(This is the first in what I hope will become a bi weekly (depending on how fast I read) series of reviews of the things I am reading. I do not claim to be a professional critic, so make of these reviews what you will, and with the exception of a few longer Graphic Novels I have on the docket, everything else will be prose. All of the What I am Reading” reviews will begin with one of the three grades I give out, “Recommend”, “Don’t Recommend” or “Recommend BUT”)

Recommend But

Looking for Calvin and Hobbes was a very conflicting book. As a die hard Calvin and Hobbes fan, I WANT this book to be wonderful, and it has moments where it is a great book, but these moment are very few and far between. The biggest drawback that the book has is that there just is not enough information on Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin And Hobbes, to fill even a hundred and 150 pages, much less the 240 this book is. All of these extra pages are filled with descriptions of various strips and with interview after interview with other cartoonists, most of whom never met Watterson, or if they had only briefly, and there is just so many times you can read, “Calvin and Hobbes was so inspiring, I wish it was still being made.” (there is actually a whole chapter of these interviews.)

The other thing Martell does to pad his book, is he uses adjectives and lofty language, that is often used incorrectly or awkwardly. For example, while explaining one strip he refers to Calvin’s wagon as archetypal. this begs the question, what about the wagon is an archetype? Where else is this archetype used in the history of human story telling? This gets even more frustrating where later in the book Martell explains that nothing like Calvin’s wagon and sled rides had ever taken place. This is a minor criticism, and I came across two or three other little examples of a word used incorrectly, which made me wonder more about the editor of the book then Martell.  While these errors alone didn’t ruin this book, it took me out of the reading every time I hit one, and I hate that.

This is not to say that the book is without merits, infact at points it was extremely interesting. These moments happen when Martell is actually telling the story of Watterson. He goes into great detail about Watterson’s high school and college years, and then into his failed attempts to get a comic syndicated. It is these sections where Martell as the writer shines.  He is smart enough to get out of the way and let the story be told. (The struggle that Watterson has to keep his comic from being merchandised is particularly well written.)

In the end I don’t know where to rate this book, and since I have decided that my grading scale is going to be “Recommend,” “Don’t recommend,” or “Recommend BUT,” I am going to have to go with Recommend BUT, only the most hard core of Calvin and Hobbes fans should read this book, and of the book they should not be afraid to skip the chapters where Bill Watterson’s story is not being told, these sections are a total waste of time.

Good reading,
John K.

I have been doing some thinking the last few months about Pointe East. I have been thinking about why I started it, and what I wanted to get out of it, and I have also been evaluating how close I am to achieving those goals, and I have come to a decision about the future of Pointe East. I have decided that I need to change the update schedule from five days a week to three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

I originally started this comic for a few reasons. I really wanted to tell stories, and I am fascinated with serialized fiction, especially comics. I also wanted to better my understanding of the language of comics, and how to better tell stories through them, and finally I wanted a thing that was mine, that was fun, and was a story I wanted to read.

Things have been going smoothly, but when I came to the decision to switch to a longer format, closer to that of a comic book page, I realized that I might be spreading myself a little thin, and my fears have been confirmed. I busted my hump to put out last weeks strips, and in the process really noticed that my studies for school suffered dearly, (and since I pay a lot for classes, this freaks me out).

The other big truth that my further study in sequential storytelling, as well as in drafting and art skills in general, have ground to a halt since I launched the strip. While I am of course taking some art classes in college, with producing a strip everyday, the time for me to sketch and read, and grow as a storyteller is just gone. This wouldn’t be such a thing to me if I thought I was better, but I feel that these studies are important for me to get to the level I would like to be at.

With these two restrictions in place, Pointe East stopped being fun, and became something looking like a job. That, for me, should never happen, so I am now going to update the comic Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But there is a benefit for you all. This will give me more time to Blog about what it is I am learning, and my goal is to post at least two new blog posts a week, one on Tuesday, and one on Thursday, so if you are interested in what I am studying, or reading or watching or what not, please stop back everyday for some kind of entertainment.

I look forward to your continued support, and can’t wait to hear what you all think of where the story is headed, I have some crazy stuff coming!
John K.

Well I have been hinting at it for a few days now, and it is finally official, so I can share some exciting news with all of you.

