Thursday, November 8, 2012

Palookaville 19: The Last Pamphlet

Issue 19 concludes part 3 of "Clyde Fans".  In the comic, Abraham and Simon put their mother in a nursing home.  Here are some random thoughts on the comic:

*This was the last comic book Palookaville.  The next issue saw cartoonist Seth switch to a graphic novel format.  Not many alternative comics were still around in 2008, when this issue was published.  Some of Seth's contemporaries such as Chester Brown and Dan Clowes seemed to abandon serialization altogether and just published their work as complete graphic novels.  Others such as Peter Bagge continued to serialize work in the comic book pamphlet format.  Seth opted to continue serialization but turn Palookaville into a graphic novel, similar to what the Hernandez Brothers did with Love & Rockets.  Presumably, economics was behind all of these moves.  Alternative cartoonists probably sell better in the bookstore market than in the comic shop market.

*Seth continues to cram more panels on a page in this issue.  The page with the least panels on it still has 8 panels on it, and some pages have 24 panels on a page.  So even though the last Palookaville comic book cost $4.95, readers got a lot of comics for the money.

*Seth also does a lovely layout on page 4 wherein Simon crosses a landscape divided into panels, with the panels forming into an overall image of the landscape.  Alan Moore is fond of layouts such as this one as well, and they're always nifty.

*Simon's bird fantasy from last issue appears to just be a flight of fancy since his brother snaps him out of it by yelling at him some more.  Simon apparently lives until 1979.  I'm still not sure what the big secret about the father is.  I guess that's what part 4 is for. 

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