Hey Joe

            Yes, today is Monday, and on Monday you have come to expect some light-hearted levity from me in the form of cartoon shrimp.  Today is going to be a change of pace because of a development that occurred over the weekend that has created a substantial ripple across the comic book landscape.

            Joe Kubert, the legendary comic book creator, and mastermind behind the school that bears his name (one which I attended) has passed away at the age of 85.  On many of the comic book websites, you can read a brief biography of Joe and a list of his achievements in the field of cartooning (of which there are many) so I will not dwell on that.  While I did enjoy Joe’s contribution to comic books as much as the next guy, it was what he did for the community of comic book creators that stands out in my mind.  There is no debate that his personal contributions to comics were numerous and all expertly crafted, but without the formation of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Graphics in 1976, there is a possibility that many talented artists working right now could still be toiling away on notebook paper while working the cash register at a gas station.  Joe created an avenue for those of us with comic book dreams to go to school, learn from masters of their craft, and with a little bit of luck, move on to the big leagues.

            Even for those of us that did not go on to pick up a pencil, brush or computer mouse at one of the “big two” we were still infused with the spirit necessary to succeed in this increasingly brutal industry.  The late-night drawing sessions, the all consuming class projects (upwards of ten per week) all created not only a drive in each and every one of us, but also helped foster the brotherhood that is the “Kubie”.

Just mentioning the name Kubie brings to mind long hours at a drawing table both in class and out, coupled with far-reaching friendships that last regardless of proximity.  I have never enlisted in the armed forces, and so I have never had to endure an actual boot-camp experience, but the kind of camaraderie that is developed through that has to be similar to the sense of brotherhood that all those that fall under the “Kubie” mantle share.  No, we are not going off to war, but there is no doubt the physical and mental toll that a three-year art boot-camp can place on the body of individuals that were, in all honesty, probably pretty out of shape to begin with.  It seems rather fitting that the creator of probably the most well-known war heroes in all of comics, Sergeant Frank Rock, devised his own method of boot camp for his students.

            Through that fire, a bond was created that not only fostered encouragement for one another in the various endeavors that we undertook in the school itself, but also created a lifelong fanbase upon graduation.  I personally feel a sense of pride when I pick up a comic (or anything for that matter) created by a Kubert alum.  I have to imagine it is a similar feeling that someone from the University of Alabama, for example, gets when their alma mater wins the college football national championship.  That feeling of fraternity permeates everything that we do and it is amplified by the advent of social media.  By pushing us all well beyond our artistic breaking point and stretching us all to the same lengths regardless of inherent talent, the Kubert School has created a group of lifelong fans of other “Kubies”.

            Being a “Kubie” is not a guaranteed spot in the comic book industry, but it does give you the tools that you need as well as the connections to work with, through teachers, classmates and alumni to get your foot in the door.  The comic jobs run the gamut of self-published, small press, really small press (like some guy in his mom’s basement kind of small press), lettering and coloring jobs for larger publishers, to art teaching, web design and even model making (and this is just in my graduating class alone)!  The school’s reach is far and wide in all corners of the creative community and should be commended for instilling the kind of values (that’s an art pun) in its students that can lead to their dream job as long as they continue to work towards it and catch a couple lucky breaks along the way.

            Without the Kubert School, and therefore without Joe himself, there would be no Eat @ Shrimpy’s.  I know that I am not the only person in the school’s storied history that can make that claim, but for those of you that enjoy this site, and especially the comic strips, please understand that without that school, without that three year experience, I would not be who I am today, and Eat @ Shrimpy’s would not even be here in this form.  I don’t know what I would be doing today if I had not attended the Kubert School, but I do know that I would not have the friendship and support of my fellow “Kubies” in those endeavors, and that brotherhood is something that I am eternally grateful for.

