Cathy: Life, the Universe, and Everything. In a comic strip.

     Cathy Guisewite. Cathy Twentieth Anniversary Collection (1996) Our local paper used to run Cathy. We liked it then and we still like it, so Marie snapped up this book when she saw it at the Soo Library used-books room. I started reading it right away, and finished it the next day. Cost $1, worth every penny.
     Guisewite has the eye and ear for not only fashionable foolishness but also the underlying constants of human life. Self-confidence. Peer pressure. Obligations to work, family, friends. Conflicting demands on our time, our energy, our emotions. Amazing that we not only survive but from time to time may relish moments of calm and joy.
     Sample: Eating lunch, Cathy thinks: French croissants... French Brie... English biscuits... Italian pasta... Italian ices... Danish ice cream... Grecian pastries... Swiss fudge... Austrian chocolates... I used to feel fat. Now I feel global.
     I like the reference to Austrian chocolates. Highly recommended. The book too. ***

Dik Browne. Hagar the Horrible on the Loose #3 (1974)

     Dik Browne. Hagar the Horrible on the Loose #3 (1974) When Hagar first appeared, he was a lovable overweight naif, unable and unwilling to live the respectable life, addicted to misbehaving, kept on a shortish leash by his wife Hilda, flummoxed by his daughter Loni who wants to be a Viking raider like him, and flummoxed even more by his son Hamlet who reads and writes poetry. He’s been around now for forty years, and not much has changed. Hagar still goes on regular raiding journeys to England, still drinks too much beer and eats to much venison, still gets into scrapes that would destroy a lesser man. Browne makes no attempt to show Viking life realistically. Hagar is a 20th century suburbanite with an unusual career, is all. He’s also shrewd, loyal (usually), and rather sweet on Hilda. That makes the strips comments on contemporary life. Here are some of my favourites in this collection, ones that work as well in straight print as in a strip. Many Hagar strips depend on the drawings, they’re visual puns, bizarre situations, and so on.

Hagar: Don’t you see it? It’s a joke...
    Aw, women have no sense of humor.
Hilda: Oh Yeah? Then how come we marry men?
...
Hilda: You’re Crazy!!
Hagar: Well, if I’m crazy, you made me crazy.
Hilda: I did not! You were crazy when you married me!!
Hagar: I’ll drink to that! [Hilda grimaces]
...
Hagar [sucking up soup]: SLURP! SLURP!
Hilda: Oh lovely! Just lovely!
Hagar: Thank you.
Hilda: That’s sarcasm, stupid!
Hagar: Well, whatever it is – it tastes good.
...
Hagar: What are you looking at?
Lucky Eddy: I never saw you without your hat.
Hagar: So?
Lucky Eddy: How do you get it on over your horns?

OK, so you may not roll on the floor laughing. But Hagar is still worth a look, you’ll spend a pleasant few minutes every time you open a Hagar collection. Warning; this is potato chip reading. **½

Gordon Snell. More Marvellous Canadians (2002), Dik Browne. Hagar the Horrible’s Viking Handbook (1985)

     Gordon Snell. More Marvellous Canadians (2002) Ill. By Aislin. Verses and Aislin cartoons form sketch-bios of miscellaneous Canadians. The quality varies, as one might expect, and the pieces on living persons are of course out of date by now. I wonder, for example, what Snell would have to say on Conrad Black’s jail time. A nice little gift book, which this was: Fay gave it to me. A pleasant diversion from more serious concerns. Aislin's cartoons are generally more informative than the text. ** (2010)

     Dik Browne. Hagar the Horrible’s Viking Handbook (1985) Hagar the Horrible enjoyed a vogue in the early 1980s, and still appears in many comics pages; this book exploits it. Amusing enough, for Hagar is really a lovable rascal, but quite tame and in places even lame. Browne mixes fact and (Hagar-) fiction to good effect. ** (2010)

Scott Adams. The Dilbert Principle (1996)

 

