With the news of Gail Simone stepping down from writing “Wonder Woman” still fresh on my mind, I got to thinking about Marvel’s attempt to celebrate women in comics with its new limited series, “Girl Comics.” I have to give Marvel credit for trying this with all the potential for it to be a flop. Aside from the inherent mixed bag quality of any anthology, it’s got a lot going for it. The best thing of all, I discovered the writing talent of Valerie D’Orazio and I’ll discuss her own one-shot, “Punisher Max: Butterfly” a little later in the column.

Back to “Girl Comics.” At first, I thought about what could be wrong with it. For instance, there are two profiles of women trail blazers at Marvel back when Stan Lee’s hair was jet black. That seemed like a creaky “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” sort of salute. But, even if it is, I’m really glad they did it because the two individuals, Flo Steinberg and Marie Severin, are definitely worthy of recognition. It’s been a “man’s world” like forever and we’re still evolving as a society. Whenever you have something like Marvel attempting to show its human side, that’s cool.

Another problem seems to be that weird pin-up of She-Hulk by Sana Takeda. It goes to show what happens when you depict a character but you stray away from the quality of the character and turn it into a mere sex object. Even the anatomy is off. You’ll notice that She-Hulk has two left feet. Apparently, the drawing has caught She-Hulk just as she’s had a mishap while skipping rope and has fallen and the rope, moving at hyperspeed, has bound her legs together.

Is it possible that Takeda is commenting on the awkward state of today’s woman? Does she see She-Hulk, as a woman, cursed instead of blessed with formidable strength and sexuality? Instead of being in a position of authority, does Takeda see She-Hulk as doomed with having the classic impediment of “two left feet”? Or is it just a playfully sexy scene? And where does fit alongside her other controversial work? It would be interesting to hear from her.

More than likely, Takeda just fell into the same old patterns that began when it was only men drawing unhealthy depictions of women. These type of drawings are obviously alive and well today. Some publishers seem to focus on the cheesecake with less thought given to the writing. Hopefully, that will improve. The subject of sex is not the problem but how one works it. At least DC and Marvel tend to have solid narratives and standards, right? Of course, the top publishers are working towards the highest levels of excellence. That said, this makes this sort of drawing stand out even more, like a big green sore thumb. I don’t think it was meant to open up discussion but was ill-conceived. Maybe, in a proper context, it could work but not in this case.

And then there’s the question of whether these comics are supposed to have a unique female sensibility or whether they just happen to all be created by women. The introduction by Colleen Coover implies a special female viewpoint with its panels of various superheroines. The stories that follow veer off into unexpected directions and seem to defy easy categorization that keeps things more lively and less obvious.

I love the fact that we basically get from this comic a little concert made up of all sorts of awesome talent. You’ve got G. Willow Wilson opening up the show, all her “Air” fans especially thrilled, as she and Ming Doyle riff on Nightcrawler with a most surreal story. And so on the down the line. Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema give us a less than perfect Venus who lets herself get caught up in the glitz of the fashion world. There’s Valerie D’Orazio and Nikki Cook’s excellent Punisher story. Lucy Knisley provides a nice comedic Doc Oc tale. Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska give us a neat Fantastic Four fairy tale. And Devin Grayson and Emma Rios give us a nuanced story about the love triangle between Cyclops, Phoenix and Wolverine.

So, true believers, go get yourself some “Girl Comics” and, while you are at it, get a copy of “Punisher Max: Butterfly,” also published by Marvel, a most excellent read both in the writing and the art. Valerie D’Orazio pulls you in right away with her quirky narrative and the art of Laurence Campbell is just as inventive, does not miss a beat. This is like the magic that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips keep conjuring up but all its own. Turn to any page and you’ll find something refreshing in crime fiction.

The story revolves around a professional assassin known only as, Butterfly. We get deep inside her head to discover her motivations as she’s willing to put her life on the line to reveal a greater truth. We see as Butterfly struggles to write and then finally bring out into the world a book that reveals the inner workings of organized crime. The world of hired guns is played up for all it’s worth but we can see that this story aims for more than just one note.

D’Orazio and Campbell work together to really move the reader, especially on the theme of what happens when someone is negated as a human being. With impeccable timing, we see characters go from being alive to suddenly having blank slits for eyes. This device works extremely well since Butterfly is a character we can connect to.

It’s that human factor. If you don’t have that, you’ve got nothing. Honestly, why would anyone, creator or reader, want to aim lower? Given the opportunity, most people want high quality work. Things can stand in the way of this, of course, like ignorance. The truth is that, no matter what the content, it is the quality stuff that will be the most stimulating. It seems like an easy enough concept but one that, just as easily, gets overlooked. The appropriate attention to detail will always be appreciated in the long run whether the character is Madame Bovary, She-Hulk or Wonder Woman.

