Yearly Archives: 2009

Empowered, Vol 1

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Empowered, Adam Warren

You know one of those weeks where you’re so tired you’re stumbling and your boss of course chooses to give you yet another boring but incredibly difficult project, and there is yet another freak ice storm which kills all your pansies, and you clean off your dog’s muddy foot and discover that you’ve just smeared dog poo around on your bare hand?

Yes, that would be my week.

I flopped onto my La-Z-boy one day during that awful hideous week and sighed. I was not up for another bad comic with lumpy people in spandex, I just wasn’t. I couldn’t face beautifully drawn pretty boys, either, in case there was random non-con. I just wanted something, well, fun. And funny, if it could be had. I pawed around my stack of to be read books rather listlessly, spilling them all over the floor and tossing them over my shoulder as I went. Tenant of Wildfell Hall–good, but too long. Toss. In Praise of Idleness–nice idea, but who needs philosophy? Toss. MARC 21 For Everyone–yeah, right. Toss.

Empowered. Huh.

That was supposed to be good, I thought, and wrestled off the aggressive shrinkwrap.

An hour later, I was still chortling when I had to go wrestle my Pookie back inside from where he was telling the facts of life (Thou Shall Not Look at my people, Thou Shall Not approach my yard, Thou Shall Not even think about coming over this fence) to the new yappy dog next door.

In this volume, we meet Emp, the heroine of the tale and the eponymous Empowered. She has this supersuit that gives her powers, but it’s shrinkwrap tight and very thin. When it gets torn–as it does very easily–it loses powers. She’s famous for getting taken hostage, tied up and gagged with a ball gag, wearing her torn and scanty suit. Despite this, she’s a better superhero than the rest of the Super Homeys, of which she is an Associate Member.

I found this comic incredibly endearing, direly funny, and rather feminist. Also, hot. Emp is beautiful, but she’s not hot just because she’s beautiful. I can flip through a lot of lovingly drawn bodacious babes in spandex and be bored. No, it’s Emp’s spunk and humanity that make her so hot. Also, she has a nice butt.

This is drawn by a man who likes women to have actual thighs, and unlike many superhero comics, her thighs are fat. It’s cute and hot. Emp, of course, is worried about how she looks. There’s a very spot on portrayal of her concern about the suit–which reveals everything–when Sista Spooky makes fun of Emp for having a panty line. Which means thereafter she goes without. Which means, ahem, that she has to take care of certain things down there so as not to show, well, wiry realities to all and sundry.

Emp is both brave and real–her concerns I would have and can relate to. Her bravery is amazing because she has these human feelings and failings. Supeman’s bravery is not interesting or amazing, because he’s never worried about how the tights looked on him and he’s not too worried that the train will smash him, either. Emp has to worry about both and she dashes into danger anyway.

She also has a terrible part time job in retail.

I laughed and laughed through this comic, because so much of it is so painfully true. Who hasn’t had a crappy job, struggled to make ends meet, and lied through their teeth to their mom when she’s called to ask how things are going? ‘Oh, fine,’ we say, eating consolatory ice cream, the only good thing in our lives and probably costing more per pint than half our grocery budget for the week, ‘things are going well.’ And Emp does this.

Along the way, she is joined by Thug Boy, who is a great boyfriend and Ninjette, who is a great best friend. But it’s Emp that I feel for and who I’ll be buying the next volume to get more of. There’s also a possessed alien device, superheroes who got their mutant powers through alien STDs, and some hilarious side jobs for Thug Boy. But I think Noah covered all of that.

Highly recommended if you are in need of a sexy and funny comic to cheer up your week.

Original Art : Some Lessons from the Contemporary Art Market

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When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

– Warren Buffet


The reason why I’ve chosen to start this blog entry with some quotes by the world’s most famous investor is, in a sense, the same reason why an economist by training chose to write a book about the contemporary fine art market (the book in question is Don Thompson’s The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art). It is also the reason why the same book has been mentioned sporadically in original art (OA) circles including industry professionals like former TCJ editor, Robert Boyd.

While original art was never designed as an investment tool, that is exactly what it is often viewed and discussed as – often by default considering the high prices commanded in recent years for certain pieces. Certainly original art is viewed as a business by many of the significant players in the hobby and a working knowledge of the original art market is indispensable if anybody has a mind to acquire comics art without losing one’s shirt. It is a rare thing indeed for a discussion of comics art to revolve around the aesthetic qualities of the page in question. Discussions inevitably return to questions of price. Questions of value are often more discretely handled through the privacy of personal messages if at all. Such is the nature of a hobby which values a degree of sensitivity to fellow collectors and their tastes.

