August 5, 2006
Comics and cartoons
Graphic novels without words and The Wacky World of Comic Book Propaganda, both at MetaFilter.
Classic Cartoons, a new blog via Bibi.
Magic Lanterns (via Annie).
Aquaman and Zippy at PCL LinkDump. Back off, slashers!
Addendum: Black Superheros, Canadian pulps, a database of classic comics, and more, from The Website at the End of the Universe.
July 20, 2006
The Book of Ballads by Charles Vess
Charles Vess originally published The Book of Ballads with Greenman Press; it was reissued by Tor Books (who need to redo their website from the ground up, or at least add a search function and full catalogue) with additional material.
The book is a series of the old ballads, retold by various luminaries such as Charles de Lint, Sharyn McCrumb, and Neil Gaiman, and all illustrated by Charles Vess.
The book is beautifully produced, and the artwork to swoon for. The females are all statuesque and scantily clad, but there are enough strapping men to balance the scales a little. And it is delightful to see the old ballads given fresh life in a new medium, in this case graphic stories. In fact, I am inclined to think that the value of this exposure supercedes any quibbles.
But, we live to quibble.
Part of the interest of the traditional ballads is their sparsity. The narratives are streamlined, polished like stones over the centuries to the point where the elisions make their own poetry. Characters' motives are rarely explained; narratives are in the third person; dialogue is minimal. Time and space collapse down to the essence. Much is unexplained, perhaps lost; perhaps it was never there. Then there are the multiple versions of even the more obscure ballads, complicating any single reading.
Much ink has been spilt over these issues, and the academic in me would dearly like to have known why a particular version was chosen over another. But in fact the question may hardly be relevant as none of the retellings stay true to any original. Of course each version is a retelling and each performance is a recreation, and these writers are certainly not obligated to stick to a set text, particularly with such a mutable form. But I do wonder why they all, to a writer, felt the need to fill in various bits of backstory or explanation. The haunting questions posed by these narratives are part of their appeal; to have someone nail down any one of the many possibilities, no matter how imaginative, is to risk making them prosaic.
Another interesting tendency of these writers is their apparent need to justify or explain the actions of the characters. Traditional ballad characters are capable of breathtaking acts of violence and cruelty, seemingly as a matter of course; many seem amoral. Barbara Allen spurns a young man because she can, yet in this retelling she is softened. The identity of the False Knight upon the Road is unexplained, yet here it is hinted at. No doubt the writers wanted to make the ballads more accessible, less inexplicable, and that no doubt suits many contemporary readers, particularly those unfamiliar with the form. But I missed the glorious unconcern, the proud lack of any impulse to explain or justify, that is so common in these narratives.
All of which is not to say this is a failure, because it is not. I enjoyed it immensely and think that there is much here for any fan of graphic novels or the fantastic. And there is certainly much here for any lover of the old ballads. These stories may not be how I might have retold these narratives, but they are all valid visions in a genre in which there are no single sources or versions. And they are proof that ballads are still a vibrant form after all this time.
March 17, 2006
The New York Times
The review is, yes, a little daunting, but I still look forward to seeing the movie. Alan Moore, author of the original graphic novel, was writing in reaction to the second election of Maggie Thatcher, but the trends that worried him by no means went away when she did.
Manohla Dargis at the Times makes the point that the world of the movie takes no account of multinationalism, but she is ignoring the long-standing sf trope of the fractured, damaged world that reverts to national and smaller units (and she fails to note that the collapse of the global economy is due, in the novel, to a nuclear war. Which would explain the fall of the New York and London stock exchanges). She ignores, in fact, the traditions of the genre entirely, except to sneer. She asks, "The more valid question is how anyone who isn't 14 or under could possibly mistake a corporate bread-and-circus entertainment like this for something subversive." No, the more valid question is why in the world a reviewer would assume that genre enthusiasts would be so naive as to confuse a graphic novel and a Hollywood production. Apples and oranges each have their own unique appeal.
(Here is an earlier post).
December 12, 2005
V for Vendetta
Just read V for Vendetta. Yeah, yeah, I know it was published in the 80s. Didn't realize, when I picked it up in the store because of its Guy Fawkes vs. the fascists theme, that it will soon be released as a film (here is the trailer).
