“The New Year reviving old desires,
The thoughtful soul to solitude aspires;
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES ON THE BOUGH
Puts out: and Jesus from the ground suspires.”
–Omar Khayam
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Tobias Tycho Schalken’s Folklore
“I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. I think those films are kind enough to allow you a nice nap and not leave you disturbed when you leave the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.”
Abbas Kiarostami in an interview with Dr. Jamsheed Akrami
39 Pedestrian Steps
I just watched Hitchcock’s 39 Steps for the first time — or I thought it was for the first time. I actually vaguely remembered some scenes, though, so I must have seen it before.
Anyway, it’s clear why I forgot it. It’s forgettable. Halfway through it I was like, jeez, this must be one of Hitchcock’s clunkers, right? The plot might be better described as a plot hole — from the early murder of Annabelle Smith (who stabbed her? how’d they get in the apartment? why didn’t they stab that idiot Hanney as long as they were there?) to the moronic denoument (Mr. Memory starts blithely spouting spy secrets just because someone asks him about them — that’s convenient) the narrative lurches from one nonsensical improbability to another. It’s like it was written by monkeys with their frontal lobes removed.
Mr. Square and the Curse of Talent
As this year comes to a close I’d like to talk about a word that can be as debilitating and destructive as any in the English language.
That word is talent, and in America, it’s practically a national obsession.
Elfquest Re-read: Issue #2 Trust and Betrayal
I am writing this column on a borrowed iPad whose keyboard I am not used to. Please excuse any errors, typos, and bizarre auto-suggestions that may survive editing.
If you don’t have your own copies of Elfquest, you can follow along at http://www.elfquest.com.
Continue reading
Monthly Stumblings # 8: Mat Brinkman
Mat Brinkman’s Depressed Pit Dwellers and Heads, 44
Presumably you don’t need to be told Fort Thunder’s story all over again. That’s why I won’t be doing it at this time… You’re welcome!… I’ll add only this: those RISD students were multimedia artists drawn to many art forms: from music to comics, from assemblage to knitting. That’s why Mat Brinkman had one foot in the printing world and the other one in the art gallery milieu. He chose both, but don’t expect to find his work in the direct market venues. Most likely it’s not in there…
Instead of Fort Thunder’s story I’m going to tell you why the art form of comics needed the expression “graphic novels” (like that: in the plural form) and how it became part of our current language (you know all this already too, but I insist on my narrative because it isn’t stressed enough when people discuss what’s a graphic novel)… Chris Oliveros, the publisher of Drawn & Quarterly (ditto other alternative comics publishers, I’m sure), knew that, in order to sell his books, he needed to find alternatives to the superhero dominated direct market (in other words, he needed to flee the comics ghetto). He needed to sell in regular bookstores, but, in there, his books were lumped in with superhero comics collections and newspaper reprints. He needed to convince the BISAC to create a new label to be used in bookstores: “Graphic Novels”. This category would consist of “extended-length illustrated books with mature literary themes”, as Matthew Shaer put it in the link above. I don’t know if, a few years later, even after the creation of said category, Chris Oliveros was completely successful. According to Eddie Campbell (the creator of the hilarious Graphic Novel Manifesto): “the librarians and to some extent the book trade have decided that the graphic novel is a young readers’ genre. […] [H]ere is the sequence of events: circa 1980 [after the impact of Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories] it was decided that comics had grown up and the grown-up version would be called ‘the graphic novel.’ [An expression coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, but with earlier uses in other languages; as all concepts its meaning changed over the years though.] This has been forgotten and […] we’re right back where we started.”
Frankly it’s not my aim to discuss the graphic novel phenomenon. To me it’s just a marketing device that I applaud because it helps to find new readers to the comics that I champion the most. Apart from that I understand Eddie Campbell when he said that the graphic novel is not a format (it’s a genre, to echo the “it’s not a genre, it’s a medium” mantra, usually applied to comics; Eddie could be absolutely right if we think that a comic book is not always comical and it certainly isn’t a book), but many different things have been called graphic novels: from a collection of short stories (Will Eisner’s A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories) to autobiography and biography at the same time (Maus by Art Spiegelman) to journalism (Joe Sacco’s Palestine). That’s why I say that a graphic novel is a format that pretty much stands for “trade paperback” and “prestige format” in the public’s mind. That’s also why the direct market easily co-opted the expression:
Forbidden Planet, London, UK.
Utilitarian Review 12/25/10
Xmas A to Z
Avaricious bambinos covet Disney-detritus. Elders’ Fallopian genitals, heaving immaculately, jaculate kenosis-knickknacks. Levittowners merrily nurse organized pedophilia. Quasi-riant revenue-ravenous Santa Taws uncoil. Vultures watch Xt.’s yummy zygote.
On HU
Kinukitty started the week out with a review of the yaoi maga Stray Cat.
I explained why Moto Hagio is not just genre fiction for girls.
James Romberger discussed his long association with David Wojnarowicz and explained how the Smithsonian altered Wojnarowicz’s work even before they censored it.
I wrote a short farewell to TCJ.com blogger and editor Dirk Deppey, who has been laid off by Fantagraphics.
Ng Suat Tong discussed the work of manga-ka Hinako Sugiura.
I reviewed Terry Eagleton’s book On Evil.
Alex Buchet discussed how Superman and Shazam have affected the English Language.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At Madleloud I review The Best Music Writing 2010.
“Music itself is a call that demands response,” editor Ann Powers writes in her introduction to Best Music Writing 2010. That may be true, but it’s not exactly the message of the book she’s put together. She might have been more accurate if she had said, “Musicians are a call that demands response.” Or even, “the music industry is a call that demands response.”
Also at Madeloud, I review the new album by Ukrainian black metal group Drudkh.
At Splice Today I talk about R&B star Ciara’s career and her new album.
Other Links
This article sneering at any and all pop and rock is pretty entertaining.
I’m obsessed with the Wire at the moment. This essay about it is okay. Anybody find any better reviews online?