Buffet is long term investor who aims to divorce emotions from any act of investment. In contrast a skilled professional trader successfully preys upon the emotions of the amateurs who form the bulk of the market. Buffet’s reminder to assess the underlying value of a stock also applies to a piece of original art. Yet the average collector would have great difficulty in calculating the equivalent of a PE ratio or NAV for a piece of original art. What makes it doubly hard to put various time tested ideas in investing into practice in the original art market is the fact that the appreciation of a significant proportion of the art is predicated to a large extent on fluff – emotions filtered through nostalgia. It is a market ripe for manipulation.


Don Thompson’s book has gained more notice in recent times because of the collapse of the contemporary fine art market.The original art community’s interest in Thompson’s book pertains to its accurate description of the irrational aspects of collecting art, the market forces which can be applied to a hypothetical original art bubble and the apparent immunity of the original art market to such forces.

Here are a few quotes from the book up here which may be relevant to original art collecting not only for their similarities but for their significant differences. I present them without commentary so it would be wise to evaluate Thompson’s statements and facts with care:

“The experienced art collector will take a work home before buying it, to look at it several times a day. The question is whether a week or a month hence, after the novelty disappears, the message and painter’s skill will still be apparent.”

“”Never underestimate how insecure buyers are about contemporary art, and how much they always need reassurance.” This is a truth that everyone in the art trade seems to understand, but no one talks about. The insecurity does not mean art buyers lack ability. It simply means that for the wealthy, time is their scarcest resource…So, very often, the way the purchase decision for contemporary art is made is not just about art, but about minimizing that insecurity.”

“Of the thousand artists who had serious gallery shows in New York and London during the 1980s, no more than twenty were offered in evening auctions at Christie’s or Sotheby’s in 2007. Eight of ten works purchased directly from an artist and half the works purchased at auction will never again resell at their purchase price. In the end, the question “what is judged to be valuable contemporary art” is determined first by major dealers, later by branded auction houses, a bit by museum curators who stage special shows, very little by art critics, and hardly at all by buyers.”

“[Jasper] Johns was in awe of [Leo] Castelli’s ability to market art. In 1960 Willem de Kooning said of Castelli, “That son of a bitch, you could give him two beer cans and he could sell them.” Johns laughed and created a sculpture of two Ballantine Ale empties. Castelli immediately sold the work to collectors Robert and Ethel Scull. The cans are now in a German museum.”


“One former Gagosian employee claims that in about a quarter of the cases, clients says “I’ll take it” without ever asking “What does it look like?” or “How much?”. These are not cold-calls; they are made to existing clients only. Gagosian says he avoids what he calls “impatient money,” that which chases art only as a short-term investment.”

“The reassurance given by the dealer’s brand is reinforced by the behavior of the crowd. As critic Robert Hughes says of New York collectors: “Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel, if one wants Keith Haring, two hundred Keith Harings will be sold.””


“When a work appears at auction, some dealers bid up to what it would sell for at the dealership, to protect the gallery market. Some buy back the work to protect the artist from going unsold. Opinion differs as to whether such price support is necessary. Some claim that it is an absolute obligation for dealers…”

“When, after a long bidding battle, the auctioneer hammered down Mark Rothko’s painting White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) at $71.7 million, there was sustained audience applause. What was being celebrated? The buyer’s oil wealth? The triumph of his ego? His aesthetic taste? A new record price, sometimes well above that asked for a similar work earlier that day by the gallery down the street? When the auction hammer falls, price becomes equated with value, and this is written into art history.” [bolds mine]


“Robert Storr…says one of the challenges facing museums is “getting the public to forget the economic history of the object once it leaves the market; the more stress on how much a museum or donor paid…the more likely people will miss seeing the work of art because of preoccupation about the price tag.”….Art critics and curators also follow the dictates of art prices. Expensive work becomes meaningful in part because it is expensive. Critics write essays interpreting the work of Jeff Koons or Tracey Emin – and many articles about Damien Hirst – but never admit that the reason the work has meaning is because so much has been paid for it…The history of contemporary art would be different if there were no reported auction results…”

“How does a work then come to be worth $12 million or $140 million? This has more to do with the way the contemporary art market has become a competitive high-stakes game, fueled by great amounts of money and ego…The value of one work of art compared to another is in no way related to the time or skill that went into producing it, or even whether anyone even considers it to be great art.”

