Not a day without a line
Mix Tape, and the currently avaliable Astoria singles Black Sabbath (intro) and Resistansen, are reviewed over on Derik A. Badman’s terrific Madinkbeard site!
A keen observer, Derik notes: “Like the songs on a well-crafted mix tape, the images have their own separate identity, yet, by placing in juxtaposition, the reader (listener) attributes some meaning to the choices and ordering.”
(more…)
Tags: derik badman, Madinkbeard, Mix Tape
Eddie Campbell’s How to be an artist may be my favorite. Comic. Evah.
He mixes veiled biography and anecdote with a tongue in cheek, future tense second-person narrative mocking how-to manuals, riddled with aphorisms:
“Everybody will be full of unfulfillable promise in the cheery winesodden Friday afternoon of your life when you feel an unbearable nostalgia for events less than a day after they happen. You just see if I’m not wrong, Alex MacGarry. Just see if the Monday morning of your life don’t arrive like a broken elevator.”
(Alec MacGarry being the artist’s alter ego, to whom the instructions are directed)
If it weren’t enough that Campbell is a master of his craft, a razor-sharp critic of the comics medium, and a satyrically inspired autobiographer, his first-hand descriptions of the British comics scene of the 80′s would alone be worth twice the book’s weight in India ink.
“… guys with one eye on the coolometer and myopic guys, dilletantes, pretenders, complete wankers, sweethearts, boy geniuses. They’ll all traffic past you,” and more in-depth portrayals of the people closest to Campbell, er, MacGarry.
Also: the “Bam! Sock! Pow! Comics aren’t for kids anymore!” of the mid- to late 80′s –
“Batman. Well, of course, the whole plot has already gone to fuck as you can see right there. But it’s too late. It’s in the hands of the PR yuppies.”
- and the mess that remains the graphic novel -
“It’s a misnomer, of course, but the so is ‘comic book’ [...] The term will embody the arrival of an idea; a serious intent will be brought into the common comic and remain as a trend through the last quarter of the twentieth century, perhaps further.”
You will need to read this book, at least fifty times. In the end you may have to actually buy it.
In the meantime, Campbell is equally witty and contentious on his blog, Fate of the Artist.
You have been properly instructed, now go be an artist.
Only this Friday, March 27th the photocopied pages for the lost, third volume of Big Numbers were made (legally) available on the Internet, some twenty years after they were produced.
What the big deal is? These are the last pages made for Alan Moore’s failed comic to end all comics.
On the heels of his groundbreaking Watchmen and V for Vendetta comics, Moore had soured on working for publishers that would steal the rights to his work, given half a chance. That disenchantment with the industry continues to this day, and has been widely publicized each time a movie has been made from his work, against his will and advice.
In the late eighties, spurred on by self-publishing comic creators like Dave Sim and Kevin Eastman, Moore’s escape was to form his own publishing company, Mad Love. An apt name, seeing that Moore’s business partners were his wife and their shared lover, who in Eddie Campbell‘s description had been the author’s “extended family” for years.
After the ruminations of Vendetta on anarchist theory, and the multilayered, self-reflecting intricacy that is Watchmen, Moore decided it was time to step away from the superhero fantasy and take on a subject matter based in reality, but made all the more fantastic by the fact. It was time to inspect and wield the Big Numbers that connect human life according to fractal mathematics and chaos theory.
(Interestingly, the story is set in a fictionalized version of the author’s own hometown Northampton, foreshadowing his later novel Voice of the Fire, which took place in that city over the course of thousands of years, a practice of manifesting a particular location’s genus loci that he has also used in “seances” like Snakes and Ladders, and The Birth Caul)
Over the years Moore has made light of the insane, meticulous planning he went through to sketch out his intended 12-volume interpretation of the Mandelbrot set: how Neil Gaiman “shat himself” when presented with the 2′x2’9″ sheet minutely charting the whereabouts of all the characters at any given point in the story.
And the strain of the complex, elaborate work speaks for itself: Artist Bill Sienkiewicz ran dry (some say he cracked) after carefully crafting two chapters of 40 beautiful pages each, and his assistant Al Colombia who had had a big hand in drawing chapter three also was promoted to take over his job entirely with chapter four.
Eddie Campbell, Moore’s collaborator on From Hell, vitriously lays out the scene in his How to be an Artist (pages 110-116), but I’ll keep it short:
Al Colombia’s work was destroyed by the artist in a fit, attempts to find a replacement were proved futile — Big Numbers sank like a rock, Moore’s wife and lover had decided three was a crowd, and all there was left in the rubble was those five square feet of paper mapping a lost dream.
