Old World
by T. Hodler
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
All right, Dan’s in France, and I haven’t read any comics that have inspired me to write in what seems like forever. Which means it’s half-assed quiz time. My high-school German is extremely rusty. Have any of you ever heard of this book? Because if this description is correct (“a pseudo-art-historical treatise on the paintings found in the backgrounds of Donald Duck comics”), then I am curious.
In other Euro news, many of you are probably already aware of it, but I’ve really been enjoying the Danish metabunker blog. The long interviews with rappers and the like I mostly skip, but Matthias Wivel writes very intelligently about comics.
Labels: bloggers, Disney, Europe, Matthias Wivel
I haven’t read that, but I have read something that might be up your alley, and I was just reminded of it: A short story by Steven Millhauser called “A Precursor to the Cinema.” It’s the first story in McSweeney’s 15, and I don’t think it’s been reprinted anywhere since then. I could be wrong. Anyway, it’s great- It’s got the tone of Borges, only applied to a different base of knowledge- art history as opposed to literature. And while a lot of McSweeney’s stuff might be described as “winkingly clever,” this piece doesn’t wink at all- it just kind of stares at you straight into your eyes until you laugh to break the tension. Look into it.
Millhauser is also responsible for, in my opinion, the finest prose writings about comics: The Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne and Edwin Mullhouse. No one has written about comics better, methinks.
–Dan Nadel
(can’t access my account, for some reason)