Today, Ken Parille brings the finale of his large and idiosyncratic two-part essay on the best comics of 2014, old and new... sort of. Here are two selected randomly from the middle:
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (Simon and Schuster, 2014)
Horror comics can gross me out, but they seldom scare me. This anthology’s comics are genuinely scary and disturbing — and a few are gross, too. Yet, in terms of coloring, paper, and printing, the book’s aesthetic is the antithesis of gross: it glows, with glossy paper and colors ranging from hushed browns and grays to electric blues and reds.
In every story, a page’s art or colors bleeds to the book’s edge: the horror is not confined in the way it might be in a conventional comic-book, with a grid layout that’s bordered by bright white margins. On the back cover, the publisher directs readers to its teen website, but I hope this doesn’t scare any adults away from this collection. “A Best of 2014.”
Tomahawk #116 (DC, 1968)
I can’t recall seeing a mainstream Silver Age comic with this peculiar feature: twice in the story, artist Fred Ray shifts page orientation, moving from the traditional comic-book “portrait” alignment to “landscape,” a tactic that requires readers to change the book’s physical position.
In fact, I’ve seldom seen this mode of widescreen reorientation used pre-2000, let alone used as well as Ray does; all of his scenes have a disturbing, visceral quality, communicated by the characters’ thickly-inked grimacing faces.
(A recent series of Darwyn Cooke covers for DC takes this inverted approach — but it’s weirder when used inside the narrative. And the master of unusual panel dimensions and page orientation certainly must be Chris Ware.)
Meanwhile, elsewhere:
—News. SPX has posted an explanation of their exhibitor lottery process. Alternative Comics and 2D Cloud have both announced their 2015 spring lineups. 2D Cloud is also expanding hiring a new publicist (Melissa Carraher) and a new marketing director (Blaise Larmee!).
Gary Groth is collecting and posting drawn responses from Fantagraphics artists to the Charlie Hebdo killings. Gary writes a little bit about his thinking, too. Jason and Arnold Roth are the first two contributors.
—Reviews & Commentary. Ng Suat Tong has compiled his annual best online comics criticism post. The Telegraph has a short profile of caricaturist Mark Boxer up in conjunction with a London exhibition of his work. Abhay Khosla writes about Batman. Jake Austen at the Chicago Tribune reviews a handful of new comics.