            Joe has left his school in some very capable hands with not only his boys Adam and Andy (who I had the privilege of learning under during my time at the Kubert School) but also the other teachers and administrators such as Mike Chen and Mike Kraiger that have taken on huge roles in the scholastic operation of the school (Chen in particular as he does a lot, if not all, of the portfolio reviews and has to sit through some downright painful examples of “art”).There is no doubt in my mind that the school itself will keep on in the grand tradition that Joe set forth upon its inception back in 1976, just as Joe’s legacy in the world of comic books will endure for generations to come.  Thank you Joe for what you have done for me and all of my classmates both past and future that will walk through the Kubert School doors.

            Joe lived a life that any of us that are even remotely associated with the comics business would give our non-drawing hand to live and the fact that he was drawing right up to the end is a testament to the work ethic that came so natural to him, one that he did his best to instill in all of us.  My condolences go out to everyone in the Kubert family, those that were related by blood, and those that were related by graphite and ink.  You will be greatly missed Joe, but you will never be forgotten.  

Budonkadonk

The idea with the last two strips was to play on Survivor's use of the local language to devise their "tribe" names.  I think the last two strips accurately reflect the local lingo. 

WTF 8.6-8.10

Yeah NASA!

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/mars-rover-curiosity-nears-break-landing-attempt-002742981.html

No Smart-ass commentary here.  Just an “’attaboy”.  Good job NASA.

Another example of stellar parenting

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/xbox-marathon-boy-collapse-150928818.html

Yes, the 15 year old boy is a dumbass, but my question is: Where were the parents for the four day marathon?  They obviously had no problem with the child being sequestered to his room, with marginal access to food or drink (proven by his hospitalization for severe dehydration).  Listen, I like video games as much as the next guy, and so do my children though the most they can do right now is drive into the wall while trying to play Mario Kart, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let them go on a four day binge where they do nothing else.  The fact that the parents have now removed the Xbox is a good start, but their inaction during the ordeal proves their ineffectiveness as parents.

Race-Walking?  Really?

-Matt

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/gold-medal-winning-race-walker-alex-schwazer-relieved-173955426--oly.html

I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that race-walking is a sport, or the fact that people are actually doping to win at it.  Seriously?  A “sport” that old people do in the mall get’s it’s own place in the Olympic games, and its own doping scandal?  For the love of Christ.  I won’t even talk about this douche of a human being that is “relieved” that he was caught.  Shut the fuck up.  No one believes you and no one will even care who you are after this.  You cheated at walking.  Congrats.  Douche.

Might have wanted to think this one through

-Matt

http://news.yahoo.com/billboard-dummy-noose-shocks-vegas-drivers-152639429.html

Hey, I am all for a shocking ad campaign (be it clandestine or not) but who thought it was a good idea to do this?  Sure it gets the message across, but it could also cause a massive car accident from concerned citizens trying to get a better look and determine its legitimacy.  If you are going to do that you have to make the dummy as unrealistic as possible to ensure that there is no possibility of misinterpretation. 

Probably better ways to handle bullying

-Matt

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/bullied-14-old-girl-gets-plastic-surgery-fix-110322837--abc-news-health.html

I get it, you don’t want to be bullied.  No one does.  Not everyone is beautiful so their chance of getting bullied will increase.  But you are telling me that the way to counteract that is through plastic surgery, on a fourteen year old?  The thing is, the doctor that performed the surgery said that he chose Nadia based on her “deformities”.  Really?  Having big ears is a deformity?  It’s not like she had a cleft pallet.  She had big ears.  Yeah, she wasn’t a looker, but that does not mean that she has a deformity, especially one that requires plastic surgery.  This feels like overkill that is setting a horrible precedent for other children bullied about their looks and this doctor seems like an attention whore.  Just another instance to diminish my faith in America.

Alcohol plus Olympics equals fun?

-Matt

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/belgian-cyclist-kicked-olympics-drunken-night-153037890--oly.html

This would have been so much better if he was actually drunk while cycling.  If the IOC is going to kick people out for getting plastered then I guess I will never be an Olympian (and here I was going to try out for the race-walking team in four years).