V often speaks in iambic pentameter, and the novel is rich in references. Even the most well-read will miss some, so check out An Annotation of Literary, Historic, and Artistic References in Alan Moore's Graphic Novel, V For Vendetta by Madelyn Boudreaux.
There are several things I imagine that the film will change. The character of Evey will be more central — in the graphic novel she is more of a sidekick — and I can't imagine they will be able to go without unmasking "V", but you never know. Also, I wonder if they will have the nuclear war backstory, or if that is a non-starter two decades later. Finally, the whole imprisonment and interrogation of Evey: I wonder if that will play out the same way. Pretty s&m in the novel; the movie will surely recast it. But visually, how perfect: V's white mask and the Betty Page hair; the pageantry of the fascists; the noir of the streets.
There was apparently a live theatrical adaptation in Sweden, Landet där man gör som man vill (The Land of Do-As-You-Please. ref.) "The Land of Do-As-You-Please" is a phrase from the novel. Only in England could an anarchist state sound like a children's fairy tale.
Oh, and Alan Moore doesn't like the film.
Bonus links:
David Lloyd's Introduction to V for Vendetta (14th January 1990): it's "for people who don't switch off the News."
V for Vendetta Shrine: comprehensive and very professional site
Your own V mask for US$195.
Isn't this wonderful? They have that whole Soviet era aesthetic going.
July 24, 2005
Babes in bustiers
DISH! Celebrating the comic book female! (link from Bibi). A range of images, organized by genre.
June 27, 2005
For paleontologists and poets
Clip-art dinosaurs quote Emily Dickinson.
What on earth are you still doing here?
(Link from the author of the very funny Alien Loves Predator)
May 22, 2005
Dracula, behave!
Check out Groovy Age of Horror, a niche blog if there ever was one. In the first post, Curt, the author, describe his interests: "a narrow focus on horror in the seventies with a broad inclusion of paperbacks, movies and comics." May offers "A Month of Dracula at Groovy Age of Horror: '60s/'70s paperbacks, fumetti, comics, and movies." Sexploitation alert: lots of writhing, undressed femininity. Not to mention the Mandingo factor (see below). You've been warned. Link from Exclamation Mark.
I'm feeling nostalgic for the time a group of friends and I went to a Halloween party as vampires. It was not too long after Interview with the Vampire came out, and with us we had two tall, dashing Ricean vampires with Byronic hair and shirts with poofy sleeves. But my friend Nancy and I went for Hammer: we were Hammer babes, she in a negligee and I in silk paisley pyjamas, both with teased hair and enough eyeliner to do all of Carnabie St.
I had to clench my mouth all night to keep my fangs from falling out onto the dance floor, but it was worth it.
May 2, 2005
Doonesbury
has engaged with the blogosphere (2/5/05).
April 17, 2005
Comics links
Edward Champion links to an interesting site, Footnote Comics, "whereby comics are annotated with historical and legal background" by lawyer Stephen Lee. EC points the way to Lee's annotations of Y: The Last Man (about, well, the last man), which I intend to teach this summer.
Bibi has a slew of comics links, including the popular Unintentionally sexual comic book covers and Comic Ads. Man, I remember that fake ponytail I ordered in Grade 5. I still can't believe that my mother let me wear it to school.
More ads (via Exclamation Mark).
Crime comics from the 40s and 50s (also via Exclamation Mark).
The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index (via Eye of the Goof).
Oh yes, and Octopus pulp. "Poulpe", en français (via PCL LinkDump).
April 14, 2005
Aquaman, we hardly knew you
Hand-knit superhero costumes (via BoingBoing). You know, I thought these looked familiar; turns out I linked to them almost a year ago. And that link was also from BoingBoing. Guess too much stuff goes through there for them to keep track. Anyway, these are so melancholy looking, they're worth a second look.
My mother describes the knitted swimsuits she used to wear as a girl. Something like this, I wonder, but with a cap?
April 11, 2005
Comix
Pope reborn as superhero in Colombian comic (via Metafilter).
