“The look of a ghost with ashes in her shoes.” Review of Leela Corman’s Victory Parade by Hélène Tison

Review by Hélène Tison

Leela Corman. Victory Parade. New York:  Pantheon Graphic Library, 2024. $29.00. ISBN 9780805243444. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/552601/victory-parade-by-leela-corman/

“The look of a ghost with ashes in her shoes.”

Leela Corman is a warm, lively, funny and very serious person – much like her work as a cartoonist, from Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012), her Eisner-nominated graphic novel about life in New York City’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century, to her collections of short fiction and nonfiction You Are Not A Guest (Field Mouse Press, 2023) and We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Planet, 2016), to her new graphic novel Victory Parade (to be published by Schocken/Pantheon in April 2024) which is described on her website as “a story about WWII, women's wrestling, and the astral plane over Buchenwald.” To which one could add such prominent themes as migration and diaspora, racism and antisemitism, brutal social hierarchies, authoritarianism, predatory patriarchy and sexual exploitation, and the many grey areas of life, including in the country that some consider to be “the world’s greatest democracy.”

Corman’s art is striking. She has been working with watercolor for about a decade now, a technical and aesthetic choice that underscores the sensory or haptic quality of this entirely hand-made graphic novel (apart from the lettering – cf. my upcoming interview). It creates a sense of intimacy with the characters, enables the reader to feel the tenderness of the author not only for her protagonists, but also for the survivors and the dead that haunt the concentration camp – and the Jewish American soldier who has returned to civilian life. Her work is beautiful, but not beautifying: as discussed in the interview, Corman presents us with a cast of de-idealized and highly expressive figures.

Corman does a lot of research for her graphic stories, and Victory Parade, which could be described as part fantasy and part historical novel, is no exception: it is full of references, both visual and narrative, not only to the events, but also to the culture and arts of the time, such as Germany’s Bauhaus and New Objectivity, the musicals of Busby Berkeley, propaganda posters or period beer cans. It is also informed by Corman’s family history.

 

Fig. 2 - Victory Parade, page 95. © Leela Corman 2023

As in Unterzakhn, the female characters in Victory Parade are resourceful and impressively powerful – indeed Ruth, the wrestler, is something of a superhero – but as a social group, they are rather low in the hierarchy. This is reflected in the very structure of the book, which first focuses on women (Rose the welder and her colleagues; her daughter Eleanor; Ruth/Rifche, a young Jewish refugee from Germany who lives with Rose), who are central to the story as they are to the war industry for a while – until the soldiers come home, the women are sent back to the kitchen, and Sam (the husband Rose doesn’t love) comes home after having participated in the liberation of Buchenwald, and takes center stage in the narrative. With the exception of the several scenes where Rose and her lover George share intimate and tender moments, sexuality is generally conflictual or predatory in Victory Parade: the book opens on a scene of sexual harassment, and it is ubiquitous, violent and ultimately deadly for Roses’s friend Pearl – as it is, indirectly, for Ruth who was sexually exploited as a child in Germany.

It is fascinating to read Victory Parade in light of Corman’s autobiographical and nonfiction work, which brings to light the more specific and personal meaning of a number of details, images, and symbols. In her graphic narratives, trauma is embodied in the figure of falling, drowning or immersed women who are alternately crushed, distraught, sinister, or empowering – just as nature, the forest in particular, is an ambivalent space, “a place of trauma as much as refuge” (You Are Not A Guest, p. 3). Traumatic loss and multigenerational trauma run through Corman’s autobiographical stories, as in “Yahrzeit” (in We All Wish For Deadly Force, unpaginated), in “Blood Road,” where the figure of the artist braces herself for “an epigenetic storm” as she plans to visit Buchenwald (You Are Not A Guest, p. 22) and in the story that gives the 2023 collection its name, when she visits the Polish town where many of her ancestors were murdered in 1942. In those stories – as is the case for Victory Parade’s Ruth who is described by another character as having “the look of a ghost with ashes in her shoes” (36) – trauma is often impossible to articulate, but it doesn’t go away, it persists as hallucination, after-image, as specters or the undead, limbs and bodies hiding in the woods, coming out of the ground or the sky who accompany, soothe, or bully, Leela Corman’s characters. And so, in the last section of Victory Parade, she addresses, in painful and tender detail, the central trauma running through the generations in her maternal family, and in many others – the Holocaust.

