Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

There's been much discussion of Colleen Coover's controversial new comic Banana Sunday. I'm confident that the message I posted to Newsarama on page two of this thread should clear up any lingering difficulties.

In all the talk about new stores like RIOT opening up, I haven't seen any mention of the two fantastic new shops we have here in Portland: Bridge City Comics and Cosmic Monkey Comics. They're both sharp and savvy and energetic next-gen stores, and should definitely be included in any discussion of new retail trends.

Why was there nothing like this when I lived there? A small-press comics show in Michigan.

Speaking of the small press, Shawn Hoke's Size Matters is now a blog.

Gutterninja gives FLYTRAP the A-OK.

Chris Butcher talks about porn and oddly conflicting standards. He's absolutely right.

Over at Comic Book Galaxy Chris Allen has a new Breakdowns with a nice Flytrap review, but the thing that grabbed my eye was his push for Walt and Skeezix. I noted an observation about it in the comments thread over there, but I'll reproduce it here with the extra beneift of an "edit" button to get rid of some weird typos:

I'd enjoyed the Gasoline Alley Sunday strips that ran in Drawn and Quarterly, but to be honest, I picked it up because of a last minute price break at San Diego. So I was as surprised as Chris when it turned out that I absolutely LOVED the book. My wife and I are both working our way through it, and we're constantly stopping each other to point out a favorite strip. While I'm a real sucker for the sentimental stuff, the April 1st gag is my laugh-out-loud favorite.

It's hard not to be impressed by how much King likes his characters. There's so much real warmth and affection in his depictions.

I happened to stumble over an old issue of Cerebus the other day- the one where he throws the crying baby off the roof, and I couldn't help but note an interesting point of comparison. Skeezix crying is fairly regulaar gag fodder in the early Gasoline Alley strips, but King didn't turn the situation into a horror-show the way Dave Sim did.

Sim's gag used closeups, expressive lettering and wild caricature to emphasize the baby's unbearable screaming, and he did everything possible to make the reader feel Cerebus' discomfort. King avoided trickery and underplayed the situation, keeping the camera back, going for little laughs from an audience that appreciated Walt's difficulties because they'd shared them at one time or another.

Well, that's that. I'll leave you today with a terrifying picture of Jerry Lewis.

# posted by Periscope studio @ 9:22 AM |