Gary ‘n’ Frank ‘n’ Ray at MoCCA
by T. Hodler
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
If you couldn’t make it to MoCCA, or missed Frank’s panel with Gary Panter and Raymond Sohn for any other reason, here’s an audio recording of the proceedings. (Thanks, Ray!)
Also, Squally Showers has put together an excellent visual companion to the talk.
Labels: audio, comics vs. art, Frank Santoro, Gary Panter, MoCCA, Raymond Sohn
So how did you do with the Real Deal books? I'm anxious to know!
IS there any way you guys could make the audio available for download? My connection is not so great, so I'm getting lots of stop/start buffering. No biggie if you can't. Thanks.
I'll work on it, Luke, but in the meantime, feel free to send me an e-mail and I'll forward you a copy. I'm at thodler (at) gmail.
It was a very informative panel, but I don't know if the guys ever bridged the gap between these specific artists and the comics medium. I would of liked to have heard more about why Gary felt these particular artists had a relavance to comics, but not at the expense of the background information provided.
In other words, I wish the panel was 8 hours long. Either that or maybe they should have covered less artists in more detail.
I waited to long to try and ask a question and ultimately lost out to one of the alltime greatest rambling non-questions in the history of comics paneldom.
This was a lot of fun.
I was glad they did the sprawling overview. There wasn't enough time to get into detail. Once you start digging deep on one artist, that could be the hour.
I didn't think the idea of the panel was to tie these people to comics, as much as "Check this shit out!"
I've seen Gary speak several times over the years, and I've never seen him so animated.
Cola madnes indeed…..
i wish someone had asked:
is/was the lack of a "hairy who takeover" the result of the way the artists placed/marketed themselves within the fine art world (i.e. the quiet working practices, modest personas and handmade group shows of the hairy who, versus warhol's factory, persona, etc…I'm not very familiar with the english pop artists "scene"…yet), or is/was it a result of the images themselves not "taking" with the pop culture at large despite drawing from it? a disposition in the culture against an un-ironic, crafty and classy embrace of it's own grotesque qualities? a connection between that and why gary doesnt have a million billion readers to provide a stipend?
sorry if that's a mouthful. but i do genuinely wonder it. maybe the comments section is the wrong place for this question, but i am also waiting for the takeover, with bated breath. the panel was nice to hear.
I enjoyed the talk in a general way, as I think it was meant to be taken. I would have liked to hear Gary and Frank explore their differences a little more though. It was hard to get more than a general impression of what these might be, but Gary seems to really prize the concept of "freedom" with the end of new-ness in mind, or revolution for the sake of it, while Frank seemed to be more about introducing concepts and practices common in modern/contemporary art toward offering strategies for making better comics. Just an impression though.
the best part is when Gary tells his Alexander Calder story and then two minutes later I re-tell it. I vaguely remember realizing right then that the room was packed with people and was being recorded. One of those deer in the headlights moments, haha.
Yeah, I thought that was sort of charming though.
I think I got what you meant about the "pudding" school, Frank, but I'd like to hear more. It was hard to really get it beyond a basic idea of comics that don't consider how they might flow well enough. Is it a matter of being too concerned with drawing chops, or prizing virtuosity too much? I think I'd agree with that, but only in a limited way.
Maybe it's that I still wish I could draw like Charles Burns, or whatever. I did sort of cringe when that mode of drawing was criticized; I still like it, obviously- I think that it developed outside of modern art concerns doesn't indicate that it's necessarily in opposition to possibilities you promote.
Maybe I misunderstood though..
A question about "the pudding school" of layout. I'm assuming you're talking about the early 90's Todd McFarlane approach of abusing dynamic panel designs? I don't really see all that much of that type of thing going on in alternative comics.
Having just read Multiforce though there are definitely pages that aren't fully intuitive. He sets you up to wander around a bit and absord the narrative however you find it. Chris Ware is probably a better example of someone who does this intentionally and to effect.
I just found it strange that Brian Chippendale developed this idea of "the pudding school" since his comics intentionally challenge the way in which the reader extracts narrative. I certainly lost my place a few time reading Maggots and had to read certain pages every which way I could.