What Ed Brubaker is doing with Captain America, in this new story arc, is great stuff and don’t let anyone tell you different. As a casual observer, my big question as I became familiar with the title was whether or not Steve Rogers was really interesting. What would make someone want to care about him? The big one, Issue 25, doesn’t really tell you. And this last event, Cap Reborn and all, doesn’t tell you either. But, if you start at the beginning of the Brubaker run, “The Winter Soldier” story provides the hook. It’s way cool. Who will wield the shield indeed. Between Brubaker’s script and Steve Epting’s art, Steve Rogers and that shield fly! And then those first interactions between Steve and Sharon let you know there’s chemistry. Steve comes across as a tough but vulnerable guy. He’s stubborn, brash and likable. He does have a story to tell on a large and not so large stage.

Getting back to the new story, “Two Americas,” this is set on a smaller stage. We go from the grand and sweeping events of “Reborn” where we get a lot of big things going on for brief bursts to something more specific that can be rolled out and examined more closely. Allowing this story to unfold, I’m sure you’ll find something very worthwhile. A story that brings in the crazy version of Captain America from the ’50s to confront today’s Cap sounds good already. What an opportunity to speak to what’s going on in America today. How far have we come and how far do we still have to go?

To think of America as predominantly one beautiful landscape made up of white picket fences surrounding one gorgeous home after another, with two cars in the garage, a chicken in every pot and a joyful nuclear family dwelling in each is pure fantasy. It’s an American dream but not a reality. No, reality is far more complex and even scary for some. It’s scary for William Burnside, once a pudgy little boy from Boise, Idaho, transformed by the US government into an alternate Captain America in the ’50s. Things didn’t go quite as planned and William grew unstable, finally running away. He finds comfort among other outsiders, one of Marvel’s band of domestic terrorists going back to the ’80s, The Watchdogs.

It’s not long before Bucky and Sam travel to Idaho in response to the violence crazy Cap and his new friends have already wrought. Of course, we’ve got a loaded situation here made worse with Sam, a black man from New York, dropped into a primarily white community of people who appear isolated and hostile to anything or anyone different from themselves. It looks like a powder keg ready to blow up.

And that’s the set up for what we can feel confident will be a compelling four issue story. Will Sam experience more hostility among people who seem to only see him as an Other instead of a person? Or is there room here for Sam and the natives to communicate? We hear so much in the media about America being divided but how often do we hear from those who are truly disenfranchised? What is real and what is fabricated? You know, something tells me that our friend, Ed Brubaker, will have some answers for us and he’ll keep knocking the ball out of the park with Captain America.

In those halcyon days of the early ’90s, in Brooklyn’s hipsterdom of Williamsburg, amid the Doctor Seuss hats and pierced nipples, there once stood a towering figure of a man ever ready for a stiff drink and a chance to see his art take yet undreamt of form. In that era, Millionaire came across as one of those guys with a streak of mad genius who could draw you anything for a little beer money. I knew a guy like that. You did too. But these guys never saw their ships come in. Millionaire did. And, no, he wasn’t just a lucky bastard. He made his ship come in by creating it himself, drawing every intricate detail of that vessel from stem to stern. And it would be populated by the most glorious creatures: Uncle Gabby, a deranged ape patterned after a dear alcoholic genius; the navy of alligators, suggested by a violent friend in New Orleans; and Drinky Crow, standing in for all of humanity, drunkard or otherwise.

“The Art of Tony Millionaire,” published by Dark Horse, is a serious, yet irreverent, mid-career retrospective of one of the best known and beloved cartoonists around. Read his comic strip, “Maakies,” in your local alt weekly and feel the rush of anarchy take hold. Read this book, full of honest recollections from the artist, and feel like you know the man. “Maakies,” by the way, goes back to when Millionaire drew a comic strip called, “Batty,” for a sports zine. The guy who put it together, Spike Vrusho, loved to yell out, “Maakies!” whenever he caught sight of the tugboats with the big M’s on their stacks coming into New York harbor.

Like any good coffee table book, along with a marvelous selection of comics and illustrations, this book is full of wonderful anecdotes you can enjoy flipping to in order or at random. There’s stories, for instance, about bumming around Europe as a young man. In Rome, he created one really good drawing of the Roman Forum, made a hundred prints, and proceeded to sell each of them to tourists who thought they’d just caught him as he was drawing the original. For good measure, full of youthful rage, he pissed in every famous Roman fountain he could find. With security tight for the two Vatican fountains, he had to piss in a cup and discretely pour it in during the day. Then there’s Berlin, where he may have stirred an international incident.