Comic Review - Conan the Barbarian #7

            I have long wanted to try Conan the Barbarian without having to drop massive amounts of money on the old Roy Thomas/John Buscema masterpieces.  I will get their eventually, trust me, but I wanted to get more into the character before investing that kind of money into it.  So in the grand Eat @ Shrimpy’s comic review tradition, I picked up the most recent issue of Conan by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan to give it a shot.  Here is what I thought:

Cover:

            The cover by Massimo Carnivale was a nice illustration, even though it was a little misleading.  The cover (as you can see) shows Conan and his partner/girlfriend/ conquest (not really sure how to describe the barbarian relationship dynamic) Belit standing on the shoreline during what looks to be a storm (or at least typical English weather).  While this is relevant in that Belit is a pirate queen, it has nothing to do with the story as the pair spends the entire issue (save for one panel) landlocked.  It is a decent illustration though, even if it is a bit monotone in terms of color scheme.  This just seems to be the order of the day though.  As comic coloring has advanced through new media, it has taken a turn from brightly colored characters to monochromatic blobs.  This does a decent job of highlighting Belit’s face, which is the brightest and least brown part of the cover.  The logo, even though it is a dark bluish-purple in color stands out from the background because of the darkness of the logo surrounded by the slight white stroke. 

6/10 – This is not a bad cover at all.  It gets dinged for its lake of relation to the interiors as well as it’s coloring.

Story:

            The story revolves around Conan’s return to Cimmeria as he is tracking someone that is killing butt-loads of people, and doing it in Conan’s name.  The story itself is a typical first issue of a story arc as it does more setup for what is to come than anything else.  This works incredibly well though as we not only find out what has brought Conan back to his homeland (the aforementioned imposter) but also the inner workings of Cimmeria itself.  We are clued in to the structure and hierarchy of Cimmeria, and it helps that Conan is not a king at this point (or at least he is not treated as such in this issue).  He is a well respected member of the community but he is not revered like he may have been in previous iterations.  It seems like Brian Wood is taking Conan back to the beginning to build him back up to mythological status which is a pretty interesting take on the character. 

            The story also helps further the relationship between Conan and Belit, showing that they are on more equal ground than any of the previous relationships that either of the characters has probably ever had.  Belit loves Conan enough to follow him to his homeland, away from her comfort zone of the open sea, and Conan loves her enough to follow her back to her land after he takes care of this current trouble (at least that is what he tells her).  I have a feeling that things will end badly for Belit though.  It is hard to imagine Conan tied down to one person for the rest of the series, and it does not seem like it would be in character for Belit to just shrink away and disappear.  While I hope that it is not the case as I like Belit as a character and the interaction between her and Conan is very well presented in both text and picture form by the creative team, I have a sneaking suspicion she won’t make it out of this alive. 

            My one major gripe with the story itself is that the first three pages show Conan and Belit trapped between a rock and a hard place (quite literally) as Cimmerians descend on them, wishing to do them harm.  We then switch to the extended flashback basically explaining how they got in that predicament.  However, the story stops before we get back to the point where we started.  Unless issue eight starts out with the two again trapped and the flashes back again (which it might, I have to wait a month to find out) then it seems like another one of those “written for the trade paperback” kind of stories.  If we are not shown Conan and Belit in their perilous position to start the next issue (and the one after that) then we as readers will most likely forget that they were even in that position to begin with.  Remember, while this may all be happening very close together in the characters’ timeline, and Brian Wood may be writing it all at once, the readers still have to wait a month at least between each part of the story.  This is pretty shitty as the rest of the story is very well written and does a good job of setting up the rest of the “Border Fury” story arc, but not referencing the first few pages that lead into the flashback feels like poor writing to me. 

7/10 – That one major gripe just sticks in my craw and won’t let me grade it any higher despite the fact that even without the sex and violence you would expect from a Conan story, this issue really works.

