Every Day Is Like Wednesday

I read several short stories by about big-headed little girl Portia and her big-headed, purple dragon friend in various volumes of the Flight anthology between 2004-2011 or so. I read (and reviewed) the original graphic novel Jellaby that Hyperion published back in 2008. And I just re-read (and re-reviewed) that original graphic novel, now renamed Jellaby: The Lost Monster and published by Capstone.

It was during the re-reading of the new edition that I realized that I never did get around to reading (or reviewing) the second volume of Kean Soo's Jellaby comic, Jellaby: Monster in the City (published by Hyperion in 2009; not yet republished by Capstone, if it's even going to be). So as I was preparing to write about artist Kean Soo's purple monster again, I took the opportunity to finally read Monster in the City, and find out just what happened after the cliffhanger ending of the first volume (You may recall that ended with Portia and Jason pretending to go trick-or-treating, but actually taking Jellaby on a train ride to Toronto, where they hoped to find his home, but they ended up being ejected from the train and having to walk towards the city).

Visually, all of the charms present in the first volume are also present in this volume. Soo retains the limited color palette, with everything being black and white but mostly purple, with only occasional dashes of red (on Jellaby, Portia and the new, second monster in this volume) and orange (on Jason's sweatshirt, and on his carrots). Soo continues to use his inspired monster design, with its big round head and dinner plate-sized eyes, like a sort of Golden Age silent movie comedian.

The story component in this volume is very, very different than in the first, however, as some of the conflicts in Portia's life merely alluded to or foreshadowed in it come to fruition, and there is a rather elaborate explanation for Jellaby and his relationship to the kids, one that sort of drains the character of some of his mystique and, therefore, his appeal (This may simply be a result of my having lived with the character for so long not knowing exactly what his whole deal was, but I do feel the character works better without a back story).

So Portia and Jason take Jellaby to a fair in Toronto, because Jellaby recognized a door on a building there in a newspaper article about that fair. After some rather scary misadventures—being very little kids, Portia and Jason aren't much more experienced with the ways of the big city than the monster, who is able to walk around out in the open because it's Halloween and everyone assumes he's a man in a costume—they eventually find the door, and follow it and a mysterious stranger from Portia's dreams to the bottom.
There they find another monster that does indeed look a little like Jellaby. It's much, much larger, and white with red in its eyes, a purple fin and a purple fin or sail along its back (Actually, it looks like a cross between Jellaby and a Spinosaurus...with an dead octopus on its head). Its not actually related to Jellaby, at least not in the familial sense that the kids thought any monsters they might find on the other side of the door might be, and while Portia deals with her fears and hopes, as manifested in magically indued dreams, the other monster tells her genuinely sad and tragic story, and tries to force Jason to be her friend.

It's all kind of complicated, but this monster, like Jellaby, apparently, are some breed of imaginary friend monsters that aren't really imaginary, but bond with children the same way imaginary friends might, and tend to get left behind as adulthood comes on, as imaginary friends do.

There's a lot of awfully high drama and tense moments in this second half of the story, and a battle at the end that seems at odds with the gentle humor of the Jellaby shorts from Flight (and many of the goings on in the first volume), but once all of Portia's fears are faced, she and Jason resolve their issues and the bad monster vanquished, things end rather happily, with Portia sharing the secret of her monster with her mother.

Not every single mystery and conflict is resolved, which leads me to believe Soo had or still has some more Jellaby stories in him, but this does go a rather long way toward explaining what Jellaby is and of bringing Portia's personal conflicts to a head in a satisfying manner.

I've got two reviews at places that aren't Every Day Is Like Wednesday this week.

First, I have a short review of Kean Soo's first Jellaby graphic novel, which has just been republished with a new cover and a few other changes (like a new sub-title) for instance. That's at Good Comics For Kids.

And secondly, I have a kinda sorta review of DC's Trinity of Sin: Pandora Vol. 1: The Curse, maybe the first trade paperback collection I've ever read where, if you listen very hard, you can actually hear echoes of the editorial meetings in which the direction of the title and the character were changed emanating from the pages. That's at Robot 6.

And that's all I got for you tonight. I've read and/or received a whole bunch of comics in the last few days, though, including Earth 2 Vol. 3, Gingerbread Girl, Jellaby: Monster in the City, Sam Henderson's Scene But Not Heard, Solomon Kane Vol. 2: Death's Black Riders, the next two volumes of Jason Aaron and company's Wolverine and The X-Men, an Uncanny X-Force trade and UQ Holder!, so I should have a lot of reviews for you here soon.

