Archive for September, 2009

Verbeek’s Japanese Roots


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Tuesday, September 29, 2009


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Readers of Art Out of Time will remember the pages devoted to the eery art of Gustave Verbeek, an early 20th century master of imaginative freakiness. Now more of Verbeek’s work is available in a beautiful new book from Sunday Press Books: The Upside-Down World of Gustave Verbeek: Comics and Art 1900-1915, which has just hit bookstores this week. As with all the other books from Sunday Press, this volume is lovingly designed, with long moldering art restored nearly to their pristine perfection. Hitherto, very little was known about Verbeek so editor Peter Maresca has done amazing work in digging up his paintings and illustrations, which immeasurably deepen our understanding of the context from which he emerged. Along with Chris Ware and Seth, Maresca has raised the bar for reprinting classic comics.

In an essay I wrote that is part of the book, I argue that Verbeek’s work owes much to its Japanese roots. Here is an excerpt:

Verbeek’s life and art emerged from a unique historical moment. In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry forced the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate to open up Japan to the West, thereby initiating a new era of international relations and also, unexpectedly, creating the groundwork for an artistic revolution. For the next century, Japan fired up the imagination of countless artists, influencing everything from Vincent van Gogh’s shimmering color to Frank Lloyd Wright’s airy sense of space.

Japan runs like a thread through Verbeek’s life. Born only slightly more than a dozen years after Perry’s famous exercise in gunboat diplomacy and belonging to the European nationality (the Dutch) that had the richest history of interacting with the Japanese, Verbeek was in a perfect position to absorb his native land’s artistic heritage. He first studied art in Tokyo. As poet Hildegarde Hawthorne (granddaughter of the famous novelist) noted in 1916, Verbeek’s “inerrant capacity for leaving out the inessential owes something to his Japanese masters.”

For those who think the connection between Western comics and Japan started with manga, The Upside-Down World of Gustave Verbeek will be an eye-opener.

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Kwik Lisnin


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Tuesday, September 29, 2009


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Appreciating Frank’s point


The indefatigable Sean Collins has posted the audio for two panels from SPX that may be of interest to Comics Comics readers: the “New Action” panel featuring our own Frank Santoro (as well as Benjamin Marra, Kazimir Strzepek, and Shawn Cheng), and the criticism panel, which includes CC contributors Joe “Jog” McCulloch and Bill Kartalopolous, as well as about a million more worthy names than I feel like typing out.

[UPDATE: STC has posted a transcription of the “New Action” panel here.]

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Comics Enriched Their Lives! #14


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Sunday, September 27, 2009


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“We decided that the light should be emotional rather than realistic,” says [Alain] Resnais, citing a source of inspiration in one of his beloved comic-strip illustrators, Terry and the Pirates creator Milton Caniff. “At a time when comic strips were very disparaged as an art form, I was very happy to learn that Orson Welles and Milton Caniff had a correspondence in which they said that each was influenced by the other. And Orson Welles was not an imbecile!”

Village Voice, Sept. 22, 2009

An easy one, but a good ground rule double all the same.

[via]

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Illustraton History part 1


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Thursday, September 24, 2009


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I want to call attention to a couple recent essays by Norman Hathaway that I think are “must-reads” for illustration buffs.

First is an article, with images and video, about Doug Johnson, the Canadian illustrator, long based in NYC, who became famous in the 1970s for his exquisitely psychedelic and painterly airbrush technique. Includes are his covers for Judas Priest, Ike and Tina Turner, and a lot more.

And second is a fond remembrance of the great illustrator Peter Lloyd, who passed away last month. Lloyd is best known to comics fans as one of the designers of the film Tron, but he was a stellar image maker.

I’ve been fascinated with the coverage of Bernie Fuchs’ death, if only because it give him some much needed recognition while making room for the idea that he was ultimately eclipsed by the late 1960s and Push Pin. Together with the passing of Lloyd and Heinz Edelmann this summer I think there’s a lot to be said about different eras and styles of illustration. Each man represented the peak of a certain era and style, defining the look and feel of distinct segments of visual culture for a bunch of years. But more on that in a future post.

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PictureBox at SPX


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Monday, September 21, 2009


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Well, while PB is waiting to be bought by Disney and/or be given the rights to half of Mole Man we will be exhibiting this weekend, September 26-27, at SPX. Booth D9-11.

We will have our full range of titles and Frank Santoro and Matthew Thurber will be in attendance. Besides our newest books, including Santoro’s Cold Heat 7/8, Thurber’s 1-800 MICE 3, Mat Brinkman’s Multiforce and Gary Panter’s Pee Dog 2, we will have a stack of the phenomenal new Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror (now on sale in our shop!), featuring stories by Ben Jones, Jon Vermilyea, Thurber, Kevin Huizenga and many others. We will also have a selection of new mini-comics, zines, and the legendary comic book series Real Deal.

