. She slipped a certain level of biting commentary into her work, but coded for people in the know. It’s an affirmation that someone else feels the same way you do and has noticed the same things you have. If you’ve ever been in public and seen something scandalous go down and then lock eyes with someone else and know you’re thinking the same thought–that’s the feeling I get from the strip about the white tea-kettle whistling at the little girl.

Ormes’s work is, for lack of a better phrase, aggressively normal. Part of overcoming a four hundred year head start is proving that you’re just as much of a normal person as everyone else. In her strips, black kids are just as smart as white ones, black families are equal to whites, and people do groundbreaking things like “have regular relationships” and “tell jokes.” Her work outside of comics reflects that normalcy, too. She had dolls made of her characters, and took part in campaigning for social issues and supporting her community.

Herriman and Ormes are both icons of black comics, as far as I’m concerned. Herriman was there and worked at a point in time where I didn’t think there were any black people working in comics, much less legends of the craft. Ormes provides a valuable counterpoint to the frankly crap portrayal of blacks in mainstream books, in addition to emphasizing the normalcy of black citizens. I just wish more of her work was in print, but that doesn’t seem too likely.

George Herriman
Selected Works: Krazy & Ignatz 1916-1918: “Love in a Kestle or Love in a Hut”, Krazy & Ignatz 1925-1926: “There is a Heppy Land Furfur A-waay”

Last year, I discovered All-Negro Comics and was stunned to find that there were comics created by and for black people in the ’40s. This past year, I finally started paying attention to George Herriman, and my mind was blown once again. Herriman’s Krazy Kat was #1 on The Comics Journal‘s list of 20th century American comics and is widely loved by what seems to be everyone ever. The Ignatz Awards at Small Press Expo are named after the mouse from Krazy Kat. If you take a look at the history of comics, there’s a black guy right there in the early days. That’s wild, and it somehow never really settled in my mind. I didn’t just hear about Herriman, but somehow, the fact that he was black never managed to settle in my head.

Krazy Kat, though. I burned through 1916-1918, and for strips that are pushing 100 years old, they’ve aged fantastically well. I wasn’t expecting to see Herriman playing with panel layouts or having non-clunky dialogue with clever wordplay. The language is really what hooked me, even with how much I like how Herriman experiments with layouts and formula. Krazy mumbles and rambles, building a complex world of words that sit just to the left of ours. Herriman throws “quotes” around seemingly random terms, just like Kirby did. There’s even a bit of Brian Azzarello-esque wordplay at work in certain strips, like the vagrant William Bee, alias “Bum Bill.”

I’ve been losing faith in the mainstream’s ability to appeal directly to black readers, but Herriman serves as a reminder that there has almost always been an alternative. When something isn’t floating your boat, it’s time to find another something.

-Esther reads Joss Whedon’s Buffy!
-I read Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys!
-Both series can be massively unsatisfying.
-They can also be very entertaining.
-So we’re talking about examples of both, and why the downsides sometimes outweigh the upsides.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

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Back from watching the biggest, sexiest Royal Rumble, it’s now time for me to post a bunch of panels before passing out. Lots and lots of help from David, Was Taters, Space Jawa and VersasoVantare. Let’s get to it!

Action Comics #897
Paul Cornell and Pete Woods

Avengers #9
Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr.

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Tonight is the 2011 Royal Rumble, which has some meaning to me as the 91 Rumble twenty years ago was my first wrestling PPV after having started following it. Since I’ve talked the Royal Rumble to death here, I thought I’d just post something to pass the time for those getting ready for the show to begin. From the end of 1991, this is a 20-man battle royal taking place in England. Not only is it decently booked, but it’s got a pretty good roster of names in it.

– Animal
– The Barbarian
– Big Boss Man
– “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan
– Earthquake
– Ric Flair
– Hawk
– Hercules
– Marty Jannetty
– Brian Knobbs
– Shawn Michaels
– The Mountie
– “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
– Paul Roma
– Jerry Sags
– Tito Santana
– “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith
– Typhoon
– The Undertaker
– “The Texas Tornado” Kerry Von Erich

Well, a good roster other than Paul Roma. Enjoy.

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Visit his Flickr and buy whatever you see that has his name on it. He draws some of the best girls in comics.

In contrast to the wackness from the other day, here are some people who understand the internet:

-Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover’s Gingerbread Girl is going to be serialized online for free before being collected into a trade. You can preorder Gingerbread Girl or check it out on Top Shelf 2.0. Why is this cool? No particular order: 1) It’s free, which is always a nice price. 2) These are two extremely talented creators doing creator-owned work 3) Top Shelf 2.0 is nice and easy to use.

–Young Justice is DC’s latest stab at a cartoon and it seems pretty okay. I watched the first two and thought it would be something good to binge on when they get like ten episodes down. I don’t have cable, though, which puts me at a disadvantage for watching it. BUT. Episodes go up on Amazon either the same night or the next morning after they air. Here’s a link to “Independence Day, Part 1”, the first episode of the season. It’s three bucks per HD episode or slightly less if you buy a season pass, which will also download episodes for you automatically. I like this, and I like that they’re not fooling around with idiotic delays or exclusivity. If you want to watch it, you can kick Amazon three dollars and watch it. Three bucks adds up over time, but taken in short doses? Easy as pie. All TV shows should do this.

-I wanted to check out that new Sherlock show, but paying seven bucks an episode for a show I’ve never seen, movie-length or not, seems like a bit much to do all at once. I looked up Luther, though, because Idris Elba is that dude and I’d heard that it was great. News flash: Luther is $0.99 per episode in HD, which makes it six whole dollars for the entire first season. Yes: this is good. Probably not sustainable, but if you want to talk about impulse purchases, this is how you do it. Price it lower to sell more.

–Cat Shit One is coming to Youtube for free for two full weeks on Feb 5th, for at least one episode. This story of animals fighting in the MIddle East has had my attention for months now, and this release is great. Skip the first 1:15 of that video (it’s some dumb toy) and flick it over to display in 720p. It looks great, and I can’t wait to see it. If it ends up getting a digital release via Amazon or iTunes, I’m kicking money their way.

–Skottie Young released The Adventures of Bernard the World Destroyer digitally for only two dollars. Bought it sight unseen. Young’s art is dope, and I’m curious to see how he swings when he does creator-owned.