Comic Revue June 10: I Kill Giants

Grab your weapons. Hang on Tight.

 We're riding to Battle with

I Kill Giants is an incredible comic written by Joe Kelly and illustrated by J. M. Ken Niimura. It is a tale of pain and redemption, loneliness, loss and connection. It's a tale of everyday magic hiding just under the skin of the mundane, and the power of myth to change a life.


Barbara is a freak. A weird kid. A nutcase. From the outside. But inside, she is a hero with a sacred trust. She studies the lore. And she. Kills. Giants.

This comic is a must read. For sale at this link, it can be read here until you can buy a copy of your own. There will be no spoilers below, but I will repeat: Read. This.

The Rating

A gem.

The Raves

If you've not heard the term 'urban fantasy' before, welcome to the genre. This comic tells the tale of a girl with one foot in Faery and one foot in the principal's office. And she has something worth fighting for. Her quest consumes her. That sounds noble until it gets you sent to the school shrink. 

The exploration of the intersection between these interior and exterior experiences is seamless, poignant and absolutely true. If you were ever the weird kid, this story will bring tears to your eyes and a grin to your lips. If you were ever the one trying to help the weird kid, you'll most likely feel the same. I love this work for its ability to gently explore the interface between fact and inner truth, the fault lines where the stories we live by rub up against the expectations laid on us by those around us.

At its heart, this work is a story about stories and their power. When life hands us the incomprehensible or the unbearable, we humans have a choice: we can become stone, bearing up under the weight at the cost of shutting down our emotions. We can become shattered by the pressure. Or we can become storytellers who force the narrative of events into a tool we can use in our fight for survival. 

This comic's frank, realistic and humorous exploration of trauma and the places it can take the mind of a child is amazing. Relatable, empathic and painfully funny in equal measure, it is the story I'd most recommend to school counselors and anyone dealing with kids handling difficulties. The creators truly remember how children think, and they remember how sharp the edges on the world are when our hearts are new. In Barbara's utter focus on the rituals and lore she must abide by in order to slay giants, we understand humanity's desperate urge to have some control over our lives. In Taylor's urge to hurt others, we understand the need to feel we have power of some kind, any kind. And in Sophia's stubborn insistence on seeing the good in others, we can see that connection is what has kept humanity alive this long.

Most of all, this story reminds us why we tell stories: to make us something more than we were and give us the strength to take on our monsters. Gamian said it best: Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. That is why Barbara kills giants.

And now that I've gone on my poetic rant, let's talk about the art. Don't let this work fool you. It's kept loose and stylized to match the material, but this piece knows all the tricks and uses them to advantage. The simplicity of the ink drawings, without color or complex backgrounds to dazzle the eye, leads the reader to every detail.

The pacing is perfection, and all I can say is....*happy sigh*

The Razzes

Occasional, very occasional, reversals on word balloon reading direction can be irritating breaks in the flow. I would have liked to see those resolved. Other than that? I got nothing.

The Revue

Read. This. Today. Feed your child's heart and your inner geeky soul. Go on. I double dog dare you.

Saturday Revue Octobe 21st: Moses Jones,Apocalyptic Mama

A Girl's Gotta Do...

What A Girl's Gotta Do...

Modern parenting is hard, and it just keeps getting harder. Teething troubles. Deadbeat dads. Zombies?
But Moses Jones has four mouths to feed, Madonna the Katana and a lot of moxy. She isn't letting a few undead slow her down. 'Moses Jones: Apocalyptic Mama' is her story. Written by Em Mccarty, this is zombie dystopia as you've never seen it before.

The Rating

Hmmm....close, but no katana.

The Raves

At its best,  'Moses Jones' reminds me of  the art therapy journal of someone coping with trauma: raw, beautifully lucid and painfully candid. The story revolves around the deep emotional bonds Moses forms, and when it stays on those themes it's wise, moving and meaningful. The emotional content packed into the work is palpable even in the simplest phrases, and the piece really does make you feel for the characters when it stays focused.
The art style is a pen-and ink lucid dream, as raw in its execution as a piece of folk art and as bluntly powerful when at its best. Sacrificing finesse for emotion, it delivers a gut shot that reminds me of Cheyenne artwork: its stark simplicity doesn't give you any wiggle room. You have to face it head on. This story pulls no punches, in storytelling or in style.

The Razzes

Unfortunately, those powerful punches are often thrown with the finesse of a wild haymaker, and too often they miss the mark. I admire the style that Mccarty is aiming for: the wistful lucid dreaming of a sensitive woman in a dystopian world, coping with her issues through her art. But both the storytelling and the art have a long road ahead of them before they can support such a powerful tale.
Here's my advice: do a lot of study on the anatomy of the human face and head. Here's the basics:


1. The eyes sit at the vertical center of the head or just above, about halfway between the top of the skull (not the hairline) and the bottom of the chin.

2. The bottom of the nose (not the bottom of the nose tip, which can be angled however) sits halfway between the brow and the chin.

3. The ears stretch from the eyes to the bottom of the nose.

4. The width of the eyes is roughly 1/5 of the distance from outer ear to outer ear. In wider faces, this doesn't apply.

5. The eyes are one eye-width apart.

6. The width of the nostrils is the same as the width between the eyes.

7. The center of the lips is located 1/3 of the way down the distance between the bottom of the nose and the chin.

8. The width of the lips (from side to side) is roughly pupil to pupil.

Fix the faces and the rest of the art will look at least twice as good.

