Comicsgirl

Delirium’s Party Buy on Amazon.com

I have written about as much as I ever need to write about The Sandman series itself. I think that’s pretty clear.

Part of me thinks Jill Thompson’s Little Endless is absolutely wrong and “Delirium’s Party” is no exception to that. But in Thomspon’s hands, it’s also beautiful and wonderful and childlike, like the original The Little Endless Storybook before it. But The Endless was meant to be pretty permeable and adaptable. They are archetypes you tell stories about, even if those stories aren’t necessarily adult. Why not tell children’s stories featuring them?

Delirium, the youngest of The Endless, was always the most immature and the one that mostly remained in her own little world. She never thought much beyond herself. With her love of color and excess, it makes sense she’d be the focus of Endless stories for younger readers.

In Delirium’s Party, Delirium throws a surprise party for her sad sister, Despair to cheer her up. She invites all her siblings and attempts all kinds of things — a gigantic cake, presents — to get Despair to smile.

Yes, there are plenty of jokes if you’ve read The Sandman (part of Thompson’s skill is that the characters basically behave as you’d expect them to, even if this is a kid’s tale), but it’s also innocent and completely charming. Delirium’s guileless oblivion is sweet — she doesn’t realize that you’re not really going to make an embodiment of Despair happy — and her (mostly) unwavering optimism is delightful. Even the talking dog Barnabas, who provides a voice of practicality, is kind to Delirium. In Thompson’s hands, he’s never making fun of Delirium but just trying to reason with her (and maybe get her to let him take a nap).

Thompson’s watercolors are gorgeous and playful, as always. Sure, the chibi Endless are ridiculous, but she revels in that. Delirium’s penchant for rainbows and insanity gives Thompson freedom to paint cakes covered in everything from action figures to flowers and feathers as well as Delirium’s insane “thinking cap” that consists of musical organs and pencils and bubbles. Studying the art for surprising elements is part of what makes this so much fun.

I realize that the appeal of this may just be for people who are fans of The Sandman or people who are fans of The Sandman with children, but it’s a joy in its own right. If The Sandman gave us this (and the original Little Endless Storybook), that’s a good legacy. I’d love if people pick this up without even knowing about what came before it. It’s that much fun.

My mom is getting ready to put her house up for sale. A couple of weekends ago, I was there for a visit and to also help clean out my closet (much of it had already been done, but there were still a few boxes to go through). Some of this cleaning involved going through my comics.

In all honesty, I never had that big of a comic book collection. I never bought too many individual issues as it was and I often gathered up comics I was done with and passed them along (or turned them into craft projects — yes, I am a terrible person). There were maybe about 300 comics in my closet and I got rid of about half (as these things go, they didn’t actually sell at our yard sale — my mom ended up giving them away. There were some good comics in there so I hope they at least ended up with someone who appreciates them).

I’d been thinking about this anyway, and while I am unclear on the actual date, but 2011 marks 20 years of my comic-book-reading life. I distinctly remember what my first comic was — X-Factor #62.

In retrospect, it wasn’t the best nor the most reader-friendly choice — it was the end of a crossover — but I didn’t know any better.

Let’s back up a bit. My brother, after seeing some friends at school with them, bought a couple of packs of the first series of Marvel Universe Cards. I did, too. This wasn’t too much of a leap for us since we were both baseball card collectors.

I found myself attracted to a lot of the X-Men characters and I wanted to know more about them. So, one day at 7-Eleven before some outing with our mom, we picked up comics (this was the days where comics were sold at 7-Eleven. And they also only cost $1. And you could get a Slurpee at the same time. Yes, these were the days). At least, this is my memory of the experience — I am willing to allow this was no true.

I don’t remember what my brother bought, but I clearly remember I bought X-Factor #62. (It was dated January 1991, which meant it came out earlier than that. I feel like it was spring when I bought it, but I honestly don’t know.)

I definitely remember being confused, since, as I mentioned, this was the end of a fairly large crossover series (although it was just nine issues. That’s kind of cute now) but it was interesting enough to me that I wanted to read more comics. In fact, I think starting on the X-Men titles after “Xtinction Agenda” was pretty good timing.

And that comic? It was written by Louise Simonson. That’s right: My first comic was written by a woman. I didn’t know it at the time, but I think that’s amazing and appropriate.

(OK: In all honesty, I had read some Archie comics before this, but I guess I mean this in a way where this was the first comic I recognized as a comic book.)

I realize I came into comics at possibly the worst time in retrospect — the mid-’90s boom and bust was just around the corner — but it was fun at the time. And despite it all, I never fully gave up comics. Yes, many issues of various X-titles followed and I bought into the whole Image thing, but I also found The Tick and Elfquest and The Sandman. Those comics taught me that there was more out there than just the usual suspects and I’ve been filling my bookshelves up with them ever since.

I didn’t know what X-Factor #62 was going to mean at the time — it was just a fun, if confusing, diversion. But I remain grateful for that comic, 20 years later. Even if it wasn’t the best introduction, it opened the door to so many great things.

Kill Shakespeare co-creators Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col are as charming as their comic.

I already knew this, of course, since I’ve met them before, but the two of them are incredibly smart, witty and fun. They’re clearly good friends and have an easy-going rapport with each other. While I know they’ve made presentations like this before, it didn’t feel over-rehearsed or artificial. They were very natural on stage.

The majority of the audience last night did seem to be those who attended productions and other events at the Folger, but there was a group of the messenger-bag types (like myself) and, surprisingly, a few parents with older children (preteen to middle teens, I’d say). But overall, it wasn’t really a crowd of comic-book readers. Obviously, this title is reaching a type of person who usually doesn’t read them.