The manner in which she chooses to address it, in a thirty-page episode focusing on the so-called “liberation” of a camp by young, unprepared American soldiers, points to a central trope in the book, indeed, in its very cover: the coexistence of two unimaginably opposed experiences, two continents, one ravaged by brutal, genocidal war and another whose people were far from unconcerned or uninformed, but where ordinary life did not change drastically. The superimposition is symbolized in the uncanny figure of the skull-faced pin-up in a pink bathing suit, legs dangling above a pile of corpses; smoking and blowing toxic, deadly-looking fumes that form the background to the word “Victory,” she puts its antiphrastic quality into relief.

The “victory” announced by Harry Truman on May 8, 1945 (we see Rose listening to his speech on the radio, p. 119) is bitter in the narrative as well: not only does it signal the end of Rose’s relative freedom, but it also heralds the end of innocence or ignorance, the revelations of the extent of Nazi horrors, the confirmation of the fates of relatives left behind in Europe… The antiphrasis is also a comment on political hypocrisy and cynicism, exemplified by that very same speech, in which Truman promises to “build an abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law,” mere weeks before giving the order to launch atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although that episode is left out, its “off-frame” presence is hard to miss, and is confirmed (again, elliptically) in the concluding quote by Japanese photographer Shōmei Tōmatsu.

After the preceding paragraphs, it may come as a surprise to read that Victory Parade is not devoid of humor – humor which is neither gratuitous nor mere comic relief, as when Corman offers her readers moments of unexpected, highly political and very dark comedy. She not only dares to tackle Nazi concentration and extermination camps, a topic which is notoriously hard to do right, without trivializing or sensationalizing one of the worst episodes in human history. But, in the mode of Roberto Benigni’s controversial 1997 film Life Is Beautiful, she dares to do so in a passage that she calls the “Busby Berkeley death scene,” (p. 172) superimposing the camp and the type of light, extremely popular entertainment that came out of Hollywood throughout the war years.

Leela Corman’s graphic novels are both historical and topical – in Unterzakhn, before Roe was overturned, she reminded her readers of the reasons why access to abortion is a matter of life and death; today, with Victory Parade, she wants us to remember what tyrannical supremacy and the murderous maligning of the racial Other actually mean – and warns us against going on with our lives as though nothing were amiss while the humanity of others is being denied.

Hélène Tison is associate professor at the University of Tours (France) and is the author of

Female Cartoonists in the United States: Bad Girls and Invisible Women (Routledge, 2022).

 

Read Dr. Tison's interview with Leela Corman.

Book Review: Matthias Lehmann's Parallel

reviewed by Lizzy Walker, Wichita State University

Matthias Lehmann. Parallel. Oregon: Oni Press, 2023. 452 pages, $29.99 9781637151006. https://oni-press.myshopify.com/products/parallel

 

            Translated from German into English for the first time by Ivanka Hahnenberger, Matthias Lehman's Parallel presents the story of Karl Kling, a gay man living in 1980s Germany. He is struggling to reconnect with his estranged daughter through a letter he wants to send to her. Lehmann presents Karl's story in two timelines. One timeline is in the 1980s before the Berlin Wall coming down and Germany’s reunification, shortly after Karl had retired from his job. The second timeline is during 1950s postwar Germany, after Karl has returned from his time in the German army. The story presents Karl's struggle to conform to familial expectations and social conventions, keeping his sexuality hidden from everyone close to him, and with reason. Homosexuality was illegal until 1994.

            The graphic novel opens with elderly Karl and his friend Adam discussing his retirement, but Karl's demeanor does not reflect any joy at facing his "hard-earned" reward. His mood improves little at the celebration held in the local bar that evening. When Adam talks of the beaches of Italy, and of the gorgeous women he could meet, Karl does not say much. Later, when Adam inquires about Karl's estranged daughter, Hella, Karl reveals he has not heard from her in eight years. In a flashback, the reader sees that last fateful evening with Karl and Hella. She is angry with him, she yells at him, and she leaves. The story snaps back to the present, and Karl starts going through old photographs. His first memory conjured by these windows in time is from when he served as a cook in the German army in World War II. An innocent romantic encounter with his tent-mate gives the reader the first glimpse at Karl hiding his homosexuality.

