Chris Giarrusso’s Brother Act

My favorite set of brothers in superhero comics appears in Chris Giarrusso’s G-Man series. Mikey, called G-Man by his friends, is the younger brother: eager, imaginative, perseverant, and naive. David, who took the name Great Man, is his elder: capable, exasperated, bossy, and protective.

Giarrusso was at the MoCCA Festival last weekend, and I did something I’d never done before: commissioned a sketch.

Specifically, I asked for “Great Man cosplaying Nightwing and G-Man cosplaying Robin. The Tim Drake version.” To which Giarrusso answered, “Really?” and “Um, I don’t have all the costume details in my head.”

I assured him I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff. After all, he publishes with Marvel. (And he knows the costumes well enough to produce these versions of Batman, #1, and Superman/Batman, #26.)

By the end of the afternoon, I was the proud owner of this piece of art.

I asked Giarrusso about the next volume of G-Man. He said he was more than halfway through creating that story, in which the fraternal dynamic of Great Man and G-Man will be tested by the arrival of…a baby brother!

(And speaking of annoying baby brothers, last week Caanan, creator of Max Overacts, posted this convention sketch of Damian Wayne and his babysitters, titled “Don’t Be Rude—Be a Hero.”)

Max Acts Out

I may be wrong, but I’m assuming the kid in the metal costume with a pointy nose and an empty chest is dressed as the Tin Woodman. That’s enough Ozzy content for a Tuesday, I decided.

These panels come from this August 2010 installment of Max Overacts, a webcomic about a theatrically minded (i.e., loud, egocentric, and usually irrepressible) nine-year-old. Yesterday I received my copy of the first collected volume of the strip, subtitled Hold On to Your Stubs, mailed to me direct from Calgary.

The comic’s creator, Caanan, published the book in part by soliciting advance orders through Indiegogo last year. The paperback volume is nicely printed in full color. There are previously unseen strips about Max’s older sister, Andi. The only thing I feel is missing is some sort of introduction or commentary.

The book has the horizontal format specified by DC Comics’s Zuda initiative years back. That’s designed for reading on a computer screen, a format that goes back to the movie screen via TV. A lot of other webcomics have adopted the same aspect ratio. Zuda is no more, but its specs live on. As I wrote back here, that's a less common format for books and comics, but I expect we’ll see more of it.

Also from Caanan, a convention sketch of the New Teen Titans, disco era:

Overreacting

A Robot 6 column by Brigid Alverson alerted me to Caanan’s webcomic Max Overacts, and one page struck me particularly. It starts with young Max returning to elementary school after four days away with an allergic reaction to someone’s perfume. Here are the last three panels of nine; click on the picture to visit the rest. I did almost the same thing as Max’s friend, back in junior high. No, I didn’t get bored and spread extravagant rumors about a pal who was absent for a couple of days. I got bored and spread a very mild rumor about a pal who was absent for one day.

Aaron was in a minor car accident, I told one or two kids. The doctors wanted to observe him to make sure he was all right. No one else was hurt. He’d probably be back very soon.

By the time Aaron appeared in school the next morning, the whole grade was convinced he’d been on death’s door, limbs broken and family wiped out. And I hadn’t done anything.

Well, I did tell one or two kids I picked out because I was sure they’d spread the rumor. And I repeated the same story to anyone who bothered to ask me. But all the exaggeration—that happened on its own. I had no idea who spread the rumor into the teachers’ lounge.

It was a terrific lesson about human nature (if life in junior high counts as human). A few years later I was able to use that knowledge for evil. Well, mischief.

Which in turn led to a fine college essay, if I and two university admissions offices say so ourselves. Indeed, I can’t say I’ve hit the downside of this lesson yet.

(Here’s Max’s funny overreaction to the allergen scratch test. I had the same questions back when I was his age, but didn’t express them the same way.)