Today, Katie Haegele is here with a review of Jesse Reklaw's unusual Couch Tag.
The first part—the book’s five sections are described by Reklaw as novellas—is told as a series of stories about each of the pet cats his family had throughout his childhood. There were thirteen of them, and they all met a bad end—by dying of distemper, having too many litters, getting run over, or just running away. They were given names like Paranoid and Dead Duck by Jesse’s dad, and tripped with fishing line by Jesse himself on a day when he was feeling mean. Reklaw’s drawing style has a rounded softness to it, and the cutesy lettering of the chapter titles belies a nastiness underneath these stories. In this clever way, Reklaw manages to impart a queasy but subtle sense of unease and instability. If this is what became of the cats, what was life like for the kids?
Elsewhere:
—Internet Controversy du jour. Alan Moore has been enraging the Twitter masses on a regular basis for years now, usually through offhand interview comments dismissing superhero comics, superhero comics readers, and/or superhero movies, but this time is on another level. Pádraig Ó Méalóid asks Moore about some of the criticisms that have dogged his work over recent years and Moore responds in essay form, addressing topics such as, yes, his aversion to superhero comics, but also accusations of racism, rape fixation, and more. There's a lot to unpack, and I will leave it for interested readers to judge how convincing his arguments are. Much though not all of it seems reasonable to me (I continue to think that while Moore and collaborator Kevin O'Neill's intentions were clearly benign, their handling of the golliwog character in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was ill-advised), but his manner of presentation seems unlikely to win over skeptics. It also would have been nice if there were more followup questions on the points where his arguments are less than air-tight.
Moore then goes on to fire back at some of his critics, including journalist Laura Sneddon, Dez Skinn, someone "whose name escapes me but who is evidently pleased to identify himself as a Batman scholar," and Grant Morrison, whom he insults at length, only stopping just short of comparing him to Shia LaBeouf. Moore also declares this to be something like his final interview, at least of this nature that he will be dramatically decreasing the amount of interviews he gives from now on, so longtime fans (and detractors) should not miss this one. Those not well-versed in the background may find the reading unpleasantly bitter.
—News & Profiles. Calvin Reid profiles international comics agent Nicolas Grivel (who represents artists like Ulli Lust, Blutch, and Dylan Horrocks). The Eisner Awards are currently accepting submissions. The Image Expo is currently going on, and those interested in upcoming announcements from that company should check in with more mainstream-oriented comics sites today. The New York Times reported on one such announcement, a new deal with Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. The CBLDF reports on a New York district court ruling upholding the government's right to search laptops at the Canadian border. Tom Spurgeon interviews Gilbert Hernandez.
—Reviews & Commentary. Rob Clough writes about Julia Gfrörer's Black is the Color. Neil Cohn comments on the non-universality of some visual imagery. The Gilbert Hernandez interview linked to above led to a brief but interesting discussion between Andrew White and Frank Santoro on how much influence "classic" American comic-book aesthetics should have on current artists.
