Brian Fies's Blog, page 24

The Intellectual Life #17

A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple, Part 17:

(I made pancakes for breakfast today. Later this morning, Karen and I will visit friends, a wife and husband who both happen to be Superior Court judges.)

Karen: What's that white powder on your shirt?

Brian: Cocaine.

Karen: (Unamused glare.)

Brian: I probably shouldn't wear my cocaine shirt to a judge's house.

Karen: TWO judges!

Brian: It could be pancake flour.

Karen: That's our story and we're sticking to it.

Karen (Looking over a griddle full of flapjacks): This is when my mom would put a pat of butter on each pancake.

Brian: I always liked the idea. Didn't love the execution.

Karen: You didn't like melted butter on your pancakes?

Brian: It just makes a wet puddle in the middle of your pancake.

Karen: A wet puddle of BUTTER!

Brian: My mom didn't do that.

Karen: If she really loved you, she would have.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Maui

My heart's breaking for victims of the Maui firestorm, which at this writing has killed at least 36. I didn't post earlier because I didn't think I had anything novel or interesting to say about it. This morning I decided I did.

I chose this photo, from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, of flames racing over the hills toward houses below because it could have been taken of my neighborhood in 2017. I was them. Right now, those people don't know what hit them. As I described in A Fire Story, they're living in a tiny bubble, focusing on themselves and their families, trying to meet their immediate needs for shelter and food. They're trying to figure out this afternoon, not next month. In time they'll look up and their focus will expand to other people and longer goals, but not yet. 

If I could advise them, I'd say: Set your priorities. Structure helps. Wake up every day and make a list. Check off what you can, then get up the next day and make another list. Put one foot in front of the other. You will breathe and even laugh again.

Don't be too embarrassed or proud to accept help. I can't tell you how many people I saw who had literally nothing but still declined aid, saying "Give it to someone who needs it more." Right now, that's you. Later on you can pay it forward. Take the help.

If I could advise their relatives and friends, I'd say: ask the victims what they need and really listen. They probably don't need piles of clothes, or teddy bears, or pots and pans, or canned food from the back of your pantry. For the next few weeks they'll be living on a cot or a friend's couch and have nowhere to put that stuff anyway. 

Honestly, for all the good intentions and generosity of people who tried their best, what we really appreciated and used were gift cards to places like Walmart, Target and Safeway (all stores that I see Maui has). Say what you want about big-box superstores, but in our disaster they were the only businesses that stayed open and had everything we needed in one place.

Don't fret about getting back to normal because you never will. The old normal is gone. But you will make a new normal; in fact, you're already making it without even realizing it. Someday, I hope, you'll be able to gather with the people who pulled you through, and who you helped pull through, and say, "Can you believe we did that?" It will feel like a different lifetime ago because it was. Look forward to that.

Robbie Robertson

Singer-songwriter Robbie Robertson died at the age of 80. I was a casual fan who knew his greatest hits, was aware of some of the drama that broke up The Band, and had a lot of respect for his artistic integrity. Safe to say he never sold out. 

I never spoke to, corresponded with, or breathed the same air as Robertson, but I did have an opportunity to work with him a while back. He wanted to write a graphic novel--an insider's history of rock-and-roll kinda thing--and needed an artist. I was asked if I wanted to pitch. As I recall, I doggedly sketched and doodled and drew through a long weekend, and on Monday reported back that I had nuthin'. I couldn't crack the nut. Robertson's concept was fine, I just wasn't the right person for the job, and said so. 

I guess his graphic novel never happened. I don't regret declining. The prospect of committing to 200 pages of art you have no idea how to do would be a special kind of torture, plus I had ideas of my own I wanted to focus on. But sometimes I think it would've been very cool. I bet Robertson would have told a hell of a story.

Ten Most Important Eisner Award Winners

Here's a nice surprise: John Dodge of Comic Book Resources (CBR) calls Mom's Cancer one of the "Ten Most Important Eisner Award Winners" of all time! That's ten drawn from 35 years of awards given to hundreds of comics in many, many categories. I'm on a list with Watchmen, Bone, and Calvin & Hobbes.

