2. How is Hellboy like Caravaggio?

And "brief" thoughts on my weekly media diet.

Welcome to my Newsletter

My name is Spike Stonehand. I write about the magic of comics, and I don’t mean “magic” as a metaphor. How does a two-dimensional drawing gain the illusion of depth? Through the very real magic of art. Read more about that specific example down below in my post on Hellboy.

You’re being a little presumptuous placing that subscribe button so high, aren’t you?

You haven’t seen anything yet, because I’ve created a tip jar! Just click here if you’d like to send a few dollars my way to support what I do here. I might mess around with that as this develops, for example, by including zines/PDFs of the Divining Comics pieces or allowing the commissioning of articles on specific comics. Let me know in the comments if there is anything you’d like to see.

Why should they support you again?

My main article this week is about Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. It explores how Mike Mignola uses the same chiaroscuro techniques as Italian Renaissance masters like Caravaggio to create the illusion of depth and draw your eye across the page.

The human brain is a powerful hub of magic. It is able to take a two-dimensional image of light reflected onto a retina and conjure a three-dimensional field. This “illusion of depth” spell requires certain components. You need perspective, parallax, focus, and occultation. As a final ingredient, artists (magicians of the comic book world) use the interplay of light and shadow.

One artistic school of light and shadow manipulation that arose during the Italian Renaissance is “chiaroscuro”, which is Italian for “light dark.” It is the use of extreme contrasts, bright light areas and deep shadows

(READ MORE)

Is that all you did this week?

Nope! Keep reading for a diary of all that I read and watched, including a complete ranking of my October horror movie watchlist, a new recurring feature on Dante’s Divine Comedy, and more!

Comics

This week I read, for the first time, volume 1 of Ice Cream Man, collecting issues 1-4. Written by W. Maxwell Prince, drawn by Martin Morazzo, colored by Chris O’Halloran, and lettered by Good Old Neon, this is a fun, if slight, series of horror short stories, tangentially connected by the ominous Ice Cream Man. The final note of the series threatens to lead to an ongoing plot, probably necessary if this series is to continue. I’ve heard it continues on to become an all-time great series, but while I enjoyed this first volume, I don’t feel an overwhelming need to continue reading.

I’m now caught up with alongside the My Marvelous Year‘s monthly reading series “Convincible.” Reading through Invincible, by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, and Bill Crabtree, I finished volume 4, isssues 14-19. Listening in on the discussion, I think I currently am more excited about Invincible than Zack or Charlotte, but not yet sold on it being the greatest comic of all time, a position I’m not even sure Dave holds anymore. For example, I think the series is starting to deal with the ongoing trauma of the spoiler at the end of volume three. Mark is throwing himself into his heroism and Invincible persona rather than dealing with how he is feeling or talking to his friends and girlfriend. I agree with the crew that Mark’s mother is terribly underdeveloped at this point.

I also read Wasp: Small Worlds, written by Al Ewing, drawn by Kasia Nie and Carola Borelli, colored by KJ Díaz, colored by Cory Petit, and cover art by Tom Reilly. It feels natural to compare this to the recent Ant Man series, given the Al Ewing, Tom Reilly, and in-universe character connections. Unfortunately, this series suffers for the juxtaposition. It’s ultimately just a fine outing, which is disappointing given the pedigree.

Finally, I have started reading Hip Hop Family Tree Omnibus by Ed Piskor. This is an incredibly dense and detailed historical work, with annotations, a works cited, and an index. The art alone is worth the price of entry. Piskor used scans of the gutter space of an old comic book and authentic colors from the limited palette of the time to give this an amazing textural look. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’ll be writing about this book. It’s also going to be an incredibly slow read.

Movies

October is done, and that means I’ll be watching (slightly) fewer Horror films. These are the five I finished out the month with. You can check out my letterboxd if you want (slightly) more in depth thoughts on these movies.

