Sloane Leong returns with the third installment of her regular Comics Dragnet feature, trawling the seas and evaluating interesting webcomics (and related genre materials).
Tapas (formerly known as Tapastic) has been an useful if not sketchy platform for cartoonists, hosting independently made comics and published comics that are in need of web distribution. Slavonica is a series of short fantasy stories inspired by Slavic mythology and culture drawn by Katarzyna "Panna N." Witerscheim. The art style is stripped down to pleasing shapes, a meek digitally-textured line and a tastefully limited palette, utilizing a swatch of muted corals and slate blues. The pacing and dialogue is stilted and matter-of-fact in the manner of well-trodden folktales but I find Witerscheim's art and layouts solidly cohesive and still developing with each page. It's not a comic that packs much of a punch visually but it's mostly attractive and easy to read and though it’s subdued to the point of lethargy, I’m still curious to see how her work grows.
And of course Katie Skelly is here with day four of her Cartoonist's Diary.
Meanwhile, elsewhere:
—Interviews & Profiles. Abraham Riesman talks to the eccentric Rick Veitch about the republication of The One, among many other topics.
How do you explain the current superhero boom across all media?
Well, you could tie it to a lot of things. One of the things is the rise of nationalism and fascist thought. The superhero is kind of like a fascist art form. He is a fascist fantasy. His roots are in Nietzsche’s superman, which the Nazis used as a mighty propaganda tool back in the day. It breaks my heart that these issues are still being struggled with today. Even more so. On the other hand, we live in an age in which we’re going to be physically transformed. Science and medicine are changing what it means to be physically human. The idea that there might already be or will soon be what people call “trans-human” individuals is a reality, it’s not a fantasy. That’s part of thinking about superheroes and why they’re important now. It’s a way the culture sort of feels its way into its own future. By looking at Green Arrow and Black Widow and those guys, we sort of feel our way into, “What’s going to happen when we’re all super-gymnasts, or can live forever?” The other aspect that I’m perturbed about — and I hope The One can stand against — is the corporate control of superheroes. I think everybody gets the fact that superheroes are a replacement for myths, like Little Red Riding Hood, and the old gods, and stuff like that, but they’re owned by corporations. It’s a subtle way of directing people’s energy and creative flow into these preformed archetypes, if you will. I don’t know if you’ve been to any Comic-Cons lately.
Alison Bechdel was interviewed on Vermont Edition.
—Commentary. Yesterday came the news that Ta-Nehisi Coates will be writing Captain America, and he discusses his thoughts about taking on the project in a short essay.
In one famous scene, flattered by a treacherous general for his “loyalty,” Rogers—grasping the American flag—retorts, “I’m loyal to nothing, general … except the dream.”
I confess to having a conflicted history with this kind of proclamation—which is precisely why I am so excited to take on Captain America. I have my share of strong opinions about the world. But one reason why I chose the practice of opinion journalism—which is to say a mix of reporting and opinion—is because understanding how those opinions fit in with the perspectives of others has always been more interesting to me than repeatedly restating my own. Writing is about questions for me—not answers. And Captain America, the embodiment of a kind of Lincolnesque optimism, poses a direct question for me: Why would anyone believe in The Dream? What is exciting here is not some didactic act of putting my words in Captain America’s head, but attempting to put Captain America’s words in my head. What is exciting is the possibility of exploration, of avoiding the repetition of a voice I’ve tired of.
