He argues that well-known autobiographical comic creators like Crumb, Pekar, Paley, and Spiegelman “get it wrong.” They falsify experience by employing what could be called an “objective camera” point of view instead of a “subjective camera,” which would truthfully represent experience by showing only what the artist saw when he/she lived the events of the story. Objective camera implies, for Chelsea, that an observer other than the cartoonist is doing the recording; and so, for example, the cartoonist/protagonist can be seen from behind, when the cartoonist should only show what appeared in front of him. I doubt Chelsea thinks that these artists are really wrong (perhaps he does, though; he uses the word “wrong” nine times on the first page.) Perhaps he just wants to make us aware of a strategy employed in conventional auto-bio that he thinks needs to be examined.
I think, however, that there are a number of ways in which his analysis could be complicated and taken further. Chelsea wants to draw our attention to an important choice that many cartoonists make, but there are a number of other choices he doesn’t discuss that I think are equally relevant -- and maybe even more important than POV -- to his argument.
The minute you put your experiences into comics, and certainly into the form in which Chelsea and many other cartoonists do, you are “falsifying” or modifying reality. There seems to me to be no reason to assume that a representational approach like “subjective camera” has any more claim on truth than any other. A cartoonist can easily re-imagine a personal experience from a more expansive point of view. And the rightness or wrongness, for readers at least (if not the cartoonist), will come from a hard to define aspect of the comic, often the way it relates to their experiences of the world; i.e., does it have 'the ring of truth?” -- whatever that is . . .
Chelsea relies heavily on rectangular panels and borders, yet we look at the world through a vision that gets fuzzier and less precise towards the margins of the field of view. So perhaps a more “truthful” -- which is to say a literately accurate method in Chelsea’s way of thinking -- would not use rectangular panels or borders at all, but would feature images that fade at the outer limits or blend into the margins of the page. Maybe something like one of Anders Nilsen’s page layouts would begin to get at this “truth”:
I think it would be more accurate call his approach in 24x2 something like “subjective camera/close-ups.” It offers restricted notions of “subjective camera” and of human vision -- we can see with far greater variety in "shots," from intense close-ups to extreme long shots (see Dan Clowes's The Stroll below). But “subjective camera/close-ups” is a very effective strategy in creating the kind of claustrophobic anxiety and drama that Chelsea exploits in his second comic, Sleepless.
Of course, I'm not saying that there’s anything wrong with subjective camera, only with claims about its relationship to truth. Dan Clowes plays with the idea of objectivity in “Daniel G. Clowes in ‘Just Another Day,’” a story about autobiographical comics:
Despite my differences with Chelsea, I like the fact that he creates a strip about approaches to narration, something under-discussed in comics. I hope people will checkout 24x2.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
POV and Autobiography
Monday, June 30, 2008
Future Acme
I hadn't seen this cover image on any blogs, and so thought I would post it. According to Amazon, Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library #19 will be released in December.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Trons.
Found this while perusing a dorky guitar message board.
The Trons are from New Zealand. This is all I know about the Trons.
Direct Youtube link.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Nicely Drawn Boy
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
A Glamorous Life
all of the errors in it. His recent comic glamourpuss is loaded with proofreading problems; there are missing periods and misspelled words, and chronic inconsistency in the use of dashes, capitalization, possessives, and bold text.
These errors might not be important for some readers, yet I think they reveal a major problem with this comic and the production of alternative comics in general -- the lack of editorial oversight. Even more than artists, publishers and editors bear responsibility for this task. Their job is to present the artists in the best possible light: in other words, leave them alone when that benefits the work and make suggestions when it helps. Sim has no editor and proofreader (at least none are listed in the credits) and so does it all himself -- a noble goal, but in this case not the best choice. When I read comics by my favorite creators, I rarely find mistakes like this, and never to this degree -- they are obsessive types who pay attention to every detail. It’s also true that in a book of a certain length, it’s hard to avoid a few problems creeping in, even when you use a team of copy-editors. Yet a comic page typically has far less text than a prose page, so getting it almost free of these problems shouldn't be impossible.
You could argue, and you'd be correct to a large extent, that comics are different than prose, and therefore should not be subject to the same kinds of “rules” and expectations. In prose, for example, a sentence has some form of period-based punctuation at the end: ., !, or ?. But a sentence in a word balloon might not
and it can read just fine. The problem in general is one of communication and consistency. When the lack or (mis)use of punctuation leads to confusion/annoyance for the reader (the kind the artist doesn’t want), chances are something’s gone wrong. And the best reason to find and correct such problems is that a reader will stay focused on the comic and not be distracted.
If I were Sim’s proofreader, a quick count reveals around 90-100 things I would ask him about -- that's a lot for a 25 page comic (there is, granted, a lot more text on these pages than in most comics). Here are just a few of the problems as I see them in glamourpuss:
They begin on the cover: there’s no period in the last balloon.
Is this intentional? It looks OK to me, and had Sim been consistent in the book I would assume that it was intentional -- a strong artist can make any deviation seem right by the context in which it appears. The possessive of glamourpuss appears here as glamourpuss’ -- but on page 22 both glamourpuss’ and glamourpuss’s are used. Both of these forms are accepted (many prefer the latter), but why the inconsistency?
It doesn’t look to me like Sim is paying attention -- he seems to care far more about the art than the writing.