Ranking the movies I watched in October would tentatively look like this. Please, do let me know what you think I got wrong. I’m happy to be wrong about Ti West, my first unofficial website enemy. I’d say it’s somewhere around Relic where I start to think the movies are more bad than good.

1. Night of the Living Dead

2. Eden Lake

3. The Fly (1986)

4. Possession

5. Knife + Heart

6. Hellraiser

7. Saw X

8. Revenge

9. Unsane

10. When Evil Lurks

11. A Nightmare on Elm Street

12. Autopsy of Jane Doe

13. Moloch

14. Pearl

15. Triangle

16. Terrified

17. Gonjiam Haunted Asylum

18. Relic

19. Bodies Bodies Bodies

20. The Amityville Horror

21. X

22. House

23. The Taking of Deborah Logan

24. Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor

25. The Dark and the Wicked

26. The House on Sorority Row

Television

Now that I don’t feel the need to watch a horror movie every day, it’s time to catch up on some TV. Right now, that’s Lego Masters. In addition to being a fun show with a lot of creative talent, Lego Masters holds a special place in my heart. I started dating my fiancée right before the beginning of the pandemic. During those first few months of our relationship, we would watch Lego Masters together, calling each other and trying to sync our streams up. There are some really talented players this batch, and while I’m not 100% caught up, I’m definitely rooting for Neena and Sam, a mother-son duo.

Books

I’ve been meaning to re-read The Divine Comedy. I don’t think I was ready to appreciate it when assigned to me in undergrad. Now, one of my favorite cultural commentators, TheLitCritGuy is covering it, one canto a week, on his patreon. I figure I’ll include some of my thoughts each week here!
This week covers Canto 1 of Inferno. My main thoughts revolve around two centers: the three beasts and the use of Virgil.

• Multiple commentaries argue this takes place in the year 1300. The intro to my book says Dante was exiled in 1302. Could the three beasts, that seem to represent various sins, also symbolize the forces (from within himself and in others) that lead to his exile? Is reflection on his own sin what has lead him down this dark path?

• Why Virgil? The character Dante mentions how much he admires Virgil, and even modeled his poetry after him. Still, why Virgil? The linked Digital Dante resource mentions Dante was familiar with, and agreed somewhat with, Aristotle. But it’s the Poet, and not the Philosopher, that guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory.

It only just dropped, but I have started reading Clarkesworld 206. I’ll write more once I’ve finished the issue.

Links

An online acquaintance of mine, Wizards with Laser Rifles, just released a new zine called The Spike of Dosku, the first of a new and original Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG setting called Silam. There are some fun new character races and a funnel adventure, with beautiful art throughout. Check out this thumb-through video for more, and go buy that zine!

The always-great David Harper interviews Juni Ba on this week’s Off Panel. Ba is an artist I’ve been meaning to check out, and this discussion only solidifies my desire. He has two books out recently, Mobilus and The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber, so I guess I’ve got homework.

I enjoyed this essay by Caitlin Sinclair Chapell on WWAC on how comics can help young readers with dyslexia build reading skills.

Graeme McMillan has the scoop on Popverse: DC is trying a new venture to expand comics readership. They are releasing a line of “Compact Comics”, which will reprint classic stand-alone series in the traditional mass-market paperback size. I’m all for putting comics in places they aren’t normally expected, and if this works, it could be huge.

The Cartoonist Kayfabe videos I most enjoyed this week were a look at the Bill Waterson and John Kascht book The Mysteries, a look through cohost Jim Rugg’s 1986 Zine about all of the many significant comics happenings of that year, and this look at old Comic’s Buyer’s Guides.

In addition to some lovely process pieces, André Lima Araújo’s Substack newsletter introduced me to the lovely resource of characterdesignreference.com. If you are an artist, aspiring or established, this is a wonderful site.

This Humble Bundle of comics from the publisher Humanoids looks very interesting. I don’t recognize hardly any of the titles other than Jodorowki/Moebius’s Incal. However, this absolutely massive bundle is definitely tempting me.