Courtesy of the Fantagraphics blog, here’s a nineteen-page preview of Where Demented Wented, the first comprehensive collection of the work of gonzo underground genius Rory Hayes (co-edited by Dan himself).
I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.
This probably doesn’t deserve a post of its own, but since we closed the comments on the post where it would make most sense to put this, I thought I’d just point out an interesting credit that Pixar apparently included at the end of Ratatouille, according to Augie De Blieck at Comic Book Resources. If this is true, Pixar (at least sort of) agrees with Frank:
Our Quality Assurance Guarantee:
100% Genuine Animation!
No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts
were used in the production of this film.
“Realism” and excessive reliance on photographic reference aren’t the same thing, after all, a distinction a lot of people got tripped up by, I think.
I assume most of you have decided to send your letters to Comics Comics the old-fashioned way, and your missives are already in the mail. If not, do your duty, and don’t let the Internet kill the old-school letters page. Because so far, our pickings have been slim. Surely someone is still angry with Dan about his Masters of American Comics essay from CC3! Do you love the space our large broadsheet size allows for artists to create cover images and comics? Or does trying to read the monstrous thing on the bus drive you insane? At the very least, you could take issue with Frank’s assertion that Ronin is the best Frank Miller comic…
This time with Dan, Sammy Harkham, and Alvin Buenaventura. The topic is the “new art comics”, and as I believe moderator Tom Spurgeon says at some point (I’m going by memory), it provokes exactly the kind of argumentative complaint-fest superhero fans always expect alternative-comics panels to be. In other words, it was a lot of fun to watch.
This is only the first part, when they’re just starting to get warmed up. The rest of the panel, as well as comments from Spurgeon, can be found here.
UPDATE: And here’s the audio, if for some reason you don’t like looking at moving images.
Write us a letter. We’re this close to finishing up the long-awaited fourth issue of Comics Comics, and we want to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, complaints, rants, or raves about any of the stories or comics in the first three issues, please let us know. Do you disagree with Kim Deitch on the meaning of life? Did Dan’s condemnation of the Masters of American Comics show and book stick in your craw? Or maybe you have something to add to our Steve Gerber appreciation, Douglas Wolk review, or the joint interview with David Heatley and Lauren R. Weinstein? These are just ideas — tell us what’s on your mind.
If you do submit a letter, please include your name, location, and phone number, and be aware that we may publish it (meaning the letter, not the phone number), either in the magazine or potentially on this site. Letters may be edited for space or clarity.
E-mail: thodlerATgmailDOTcom
Mailing address:
Comics Comics Letters
PictureBox
121 Third Street
Ground Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11231
1. Listen to Dan’s interview with C.F. from this year’s MoCCA, courtesy of Indie Spinner Rack.
2. Go see Gary Panter and Devin Flynn on Saturday at Amoeba Music in Berkeley. Or see Gary later in the day at Park Life in San Francisco at 8 pm.
3. Prepare for Lauren R. Weinstein’s signing for The Goddess of War at Rocketship in Brooklyn Saturday night by taking a photographic tour of her studio.
The audio of the panel mentioned earlier is now up, for anyone who’s interested. It’s going to be a while before I have time to listen to it myself, fortunately, but I am sure of two things: (1) I sound like an idiot trying to answer Tom Spurgeon’s first question to me, and (2) at the time, I was greatly depressed by some of the things being said, openly, freely, in front of an audience, and on tape, seemingly with little awareness of or concern for the ethical and journalistic implications. (To be clear, it wasn’t the audience or recording devices that bothered me, but the fact that even their presence couldn’t inspire the barest lip service to be paid to the ideal of journalistic independence.) All this doesn’t mean that it was a particularly exciting discussion, so don’t expect fireworks.
(By the way, one of the other panelists, Johanna Draper Carlson, has posted her thoughts as well.)
UPDATE: And now a third panelist, Heidi MacDonald, has also weighed in.