A few months back, not to long after launched Pointe East, I was approached by the fine people over at Motor City Blog about the possibilities of doing a weekly comic for them. I was Uber interested, and we had a month or so of back and forths, but then all hell broke loose with my semester, so I was forced to put the conversation to the side for six weeks or so, until my hellish speech class was over.

Last week I called them again, to see if they were still interested, and luckily for me they were! I put together an idea I have had rolling around in my head staring these two yahoos, and today the good news came back… the fine folks over at Motor City Blog loved the samples and I was given the go ahead.

The new comic will be called “Something Like A War” and it will run on theMotor City Blog website. As any of my fellow webcartoonist will attest, this has one really wonderful advantage, it means that I will not have to design, build, and maintain the site for SLAW, all I will have to do is produce art.

The first comic should be up later this week, I will be sure to keep you all posted.

John K

Oh yeah… one last thing, I can’t decide between two possible designs, so I have posted both of them below. I would love to know which one you folks like!

Logo A

Logo B

Before I get into this, the goal of this review is not to spoil anything, but I will not say that there is no spoilers to follow.  I promise to not spoil any plot points, or to tell you the end, but I am going to get into my feelings on “Asterios Polyp”, so if you want to say totally clear minded on this book, do not read what is below.

There are a few comic creators that seem to only pop up every so often, lay out an amazing work, then go back to ground for a while.  Creators like the late Will Eisner, or Blanket’s Craig Thompson come quickly to mind, but there are others, like the author of Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli.

You may or may not remember David Mazzucchelli, artist of two of my all time favorite comic stories, “Batman: Year One,” and “Daredevil: Born Again” (both with writer Frank Miller.)   These two stories came out in the mid 1980’s and soon there after, Mr. Mazzucchelli seemed to vanish, appearing here and there with a story, but for the most part he fell completely off the radar.  Then earlier this month he put out the new graphic novel “Asterios Polyp”.

Book Cover

“Asterios Polyp” is the story of a man by the same name, who is a renowned “paper architect” (meaning he has never actually built a building, just designed amazing works) and academic, whose life has recently changed.  Asterios Polyp then embarks, after a well placed lightening bolt, to examine himself, where he has been, and where he is going all of which Mr. Mazzucchelli handles amazing skill.

While the story is a meditation on change, Mr. Mazzucchelli is using “Asterios Polyp” as a meditation on graphic storytelling.  In fact it is Mr. Mazzucchelli’s skills as a storyteller which makes this book so amazingly good.  He uses the art of this book to tell us as much about all the characters as their actions do.  Each character has their own color pallets, and there own art style, and Mr. Mazzucchelli puts this all seamlessly on a page, making sure the reader only realizes these differences when he wants them to.  In many ways it feels as if Mr. Mazzucchelli has thrown this book on a table and said, “here everyone, this is what you can do with graphic storytelling.”  This polite slap in the face to all creator’s may be the most wonderful things about the book.

There is one other amazing thing about this book though, and that is Asterios Polyp himself.  This curmudgeon of a man is almost instantly relatable, and his journey is one that anyone who has ever felt a moment of melancholy can relate with.  The very personal moments, like when he admits that he has always felt like he is being watched, make the reader feel as if they are no longer reading a graphic novel, but rather are looking at a fellow person bearing their soul.

While the third act of the book falls some what short, seeming to offer very little resolution (though the argument can be made that life itself offers very little in the way of resolution), the storytelling of this piece more than makes up for it, and this is a must read for anyone who likes a good character study, or a masterfully crafted graphic novel, or both.

John K.

American

I don’t think I ahve really said this yet, but I am a HUGE comic book fan. and more than anything I tend to get wrapped up in following characters. One of my favorites is (as you can tell from the beginning of this blog) Supergirl.

By Dean Trippe

Now this has not always been a good thing, far from it in fact sense they brought the character back a few years ago. Sure she looked good, but she was written as a skank, running around in short shirts and dating Mr. Boomerang. (what was that?) but all of a sudden this book has gotten UBER good.

Anchored by the solid team of writer Sterling Gates and artist Jamal Igle, they have finally made Kara act like a teen. (but a good one, not the kind i was who was a screw up and had no desire to be good.) The best thing that they have done is decide that Kara is at root a good person who, while young, is trying to do the right thing. In other words, someone has finally decided to have characterization in one of the superman comics.

I am about to ramble and I am trying not to spoil the story lines going on, so just go by the thing, and if you already do, share your feelings.

(if you want me to tell you about the story going on, just ask!)

John K.