Descender - Ascender

The story of Tim 21 and Andy Tavers. It took 20 years but the brothers finally got a proper end.

Esta es la mujer que puede descender al fondo del mar con un solo respiro. Su capacidad pulmonar es tan extrema que muchos la consideran una "mutante real".

Conoce más de ella aquí:

Poll 1

So far I've received no suggestion of other major couples in (relatively) well-known indie comics and I'm running out of ideas so I'm not sure I'll do another part.

I have other polls about literature, art, etc in my pinned post.

Descender #1

by Jeff Lemire; Dustin Nguyen and Steve Wands

Image

El privilegio de la pausa "Saber que uno siempre cuenta con el privilegio de la pausa. Des- cender la intensidad de la marcha. Acomodarse en el piso. Sacarse los zapatos. Tocarse el latido del corazón y sentir qué quiero que siga ahora y qué no. Así. Escuchando tu respiración como respuesta. Con la cabeza, inclinada, mirando a ese Cielo que guarda tu vuelo. Tranquila. Despacio. En ese silencio donde la verdad, siempre, te es revelada. Eso. En pausa. Date el permiso hermoso de frenar. Así. Tu cuerpo a la altura de tu alma. Que espere el que pueda esperar. Lo importante acá es que te sepas esperar tú. Eso también es curarse."

DESCENDER

Art by DUSTIN NGUYEN

If you put it in de mailbox, you . . .

Comics Read 04/16-05/10/2023

Over this period of time I read the Ascender Deluxe Edition by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen. It is a sequel to the creator’s earlier, Descender. I read that about three and a half years ago, also in Omnibus format, and wrote at little about back then. I do wish I wrote more. My desire to avoid accidentally spoiling someone and upsetting them is at odds with my desire to have notes that actually jog my memory. 

Very little of Ascender jogs my memory of Descender. The appearance of the “dog” Bandit does a little, but I don’t remember if his backward bark (“fra” instead of “arf”) is a new thing or consistent with what came before.The main character of this one is Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie and I don’t remember their stories at all. Andy was Tim-21’s human companion, and Effie’s character design has her mostly machine in a human machine hybrid. It’s tragic looking, and which hat suits her arc here but I don’t remember any explanation of her look.  In general I remember Descender as an episodic picaresque, where I could enjoy moment to moment, but not really explain what it was about in a large sense. 

How important is it remembering Descender to enjoying Ascender? I’d say really important as many of the original cast of characters return one by one over the course of the story. When the robot Driller showed up I remembered that there was a robot named Driller who was enthusiastic about drilling and spoke in a mechanical looking font, but nothing about his character arc. When Dr. Quon showed up I remembered that he made everyone uncomfortable he was sort of a mad scientist, though mostly not harmful. These were mostly explained in Ascender too, so what I’m really saying is, their appearances here felt right. But I can’t say that seeing them again gave me any emotional excitement.

There is a quote on the back of the edition attributed to Comics Bookcase that says, “As Descender was to hard sci-fi, Ascender is to high fantasy…”. It actually has a magic versus science plot, where vampire invaders have banned the existence of machines. The vampires here are magical colonizers led by one known as Mother. The colonization metaphor is extended by having characters state that those converted to vampirism are “saved”, the same language as converts to Christianity. This sounds heavy handed when I describe it, but there is also a plot about Mother battling for power within her original family that resists this kind of allegorical interpretation. 

I generally really enjoy Nguyen’s art, especially when colored by watercolor. It is very clean and easy to read while always having interesting things going on.  The only time I didn’t like the art was with the Mother’s family, which uses a red wash to suggest magic, and it seems to come at the expense of clarity. I also generally like Nguyen’s panel work more that one or two page spreads. They were beautiful but required more engagement in the plot than I had. One of my goals with this  blog is to better focus on the art while discussing comics criticism. I wish I had more to say  here. 

It's time for Beginnings, the podcast where writer and performer Andy Beckerman talks to the comedians, writers, filmmakers and musicians he admires about their earliest creative experiences and the numerous ways in which a creative life can unfold.

On today's episode, I talk to Eisner Award-winning comics creator Jeff Lemire. Originally from Woodslee, Ontario, Jeff wrote and drew comics for years while working day jobs, until he eventually self-published his book Lost Dogs in 2005. This led to making Essex County for Top Shelf, and since then he's written and drawn a veritable slew of fantastic comics, both creator-owned works for publishers like Image and Dark Horse and for-hire books for companies like Marvel, DC and Vertigo. This includes comics like The Underwater Welder, Sweet Tooth, Animal Man, Extraordinary X-Men, Descender and Ascender, Black Hammer, and Royal City. It should be noted that this is just a small sampling of his work, and currently, he is writing Little Monsters and Phantom Road for Image.

I'm on Twitter here and you can get the show with:

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Just watched ashikai's video and i have the same thoughts about the twins being from the unified civilization, escaping teyvat, and returning to teyvat around the time the cataclysm occurred!

Descender #1

When you go to bed, and wake up ten years later in a tomb surrounded by the dead bodies of everyone you once knew, then find out there was a genocide performed against your kind but the good news is your human mother and brother might still be alive somewhere in a world that is completely different from what you once knew 🫠

Started to read a comic today and it reminds me a bit of Mass Effect (it has big machines called Harvesters and an ancient *wiped out* civilisation that had advanced tech). The comic is called Descender. I like it so far.

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

As you do.

(Source: Descender)