Comics and Coffee is Back!

I don't claim to be able to exactly define the term in either a general sense or even as it applies to my own sensibilities, it's something that's subjective and the best I could manage would be a ostensive (example-based) definition, one of those "you know it when you see it" sort of situations, but by my reckoning and according to my personal taste those examples I gave all qualify.  Certainly none of them is exactly what any of us would call "traditional comic art", except maybe for Kirby, and I think that's more of a case of his work having been around for so long and how massively-influential/imitated it is; if some of that Kirby cosmic stuff debuted today and the world had never seen it before, if he hadn't helped define what comic art is for decades, I wonder how traditional it would seem.

Like I mentioned, for me McKean is the perfect example of surrealism in comics detracting from the story to such an extent as to make it totally unreadable.  Different strokes, obviously and always, but his covers kept me away from Sandman for 20 years (which has certainly taught me a lesson about books and covers), and, for me, no matter how many times I hear people praise the work, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is impossible to read; i'm not exaggerating when I say that even though i've tried to read it many times (because I love Batman, and the premise is cool, and it's always talked about as an essential Batman classic), i've never been able to make it past the 5th or 6th page.  I've flipped through the whole thing more than once, sat there with it for a couple of hours, given it a real shot; I know what the story consists of from synopses and such, and i'd love to be able to love that book, but his art is so unintelligible as to make the work completely unreadable, to me, which is a very frustrating experience.

But then again, as I sit here today more than one of my favorite ongoings have pretty surreal art, like Ody-C and Sandman Overture, and in those instances the art dazzles and amazes me, I get wrapped up in it and love pouring over the pages for long periods of time, so it could be that i'm growing into an appreciation for severely non-traditional art styles in my old age, or it could be that same old thing with art: sometimes you like it, and sometimes you don't, and it's not always predictable which way you're going to go no matter how well you know your own taste.  Jock on Wytches is an interesting one right now, to me; I like the book, i've liked his work before (Black Mirror), and the book seems to be extremely popular and/or receiving a ton of praise (rightfully), but each issue the art has become more and more busy and difficult to make out, with purpose and in service to the story definitely, and I like the character designs and at first I thought I kind-of liked the general look of it as well, but to be honest it's starting to really bug me.  In the most recent issue I couldn't help but notice that it's becoming very, very difficult to make out what exactly's happening much of the time, and that tends to drive me nuts and I think it really detracts from the story in a big way; i'm not sure how much longer I can hang with that book, no matter how much i'd like to see where it's going.  And again, that's frustrating.

I dunno, I just think it's an interesting conversation; I don't know if there are any real conclusions to be made, but i'm fascinated as to where we all draw our own particular lines when it comes to how out-there you like your art, and when you think it works and when you think it doesn't work at all.


Oh definitely; very much so; good call!