McCreery and Del col started out with how the idea for the comic was born (Kill Bill had just come out and so they were joking about other “Bills” they could kill. In one of their many jokes about being Canadian, they said they rejected William Shatner because he was one of them) and that they originally thought it could be a video game before shelving the idea for a while.

They then ran through a basic summary of the plot (including a sneak preview of issue #9 that will be out next week) and a rundown of the characters. They discussed the changes they made to the ones they’ve picked and said that while they’ve played loose with some of the details, they try to keep them recognizable and just extrapolate what would’ve been next for everyone.

Most telling for me was when McCreery mentioned that he has a lot of teenage girls telling them they really like the take on Juliet in Kill Shakespeare. I tend to agree — Romeo & Juliet is not my favorite play by Shakespeare, but Juliet was the driving force and decision-maker for most of the events there. It’s great to see her get to be strong.

Del Col and McCreery also showed some before-and-after examples of how comic pages get made, which was probably more interesting to the rest of the Folgers audience than it was to me. (They continually praised artist Andy Belanger, who couldn’t be there since they were making him stay in Canada and draw their comic.)

They both talked a lot about that reading Shakespeare on the page can be kind of overwhelming and boring but his work is pretty well-suited to comics (I feel like comics do have a great deal in common with theater — more so than film). They’ve said that both teachers and students have been pretty excited by Kill Shakespeare and it’s created more interest in the source material.

In one of the night’s lighter moments (and there were many), Del Col said he wants action figures, because to him, that “equals success.”

The audience question-and-answer portion was a mixed bag, as they usually are. I was most surprised at the answer to a woman’s question of “Is this your day job?” They both said yes, and McCreery said before they started, they worked very hard on crafting a business plan. I think that’s an excellent thing.

The Sandman and Neil Gaiman came up a few times in the Q&A portion, since, you know, Gaiman did write some stories involving Shakespeare in his comic. People wanted to know if that was an influence, and McCreery said he was kind of intimidated by the comparison, but that Kill Shakespeare is a different thing. It’s not better or worse, but just different.

That did make me think about something though — The Sandman reached (and still reaches) a lot of people who don’t read comics (and in fact, there are a lot of people who just read The Sandman and don’t ever branch out beyond that). It’s hard to say if Kill Shakespeare will still be read 20 years from now (but you never know) but it is connecting with non-comics audiences right now. It’s a very different comic than The Sandman, sure, and Del Col and McCreery are very different writers, but they do share Gaiman’s interest connecting with fans. I think there are worse comparisons.

ComicsDC‘s Mike Rhode questioned the loose geography of where Kill Shakespeare is set. Del Col pointed out that they just mention it’s in a “strange land” that’s vaguely European and vaguely in the middle ages. They compared it to the island from Lost before joking it was actually set in Canada.

Someone asked about their future plans, and both said they have more Kill Shakespeare planned out (they would love to use The Tempest) and they’re currently writing a screenplay and want to do video games and more.

But ultimately, they’ve been happy with Kill Shakespeare and the reaction it’s received so far. Both seem genuinely appreciative of it. McCreery said he just wants someone to pick up the comic and think “It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s not half-bad.”

Del Col said that should be the blurb on the back of the book.

I love Ask MetaFilter. I really do. It’s an incredibly useful site and while sometimes fights do erupt, it’s smartly moderated. There is an awesome wealth of information to be had there.

But there are some things it does not do well. A user asks “Which graphic novels should I read?” and explains what she’s read recently — for example, she really liked How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden and thought Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies was really funny for the most part. She liked Persepolis OK.

She wants to know what she should read next, specifying she’d prefer strong female characters and more funny than serious.

The first two recommendations she gets are The Sandman and Strangers in Paradise. I was actually surprised at how long it took someone to bring up Y: The Last Man.

Certainly, taken as a whole, there are some good recommendations in there for her mixed in with things like The Dark Knight Returns (and I’m biased, sure, but thank you kind user who pointed her to the Ignatz winners and nominees because that is a good starting point).

And no, The Sandman and Strangers in Paradise are not bad comics. They are, for the most part, good comics. They are comics I like. But they’re not the first comics I’d recommend, especially under circumstances like this. They aren’t specific to what this woman was asking for, to begin with, but mostly, they are incredibly lazy recommendations and basically say to me “I stopped paying attention to what comics women may like about 10 years ago because we only need those two.” (When I started Comicsgirl way back in the dawn of time in 1998, do you know what were some of the first comics I wrote about? Oh, that’s right: The Sandman and Strangers in Paradise.)

There are so many great comics out there right now for and/or by women. I don’t think you have to look very hard to find them (at least, I don’t — I have shelves full of them). I personally feel like the asker of the question already has a pretty good handle on some interesting comics in terms of that. I’m sure if the typical “comics for women” were of interest to her, she would’ve found them already. After all, that she’s picked up both Julia Wertz and Sarah Glidden makes me think she knows what she’s doing more than she thinks she does.

I just think if the usual answers is all someone has, not answering the question is always a valid option, too.

Strangers in Paradise image taken from Terry Moore’s site.

Eric San Juan is re-reading the series, volume by volume over at Weird Tales.

I certainly didn’t think my idea was unique and I have no clue if Eric San Juan knows of it. But it’s a lot of fun to see someone else’s take on the series. I loved re-reading it and discovering new things in the process. It delights me that someone else is doing the same thing and recording his thoughts on it. Obviously, I don’t agree with everything he’s said, but I’m also surprised at some of the conclusions we both came to, like that Dream Country is where Neil Gaiman finds his voice in the series. I’m also surprised at where we differ — he likes Season of Mists much more than I did this time around.

I also admire his ability to write about each volume every week day — I could barely manage one per week.