Read “The Prince and the Sea,” another beautiful, dark webcomic from Em Carroll (she also did the brilliant tale “His Face All Red”).
You can read the entire comic here.
For localish readers: Jacksonville Public Library will host a graphic novel workshop for parents and kids this Saturday. Info:
At Hark, A Vagrant!, Kate Beaton spoofs Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal feminist/horror short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”–
I’ve long been interested in Hergé’s Belgian comic series Tintin, which chronicles the adventures of Tintin, boy reporter, and his faithful dog Snowy. When a batch of hardback three-in-one editions showed up at my favorite used book store I picked up Vol. 3, which collects The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Shooting Star, and The Secret of the Unicorn. I read The Crab with the Golden Claws in one pleasant sitting that night and finished the other two adventures in similar fashion. Then I went back to the bookshop and picked up the other four three-in-one editions they had in stock.
It’s hard to divide the tales, which are all fun adventures in the high style of boy-adventuring, but I think Crab was my favorite of the three. It involves a drug smuggling ring and a trip to the Sahara desert. It also introduces Captain Haddock, an alcoholic lummox who tips into a verbose stream of insults whenever he’s in a rage (he merely stutters when in his cups). Haddock is Tintin’s unlikely (but totally likely) sidekick in the other tales in the volume, and he shows up in the other books I bought as well. The Shooting Star is a bit more sporadic in its plot–it begins with the end of the world (by asteroid!) and when that doesn’t pan out, moves into an ocean race to recover a meteorite. Unicorn also boasts a nautical theme; Tintin finds part of a treasure map in a model ship and fights against antique-collecting brothers to recover the booty (Keno Bros. beware). These adventure stories share more in common with Indiana Jones and Edgar Rice Burroughs than Marvel or DC comics; there’s a prevalent sense of danger, fun, and mystery that underscores the series.
Hergé’s clean, efficient style evokes beautiful and strange worlds. His economy of storytelling is simply brilliant; he knows how to connote his characters’ movements–including some sweaty action sequences–and he also knows how to move the plot forward without resorting to talking heads (although you will find the occasional expository-friendly radio broadcast pop up in a Tintin comic). It’s when Hergé drops a luscious market scene or a crowded basement-dungeon larded with antiquities that the art in Tintin shines. Hergé’s great talent is to evoke a startling sense of place for each setting in his comics, a fully-realized set that creates a sort of visual (and emotional) baseline for the reader. This allows for the cleaner, crisper panels to relay action without clutter. Hergé’s knack for storytelling cannot be underestimated either. He blends high adventure with slapstick and verbal comedy, much of it courtesy Tintin’s foils: the Thompsons, bungling detectives, precisely, who provide Tintin with many of his cases; Haddock; and Snowy, of course.
If you know a bit about Hergé’s Tintin series, you may know that its depiction of non-white and non-European characters has come under attack in recent years; Tintin in the Congo has been singled out in particular. I haven’t read Congo, but Crab’s representation of Arabs (and Asians) is riddled with all kinds of wrong–at least when viewed from a PC postmodern post-colonialist post-whatever perspective. Hergé’s comics reveal at times a particularly suspect Western European ideology, one that privileges white male authority in the form of white male adventure. We can see the same colonialism and Orientalism at work decades later in the Indiana Jones movies (particularly Temple of Doom). This comparison is not meant to indict Indy (or Spielberg, rather) or excuse Tintin (and Hergé); instead, I’m merely pointing out that adventure tales that feature white heroes exploring–and dominating–the Other are hardly new; nor have they disappeared. The big mistake would be not to read Hergé’s work for fear of tripping over politically-correct mores. Banning a book is never a smart practice.
Far better is Charles Burns’s recent Tintin revisionism in X’ed Out: he moves his inverted hero Nitnit to a bizarro world version of the Saharan market, a place teeming with strangeness that is also largely indebted to William Burroughs’s Interzone. The inversion reverses Tintin’s a priori white male domination into an equally fantastic (but far more horrific) vision of confrontation with radical Otherness. Shit gets weird (as alien encounters should). Nitnit is not in control, not the master of this domain, which is plainly not his. Burns’s Tintin revision saliently calls attention to the ways that the best in art might be transformed and reinterpreted. It points toward the subconscious inheritance intrinsic to art.
But back to the book I am ostensibly reviewing. The Adventures of Tintin, Vol 3 seems to me as good a place as any to start with Tintin, and those interested should dig in. These three-in-one editions are smaller than the traditional oversized format, but you can compensate by holding the book closer to your face (ah, intimacy). Lovely stuff.
“Treasure,” a creepy/fun webcomic by Edgar R. McHerly. From his website The Invisible Hair Suit.
We always knew that comedian Louis CK was funny, insightful, and daring, but his new show Louie was a revelation, a masterful blend of humor and pathos. Louie eschewed traditional storytelling arcs in favor of vignettes that examined — often quite painfully — some of the harshest realities that comedy traditionally glosses over. The following clip is especially memorable, as a heated but humorous discussion at a poker game tips over into a stunning riff on the etymology of the word “faggot.”
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Cartoonist Kate Beaton riffs on Macbeth. From her site Hark! A Vagrant.
The AV Club’s Sam Adams interviews Charles Burns about Tintin, Burroughs, why he’s not involved in making the Black Hole movie, 1977, why he had to change how he colored his art, and his new book, X’ed Out. There’s also this nugget (we’d been wondering)–
AVC: Is the completed three-volume work going to be called X’ed Out?
CB: They’re all going to be different stories. So for the next one, it says “Next: The Hive.” So the next book is called The Hive.
AVC: Is there a name for the trilogy?
CB: No, not in my mind.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
“His Face All Red” is a lovely, disturbing little self-contained webcomic by Em Carroll. Fratricide, an American gothic setting, and a horrifyingly ambiguous conclusion: what’s not to love? Read it here.
Robert Crumb and his daughter Sophie Crumb spoke with Neal Conan on on NPR’s Talk of the Nation program today to discusses her art, her new book, Evolution of a Crazy Artist, and her relationship with her parents. From the web edition’s write-up:
Sophie Crumb grew up in a family of artists — her parents, Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, are two of the most famous graphic artists in the world. So it’s only natural that she found herself gravitating toward their profession as early as the age of 2.
Her new book, Sophie Crumb: Evolution Of A Crazy Artist, is a collection of her work up to age 28. She and her father tell NPR’s Neal Conan about collaborating on her book and life in the Crumb household.
Sophie Crumb features a comprehensive collection of Sophie’s drawings, and that was no accident.
“My dad is a compulsive archivist,” she says. “He was into them, so I kind of did them to make him laugh.”
Sophie Crumb grew up in a family of artists — her parents, Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, are two of the most famous graphic artists in the world. So it’s only natural that she found herself gravitating toward their profession as early as the age of 2.
Her new book, Sophie Crumb: Evolution Of A Crazy Artist, is a collection of her work up to age 28. She and her father tell NPR’s Neal Conan about collaborating on her book and life in the Crumb household.
Sophie Crumb features a comprehensive collection of Sophie’s drawings, and that was no accident.
“My dad is a compulsive archivist,” she says. “He was into them, so I kind of did them to make him laugh.”