Last night I re-read the first five volumes of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim in preparation for the release of the sixth and final volume today, and just noticed something for the first time. In 2005's Vol. 2, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, there's a scene where Scott and Ramona walk through a playground (above), and the little ride-y spring things there bear the faces of title characters from some of O'Malley's peers' comics.

Namely, Salamander from Hope Larson's 2005 Salamander Dream

and Kean Soo's character Jellaby, who appeared online and in Flight anthologies before appearing in 2008's Jellaby from Hyperion.


Today a new trailer for the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World video game apparently made it online, in connection with Comic-Con no doubt, and the playground Ramona and Scott are walking through in the panel at the top of the post shows up in the game, complete with Salamander and Jellaby ride-y spring things.

They're at the forty-second second mark or so: Surreal.

“The Broken Path” by Michael Gagne

The table of contents doesn’t mention it, but the title page is labeled “Michael Gagne’s The Saga of Rex.” I’ve long thought the only thing worse than a set of chronicles was a saga. But as far as self-proclaimed sagas go, this one isn’t so bad.

This is the continuing story of that little fox on an alien planet that has been in the last few Flight collections, the one who picked up a jagged crystal shard that resembles a unicorn-like horn in his forehead. With so much time between Flights, I lose track of the particular narrative beats of this story, but it is nice looking, and it’s perfectly legible, despite the complete lack of words.


“Delilah Dirk and the Aqueduct” by Tony Cliff

This is a pretty charming action adventure story, with a dash of character comedy thrown in. The titular “International Mistress of Swordmanship” and her servant/sidekick/love interest (?) Mr. Selim crash their airship near an aqueduct, and have to escape an army.

It’s very well done, but seems sort of context free, like a middle chapter of a longer story that lacks a beginning or ending.


“The Dragon” by Reagan Lodge

See above, only replace Delilah Dirk and Mr. Selim with an anthropomorphic fox and the army with a mech-like battle suit thing. It looks nice and works well, but isn’t really grounded in anything bigger than itself.


“Beisbol 2” by Richard Pose

I’m not a fan of baseball—in fact, I don’t really like anything about it and never have. But for some reason, I do enjoy reading comics about it.

This was one of my favorite stories in the collection, perhaps in large part because it’s a standalone story that feels complete (despite the title). It’s about a little boy having his faith in the sport shattered and renewed in the space of a single game, thanks to his favorite player “The Bopper” turning out to be an arrogant jerk and a rookie from Cuba turning out to be a really cool guy.

I should also note that I really liked the coloring in this story. It’s very simple and basic, and doesn’t have all the fancy gradations and lighting effects of so many of the stories here. That stuff can look great, of course, but I really like the pure comic book-ishness of a red baseball uniform on a man standing on green grass under a blue sky.


“The Courier” by Kazu Kibiushi

Anthology editor and cover artist Kibiushi’s short story is about an urban messenger in a futuristic city. Unlike the guy on the covers, he doesn’t ride a giant bird. Beautifully illustrated and well told, but it doesn’t really say or do anything beyond looking nice.


“Malinky Robot” by Sonny Liew

I’m a big fan of the work of artist Sonny Liew (My Faith In Frankie, Wonderland, Re-gifters), so I am perhaps biased towards liking his contribution.

Especially since this story, in which two little humanoids meet a robot and express their disappointment in it, thinking it more of an appliance than the sort of robot their used to (like Transformers and Astro Boy, which gives Liew the opportunity to draw off-brand analogues of famous robots), repeatedly uses a phrase that I find absolutely hilarious: “I am a robot.”

See, in college I lived with someone who had a blue-and-gold macaw, and one of the phrases I taught it to say was “I am a robot,” which kind of chagrined her, as she was trying to teach it to speak, like, useful phrases used in communication, rather than just random dumb phrases like “I am a robot!” (His voice sounded robotic to me, which is why I taught it to him.)




“Worry Dolls” by JP Ahonen

A down-on-his-luck, out-of-work actor is having a rough time of things, and a loved one gives him a set of worry dolls to help him out. When he falls asleep, the dolls come to life, crawl in his ears, and try to clean the worries out of his brain, but his medication interferes with the usual worry doll routine, and they end up driving a sleep-walking dude around town. Amusing and well illustrated, but I was a little let down by the doll design; they’re cute, but they don’t look particularly worry doll-like.