Before any of this, there was Gloucester, Massachusetts. Unsuited for college, and even less for a job as a dishwasher, young Tony hit upon selling drawings of his rich neighbor’s houses. “I always knew it was my bread and butter,” he writes. We can imagine him reassuring himself of this with each sale. “I always knew it was my bread and butter.” He also had his family for moral support. His father was an illustrator and his mother and grandparents were painters. When you learn that, to round out his income, he would go down to the wharves to draw schooners just as beautiful as the ones his grandfather drew, it might bring a tear to your eye.

It is the curse and blessing of the young turk to push and pull against society and hope to live to see another day. That was the Millionaire way of life. By the time he was forty, he decided it was time to cut back a bit on the rage. A bunch of his friends had hailed a cab. There were five of them and the driver would only take four. Tony crawled on the top of the cab, screaming through the windshield. The cab took off with him on top and he was forced to jump. Luckily, there were no broken bones. He could afford to bring things down a notch. He was now a featured artist in the “New York Press” and his life as an artist was tangible. He could probably sense the upswing in his life. “I always knew it was my bread and butter.”

The success that followed would flow from “Maakies” and evolve to full length works of exquisite complexity like “Sock Monkey” and “Billy Hazelnuts.” Like Crumb, he followed his own muse from a bygone era and imbued his art with a timeless grace.

You can’t rush anything worthwhile. That certainly holds true for comics. You can’t rush creating anything of lasting value and you can’t rush reading it either. That’s the tradition comics come from. It is what makes “Maakies” so darn good. The eye is teased to linger on some nautical detail or some arcane turn of phrase or some unusual use of body parts. It is a modern day miracle of comics is what it is.

“The Art Of Tony Millionaire,” 200 pages, hardcover, 9″x12″, $39.95, published by Dark Horse Comics

When a knock down fight between Wonder Woman and Giganta suddenly shifts into a pair of women engaged in girl talk about dating and having brunch, that tends to put a smile on your face and makes you want to read more. That’s what Gail Simone’s writing will do to you. She is one of those special writers, like Grant Morrison, who, at their best, take super-heroes as the jumping off point for something unexpected and fun. If only Megan Fox were to read what’s going on with Wonder Woman lately, she might not think she’s so lame.

Let’s take a look at a true flash point in comics: Gail Simone taking over the writing helm of Wonder Woman. It has been and remains an excellent run. This is a particularly good time to start reading Wonder Woman during Simone’s historic take on the mighty Amazon. I jumped into the last story arc, “The War Killers,” and it took a little adjusting to all the Greek mythos but thanks to Simone’s pacing and the eye-popping art of Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan, I got hooked. Given that Simone has been writing this title since 2007, I was impressed with how the story still feels fresh. And then to go back and read the opening arc, “The Circle,” I was pleased to find the starting points of an epic saga.

I think that’s the best way to put it: a sweeping epic saga. When Simone took over as writer at Issue Fourteen, people took notice, including The New York Times. The hook may have been that we were finally getting an ongoing woman writer for Wonder Woman but it was also simply the fact that is was Gail Simone. Like, say, Joss Whedon, fans could rely on Simone for distinctive character-driven stories. It’s interesting to note the struggle that Whedon had in attempting to script a viable Wonder Woman movie. It seemed to him that there simply wasn’t much there to work with. Apparently, Simone found what worked but then went about forging new ground.

Simone was willing to get her hands dirty and till the very soil of Diana’s origins which had been left undeveloped. Since all the Amazon women on Paradise Island have foresaken men, they have also foresaken ever experiencing the birth of new Amazons from within their own ranks. They all feel a maternal instinct but resist it. Until, one day, the queen, Hippolyta, creates a child, Diana, from clay and magic. Allowing this “dragon” to trespass this Garden of Eden, sets off a fanatical backlash putting the lives of Hippolyta and Diana in danger. But, most importantly, for the long term, it anchors Diana’s indentity and gives readers and future writers more to work with.

Wonder Woman is a woman to be reckoned with. Mercedes Lackey expresses that eloquently in her introduction to Wonder Woman: The Circle. She points out that, since the Greeks, there’s always been a fascination and fear of the Powerful Woman. That goes a long way in explaining why writers have steadily marginalized Wonder Woman over the last sixty years. I think it’s safe to say that Wonder Woman, as powerful and iconic a figure as Batman and Superman, had not been working up to her potential. Much like Spider-Man, even more so, Wonder Woman was in bad need of a relaunch. That effort was underway starting with the question, “Who is Wonder Woman?” and ended with a botched attempt to answer it. And along came Gail Simone and she has been making things so much better, probably paving the way for an awesome Wonder Woman movie someday.

