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Underground > Comic Books >

Kyle Baker

13:13 / 27.03.02

So, with the release last week of King David, I feel I ought to ask : anyone else here think that Kyle Baker’s stuff is a lot of fun ?

Whilst I felt I Die at Midnight was a bit slight, I think that Why I Hate Saturn and The Cowboy Wally Show are cracking reads – laugh-out-loud funny, no less.

And his Instant Piano work wasn’t too shabby, either…

Anyone else like ? Or anyone hate ?

DBC

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

14:27 / 27.03.02

Kyle Baker's stuff has always been better than it has a right to be...his "Shadow" run was amazingly weird and wonderful, and Cowboy Wally Show is the funniest graphic novel of the 80's.

I haven't read King David yet, since I know once I start I won't put it down...anyone see he is writing a Superman novel?

21:55 / 27.03.02

Kyle Baker used to do reviews (in comic form) for a music magazine (whose name I no longer remember) -- they were smart, funny and some of my favorite stuff by KB.

I haven't read King David but flipped through it in my local comic shop -- it looked interesting.

Has anybody actually read it?

02:07 / 28.03.02

those band reviews were for REFLEX magazine, and were reprinted in an issue of DORK magazine. "Kyle and Evan - Critics at Large". That's what it was called. It was in issue 2 of Dork, out through Slave Labor Graphics.

The Comics Journal interview with Baker was veeeery interesting from the point of view of Baker claiming his main motivation for doing comics was what amounted to a very cynical form of commercialism. I don't think less of his comics for that, but it was interesting to see how he presented a diametric opposition to the artist working for love paradigm.

I think his earlier stuff was better - Saturn is great, and I hear good stuff about Wally (haven't been able to find a non-inordinately expensive copy of it yet). YOu are Here was pretty good; I Die was a bit rushed (but he admitted it). THe best thing in later years has been the Superman's Babysitter bit that eventually appeared in the Bizarro Comics dealie.

check this: http://www.kylebaker.com

m.

03:41 / 28.03.02

Cowboy Wally was recently re-released at a very cheap price, about £4 in the Uk, so $7 or there abouts. Keep an eye out.

03:43 / 28.03.02

I had typed out this nice reply that talked about Dork #2 and the TCJ interview when just before I was going to post, the phone rang. An dI come back and find out Matsya's beat me to it. Punk.

The Kyle Baker interview is easily one of my favourites, largely because he doesn't put on any mystery concerning his work. Like when DC shitcanned the Superbaby story, he seems to be the only person who didn't mind. They asked him to do a job, he did it, he got paid. Who cares whether it would see print or not? And his incredibly straightforward views on "mainstream" comics. "If you can't sell dog cartoons, get out of the business!" I don't agree with everything he says, but I appreciate his honesty. In fact, for the program I'm currently in I used him as an example of the type of straight-shooting commercial artist I'd like to become.

03:55 / 28.03.02

I dug on "You Are Here," one of the many graphic novels a friend has borrowed and neglected to return, though for the life of me I can't recall which one. I'm still trying to decide if I prefer the way the dialogue was laid out to the standard dialogue bubble format- does he do all his books that way?

yawn - thing's buddy

07:04 / 28.03.02

I die at Midnight was beautifully drawn but the script was awful.

really awful.

11:48 / 28.03.02

I'm a huge Kyle Baker fan, but I felt a bit let down by King David. It wasn't nearly as sardonic or irreverent as I was expecting (as it was hyped up to be)- aside from the occasional gag it's a fairly straightforward telling of the Bible story.

And though I love his drawings, the colouring in places makes DK2 look subtle.

My favourite joke is King Saul's teenage son wearing his bat-winged tiara-thing backwards, like a baseball cap.

13:00 / 28.03.02

I’ve only skimmed King David, but it looks like fun. In places, though, it almost looks like storyboard work, if that makes any sense… still, I’m always pleased to see some of his stuff.

The way he puts dialogue reminds me of a discussion I had with an artist friend of mine recently; about how you read comic panels – and I realise this is probably opening a far wider discussion, but it’s my thread and I’ll rot if I want to; I tend to glance at the panel art, see where things and people are, get a rough idea of what’s going on, then read the text, glance at the art again, and then move on. I do exactly the same when I’m watching a film with subtitles.

So I tend to find Kyle’s work has the same kind of flow – slightly different, granted, but just another way of organising the mix of text and art. My friend, for the record, said he read things differently (focus on the text), and an ex of mine who couldn’t bear subtitled films similarly ‘couldn’t read’ comics, so I guess people probably read panels very differently… don’t have my reference shelf nearby, but I should imagine Eisner, for example, probably covers this in Comics and Sequential Art/Graphic Storytelling/both.

DBC