Comic Book Cultures from Duke U (via Life in the Present).
Superman Through the Ages (also via Life in the Present).
Check out the cover gallery at The Amazing Wonder Woman Fan Listing (I always thought her outfit was impractical). See also Comic Covers.com (via Exclamation Mark).
April 8, 2005
D'oh!
This is me. Except for the head, the body, or the clothes. And I am thinking of adding to the total effect by ordering one of these. The yellow one. So beautiful.
(link from iPodlounge).
(You are reading Alien Loves Predator, aren't you? I am; it tickles some gleeful part of my funnybone.)
March 30, 2005
Artful links
Click for larger image
Charles Benefiel's Outsider Art (via Rashomon).
Strangedolls.net. What it says (via Metafilter).
Unorthodox art condemned in Moscow "A Moscow court has found the organisers of an art exhibition guilty of inciting religious hatred" for exhibits such as "a Coca-Cola logo with Jesus' face shown next to it, with the words: 'This is my blood'" (via Cronaca).
Phil Shaw's book art (via CatalogueAnnie). Inspiring.
Stupid Comic Covers. And yeah, some of these are really ... stupid (via Bibi).
January 8, 2005
Alien Loves Predator
Ttwo thumbs up from Shatnerian:
Preston is a Predator. Abe is an Alien. Together, they're roommates searching weed, love, and a decent apartment in New York City. They also attend Yankees games, for whom Jesus Christ was recently drafted.
It's the funniest web comic I've read in a long time.
I think we have all had an Alien roommate at one time or another. I know I have.
Update (10/1/05): Link fixed. Doh!
December 7, 2004
Links loosely related
under the category of "creepy":
The Wilkie Collins Website (thanks to Plep).
Maud has an interesting post on Terry Eagleton's review, in The London Review of Books, of a new biography of Bram Stoker and the idea that Irish writers have historically rejected realism as a form, in Yeat's words, "for grocers and English vulgarians." Stoker practices what Eagleton calls "Protestant Gothic"; if anyone else had said it I would have dismissed it out of hand as an oxymoron.
China Mieville tells the Guardian, "I'm in this business for the monsters" (via Weirdwriter).
Skeletons of cartoon characters (from Boing Boing and picked up by No Fancy Name, Mirabilis, Bibi, Life in the Present, and anyone else who is a little twisted).
Ensor vs Khnopff at Giornale Nuovo. Scroll down for sweet-looking skeletons.
And finally, why I am not going to be an underwear model anytime soon.
December 4, 2004
I'm not religious
but I did just buy my small son a Spiderman Advent calendar.
Even though I was raised in a fairly strict DC household.
July 2, 2004
SF stuff
New original sf on Futurismic: "The Tiresias Project" by Ruth Nestvold. Gender: nature or nurture? I could see using this in both sf and gender studies courses.
Just came across "The Arthur C. Clarke Shortlist 2004: a review feature" by Adam Roberts, which horrifies me for the simple reason that he is so spot-on about the books on the list that I have read, that he is no doubt correct about Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, for which I just paid full price (in hard cover). The pleasure of knowing that at least one other person was not impressed with Pattern Recognition does not make up for my chagrin. On the plus side, I will definitely seek out Tricia Sullivan's Maul. (Thanks for the link, Adam.)
Mark Cheney points towards more on-line fiction, and recommends, in particular, "Women are Ugly" by Eliot Fintushel.
Nalo Hopkinson posts about the recently formed Speculative Literature Foundation and their first fiction award.
And from Liz at misbehaving.net: Women in Refrigerators:
This is a list I made when it occurred to me that it's not that healthy to be a female character in comics. I'm curious to find out if this list seems somewhat disproportionate, and if so, what it means, really.
These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. I know I missed a bunch. Some have been revived, even improved — although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place.
Why, indeed? And be sure to check out the comments from the respondents.
June 26, 2004
Is that a gun in your pocket?
Batman, Catman and a Kit Called Ginger: The Comic Book Invasion of Australia: Australian comics of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, derivitive yet distinctive. Some interesting questions raised about national identity and colonialism (via Plep).