“Perceived scarcity also produces inflated prices. It does not have to be real scarcity; it can occur when an artist’s primary dealer withholds her work and announces the existence of a queue of high-status buyers. It isn’t that anyone believes the artist’s work might never again be available; it is a combination of fear that prices will go up, coupled with the “I will pay to have it now” approach of the wealthy young collector.””

“Art prices are propelled by what is known in economics as a ratchet effect. A ratchet turns in only one direction, and then locks in place…The ratchet effect in art occurs when two collectors bid up the auction price of a Matthias Weischer oil to ten times the gallery’s list price, and this becomes a new reference price below which no collector wants to sell. In an auction, a form of ratchet is at work when the first five items sell for double their estimate. The higher quality items that follow must be worth more.”


“If the ratchet, perceived scarcity, and too much money consistently push prices up, is the entire contemporary art market just a bubble, a form of Dutch tulip craze? Art dealers and auction specialists never use the word “crash”, and hate the word “bubble”. The immutable rule in a buoyant art market is that the participants suspend all doubt.”

“Tobias Meyer famously claimed that “The best art is the most expensive because the market is so smart.” Jerry Saltz responds, “This is exactly wrong. The market isn’t ‘smart’, it’s like a camera – so dumb it’ll believe anything you put in front of it…everyone says the market is ‘about quality’, the market merely assigns value, fetishizes desire, charts hits and creates ambience.”

_______________________________________________

One of the most acrimonious public debates this year pertaining to the wheeling and dealing in the original art market occurred sometime in July on the Collector’s Society original art message board where the collectors Felix Lu (a relatively new collector with a penchant for digging out dirt) and Jonathan Mankuta (a self-described big player in the original art market) clashed over a piece of art. It also involved the dealer Mike Burkey (one of the oldest and most canny dealers in the business) who runs Romitaman.com. It is a dispute which will be very familiar to original art collectors but a short summary might be of some interest to people who don’t indulge.


In short, a Kirby splash page from X-Men #2 appeared on Burkey’s website with an asking price of $150,000. Lu suggested that it was overpriced and actually on consignment with Burkey with Mankuta as the possible consignee. It was a dispute which escalated to accusations of the page being shopped to various collectors with no success prior to the alleged consignment, imputations of nefarious dealings and, not unexpectedly, mutual belittlement. The thread in question can be found here (with a parallel discussion on the Comicart list) and takes in talk (real or suggested) of a black listing, humorous asides concerning black robed original art cabals and exclusive “sandboxes” for the big players in original art collecting. Readers of Seth’s Wimbledon Green will be amused.

Questioning the “ethics” of comic art dealers would also appear to be a particularly touchy subject in the hobby. I suspect that many of these complaints would fall by the way side if most collectors viewed original art dealers in the same way they viewed professional stock traders who I do not consider definitively immoral but who should probably be held at arms length by those seeking to dive into such waters.

It is of course a far cry from the straightforward market manipulation in the contemporary art market as described in Don Thompson’s book or Ben Lewis’ documentary. The asking price of $150,000 for the X-Men splash was probably inflated because of the expectation of a mixture of trade involved in such deals (i.e. deals in which other similarly inflated pieces of art are exchanged). A whole different economy comes into play when cold hard cash is the medium of exchange as it is with most auction houses and sites such as Heritage Auction Galleries which only accepts cash (sometimes leveraged I do believe but still “cash”). This historically important and very early Kirby and Ayers Journey Into Mystery #84 Thor splash which was recently sold for $44,182.50 at a Heritage auction (a mere fraction of the asking price for the X-Men splash) is a case in point.


There are signs though that the original art market is far more healthy than some collectors had hoped. The incredulity which greeted the sale of a Steve Ditko Mr. A splash page (which sold for close to $38,000 at the same auction) is the “freak” result getting the most mileage at present.


For those not in the know, this dollar value is higher than most of the Dtiko Amazing Spider-Man pages sold recently at auction. The same auction saw this Prince Valiant Sunday going for $21,510.


