Book review: Anatomy of Comics: Famous Originals of Narrative Art

Damien MacDonald. Anatomy of Comics: Famous Originals of Narrative Art. Flammarion, 2022. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/713632/anatomy-of-comics-by-damien-macdonald/9782080281876

Reviewed by Cord Scott, UMGC-Okinawa

The field of comic art has always been an extensive, albeit misunderstood or misinterpreted, one.  There have been multiple attempts to document the historical development of the field, as well as the impact or interpretation of artists and their creations.  To that end, Anatomy of Comics goes into more detail as to the connections between many different media. 

The book is a project of the la Caixa Foundation in Spain which analyzes the cultural aspect of all cultural media, from music to dance to art.  This book is a catalogue of an exhibit, Comics, Dreams and History, curated by MacDonald, which will be on display at nine different museums in Spain. That exhibition was based largely on the collection of Bernard Mahe, with contributions from various artists. The book is a natural extension of the exhibit where each subsection focuses in the intersection of different media, as well as gives examples of each theme. “Anatomy” is the overarching theme of the book though, with a cover illustration of a dissected head by Charles Burns, reproducing his cover of Metal Hurlant #120. Reproductions of original artwork illustrate the book, which is divided into five chapters of different themes, based loosely around that anatomy theme from the title. The book unfortunately does not list the media of the illustration – pen and ink, watercolor -- only the use it was put to – illustration, cover, Sunday Paper.

Section one was entitled “Tongue-in-cheek: A multi-lingual birth process.”  This section went through a discussion of how comics were created.  One quote of interest from this chapter was that the book is a “lover’s guide to the anatomy of comics, rather than a formal dissection.”  While the wording may seem somewhat disturbing, the theme of different origins and different reactions to comics is important.  There is a discussion of Winsor McCay’s work on Little Nemo in Slumberland, as well as Richard Outcault, but also that of Rudolphe Topffer whose first work was published in 1821. 

Further analysis shows how concepts such as shapeshifting characters becomes an integral part of comic book storytelling.  McCay used the concepts of shapeshifting in his work, showing a dragon acting as a carriage for a princess.  MacDonald also argues comic creators had to shift their skills from different media into the comic art process. (p. 21) He noted that originally literature was accepted in the academics’ world, while comics were often considered throwaway work, but now those same comics are studied by academics.  The first school to offer a formal scholastic program of the study of comic books was in Belgium, The Belgian Ecoles Superieures des Arts Saint-Luc in 1969. (p.25)  The shapeshifting of and changes in characters can also be a reflection of the changing persona of the creator, whether they changed their name for more work, or obscured their race or gender to gain access to the market.  It all reflected the dual-identity nature of the characters as well as the creators. 

MacDonald’s additional analysis of characters acceptable mutations as time passed and publishing options changed shows the evolution of cat-based characters from George Herriman’s Krazy Kat to the counterculture creation of Robert Crumb’s Fritz the Cat and Fat Freddy’s Cat by Gilbert Shelton. Finally, a multi-lingual approach looks at the use of idioms and slang, and he argues this was often used in American comic characters to gain immigrant readers.  This influence went both ways, and creators also added foreign concepts or language – such as Yiddish – into the American lexicon. 

Part II “The Third Ear – the onomatopoeia unleashed” dealt with cartooning as an extension of language, and also discussed the rhythm of comic art and its relation to music.  The chapter noted that some creators such as Robert Crumb or Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) created album covers that reflected their comic book origins.  Most of the early chapter centers on Will Eisner’s approach to building stories using pacing and tone akin to films to construct effective stories.  In an interview, Eisner said, “I write in onomatopoeia, which relies on instinct rather than just the conscious mind. Most of my writing is done by sound and visual.”  MacDonald takes the first part of the phrase and returns to it again and again to argue that comics creation is always a mixture of verbal and visual parts. The section includes the movement of characters via mechanical means such as airplanes.  Using Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Joe Kubert, Herge, and several others, the concept of travel and movement is explored and expanded. 