Scott Adams. The Dilbert Principle (1996), which is, that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the one place where they can do the least damage, management. Adam’s  analysis of what ails the modern bureaucracy, public or private, is accurate. The net effect is therefore quite depressing. The main difference between public and private money wasters is that the former are called to account, since the (privately owned) media love to show up government’s sins. But they downplay or ignore the same events when perpetrated by some privately paid idiot. But there’s only one wallet: We pay for all money-wasting mistakes and thefts, public and private, one way or another. (That’s my principle).
     Management is a necessary evil; it’s a direct result of the size of the enterprise. The larger an organisation, the more effort it expends on managing itself. (That’s my principle, too). Hence the largest enterprises, governments and multi-national corporations, suffer from the same inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and inertia.
     Then there is the inefficiency of the market, which responds to people’s desires rather than to their needs. The reason is of course that we, as Adams points out, are all idiots. I wonder if he’s aware of the Greek derivation of the word. In ancient Greece, an idiot was a man focussed on his private concerns instead of participating in public life. We now live in a culture that not only thinks this is an OK attitude, which would be bad enough, but believes that self-centredness be the essence of a free, democratic society, which is not only absurd but appalling, and in the long run destructive.
     I enjoyed the book for its wit, its pithy style (Adams is a natural aphorist), and for its hapless central character, Dilbert. But that pleasure's a high price to pay for a depressing insight. *** (2007)

Update 2013: After serving on the Blind River District Health Centre Board for several years, I’m convinced that bureaucracy is a side effect of size. Smaller organisations are more effective, and therefore more efficient, because most management can be done in ad-hoc meetings face to face, and because the teams are small enough to be able to change as needed very quickly. Also, everyone can have a pretty good overview of the whole operation. Size is wasteful, but it feeds egos.

Edited 2023-04-29

Bill Watterson. The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book (1989)

     Bill Watterson. The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book (1989) A collection of full colour Sunday comics. Watterson uses colour as subtly and skilfully as he uses line. A wonderful commentary on childhood, adulthood, Life, the Universe, and Everything. 42! **** (2007)

Bill Watterson. Four Calvin & Hobbes collections

     Bill Watterson. Four Calvin & Hobbes collections. Calvin, the real version of Dennis the menace, and Hobbes, his stuffed toy tiger, are no longer with us. Watterson gave up drawing the strip some years ago, and all we have now are these splendid collections, and more recent ones with the Sunday panels in colour. They repay repeated reading, with Hobbes’ wisdom contrasting with and complementing Calvin’s innocent mischief. Calvin’s only moments of evil occur when he is trying to get the better of Susy Perkins, his neighbour and classmate, who thinks him to be the weirdest kid she knows. But she likes Hobbes, so she can’t quite hate Calvin.
     Calvin embodies pure boy, Hobbes is his imaginary playmate. The strip is a mix of Calvin’s real and imagined adventures. He hates school, and goes to great lengths to avoid homework. Yet his imagination shows that he’s no dummy. Hobbes expresses what Calvin presumably knows to be the better, more mature, more realistic attitudes and insights, but he is also pure jungle cat, just a whiff and a whisker away from real teeth and real claws and a real appetite for juicy little boys. Calvin’s alter egos, Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man, are his escape from realities he doesn’t like. His imagined embodiments as a tyrannosaurus that eats and crushes his enemies give him some solace. The line between fantasy and reality is a thin one. The veil that separates the inner and outer worlds tears often. Calvin knows when he is fantasising, but he also wishes that his fantasies were real. And sometimes they come too close to reality for comfort.
      The strip’s charm arises from this mix of reality and fantasy, maturity and childishness, acceptance of what is and escapes into imagined worlds where little boys are heroes that fight for justice or prehistoric lizards exacting vengeance. The effects range from mild amusement through wry sadness and to spluttering, gasping hilarity.
Many comic strips merely illustrate the text. Watterson’s drawings and text merge perfectly. In fact, the drawings often expand and extend the text’s meanings. I like his work a lot. **** (2007)

Spiderman 2 (2004)