            Karl's life in the 1950s is fraught with bad decisions and tragedy along the way. After Karl kisses a man whom he mistakes for his old tent mate in the restroom at a local bar, rumors start to circulate. This information makes it to his father-in-law who happens to be a prominent figure in the community. He issues a severe warning to Karl, who does not heed it. Instead, he meets a man at the local swimming hole, which leads to a sexual entanglement that costs him his marriage and his livelihood when his father-in-law intervenes yet again, via a group of men who assault the two lovers. When he leaves his first marriage, Karl finds friends and foes in his struggle to come to terms with his identity while still attempting to maintain a straight façade. Eventually, Karl marries a second time, which becomes a relationship also fraught with tragedy. At one point, a clandestine lover loses his housing, so Karl invites him to live with his family. Much to the surprise of Karl, and the reader, this ends terribly, but not as might be expected.

            Throughout this graphic novel, Lehmann depicts Karl with all of his flaws. Despite how much he says he wants a traditional family, Karl destroys them by hiding his extramarital relationships the best that he can, while denying his identity out of necessity. He could not live openly as he might have wanted because of the illegality and stigma of being homosexual. As infuriating as Karl's actions are, it is a struggle to remain angry with him. While his life story unfolds, the reader sees his second marriage fall apart, more relationships fall apart, and betrayal after betrayal. They are not all of Karl's doing, but come as the result of his actions.

            Lehmann's approach to themes of loneliness, confusion, deception, and how the decisions of one man's lifetime culminate in isolated introspection and coming to terms with his past both work to provide the reader with a whole person. Karl is not perfect. The reader can despise the character's actions in one panel, and have compassion and empathy for Karl in the next. Lehmann's use of nonlinear storytelling helps tell the complicated story of Karl's life, weaving back and forth between his past and present, interspersed with the letter he is writing to his daughter. Karl's story hurts and it is meaningful in that hurt. It is engaging in a way that makes the reader feel like they are witnessing a very human character. Lehmann does not sugarcoat anything here. The reader sees everything primarily from Karl's point of view. At first, I wondered why Lehmann did not spend any time from Hella's point of view, but this could be for various reasons, including that the story is based on an actual relative of Lehmann's.

            It is worth taking time reading through Parallel, both to digest Karl's whole story and to take in the artwork. While there are many secondary characters, it is not hard to remember who they are and what their roles are in Karl's life, both those he harms but also ones with whom he shares genuine friendship. Lehmann's chosen palette for this graphic novel is black and white, and he makes good use of light and shadow. The backgrounds are worth taking extra time to peruse. Lehmann effectively matches the environment with the mood of particular scenes well.

 

Book review: Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben.

reviewed by Cord Scott

Trujillo, Josh and Levi Hastings.  Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben. New York: Abram’s Surely Press, 2023. $24.99 ISBN 978-1-4197-4372-6. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/washingtons-gay-general_9781419743726/

 In today’s politically charged cultural atmosphere, the argument that history is often written to fit social events of the day is one that resonates.  Permeating aspects of current society across the board, many Americans are uneasy with thinking of national heroes having what they perceive as less than desirable traits. This sort of argument could, and most likely will, be made by anyone trying to ban this book from libraries.  However, Steuben’s life is a great example of how complicated the stories of the Founding Fathers truly are.

The graphic novel centers on Trujillo, the writer, finding out about Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian soldier who was brought to the American colonies to help train George Washington’s forces.  Von Steuben was instrumental in creating a training regime for the colonial army, was the first Inspector General of the US Army, and created the “Blue Book” a training manual that still has relevance to the modern US military. Trujillo was drawn to von Steuben as an openly gay man in a time of history when it was literally a crime.  While his affectations were widely known, there are few firm pieces of direct evidence, as many personal references or thoughts on homosexuality would be destroyed (p. 15). Narratively interesting is that Trujillo readily identified his own shortcomings in terms of scholarship, interest in history, or proximity to the actual areas where von Steuben lived. But this is something that historians often must face: how does one make a story complete, warts and all?  To that end, the result was commendable.