Part III “The Mind’s Eye – Mavericks, Rebels, and World-builders” starts off with a quote from Alan Moore about how the reader controls the time and pacing of comics, unlike in film, a point that has been noted by many others.  Many innovative comic creators focused on creating and showing a fantastical aspect of life that couldn’t exist in any other media, which in American comic books culminated in superheroes.  To that end, Macdonald notes that ideas espoused by Nietzsche (the idea of the Ubermensch or Supermen) were co-opted by the Nazis in the 1930s, even as Nazis came to see comic books as a form of degenerate entertainment created by Jews. MacDonald also looks at some early creators with examples of Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon and Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy.  An interesting comparison is made with relation to early films similarity to comic books. 

From this point the rest of the chapter centers on the various aspects of an idealized world presented in comic books.  From the images associated with action strips like Tarzan, Prince Valiant, and Flash Gordon, to the European concepts presented in Capitan Trueno, El Principe Encanto, and the Steel Claw, and then John Buscema’s work on many of the Marvel characters in the 1960s and 1970s.  Nods are given to Chris Ware, Phil Davis and Jesus and Pili Blasco, with the culmination of the chapter quoting from Neil Gaiman, who noted that “Batman and Superman are transcendent.  They are better than most of the stories they are in.” (p. 137) To illustrate this point, the examples are extensive and range from Hugo Pratt to Mike Mignola.

Chapter IV “Ink and Paper Sex – Underground put X in Comix” deals with the role of counterculture in society.  Robert Crumb was quoted in the beginning of the chapter and MacDonald then looks at his characters, which are explored in detail for the commentary on race, class, or society embodied in them.  Sex and sexuality are a considerable aspect of comic art from the very beginning, and MacDonald includes how gender plays a part in the medium. He states that is important to understand the time they were created in, and that “[t]oday’s sometimes severe moral judgement of underground comics lacks historical perspective.” (p.190). Additionally, the X in comix may refer to the subconscious, as well as the aspects of psychoanalysis.  Serge Tisserson’s Psychoanalysis of Comics was the first to effectively attempt to understand the meanings behind the comics.  Macdonald also noted the Wertham study and its misunderstanding of deviancy as being caused or enabled by comic books. 

Milton Caniff’s work on Terry and the Pirates and Male Call were done to accentuate the female form for a male readership.  Additionally, several examples were given of creators who pushed their work to play with concepts of sexuality, such as Frank Frazetta.  Even famed Italian film maker Federico Fellini noted that the comic books have a way of propelling the viewer in ways that the movie cannot. 

The last chapter of the book “Skeleton Key – decoding the symbolism of comics” begins with creators known for their work on expanding the world and understanding of comic art: Chris Ware and Scott McCloud.  European cartoonists such as Enki Bilal, Yves Chaland and Jean-Claude Mezieres are included and tied into changing attitudes towards mysticism and androgyny in comics as well as the world.  The last anecdote of the book dealt with a film that never was, a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, with story boards done by Moebius.  The concept had great connections across the media, from major film actors, to production backing, to music, but all to no end as it was never made but is a classic “what might have been.”  MacDonald ends by noting “Comic book making depends on low tech, ancient methods and materials: Paper and ink, but there has been an intrinsic link between cyberpunks and comics, hacker culture and sci-fi, counterculture and whistleblowers… Let’s hope may freethinking tricksters will use the tools of this medium, and invent a new symbolism that will keep the art popular, while avoiding populism. Let’s hope the dreamwork has hardly begun.” (p. 243) It connects all the chapters well.

From a historical perspective, the book offers new ideas and connections as to how different media play and use one another to push their own agenda.  The book reads as a companion to an exhibit and one gets the feel of the traveling displays.  The two biggest drawbacks to the book are significant but understandable.  First, there are no Asian examples of comic book creators.  This can be understood by being based on one man’s collection.  It should not be taken to mean that Asia has not contributed heavily to the media.

