AMELIA RULES v5 - THE TWEENAGE GUIDE... by Jimmy Gownley

AMELIA RULES was a series self-published by Jimmy Gownley through Renaissance Press for 20 issues from 2001 to 2008. The contents of those comics have been collected most recently into four books from Simon&Schuster (plus a Christmas book with some of the stories re-formatted into digest size). Now that the reprinting is out of the way, Gownley has just released an original 192-page fifth book in the series, THE TWEENAGE GUIDE TO NOT BEING UNPOPULAR.

To recap, the series features the adventures of young Amelia McBride, following her move with her mother to a new town after her parents divorced.  In previous books, we've seen her get to know her somewhat nerdish and often super-hero obsessed friends, do battle with a rival ninja gang from across town, find out about her family (including her Aunt Tanner) and generally struggle through the fourth grade.  In this new book, she's now in the fifth grade, and she and her friends are getting more concerned with their social standing, trying to fit in and be popular, or at least, as the title suggests, not be unpopular.  It's an uphill battle, of course.

As you can read on the official site, Gownley takes the inspiration for AMELIA RULES from classic comic strips, in particular Charles Schulz' PEANUTS (the more direct visual cues from Schulz have subsided over time, but still pop up every now and then).  It's also, he says, not about childhood, but about growing up, so the characters do tend to grow and change.

It's always been a very charming series, with Gownley never being a slave to any conventions and willing to do anything for the joke, starting with breaking the fourth wall, which is a regular feature of the book with Amelia's narration, and moving on from there.  In the case of this particular book, that includes a sight gag referencing a classic Wile E. Coyote moment, an extended aside where Amelia talks to Dracula, Frankenstein Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman about the nature of evil (which even includes a somewhat obscure but classic Saturday Night Live joke) and a long flashback done in the style of an Archie comic.  It all tends to work because in every case Gownley really commits to the gag, making everything look and feel right (in an earlier book, he had the photo albums of the characters take the form of the appropriate period comic strips, which really cracked me up).

Anyway, it's always a pleasure to get any new work from Gownley, and six times as much a pleasure to get it a 192-page chunk instead of just 32-pages.  And even more of a pleasure to get it for such a reasonable price (the hardcover is cheaper than 6 issues of the comic would have been, and the softcover is much less than that, so don't believe people when they tell you not serializing comics will lead to higher prices).  And even better news, the back of the book lists Volume 6, TRUE THINGS (ADULTS DON'T WANT KIDS TO KNOW), scheduled for October 2010, so no two year gap before the next big chunk of story.

TALES OF THE UNCANNY PREVIEW by Bissette & Co.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Steve Bissette has just released a new 16-page preview under the TALES OF THE UNCANNY title, reviving the concepts from his share of the long dormant characters from the 1963 series (N-Man, the Hypernaut and the Fury plus associated characters, including what looks like an enlarged role for Sky Solo), in anticipation of a full 200+ page book coming out later this year.  Courtesy of Steve, I've got a copy of the preview now (details on ordering a copy of your own over here, and look around the site for a lot more details about the characters).

For the revival, Bissette establishes the fictional publisher Naut Comics, with a history going back back to the pulps and continuing on through comics history, with various incarnations of their key characters.  It looks like the upcoming book will present some of the newly created vintage stories, as well as articles about their fictional creation. It's an interesting set-up which is true to the 1963 roots of the characters, and lets Bissette explore multiple styles and genres and also indulge in his interest in comic book history through a fictional lens.

And as you'd expect for a 200+ page book, Bissette isn't alone in this.  As Bissette goes through on his site, many of the stories are being done in collaboration with various young artists from the Center for Cartoon Studies where Bissette teaches, several of them with work in the preview showing off a variety of styles, and several other established creators look to be contributing as well (including Fred Hembeck, who has a short Dateline: @!!?# comic strip in the preview).