And, bonus: There will be a Treehouse of Horror signing with various artists on Sunday, 9/25, from noon to 1 pm.

SPX is always a fun time. Come out and see us.

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Congratulations to Tim and Lauren


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Monday, September 21, 2009


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I’m pleased as can be that our own Tim Hodler and Lauren Weinstein are now the proud parents of Ramona Salley Hodler, a healthy baby girl! Ramona arrives with superb comics pedigree and is our newest, most promising blogger. Welcome to the team Ramona! Love to Ma and Pa.

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Rio de Janeiro Book Fair


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Sunday, September 20, 2009


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I’m going to make this quick and comics-related. Everyone at the fair, Companhia, and the US Consulate was nice and treated me much better than I deserve to be treated. I can’t figure out a good USA reference for this book fair. It’s sort of like the San Diego Comic-Con, only all books and “normal” people (lots of families.) It took place in three large boxes. This first photo of the exterior looks like a Tom K panel:




The standard comic size in Brazil is smaller and a slightly different ratio.


Andre told me you can chart the Brazilian economy of the 80s and 90s by looking at the cover price fluctuations of Akira, since it was being serialized through that time.
Andre’s father edits this magazine, Piaui , and in the latest issue they ran an excerpt of Crumb’s Genesis. The magazine is huge (about 11 by 14 inches) and on great paper and the excerpt looks totally amazing in it. I’m psyched for that book.


I was on a panel with the twins Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba where I was asked how to increase literacy among Brazilian youth.


Later that day the fair threw a party and I was told it was taking place in a park so I just wore a t-shirt. It turned out it was in a mansion in a park. Snoop Dogg filmed this music video (3:53) there. I told a prose novelist I was feeling underdressed and he said: “Don’t worry. You’re a graphic novelist. It works.” Ha! True story.

Okay, here are some more scans of things I acquired. This first artist, Lourenco Mutarelli, I hung out with a little bit. He does great sketchbooks filled with gorgeous, raunchy drawings. I hope that those are eventually published or put online or become available somehow.




These are random other things:












I went to Rafael Grampa’s studio in an ex-beauty salon in Sao Paulo but I don’t have any good photos of it. Rafael’s working on a series that Dark Horse is publishing in 2010 titled Furry Water and I flipped through some originals and it’s crazy. His personality can be felt in his drawings. They’re aggressive, funny and full of life. Dude can draw.


Now Comics Comics may return to more thoughtful posting.

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Back from Brazil


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Thursday, September 17, 2009


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This cover is a special delivery to my Fanta Friends:


The first story would interest the new Marvel Friends:


I got this at a comic shop called H Q Mix in Sao Paulo. It’s open 24 hours (!) on a block of mostly theaters and actor’s bars. There is a famous whore house around the corner.



Andre Conte is the editor of the Companhia das Letras comic division. I spent most of my trip hanging out with him and Juliana Vettore, a publicist at Companhia, and David Grann, since his The Lost City of Z book was published in Portuguese by Companhia. Grann’s latest New Yorker piece, “Trial by Fire”, came out right before we left NY for Rio.

Andre and I had a lot to talk about since we’re about the same age so we read all of the same comics growing up. It’s nice that Joe Madureira and Wildstorm are at least conversation possibilities. Here’s Andre:


I’m pretty sure that the store owner (above corner) edited this anthology, Capa. He didn’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Portuguese, but I think that’s what he was communicating to me.


Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon came with us to the store since we went right after a joint discussion/signing at a mall bookstore.


More Brazil stuff later.

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Threads


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Tuesday, September 15, 2009


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There are some good comments threads going on in earlier posts that some of you won’t want to miss. Various comics luminaries and personalities showing up and all that. Here and here and here. Just saying.

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Altering Alter: Crumb & the Translator


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Sunday, September 13, 2009


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As I noted in my Bookforum review, one way to appreciate the awe-inspiring craftsmanship of Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated is to pay attention to his handling of the translation. Crumb relied heavily on Robert Alter’s 1996 translation, a very interesting choice. A major scholar of Hebrew, Alter has been much influenced by Walter Benjamin’s thinking about translation. Benjamin argued that translators should not try to create a false illusion of fluency but rather should try to act as a bridge to the original language, bringing along some of the strangeness of an alien syntax and diction. Following Benjamin’s program, Alter has given us a Genesis that sometimes feels very foreign, hardly English at all but rather an English/ancient Hebrew hybrid. (Parts of the book are available here, via Google books).

Crumb followed Alter not blindly but with care. Occasionally the cartoonist reverted to the more sonorous and familiar language of the King James translation. At other times, he simplified or straightened out Alter’s word. Below some passages from Alter’s translations set next to Crumb’s reworking, along with some notes. I think the comparison will be of interest to many people: Bible buffs, translations junkies, and Crumbites.