Wonder Woman is a case of Simone pumping fresh blood into characters and stories just like she’s done with Birds of Prey and Secret Six. If Wonder Woman is capable of taking down whole armies, then Simone figures she can handle the complexities of a sexual relationship. Wonder Woman can also reason as well as she can fight and turn a whole pack of raging gorillas into her own personal entourage. And, with the lasso of truth, she can turn the most evil Nazi into a crying child.

When the time comes, if the rumors of his taking over are true, Grant Morrison will be inheriting a revitalized and relevant Wonder Woman. It looks like that will be happening once Wonder Woman gets renumbered to #600 and a new kick off is set in motion. For now, enjoy what remains of Simone’s run. Wonder Woman #40 starts a new arc, “The Crows,” and comes out January 27. And if you need a pitch for Wonder Woman, then these now famous lines by Gail Simone will serve that purpose: “When you need to stop an asteroid, you get Superman. When you need to solve a mystery, you call Batman. But when you need to end a war, you get Wonder Woman.”

We have an appropriate comic to consider this holiday season, a story involving a toy maker. But this story is not as sweet as it may seem, as often is the case with the good stuff.

Fall Out Toy Works is an unusual comic. If you follow Comics Grinder, you know I’m a huge fan of Brett Lewis, the very talented writer of the cult classic, The Winter Men. Well, he’s shifted gears here from his gritty crime fiction but not completely. This time, instead of the Russian mob, you’ll find guys in suits beating up a little boy bear and a tiny bumble bee cell phone. And when a toy maker comes to defend them, one of the thugs looks up and says, “We’re lawyers from Los Angeles…We do whatever we want!” Very strange but very cool.

The story is not only inspired by Fall Out Boy but the band’s front man, Pete Wentz, is credited among the creators. He seems to share some of Gerard Way’s vision for The Umbrella Academy. And that works well with the stylish artwork to this comic that also fits in with the ethereal quality of Phongram, anime and manga. There’s also a tip of the hat to Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Barbucci & Canepa’s Sky Doll. Lots brewing here for this comic but done with its own distinct flavor.

As you can see from the above samples, artist Sami Basri has a remarkable feel for characters. He loves them as much as Brett Lewis and together they hook the reader into something special. The story itself, involving a toy maker and his creation may not be exactly new, but the way it’s handled here is unique with one hook after another connecting the reader. One scene, for instance, does well in laying out the premise. The Toy Maker is speaking with a cyborg geisha and he’s discussing the notion of fabricating emotions. He wonders if it can really be done and concludes it will be difficult. She says, no, it will be painful.

In these last two issues, we’ve seen the Toy Maker become consumed by the process of manufacturing love, as it were, the perfect mate for a strange and powerful man who leaves very little reason, if any, to be trusted. Bit by bit, Tiffany is created. The Toy Maker even calls in his childhood mentor, the Rabbi, to help him. And it is the Rabbi who supplies the missing piece to the puzzle, a perfect heart-shaped blue diamond. It is only through this diamond that all the emotional information can be properly stored and used. The diamond must be blue, of course, since it’s boron gas that’s needed for conductivity. And so on. In the meantime, Tiffany has come into her own and has snuck out to explore life after dark. She goes to a club. A man asks her to dance. She says she’s not ready. By the end of this second issue, the Baron arrives to snatch up Tiffany along with the blueprints to make more ideal women. She was supposed to be one of a kind and the blueprints were supposed to stay with the Toy Maker. The  Baron had promised! The Toy Maker is enraged.

What is cool about The Umbrella Academy is that, despite all the naysayers who said Gerard Way had no business in comics, it comes across as being something with its own reason to be. Same with Fall Out Toy Works. The comic has a similar love for speaking poetically about love and existence. The name of the band may be attached directly to this comic but the ideas are expressed with care and subtlety. The Fall Out Boy song, “Tiffany Blews,” is echoed in the comic but only in the most indirect way. Whatever the creative process was behind its conception, the end result is that Fall Out Toy Works has taken on a life of its own.

Visit Image Comics, the awesome publisher of Fall Out Toy Works and then go see the official Fall Out Toy Works Web site and always check in with the Comics Grinder Web site just to see what’s up. Here is wishing all of you a peaceful, productive and purposeful new year.