There are several bits with N-Man in the preview, starting with the cover.  It looks like there'll be some good variety with his character, from straight-forward Hulk-like super-hero adventures to much more horror based material and an intriguing looking back-cover look at an adventure that seems to be something like Indiana Jones crossed with Hellboy.




And as Bissette mentioned on his site (and in a note to me) the Hypernaut is going to get quite a lot of attention as well. He intersects with N-Man on the heroics, but leans to a more science fiction side. My second favourite piece of art in the preview (after the front cover) is a great colour portrait of the Hypernaut among some asteroids in deep space, and a preview of a comics page shows him inhabiting a microscopic Nanonaut body to enter N-Man's body.

There are a lot of directions this material could take in the upcoming book, especially with over 200 pages to play with (for more possible hints, check out the pages for N-Man, the Hypernaut and the Fury over on Bissette's site.  I'm not sure how much of that stuff is still relevant with the latest work on the characters, but it's fun reading and has some great art, including a screen from the Fury cell phone game). I'll definitely be there to check out the full book.

THE MUPPET SHOW COMIC BOOK by Langridge

I will confess to being a bit cynical a year back when Boom Studios began publishing comics based on Jim Henson's classic MUPPET SHOW that ran on TV from 1976 to 1981. I'm a big fan of the show, but couldn't really see it translating to comics. However, as I'm currently waiting for the seemingly stalled release of the series on DVD to conclude so that I can get a complete set (and stop watching the two dozen episodes I have on tape from one of the last times it was shown locally), and as I have enjoyed some of writer/artist Roger Langridge's previous work, and as the comic has gotten some good reviews, I decided to check out the first two books, MEET THE MUPPETS and THE TREASURE OF PEG-LEG WILSON, each collecting four issues of the comic.

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A visit back to 1963...

I should have a copy of Steve Bissette's new TALES OF THE UNCANNY PREVIEW EDITION in my hands soon.  That's the first step in his upcoming return to his share of the "1963" characters.  While I wait, I pulled out my set of the original comics that it seems will never be reprinted, and re-read the stories that form the basis of this new revival (all of #2 and half of #3 and #4).

For those who are somehow unfamiliar with the background of the series, 1963 was a six issue series published in 1993, introducing a variety of characters created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch that were all to some degree pastiches of the Kirby/Ditko/Lee Marvel comics characters and stories of the 1960s.  For various reasons the series never properly finished, and eventually the rights to the characters were split among the creators.  While it doesn't look like there are any active plans for the return of the characters now owned by Veitch and Moore, the Bissette side is one we'll be seeing more of soon.

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Short notes on some recently consumed old and new stuff

So, a few things I may or may not get into in more detail later...

The last books of the English version of Keiji Nakazawa's BAREFOOT GEN (HADASHI NO GEN) were published by Last Gasp recently, bringing the whole 10-volume, circa 2500 page story of a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima into print.  The story has its slow points, but it's great overall.  The first four volumes are essential reading, especially in this unabridged version.  I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice to see a companion volume of some of Nakazawa's other work.  In particular the more strictly autobiographical I SAW IT, plus some other intriguing stuff never published in English.

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A fistful of links

Steve Bissette returns with his share of the 1963 characters, including N-Man, the Hypernaut and the Fury, with a preview available soon (at MOCCA) and a full book planned for later this year.

Evan Dorkin and Hilary Barta on an old-school MAD style parody of Tarantino.

James Vance finishes script for KINGS IN DISGUISE sequel, ON THE ROPES, now in the hands of artist Dan Burr

Carl Barks draws human beings. They look very pretty and all, but just imagine them with beaks and webbed feet...

Stan Sakai has a convention promo piece featuring art by him and Sergio Aragones of their most famous creations, Spot and Rufferto.  Oh, and Usagi and Groo are on there as well.


J.M. DeMatteis has the cover to his upcoming novel IMAGINALIS.

Jack Kirby draws 3-D art for Honeycomb cereal.

Larry Marder has some old Beanworld art on weird clay paper

Opening Day

From an obscure comic strip by Charles Schulz, April 2, 1963.