Lew Rockwell Fan
Have tasp, will travel.
The odd thing to me, as one who often ponders words and their curious history, is that "comic" seems inappropriate to describe things that often aren't meant to be funny. I'm assuming "comic books" aren't all funny, because newspaper "comic" strips often aren't, but I've haven't actually read any of the classic staple bound items (though I have read a few internet published GNs), so I might be assuming a falsehood. The length-based distinction seems reasonable to me. Maybe shorter forms should be called "graphic stories" as a generic to include the funny and not-funny ones.
Having said that, it does seem to be a medium that is very well adapted to humor, since it is possible to embed all sorts of sight gags and in-jokes in the details of illustrations - things that wouldn't have a real analog in text. "Roswell" is a pretty good example of this. Many of the gags in it are based on textual and graphic allusions. I'm pretty sure I got all the ones that refer to personalities or written works in the histories of SF and of classic liberalism. There are probably movie and pop culture allusions I missed, but I caught enough to realize the authors were drawing on that field as well. But the fact that some of the ones I DID get strike as likely not to be noticed (and I don't mean not caught as a joke - I mean not even noticed as a POSSIBLE joke, or not even noticed AT ALL) by people who weren't familiar with the particular item alluded to, it makes me wonder if there might be entire classes of jokes in it I'm not aware of. That, of course, DOES have analogs in pure text fiction, in movies, and on rare occasion even in song lyrics. Here is a link to Roswell as a free web GN if you want to see what I mean:
Roswell, Texas, by L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser - Big Head Press - Thoughtful Stories, Graphic Novels Online And In Print
If you like it enough to buy it in an easier to read form, their home page
Big Head Press - Thoughtful Stories, Graphic Novels Online And In Print
has links for both paper and electronic formats.
Having said that, it does seem to be a medium that is very well adapted to humor, since it is possible to embed all sorts of sight gags and in-jokes in the details of illustrations - things that wouldn't have a real analog in text. "Roswell" is a pretty good example of this. Many of the gags in it are based on textual and graphic allusions. I'm pretty sure I got all the ones that refer to personalities or written works in the histories of SF and of classic liberalism. There are probably movie and pop culture allusions I missed, but I caught enough to realize the authors were drawing on that field as well. But the fact that some of the ones I DID get strike as likely not to be noticed (and I don't mean not caught as a joke - I mean not even noticed as a POSSIBLE joke, or not even noticed AT ALL) by people who weren't familiar with the particular item alluded to, it makes me wonder if there might be entire classes of jokes in it I'm not aware of. That, of course, DOES have analogs in pure text fiction, in movies, and on rare occasion even in song lyrics. Here is a link to Roswell as a free web GN if you want to see what I mean:
Roswell, Texas, by L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser - Big Head Press - Thoughtful Stories, Graphic Novels Online And In Print
If you like it enough to buy it in an easier to read form, their home page
Big Head Press - Thoughtful Stories, Graphic Novels Online And In Print
has links for both paper and electronic formats.