How many of you are excited about the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” movie? I am. I think it will have a lot of style and wit. I’ve read a few Holmes comics this year and I’ve brushed up on my Basil Rathbone too. Among all the Holmes stuff out there, I was intrigued by the mystery of there being a graphic novel that this movie is based on. It turned out that the artist John Watkiss created illustrations based on a producer’s script to sell the movie to studios. The obscure quality to all this is appealing to me and led to me finding an actual graphic novel illustrated by John Watkiss. “Ring of Roses” is quite a curious book and was created at one of the brightest and hardest times to attempt such a thing.

“Ring of Roses” came out into the world as a limited series by Dark Horse in the early ’90s, just after the first big wave of “graphic novels” had hit: “Maus,” “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Watchmen.” The call to greatness had been sounded but few were ready to answer the call. It must have been pretty exciting for John Watkiss to team up with writer Das Petrou, designer Trevor Goring and fellow illustrator Mike McLester to create their answer to the graphic novel. The scope of the story is ambitious. The art is heroic and daring. And, as stories about alternate realities go, this one reads well. For me, looking at it today, it satisfies a desire to read something cool that is under the radar.

Studying the artwork, it’s clear to me that Watkiss loves to draw and produces wonderful figurative work, all elongated and elegant. It reminds me, at times, of Giacometti’s sculpture, figures so tall and thin that they teeter under the stress of their fragile frames. The story is very British with a delicious restraint. It’s set in London in an alternate reality. It is the early 1990′s but world events have moved at quite a slower pace: Germany is just now bringing about the first world war. And the papacy has also managed to maintain a hold on something like a Holy Roman Empire with nefarious plans to consolidate power through biological warfare.

To see us through this heavy and intricate plot, we have two main characters afoot in the walled up city of London attempting to make sense of what it going on: a barrister and a working class joe who is perpetually in need of the barrister’s talents to keep him out of prison. So, you’ve got a rather fun plot, parts Alan Moore and Charles Dickens. All in all, a fine story. It is quite gratifying to learn that “Ring of Roses” will soon become a movie. Spice Factory and Persistent Entertainment recently announced that they will be developing an adaptation of the graphic novel.

As a graphic novel, “Ring of Roses” seems to be a product of its time. It does feel like something in answer to the call to greatness rather than a great work in itself. And that’s okay. It’s a fun read to be sure. I don’t think it’s quite up to the standards of what we’d call today a great read but it has most definitely earned its place as a trail blazer and is even historically significant. For one thing, I think there are too many scenes with people talking in close up and that tends to drag the dramatic impact. The writing itself seems rushed at times too as in too many transitions where a word from one sequence is used again differently in the next. While clever, that is distracting. Also, it seems like some chances to add some suspense involving this evil hunchbacked cardinal were missed. Essentially, this is too slick a work and you won’t end up caring all that much about the characters.

So, not all graphic novels need to be great. This one is good and it deserves an audience. Image Comics collected it as a 144 page trade in 2005 so you too can get yours hands on it. And the good news is that, after all these years, it’s going to become a movie. The thing about the Watkiss artwork in this book is that it is exceptionally good but, at least in this case, it works best as layouts for a movie instead of something making full use of the comics medium. That might be a different story if Watkiss ventures into comics again. For now, he has much to celebrate with his artwork for “Sherlock Holmes” and his art in general.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Comics Grinder. You’re welcome to come back and visit again next time. And, until then, feel free to stop by the Comics Grinder site and see what might be grinding away over there. At the moment, there are some more Watkiss artworks from “Sherlock Holmes” and they require me to cry out the obligatory spoiler alert for those of you with faint hearts.

Map of My Heart

By John Porcellino

Published by Drawn & Quarterly

It is the simple pleasures of life that John Porcellino celebrates in his beloved and influential zine, “King-Cat Comics & Stories.” Porcellino shares with us the most simple and basic pleasures which ultimately leads to sharing the joy of being alive. There is a life struggle too, and Porcellino shares his with you, his heart being broken, his illnesses, but he keeps coming back to the joie de vivre.

“Map of My Heart” is the latest collection of “King-Cat” and covers 1996 through 2002. These are the years that Generation X comes of age. And while a case can be made that John Porcellino is a voice for his generation, he is actually much more than that. He is himself. He’s what all of us from Generation X were suppose to be: authentic. It helps if you believe in something. John Porcellino finds inspiration in Zen Buddhism and it looks like it helps to inform and guide his comics. He often will draw something from his studies like his references to the Zen-Monk poet, Ryokan. He’ll also find inspiration from the Marx Brothers and the Beach Boys. Whatever it might be, he seems to know how to tap into the good stuff.

