Tag: Art

Eddie Campbell’s 1001 Nights of Bacchus (Book acquired, 11.19.2015)

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I took my kids to the bookstore yesterday because they wanted to get some more Choose Your Own Adventure books. We got a bunch of those—and maybe I’ll do a post on those, although I’ve never wanted this blog to be a nostalgia-soaked blog, although maybe that will be a nostalgia-soaked post. My son wanted to check out the comics section; he’s five, and short, and his height matched the “G” section, where he kept grabbing up Green Lantern comics (to which I: put those back). Incorrectly shelved there among the Corps though was Eddie Campbell’s 1001 Nights of Bacchus (to which I: give that here).
IMG_0653The first time I saw Campbell’s art I was shocked. I was 12 or 13—it was in a back issue of Cerebus which I had bought in the comic shop next to the music store where I took trombone lessons (don’t ask)—so, being 12 or 13, I was still capable of shock. Dave Sim had printed (or reprinted?) the prologue, or part of the prologue, from From Hell, Campbell’s book with Alan Moore on the White Chapel/Jack the Ripper murders. What a book. I had never seen anything like that. Campbell’s inky lines seemed savage, severe, violent and sketchy, especially juxtaposed against the work of Sim and Gerhard in that particular issue of Cerebus. (The issue was part of Jaka’s Story).  Continue reading “Eddie Campbell’s 1001 Nights of Bacchus (Book acquired, 11.19.2015)” →

All Oscar Wilde

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All art is immoral.

All art is quite useless.

All thought is immoral.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

All imitation in morals and in life is wrong.

All beautiful things belong to the same age.

All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.

All charming people are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.

All sympathy is fine, but sympathy with suffering is the least fine mode.

All women become like their mothers: that is their tragedy. No man does: that is his.

All bad art comes from returning to life and nature, and elevating them into ideals.

All men are monsters. The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders.

All men are married women’s property. That is the only true definition of what married women’s property really is.

Various aphorisms of Oscar Wilde.