Until, of course, the Age of the Internet came upon us. Instant, ubiquitous availability brought us gems thought dead and lost, such as the Star Wars Christmas Special and that ill-fated Fantastic Four movie. And for years, rumours circulated about existing xeroxes of the lost, remaining chapter of Big Numbers.
And that is where we come in. It goes without saying that the pages (or some of the pages, in different combinations and sequences, and varying degrees of xerosion) have been around on the Mules and Wires and Torrents of the internet for years now, but this is the first time that I know of that the full book has been made available, and with Moore’s blessing to boot, it appears!
By sheer coincidence, it all happened less than a week after I had actually bought my first ever copies of volumes one and two. I’d avoided the series because it wasn’t completed, but gave in, eventually. With the online publication of chapter 3, it is actually possible to read a quarter of the intended work, making it all the more painful to see what a subtle, intricate, engaging narrative is starting to take shape. Characters are coming to life from the outlines we meet in chapter 1, patterns emerge, possible story developments simmer in the horizon.
All forgotten dreams and wishes that will go unfulfilled. Or what? Heidi MacDonald, of comic news source The Beat, played a really lowdown and dirty April’s Fool prank recently, but that’s just cruel. No, after some eighteen years of dodging the subject, like that of a long lost girlfriend that broke your heart, artist Bill Sienkiewicz has expressed interest in taking on the project again, should the author be willing. “I’m older and wiser, and would approach the entirety of the book and series differently than I did then,” he states, implying probably that he is less prone to jump ship after all these years.
Whatever comes of that outstretched hand is up to Alan Moore, who has retired from mainstream comics, now dividing his time between work on his 2000 page novel, Jerusalem, magical practices, and the odd comic book work of love every now and then. Mainly, the latter have been in the context of his and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but two years back he also finished Lost Girls, a book he started with collaborator Melinda Gebbie shortly after the demise of Big Numbers.
Moore is no stranger to longterm commitment to projects, and V for Vendetta was on an extended hiatus before it was finished and published, but I’m probably grasping at straws.
Big Numbers may well be left unfinished and, like some Gothic Revival mock-ruin, remain a monument to the creators’ insane ambition and eventual failure. The work might even leave a bigger impression in its amputated state than it would if it were concluded.
Judging from what is now available, there is little doubt in my mind that Big Numbers taken to its conclusion would have been a milestone in comics. Instead, the “Making and Unmaking of Big Numbers” has become a tale of caution to creators of even moderate ambition.
Many comickers have tried and failed to raise the bar, on a personal scale or for the entire medium. Yet none have floundered with such massive publicity, or leaving such wreckage as Moore and Sienkiewicz’ Big Numbers. Reading the first three chapters now is like entering an opulent cathedral, only to find the interior a shelled-out shambles; all walls tumbled down but the one you’ve come through, leaving only the idea of a cathedral in your mind. And the Big Numbers of my mind is still pretty damn huge.
Tags: Alan Moore, Big Numbers, Bill Sienkiewicz, the one that got away
On the last leg of my seemingly endless commute to the art school where I teach comics at the moment, I recently noticed signs like the one pictured marking pathways into a large area of tenements.
The Danish text (which I believe English readers might get a kick out of) translates as “- on a leash” which is a pleonasm; the dog is quite clearly shown to be leashed.
Or what exactly is that thing standing straight out and backwards from it’s neck?
There is no hand holding the loop at the other end, which is hanging limply in the air, trailing slightly after the moving dog (from the not quite horizontal angle of the loop and the gait of the dog, I would guess that it is trotting at a brisk pace).
The only dogs that I know to wear such stiff wrangling gear on their backs are seeing-eye dogs, but I don’t think I have seen a terrier used for that purpose before.
Perhaps it is a seeing-eye dog for blind children? Or small people? Or slightly bigger, blind dogs? Either way, the image of the stray paints a heartbreaking perspective:
Somewhere, its underage (or vertically challenged, or canine; but very definitely blind) dependant is left to fate by their mutt! Alone in a world of eternal darkness and, hopefully, only recent despair!
The burning question of HOW? WHY? is answered by the pictured dog’s lack of eyes. Although many terriers have magnificent eyebrows that need to be trimmed ever so often, we can rest assured that they are not the reason for the invisible eye.
As a helper dog for the blind (and short) it would be certain that the tufts of hair are trimmed regularly. Nor would the creature be of any service if it was one or both eyes short. No, this dog is clearly asleep.
This brings into question the language of the blurb below: even though the signs are posted in a Danish rural town, the surrounding five-floor buildings are commonly held in low status, and are quarter to many friendly foreigners.