Friedrich von Steuben was born in Prussia in 1730 and had wanted to pursue a military career.  He was a shy child, and not above exaggerating stories or his own feats to get ahead in life.  As Trujillo wrote (p. 24) von Steuben often embellished stories to attain promotion or higher status.  He felt that he deserved such things as he was professionally that good, but this was a lifelong trait.  Von Steuben came to adulthood at a time when the Prussian military was used as the model for training, discipline, and strength in battle.  King Frederick I (Frederick the Great) of Prussia often outfitted his soldiers in smart-looking uniforms and had requirements for height.  Trujillo argues that Frederick was also gay, and so the “Prussian Giants” (p. 73) appearance may have been for his own proclivities as well as that of military prowess.

He had made close connections with Frederick, Frederick’s brother Prince Henry, and Claude-Louis, Comte de Saint-Germaine, a noted mercenary general from that era.  While von Steuben was known for his dalliances with men, it had never been overly dangerous as his military standing shielded him to an extent. Following the Seven Years’ War in Europe (known as the French and Indian War in America), von Steuben was virtually destitute, and living on the kindness of others.  Due to military cutbacks, the costs of war, and his own indebtedness, von Steuben had constant worry about money.  However, his reputation as a rake was becoming more of a liability and that is when he was introduced to Benjamin Franklin.  The reputation of both men for preferring younger lovers was well known, in Trujillo’s narrative.

Hired by Franklin, Von Steuben was part of a foreign contingent of military officers who rallied to the American cause. Trujillo noted that the stories of von Steuben appearing at Valley Forge in a flamboyant uniform were not true, although he did often have uniforms that were made to impress his importance.  His aides who were often very young (in their teens and early twenties while von Steuben at this point was in his fifties). These aides helped with the problems with his lack of English. When training soldiers, he was having to rely on one or two languages as well as interpreters which made immediate training corrections a bit strained, but his men liked him for the care he took of them.

Where Trujillo comes into some minor historical issue is with descriptions.  He notes that von Steuben was considered an outsider as he only spoke German.  This may not have been the issue it appears as German was under consideration for the official language of the colonies.  Second, the commentary on Benedict Arnold was awkward.  Arnold is correctly considered a traitor, but he was never seen as inept, as Trujillo described him.  Arnold was a tested commander who is recognized at both Saratoga and West Point New York for his importance. He, like von Steuben, felt he was deserving of far more than he had received.  In Arnold’s case, it led to his betrayal of the colonial army.

The later part of the book describes von Steuben’s struggle to be recognized, and more importantly paid, for his contributions following the American victory.  As with anyone had kept personal aspects of his life from the public eye (and history), the book ventures into the realm of speculation.  However, Trujillo acknowledges that it is hard to be accurate when facts are unknown.  A strength of the story also lies in the creator’s relating it to modern hardships of those in the LGBTQIA+ community.  The story also doesn’t shy away from von Steuben’s faults, from excessive drinking and vanity, to his ownership of slaves, to the complicity of treatment towards minorities in America.  People often approach historical figures as perfect people, and either have issues with, or outright deny, any wrongdoing.  This is dangerous as it sets a false narrative, and the authors avoided it here.

The issue of homosexuality in the American military is still a confusing one.  On one hand, the modern military often tries to emulate the warrior ethos of the ancient Spartans of Greece, with motivational t-shirts such as “Molon Labe” (Come and Take them – them being weapons).  However, the Spartans also fought with their male lovers, which runs in opposition of mainstream America’s concept of Greek society. It may be worth noting that Abrams did not publish this under their ComicArts imprint.

This book can create an interest in history, biography, or the American Revolution, and be a good starting point for future reading.  As in other Revolutionary War comics (Rebels from Vertigo and U.S. the graphic novel come to mind), it is a bit muted in colors, as though the past was a less vivid place. There may be some issues marketing it towards teens, beyond the obvious one, as there are a couple of swear words.  There is no gratuitous nudity, which does not detract from the story, but some will no doubt still find it offensive, in the way they might object to Maus.  Any historical-based book should have a bibliography for reference, and it would benefit this book as well.  These are minor issues.  In all, it is a good starting point into the lives of the “Founding Fathers,” glaring issues and all. 

