Book-It 'o12! Book #41
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one, two, and three just in case you're curious.) This was a secondhand find.
Title: Snowblind by Martin Wagner
Details: Copyright 1995, Double Diamond Press
Synopsis (By Way of Part of the Wikipedia Entry [I seriously could not find anything else]): "Hepcats is a comic book series self-published in the 1990s by artist Martin Wagner. It deals with the lives of four college students, rendered as anthropomorphic animals (humanoid bodies, but animal heads), and is inspired by Wagner's own college experiences."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Part of a clump of graphic novels given to me secondhand, this one stood out for the artwork of the cover that suggested it was more towards my interest in graphic novels (meaning: not a superhero story).
How I Liked It: This doesn't read like a comic series (and the few comics I read of "Hepcats", the series which spawned this, only seem to have something slightly to do with it), unless that comic series is perhaps Strangers in Paradise.
The book isn't so much the wacky adventures of four friends as it appears to be a quasi memoir of the only female character of the group. The book can sometimes overpoweringly read like what it (apparently) is: the only volume in what was intended to be at least a two volume story of a somewhat outre self-published comic coming into its own. The art is gorgeous (if very of the period, that is, the 1980s) save for the inexplicable animal heads on all the characters. It's unknown why exactly these exist. The characters have no other animal characteristics save for that (and maybe some of the names, which occasionally side on the punny) and it seems like a self-conscious attempt at a "trademark" style. Given Wagner's exquisite work with everything besides the cartoony animal heads, we're left to wonder what he could've done had he ventured a human face.
The art aside, the story is intensely compelling (which makes it all the more frustrating that this is the only book) and the author's back-and-forth dialog occasionally recalls Neil Gaiman (although sadly we are robbed of Gaiman's subtle facial expressions).
It's almost too hard to critique this book, since it has become unlikely the author will ever finish this series. It's too geared as an opener to truly function as a stand-alone. But for a curiosity, for a completist of graphic novels, for a great testament to a story whose ending we can only contemplate, it's a very worthy read.
Notable: I didn't know anything about this book, series, or author until I went to post this review and do the customary research beforehand (since this is intended to be one of a series).
Hunting down information about this book and its author is an exercise in frustration for the spoiled reviewer that generally falls to Amazon when Wikipedia or a comic site (or several) don't fill in the blanks.
Not only is this book out of print, it is rare out of print. Wagner has a small cult following although it wasn't enough to garner him enough money to continue with the Hepcats comic series and he left the comics industry in 1998. In 2006 (possibly due to the fact his following grew thanks to the internet), Wagner announced he'd finish Snowblind (although apparently not continue the Hepcats series) but via web comic form. Apparently his cult following grew clamorous (but apparently not enough to shell out actual money for Wagner's work) for the promised Snowblind ending and by 2008 he produced a Hepcats mini-web comic with a storyline unrelated to Snowblind, but ended up never finishing it either, citing (again) actual paying work commitments.
To read Wagner's blog and the main fan blog devoted to him is a study in sadness. Apparently he did in fact leave the industry entirely and whatever artistic completism that compelled him to pledge to continue his book in web form was simply not enough to provide the time and money that were taken from the project by, you know, real work. Wagner apologizes repeatedly to his fans in his infrequent postings and peddles the old original drawings of the series. The fan site (which states that it is not run by Wagner, just a devoted fangirl) is dogged with PayPal links (not the usual small, tastefully restrained corner piece you generally find on such a page) and the proprietor of the site stating flat out that if you want to see more work, you have to contribute to the artist so he'll consider finishing it. It doesn't come across so much as begging as a simple statement of fact.
The whole sad affair seems to be a case study of sorts of an artist struggling to convert to the internet age when it's clear he still works in another era. Has any artist that has cut his or her teeth on industry pre-internet been able to move on to a successful product model? Sure. But when you're an indie that starts by word of mouth and critical acclaim, it's hard to essentially "start over" when you're at that period where you should be an established elder.
I don't know if Wagner will ever be able to return to Snowblind. In the introduction to the 1995 publication, he marvels at the origins (which were eight years prior, which really explains some of the artwork) and also explains the backstory, which was more or less his collegiate self and friends, with the female protagonist being a composite character of the many romantic/sexual relationships at the time, and the troubled pasts of several of the women he dated. Returning to a world and ideas created (at the time of this review) a quarter century ago (and with the aesthetics to match), would Wagner update their world, not only from a fashion standpoint but via technology? Would it be a period piece (as it would almost have to be)? Wagner by default isn't the same person he was writing the story at a specific point in his life, does he still plan for it to end the same way he did originally? Does he pretty much have to do the series over?
