Episode 207: Reviews of The Lost Work of Will Eisner, Libby’s Dad, and Blubber #3

Time Codes: 00:00:29 - Introduction 00:02:50 - Listener mail 00:09:42 - Comics Alternative news 00:21:20 - The Lost Work of Will Eisner 01:05:07 - Libby's Dad 01:18:31 - Blubber #3 01:37:13 - Wrap up 01:39:14 - Contact us This week on The Comics Alternative, Andy and Derek discuss three new titles that are quite different in tone. They begin with The Lost Work of Will Eisner, a collection of Eisner's earliest known professional comics. This began as a Kickstarter campaign last year from Locust Moon Press, and just last week the book went on sale to the general public. The collection is made up of two serial strips, the pantomime gag comic Uncle Otto and the espionage adventure Harry Karry. While they do talk about the former, it's Harry Karry that interests the guys more. They spend a lot of time discussing some of the problems of that action-packed strip -- e.g., its racist caricatures and its abrupt shift in narrative direction and art style -- and how it can be read as a testing ground for what Eisner would later do in The Spirit. Next, the Two Guys turn their attention to Eleanor Davis's Libby's Dad. This is one of the latest books from Retrofit Comics/Big Planet Comics, a publisher that has become a favorite of the show. This is a straightforward and deceptively simple short story about a young girls' pool party and sleepover. The power behind this tale is Davis's ability to focalize the action through her teenage female narrator and to do so in a detached and non-judgmental manner. Finally, Derek and Andy discuss a much less innocent text. Gilbert Hernandez's Blubber #3 (Fantagraphics) is, in many ways, more explicit and more potentially offensive than the previous issue, which the guys discussed back in April. And back then they thought that issue #2 was "worse" than the first. So what is it about Hernandez's obscene free-for-all that keeps drawing the guys' attention? Perhaps they are just on board for everything Hernandez does. Perhaps they see Beto as a happy First Amendment rebel. Perhaps they are mesmerized by Hernandez's attempts to out-Crumb Robert Crumb. Or perhaps Andy and Derek are just two warped sickos who get their jollies talking about offensive comics for the podcast. You decide.