Is this image in actuality *not* the polite reminder to restrain the dog, but rather a “wanted” sign for a missing friend, servant, and invaluable assistant?
If the latter is the case, the message “I snore” suddenly makes sense even in this form, garbled by the non-English writer’s deficiency in the only common language of the local populace!
All the more touching is this desperate cry for help, rendered as it is in neatly set type by a visually impaired child (or low-statured adult, or retriever).
If you see this dog roaming the larger Holbæk area, please report to the local police. It should be easily recognizable: it gives off a loud sound akin to the sawing of wood, and is a dark green.
Tags: dog, iconography, signology
Today i had an interesting discussion with Christopher Ouzman, editor at the publisher I work at. Talking about the recent media buzz concerning the new Comics Council, I mentioned the odd juxtaposition of one headline mentioning “comic art” (as in “high art,” not the generic English use of the word meaning any visuals applied to comic form) and an image sequence from Danish comic creator Palle Schmidt’s recent “Blodets Konkubine” (Concubine of Blood).
While I enjoy Palle’s work and eagerly await new material from his hand, said work is by his own admission an attempt at the Hollywood thriller; a great romp, superbly narrated, and an obvious candidate for American publication at Image or other big houses in that vein — but not necessarily fine art despite its qualities.
I believe Palle has gone for a blockbuster rather than a gallery hanging, and there’s no quality judgment in that, just different parts of comicry.
My esteemed ed. agreed to a point, but went on to debate whether comics *as such* could be seen as art, considering most comics are mass produced. Now, I don’t know how the general consensus is in the art world but I don’t think there is much disagreement about the standing of someone like Andy Warhol (Christopher contested that, too, but I believe he was just enforcing his point).
Printmaking artists printing small runs of individual pictures, say 150 copies; aren’t they making fine art? I believe that would depend more on their artifice than on the multitudinous nature of their work. And none of the 150 copies would be less a piece of art than a single, unique print.
The question is the old one of original vs reproduction. Having seen a real live Monet, I’ll agree that a poster of his waterlilies are a far cry from the oil paintings. It could even be argued, particularly in that case, that the original works have been devalued by the sheer amount of reproductions.
But what of the work that is intended for reproduction? Sketched up in blue pencil to dodge repro cams and scanners, and touched up with whiteout? Those are methods invented for and applied by industrial/commercial artists, true, but I would argue that great art *can* be produced with those tools.
We might as well discuss whether literature or film can be considered art. Those are mass media which, on occasion, produce masterpieces in between direct-to-DVD releases and Airport paperback thrillers. I’m not terribly interested in either medium, and will not attempt to point out artistic high points, but I do know there are certain strata of the culture sphere that think very highly of movies and books, respectively.
In all of the examples above, there can be no doubt that the instances of actual, immortal artwork are less than one in a thousand. Being mass media, comics as well as cinema and literature cater to the lowest common denominator — or, if that cannot be identified, the lowest *possible* denominator, just to be on the safe side.
There can be little doubt that fine art in comic form is less like a needle in a haystack, and more like a diamond in a shit heap, but to my eyes it does exist. And quite importantly, parallel to it there is a current of substantive, craftful comics that rise above the dreck, much like “Blodets Konkubine”, for which we should be grateful.
Tags: comics culture, fine art
“The Mindscape of Alan Moore” went down well on Tuesday but when I tried turning it into a fast one-two combination with “In Search of Mœbius”, some fatigue seeped in.
Wednesday was time to turn in inspirational art for the “diploma comic”. That proved to be an alien concept to some students who either brought synopses for their comic or, in some cases, nothing at all. Also, three to four students were hijacked to an excursive trip with the silkscreening class, and even more were bedridden with some virus that’s running the dorm circuit.
So what was intended as a head start to the concluding assignment was somewhat stunted from the get-go. I did manage to communicate to the students present what ambitions I have on their part: that they transform the visual expression they bring from other disciplines into a graphic narrative form.
This time there are no limitations concerning panel borders, traditional tools, or straight storytelling; in other words, the gloves are off.
Unfortunately, that concept made some students nervous about giving their best shot, and I’ve had to repeatedly point out the level to which the bar has been raised.
And Thursday came repitition time again, as more students came back from sickness or Copenhagen, unprepared.
At least, by noon, most of these had finished layouts and at least some idea of the visual comic concept. We’ll see Monday if they have made progress over the week end.
During lunch I made plans for a collective exhibition with the architecture and design process teachers, in which our classes will show off their accomplishments. That way we can have a proper finale to the course, and I won’t have to print and staple any anthology mini’s.
