Ben Boruff 10/25/17 Ben Boruff 10/25/17

Review: Pride of the Decent Man

By Ben Boruff

The problem with this graphic novel is not that Andrew Peters is not a decent man. He is.

The problem is that I don't care.

T.J. Kirsch's Pride of the Decent Man is a 96-page graphic novel about the life of Andy Peters, a man who spent time in prison for attempting to rob a grocery store with his friend Whitey. Kirsch is a talented artist, and this graphic novel enhances his already impressive resume as a comic artist. Bold backgrounds push raw, unpretentious characters toward the reader. The comic's apt artwork, however, is weighed down by its unceremonious narrative.

Ben Boruff 9/13/17 Ben Boruff 9/13/17

Review: What Does Consent Really Mean?

By Ben Boruff

In May of 2016, I participated in Chicagoland's This Is My Brave event. Actors, essayists, and storytellers of all types shared memories about mental illness with a live audience. This Is My Brave, Inc. is a national organization that strives to "end the stigma surrounding mental health issues by sharing personal stories."Several months later, I gathered a binder's worth of materials to defend the teaching of an award-winning graphic novel in a high school classroom. I argued that many comics and graphic novels offer a unique reading experience in which symbolically rich visuals fuel the potency of multifaceted narratives. One page in my binder included a quote often attributed to French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard: "Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form."

Ben Boruff 7/19/17 Ben Boruff 7/19/17

Review: Captives #2

By Ben Boruff

For nearly a decade, a friend and I have been working our way through Smallville, The CW's melodrama starring Tom Welling as a hormonal, somewhat simpleminded Clark Kent. My friend and I live hours apart, but we find time every few months to meet somewhere and watch a couple episodes. (We recently finished the ninth season, and I am very excited to start the final season soon.) It has been a rocky journey. We had to endure the infuriating awkwardness of teenage Clark; the inclusion of one-shot villains like Alicia Baker, a lovestruck high schooler who surprises young Clark with both kryptonite and sex; and, more recently, the inability of the show's writers to reconcile their desire to highlight Lois Lane's confidence and their knee-jerk assumption that every season needs a Damsel in Distress.We watch Smallville because we appreciate the fun absurdity of melodrama, and I recommend Captives for the same reason.

Ben Boruff 6/13/17 Ben Boruff 6/13/17

Review: Josephine

By Ben Boruff

In a time of social media grandstanding and generally hollow conversations about urgent topics, perhaps a silent story is the best way to discuss concepts like racial prejudice. Josephine, a 132-page black-and-white graphic novel, is Kevin Sacco’s semi-autobiographical account of life in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the 1960s, and it addresses issues like inequality and materialism with a style that is both delicate and direct.

Ben Boruff 6/9/17 Ben Boruff 6/9/17

Review: Super Sikh #1

By Ben Boruff

I have been a fan of Rosarium Publishing for quite some time. The indie publisher self-identifies as a "fledgling publisher specializing in speculative fiction, comics, and a touch of crime fiction—all with a multicultural flair," and its impressive team of authors and artists have created a variety of boundary-pushing comics, including Ted Lange IV's Warp Zone and a comic book anthology called APB: Artists against Police Brutality. Rosarium Publishing's mission is an important one. Like a balloon tied to a rock, comic culture is rising toward an established place in the critic-molded literary zeitgeist, but it can only rise so far without freeing itself from some of its baser habits, such as casually neglecting to tell a wide variety of stories. Publishers like Rosarium Publishing guide comic culture toward a richer, more eclectic future, and compelling comics like Super Sikh offer hope that we will get there soon.

Ben Boruff 5/31/17 Ben Boruff 5/31/17

Review: Captives #1

By Ben Boruff

In its eighth season, How I Met Your Mother introduced the world to The Dobler-Dahmer Theory. This theory proposes that, in the context of a potential relationship, "If both people are into each other, a big romantic gesture works, like Lloyd Dobler holding up the boombox outside Diane Court's window in Say Anything..., but if one person isn't into the other, the same gesture comes off serial-killer crazy, or Dahmer." Alexander Banchitta tests this theory, perhaps unintentionally, in Captives, his Rapunzel-esque medieval fantasy comic about a pretty girl in a tower and the host of sexually frustrated men who attempt to save her.