These questions are pretty good reasons why Snowblind will forever be a mystery more than a story, and that's sad.
Title: Snowblind by Martin Wagner
Details: Copyright 1995, Double Diamond Press
Synopsis (By Way of Part of the Wikipedia Entry [I seriously could not find anything else]): "Hepcats is a comic book series self-published in the 1990s by artist Martin Wagner. It deals with the lives of four college students, rendered as anthropomorphic animals (humanoid bodies, but animal heads), and is inspired by Wagner's own college experiences."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Part of a clump of graphic novels given to me secondhand, this one stood out for the artwork of the cover that suggested it was more towards my interest in graphic novels (meaning: not a superhero story).
How I Liked It: This doesn't read like a comic series (and the few comics I read of "Hepcats", the series which spawned this, only seem to have something slightly to do with it), unless that comic series is perhaps Strangers in Paradise.
The book isn't so much the wacky adventures of four friends as it appears to be a quasi memoir of the only female character of the group. The book can sometimes overpoweringly read like what it (apparently) is: the only volume in what was intended to be at least a two volume story of a somewhat outre self-published comic coming into its own. The art is gorgeous (if very of the period, that is, the 1980s) save for the inexplicable animal heads on all the characters. It's unknown why exactly these exist. The characters have no other animal characteristics save for that (and maybe some of the names, which occasionally side on the punny) and it seems like a self-conscious attempt at a "trademark" style. Given Wagner's exquisite work with everything besides the cartoony animal heads, we're left to wonder what he could've done had he ventured a human face.
The art aside, the story is intensely compelling (which makes it all the more frustrating that this is the only book) and the author's back-and-forth dialog occasionally recalls Neil Gaiman (although sadly we are robbed of Gaiman's subtle facial expressions).
It's almost too hard to critique this book, since it has become unlikely the author will ever finish this series. It's too geared as an opener to truly function as a stand-alone. But for a curiosity, for a completist of graphic novels, for a great testament to a story whose ending we can only contemplate, it's a very worthy read.
Notable: I didn't know anything about this book, series, or author until I went to post this review and do the customary research beforehand (since this is intended to be one of a series).
Hunting down information about this book and its author is an exercise in frustration for the spoiled reviewer that generally falls to Amazon when Wikipedia or a comic site (or several) don't fill in the blanks.
Not only is this book out of print, it is rare out of print. Wagner has a small cult following although it wasn't enough to garner him enough money to continue with the Hepcats comic series and he left the comics industry in 1998. In 2006 (possibly due to the fact his following grew thanks to the internet), Wagner announced he'd finish Snowblind (although apparently not continue the Hepcats series) but via web comic form. Apparently his cult following grew clamorous (but apparently not enough to shell out actual money for Wagner's work) for the promised Snowblind ending and by 2008 he produced a Hepcats mini-web comic with a storyline unrelated to Snowblind, but ended up never finishing it either, citing (again) actual paying work commitments.
To read Wagner's blog and the main fan blog devoted to him is a study in sadness. Apparently he did in fact leave the industry entirely and whatever artistic completism that compelled him to pledge to continue his book in web form was simply not enough to provide the time and money that were taken from the project by, you know, real work. Wagner apologizes repeatedly to his fans in his infrequent postings and peddles the old original drawings of the series. The fan site (which states that it is not run by Wagner, just a devoted fangirl) is dogged with PayPal links (not the usual small, tastefully restrained corner piece you generally find on such a page) and the proprietor of the site stating flat out that if you want to see more work, you have to contribute to the artist so he'll consider finishing it. It doesn't come across so much as begging as a simple statement of fact.
The whole sad affair seems to be a case study of sorts of an artist struggling to convert to the internet age when it's clear he still works in another era. Has any artist that has cut his or her teeth on industry pre-internet been able to move on to a successful product model? Sure. But when you're an indie that starts by word of mouth and critical acclaim, it's hard to essentially "start over" when you're at that period where you should be an established elder.
I don't know if Wagner will ever be able to return to Snowblind. In the introduction to the 1995 publication, he marvels at the origins (which were eight years prior, which really explains some of the artwork) and also explains the backstory, which was more or less his collegiate self and friends, with the female protagonist being a composite character of the many romantic/sexual relationships at the time, and the troubled pasts of several of the women he dated. Returning to a world and ideas created (at the time of this review) a quarter century ago (and with the aesthetics to match), would Wagner update their world, not only from a fashion standpoint but via technology? Would it be a period piece (as it would almost have to be)? Wagner by default isn't the same person he was writing the story at a specific point in his life, does he still plan for it to end the same way he did originally? Does he pretty much have to do the series over?
These questions are pretty good reasons why Snowblind will forever be a mystery more than a story, and that's sad.