Genesis 7:11

Alter: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day,

All the wellsprings of the great deep burst
and the casements of the heavens were opened.”

Crumb: “In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day, all the wellsprings of the great deep burst and the windows of the heavens were opened.”

“Windows” is simpler and more traditional than “casements” (which seems far too refined for an ancient text). Alter occasionally makes some highly charged passages into poems, whereas Crumb leaves everything as prose.

Genesis 12:5

Alter: “And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the folk they had bought in Haran, and they set out on the way to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.”

Crumb: “And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the people they had bought in Haran, and they set out on the way to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.”

“People” is a blunter term for slaves than “folk.” Visually, Crumb’s slaves look fairly miserable as well. Alter’s comments on slavery occasionally have an unfortunate note of whitewashing apologetics. See in particular his footnote on this very passage: “Slavery was a common institution throughout the ancient Near East. As subsequent stories in Genesis make clear, this was not the sort of chattel slavery later practiced in North America. These slaves had certain limited rights, could be given great responsibility, and were not thought to lose their personhood.” This may well be true, but ancient slavery was still very cruel, as Crumb brings out in his art.

Genesis 16:5

Alter: “And Sarai said to Abram, ‘This outrage against me is because of you! I myself put my slavegirl in your embrace and when she saw she had conceived, I became slight in her eyes.”

Crumb: “And Sarai said to Abram, ‘This outrage against me is because of you! I myself put my handmaiden in your lap and when she saw she had conceived, I’ve become diminished in her eyes!”

“Lap” is more visually suggestive than “embrace”. Throughout, Crumb describes Hagar as a “handmaiden” rather than “slavegirl.” In doing so, he’s following feminist scholar Savina Teubal, who sees Hagar as a major matriarchal figure.

Genesis 19:14

Alter: “And he seemed to be joking to his sons-in-law.”

Crumb: “And he seemed to his sons-in-law as one that mocked.”

Genesis 19:28

Alter: “And he looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw and, look, smoke was rising like the smoke from a kiln.”

Crumb: “And he looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw and, behold, smoke was rising like the smoke from a kiln!”

Crumb is fairly free in his use of exclamation marks.

Genesis 20:12

Alter: “And, in point of fact, she is my sister, my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter, and she became my wife.”

Crumb: “And, in point of fact, she is my sister, my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter … and she became my wife.”

A very minor change: a comma becomes three dots.

Genesis 25:18

Alter: “In defiance of all his brothers he went down.”

Crumb: “In the face of all his kin he went down.”

Genesis 25:23

Alter: “And the Lord said to her:
‘Two nations – in your womb,
two peoples from your loins shall issue.
People over people shall prevail,
the elder, the younger’s slave.”

Crumb: “And the Lord said to her… ‘Two nations – in your womb, two peoples from your loins shall issue! One people over the other shall prevail, the elder the younger’s slave.”

Genesis 26:8

Alter: “And it happened, as his time there drew on, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out the window and saw – and there was Isaac playing with Rebekah his wife.”

Crumb: “And it came to pass, when he had been there for some time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out the window and saw … and there was Isaac frolicking with Rebekah, his wife!”

Genesis 30:2

Alter: “Am I instead of God, Who has denied you fruit of the womb?”

Crumb: “So, then, it’s me, not God, who has denied you fruit of the womb!?”

Genesis 33:8

Alter: “What do you mean by all this camp I have met?”

Crumb: “What do you mean by all these droves I met on my way here?”

Genesis 34:1

Alter: “And Dinah, Leah’s daughter, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to go seeing among the daughters of the land.”

Crumb: “And Dinah, Leah’s daughter, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see some of the the daughters of the land.”

“Borne” seems to be a spelling mistake on the part of Crumb. “Went out to go seeing” is awkward, so Crumb turned it into standard English.

Genesis 34:3

Alter: “And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her and took her and lay with her and debased her.”

Crumb: “And Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her and took her and lay with her and defiled her.”

Genesis 34:7

Alter: “And Jacob’s sons had come in from the field when they heard, and the men were pained and they were very incensed, for he had done a scurrilous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, such as ought not be done.”

Crumb: “And Jacob’s sons came in from the field as soon as they heard, and the men were pained, and they were highly incensed, for he had done a despicable thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, a thing which ought not to be done.”

Crumb’s word choice of “despicable” is far superior to Alter’s “scurrilous” which seems a mite too high-toned.

Genesis 34:24

Alter: “And all who sallied forth from the gate of his town listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who sallied forth from the gate of his town.”

Crumb: “And all who came from the gate of his town listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son, and every male was circumcised, all who came out of the gate of his town.”

Alter’s “sallied forth” is again too precious.

Genesis 34:27

Alter: “Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and looted the town, for they had defiled their sister.”

Crumb: “The other sons of Jacob came upon the slain and looted the town because their sister had been defiled.”

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