The second shortcoming of the book is that some creators may be overlooked. From an artistic standpoint, one might expect Alex Ross to be included in the book for his style of art.  In my opinion, British creators Carlos Ezquerra and Garth Ennis should also be included as their work in both scripting and illustrating materials is important to today’s comic book industry.  Overall, the book spurs the thought process of various creators and how they might be seen in a different light (Eisner’s work for the military producing educational, military cartoons comes to mind). 

In all, it is a spirited book that makes interesting connections between the realms of art, literature, music and film to name but a few of the disciplines.  It is an approach that offers a reader insight into not just creation directly, but into the connections that make the field all the richer in the long term. 

Book Review: The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series.

Reviewed by Cord A. Scott, UMGC-Okinawa

Jim Lee and Paul Mounts. The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2022. $25. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/uncanny-x-men-trading-cards_9781419757242/

One of the most important parts of the comics industry have been the merchandising offshoots going back to the very beginning with the 19^th century’s Ally Sloper or the Yellow Kid. It became particularly virulent in the era of the 1980s and 1990s when the market was expanding and more people looked at the comic book market not necessarily as ephemera but as an investment for future wealth.  As with so many aspects of speculation over items made for children, or adults attempting to recapture their childhood, it is no surprise that when the market collapsed, that many would be left holding worthless investments (at least until the next bubble). This premise of continuing interest in comics-related material that was hot, then not, is the focus of this book reproducing an entire X-men trading card series.

                For some comic book collectors from that era, myself included, these cards will remind readers of their own collections and how they may have continued or ended. The book has a foreword from Ed Piskor (X-Men, Grand Design author) who writes how the industry had morphed from the traditional aspect of comic book sales (at supermarkets or newspaper shops), to direct sales shops and how Marvel wanted to capitalize on the success of their comic book lines and sell the characters to a wider audience. Piskor noted that many collectors hitched their bets on the market for many of these items. In the moment, the reasoning was sound. Marvel was having success with the popularity of their series, and the X-Men was the most lucrative. It was a “natural” development to produce trading cards of the X-Men characters for children to collect and trade, but how to sell even more sets? To that end, the cards had to have another hook to entice adult collectors. That hook was original artwork by Jim Lee, who had established himself as a talented artist for the Marvel bullpen (leaving to become a founder of Image Comics and he is now Publisher and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics).

                Lee’s art is the driving element of this book. Each card was illustrated by Lee, and was, with few exceptions, original work. To make the potential collector even more interested, there was a statistics sheet (lifted from sports cards, but now integral to Marvel’s desktop card games), and trivia fact on the back side. All these characters were taken from the X-Men series or their offshoots over the years. As was noted by Piskor, “Jim Lee’s superpower is dynamic illustration” (p. 10). Piskor gives the reader some background on Lee’s other work from that era, Punisher: War Journal, which offered art which was more apparently more detailed than other traditional artists. The early part of the book also explains how Impel Marketing looked to expand the trading card market by starting a series of famous Marvel characters, which were sold in 1991 under the titles Marvel Universe I and Marvel Universe II. Both Impel and Marvel thought that another series might gain even more attention (i.e. money) for both companies and one Marvel series had such a depth of characters: X-Men.

Bob Budiansky, the writer of the introduction of the book, was the executive editor for Marvel special projects, which had a “catch-all” quality of any non-mainstream comic book-related items under his purview. His insights into how the series came about and the eventual inclusion of Lee’s original art are interesting reading about the creation of ephemera. Lee was asked, as was the unstated rule at the time, to not poach artists from other projects within the Marvel realm. Lee signed on knowing that he would have to create original art for the cards, despite working on more and more projects.

Budiansky begins the introduction with a brief history of the X-Men comic, from its creation by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, to its eventual end in 1970 when the company was having its financial problems, to its re-start in 1975 with new characters created to spur more sales. It was this “New” X-Men that gave the overall series new life and gained readers and success for Marvel. (Some would argue too much success, given the number of “X” titles produced both then and now). The production standards for the new cards were to be glossy to attract collectors, as well as give information and statistics to young people to spur interest in the comic books. It was also thought that some of these tidbits might gain more readers to the ever-increasing publications in the X-Men line. For the launch of X-Men volume 2, #1 in 1991, there were eight million copies sold, and this spurred on the frenzy for all things X-Men related. The series did sell well, and many thought the success would continue.