Ben Boruff 4/26/17 Ben Boruff 4/26/17

Review: Ink Island

By Ben Boruff

Every so often, two or more of my interests share a glorious, usually fleeting moment. Once, I ate cheesecake as Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited flowed from tastefully small speakers that sat on a rustic coffee table next to a dog-eared copy of William Gibson's Neuromancer. Years later, I met Henry Winkler at a comic con, and he performed an amateur magic trick. And just yesterday, my cat and I played with bubble wrap.

Ben Boruff 4/4/17 Ben Boruff 4/4/17

Review: AA Squad #1

By Ben Boruff

AA Squad is a simple comic, but its characters ask big questions. What is the value of history? What is the nature of the butterfly effect? Is Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" wrong? Does my life matter?

Ben Boruff 3/29/17 Ben Boruff 3/29/17

Review: Crawl Space

By Ben Boruff

In his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, philosopher and Harvard professor Robert Nozick offered his now-famous Experience Machine thought experiment as a critique of hedonism. Nozick imagined a machine that could provide unending pleasure to any individual willing to experientially submit to it. The thought experiment suggests that if human beings desire only pleasure, humans would willingly use the machines. Nozick argues, however, that human beings may avoid such machines because humans ultimately desire "actual contact" with a "deeper reality." In other words, we value real experiences over pleasurable ones.

But what if there was a machine that offered both real and pleasurable experiences? And what if that machine was your washing machine?

Ben Boruff 3/20/17 Ben Boruff 3/20/17

Review: Popova #1

By Ben Boruff

Writers Dre Torres and Alex Valdes are not afraid of difficult tasks. The two creators of Popova, a Tarantino-style comic that "explores the idea of reversing society's gender stereotypes by depicting women in the role of the aggressor," also created a documentary called The Last Taino. Here is the documentary's description as noted on the film's Indiegogo page:

Ben Boruff 3/17/17 Ben Boruff 3/17/17

Review: Paper Crown

By Ben Boruff

Deep below the colorful lithosphere of indie comics lies a core of melancholy, aphoristic, and often minimalistic comics that explore the more nuanced elements of loneliness, solitude, and longing. Occasionally, these comics bubble to the surface of the indie comic zeitgeist, but more often they remain hidden, churning below the consciousness of casual fans. I call this subgenre of indie comics "epigrammatic gloom," and it is oddly refreshing. Comics of the "epigrammatic gloom" genre eschew the usual dressings of intricate plot, and they favor the power of artwork over the power of dialogue. Like the beginning of Up and the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, an "epigrammatic gloom" comic allows visuals to lift the weight of the story's emotional elements, and this tactic is almost always effective. Without the burden of dialogue, panels are able to burn with color, and background artwork—often vast and simple to enhance the protagonist's isolation—is not obstructed by overbearing bubbles and squares. Claire Connelly’s clever comics contain copious amounts of this molten melancholy, and Paper Crown is among the best of Connelly’s impressive work.

Ben Boruff 3/13/17 Ben Boruff 3/13/17

Review: Super Ready Battle Armor #1

By Ben Boruff

Bradley Adan and Michael Milham have created a comic that straddles the line between two different narrative worlds. Super Ready Battle Armor's left foot is planted in the slapstick absurdity of shōnen manga (少年漫画), but the comic's right foot touches something more mature—something beyond the comedic action-adventure narratives of similar comics. According to the comic's Facebook page, some reviewers have said that Super Ready Battle Armor is "superhero horror," but that label misrepresents both sides of this story. Protagonists of shōnen manga rarely match Western perceptions of superheros, and "horror" is a poor label for any comic that features a character named Professor Insanus who verbally narrates the actions of other characters (once while perched beside the protagonist's bed like a parakeet). Super Ready Battle Armor has the trappings of clichéd manga, but the narrative, when stripped naked, is surprisingly more complex.

Ben Boruff 3/12/17 Ben Boruff 3/12/17

Review: Delilah Blast #1

By Ben Boruff

According to Delilah Blast's Kickstarter page, writer Marcel Dupree first imagined Delilah's world in 2010 after listening to "Do Somethin'" by Britney Spears and "Science" by System of a Down, and the spirits of both songs certainly found their way into the finished product. Spears's 2004 electropop hit "Do Somethin'" features hard-hitting techno beats and indignant vocals. "Science" is an angry, fast-paced rock song that makes a big claim: "Science has failed our world." Delilah Blast is a visual rendering of these two songs—after they have been smashed together and repurposed for a young steampunk-obsessed audience.