Neat!

Dodge wrote, "Apart from helping to lay the foundation for digital comics as a relevant branch of the wider medium, this win also shined a spotlight on Mom's Cancer as a testament to the kind of heartfelt, deeply moving interpersonal drama that is so often lacking in other, more action centric titles that are themselves indicative of the type of stories that have long dominated the world of comics."

Mom's Cancer won as a webcomic in 2005 before it was published as a book by Charles Kochman at Abrams ComicArts in 2006, and was indeed the first webcomic to win an Eisner in the brand-new category of "Best Digital Comic." At the time, there was considerable debate about whether online comics were actually comics at all. As I recall, Will Eisner himself settled the issue. Since his name was on the trophy, his opinion carried considerable weight.

(I never met Mr. Eisner. He loved handing out his namesake awards in person, but died in January 2005 before I won mine.)

Mom's Cancer is still in print. I give a couple of talks every year to medical students who study it in their medical humanities curricula. I'm always welcome at the annual international graphic medicine conference, some of whose organizers got into the field because they read it. And once in a while I get a royalty check worth enough to buy a real nice dinner.

I couldn't be prouder of a story or more gratified by the astonishingly long life it's had, coming up on 20 years now. I know my friend, Editor Charlie, feels the same. It's truly nice to see that acknowledged by CBR.

Tall Tales by Jaffee

Recently bought at a fair price from a reputable auction: original art for the Feb. 12, 1962 syndicated comic strip "Tall Tales" by the great Al Jaffee.

Jaffee's idea for "Tall Tales" was to turn comics convention on its side--literally 90 degrees. Each strip was tall and skinny, with gags composed to suit the space. Jaffee is much better known for his work for MAD Magazine than a short-lived newspaper comic, so why was I eager to have this? 

First, because I doubt I could afford a Jaffee MAD piece. But also: anyone who's heard me talk or write about my small collection of original comic art knows that I have one rule: everything has to come with a story. I don't just collect to collect. Every piece is by a friend, or acquired from the artist directly, or was drawn by a cartooning hero whose influence I can effuse about for longer than you can bear to hear it.

As I mentioned when Al Jaffee died in April, I met him at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2008, when I was scheduled to sign books at the Abrams booth immediately after him. We had a half hour to chat, and Mr. Jaffee was as interesting, charming, and twinkly as you'd want him to be. The book he'd come to sign was a "Tall Tales" collection by Abrams. Ah ha! There's the connection! I treasured my signed copy until it and my house disappeared. 

When I won the auction, I emailed Editor Charlie, friend and editor to both Jaffee and me, and asked if my strip happened to be in the book. Charlie said "No" and gave me an interesting explanation for it. I had forgotten that "Tall Tales" began as a pantomime strip--no words--which made it popular internationally. A syndicate executive insisted that Jaffee add captions because, he said, "Americans don't like wordless cartoons." In the preface to his book, Jaffee wrote, "I reluctantly acquiesced and, as a result, the words went in and my foreign clients went away," as did the strip shortly after.

I think that background gives the piece some interesting history and texture. Mr. Jaffee would have preferred his strip to remain wordless but it's still a great gag, beautifully drawn. And it comes preloaded with a story.

Ex Libris

How We Spent Our Weekend: Building a bookcase wall for our daughters. I designed it. Saturday was sawing, nailing, gluing and screwing it together; Sunday was trimming, spackling, painting, and sitting back and admiring. We didn't install the two light fixtures, they were already on the wall and we worked around them. I plussed it with a color-changing LED strip on top. 

While I worked on this project, Karen set up an herb-drying facility (mostly a clothes line in a basement, but it's cool!) and did a ton of landscaping. Robin and Laura worked everywhere needed. In the end, it took all of us to polish off the library. 