This section of the book also went into how the cards were created, and what sorts of subsets were created. For example, it was noted that card collectors were different from comic book collectors in their storage methods, using binders with plastic page with small sleeves for nine cards per page built in. This collector distinction changed the production, so that the cards were published not with ten per set, but nine, to fit the sleeve. To round it out to an even 100 cards in the series, a Danger Room montage was created with the last nine cards, and a checklist card was also created. Each package contained 6 cards. For the subsets within the sets, color coded Xs would appear in the lower right corner of the card, which denoted the team (gold and blue), red (allies), black (ex-X-Men), and villains (yellow). The back sides had to have written material that needed to be descriptive and original, including an “X-tra fact” but also be succinct enough to fit in 75 words. Lastly, Lee would personally sign some cards to be put into bonus packs, along with other limited issue items such as holographic cards. Budiansky includes some anecdotal evidence of how collectors reacted as children to the cards, which always brings a bit of life to a book of collecting items. 

The remainder of the book reproduces the entire series of cards, but apparently not all the variants included in toy packaging or comic book magazines that Budiansky describes in his introduction. In addition to the front and back of the card on consecutive pages, there are occasional production notes from colorist Paul Mounts who also worked on coloring the Lee drawings for the cards. One such notations is that for the Gambit card, the character is smoking. This simple illustration was a controversial one as the US cigarette industry was in lawsuits over the use of cartoon characters to promote smoking to children. There are in fact several cards with X-Men smoking: Gambit (p.92) Shadow King (p. 188), Mastermind (191) and Wolverine (p. 246).

Some of the characters produced for the series are old and familiar ones: Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, Magneto, Beast and Jubilee to name, but a few. Some of the characters seem wildly out of place, as they were sometimes new characters recently introduced to the X-Men series (Maverick, p. 133 is one) only to fall flat with readers who didn’t find the character compelling. Some characters such as Deadpool are far less defined then their character would evolve into. Mostly the cards center on what is became the bane of the X-Men series, and some say a central reason for the 1990s collapse of the comic book market: too many characters and teams, too many books, and too many variant covers and other gimmicks, which led to an oversaturated market. 

For example, there are some cards that deal with the various X-Men related comic teams. There is the Gold Team (Storm, Colossus, Jean Grey, Bishop, Iceman and Archangel) and the Blue Team (Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Rogue, Psylocke, and Gambit). X-Force is one that has Cable and a few other notable heroes. Excalibur was the British team. Some of the villains’ organizations come across sounding like modern terrorists or trade unions in hindsight: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Mutant Liberation Front, and the Hellfire Club. Other lesser known affiliated groups such as the Technet and the Upstarts are also included. There were some of the lesser known dead or retired Ex-X-Men, and finally the Allies of the X-Men. All these different characters and groups appealed to the hardcore readers, but they seem a bit redundant when one is trying to collect the main characters.

The last section of the book looks at the 9-part Danger Room scenario and the information associated with it, such as the power ratings and the aspects of the Danger Room. Here there was some re-printing of previous art, especially for that of Cerebro, the supercomputer. The art was taken from comic books and tweaked so that it would fit on the card. The hologram cards are also showcased. Throughout the book were commentary on how some designs were altered from the original aspect to allow for more dynamic viewing. Other comments noted the mistakes of the cards, which might make them more valuable due to passing quality control.

