 |
| From Michel Rabagliati's Song of Roland |
Regarding that first piece by Miller, I find it an incredibly odd piece because I hate the basic premise of the question-- you can separate the writing and the drawings in comics. Miller doesn't neccessarily go down that route but by asking the question, it just seems like it's making the argument that there's no connection between the two. Now I won't deny that I've dropped comics because of the art but I've also dropped them because of the writing. It's when the two aren't working together that a comic becomes bad.
Talking about one without the other is what leads to us placing writing on a slightly higher pedestal than art in the recent climate of comics. I think this climate has been shifting in the past 2-5 years but it was the dominant climate in the first decade of the 21st century and is still the reigning climate in most of DC and Marvel's output. Even in Image, where they've made a push marketing the writers that they've gotten from the Big 2, writing seems to be what they're selling instead of some of the wonderful art in their books.
** On Thursday, Comicosity did a 10 question Twitter interview with Logan Dalton, my old editor at Sound on Sight. Logan is a good guy so go read the interview and then go read the comic review section at Sound on Sight.
** Entertainment Weekly has a nice profile on comics' power couple Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction. If nothing else, I love the wallpaper in the picture of the couple and am trying to figure out how to get it into my own house.
DeConnick followed up with the December launch of her second ongoing original series, Bitch Planet, which is set on a prison planet for women deemed “noncompliant”—everyone from feminists to minorities to those not conforming to gender norms. “It’s not as camp as I had intended. I had very broad humor plans,” she notes of the series, which she developed with artist Valentine De Landro. “It was supposed to be so crazy! Future-y!” Though otherworldly, it paints a more realistic picture than DeConnick originally envisioned. “It feels like just a couple years down the line in the wrong direction,” she says.** I really appreciate this Mana Neyestani cartoon that's a reaction to the Charlie Hebdo killings. After reading his Iranian Metamorphosis last year, I was curious to see what his reaction to these events would be.
** At the New York Times, Tim Kreider has a piece called "What is Art Dangerous (Or Not)?"
It’s a testament to the brittleness and fragility of ideologies like the thuggish cult of North Korea and the more homicidally literalist sects of Islam that they react so violently to art most Westerners regard as silly and trivial: dumb comedies, crude cartoons. North Korea saw “The Interview” as some sort of invidious state-sponsored attack on its revered leader, the cinematic equivalent of a dirty bomb. It was almost endearing; you wanted to explain to them, No, see, in our country, this is stupid art. We weren’t even going to go see it in theaters until you threatened to bomb them; we would’ve waited for it on instant streaming. Some part of the international reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre was this same kind of condescending incredulity: Wait, this was about cartoons?** Dark Horse is publishing a web comic that I've never actually heard of called Bowery Boys: Our Fathers. Honestly if it was just that, I don't know if I would have even paid attention to it. But at least part of the artwork is by Ian Bertram, one of the artistic highlights of one of DC's sluggish current weekly comics. Bertram has this lovely Frank Quitely-by-way-of-Rafael Grampa look to him so this could certainly be a book worth taking a good look at. You can check out the webcomic at http://boweryboyscomic.com/.
** Brigid Alverson gushes about Jaco: The Intergalactic Patrolman at Robot 6. It's a wonderfully fun good that I'm hoping to have something up about this week as well. I haven't read any Dragonball but Akira Toriyama's work here in Jaco really has me considering diving into that massive series just to see more of this storytelling.
** Paneleers pattering around.
- At The Comics Journal, Rob Kirby tells us What Was So Queer About 2014?
- Rob M. reviews Locus Moon's Little Nemo anthology.
- Natalie Nourigat Offers New "Pay What You Want" Sketchbook Collection
- RJ Casey Starts New Blog Focusing on Artists Called "I Like That"
- AJ has a look at the coloring in Dash Shaw's The Doctors
- James Kaplan looks at Rumble and They're Not Like Us in a Single Minded post.
- James also reviews Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich's Lady Killer from Dark Horse.
- Scott talks a bit about Tom Scioli and John Barber's The Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe.
- Rob M. covers a couple of new comics including ODY-C in a Single Minded post.
- In the first of two interviews last week, Rob M. talks to Carey Pietsch about Marceline: Gone Adrift.
- And then Rob interviews to the creative team of Terrible Lizard, Cullen Bunn and Drew Moss.
- In the final review of the week, Rob M. explores Emi Gennis's Trepanation.
- This weekend, Jan 18th and 19th, is San Francisco's Black Comix Art Festival.