“Igloo Head and Tree Head In Disguise” by Scott Campbell

There’s no real reason Scott Campbell’s “-Head” strips, in which humanoid blobs are named for the objects atop their heads, should be funny at all, let alone still funny, but I’ll be damned if this one didn’t crack me up even more than the last one I read. I guess it’s all in the execution…?


“Evidence” by Graham Annable

I don’t want to say anything about this story and risk ruining such an effective gag. But since this is a Graham Annable story, you don’t really need me to say anything, do you? And if you haven’t read any of Annable’s work, I think you’re probably wasting your time reading my blog at the moment; why are you reading me going on and on when you could be reading Grickle comics?


“N” by Phil Craven

A ninja fights a bunch of other ninjas to save a girl. And they are all super-cute, with big heads and ninja outfits that look like footy pajamas.


“The Changeling” by Sarah Mensinga

A fairly straightforward story about the folk belief in fairy changelings, only with a bit of a twist; Mensinga’s animation background is clear in work, which features panels that look a bit like film stills.


“Mountains” by Matthew Bernier

This is by far the weirdest story in the book. There are some really nice drawings of sea monsters in it.


“Big Dome: Flowers for Mama” by Paul Rivoche

I didn’t much care for this one, which is far wordier than much of the rest of the stories within. Rivoche draws some fantastic contraptions though, and his story is one of the more comic book-iest in terms of its coloring.


“The Chosen One” by Dave Roman

EDILW favorite Dave Roman (Astronaut Elementary, Teen Boat) contributes a very funny story about some woodland creatures who tell a young boy he is the chosen one and send him on a quest.

This is my favorite panel in the whole book:

“Ha, of course!” I shouted to myself when I read that. As a child, it always confused me that rabbits didn’t make a sound like all the other animals children know about.


“Jellaby: Lost” by Kean Soo

Oh hey, it’s a Jellaby story. I was kinda surprised to see the mute, big-headed purple dragonsaur guy in this volume, as I was pretty sure he (and Soo) had graduated into their own books, but I was glad to see him here. It just wouldn’t be Flight without him, you know?


“Two Kids” by Bannister and Grimaldi

Two kids meet in the woods; one is lost on purpose, the other on accident. It’s a surprisingly complete story, which stands up just fine on it’s own. And I was all set to hate it too, based on the fact that its creators only have one name apiece…


“Scenes In Which The Earth Stops Spinning And Everyone Flies Into A Wall” by Ryan North and John Marz

The title kind of says it all. The earth stops spinning, which means there’s no gravity and everyone goes flying, the results ranging from funny to sweet, depending on who goes flying and what they were about to do before the earth stopped spinning. Marz’s art is really incredible; nice, loose, super-cartoony designs and a brilliantly idiosyncratic color scheme that’s pure pleasure to look at. This is, like, my favorite story in this volume.


“Timecat” by Joey Weiser

Joe Weiser (The Ride Home) tells the story of Timecat, a cat with the power to travel forward in time simply by thinking hard enough. He’s hungry and wants fed, but his master won’t give him any food for a few hours. Lucky for him, by thinking really hard for a few minutes, and then checking the clock, he realizes he has moved forward in time—but only a few minutes.

It’s a really great gag, and Weiser plays it to the hilt.


“Voyage” by Kness and Made

An attractive polar bear walks around, floats to post-apocalyptic New York City, and then floats back to the arctic. Something about global warming, I guess?


“On The Importance of Space Travel” by Svetlana Chmakova

Wait, did I already call another story my favorite one? Because this is my favorite. Or my other favorite.

Anyway, Dramacon’s Svetlana Chmakova tells a rather darling little grade school melodrama about a weird little girl who tells her class she’s a princess from the planet Pluto and the little boy who teases her.

The post-script reads “In loving memory of Pluto…we still think you are cool.”


“Seasons: Frank and Frank” by Chris Appelhans

A little boy with a big head and a big rectangular bear with no head collect caterpillars in a cardboard tube, leave it alone for a long time, and then find it again.

Appelhans’ sparse style makes this story stand out quite dramatically from the rest of those in the book, with his simple black and white drawings filling four panels per page until the very last page, in which the format is broken dramatically and effectively.

The big weird looking bear running around with finger-guns pretending to shoot his little human friend makes me smile.

I've read some online invective regarding the Flight anthologies, the sharpest cut I remember being (and I paraphrase, because I don't remember where exactly I read it) that just because you can draw, that doesn't mean you can tell a story. I haven't dug every single story in ever single Flight volume, and yeah, some are even what I'd consider bad stories (although not a one is what I'd call poorly illustrated), but certainly the ratio of great to bad stories inthe accolade-accruing anthologies (alliteration!) has favored the good. One of my personal favorite contributions has been the one in Volume 3 about the big purple dragon monster with the giant head named Jellaby having a tea party with two little kids, by Kean Soo.