In all, the book was interesting in some aspects and a bit less in terms of the contribution to comic book history literature. Lee did some phenomenal illustration work, and the explanations of how the cards were presented to make the characters pop out, or otherwise become dynamic, was interesting. The side notes from Paul Blount or Ken Baroff from Impel added interest to those who might like to know trivia. And for the author of this review, it does bring back a nostalgia for the collecting from that time. However, the book also notes how the overreach beginning to be defined by X-Men comic books and derivative cards sets was the demise of the both markets in many ways. Too many variant issues and too many imprints drove the collecting market into different and unsustainable territories. If one didn’t have the money or time to purchase multiple issues due to the variant covers, eventually interest might be lost when the person decided to take their money elsewhere. When combined with the inflated prices for “rare” items, the speculation of what may make money or be valuable in time, combined with oversaturation of the market and plain old corporate greed, its easy to see where these cards may have added to the collapse of the speculator bubble in trading card and comic books.

None of this takes away from Jim Lee’s illustration work, nor does it diminish the overall book. It just reminds those collectors of that era what might have been, and what was. The book does what it was intended: it showed how one medium influenced a wider variety of merchandise to sell to possible new comic book readers as well as existing aficionados and trading card collectors.

Book review: Invisible Presence: The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics by Catriona MacLeod

 reviewed by María Márquez López, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid

Catriona MacLeod. Invisible Presence. The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics. Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2021. 260 pp. $39.95 paper, $113.50 hardbound. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/I/bo94635111.html

             

The publication of a new historiographical volume that delves into female characters and comic female authors is great news, as so far those two areas have not had the academic and editorial interest they deserve. A great deal of genealogy work remains to be done but fortunately, some researchers such as Trina Robbins (author of Pretty in Ink. North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, Fantagraphics, 2013), or Nicola Streeten & Cath Tate (The Inking Woman. 250 years of Women Cartoon and Comic Artists in Britain, Myriad Editions, 2018) have done so. It was striking though that Franco-Belgian bande dessinée (BD), a major source of great world comic classics, had not attracted the same attention from scholars. Finally Catriona McLeod has produced a vast work on this subject. All in all, this book is a great enjoyment for comics scholars.

 

The oxymoron MacLeod chooses as a title, Invisible Presence, situates the reader with respect to the analytical guidelines which confront an enormous corpus that spans over the entire 20th century and ends in the early years of the 21st century. The author, a lecturer in French studies and politics at the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP), analyzes in depth the best-known female characters of some bande dessinées (BD) such as Bécassine (1905), Barbarella (1962) or Adèle Blanc Sec (1976). She also highlights possibly less famous works with female protagonists such as Yoko Tsuno (Spirou, 1970), Valérian: agent Spatio-Temporel (Pilote, 1967), Aya de Yopougon (Gallimard, 2005) or Lulu femme nue (Futuropolis, 2008). 

 

Before going into detail about her research, the author tells the readers that what they are going to find on the following pages is, broadly speaking, a failed attempt to graphically and narratively represent a “real woman”, at least according to the BD’s authors (who are mostly male). They claim difficulty in some cases (Tronheim, Moebius), or incompatibility with certain genres such as comedy in others (Goscinny, Hergé). As MacLeod shows, sexuality is the indissoluble and key factor in female representation. Although avoided in the first decades of the 20th century, it was eventually overused in an iconographic journey where young, white, and heterosexual women are the main protagonists.

 

              The book is structured in three sections and thirteen chapters. The first section, “Primary Women Characters,” consists of four chapters which provide information on the three female characters that she feels have achieved the greatest impact on publishing industry: Bécassine, Barbarella and Adèle Blanc-Se). The analysis of Bécassine (La Semaine de Suzette, 1905), a character based on the writer’s Breton maid, Jacqueline Rivière, is quite remarkable. The BD ended up becoming a true best seller thanks to the strategy “defeminized, entirely neutralized as a potentially threatening female representation” (MacLeod, 48) although one should note that the magazine was published for a Catholic school audience. The gender perspective with which MacLeod analyzes how Barbarella (V Magazine, 1962) goes from sexual icon to stereotypical wife and mother in four albums is equally appealing. The author also highlights how Jacques Tardi gives Adéle Blanc-Sec (Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec, Casterman, 1976) an “anachronistic independence” in the middle of the 19th century penalizing her at the same time for it with severe physical abuse and a much smaller presence in her own albums than the reader could expect at first (MacLeod, 63, 72, 64).