Periods:
I can’t find any consistency with his use of periods. Some sentences in caption boxes or balloons have them, some don’t. Some sentences outside of these have them, some don’t. This problem exists multiple times on nearly every page. The most important reason to use periods consistently is that they guide readers as to how to read the text - when a period was absent, I would assume that the sentence continued into the next part of the balloon. Then, it seemed like he used the frame of the balloon as a period. And when I thought I had this figured out, he would violate it and continue a sentence from a part of the balloon to the next.
Dashes:
Sometime he will use 2 followed by 1: “word -- word – word”
Sometimes 2 by 2: “word -- word -- word”
A character’s name is spelled as Skanko and later as Skank-o.
Bold:
There's no consistency when he bolds an ellipsis.
He will do this: "word word word . . ." and the ellipsis is in bold.
And then "word word word . . ." and the ellipsis is not in bold.
Page 21: he writes “Beyond Noir Style” and then “Beyond Noir Style”:
Sometimes: “word.” other times: “word ”.
Production:
Part of a balloon is noticeably chopped off on page 24.
Etc . . .
And if this post seems pedantic to you, fair enough -- but "comics are art too," and why not have high expectations or at least the same expectations as those you have for other art forms? I've never met a poet or fiction writer who didn't care about such details. I wonder if comic readers/publishers have lower standards -- would they accept this level of problems in other kinds of books?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Volume 2
{Both images are from the amazon.com listing for the book}
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Guitar Not Comics
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Shamrock En Espanol
Recently I received out of the blue a copy of a Spanish edition of Mome in the mail, published by La Cupula. While I can only be awed and bewildered by the seemingly thankless effort involved in translating my work, I can also see how it must have proven difficult. In panel two, 'This be a sham reel" has become, near as I can tell, "This dance is pure theater." Also, "Stamps: They Can't Be Licked" has become, I think, "Stamps: Without Rival."
In the future, I suggest translating Mome as Momias...
Or even better perhaps, "Psychological Traumas from the Secret Archive of a Psychiatrist." I bought this historieta last year in San Diego mainly because of the box of Premium crackers in the upper right.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Clowes New Yorker Cover
The May 12th issue of the New Yorker features Dan Clowes art on the cover(s)!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Wizard Top 200
Comics: Art versus Action
What makes the comic so unusual is the way it combines what could be considered a staple of art comics—autobiography—and a staple of mainstream comics—the fantasy action/adventure story. Jeff Wilson and May scripted the first of the comic’s two stories, “Hair of the Dog,” a tale of metal-heads, stoners, carnies, and failed romance based on Wilson’s teenage years during the 1980s and drawn by May, who wrote and provided layouts for the second story “Your Bleeding Face,” with finished art by Jason Robards. Continued from Injury 1, it features a cyborg named Manleau who takes on a gang of punks known as The Barnyard Animals. As Manleau and the Farmer brawl, the cyborg breaks out a number of his patented moves (at least I assume they are patented; they have names . . .):
The story has a lot of great pages like the one above; there’s a real interest here in creating layouts that change as the story moves from dialogue/conversations to action. Those who are interested in intelligent but not overly-clever layouts will find a lot to look at. The sci-fi inflected Manleau story is not a parody of or a self-conscious commentary on mainstream comics, but rather a straight-up action story done with a genuinely humorous approach (with many great jokes and puns) that I rarely see in Marvel and DC comics. I don’t want to spoil too much of the goodness, but here’s a tease of a panel plus a little extra that continues in the fight mode:
This story works well in the stapled comic book in part because it’s the type of ‘tale’ we have associated with this format since the 1960s. Also in that spirit, May’s information page reads a little a Stan Lee “Soapbox,” with funny descriptions of the stories and invitations for readers to write in with comments and to participate in a fill-in-the-word-balloon contest. And the back cover has a Kirby-flavored full-color drawing:
Yet, it would be wrong to think of this comic as a nostalgic throw-back; and “The Hair of the Dog” is certainly nothing like a Marvel story:
And, for no particular reason other than I like it, here's a great series of expressions from "Your Bleeding Face," especially the one on the Veronica-inspired character Pig:
The comic contains over 40 pages of story in crisp black and white, beautiful color covers, and no ads. A more detailed preview can (and should) be checked out here. It’s refreshing to read a comic whose only pretense is to entertainment and yet is so intelligently done that it encourages re-reading rather than a trip to the long-box to file it away.
[Disclaimer: I was involved in a small way with the production of this comic--so that makes this post not a ‘review’ as much as a little ‘boosterism’ for a comic I really like.]
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Reminders
Leon Beyond: new strips by Ted May, Kevin H., and Dan Z. are here.
Jordan W. Lint: Part 2 of Chris Ware's serial is in the latest VQR. It's a comic-friendly issue, with a cover by Art Spiegelman, a comic by Ross MacDonald, and an essay on cartoonist Rory Hayes by his brother, Geoffrey.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities
Take a look through the Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities, a great blog best explained in their own words:
Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities features new acquisitions, unique documents, and visual and textual curiosities from the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. This ongoing exhibition is curated by Tim Young, Associate Curator of the Modern Books and Manuscripts Collection, and Nancy Kuhl, Associate Curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature.
Among the interesting work they feature you'll find: The Real adventures of Tintin, and this fun and beautiful piece of ephemera: The Test Flight of Sky Robin.
Wow, there is just too many incredible things shared at that site.
Click below to see a random sampling of stuff you will find in the archives.