 

Book review: J. Andrew Deman – The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men - a review by James Willetts

J. Andrew Deman, The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023. https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477325452/

 reviewed by  James Willetts

                 It’s rare that a work of comics criticism emerges that boasts both academic bonafides and the promise of cross-over appeal for general audiences of comics readers. The Claremont Run has the potential to be that, thanks to author J. Andrew Deman’s popular Twitter (now X) account – @ClaremontRun – which spent the past few years analyzing X-Men comics and became a critical part of both comics fandom and public scholarship on the platform. Boasting an introduction from Jay Edidin, the co-host of podcast Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Deman’s book is positioned squarely as a potential crossover work combining criticism with wider comic book audience appeal. As such it treads a difficult line between being engaging for those who are approaching it as fans of the source material, and those looking for deeper scholarly analysis on Chris Claremont’s time as lead writer on the X-Men comics. Fortunately, Deman is more than up to the task, presenting a rich dive into Claremont’s legendary run on the X-Men that will prove valuable for casual fans and academic audiences alike.

                 At the heart of this is Deman’s engaging prose and clear love for the subject matter. These allow him to move effortlessly back and forth between explanatory close readings of X-Men storylines and deeper dives into the technical craftsmanship of Claremont’s work. Deman utilizes a mixed-methods research methodology in order to bring in quantitative data to guide his readings and research, examining the ways in which Claremont presents characters, and exploring questions of team dynamics, changing representation, and portrayals of gender within the X-Men. This methodology adds what Deman refers to as a “holistic, evidence-based perspective,” missing from most examinations of Claremont’s work. Covering almost 200 issues of Uncanny X-Men across sixteen years, Deman’s methodology analyzes a vast range of metrics. This includes everything from the percentage of times characters appear on covers of issues they appear in (showing that Storm, Wolverine and Cyclops were the characters most likely to appear) to the number of times characters interact with one another and in what contexts. Interesting enough alone, this data-led approach allows Deman to make claims about commercial and storytelling concerns that might otherwise be overlooked.

                Indeed, Deman explores some intriguing – and often surprising – avenues of research. The Claremont Run demonstrates that Cyclops, for instance, is a character who shows remarkable and consistent growth over the course of the Claremont run, developing into a character with both internal and external emotional depth. Under Claremont’s pen, Cyclops is thus one of the most physically expressive characters on the X-Men, despite a reputation for being stoic and closed-off. This is supported by evidence, thanks to the quantitative base of Deman’s research. A key benefit of this is that it allows Deman to push back against close readings which might otherwise approach characters based upon their broader histories. Deman is careful to note that because these characters operate in a shared universe, characterization is typically reverted to the most well-established archetype under other writers. By treating Claremont’s run as a singular piece of work, however, Deman demonstrates an impressively ambitious and cohesive set of story-arcs. He argues that Claremont’s work was defined by arcs like the Dark Phoenix Saga; “massive and ambitious storyline” (27) which formed a collective story told over dozens of issues.

While much academic scholarship on Claremont’s work has dwelled on the “Claremont women” – the strong, independent female characters that defined much of his run – less attention has been paid to Claremont’s male characters. Deman rectifies this, devoting the latter half of the book to an examination of the varied ways in which Claremont portrays masculinity, including the paradigmatic shift of Cyclops from patriarchal leader to supporting character in the stories of Storm and Jean Grey, to the hypermasculinity of Wolverine, and the emasculation of Alex Summers/Havok.

Deman’s work thus adds an important inflective to conventional narratives of gender and sexuality in X-Men comics. These typically dwell upon Jean’s journey, or the sapphic undertones present in Storm’s relationships with other women, or the importance of a teenage Jewish girl, Kitty Pryde, for expanding the readership. While these aspects are acknowledged in The Claremont Run, they are presented as both significant moments in their own right, but also as part of a broader examination of the ways in which Claremont undermined and subverted ideas of masculinity, femininity, sexuality, and gender roles.

The Claremont Run thus stands as an excellent extension of existing scholarship and a critical addition to the canon of Claremont studies. As a thin monograph it’s not comprehensive – there is still much to be said about how other X-Men characters are presented – but it’s an admirably thorough job in regard to the characters it does cover and is sure to be successful in expanding the field of comics criticism to a wider audience.

Editor's note: We'll be running two reviews of this book on the blog, as one of the editors (ok it was me) assigned it twice. However, I think there is enough room in the field for multiple reviews of the growing literature. 

IJOCA wants you! to help celebrate its 25th anniversary

 

 

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART

John A. Lent

Founding Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

669 Ferne Blvd., Drexel Hill, PA 19026, U.S.A.

Tel:  (610) 622-3938    Email:  jlent@temple.edu

www.ijoca.net

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

November 14, 2023

 

The International Journal of Comic Art ("IJOCA") celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with Volume 25, Number 2, now in preparation. At the time of its first number in 1999, it was the only academic journal on comic art, preceded by INKS, which had folded, though later revived. IJOCA continues to be the oldest, continuously-published comic art journal.