Art:

            Becky Cloonan does a superb job with the art on this issue.  She was never on my radar before, but her detailed backgrounds coupled with her ability to add subtle emotions to the characters through facial expressions make her an artist to watch.  The art and text (and there is quite a bit of text) works very well together to set the scene without stepping on each other’s toes. 

The look on Belit's face in the first panel is what you would expect from someone that has just seen snow for the first time.  The backgrounds are wonderfully rendered and the coloring by Dave Stewart is exceptional throughout.

That last panel may be my favorite of the book.  You need no context or words to determine that Conan is trying to calm Belit down and that she is uneasy about her surroundings.  In this setting, Conan is the rock and Belit is a bit of a loose cannon, which is illustrated beautifully by the expressions and body language.

            The only problem that I have with the art is the pacing of the story seems a little odd as splash pages and large panels seem to be doled out where they are not required.  Don’t get me wrong, the art is beautiful in those panels so that’s a plus, but the large panels feel out of place in the flow of the story, almost like they got to the end of the story but realized they still had to fill up two to three pages.*

            *In all fairness this may be on the writer and not the artist, it really depends on how tight Brian Wood scripts his books. 

This is not just a panel, this is an entire page.  And while the illustration is great (including the coloring by Stewart) it is hard to imagine that this necessitates a full page.

This too is a full page broken into two panels.  While the illustrations are great and the emotion and tenderness comes through beautifully here, it feels poorly thought out in terms of layout.

8/10 – The art is the main draw for me in this book.  Cloonan does a great job of making the characters feel “real” and giving them the full gamut of emotions in not only their facial expressions but also their gestures.  The acting in play within this story is top-notch and Cloonan deserves all the credit for being able to convey that successfully.

Overall: 

7/10 – Overall a very solid read.  This is not the best book to hit the shelves this week (that honor goes to Punk Rock Jesus #2, seriously buy that book and you will thank me later) but it is a good find nonetheless that should garner some new readers to the tales of everyone’s favorite Cimmerian. 

Poonani

These are all actual characters created for various projects in the Masked Shrimp "universe" just re-purposed for this story.  I obviously had a lot of free time on my hands when I was younger.

Pull List

Pull List

            Anyone that is a regular at a comic shop has what is known as a “pull list.”  This is basically just a subscription to individual books that the store owner or employees “pull” for them and set aside each week.  Even if that individual does not have a set pull list with the comic shop itself, they probably have a mental one that they go to whenever a new comic Wednesday comes around to make sure that they are getting to read their favorite series or creator. 

I currently have a mental pull list that is divided between monthly comic books (affectionately referred to in the business as floppies) and trade paperbacks.  When I was younger, especially when I was going to school at the Kubert school, my pull list was dominated by superheroes.  I had quite a bit of disposable income and there was a good chance that I was going to spend a substantial amount of it on comic books and related paraphernalia.  The majority of those superheroes resided in the Marvel Universe, with the exception being a few Batman issues here and there.  I eventually started to scale back my comic book buying when the quality of the stories and art did not match the investment (around the time I graduated the Kubert school in 2005).  Slowly I have started to get back into it more and more.  My pull list that basically consisted of Invincible trades and anything that Richard Moore produced grew into a fairly substantial yet rewarding group that is dominated much more by different, non-superhero fare (after a brief dalliance in the “New 52” that ended with a confirmation of my feelings on DC Comics and superhero comics in general).

            For those that would like to check out what I am reading, here is a list and short explanation as to why I read what I read.

Comics:

Think Tank- A new addition to the list.  All you need to know about why this is now a mainstay on my list can be found here.

Punk Rock Jesus- Also a new addition.  You can check out the review and a good explanation as to why you should give it a shot as well here.

KISS- I have always been a fan of not only KISS music, but also their comics.  You can check out my review of the first issue here.  It is not for everyone, but the story is decent and the art is some of the best on a KISS series since Angel Medina.

Masters of the Universe- The only true DC book that I am reading (or probably will read for that matter).  This is more for nostalgia’s sake than anything but it is not too terrible of a read if you want to get away from the superhero books.  Find the review to issue one here.

