CSBG Archive
Comic Book Alphabet of Cool – G
Today we look at a character that I think may be my current favorite comic character.
Enjoy!
Glenn Ganges
Glenn Ganges is comic creator Kevin Huizenga’s main character, and the star of Huizenga’s Or Else series (recently collected as the excellent Curses) and his own series from Fantagraphics, Ganges.
Drawn and Quarterly (who put out Curses) have a great description of Glenn on their Curses description:
Glenn Ganges, a seemingly middle class man living in the suburbs whose blank-eyed wonderment at everyday experiences brings together such diverse aspects of our world as golf, theology, late-night diners, parenthood, politics, Sudanese refugees and hallucinatory vision, into a complete experience as multifaceted as our own lives.
I am irked, as Drawn and Quarterly summed up Glenn a lot cooler than I usually do, which is describe Huizenga’s Ganges as sneaking up on you with mind-blowing ideas, and since Glenn is such a simple, relatable guy, you don’t even notice what you’ve become caught up in until it is too late.
When I was filling in for Bill on 365 Reasons to Love Comics, I featured Kevin Huizenga. I reprinted a Glenn Ganges story there, and I think it makes sense (and, admittedly, it’s also easier for me, natch) to just do that story here, as well.
Again, this is a a sample of Ganges #1 on Huizenga’s website here. I hope this is all right with Kevin, but I figure that if he was willing to have it up on his website for people to sample, he would be okay with me showing it to you for sampling purposes.
Isn’t that just a remarkable achievement? And I think a lot of it comes from the sheer relatability of Glenn Ganges, as he grounds an otherwise fantastical story.
Great stuff.
Here is Kevin’s website, where you can find links to purchase all of his fine works.
9 Comments
The Mutt
March 30, 2008 at 8:29 am
I was about to walk to the grocery, but now I’m afraid I’ll come unstuck in time.
Thank’s for the acid flashback, Brian and Kevin. This comic is groovy!
MarkAndrew
March 30, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Heeey. Good one.
Was there an issue of Ganges out this week?
stealthwise
March 30, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Reads like freshman philosophy.
Dan (other Dan)
March 30, 2008 at 11:00 pm
“Reads like freshman philosophy.”
That doesn’t mean it’s bad. I got a lot out of freshman philosophy. It encouraged me to seek out a lot of great works and think in new ways. Some of it was actually entertaining. If a comic can match those outcomes, I’m happy to read it!
Some of the comics in Curses are really good.
J to the AAP
March 31, 2008 at 1:05 am
I recently picked up ‘Curses’ and liked it a lot, is that Time Travelling strip collected in any similar volume?
RichYan33
April 2, 2008 at 5:28 am
A nicely crafted story about nothing?
Mike @ Fantagraphics
April 2, 2008 at 1:22 pm
@MarkAndrew: Yep!
Brian Cronin
April 3, 2008 at 12:27 am
Just like Seinfeld.
wwk5d
April 22, 2008 at 5:06 am
This looks promising, and interesting, and not in a pretentious Morrison or Moore kind of way. Def something i want to check out.