Life can be fair.
I cracked out a web page last night. Nice to see that I can do it still; and especially rewarding since it’s for a really good cause.
It’s a thing that I am very proud to be part of, and that has been a long time in the making. At about the same time that I posted a short, rambling essay on Facebook about everything that’s wrong in Danish comic culture, a handful of people in that culture were building a network to better the same conditions I were addressing.
They must have thought it wiser to have me on their side than outside, shouting in the rain, because soon after I was accepted into the Internet forum used to collect ideas and compare visions.
In short, we intend to operate as an advisory organ in all things comics; to help cultivate the (frankly, famished) Danish comic hortography by establishing a network spanning creators, publishers, retailers, educational and cultural institutions, etc.
Also, to help the artform take its rightful place in the media landscape by curating exhibitions, anthologies, and otherwise promote comics nationally – as well as Danish comics internationally.
The Danish Comics Council is now inviting people to a constitutional meeting in late March, and it’s the informational website for that organisation I have spoiled my night’s sleep to construct.
Finally something worth losing sleep over 
Tags: comics culture, Danish comics council, dansk tegneserieråd
Pre-class: today is going to be a step backwards in terms of assignment duration. I think we need to take a break after the first longer comic, and try and apply to a shorter form what we have learned about storytelling as well as process.
There will be music, and free association from that. An intermission of sorts, almost a recess. Same with tomorrow’s class, which will be a showing of “The Mindscape of Alan Moore”.
Post-class: the short assignment, preceded by a brief and erratic explanation of what can be achieved with page layouts, brought out some shortcomings, both on the part of teacher and students.
The advantage of teaching people without preconceived ideas about comics is also the great challenge in that they lack the casual knowledge about visual storytelling. Trying to explain it to them I fell on my ass, metaphorically speaking.
Listening to Alan Moore tomorrow can either clear things up or confuse them even more. Moore, I am afraid, swings both ways.
Oh, and beginning Wednesday, we will start working on the students’ final, large assignment. It will be entirely free in terms of content and form like last week’s, but being the last task of the course, I have higher expectations this time.
The students have until Wednesday morning to gather visual clues and inspirational pieces to point me in the direction they want to take with the final comic. Excited to see how that’ll turn out!
So far this week, I have been away from blogging because I’m listening my way through Comic Geek Speak’s footnotes for Watchmen. It’s an admirable task they’ve undertaken, but I’m constantly annoyed by the off-the-cuff references to common superhero fare like Justice Society of America, symptomatic of the level the subject matter is approached, making me question if some of the people discussing this work have actually *read* it, as opposed to leafing through it at their comics dealer.
It must be this point of attack, coupled with the big Hollywood movie coming out, that make the geek speakers tiptoe around details of future events in the narrative. To me, that Spoiler Alert mentality of Internet fan forums is inhibiting any serious discourse about the work.
Also, the footnotes for chapters (or “issues”, ARGHH!) 1-4 are largely presented and laid out by one Peter Rios (not sure I have his name right), and his insightful, ambitious reading is noticeably absent in most later sessions, that plunge into a superficial description of page to page action. Only in the obvious example of the symmetrically arranged chapter 6 do they venture deeper than object-level narrative devices; structure is largely unnoticed or not appreciated.
This is highlighted by a soundbyte of the participants grumbling at the complexity of the work : “Comics are supposed to be fun!” Yeah, but there’s playground swing fun, and there’s discerning, intellectual fun. Fanboi.
I have cringed my way through the later episodes, especially when the professed geeks show off their incapability of deeper insights than “Rorschach is a badass”. Once, a participant openly admits to not reading the text piece for the chapter in question, these background features being an important part of the overall narrative.
In discussion of chapter 5, the “analysis” reaches a new low as another esteemed Comic Geek expressed his dismay at the demasking of Rorschach, revealing that his alter ego is the scruffy doomsayer we have seen walking the streets since page 1.
This duality proves a disappointment to that reader, who complaints that “I can’t attach emotionally to characters that I don’t look up to”.
Holy unhealthy hero worship, Batman! Watchmen is exactly showing the flaws of the superhero, and you don’t realize that 23 years down the line …?
That angle and level of entry is the big pitfall of CGS’ footnote project, but I’ll keep listening through to the end, keeping my fingers crossed for Peter Rios’ (?) return. And, to be fair, I am taking down notes, so there are (in)frequent insights to the podcast, no matter who’s manning the mike.
Tags: comic geek speak, fanboy, podcast, watchmen