razorcake issue #16

Squeeze My HornSo, yeah, these are cool comics if your mind is warpedand in search of some wacko candy.I had it all planned out. I was having myfloors at the home refinished and we had to beout of the house for a mere five days. Right!Well in that time I had also thrown my back outand was off work and not allowed to do anythingstrenuous. What better recipe for getting ampleamounts of reading in? Oh and I did read. Evenwhen I was done with all the comics I wasburied under, I started reading flower catalogs.How’s that for being out of one’s home for toolong? As things go in the home contractor business,when we returned home, we found someproblems.At the front of the house, there were oldfloorboards in the flower beds along with emptycans of polyurethane, cigarette butts and largeamounts of saw dust. All the screens were offthe windows. A still-working smoke detectorwas laying in a bucket, not on the ceiling whereit belongs, and there was polyurethane splatteredall over my garage wall. Then, inside thehouse, the crew sanded down nail heads, so thatI had shiny spots all over the floors, in one roomthe final coat had missed the wall by five inches,in still another room, holes still existedwhere the previous owner had drilled them inthe floor for cable, and in yet another room,there was urethane on the walls and sandingswirls evident in the wood. So I gave the companya ring on the phone, and the company ownerstold me that he’d get them back out immediately,which meant four days later, and they didfinish the job. The only problem is I can’t bringanything back in until that dries. So the gist ofmy story is that I’ve been without a computer towrite all this lovely prose for two fuckingweeks. I should have known something wouldgo wrong when the third worker coming in myfront door the first day was carrying amicrowave oven.So all this time off and no lifting allows forplenty of television to inform my brain cells thatI truly live in fucked up times. I’m greatly disturbedby the fact that crap rules the television:Court TV and Jerry Springer during the day,news in the early evening and reality TV atnight. God, do I need cable. People seem to begetting more fucked up by the minute. Sure,some of this is staged but still there has to besome motivation to weigh 400 lbs. and stand infront of a crowd of people in nothing but yourunderwear (here’s where I shudder, yuck!) andeven flash them (it’s a train wreck and I can’tlook away). Then the president breaks in for hisgarden press conference in which someoneshould have informed him that he, by no means,is Don Rickles. Then, when fielding questions24 from the press, he admits that he issuffering from the same infliction as Reagan. Hestates that he is getting too old to remember afour-part question. At that point, shouldn’t heresign as President and give the job to someoneyounger and more coherent?Now, by no means am I a saint. In fact, oftenmy wife reminds me that I’m a dick. But I’m notin the public eye and I’m not out to screw anyone.I think that humans are just blindly diggingtheir own egos, and this allows them to do whateverthey damn well please. For instance, intheir autos, how many times do you see someegomaniac cut across three lanes to get in a turnlane or hold up traffic by making an illegalmaneuver? Here’s a good one: a guy drovedown the bike lane (illegal), ran a red light (veryillegal and dangerous), and then flipped me thebird when I caught up to him at the next light.Yes, I guess I was in the wrong for being on thesame street with the fucking jerk. I guess it’s stillbetter here than anywhere in the Middle East,which is where I’ll begin my reviewing andstop my ranting.PORTRAITS OF ISRAELIS& PALESTINIANSHardback by Seth TobocmanThis is a cool collection of drawings of the facesof the people who live in probably the most dangeroushot spot in the world. We see on a dailybasis the brutality of the conflict in pictures andvideo, but to put it into drawings gives a newangle that contains much more feeling. The veryfirst drawing in the book is the portrait of awoman with the heading, “Is she an Arab or aJew?” which immediately stirs one’s thoughtand breaks down the possibilities of choosingsides. The drawings are soft. I believe them to becharcoal in medium but they are still very to thepoint, and that point is that there are a whole lotof innocents being caught in the middle of theconflict. The introduction and the author’s notegive us the reason for this book, a brief backgroundof what compels the author, and what hiscredentials are. The book then opens the mind tofaces, those of ordinary folk, such as taxi driversor people riding the bus. The book takes us on aride through the cities into the people’s homes,studies the towns and the religions, and gives usa view of a world so different than our own. Insome respects, the book is warm and hopeful,but it then reminds us that these people live inbloodshed and curfews. They live in cities thatwere once thriving are now places where kidshave to travel through mountains, around fighting,to get to school. They have hospitals thatcan’t run because of the threat of fighting. Thesereminders turn this book into a sad retrospect. Ifread with an open mind, this book can bring anunderstanding to the Middle Eastern way of life.It is sensitive in both view and writing. The picturesare simple yet truly beautiful – a visuallystirring masterpiece.(Soft Skull Press, 71 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY11217, www.softskull.com)BLACK IMAGES IN THE COMICSby Fredrik Stromborg, $15.95 U.SRacial images in comics from the 1800s to currentshould make for an interesting read. Thesimple fact that this is a case study of the portrayalof blacks in comics makes this book nonvolatile.What I mean is the way this book iswritten, there are no sides taken and there isnothing demeaning in the presentation. The factsare presented and things are explained. Forinstance, we take for granted that if an illustratordraws a black person with big lips, a large flatnose, and big white eyes, that he is poking funwith stereotypes. The fact is that, in some cases,the artist may never have met a black person andis drawing the work simply by what he hasheard. Here’s a point, when I was a kid, wewatched Speed Racer and a lesser-known cartooncalled Kimba the White Lion. The creatorof Kimba was Osamu Tezuka and, at the time,there were almost no immigrants in Japan so oldOsamu has to put in a scene with natives, andsince he only knew what he’d heard, he drewthem all with the stereotypical features, grassskirts, and spears. This seems to be the processfor most comics at the start of the century. Thegreat thing about this book is that it has an internationalcoverage, from Europe to Africa and allthe way around to Japan, not just U.S comics. Itis also presented in chronological order. To tellthe truth, things seem to be improving in theportrayal of blacks in comics, yet there is stillsome work to be done. Of course, my favorite,the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow, got in this onefor its favorable work in dealing with sensitiveissues such as drug abuse, poverty, and racialtensions. My favorite thing in the book is thereason they give for the demise of the D.C title,Steel comics. That’s right; they ring up thedeathblow to that fabulously sloppy basketballgoof and terrible actor Shaq! I found this bookto be fun, shocking, and insightful at the sametime. There is nothing prejudicial about thisbook at all. In fact, I found it as an ideal learningtool to teach people what not to do incomics. This book rules and I can’t wait for thenext book, The Devil in the Comics. If you’re ablack history buff – not that I am – you’re goingto find this some damn good reading.(Fantagraphic Books)