Gonzo: I’m going to Bombay, India, to become a movie star!
Fozzie Bear: You don’t go to Bombay to become a movie star. You go where we’re going: Hollywood!
Gonzo: Sure, if you want to do it the easy way!

–The Muppet Movie¹

On twitter last month (I think it was last month; I find twitter-time difficult to reconcile with meatworld time), my friend Kip had an argument about art, effort, and transparency. Or that’s how I remember it, anyway; no doubt that’s all been filtered through my own biases.

Many — most — cartoonists and writers work hard to make their storytelling as transparent and effortless for the reader as they can. This is where “transparency” comes in: the prose (or cartooning) is a clear glass through which the reader observes the story. The clearer the glass, the better.

But what about people who make stained glass windows?

The folks Kip was arguing with — also friends of mine — argued that making readers work hard is pretentious bullshit. Kip agreed, I think, that clarity can be a virtue, but that a creator could reasonably decide to focus on other virtues as well.

There was an elephant in the room, which I can’t recall if anyone mentioned: Kip is the author of City of Roses, a wonderful, web-serialized urban fantasy novel. Kip’s writing emphasizes character, mood, freedom for Kip to explore his own considerable quirkiness, subjective perceptions, and setting. But transparent prose really isn’t what Kip’s about. Kip’s prose could, I think, fairly be described as stained glass. Here, for example, is Kip’s self-described “elevator pitch” for City of Roses:

Violence; violence, and power, in the context of yet somebody else walking up to the groaning boards of fantasy’s eternal wedding feast, still laden with the cold meats from Tolkien’s funeral, and cheekily joining everyone who’s trying to send the whole thing smashing to the ground just to hear the noise all that crockery will make. —But! Also: genderfuck, hearts broken cleanly and otherwise, the City of Portland, Spenser, those moments in pop songs when the bass and all of the drums except maybe a handclap suddenly drop out of the bridge leaving you hanging from a slender aching thread of melody waiting almost dreading the moment when the beat comes back, and the occasional bit of swordplay.

On the one hand, as a reader I gravitate towards clear-as-glass writers (for many years Anne Tyler was my favorite novelist; nowadays I might say Connie Willis.). If I can’t effortlessly understand the prose in a novel, there’s a good chance I’ll put it down.

But (otherhandwise), sometimes what you work for is more rewarding than what’s offered on a platter. There are cartoonists and writers you slow down for; you have to be attentive. It takes a lot more effort to read Dave McKean’s Cages than to read Y: The Last Man. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading Y — a funny adventure with cliffhanger endings like clockwork at the end of every chapter — but if you read it at all, you’re appreciating it as much as you ever will. Putting more effort than that into reading it won’t bring any reward and is probably missing the point. In contrast, Cages is a thicker, richer and more nourishing meal. More like a bunch of meals, because it’s worth going back and rereading a bunch of times. If you pay attention, it’ll be worth it, because there’s so much there.

I’ve reread episodes of City of Roses a bunch of times. I’d highly recommend it (first chapter starts here). But it’s not “relax, turn your brain off, and be entertained” urban fantasy. It’s very rewarding, but readers have to put in a bit of work and pay attention. Which means — like Gonzo becoming a movie star — it’s going to have a hard time finding the readership it deserves.

Of course, writing this has made me think of my own work, which falls very much on the “transparent” side of the divide. But, to tell you the truth, I sometimes feel guilty about that. My favorite comics often aren’t as transparent, or as easy reading, as my own comics tend to be. For now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing too much to change it; but someday I hope to experiment with making some stained glass.

1. Bombay seems like an odd choice for this joke. Wasn’t there a sizable movie industry in Bombay in the 1970s? Or am I confused? (back)

I love this. Click to go to the original.

The mouseover text is full of win, too.

I already posted part of this page in progress, but I haven’t posted the whole page before, and now you get to see it with Jake’s colors. Enjoy!

(Click on the image for a bigger size).

I finished drawing the “Hereville” graphic novel this weekend, and Jake finished colors. That doesn’t mean I’m all done — there’s still a significant amount of work to do (title page, back cover art, fixes requested by the publisher, etc) — but still: YAY! I’m very happy to have gotten the principle art done, and I’m pretty pleased with the book as a whole.

Below: All 139 pages of the graphic novel, plus the front cover. It might be a tad hard to read at this size, though… the larger sized version will be in bookstores in November.

Zahra’s Paradise. Here’s the first page:

Only chapter one is up so far, but it looks like it’s going to be a very good book. Go check it out.

Posted with the kind permission of Keith Knight; visit Keith’s website for many more cartoons.

All Mirka’s siblings, plus her father and her stepmother, and Mirka herself. This was fun to draw.

(Click on the image to see a bigger version).