 

Remaining independent of established journal publishers and academic institutions for funding and the tainted, conglomerate-owned peer review system for evaluation, IJOCA takes pride in not having been hemmed in by a prescribed quota of pages per issue, a limited number of illustrations, or long publication delays caused by peer reviewing.

 

The journal already has published about 1,470 articles with a total of 30,600 pages, encompassing 35 symposia on varied topics, in addition to approximately 300 each of book and exhibition reviews, all the time, keeping to its mission of being encyclopedic and interdisciplinary.

 

Quality, innovativeness, and variety have marked IJOCA's history. Most of the world's leading comic art researchers have published in IJOCA; on many occasions, the journal was the first to introduce topics, never shied away from broaching topics perhaps off-limits in other periodicals, and varied content on all aspects of comic art.

 

As we celebrate our quarter century, we invite comments from those familiar with IJOCA, to be included in Vol. 25, No. 2. Thank you.

 

And, our gratitude for all your support.

 

John A. Lent

Founder/Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

International Journal of Comic Art

Georgia Higley, "America's comic book librarian," retires from Library of Congress

by Mike Rhode

I don't know if anyone actually ever called her "America's comic book librarian," but someone should have.

On October 31, 2023, Georgia Higley retired from the Library of Congress (LOC) where she had worked for 33 years upon joining the staff as a library intern in 1990. Georgia had been in charge of the Newspapers and Current Periodicals division and had overseen the rebuilding, strengthening, and spotlighting of one of the largest comic book collections in the world and possibly the largest in America. The website for the collection calls it, "The largest publicly available comic book collection in the world is comprised of over 165,000 original print issues and 12,000 different titles that span 1934-present."

The following bullet points about her career were initially pulled from the LOC's internal newsletter The Gazette (January 30, 2004) and updated by one of her colleagues:

• Began her career at the Library of Congress on September 4, 1990.
• Served in varying capacities: intern, reference librarian, automated reference service specialist, acting head of Reference Section, co-founder of the LOC Reference Forum, trustee for the LOC Professional Association Continuing Education Fund, section head of Newspaper and finally newly reorganized Physical Collections Services Section
• Headed the Newspaper Section from 2004 to 2020.
• In 2020 appointed head of the Physical Collections Services Section – a combined section of newspapers, government documents and current periodicals, responsible for acquiring, preserving and serving physical collections of the division.
• Significant force behind the expansion and preservation of the comic book collection in the early 2000s through today.

While Georgia was running the section that collected comics, in 2011 the Library and the Small Press Expo (SPX) began to work together to ensure the preservation of America's alternative and mini comics through a cooperative program that saw LOC librarians fanning out throughout the SPX exhibit floor and asking cartoonists to donate copies of their works. Those works were then added to a Small Press Expo collection (actually two - one of comic books, and one of original art, prints, and ephemera) at the Library. As of this writing 3,345 comics have been cataloged. The project is the work of scores of people, but Georgia has been one of the mainstays of it.

When asked about her plans at her recent retirement party, Georgia said that she might volunteer for SPX in the future, but in the meantime she would be working on cleaning out an old shed falling apart in her backyard. We wish her well in both of those endeavors. 

 

 

 

 

The comic book collection remains open for research and the division is currently being overseen by longtime comic book reference librarian Megan Halsband. 

This article has been posted simultaneously to the ComicsDC and International Journal of Comic Art blogs.

Book Review: Drawn to Satire: Sketches of Cartoonists in Singapore by CT Lim and Koh Hong Teng.

 Drawn to Satire: Sketches of Cartoonists in Singapore. CT Lim and Koh Hong Teng. Pause Narratives, 2023. 144 pages, $26.89.

 reviewed by Felix Cheong

If one uses a metaphor of satire as the art of stabbing an issue to draw humor instead of blood, so too does the biographical Drawn to Satire -- in ways that are as inventive as they are at times infuriating. Therein lies the double-edged sword of this lovingly produced book -- you wish it could have done so much more, but paradoxically, so much less.