Some believe the depreciation of the US dollar against the Euro is a factor in these relatively high prices but a quick look at the Prince Valiant Sundays which have come up in recent auctions would suggest that the price has also been bumped up by the quality of the Sunday in question. Similarly, a very respectable and historically important Krazy Kat Sunday went for $27,485 at the same auction. It is not the best Krazy Kat Sunday that has come up for auction in recent years but it is perhaps in the top 20% in terms of aesthetic quality if such things can even be gauged accurately.


I believe that the most important reason (and there are many I assure you) for the original art markets apparent resistance to the global economic downturn is that in absolute terms, the sums of money being discussed are still small – even more so in global terms with the falling US Dollar and incipient inflationary pressures. Certainly the sums involved are small enough that any leverage involved is minimal. The entire original art market is insignificant enough in economic terms that it will never be provided with very large amounts of excess liquidity – an important component in the formation of asset bubbles. Nor does it provide anything close to the requisite amount of bragging rights which fueled the madness seen in the fine art market. If there is a bubble forming in comics original art, it is a small one.

This is not to say that current original art prices present themselves as value buys – that’s anyone’s guess. Still it must be said that you couldn’t buy a car (a depreciating “asset”) in Singapore for the cost of the Krazy Kat Sunday mentioned above and there are many of those zipping around the streets where I live. Actually, you couldn’t even pay for the right to buy a car (called a Certificate of Entitlement or COE) in Singapore for the price of an average Krazy Kat Sunday.

I present these facts in order to provide some perspective on the real cost of original art. Prices for original art seem crazy only because of the provincial attitude with which the entire original art market is viewed. I say this even though I’m a collector (albeit a lackadaisical one) of original art myself. While there is something to be said for a certain kind of naïveté there are a number of associated traits which collectors might do well to leave far behind in these shark-infested waters.

Crime Pays

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Filthy Rich
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Victor Santos

We live in a society of rules: no killing, no stealing, no coveting thy neighbor’s hot wife. Most of us obey these rules without question, and we tell ourselves that society is better off when everyone does the same. There’s also the fact that breaking the rules can lead to punishment, ranging from fines to imprisonment and even death.

On the other hand, screw the Man! Nobody wants to be a square their whole life. Every now and then a little murder, theft, and debauchery adds spice to an otherwise hum-drum existence. And as much as our society demonizes the criminal, we all fantasize about what it would be like to throw the rules out the window and do whatever we want. This is why crime fiction never goes out of style. In fact, crime fiction gives us the best of both worlds. We can vicariously break the rules and indulge our every depraved fantasy even as we condemn such behavior in others. Crime pays, as long as it’s someone else who suffers the inevitable consequences.

Crime fiction has a long history in American comics, but over the decades it became marginalized or subsumed by the dominant superhero genre. In recent years, however, crime comics have made a modest comeback, and Vertigo is set to capitalize on this trend with its new imprint, the prosaically named Vertigo Crime. And what better way to launch a series of crime comics than to recruit Brian Azzarello, one of the few comic writers with a proven track record in the genre?

Filthy Rich is the story Rich “Junk” Junkin, a broken-down ex-football star who’s been reduced to selling used cars (in crime fiction, used car salesman is one step below crack-addicted prostitute in terms of shameful jobs). Junk is terrible at selling cars, but he’s big and tough, so the owner of the car dealership offers him a different job; shadowing his trampy daughter Vicki around town and ensuring that she doesn’t get into too much trouble.

Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a story if Junk just did what he was told. Enamored with both Vicki and her luxurious lifestyle, Junk quickly gets sucked into a wild plot filled with sex, violence, and the promise of a big payout. If this story sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Azzarello is relying heavily on the tropes of the crime genre: Junk is the two-fisted hero, Vicki is the femme fatale, and even the “good” characters have ulterior motives. The story is also set during some undisclosed period after World War II, allowing Azzarello to evoke the spirit of classic film noir such as Double Indemnity.

But if Filthy Rich doesn’t exactly reinvent the crime wheel, it’s far more than a rehash of earlier works. Azzarello knows how to craft a pot-boiler, and this story moves briskly even as it throws a few surprise twists at the reader. Another strength in Azzarello’s writing is his ability to give each of his characters clear, relatable motivations. Junk commits monstrous acts not simply out of abstract emotions like greed or lust, but because of the sting of classism and frustrated dreams.