We have a saying in our family: It's not a real project until Brian bleeds. This was a real project. Luckily, I kept my trivial sanguinary drips off the fresh paint and carpet. I love doing something real that's going to be around a while. Good productive weekend.

No, you can't afford me.

Rocketeer Update

After weeks of wrestling with the unhelpful tech wizards at eBay, the Cartoon Art Museum has kicked off its big summer tribute to the Rocketeer by Dave Stevens with an art auction. You may recall that I inked and watercolored a large (12 x 36 inches!) drawing to raise funds for CAM and the Hairy Cell Leukemia Foundation, which researches the disease that killed Stevens. 

CAM is auctioning off a few pieces per week and I've been told that mine will go under the hammer (that's auction talk!) in late August. Obviously they're saving the best for last. Meanwhile, look at the work being auctioned now and in coming weeks, including some by famous syndicated and comic book cartoonists. Other events will include art exhibitions and guest speakers. 

I'll be sure to let everyone know when mine comes around. Just try to shut me up. 

This is mine. Ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, 12 x 36 inches (30 x 91 cm).

Supermansplaining

My friend Denis St. John and his pal David Yoder do a podcast called "Supermansplaining," and for its big 50th episode they asked me on to talk about The Last Mechanical Monster. So I did.

The idea of the podcast is that Denis is a cartoonist who hasn't really read much Superman, so each week David (who's also a cartoonist) describes a Superman comic to Denis and they discuss it. I think it's a fun idea, especially since some of the old Superman comics got pretty weird. "Well, in this issue, Jimmy Olson turns into a giant turtle-man...." My visit stretched the format a bit.

If 67 minutes of me blabbing isn't too much--and I understand if it is--I think we had a good talk about The Last Mechanical Monster, my work and approach to comics in general, how I decided my story was fantasy rather than science fiction, character development, worldbuilding, and much more, and I recommend a listen. 

Denis and David are smart and fun, and we had a good time. Thanks for the invitation, guys!

The Dial of Destiny

Last night we saw "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" with our daughters. Safe to say that Indy was a huge influence on our girls when they were kids--one went into archaeology and the other into museum studies; they joke that they grew up to be Indy and his museum pal Brody. Good news: we all liked it a lot.

What struck me from a storytelling perspective is that it's ABOUT something. To avoid spoilers, I'll illustrate with an example from what most people consider one of the best "Star Trek" movies, "Wrath of Khan." IMO, what makes that movie beloved is that it's not really about a space battle, it's about Kirk feeling old and obsolete, finding that he still has a purpose, and learning that you can be good and clever but still lose. Despite the sci-fi setting and trappings, that's real. It's a subtext that resonates.

Similarly, "The Wizard of Oz" isn't really a story about a girl who gets whisked by a tornado to a magical land. It's about a farm kid in the middle of nowhere who yearns to experience the wider world and eventually masters it with the guidance of new mentors and friends. So is "Star Wars." *

(* Obligatory "Hero's Journey" footnote to save you the trouble of pointing it out.)

Not every story needs a subtext. Some provide fine entertainment being no more than exactly what they appear to be. But "Dial of Destiny" is about more than it appears to be about, which I think makes it deeper, richer, and kind of a standout among current movies in general. Other movies have as much action and chases and CGI spectacle. I thought "Dial" had an unusual amount of heart. 

Cartooning Corner

Cartoonists' Pro Tip: Keep your bottle of indelible waterproof India ink in a ceramic planter saucer or similar wide, shallow container in anticipation of the day you inevitably knock it over.

I learned that lesson at some expense many years ago, when I ruined a wall-to-wall carpet. I don't recall knocking over a bottle of ink since--until today, when my saucer saved a very large piece of art, a table, my pants, and the floor below us from permanent emblackening and eternal ruin. Note the shiny puddle drying in the saucer.

If you're a cartoonist who has gone all-digital, feel free to ignore this tip, although I would still suggest positioning a medium-size neodymium magnet beneath your computer monitor to capture any excess electrons that spill out of it.