     Spiderman 2 (2004) [D: Sam Raimi. Toby McGuire, Kirsten Dunst] Peter Parker disappoints his boss (pizza baker), his friend (Mary Jane), his other boss (editor), his aunt, and his prof. Why? Because his deadlines and appointments are messed up when he answers a call for Spiderman. So he decides to give up being Spiderman, which seems to work out OK, except that his conscience, in the form of his dead uncle’s ghost, urges him to do what he has to do. Oh, yeah, Dr Octopus, a physicist who’s invented controlled fusion, has been hi-jacked by his A.I. harness, which proceeds to feed off his darker impulses and wreaks major havoc. Of course it all works out just fine in the end, after a few major CGI effects, including one in which he stops a speeding elevated train using only his spidey webs and his muscles. Cool!
     Maltin rates this as “the best comic book movie ever made”, which is hyping it a tad too much. For one thing, Dick Tracy (1990) I think is better, and for another, the attempt to make Parker into a more or less normal nerd doesn’t quite succeed. The reason is Toby McGuire, who either can’t act or is poorly directed. I can’t decide, but I suspect it’s the director’s limited vision of nerdiness. Apart from that, it’s a pretty good movie, and would probably be even more effective on a theatre screen. Spidey’s travels along the deep canyons of the City need a really, really big screen for maximum effect. ***

Hergé: Tintin: The 7 Crystal Balls; Prisoners of the Sun

     Hergé: Tintin: The 7 Crystal Balls; Prisoners of the Sun. Seven crystal balls explode and put seven explorers into deep comas. Tintin and Capt. Haddock set out to solve the mystery, and find it in a remnant group of ancient Incas in Peru, who jealously guard the ancient religion and customs. The explorers had desecrated holy sites in the pursuit of archeological knowledge.
     Well, I didn’t like Tintin much when I was a kid, and I don’t like him much better now. Hergé allows himself the most awful errors, such as a brown bear in the middle of a Peruvian jungle. The errors show the more because Hergé otherwise includes accurate depictions of local artefacts and clothing, and flora and fauna. His characterisation is of the most primitive kind, consisting mostly of caricaturing draughtsmanship and tics of speech whose first mild charm soon begins to grate. His crude humour contrasts with his subtle wit, to the credit of neither. I think he hasn’t made up his mind whether he’s writing fantasy or adventure stories, nor is he clear about his intended audience: children (mostly boys), or adults?. He does move the story right along, so that one keeps reading just to find out what will happen next; but that sense of narrative is his only virtue. A collaborator might have helped him develop his ideas into well structured and characterised tales. But when he was writing, the graphic novel was still seen as a merely a longer comic strip. Very few people took it seriously, perhaps not even Hergé himself. *½ (2006)

Bill Watterson. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992)

      Bill Watterson. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992) Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes strips catch the essence of childhood, but their strength is touching on the questions that we start asking as children and still can’t answer as adults. Or don’t want to answer, since we like to keep our amour propre intact.
     Calvin just wants to do what he wants to do. He has glimpses of his own evil, but his morality is simple: Don’t get caught. Hobbes is both his alter ego, providing sage advice, and moral insight and guidance; and his id, ever ready to pounce, trounce, and not quite devour Calvin. Calvin imagines himself as a tyrannosaurus rex, or as Spaceman Spiff, to escape the realities of his existence, but reality always intrudes. We may make ourselves out to be heroes in our fantasies, but we know they’re only fantasies after all. I like Calvin and Hobbes. It’s a strip with a huge range, from straightforward comedy and farce to subtle plays on words and ideas. It’s a pity but not surprising that Watterson ended the strip. It’s impossible to keep such high standards for very long. **** (2006)

ZITS (Book review)

     ZITS Zits focusses on Jeremy, a 15-year-old high-school freshman. Katheryn had this compilation; I believe she received it as a Christmas present. The writer/artist has captured the agonies and delights of mid-adolescence with excruciating accuracy. The Toronto Star runs the strip every day, but I see only the Saturday versions, so I was pleased to get the week-day fillers, which develop the characters even more. This strip presents a much more realistic view of teenagers than the Archie series. It is a true comedie humaine, not merely a string of gags. The writing is superb, the draughtsmanship a wonderful combination of the real, the expressionistic, and the bizarre. Great strip, great book. *** (2005)
     This is the last entry for the 2005 book reviews.