Last month, Soo delivered a new Jellaby story, this one much, much longer than his Flight shorts, and devoid of anyone else's work around it. That is, Soo is flying solo with Jellaby (Hyperion), the first in a multi-volume story about the title character whose name I have no idea how to pronounce (I want to say it like "jellybean" without the "n;" is that right?).

The story reads like the opening chapters of a piece of a children's novel, with a plucky young girl with some common but oppressive problems—her father is missing, she's too smart for her classmates and teacher, she's picked on by bullies—discovering a sad monster in the woods by her house, keeping him a secret from (almost) everyone, and deciding to go on a journey to return said sad monster to his rightful home.

Will she learn a bit about herself, solve some of her problems and discover her own true home in the process? Oh, I have a feeling she will.

If I were reading a prose version of this story, my eyes would likely have glazed over quite quickly, and I probably would have spent most of the seconf half fighting off sleep. But this isn't prose, its a graphic novel, and so any cliched elements of the story exist mostly in the reader's own memory (and, since it's targeted toward younger readers, they've likely experienced far fewer similar stories than bitter, cynical old men like me). And Soo's visual story-telling is simply top-notch. The passages that pass with no words—protagonist Portia's first meeting with Jellaby, her seemingly prophetic dream sequence—are just as clear as those with dialogue.

What most charmed me about the book, however, was Soo's skill at character design. There's a very Bill Watterson-ness to his human characters, with their blank eyes and, in particular, the goonish-ness of his children. Portia, her pal Jason, who also befirends Jellaby, and their classmates are tiny. They look a bit like kneehigh adults, only with giant heads. The older kids who bully them look the same, only bigger. It's a bit like in the world of Jellaby, humans are born as heads, and then their bodies grow out of the bottom of their heads until they reach adulthood and everything is then properly proportioned.

And then there's the title character, who is just an absolutely perfect design. A giant head, comically tiny horns and bat-wings, a bit of an underbite, a pattern of red stripes along his top (one of which forms a sorta nose on his bulbous face) and huge, watery anime eyes. He's fun and funny to look at, and, through him, Soo shows off what an incredible actor he is. The emotions channeled through Portia and Jason are a little harder to read, but Jellaby comes off as a genius silent film star. With nothing more than nods, headshakes, changes in his simple expression, and the way he holds his hands and tail, Jellaby conveys the whole rainbow of human emotion. Jellaby is the Charlie Chaplin of comic book dragons.

The entire book is designed to be something of a reflection of the Jellaby design, rendered not in black and white but almost entirely in different shades of purple, with a red logo on the book's purple spine just like the red stripes on Jellaby's own spine. One of the few exceptions to the purple and ligh-lavendar world of Jellaby are the bits of red and the orange shirts featuring carrots favored by Jason, who, like Portia, seems to have a lot of problems for someone so small. Maybe even more so than Portia but, like the situation with her father, these problems are alluded to without being laid out in the first volume.

There are only two parts I didn't care for.

Here's one:


In the first three panels, Soo keeps the lines solid around Portia and whatever's immediately to her left, with everything else getting soft, like a the background in a movie going out of focus as the camera follows a character in the foreground. Of course, Portia's not moving on an axis that links up with the reader's eyes, but on one that's perpendicular to what we're looking at. It's not really the way a movie camera works. I'm not positive that's teh effect that Soo was going for, but it it was, it's off. If it wasn't what he was going for, then I have no idea what he was.

He uses the technique one other time later in the story, and it works much more closely to the way a it would work in a movie, and thus isn't as noticeable.

The other part I didn't like occurs in the second and third panels on this page:


I'm not sure I understand it. The dark part is apparently the shadows of tree branches, getting all menacing in the next panel, but I'm not sure what that rectangular object on the floor was. I stared at this page for a while, and flipped back to rearead the previous few pages for a clue, but I still don't get it.

Other than those five panels, though? This is a great little suburban adventure story that I'd reccomend to just about anyone of any age. All-ages in the best sense of the word—the literal sense of it. I'm looking forward to volume 2, maybe even more so than the next volume of Flight.



Related: You can read short Jellaby strips and the first sixty pages or so of this volume here.Kean Soo's website can be found here. And you can read Chris Arrant's chat with him about his book for Newsarama here.