Here’s a page of art from the upcoming Hereville graphic novel. The graphic novel will be 139 pages long, of which 104 are inked and I’m not sure exactly how many (but a lot) are colored. If all goes well, all 139 pages will be complete five weeks from now. And I will be exhausted.

Which brings me to something I should have mentioned; I now have a collaborator on Hereville. Mr. Jake Richmond, my friend and housemate and excellent cartoonist, illustrator and game designer, is coloring Hereville. Thanks, Jake!

Anyway, here’s a preview page:

You can see a larger image of the page here.

My friend and cartooning colleague Stephanie McMillan is drawing a children’s book, written by Derrick Jenson. It seems like a cool project.

The funding mechanism is pretty cool as well; you can essentially pre-buy copies of the book (by donating $12 for pdf, $25 for dead tree), but your credit card will only be charged if they raise enough money to produce the book. (You could also donate more in return for more valuable rewards, like original art). If they don’t raise enough money, then none of the donors are charged anything.

Follow that link to see a video preview of the book (including the first five pages of art), or check out the more extensive Youtube preview.

I hope they raise the money they need. It’s a really neat idea — crowdsourcing grants for the arts, in effect. (I might try to fund the second Hereville book the same way!)

I haven’t forgotten Hereville! I’m still working hard on the graphic novel.

Right now, I don’t have time to do much of anything but draw Hereville, which is one reason I’ve been posting so rarely. I should finish drawing the graphic novel in March, and after I’ll be a bit more active with posting.

Here’s a panel I just inked, showing Mirka’s school’s cafeteria. You can see Mirka and her sisters Gittel and Rochel, sitting at the table closest to the viewer (behind the girl with the spikey hair). Gittel is the one with glasses.

Click on the panel to see it bigger.

Posted with the kind permission of Kevin Moore. Click on the cartoon to see it bigger, and to see Kevin’s commentary and links.

In addition to Kevin’s comments, I’d point out this post by Ezra, pointing out that (by the weird definition of “subsidize” conservatives are suddenly using), Stupak “did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women.”

And read as well this piece, pointing out that by the Bishop’s definition of federal funding, the enormous support the Federal government pays to Catholic hospitals and charities must be a subsidization of religion, and is presumably unconstitutional.

[Visual description:
Panel one: Dude wearing "Uncle Sam" hat and a Hawaiian shirt is walking alongside a cliff, with John Keynes, who has a big mustache.
HAT DUDE: Keynes, you are old-fashioned and useless. Modern economics has transcended you.
Panel 2: Hat Dude teeters on the edge of falling off the cliff.
HAT DUDE: Oh Dear! I am plummeting over a cliff! SAVE ME KEYNES!
Panel 3: Keynes has caught hat dude by the wrist and is pulling him to safety.
KEYNES: It's okay... I've got you!
HAT DUDE: Thank you, Keynes!
Panel 4: The duo resumes their walk.
HAT DUDE: As I was saying, Keynes, you're of no use at all! ]

A cartoon that was inspired by Paul Krugman’s article “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” Click on the cartoon to see a bigger version.

I’m thrilled to announce that Friends of Lulu has nominated Hereville for two awards! “The Lulu Awards recognizes the the people and projects that helped to open eyes and minds to the amazing comic and cartooning work by and/or about women.”

Hereville was nominated for the Leah Adezio Award For Best Kid-Friendly Work, and Mirka was nominated for Best Female Character.

To vote for Hereville (or for the other nominees — swell folks, all of them!), go to Friends of Lulu and follow the directions there.

* * *

Hey, speaking of Hereville, whatever happened to it? I’m still working on it, believe it or not. Comics are slow!

The graphic novel will be coming out from Abrams in late 2010 (in time for Hanukkah!). I’m just finishing up the second draft of the pencils now, and I’ll begin work on the final art in a bit over a week.

Meanwhile, just to whet people’s appetites, here’s a penciled page from chapter one:

Click on the cartoon to see it bigger.

Click on the cartoon to see it bigger. Happy Labor Day!

Click on the image to biggify it.

Click on the cartoon to see a larger version.

You can listen to Reagan’s speech here, and see I’m not exaggerating (he begins talking about loss of freedoms for doctors at about six minutes, and predicts total fascism at around seven minutes). Listening to it, it’s interesting how little the debate has changed between 1961 and today.

If it’s true, as Reagan claims, that the idea behind Medicare was to take a first step that would inevitably lead to socialized medicine for all citizens, then boy did that plan backfire.

I love this cartoon by my friend Mikhaela Reid.

If you’ve ever been to TVTropes.org, you know that Randall Munroe is absolutely right about this. I once inadvertently spent seven hours surfing there. Indeed, I defy anyone to go there and get out without reading, at minimum, ten articles. It can’t be done.

Consider this an open thread.