UPDATE II: This guy is making sense! And he’s even more persuasive because of his DEFT use of CAPITAL FUCKING LETTERS!
UPDATE III: Update II was juvenile.
This past Friday, I was on a panel about comics criticism and journalism at the Heroes Con in North Carolina, and ever since, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ethics of this “business”. Early on in the panel, Tom Spurgeon, who was moderating, asked me how my approach to reading comics has changed since I started editing Comics Comics. Exhausted from an early flight and a lack of coffee, I basically bungled my answer, despite multiple attempts, but I haven’t stopped pondering the question.
Most of Heroes Con was a lot of fun, though. I had to split early, so I’ll leave it to Dan and/or Frank to do a full report if they’re so inclined. (Spurgeon himself has put together a pretty amazing write-up of the event in the meantime.) It was great to meet a lot of people I’ve known only on the internet or through their work, like Tom, Jim Rugg, Dustin Harbin, Craig Fischer, and Tom’s brother Whit (who deserves a television show pronto), as well as to catch up with people I basically only see at conventions and that kind of thing.
However, as enjoyable as these kinds of events can be, a part of me is always a little uncomfortable with them. If I’m going to be editing and writing comics criticism, it’s important to be able to separate personal friendships and acquaintances from my writing, and it’s already a lot more difficult to do than it was just two years ago. (Being married to a cartoonist, and not wanting to have her work unfairly linked to my opinions — we disagree on plenty, believe me — doesn’t really make it any easier.) It’s not really that difficult, but it’s an ethical distinction that I have to be vigilant about, and it’s also probably the largest single difference between how I currently approach comics and how I read and talked about them pre-CC, when I’d praise or trash comics with impunity. Now I try to make a point of not reviewing comics by people I know well, at least in print or on the blog, and I think that’s probably for the best, at least for now. The comics world is a small world, though, and that policy won’t work forever.
Wyatt Mason, one of the better literary critics around, just wrote an interesting post on his new blog about friends reviewing friends in the world of “real books”, and he comes to a different conclusion:
[Edmund] Wilson, whom every young critic in kneesocks and each old one in his dotage now holds up as the ur-critic of the century, could not only review Fitzgerald but legions of his friends’ work through the decades … It can be done honestly – that is to say with intellectual honesty; that is to say, in a fair and balanced (that sadly corrupted phrase) manner which can elevate our understanding of aesthetic enterprise.
I agree with this in theory, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to put it into practice. Maybe the trick is to emulate someone like Gary Groth, to harden the heart and enjoy the fights. (That’s definitely a strategy to which it’s possible to overcommit. [EDIT: I no longer think the linked essay is a good example of Groth overdoing it; there probably is an appropriate example, but months later, I’m not inclined to dig around and find one.]) Of course, even Edmund Wilson wasn’t as pure about keeping his personal relationships from affecting his writing as Mason makes out. (Just see the Wilson/Nabokov letters for one prominent falling out and the resulting critical blind spot.) In any case, if I’m going to keep meeting cartoonists whose work I want to write about, I really need to figure this out.
More about the panel later, maybe, if I decide it’s a good idea to explain that photo … (I’ll say this much: I wasn’t cranky because I wasn’t getting enough attention; I was disheartened by what was being said. Read Craig Fischer’s re-cap for some of the flavor.)
Maybe I’ll just let the eventual audio file speak for itself.
UPDATE: More on the panel, and a link to the audio, here.
Inkstuds, the best comics-related podcast that I am aware of, strikes again, with three full hours of talk with Gary Panter.
In other news, the Inkstuds gang have shown extremely questionable judgment by asking CC‘s own Frank Santoro (!) to help moderate their new message board. This is a mind-boggling development. Normally, I’d ask readers to go there and give him a hard time, but I’m hoping all the troll-hunting doesn’t keep Frank too busy to post here. So please don’t bookmark that link.