Victor Santos is a good partner for Azzarello. Much like Azzarello’s writing, Santos relies upon the look of film noir and classic crime comics from the 1940s and 50s (if you click on the link, you should check out the covers for Crimes by Women. If ever a Golden Age comic called out for a reboot…) Men are either square-jawed or shifty, women are sultry, nighttime takes up 90% of the day, and even during daytime every room is half in shadow. This look is aided immensely by the fact that the Filthy Rich is in black-and-white. I can only shudder to think how digital coloring would have ruined the contrast between light and dark.

If Vertigo Crime continues to publish comics of this caliber, then all I can say is down with superheroes, up with crime!

Gluey Tart: The Wallflower

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The Wallflower, Tomoko Hayakawa, Del Ray

I’ve been following this series for a long time – I started with the first volume in 2004. I have all 21 volumes out so far (the run is 24), although I stalled out somewhere in there and I’ve only read 1-16. This has caused me mild anxiety. “But why, Kinukitty?” I hear you asking. “Please, tell us all about it, no matter how boring!” Well, how nice of you. I think I will.

When I fall in love, I become irrational. As I finish each volume of a manga, the specter of having to wait several months for the next one makes me twitch and yell out random obscenities and become despondent and stuff. Cue the irrational hoarding behavior. I try to wait until I’ve accumulated three or four volumes before I’ll start reading again, trying to, I don’t know, concentrate the anxiety. Or minimize the bouts of insanity. This strategy plays out in various ways. Sometimes I forget the series exists for six months at a time, which is perfect. Then I buy the last three volumes, read them in one big, happy wallow, and the cycle repeats. Sometimes I fall out of love with the series and decide I’d rather eat pocket lint than finish it. This usually happens only when I’ve actually bought several volumes in advance. But sometimes, when I really, really, really love a series, I just won’t let myself read it for, like, a year, hoping to completely forget about it for so long that eons will have passed by the time I think of it again, and all the volumes will be available, and I can sit down and read them in one long, orgasmic orgy of happiness and completion.

And that, gentle reader, is my situation with The Wallflower. I keep buying each new volume as it comes out because I’m deeply afraid they will disappear from the face of the earth in the interim and I won’t even be able to buy them used and then I’ll die. But, at the same time, I pretend I don’t know the series exists, because I’m not ready to break down and start reading it again. This is where a genuine case of multiple personality disorder would be helpful. Every time I buy a new volume and add it to the stack, I’m in danger of upsetting the delicate “balance” I’ve established.

Which is what happened with volume 21. I’d been holding out on actually reading Wallflower since volume 12 – released in, holy shit, June 2007! That’s a lot of holding out. I am amazing! (Ahem.) But it’s all over. I fell off the wagon. I just read volumes 13-16, and I will be mowing through 17, 18, etc. until I finish them all. Don’t get in my way; you might lose a finger.

After finishing volume 16, I decided I must write about The Wallflower. No, I really must. But I also felt strongly that I should wait until I’ve caught up. And it will take me a little while to read the next five, since I’m really quite busy working in soup kitchens and advocating for world peace and getting my health-care plan passed and such. Oh, wait. That’s not my life at all. What the hell am I spending all my time doing? My house is a mess, I haven’t cooked since 1997, and all my clothes are stained or rumpled. Sometimes both. (I do have some very cool shoes, though.) Well, it’s a mystery, although I suppose the damned job might factor into it. At any rate, it’ll take me a while to finish five more volumes of this manga, and Gluey Tart the column waits for no man or woman, not even Gluey Tart the person. Content! The Internet demands content!

I worried, at first, that it would be wrong to just write about it without reading all the volumes. But then I thought about the 16 I’ve read, and I decided – as I so often do – oh, fuck it. In fact, that’s sort of my personal motto. The truth is, it just doesn’t matter where I am in the series. Volume 16, volume 21 – it doesn’t matter. This is an episodic comedy, not a linear narrative. And there are not, shall we say, huge deviations in plot along the way. There is a certain sameness. We’re good. It’s fine.