For example, “Psalm,” is a magical meditation on being in the moment. Porcellino goes out for a walk at night. He lets his cat, Maisie Kukoc, know he’s leaving. He wanders through the neighborhood. When he returns, he sees Kukoc through the window and she might be asleep. The stars inspire Porcellino to stay outside. On the porch, he can hear the living ground beneath his feet. He tunes in to the sounds of worms, “click, click, click.” And the sounds of bugs, “zha, zha, zha.” All is well and good.

Porcellino has a simple and direct drawing style that fits in so well with his clear-eyed vision. It is just one of those things, along with the letters from readers, his extended written narratives, the top forty lists, the research on bugs and animals, all of this you can’t fake. So, brother and sister, enjoy. You too will be moved by something in this book whether it is a discussion on football plays, pill bugs, root hogs or Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” suddenly tuned in on the car radio.

Something will get to you. Maybe it will be the comics essay, “Forgiveness,” which is about Porcellino as a boy from Chicago visiting his aunt down in Prairie City. He’s out of his element but is anchored by the family dog, Duchie, and a new gift, a slingshot. He promises he won’t get into trouble with the slingshot but how can he predict what may happen? Another intriguing comic is “Suburban Dreams,” which finds a man kneeling in front of a television. On the screen is the image of a beautiful woman who stares back at him and sort of sighs. He dreams. She dreams. They may find themselves together at least in a dream.

Among Porcellino’s many celebrations  of life is quite a list of movies, books, music and special moments. You’ll find Annie Dillard’s “The Writing Life,” Frank Sinatra’s “Ring a Ding Ding” and “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Here’s one talking about my generation, #9 from Top Forty, Summer 2001:

“Our Band Could Be Your Life” by Michael Azerrad (Little Brown) Yes, it’s a book about Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Replacements, etc. etc. In other words: my formative years! Worth it for the Minutemen chapter alone. Also: Butthole Surfers, Minor Threat, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, lots more. America’s last great blast of post/pre-corporate rock.

Those top forty lists are about the fun stuff, with a big nod to humanity and authenticity. It is stuff that inspires you to want to share with someone else for whatever reason is peculiar to your own private world view.

So, on one level, John Porcellino is saying he’s just another human being doing his best to live his life. He has his own life struggle, like we all do, and he has his assorted interests and passions, like we all do. He also happens to be someone who does something very special and makes it all look easy. However, much care has gone into it and is not easily emulated.  ”Map of My Heart,” the latest collection of “King-Cat,” from one of the nicest guys you’ll ever know.

Visit Drawn & Quarterly, the awesome publisher of “Map of My Heart,” and buy yourself a copy today.

One gentle book that you may have missed, but should not, is John Porcellino’s Thoreau at Walden, a beautiful hardcover published by Hyperion. It’s a wonderful introduction to Thoreau for any reader. Thankfully, John Porcellino, in connection with The Center For Cartoon Studies, leads the way. This certainly is not your standard graphic novel meets the classics outing. Instead, it’s a meeting of genuine kindred spirits.

Most people live lives of quiet desperation.

If we don’t keep pace with our companions, perhaps it is because we march to the beat of a different drummer.

These words are ingrained in us and as true today as when they were first presented to the world by Henry David Thoreau in 1849 in the landmark of American literature, Walden.

Never hitting a false note, cartoonist John Porcellino, known for his own landmark in comics, King-Cat Comics and Stories, shares with us his interpretation of what it may have felt like to be in a little log cabin out in the wilderness. This brings to mind the film, Into The Wild, and another young man with the world at his feet with a compulsion to throw himself to the mercy of raw nature. However, this extreme reaction to civilization was never Thoreau’s intention.

Instead, his plan was to live in a cabin, not too far from town, as an experiment in self-reliance. He wasn’t courting anything extreme. His goal was to simply live within his means. He grew his own food and did a few odd jobs. He visited friends and they visited him. The rest of the time, he studied, wrote and communed with nature. All this sounds sort of like a page out of John Porcellino’s life. His drawings clearly resonate with a similar outlook on things. That common desire to come up against the elements is tempered with gentle contemplation, a hallmark of Porcellino’s own observations, and the only constructive way to go when it’s just you and the woods.

If you stay in one place long enough, you will see and be part of everything. Out there in the wild, what matters are the quiet moments like how the sun light plays throughout the day or how the owl reacts to your movements or how the friendly mouse will wiggle its way through your clothes to reach that piece of cheddar you hold out to it. It’s a pleasure to see how Porcellino depicts that play of light, the owl’s reactions and the mouse’s journey.