It's just a topic that i'm interested in because I've experimented a lot lately with layouts that allow the reader to wander.
Are you always against this approach Frank?
It seemed to me like the 'pudding' stuff was identified as a typical approach to alternative comics, where each panel is presented as a singular rendering, without enough consideration for the whole. Frank used music as an analogy; seeing panels as notes rather than lots of different compositions.
I could be wrong. We need you to clear it up, Frank!
There is a hand gesture that went along with the description of "the pudding school" that wouldn't have come across in the podcast.
I wish Gary had spoken at length, and not Frank, whose high-horse presciptions about art history and/in comix (or lack thereof) made me want to throw both shoes at him. Not coincidentally, Frank also chose to make himself the centerpiece of the talk by sitting between Gary and Ray. But an overwhelming number of us were in attendance to hear from Gary. The result was a panel that came (pun intended) off as a circle jerk between an established artist and his young, insecure, and narcissist acolytes.
Gee, it sounded like Gary spoke at length to me. Obviously you have the right to your opinion about the seating arrangement, etc., but, you know, MoCCA did invite Frank to participate, so maybe you should direct your complaints about the panel planning to them. Unless I miss your point, and you aren't just taking a safely anonymous cheap shot.
By which I mean: feel free to disagree with Frank (or anyone) here. But can the petty insults, please.
The panel was for me the highlight of my 2.5 hour breeze through that sweaty, nerdy glorified bomb shelter. Gary was funnier than ever. I wish we heard more from Frank but not if it had been at the expense of Gary going "Duchamp what the fuck man, he's fucking with our heads! Fuck! I hate this art shit!"
I wanted to belt out a manly "YEAH" after nearly all the artists Gary showed, them's being some of my personal favorites too, heros of the underground current of nutty figurative art of the 20th century.
Jim Shaw I wanted to bring up partly because he's someone who makes actual comics that end up on gallery walls as drawings, but also because he's an example of another artist working today whose work has always been solidly figurative even when it was unfashionable, and whose ideas are interesting and funny in terms of concept and narrative…
BTW Destroy All Monsters' first show was at a comic book convention. They were shut down after ten minutes. ALSO people, go check out the amazing Destroy All Monsters show up at Printed Matter! If you like bright colors, doom, horror, clusterfucks of images, and/or noise it'll blow your mind. Also there's an LP of a DAM side project with a cover by Gary! etc.
alright! cage match with the anonymous dude!
Gary sat on the right side to be close to the projection screen, ya nitwit, in order to narrate his choices for the audience.
um, the pudding school will be discussed at length here on the blog soon enough. But, for what it's worth, Multiforce is remarkably structured and solid. Unbelievably well designed "space". Been reading it over and over for days now.
Sounds like Anonymous must have been a little disoriented and confused by Sunday afternoon from breathing in the pungent odor of concentrated dorkdom all day, cause from my perspective Gary did most of the talking and the dudes just sat down in the order they walked up on stage in. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong and Frank masterminded the seating arrangement so that he'd achieve the maximum superiority over Ray and Gary.
Also Anonymous's grouchy baby reaction to Frank's attempt to make folks BEGIN to THINK about how a page is laid out so that it is more pleasing and strong formally is a perfect example of comics people's insecurity and confusion when it comes to "fine" or "high" art/the greater "art world."
What is wrong with thinking about renaissance ideas about composition, form, etc. when looking at a comic book page? It can only enrich the work.
I think the jist of the whole talk was, "we all love comics, but there is a whole world of culture out there, there's no reason to be afraid of art, work CAN be about ideas. If you want to stay in the comics ghetto that's fine but your work will stretch and grow in interesting ways if you take into account artist working in other mediums, especially painters."
Sounds like dude needs a bottle and a nap and maybe then he won't be so pissy about the Golden Ratio and want to throw a tantrum about calling painting or experimental comics "poetry"
fwiw i went down there to see frank, although i was happy to hear from gary, and gary definitely did most of the talking, and the guy on the left (Ray?) just didn't seem to have a lot to say, which is ok too. frank went off into a few rants but it was def mostly gary.