Breaking the Line

Mad's Sergio Aragones: 'Cartooning Is Not a Job. It's Something Like Eating or Sleeping.'

Part 2 of my cartooning trilogy (which, okay, only has two parts) is Mad's Sergio Aragonés, whose deadpan gags have adorned the magazine's margins for half a century. The marginals, as they're called, are one of Mad's trademarks, and being the graphic equivalent of silent comedy, they've aged better then many of the topical parodies which have become the magazine's post-Kurtzman stock in trade. Comics fans will also known Aragonés as the creator of Groo the Wanderer, the blissfully free-associative series that instantly outgrew its origins as a Conan the Barbarian take-off. It probably didn't hurt that, as he discusses in our A.V. Club interview, Aragonés let the character marinate for years, waiting to find a publisher who would let him retain the rights — commonplace in Europe, but virtually unheard-of in the U.S. at the time. Aragonés, who I talked to from his home in Ojai, turned out to be an utter charmer, and I'm especially chuffed I thought to ask for a copy of the sketch he drew while we were talking, which accompanies our interview. To be honest, I haven't picked up an issue of Mad or Groo in close to two decades, but talking to Aragonés brought back just what an important part of my formative years both played. In the interview's comments, thread, you'll see that he's a stand-up guy all around, and not just when he's on the record.

Charles Burns: 'Black Hole' Meets Tintin

I started this blog to fulfill a New Year's resolution just under the wire; it looks like next year's is going to have to be not going several weeks without posting. It isn't that I've haven't had anything to post — rather that I've been too busy filing assignments to get around to informing you of them. (Awards season is a harsh mistress.) That's all the apologizing I plan to do, so on with the catch-up.

First out of the gate is cartoonist Charles Burns, whose unsettling black-and-white drawings have been prized by alt-comics (or, as his Raw editors Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly would have it, "comix") fans for years, and whose style is instantly recognizable even to those who've never seen his comics. Burns is a prolific illustrator, but his comics work has dwindled to a slow ooze — not surprising considering that, compared to Time and New Yorker covers, his personal work has to be something of a loss-leader. It took a decade for him to complete his twelve-issue, 350+ page magnum opus, Black Hole, and although it was worth the wait, it's a relief to see he's set his sights slightly lower with his new three-book series, which begins with the 56-page X'ed Out.

The unnamed trilogy draws on an unlikely touchstone: the elegant ligne claire style of the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, whose Tintin adventures played a key role in Burns' upbringing, as he discussed in our interview for the A.V. Club. X'ed Out's cover is a direct homage to Hergé's L'etoile mysterieuse. Sadly, the Hergé homage does not extend to having one character berate another by calling him a "little pickle," but you can't have everything.

Learning to Love Winsor McCay

Meanwhile, back at the A.V. Club, I provide an introduction — a gateway, if you will — to the great cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay, best known for the Little Nemo in Slumberland strips. A shocking amount of his work has fallen out of print, but I tried to focus on the available and reasonably priced collections that are still easily available, while tipping my hat to Sunday Press' massive (and concomitantly priced) So Many Splendid Sundays and its sequel. McCay was also a pioneering animator who drew every frame by hand, which always makes me think of the Simpsons line about how animation is rarely done live owing to the "terrible strain on the animators' wrists." Below is one example of his talents, adapted from an installment in McCay's strip Dream of a Rarebit Fiend. There's a gratifyingly intelligent discussion going on in the A.V. Club article's comments section, so check that out as well.