Let’s talk about the plot, then, such as it is. The main character is Sunako, who is described as Goth. It would be tremendously geeky and pedantic of me to point out the reasons why she isn’t really Goth, so I’ll try to restrain myself. She’s something like Goth. She likes to stay in her dark room, which is decorated with skulls and anatomical figures and skeletons and stuff, and her favorite thing to do – besides cooking – is shut herself in her room – in the dark – and watch horror and slasher films – with the anatomical figures and skeletons. Which all have names. Sunako’s appearance is terrifying to others, and when she isn’t drawn as a sort of hyper-deformed dumpling, she looks like the girl from Ringu. She lives with four hot young men, whom she refers to as “creatures of light.” She is, obviously, magnificent.

The foundation joke is that Sunako’s aunt, a fabulously gorgeous and wealthy jet-setter, has promised the four beautiful boys free rent in her opulent mansion, where they live with Sunako, if they can turn Sunako into a lady. Which is, as they say, not bloody likely. Hi-jinks ensue, and after ten volumes or so, Hayakawa reveals herself to be an irrepressible cock tease. We are all but promised that Sunako will get together with Kyohei, and maybe it will actually happen by the end of the series, but I’m not holding my breath. Their weird little romance plays out sweetly, though, so I’m happy enough. More on that in a bit, though. (Their romance, not my happiness, which might, possibly, not be your primary concern or interest. Strange as that sounds.)

Throughout the series, the boys cook up stupid plans to lady-ify Sunako, and through the unbeatable forces of her indomitable will, kick-ass martial arts skills, and breath-taking craziness, everything goes wrong and one or more parties often needs to be rescued. Sunako does about as much rescuing of the boys as vice versa, so I’m fine with that. This is all complicated by the epic attractiveness of the boys, who are basically being chased through life by crazed, rabid fan girls from all over the country. They are very pretty prettyboys, drawn to look like Hayakawa’s favorite musicians. (Most of her filler notes are about the bands she loves fanatically, and these are really charming.) (The rest are about her cat.) The boys spend a lot of time posing provocatively, getting their clothes torn off, and/or suddenly indulging in inexplicable bouts of cosplay. Which is kind of awesome. If I were drawing volume after volume of beautiful boys over and over, I’d throw them into weird, sexy costumes for no reason, too. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

OK, back to that romance. It is a very low-key romance, but it pleases me immeasurably. Every once in a while something goes amazingly wrong and ends up with Sunako and Kyohei holding hands and staring into each others’ eyes. And then her nose spurts blood and she runs away and he stares at her in horror. Occasionally Kyohei’s actions betray him and it is momentarily apparent that he has feelings for Sunako, but mostly not so much. He’s a tough-guy (a tough-guy prettyboy), and mostly he’s blunt and disinterested and kind of selfish. Sort of like Sunako. They get along in unexpected ways.

Here’s an example, from volume 16. Sunako’s aunt sequesters Sunako and the four boys in a secluded cabin to protect them (the boys) from crazed girls on Valentine’s Day. The plan backfires that night, though, when they find themselves all alone in a deserted cabin, and there’s something in the woods. It’s one of the horror movie set-ups Hayakawa loves to play with. Well, the something in the woods is a terrifying horde of girls intent on giving chocolate to the boys – and tearing their clothes off. Sunako uses the frenzy to gather up all the chocolate for herself, and at the beginning of the next episode, she’s gained twenty pounds.

Something must be done because Sunako’s aunt has invited her to a party to meet a prince, so the boys enlist help to remove Sunako from the dark room with the candy boxes and get her to run off the extra weight. She gets really, really into it, and the boys think they’ve finally gotten her interested in her appearance. The truth, of course, is that after a few workouts she begins to see muscle development, and that makes her yearn to further develop her muscles – so she can look like the anatomical chart of the human musculature system and finally fit in better with her anatomical dolls and skeleton.

She becomes completely obsessed with this project. At one point, she’s gazing longingly at a lobster and thinking, “This lobster’s legs are so thin and hard… Crustaceans are so lucky…” Then, thinking about how poorly defined she looks in comparison, she gets upset and cracks two lobsters open with her bare hands. Koyhei finds this very impressive and starts helping her train more intensely. She explains to him (after crawling over him and running her hands longingly over his wiry chest and shoulders) that she wants to look just like him. At the end of the episode, Sunako shows up at the party with a body so buff it’s terrifying to behold, and she arm-wrestles with the prince, throwing him to the ground. (To get her to go to the party, Koyhei told Sunako the prince was an arm-wrestling champion who wanted to challenge her. What else would he say?) It all ends well – Sunako loses interest in fitness and goes back to eating chips while watching horror movies with her plastic friends, and it turns out that the prince had liked being wrestled to the floor. A lot.