June 23, 2004
Superdudes
Photos of participants at the annual Superman Festival in Metropolis, IL (via Boing Boing).
June 19, 2004
Get lost
in Springfied, courtesy of ampersand. Wander down Elm St., past the Android's Dungeon, make a left and drop in at the Palais de Donut ...
Names to conjure with.
And it may be awhile before the Lonely Planet guide comes out.
June 18, 2004
She's at it again
[Graphic via links from Watermark. Check out the little bloke on the bike.]
June 17, 2004
Getting the jump on Sharon
with Thursday cat blogging.
Pile 'o cat links (from Burningbird).
Library Cats: click on the map to discover the library cats in various regions. Only one listed for New Brunswick: come on, people! (from Foreword, a wonderful — and attractive — site about book design and related matters).
June 16, 2004
Wet dream turned nightmare
[Click image for larger view]
The comic links are coming fast and furious. This from Christine at ms.musings: an introduction to Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man (illustrated by Pia Guerra), the story of the last man on earth. Natalie Nichols describes the series:
[T]he story follows Yorick’s uncertain quest through post-apocalyptic scenarios Vaughan based on real statistics. Electricity is a luxury, flying is virtually unheard of, and all the great rock bands are dead. The Secretary of Agriculture is president, a man-hating cult torched all the sperm banks, and what’s left of Congress is mostly Democrats. (In one darkly ironic scene, wives of dead Republicans briefly lay armed siege to the White House and demand their husbands’ seats.)
[snort!] I will look out for this one. And it sounds like a good possibility for future sf courses, though don't tell Martin Rowson. (Hey! There are literary allusions; the protagonist's name is Yorick, fer cryin out loud).
I suppose one would have to read from the beginning to find out why the monkey is wearing underwear.
June 15, 2004
Various follow-ups
More LotR pastiches. Some of these are really clever. At Making Light.
Women voting: from a UK perspective. Check out the suffrage board game! (via misbehaving).
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step: blogging Ulysses (via Edward Champion). This guy is gonna get sued.
On comics: two posts from Edward Champion: Comics as Literature — Some Starting Points and Someone Cuts Through the Swath. Next, manga is encroaching on US bestseller lists. And, Weirdwriter thinks much the same as I do about comics, but argues the point better. Finally, talk about Art! Isadora Duncan, eat your heart out.
I thought we were past this, but what about Maus?
There is some back and forth about the worth of comics, and since I dressed up as Catwoman for Halloween when I was in Grade 2, I feel I am as qualified as anyone to comment.1
I think Sturgeon's law applies here: sure, there are lots of cheesy comics. But pound for pound, is literature any different? I would wager that there would be at least as much to interest the thoughtful reader in any ten randomly chosen graphic novels taken from the shelves of the local mega-bookstore, as in ten novels pulled at hazard off the bestseller shelves. Does this mean that comics can be judged in the same ways as print fiction? Well, no, they are comics. Their makers decided they they needed to be in the one form, and not the other. And so no, they aren't directly comparable, but as Maud writes, that hardly means that they aren't worthy in their own right.
Comics and print-narratives interact, and not only in one direction. Maud notes that Rani Dharker argues, in The Hindu, that many key postmodern novels are like cartoons. (Though whether this is a claim for the worth of comics, or a slag at postmodernism, is unclear). If you want some examples of canonical novels that owe much to popular forms, read my dissertation. And no, that's not another way of saying, "Va fa Napoli!" (though it could be).
Oh, and here is an interesting link from Plep: Accent on Images: The Language of Illustrated Books from the 15th century onwards. Nicely put, that, though I've no doubt Martin Rowson would disagree.
1 Note to younger readers: yes there was a Catwoman before Christopher Walken threw Michele Pheiffer out that window. Several, in fact.
June 3, 2004
Poaching
culture, poaching links...
Hand knit superhero costumes that look like grandpa's longjohns, embroidery samplers featuring comic book vignettes, beaded trading cards: it's all here (via Boing Boing).
The Heinz Nixdorf Museum: "From cuneiform to computers." Think stone tablets and computers that fill whole rooms (via Boing Boing. Who have the resources). On a related note, Liz Lawley contemplates adding to the landfill.