 

              Throughout five chapters, the second section, “Secondary Women Characters,” draws attention to the lack, or at least very limited presence, of this type of character in the most successful BDs of much of the 20th century (Tintin, Les Schtroumpfs, Astérix among others). MacLeod pays special attention to three works -- Astérix, La Vie de ma mère, Le combat ordinaire -- in which the characters oscillate between de-sexualization, victimization and a new narrative strategy introduced in the 21st century by Manu Larcenet, who portrays “the evolution of women in France” in his albums (MacLeod, 137). It is also worthwhile noting in this section the chapter “Black Secondary Women in the Works of Warnauts and Raives: The Eroticization of Difference,” in which the author reflects on the successful literary trope of the interracial couple (heterosexual, white male, black female) popular in the 1990s BD. As MacLeod underlines, here we are dealing with a feminine iconography in which intersectional variables of gender, sex, race and class intersect (Crenshaw, 1989). And that complicates the Otherness (De Beauvoir, 1949) that characterized the Franco-Belgian BD until then with new signifiers from the exploitation of the longstanding stereotype of the “Black Venus” (MacLeod, 122).

 

             The third section, “Women Characters by Women Creators,” is mainly devoted to recalling the pioneering contribution made by the magazine Ah! Nana (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1976-1978) in renewing the iconography and narrative of female characters of BD. MacLeod deservedly highlights the pioneering works of Nicole Claveloux and Florence Cestac and focuses on analyzing the discourse on Odile et les Crocodiles (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1984) by Chantal Montellier. I personally do not agree with certain criticisms MacLeod made about the work of Annie Goetzinger, specifically about her Légende et réalité de Casque d’Or (Glénat, 1976). I consider the value of this work is fundamentally narrative since it shows the gender violence suffered by its protagonist without romanticizing the story (as happened in the film directed by Jacques Becker in 1952), and highlighting the strength of the character to get ahead despite a tragic life of sexual abuse at a very early age. I also disagree with the analysis of the female characters in Ah! Nana in chapter 11: “a small minority focused on women as strong and positive figures who challenge the misogynistic bias of society” (MacLeod, 162). In this sense, I consider it appropriate to contextualize the moment of production of the magazine (post-second feminist wave), when perhaps there was more need to expose injustices and reflect the structural nature of gender violence. Perhaps, if the creators of Ah! Nana had outlined very strong and empowered female characters, the French readers of the time would not have identified with them. As for the chapter “Murdering the Male Gaze: Chantal Montellier’s Odile et les crocodiles,” the discourse on the pioneering contributions of this French author  is brilliant in various ways: from the recovery of the figure of Artemisia Gentileschi in cultural imaginary (widely vindicated in the feminist sphere later), to the denunciation of sexual violence more than thirty years before the #MeToo movement or the invention of the literary trope “rape-revenge” (MacLeod, 172) now present in contemporary audiovisuals such as Promising Young Woman, or I May Destroy You. This last section ends with the chapter “Everyday Extremes: Aurélia Aurita’s Fraise et chocolat” (Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2014) that MacLeod includes as an example of the “de-eroticization of sex” (MacLeod, 184) and a female body’s representation that escapes the (heterosexual) male gaze.

 

Invisible Presence. The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics is a fundamental book for comics scholars, whether or not their research is focused on gender studies. Catriona MacLeod’s detailed analysis of BD, and its male and female authors, is a very valuable source of information especially the vast and varied descriptive level of characters, vignettes, plots and actions. So much so that a narrative thread is sometimes difficult to follow without having the image analyzed appear on the same page. Finally, I have to highlight the importance of the vindicating aspect of this volume, namely highlighting the void regarding female characters and female authors that persists in encyclopedic and historiographical volumes on BD; the difficulty of creating genealogy about 20th-century pioneering female authors, and the gaps in the creation of female characters other than by straight white women. It is also important to acknowledge and deplore, as MacLeod does, the invisibility of French female authors, such as Chantal Montellier, who, despite their enormous and interesting production, have barely been translated.