And that is a pretty typical Wallflower plot. There are those who are driven mad by the glacial pace at which Sunako and Koyhei are getting together, but a conventional courtship isn’t right for these unconventional characters. Hayakawa obviously loves them, and the rest of her cast, and she celebrates their eccentricities and their individuality. It’s a sweet story that heals some of my high school trauma every time I read it. And even though I’ve invested more than $200 in the series so far, that’s still a lot cheaper than therapy.

My Kid Could Do That

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Vom Marlowe did a post last week about the virtues of the stick figure art in xkcd. She noted:

See, I think there’s a lot to be said for simplicity and humor and just plain getting the point across. The art needs to serve the point of the communication. Some of the, hmmm, shall we say overmuscled super hero comics seem to miss the idea that the art needs to communicate as much as the words do.

I have a lot of sympathy with that sentiment. Mostly that’s probably because…well, here’s one of my own drawings from my zine “The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow.”

That’s a cow spanking a sentient toaster. Just in case it wasn’t clear.

Putting aside my own individual bias, though, there’s just a lot of great drawing that looks more or less like it could have been done by a 6 year old. One of the best examples I came across recently was the book “The Hearing Trumpet,” by Leonora Carrington. Carrington is best known as a surrealist painter; born in England, she had a relationship with Max Ernst, and then moved to Mexico, where she became good friends with the amazing painter Remedios Varos. (According to Wikipedia, she’s still alive, too! She’s 92, I guess.)

Anyway, “The Hearing Trumpet” as a novel is something of a mixed bag. It starts off as being about an elderly woman named Marian Leatherby. The everyday, mildly absurd details of Marian’s life, and of her friend Carmella, are thoroughly delightful, adn the writing has that distintively English low-key nuttiness that puts it firmly in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. Carmella’s explanation of why Marian needs a hearing trumpet in order to overcome her deafness and spy on her family is priceless.

“You never know,” said Carmella. “People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats. You can’t be too careful. Besides, think of the exhilarating power of listening to others talk when they think you cannot hear.”

“They can hardly avoid seeing the trumpet,” I said doubtfully. “It must be a buffalo’s horn. Buffalos are very large animals.”

“Of course you must not let them see you using it, you have to hide somewhere and listen.” I hadn’t thought of that, it certainly presented infinite possibilities.

A whole book of that would make me happy. Unfortunately, “The Hearing Trumpet” is a bit like Promethea; entertaining through about the first half, then the author gets distracted by tediously crankish alchemical meanderings and the temptations of religio-mystico profundity. So it goes.

Anyway, I was originally talking about the art. Here’s a bunch of elderly ladies doing exercises, including Marian, who has set her era trumpet down off to the side.

There’s some of Edward Gorey’s sketchiness there, but without his sophistication or elegance. Instead, the proportions seem to elongate or contract to suit the artist’s fancy; the woman with the turban (who I believe is Marian) has arms that are as long as her entire body. I love the little hint of motion lines as well; it makes the movements seem as scratchy and idiosyncratic as the figures themselves. And all the scribbles, on the ground, or in the tree indicating the leaves — it’s just very energetic and personable.

Or this is great too

That has to be about the most economically rendered transvestite revelation scene ever. The reactions of the two women watching are cleverly differentiated as well, just by slightly changing the positioning of their hands against their faces. I love the way the room itself is sketched too; just three wavery lines to make the corner, and then the more detailed window, so flat and blank it might as well be a picture of a window.

Here’s another:

It’s all still very stick-figure, obviously, but you can tell she can really draw. The way the bottom of the sled curves up is elegantly done, and that bird is made up of some deceptively fluid lines. Even the little dots of breath coming out of the animals’ mouths are pleasingly arranged in half semicircles…and the small dots on the deer(?)’s face are very nice as well.

Of course, simple drawing doesn’t always work:

Dilbert’s a very simple strip — yet it’s also off-puttingly slick. There’s none of the sense of quick whimsy you get in Carrington’s drawings. You’d think if you were drawing a demon a little flair or wildness might be in order, but nope; it doesn’t even really have any expression, nor does it move from panel to panel. The characters look like they’re designed on computer…which maybe they are (no, I”m not going to research Scott Adams’ technique. I mean, for God’s sake, who cares?)

