Today he tells us about his Six Books
Recognizing the importance of a balanced diet, in addition to contemporary comics and other periodicals, I try to always keep a nonfiction and a historical comics read going simultaneously. Right now, the former is James Hopkirk's The Great Game, a detailed, personality-based exploration of the 19th century military and intelligence sparring undertaken by the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan. In addition to being the beginning of a dynamic that would continue through the Cold War with significant impacts today, it's also a rollicking, imperialist adventure story.
On the comics front, I'm finally reading Elfquest, which has always been an embarrassing gap in my comics knowledge; it's as wonderful as everyone says it is. Wendy Pini's control of gesture and character design are unparalleled, functioning within a newspaper and European comic strips tradition that, because of its remove from most contemporary US comics, hits like a ton of bricks today; not to mention how outrageously sensual all the character interactions are, without ever feeling salacious. Plus, like The Great Game--I'm discovering a theme--it's also a ripping adventure story.
The Daniel Freedman anthology Stimulus. Daniel sent me a PDF of it months and months ago and I adored it, despite being keenly aware that--because we share a similar comics philosophy--reading it digitally was a pale imitation of the real thing. Working with a murderer's row of artists, all chosen for their specific talents, Daniel presents a collection of sci-fi stories that reward slow, careful reading and deliberate thought, with interlocking and recursive themes. And, as evidenced by how stoked I am to get the physical edition, it also rewards rereading.
Dave Sim's sprawling, experimental, abrasive, and controversial Cerebus isn't just one of my favorite comics of all time, I think it's the best comic of all time and one of the best works of written English in any medium. Sim accomplished what I aspire to: A comic that achieves novelistic depth not despite the medium but through it, utilizing, dusting off and innovating formal approaches that are always tied to his overarching fixations and the work's byzantine thematic layering. I read the full thing in college and it blew the top clean off my skull; over the past few years, I've been going back through the collections and am even more impressed than I was as a younger man. After I finish this volume of Elfquest, I'm planning to tackle the acclaimed Jaka's Story volume.
It took me at least three running starts, over the course of half a dozen years, to make it through Dune. Well before the movie, I knew it was something that--on paper--I should love; in addition, I wanted to love it; I wanted to be a Dune guy. Not just because of the high regard in which it was held but because it was this big, sprawling, uncompromising text, so deep and complex as to feel esoteric. But on the first few reads, I found it punishingly dry; I think it was down to two things: 1) Trying to read it like an essay that has to be fully digested as opposed to a work of art meant to wash over you, and 2) Reading it--like a fool--digitally.
Eventually, something clicked for me and I devoured all of the Frank Herbert books. While I'm still torn on my opinion of the individual volumes, I adore them all as part of a whole; it's the platonic ideal of a long-running series, reveling in the freedom to explore different approaches, settings, tones and characters, while remaining in disciplined service to the work's overarching themes, layering in depth and complexity along the way.
My favorite author in high school was Aldous Huxley; he still ranks extremely highly. While I dug Brave New World and Island was probably my favorite, the one that stuck with me the most is Point Counterpoint. It's a stunning piece of work, with a sprawling cast generally freaking out about the convulsions of the early 20th century. The character work is flawless, with Huxley simultaneously constructing and deploying instantly relatable archetypes, such that it feels both prophetic and timeless. But the aspect I've never stopped thinking about is the interplay between the characters' lengthy conversations, the larger issues lurking around the edges, and their relationships with one another, including the romantic.
Point Counterpoint is big, messy soap opera but it's also about big, messy ideas; concepts and challenges so complex and complicated as to defy the simple explanations found in parable and direct metaphor. Instead, Huxley mirrors the complexities of these challenges--political, social, economic, and moral--with the characters' ardently held but often inconsistent worldviews. I've always aspired to create work this challenging, with this type of depth; work brave enough to admit that there aren't any simple answers to questions worth asking, with complexity and ambiguity that inspire rumination in readers.
Throughout Free Planet's creation, cocreator/artist Jed Dougherty and I have aspired to utilize the comics medium to the utmost, attempting to match Huxley's depth and complexity through the use, not just of prose, but images, design, and their communication with one another on the page. It's a holistic approach to comics; rather than creating a story and breaking it into issues, panels, and pages, the book is ideated and written as an art object, built of overwhelming spreads featuring maps, graphs, charts, and infographics on top of all the sci-fi action and soap opera drama. It's not to be read quickly; it's a world you're meant to slow down and luxuriate within. And best of all? There's a full graphic novel waiting for you, with new issues landing at your local comic shop every single month.
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POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