Now, storytelling is harder to fix, but  my main advice is this: KISS. Keep it simple sir. Too often, the storytelling rambles off hither and yon: into the lives of side characters who aren't even named at first, into the past, off to moon about an absent lover. All these storylines have their place, but they feel more like loosely connected strands than a story fabric. I understand that the creator is aiming for a personal journal feel, but sacrificing story for style is a cardinal sin of comic making. Tighten the story up, or you're going to lose your readers.

The Revue

I'm keeping my eye on this one. With a little more attention and practice, it'll be shooting off zombie heads at two hundred paces!

Sunday, August 21 2016: It's Just Another Day

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today I shall regale you with the tale of Jake
And his many exes in the story...

Jake comes home to find his family being evicted from their grandfather's house. It's just another day. He breaks up with his smothering, ultra-religious girlfriend, Brianna, and has to move out of her house. It's just another day. He meets the girl of his dreams working at a local convenient store by chance. It's just another day. His father, St. Nik, has a seizure and collapses.

It's Just Another Day is written and drawn by BluRaven C. Houvener and tells the story of Jake and his quest to find love in high school and dealing with the tribulations of life at home. His family moves from apartment to apartment like vagabonds, but even with these misfortunes, Jake still holds his head up high and keeps trunking on.

Rating

It's far from just another comic...

Raves

I tend to enjoy slice-of-life work and that's an aspect of this story that appealed to me. Admittedly, when I judged the webcomic upon seeing the first page alone, I thought this was going to be some kind of "cool, strong man fights ninjas" kind of story (Jake looks pretty cool in his sunglasses), but by the start of page three you finally get to the meat of it. Fighting ninjas. Knocking someone's block off because they ticked you off. These are Jake's idle daydreams and a far cry from who he is and what his life is like, but I think we can all relate to daydreams like that. I mean, Jake's obviously a lover, not a fighter.

The writing is what makes this comic stand out and it's what kept me reading through the entire archive. Jake's narration isn't pretentious and the events and emotions from his various relationships are laid bare. The story beats move along fast and it never drags. We get to the core of each relationship he has with Brianna, Ryoko, and Nikki fairly quickly.

Brianna's relationship seemed like one of convenience. She let his family stay at her house and Jake goes between arguing with her due to their different moral compasses and enjoying the sex they have together.

Almost immediately as that relationship ends, we meet Ryoko: the hot girl. She's literally introduced as a catgirl dressed in neko-ears and a leotard, which is Jake's fetish, but her wishy-washiness and her strange relationship with another boy lead to jealously and their breakup.

Since the comic focuses on Jake and his relationships, it makes me wonder: how well does this story treat the women presented in it? I don't think we're trying to pass the Bechdel test here, since it's a portrait of Jake's life and his relationships to his family, friends, and the women he dates. The only thing I can think of in regards to women in this comic is: She's Just Another Girl.

Until we get to Nikki...

Jake thinks she's the one. They connect over the same things and their relationship grows steadily until Nikki breaks it off for reasons unknown (and through e-mail, no less). Of all the relationships portrayed, this is the one that haunts Jake and the one I found most interesting because of how it ends. It made me wonder about her life beyond the frame of the comic. What was she going through and why did she break it off? There's a great flash-forward panel later in the comic where we get a glimpse of what happened to Nikki. I wonder if the comic will ever bring her character back.

But...almost immediately after that, Jake's on to his next woman (kinda).

There's another interesting relationship that builds over the story, and it's between Jake and his father which is contentious at best. There is a cool factor about Jake's dad that he admires -- being in a biker gang and being a rock musician, but at the same time, Jake's dad also complains about his laziness and puts his son down every time he can even despite Jake's efforts to be responsible and do well.

Jake talking about his dad...

The part that hit home for me was when his father had a seizure due to his brain cancer and went into a coma. My father fought cancer for five years before passing away. I can say for certain, when something that dire happens in the family, whatever minor heartbreaks you were suffering before slip away from your thoughts pretty quick.

Jake also moves on pretty quickly...

Razzes

Most of the razzes I have concerning this comic is the art. The one thing I notice the most about the art is how flat it is. We see Jake and the other characters mostly from profile or front shots. There are a few attempts at dramatic angles, but they definitely need some reference to help refine them.

This kind of angle is hard even for me. The head looks too smushed.

Andrew Loomis has some good examples of heads at different angles

At first I thought BluRaven might not know how to draw glasses in profile because of the way Jake's glasses are drawn, but he certainly does know how to do it, because other characters look correct. There's a conscious choice to keep Jake's eyes hidden at all costs, but doing that in profile is hard. BluRaven is bending reality to hide his eyes. The sunglasses could be curved to wrap around his face, but the way they're drawn, they always appear flat.

There are some issues with head proportions, especially from profile. Sometimes it appears the back of Jake's head is too small.

Back of the skull looks too small. Could be his hair is covering it though.

I think some of the lips and eyes on various faces could also use some work as well. The lips are oddly curled when characters smile. Eyes look too almond-shaped.

When I started learning how to draw, one of the first books I had was from Andrew Loomis, and if you're looking for great instruction on drawing human heads and bodies, getting the correct proportion and how to hang figures so they all appear composed in perspective together correctly, I recommend Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. Loomis' book was reprinted a few years ago and is one of my go-to books. This is how I learned to draw heads when I began drawing 12 years ago, and I still use it today:

Revue

It's Just Another Day is a great read. It's quickly paced and you might find something relatable in Jake's life to your own. Well, unless, maybe you're one of his ex-girlfriends.