Mega Man- I have been a Mega Man fan since I was young, and I have passed that love for the blue bomber on to my son.  This book is for him as much as me, but it is a good read nonetheless, even if I am not too keen on Manga-styled art.

Trades/Graphic Novels:

Atomic Robo- This may be one of the most well written comics I have seen in a long time.  Nik and I have gone back and forth recently as to how well the weird science mixes with real life because of how the characters (especially Robo) react to it.  The art is superb as well.  I love the simple, open illustrations.  Plus, two words: Doctor Dinosaur! 

Berona’s War- The writing is a little rough at times, but the art is beautiful.  If you mix Saving Private Ryan with a Disney cartoon, you would get Berona’s War.  Highly recommended as an art book if nothing else.  Plus, as a fairly inexpensive hardcover offering, you can’t go wrong.

Invincible- I’ve been on the Invincible bandwagon since I picked up the first trade on a whim.  This is the best superhero book on the market and one of the most consistently good books of the last decade.  Plus, the sketches and process stuff in the back of the trades with commentary by creators Kirkman and Ottley are a phenomenal addition.

The Goon- This is a new addition as well.  After reading issue 40 a few weeks ago (the review can be found here) I knew that I had to get caught up quickly.  I am not all the way through the trades, but The Goon is a superb comic created by one of the best in the business in Eric Powell.

Mass Effect- I’ve long been a fan of the games, and the comics do a great job of expanding on the story and adding to the mythology of the Mass Effect universe.  The art is great considering the amount of different alien species and technology that makes up the universe itself.

Wizard of Oz series- The only Marvel comic I have or will purchase now has nothing to do with superheroes at all.  To be honest, I pick this up for the gorgeous Skottie Young art.  Eric Shanower’s story sticks very close to the original Oz books and the stories themselves have just not aged well (the initial book The Wizard of Oz is decent but I think that is only because of familiarity).  This is no knock on Shanower as he does the best he can with what he is given, but what seemed cute or even groundbreaking upon its initial release seems a little stale now.  Another book that can be purchased as an art book and nothing else and would still be as valuable.

Ghostbusters- Another book picked up on a whim that I could not put down.  Reading this series feels like watching a third movie, it is written so well and so spot on in terms of the individual voices to each of the already well established characters.  Why they have not approached this creative team to write the third Ghostbusters movie I have no idea.  The art is super cartoony but it is a style that I love and that fits with the subject matter very well. 

Elephantmen- I was late to this party as well but this series is incredible.  There are little gripes here and there about the art (coloring is often too dark) and the story can be a tad confusing at times (especially in the collections as they don’t always completely follow the numerical order of the issues themselves), but the overall series is awesome (and I’m a sucker for anthropomorphic animal series done well).  The best thing is the hardcover collections are jam-packed full of additional content.  Seriously, 2/3 of the collection is sketches and cover illustrations.  A beautiful addition to any collection.

Chew- I also came late to Chew, but I think I should get a pass on that as I converted Nik and his wife to the fold.  The art is consistently great and the stories are always well done.  Even reading them as trades, the recaps of Tony Chu’s cibopath powers never get old which is a testament to Layman’s ability to keep everything fresh.  My favorite part of the series is the additional stuff that you can find hidden in the background, be it pictures hanging on walls or messages written on a note on the fridge.  It’s like a where’s Waldo of hilarious extras.  You can tell Layman and Guillory have a lot of fun with this title.  Plus: Poyo!

            So what’s on your pull lists?  Anything I should be reading that I’m not?  Anything that I am reading that you think is garbage?  Try and convince me either way, I am always open for a good comic discussion!

Intro: Survive-It!

This starts off the fairly lengthy "Survive-It" adventure.  This was created back in the heyday of Survivor (I think it was only a couple of "seasons" old by that time, but based on the continued popularity of the show, the strips still work.  Plus, these strips began the longstanding tradition of making fun of New Jersey (my home for four years I am sad to say).