 

Written by CT Lim and illustrated by Koh Hong Teng, Drawn to Satire sketches, both literally and figuratively, the lives of eight pioneering cartoonists, from well-known names like Morgan Chua, to the relatively obscure Dai Yin Lang. While the chosen cartoonists tend to be ethnically Chinese males, the book also includes one Malay, Shamsuddin H. Akib, and one woman, Kwan Shan Mei – which begs the question if they were added as token gestures. I will return to this question later.

 

Each chapter begins with a quick overview of the cartoonist’s backstory and before you know it, drives directly into his themes, motivations and, occasionally, hang-ups. Here, Lim, the go-to authority on comics in Singapore, has obviously used his extensive research, having published previously on the history of comics (in particular, political cartoons) in the Lion City, in addition to being an IJOCA editorial advisor for the city-state. For this book, he has also conducted interviews with the cartoonists who are still alive, such as Shamsuddin and Koeh Sia Yong, and with relatives of those who have passed away, such as Tchang Ju Chi and Lim Mu Hue.

 

In keeping with its subtitle that the book is nothing more than “sketches,” each chapter (14-15 pages) reads rather, well, sketchily. It is akin to the experience of speed-dating, but on the printed page; just as the reader gets into the story – whoosh! –  it is gone. 

 

A case in point: the opening chapter on Tchang Ju Chi, a political cartoonist who was abducted by the Japanese military and presumably executed during the Sook Ching massacre of 1942. He was only 38 years old at that time. While the narrative tries to know the man, instead he comes across as a type -- the Chinese émigré with apron strings still knotted tight to the motherland, rather than a person in his own right. The in-your-face thought bubbles do not help by merely telling, rather than showing why, that despite having found his calling in Nanyang, Tchang still harkened back to China and viewed Sino-Japanese tensions with growing unease.

 

Indeed, if Drawn to Satire has a failing, it is how it sacrifices depth for breadth. Instead of featuring eight cartoonists, it could have gone with just five. Pioneer artist Liu Kang, for instance, could have been dropped; after all, his life is already well-documented and his comics output was limited to just Chop Suey, published in 1946. Similarly, Kwan Shan Mei’s reputation rests on her children’s picture books, rather than satirical cartoons. Perhaps she was included to showcase a fair representation, but much of her chapter is devoted to conjecture and a summation of the authors’ intentions for the book. And while Din Yin Lang’s life certainly makes for an intriguing espionage tale, too little is known about him to be anything more than a sidebar.

 

So, while covering eight cartoonists might fulfill Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) required by funding bodies – the authors acknowledge support from four institutions, such as the National Heritage Board, the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts – the book does itself a disservice when more could have been done with less. 

 

Still, Drawn to Satire is a breezy read, helped, no doubt, by Koh’s unfussy art style, and at the same time, pays homage to the cartoonists by reproducing their works (and even two iconic Singapore paintings, Liu Kang’s “Artist and Model” and Chua Mia Tee’s “Epic Poem of Malaya”). 

 

What ultimately sells the book for me is Lim’s unconventional storytelling, which takes a leaf from the growing creative graphic biography field. Instead of writing a Wikipedia-like chronology, Lim dips into each cartoonist’s life and extracts specific incidents that define and shape him. More interestingly, he introduces an interloper (or provocateur), a fictional foil who flits in and out of the panels with time-travel ease and with whom the cartoonists interact. This unnamed character (who sometimes breaks the fourth wall) creates a Brechtian effect, a narrative device used either for Lim to set the context of what you are reading, or to slather asides and editorial comments.

 

In fact, Lim even cheekily inserts himself into the narrative; after all, he is as much part of the comics ecosystem in Singapore as the cartoonists he writes about, but he does it in a way that neither grates nor gloats. If anything, his self-referential character borders on self-deprecating, particularly in a funny sequence when he is depicted as a clueless emcee at the launch of Koeh Sia Yong’s art exhibition in 2023. Indeed, as befitting a book about satirical cartoons, humor is its chief calling card; sequences such as Morgan Chua fleeing to Hong Kong (to avoid the Singapore government’s crackdown on The Singapore Herald, a newspaper it had deemed subversive) have a Looney Tunes zaniness.

 

While it is not perfect, Drawn to Satire is what the comics scene in Singapore needs – it plugs a gap of scholarship and, in equal measure, is entertaining and enlightening.