Kyle Baker/Evan Dorkin: Classic or Dud?

except for garfield, of course...

I'll rep for Dorkin. Dork #7 came out when I was an angsty 14 year old and it was one of the most transcendent expressions of self-loathing I'd ever experienced. I loved it with all my heart. Outside of that Dork always had a ton of great gag strips, and Eltingville had a magnificent hateful edge to it that always made KC Green's anime club (and he's a gifted cartoonist, don't get me wrong) seem too soft-pedaled and nice in comparison. I have no idea if I would still find Milk & Cheese funny, though I adored it when I was in my teens. The hatefulness and meanness in Dork always seemed like less of a contrivance to me. He's also remained very good and consistent as a cartoonist over the years.

Baker's trickier. They did some funny stuff together, and obviously he was great on The Shadow, but I feel like everything went to shit as soon as he went Hollywood and became a more conventional storyteller. And as soon as he started using a computer. Every once in a while he'll still do something great that reminds you of Jack Davis on an off-day, but you're a lot more likely to get some cranked out garbage ime.

plastic man was the one of the best things baker has ever done, ditto the superbaby in the microwave strip, both computer-created. his artwork never reminds me of jack davis.

I haven't fucked with much of his new stuff since King David, so I missed out on plastic man. I could see that suiting his strengths. Wasnt the superbaby strip banned or scrapped or something? I seem to remember that being slightly controversial.

Jack Davis... I'm thinking of the Bob Mitchum caricature in You Are Here, which was the only thing I liked about that book. you don't see any influence?

Or here?

http://images.businessweek.com/story/08/600/0220_mz_55comic_customer.jpg

superbaby strip was printed, then withdrawn (cos of the microwaving biz), then reprinted somewhere else (i think, can't remember where) many years later

no you're right, hadn't seen that baker stuff before and yeah, it is VERY davis-y, almost like a swipe, what an odd thing - i was thinking more of his hyper-realist hawkman strip in that DC Sunday page comic

Fuck Milk & Cheese! Buy Dork #2, Dork #7 and whatever the comic that reprinted the Hectic Planet "Bummer Trilogy" from Dark Horse Presents was called, then come back and quibble.

― kit brash (kit brash), Saturday, 15 October 2005 09:27 (5 years ago)

this guy knows what's up

Is that you? Are you... kit brash?

i liked the dork strip that showed two-face flipping a coin with the punchline being "tails... tonight harvey dent fucks men!"

Dork #2 is prob one of my five fave comics of the entire first half of the 90s, so glad he's got something people want to succeed happening at the moment

What's he doing now?

superbaby was in an 80-page giant that got pulped but shipped to the states first, a dude on usenet kindly bought me a copy and mailed it to the southern hemisphere (Ad3 Br0wn if you remember him Tam Tam) but was like "pfft I'm not buying more copies, I'd be embarrassed picking up all 25 on the shelf".

then the next week it was going for 900 quid or something on ebay and he was like "oh shi"

then years later it was crammed into the first Bizarro Comics hardcover, which was itself meant to have been two specials and a bunch of annuals and never included that

but all the other shit from that 80-pager has never been reprinted, which is a shame, bcz there was killer material in it. you can probably google up the fake 60s covers by Ty Templeton and Mark Waid.

(Ad3 Br0wn if you remember him Tam Tam)

:-0 Bro did you post on the WEF?

x-post:

http://images.darkhorse.com/covers/300/13/13836.jpg

http://i.newsarama.com/images/BeastsOfBurden1_02.jpg

http://i.newsarama.com/images/BeastsOfBurdenHellboy1.jpg

shipped to the states UK first,

Oh yeah, I was reading about that earlier. It looks awesome! I'm glad for him too, I find myself naturally wanting to root for the guy.

(idk if you ever realised but brass band jord@n's ex was a "filthy assistant" (urgh) on the wef)

^mods feel free to delete if a sober person thinks approproate

Beasts is totally great!

tragically I can't find the Batman In The Garden Of Eden fake splash, with naked Batman wrestling an enormous penile serpent with the Joker's face, but

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Elseworlds_80-Page_Giant.jpg

http://tytempletonart.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/banned-elseworlds-wonder-woman.jpg

haha idk who brass band jord@n is but i remember/knew some of the FAs... perhaps i should take this to webmail

who drew that! that looks great!

Ty Templeton, I wa s saying upthread

ie Jordan not J0rdan S.

yessss

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8ie37mgxIXA/SgjNkIZdMYI/AAAAAAAAFkM/n8bVBnVAztw/s400/80+Batman+and+Eve.jpg

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/80-legion.jpg

xp Who was the ex? Andi Jess & Marcia were the main ones I remember...

omg does that come in a larger size

the garden of eden one i mean

is princess tamtam an old ilxor, then? im confused

would just like to say that Cowboy Wally is awesome

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/comics/news/a453436/kyle-baker-posts-free-graphic-novels.html

Kyle Baker: beyond classic for this.

Wow! Those aren't b-sides and rarities, that's his biggest and best books! Is it everything he owns, or everything before a certain date?

Everything he owns, I believe.

I thought Cowboy Wally was the greatest thing ever when I was in high school

I really, really wish fun and funny comics were popular.

Ty Templeton's "Stig's Inferno" was another comic like some of these, I really loved as a teenager.

I'm pretty sure Stig's is online for free, too. At least it was a few years ago.

never read "Why I Hate Saturn" - really dated but really good!

Deadpool Max is very good if you need a Kyle Baker fix. I don't remember if his Plastic Man was good but I'm gonna bet it was.

His Plastic Man was good. His art was good on Deadpool Max, but I found it just as stupidly unfunny as every other Deadpool series.

his Plastic Man was amazing but they never collected the last idk 8 issues or so

six issues - the first two trades were six issues each, skipping fill-ins by Scott Morse

so

easily found on the internet

I like paper

Good new interview with Mr Dorkin.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/milk-cheese-creator-evan-dorkin-talks-about-his-weird-1827300431

Pretty...intense thread from Evan D last night.

I always used to say I'd never quit comics but I also said I'd never do variant covers and I caved on that one. I'm getting too old to live this marginally, especially when I have a collaborator comicblocking the most profitable project I have going. I'm just tired of all this.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

That's a hella bummer to hear, particularly since I'm a fan of both of the major parties involved.

Uh, on a positive tip wrt the thread subjects, Baker is soloing on a new Black Panther series coming soon...frooooom IDW (no, I don't really understand that last part, either).

jeez, that thread is a bummer

hope things improve for him soon

yes, Evan fairly often has late night Instant Piano #4 / TCJ #214 despair threads on twitter, and not only around the Beasts co-owner tanking his career just as it was getting going after twenty years in the business. he eased off for a few years after she briefly got back in contact, but the completion of Wise Dogs has obviously ratcheted up the anxiety: it's likely that volumes 3 and 4 will both be completed before DH are able to put a Volume 2 into bookshops and libraries (if ever), ten years after the first.

xpost

frooooom IDW (no, I don't really understand that last part, either).

Marvel have acknowledged that they have creatively and structurally lost the ability to make comics for children, so loads of Disney IP gets licensed out to other publishers instead.

Disney IP generally I get, Marvel IP specifically not so much. But hey, we get more Kyle Baker, won't question it too much.

yoo, that Dorkin thread was a terrible idea, to air out his dirty laundry like that