Porcellino is careful to distill what happened at Walden Pond. In a most natural way, Porcellino becomes Thoreau and Thoreau becomes Porcellino. Both of them come together to invite you to join in: no need to crash into nature; just learn to simplify. Porcellino does a great job of keeping that message clear, simple and accessible. He also does a thorough job of annotating his use of text from Walden which helps to encourage further reading.

This book is a great companion to the more recent book by Porcellino, Map of My Heart, which I will explore with you next time.

Keep a steady eye on one page or another from Stitches and you can feel the urgency and sincerity. For example: David is six and he is lying on the floor with his paper and crayons before him. He’s in his element, his world. He’s already feeling uncertain about his home life. In that moment, he has his crayons and he knows how to draw better than any other kid on the block.

David Small gathers up critical details along with the lighter ones as he pursues his own Rememberance of Things Past. He is documenting as well as exploring. He is going as deep as he can go for things to make sense to him. In the process, random moments in time find their proper place in the story: his mother’s secret language; his sliding in his socks across a hospital’s slick floor; his Alice in Wonderland make-believe world; his recognition that a mysterious friend of the family brings out something unusual in his mother. In this way of recalling the past, Stitches is most like Maus and Persepolis, the only two graphic novels that most people outside of comics are aware of.

As Small states in an interview with Newsarama, he does not consider himself a writer, at least not a great writer. Well, it’s no easy hat trick to summon up the past and bring it to life in vivid detail. Even when it’s just drawings we see, Small often creates bits of poetry. It’s nice that he does not take himself too seriously. Considering the content, it requires a sure and steady hand not to have it overwhelm the creator. This is a story about how Small discovered, at age eleven, a growth in his throat and his parents, who had the money, chose to wait three years before removing it. The neglect and misjudgment does not stop there. Small gives us a clear picture without his self-pity or any sense of revenge.

It’s hard to come out and call Stitches “groundbreaking” when you consider all the other exemplary works in comics. The last two columns of Comics Grinder alone provide excellent examples: The Squirrel Machine and The Winter Men. But, the fact is that Stitches is an exceptional book and it can be called groundbreaking in certain aspects. Placed alongside Maus and Persepolis, Stitches provides the general reader with a great leap forward in lyrical, expressive and beautiful drawing to be found in a “graphic novel,” something that Maus and Persepolis are not geared toward and is outside the scope of either book’s ambitions. Yes, at the end of the day, drawing counts for quite a lot.

Stitches is on many a critic’s short list for best comics of the year. It also holds the distinction of being only the second graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. The first was in 2006 for Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. So, it’s good to have Stitches in the spotlight offering a strong story along with strong art and that’s a groundbreaking step for comics in the eyes of a mass readership. And for those of us with more discerning eyes, I still believe that Stitches holds its own among the best books out there.

For more information on David Small and Stitches, visit the David Small Web site. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again. Until then, stop by Comics Grinder for any other musings.

“The Winter Men” is a patchwork quilt of observations and red herrings that takes the spy thriller to new heights of eccentric fun. It’s one of those stories that starts out about being one thing and ends up embracing everything. Meet Kris Kalenov, the main character in “The Winter Men,” he is your guide into the underworld and beyond. It’s a new world order since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Kalenov is no longer a star player in a Soviet secret weapons program. He has become a Moscow cop, usually full of vodka and, at the start of this tale, is keeled over drunk on a sidewalk covered in snow.

I did not discover “The Winter Men” when it was a comic book but, considering its production delays, including its switchover from Vertigo to Wildstorm, it’s understandable that it somehow slipped by me. Luckily, I did not have to experience any long waits between issues and got to read this new collected trade in one sitting. This is a good read anytime and anywhere but I also see it as perfect inflight reading. Aren’t spy thrillers very popular in airport bookstores? I believe this to be so. It’s because you’re out of your element and open to adventure.

One big thing about “The Winter Men” is that it gets you way out of your element. It’s like “Goodfellas,” one of the best movies about gang life, all about wiseguys and getting whacked. “The Winter Men,” is all about Russia’s new Mafiya and its biznessmen and getting under the right roof. There’s also something akin to “Watchmen” going on in the background, a uber-man that was once the pride of Mother Russia, but it’s Kalenov and his rough and shady bunch, that will have you delight over this convoluted plot as you would in, say, an Elmore Leonard novel.

“The Winter Men” has a real attitude about it too. It promises the world, heroically keeps up with its ambition and, if it falters, shrugs like a good world-weary Russian. Kalenov, our drunk Moscow cop who once was so much more, would prefer to just live quietly and make do with his less than perfect marriage. But too much has happened in the past and it can’t be ignored. “We once filled the sky with heroes…but now they’ve fallen to earth…” That is an intriguing refrain that is looped throughout the book. Within the span of the first few pages: hints of the Soviet super-hero program, a woman is shot, a child is kidnapped and Kalenov is picked up from the snow and enlisted to solve the crime of the century, although he doesn’t know that yet.

