the killing joke serves as a good source for the dark knight

Now I know each and everyone who reads this blog is going to be sitting in a theater July 18th, anxiously chomping away on their popcorn, grabbing with their greasy fingers at a sweating 32 oz cup full of the most carbonated beverage the establishment offers, awaiting for the lights to dim and for the words The Dark Knight to rush across the screen. I know this because you have good taste. You have good taste because you are an intelligent human being with enough common sense to read what I have to tell you. Or, it's because I literally do know each and everyone who reads this blog. How humbling.

But I digress; the real point of this post is to talk about one of the influences of this summer's biggest and inevitably best movie, The Dark Knight. The influence is a highly revered comic by Alan Moore called The Killing Joke. For those who may not be aware, Alan Moore is basically the Charles Dickens of graphic novels and comics. Or maybe the Janet Evanovich. I'm not sure. Regardless, he's been known for works such as Watchmen (which is being adapted to film currently), and V for Vendetta, among many others. His book The Killing Joke is actually a source of inspiration for how Heath Ledger's Joker is portrayed in The Dark Knight and, upon reading it, I can't think of a more bad ass way to do The Joker.

The book is very dark and touches on some very cool psychological aspects that are somewhat void in comic books aimed at a younger crowd. We get into the mind of The Joker, and its less cliched and more humanistic than one might think. Of course, that inkling of decency gets crushed and we see a Joker that is more complex than many other interpretations. The artwork, done by Brian Bolland, is also very imaginative and resonant, creating an overall mood that I look forward to seeing manifest in The Dark Knight.

The Killing Joke was just rereleased this March as a deluxe edition, and features new coloring by Bolland himself that is meant to capture the real feel that was intended with the original. Check it out, even if you're not a comic geek. FULL POST

hall of best knowledge by ray fenwick to be released in a week

Some of you may remember me mentioning a fantastic graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware. I own some more of his work, too, as he has grown to be my favorite "cartoonist" or illustrator, if you will. Ware publishes with Fantagraphics, a major publisher of what I consider one of the richest mediums of story telling: comics. Fantagraphics is known as one of the leading proponents of comics as a legitimate art form, as they have relentlessly been releasing some of the top works of the medium. In one short week Fantagraphics will be releasing Ray Fenwick's new book, Hall of Best Knowledge.

The Fantagraphics website describes the upcoming book as:

"Part graphic novel, part art object, part satire, part puzzle. The slow unfolding of the author and his story builds humor with each page, creating a peculiar examination of the idea of genius and the problems that arise in the search and transmission of knowledge."

The description has certainly piqued my interest and I will be picking this up next week. You can have a look at some sample illustrations of the book here.

(Originally discovered via swissmiss) FULL POST

the superest

The Superest is a collection of drawings from an ongoing game of My Team, Your Team, where a player draws a character with some specific power, and the next player creates a new character with a power that cancels out the previous, and so on.

The drawings are great and highly creative. I find myself laughing at quite a few of them. Some of their powers are very imaginative, and whenever I see a power that seems impossible to overcome, the next cartoonist comes up with something even more outlandish.

Aside from that, the site is beautifully designed. FULL POST

Garfield Minus Garfield: Subtraction Equals Addition

I don't read many comic strips, save the Acme Novelty Library book I just purchased. I don't subscribe to the newspaper, and web-comics are something I usually only stumble upon. However, I at least know that Garfield is mediocre in most ways.

Who knew, though, that the ever-popular Garfield comic had undertones of "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life"? Well, these are probably not intended, but when you delete the very reason the comic exists, it becomes about these things and, in many ways, funny.

Garfield Minus Garfield is a blog that simply takes out Garfield from the comic. What results is "an even better comic" that explores the isolation of a deeply troubled human mind. Although the description sounds oh so dark and brooding, do not fear: it's funny.




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Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

We haven't been able to discuss books at all so far on 95total. This is a shame; we like to read, and we read a lot--for school, for pleasure, and of course for this site. So when I got the urge to talk about Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, I was happy to add another piece to the cultural puzzle that we are trying to present.

Jimmy Corrigan is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Chris Ware. Although the graphic medium usually conjures thoughts of Anglo-Saxon men in tights with chiseled facial features, this is altogether an assumption that is wrong, especially today. Think of Jimmy Corrigan as any other novel you might read, with the accompaniment of some fantastic artwork.

Published in 2000, Jimmy Corrigan is an expansion on a serialized comic that Ware had printed in several of his other works including the Acme Novelty Library. The story's main character, obviously, is Jimmy Corrigan, a socially inept man in his thirties who faces issues of alienation, loneliness, and incompetence. It follows his story of meeting his father for the first time and what Jimmy learns along the way.

This is one of my favorite, if not my favorite book. Chris Ware's artistry is brilliant in many ways and shows what the medium can do for interpretation. Themes of society, consumerism, family, and the shames of life all permeate in this depressing yet redeeming tale of a lonely old man with no friends. The book is flooded with subtleties that makes the work a multiple read. Each time you look at the pages you will find nuances that you hadn't noticed before that add to the overall quality of this engaging work.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth is an exemplary piece of post-modern fiction that gives credence to the comic medium. Check it out.

(Note: Jimmy Corrigan as a child is sometimes credited as the influence for Stewie from Family Guy) FULL POST