Charles M. Schulz. It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1975)

      Charles M. Schulz. It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1975) A picture book based on a TV special. The panels have rounded corners like a TV screen, and are displayed against a green background on which the text is printed. A slight work, it will keep youngsters occupied for a half hour or so; but it’s not up to the classic Charlie Brown videos or books. Snoopy plays Sherlock Holmes, and finds Woodstock’s nest, which has gone missing because Susie needs an object for show-n-tell. ** (2004)

Russell Myers. Sneaky Volcanoes (1982)

     Russell Myers. Sneaky Volcanoes (1982) Collection of Broomhilda cartoons. For addicts only. Broomhilda was a one-note strip, rarely rising above the obvious joke, and even more rarely showing the edge that one would expect from a 1000-year-old green witch. * (2004)

Jim Davis. Garfield at Large (1980)

     Jim Davis. Garfield at Large (1980) The first of the Garfield books shows very clearly how the drawing has changed. Garfield in 1978 was a fat cat with jowls and a Kliban look. By 1980, his image was simplified, as was Jon’s. The content got a little edgier, too, but in the long run there’s only so much you can do with fat-cat jokes. The introduction of Odie helped a lot, but again, there’s only so much you can do with dumb-dog jokes. I’ve had enough of Garfield. ** (2003)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi A Drifting Life (2009)

     Yoshihiro Tatsumi A Drifting Life (2009) Tatsumi is one of the major manga artists of the 20th century. He was one of a group that in the 50s and 60s transformed the medium from short strip comics to full length graphic stories, a development that influenced the growth of graphic narratives in the rest of the world. He was obsessed with manga from childhood. His family was not well off, and somewhat dysfunctional. His father was a feckless man, always looking for the One Big Score, and drinking too much. That left his mother to support the family by doing laundry.
     Tatsumi got his start submitting four-panel manga to the weekly magazines that wanted visual jokes to lighten the mood. His strips often won, which meant some extra income for his family. His older brother competed also, and was annoyed that Tatsumi won more often than he did.
     Tatsumi dropped out of high school for a time to devote himself to writing manga, dropped back in when things didn’t go as well as he hoped, met one of his heroes, an early proponent of extended narrative manga, joined a group of like-minded young men who promoted their own work, acquired an agent, was hired by a publisher who wanted to dominate the manga market, was seduced by his landlady, and so on and so on. Throughout he was obsessed not only by his desire to tell stories but also by his desire to draw them well. He watched a lot of movies, especially American ones, which influenced not only his stories but also his handling of the panels. He realised that a successful graphic novel was in effect an enhanced storyboard. The techniques he and others developed at the time have become standards. Modern graphic novels differ primarily in graphic style and narrative pace. It’s a very flexible medium, available for any genre.
     Tatsumi’s really was a drifting life: one damn thing after another, with failures as frequent as successes. The book ends at the cusp of the success that enabled him to make a living as a manga writer. I know nothing of Tatsumi’s subsequent life, but I do know that manga have become a stereotyped style of graphic story, have been transferred into movies (anime), and I infer that anyone who is famous in this subculture is worth knowing about. This memoir introduced me to a major talent. I will be looking for his work. Jon bought the book some time ago. I don’t know if he ever read it. ***

Jim Davis. Garfield Gains Weight (1981)

     Jim Davis. Garfield Gains Weight (1981) This second book of Garfield shows that Davis is still finding the definitive line, and includes Lyman, Jon’s neighbour, who disappears soon after this series. But the ongoing motifs are all there: Garfield’s weight, his passion for lasagna, Jon’s doofus relationships with women, and Odie, who doesn’t have as much of a role here as he gets later. Reading a pile of Garfield strips one sees that Davis doesn’t have the wit and edge of a Watterson, nor the insight of a Johnston or Schulz, but he’s pleasant enough, and a Garfield book is a good way to pass some time. ** (2003)

Bill Watterson Weirdos From Another Planet (1990)

     Bill Watterson Weirdos From Another Planet (1990) Another Calvin and Hobbes collection, and as always a pleasure. Watterson’s trick is to present adult insights from a child’s perspective, without losing either. Not many people can do this, and I think it’s Watterson’s wonderful drawing that does it. The newspaper comic strip is an underrated art form; Watterson shows what can be done with it. If you infer that Calvin and Hobbes are two of my favourite characters, you're right. **** (2003)