All this reminds me of any number of very good television series that, from the narrative, the characters and the production value, are clearly a cut above. And these shows usually make big promises and it’s okay if they don’t deliver on all of them since it’s the world that the characters inhabit that’s most rewarding. I think of shows like, “Life on Mars,” at least the American version, or “Life” or “Dollhouse.” In fact, it’s interesting to consider if these shows would have done better in finding an audience if they were less about process and more about results but, then again, these shows are primarily about attitude. The promises they make, real or not, can be legitimate fuel for the story’s engine.

Another connection to “Watchmen,” I think, is the group of heroes that Kalenov originally belonged to. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the line-up is recalled by Kalenov in a regular loop throughout the book: Drost, the soldier; Nikki, the gangster; Nina, the bodyguard; Kalenov, the poet; for a total of four, or five, if you include The Siberian. There’s even a sepia toned photograph of the gang in much happier times: Nikki has just told a joke and it has The Siberian in stitches. Along with the irony, it’s those details, the atmosphere and texture that this book thrives on.

There are a couple of scenes that come to mind. And, like everything else here, the writer and artist team of Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon tackle it with gusto. One has Kalenov and Nikki creating a disturbance in a McDonald’s so that they can unbolt from the floor a plastic table and chairs console to take home. The employee desperately tries to convince an irate Kalenov that the mayonnaise does adhere to city regulations with “well above the forty percent fat requirement.” Another good one has Nikki in the middle of a full-on turf war with other soft drink vendors. Informing the mayhem and murder are quotes from a self-help best-seller like, “Lose Control to the Maximum.”

Perhaps your reading of “The Winter Men” will find it keeping to all its promises and even holding the answer to the meaning to life. God knows, it is certainly within its reach. If you find fault, some blame, maybe a good bit of it, can go to the fact the series was cut from a promised eight issues down to six. There are parts to the story that do appear truncated. And the ending does seem to come all too quickly. However, the fact remains that this comic is really about the quirk and it’s all there for you to enjoy.

“The Winter Men” collected trade releases on November 25.

Hope you enjoyed this installment of Comics Grinder and I welcome you back for more. You can always check in too at the Comics Grinder site.

Hans Rickheit’s “The Squirrel Machine,” published by Fantagraphics Books, is a beautiful 179 page hard cover graphic novel. It is an appropriate book to start out this new column since it sets the tone for the type of offbeat work that attracts me and I hope will interest you. The story involves two brothers who desire to build wondrous things but are destined to create monstrous gadgets made from animals.

Rickheit’s world of self-published works, notably the series, “Chrome Fetus Comics,” and the graphic novel, “Chloe,” follow the internal logic of dreams and do well by it. In “The Squirrel Machine,” a magical reality confronting a mundane reality leads to a lot of very real bumps and bruises. Edmund, for instance, may rely on a pair of goggles to filter out the world but does not fully realize how odd he looks to all the other schoolchildren, especially the bullies. It’s the turn of the last century, and while amazing technological advancements lie ahead, Edmund and his brother, William, are doomed to be grotesquely out of step.

The things that seem the most curious and promising may ultimately be the things best left alone. That is a line of reasoning Edmund and William refuse to follow. They are dreamers but do not know they are guided by nightmares. The Squirrel Machine, whatever it is, has its own needs and is certainly not going to tell these boys what’s good for them. Much is left to mystery in this book. We can let Rickheit’s exquisite drawings, with their ornate detail and patterning, speak for themselves. Down to separate panels, the art provides little gems of its own storytelling as in a notable scene of two lovers covered in snails.

“The Squirrel Machine” defies easy categorization, but I’d venture to say, “steampunk surrealism.” This is for mature readers as well as discriminating ones. And it’s also for those who love a good coming-of-age story. Edmund woos the local beauty by the most unconventional of means. William falls madly in love with the Pig Lady. Each will take a turn that will twist the fate of the other. The mundane won’t accept them and yet the magical is no more reliable. Very romantic and strange at the same time, like any good coming-of-age tale. Primarily, this is adult, dark and disturbing work provided to you in healthy doses.

You can purchase “The Squirrel Machine” from Fantagraphics Books and make sure to check out the marvelous Squirrel Machine site. You can find Comics Grinder here every Wednesday. And for further observations, you can always go to the Comics Grinder site.