Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Music Self Played… Is Happiness Self Made!


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Monday, September 21, 2009

Samm Schwartz, Fashionista


Samm Schwartz is primarily known for his tenure on Jughead, but he also drew stories for Tippy Teen. Part of his work reminds me of The Swami Brahmin in the film The Loved One, who the character Aimee Thanatogenous writes for lovelorn advice. The Swami turns out to be a swarthy cigar chomping worker bee.

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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Correction

Thank you to Ken Parille and Dash Shaw for their flattering blog posts about Wally Gropius. Not to appear ungrateful, but imagine my dismay, however, when both failed to mention the following source material:

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Jerry Moriarty

Please check out the two-part interview with Jerry Moriarty at Inkstuds: part one, part two.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Family Guy

"Yeah, on Tuesday, September 22nd at 7:00 p.m. at Family Books in Los Angeles, there's going to be a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #15 launch and art shew. Sammy Harkham, Jeffrey Brown, Jordan Crane, Tim Hensley, and Matt Groening will be signing books 15 hours before they hit the shops."

Monday, September 14, 2009

On the Genre of Autobiography

I learned how to draw comics from library books. Old tomes like Jack Markow's Cartoonist's and Gag Writer's Handbook might explain to render art twice up and use a number 2 brush and ink so the photostat camera could recognize it. By the time I finally assimilated this knowledge picked up piecemeal over the course of many years, photostats were replaced by TIFs from scanners and everyone began drawing same size using colored pencils. In an attempt to avoid being a casualty of mere history, alongside my published work I inadvertently created this four panel strip:






In a sense, this was my true unmediated expression--pure, deeply personal. There was no attempt at composition, containment lines, language... If it resembled stabs in the dark or the frustration with the humidity of the day, it did not trouble me or cause me to reflect on its implications. Perhaps it was an attempt to chase my own ambulance--in recognition of the unplanned obsolescence on both sides of my drawing table.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Gropius in Space


NOTE: For a recent post by me on the book version of Wally Gropius, please see here.

Around a month ago, cartoonist Dash Shaw put up a nice post at Comics Comics about cartoonist and Blog-Flumer Tim Hensley. Dash notes that “It’s like what [Tim] chooses to draw in the environment (and what he chooses not to draw) is determined by some graphic Feng Shui.” This is an astute observation, and I think there might be something going on in addition to Feng Shui.

Exteriors often use the same approach, as in these panels from “Gropius Besieged” (Mome Summer 2009). Just as there is no distinction in many of the ‘interiors’ between floors, walls, and ceiling, the field of color redefines exterior space by eliminating any clear distinction between ground and atmosphere:

Given the strangeness of the environment, the shadows (here and in the above panels) appear to be an odd relic imported from 'reality,' reflecting a more conventional approach to delineating space. . . . And even the different kinds of shadows in the two panels suggest Tim's original approach to environments.

This panel -- a scene in Jillian's bedroom where closets and the door 'f'loat' in space yet are realistically positioned -- puns on the fact that cartoon characters in these kinds of comics always wear the same outfit, day after day:

Gropius is dense with such puns, and Tim’s approach to space is like one ever-present -- albeit abstract -- beautiful pun. I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space -- and what we might call 'spatial color' -- in such a rigorously strange way. As Dash observes, there's a real logic to Tim's work.

Wally Gropius and Walter Gropius --
Fagus Works (1911-13):


Monument to the March Dead (1921):



For some of Tim's Gropius related posts on Blog Flume, see the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

Covers: Brunetti and Sorensen

Ivan Brunetti on the curent New Yorker:

Jen Sorensen, a pal and fellow UVa alum, on The University of Virginia Magazine, which also has a feature on Jen and her cartoon Slowpoke. There's a video, too.

Friday, September 4, 2009