Elizabeth Gaskell's home open to tourists (from MoorishGirl). I've been to Chawton and Dylan Thomas's boathouse, have walked through Bloomsbury, and will be going to Haworth in July as part of a conference. Now to get up to Manchester ...
More on gendering robots, from the new, refurbished ms.musings.
Also from msmusings: WisCon, and seven women sf writers talk about rewriting a masculine tradition. This from Patricia Wrede: "Size does matter."
Perhaps I have misjudged Eliot all these years (from Rake's Progress).
The Shatnerian keeps up with his home town.
Vintage tobacco ads (and related products such as "Slug-a-Bug insect killer for use around children, food, pets!") and before and after trade card ephemera (from Beautiful Stuff [and here]).
"Corpi, Murakami, and Contemporary Hardboiled Fiction" by Cathy Stebly, about using hard-boiled fiction to examine the past (from wood s lot).
"Studies in Narrative: Science Fiction and Fantasy": twenty lectures that overview both genres, available as MP3 downloads from The University of Minnesota (from Beautiful Stuff).
Index to the biographies and writings of members of the Frankfurt School and The Charles Booth Online Archive (both from Plep).
April 1, 2004
More Superman
Superman: Red Son is a limited series in DC Comics’ ElseWorlds line of stories that take existing characters and place them into alternative scenarios. What if, when a baby, Superman had landed in the Ukraine rather than the U.S.?
Here is an interview in which Mark Miller, the series writer, makes his point clear:
Superman: Red Son is an Orwellian examination of what happens when the balance of power tilts in the world and one country finds itself the only world superpower....
Wait a minute, he's not talking about the Ukraine ...
[Links from Maud Newton].
March 31, 2004
Femme Noir
On-line comic, via Plep.
Take a midnight stroll down the rain-slick streets of Port Nocturne, where the acrid scent of gunpowder hangs in the air like cheap perfume, where every dark alley comes to a dead end, and justice is ... blonde.
This woman is a real role model.
March 30, 2004
Since I'm on a Comics kick,
here is a link, via Bookslut, to a very slick site featuring Superman shilling for AmEx.
Why not Wonder Woman?
Some saint has digitalized and posted Action Comics No. 1 (June 1938).
(via Boing Boing.)
(Not very chivalrous, was he?)
March 29, 2004
Kids on the internet
Liz Lawley at mamamusings writes about negotiating between trust and safety when one's children use the internet. Tracy Kennedy at Netwoman and Fiona Romeo pick up the discussion. Romeo writes about
facilitating a type of parental involvement that leaves space for children's privacy. Much of our recent work has been directed towards learning where the boundaries lie: when does parental monitoring cross the line from being something that makes children feel looked-after and safe, to something that feels like having their pockets searched? This is a very difficult balance to strike, and I think we need to learn from some of the ways parents mediate their children’s contacts and communications in everyday – mostly offline – life.
This sounds commonsensical. Of course, many parents don't manage very well off-line, either. But is the internet substantially different from the rest of life? Do we need to invent new modes of parenting for new technologies? Is our job as parents qualitatively different from that of previous generations? I am inclined to think that it is, but not just because of something as relatively clear-cut as the internet, or more specifically, danger on the internet. Sure, that's part of it, along with globalization, global warming, advanced monopoly capitalism ... the twenty-first century, in fact. We have to find new ways of parenting in so many ways.
Addendum (1:44pm):
Here is a barely-there image of a drawing Harry G. Peter did for Wonder Woman comics: it depicts a little boy shaking his fist at a retreating man and saying, "Scared o'me, huh?" while Wonder Woman twirls her lasso in the background. It is meant to indicate my idealized protective relationship with my child. The question is, I suppose, what does the lasso represent? More than software.
March 27, 2004
Wonder women
Posted by George H. Williams: "From Catherine Rodriguez, who organized the SHARP panels at this year's ASECS, I learned that eighteenth-century authors Fanny Burney and Hannah More made appearances in Wonder Woman comics as 'wonder women of history.'"
I would LOVE to see those issues.
Cross-posted to writingwomen.