Jeff Brown’s work, on the other hand, doesn’t look slick— but it’s also just really ugly. I think, looking at it in comparison to the Carrington drawings, a lot of the problem is actually how cluttered this is. The shapes defining the window in the middle two panels for example. What do those add? It just makes it look like a mess. The linework also seems more labored than graceful. It’s like he’s trying to get everything in without thinking about how it looks. The narrative is driving the story, and his art is just struggling to keep up, rather than running with his sketchy style and trying to see where that can take him.

(To be fair, this is a somewhat older strip, and I think recently Brown has actually gotten better at both simplifying and at drawing; some of the more recent work on his site is…not great, but not terrible either. There’s nothing especially wrong with this Simpsons pastiche, for example.)

So, yeah, I guess I have to admit that, much as I might like it to be true, just because you can’t draw doesn’t mean you’ll make great art.

Leonara Carrington still kicks Alex Ross’ ass, though.

Utilitarian Review 12/5/09

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Well, as you may or may not have noticed, we’re still here. Hopefully we’ll shift over to TCJ early next week. In the meantime, here is your weekly wrap as usual.

On HU

I started the week off with a long discussion of the question Can Wonder Woman Be a Superdick?

Richard sneered at Image United.

I sneered at Carol Lay’s Big Skinny.

Vom Marlowe praised the stick figure art in xkcd.

Kinukitty pledged eternal devotion to Japanese cross-dressing reality shows.

And this week’s download features a bunch of things I learned about through the Factual Opinion’s year-end best of.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Bert Stabler and I have a long conversation about The Book of Job of all things. Here’s probably my best bit:

The second epilogue, perhaps, is the crucifixion. You can see the wheels turning in God’s head after Job 42, perhaps, maybe in a kind of Stan Lee or Star Trek vein — “How strange these humans are! So weak, and yet, parodoxically, so strong! I must study them more closely…and to do that I must become — One Of Them!”

Next: Comes a Man-God!

And keeping with the religious theme, I have an article about Anthony Heilbut’s gospel compilations over on Madeloud.

Anthony Heilbut is probably the most influential white atheist in African-American gospel music. His 1971 book, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, was the seminal study of the genre. In addition to being a scholar, he was also an influential producer and compiler, and the records he put together remain some of the best introductions to the music. Many of his compilations and projects were on vinyl and never made the leap to disc — but many more were done more recently and are still, blessedly, in print.

I have a review of Rihanna’s new album over at Metropulse.

And finally, for the new TCJ sight I’ve reviewed Junko Mizuno’s Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu and Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit. Of course, since the site is in beta, these links may be broken by the time you click on them…which is one reason that going live from Beta is maybe not the best of all possible ideas. Just sayin’.

Other Links

Jog has a massive, encyclopedic discussion of all things manga. I haven’t made it through yet, but it looks stunning.

Gary Morris has an interesting discussion of his new book of film interviews here.

And your Thai pop video of the week: Duangjun Suwannee with Mon Boo Doo.

Music For Middle-Brow Snobs: Theme From Jones

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Some blaxploitation themes, some thai pop, and a bunch of things I learned about from participating in the best song of the year extravaganza which will soon be unveiled over at The Factual Opinion.

1. Dennis Coffey — Theme From Black Belt Jones (Can You Dig It?)
2. Joe Simon — Theme From Cleopatra Jones (Can You Dig It?)
3. Tanya Morgan — Alleye Need (Brooklynati)
4. Pamela Bowden — Ruk Tai Luey (Bow Daeng Saraeng Jai)
5. Pamela Bowden — Noo Mai Dai Len (I Can’t Play) (Pa Ched Na La Jai)
6. Gui Boratto — No Turning Back (Take My Breath Away)
7.Ulrich Schnauss — Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn (Far Away Trains Passing)
8. Ryan Leslie — Gibberish (Ryan Leslie)
9. Rihanna — Te Amo (Rated R)
10. A Sunny Day in Glasgow — Failure (Ashes Grammar)
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Hysteric (It’s Blitz)
12. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel — Never Had Nobody Like You (She & Him)
13. Yui Yardyer — Park Wa Mue Wai (Yui Yum Yum Vol. 7)
14. Ajareeya Bussaba — Kang Rom Khon Diew (Hua Jai…Mee Ngarn Kao)

Download Theme From Jones.

You can get last week’s best of the year mix here.