cheating
October 20th, 2009 | Uncategorized
Instead of making a new post, I’m going to cheat by linking to a post about my visit last week to the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Instead of making a new post, I’m going to cheat by linking to a post about my visit last week to the Center for Cartoon Studies.
36 Responses to “cheating”
First!
But wait – it’s just a link –
…I feel so empty somehow…
Ooh, cool.
With what I assume is the second peek at a page from ‘Love Life’?
NLC, where was the first peek? I still love the earlier strip, but I am even more avid for Love Life now. AB, when is it coming out, roughly speaking? I want to be the first at my independent bookstore (The Toadstool in Milford NH) to place an order. Or who knows, they might even stock it! Fun Home was a huge seller.
Wow. It’s like, the scene is totally flipped from the earlier one. The composition of that frame is amazing with so many hinted at stories of the different people in the crowd.
Is it just me or could you sketch out a rough back story for almost every person in that crowd? Even the cops?
Cannot wait for your new book!! exciting to see even a page.
Therry and St. Jerome#3:
[Hey, the Toadstool! I’ve been to the one in Peterborough, but not the one in Milford.]
Actually I think we may now have three snippets from the new book (well, two-and-a-half…)
There’s the page viewable on the link above. Second if you scroll back to the article “Stonewall” (posted on June 28th, 2009) you can find a preliminary sketch of a page. Finally, if you go to the picture of the Grizzly Bear Pajamas and zoom in (via flickr) there’s what I assume is page from the new book lying on the desk next to the computer keyboard (together with various fragments spread over several other horizontal surfaces around the studio).
Any others we’ve overlooked?
Jeepers, A.B.! My dear departed dad had trained as a commercial artist back in the 1930’s, and for the rest of his life he carried his little artist paraphenalia around with him, doing his own illustrations for scholarly articles in his (second) profession, chemistry. He had it all arranged in a little roll that he unwrap with a furtive little flurish after first glancing over his shoulder, like it was some deep dark, secret stash that the art police would bust him for if they ever caught him with it! And, yes, he always talked about taking art short-cuts as “cheating”. Wow… I didn’t expect THIS trip down memory lane when I logged on just now! 🙂
Okay, total switch in topic here. I know this group of comment-leavers on Alison’s blog are among the cleverest people around. (I lurk here sometimes, I confess!) So — I have a question for you all.
I’ve got to write a paper (literary criticism) as part of my application process for some MFA programs. I’d like to write about Fun Home — but — I need some direction. An essay topic? A focus of some sort? An ‘angle’, if you will? Another work of literature I could compare Fun Home to?
For some reason I’m sorta stumped. Suggestions from this awesome crowd would be most appreciated.
Thanks so very much!
@8 – Lauren: FUN HOME sets itself up as a parallel to the ODYSSEY, to ULYSSES, to WIND IN THE WILLOWS. The armature in each of these books can be understood as: Leave home, have adventures, endure dangers, marvel at horrors, return to safety and happiness.
FUN HOME subverts and inverts this classical narrative by placing the dangers and horrors INSIDE the “fun home”: The narrator escapes them only by leaving. The tensions that inform FUN HOME, and that enable it to excel as a work of literature, arise in the conflict between the reader’s expectations for an Odyssean narrative (which Bechdel ironically endorses in both structure and choice of language) and the content of the work’s actual narrative.
Discuss.
For extra credit, was Dorothy out of her mind to leave the colour and glory of Oz / adulthood, sexuality and to return to dusty, chicken-plagued, black-and-white Kansas? New York versus Beech Creek, and on, and on, and on…
Wow Alex K, I am in awe! One thing – Odyssey and Ulysses, yes. But Wind in the Willows? Although I have always wondered slightly about Ratty and Mole …
PS In my post above (#4) that wasn’t an actual request to sketch out character backgrounds for the Pride crowd! I was trying to say that with the way AB draws each person, it’s easy for the viewer to imagine their backgrounds.
@Ian: Sit me down and give me a cup of coffee and too much time — you’ll be sorry.
Let me channel Sydney for a moment or two longer.
The Odysseus role is divided in WIND IN THE WILLOWS between Ratty – Mole and Toad, I believe, as Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of a single character type, in that adventures happen to Ratty – Mole whilst Toad seeks them out. And, of course, all three are plucked from Edwardian comedy and as such are the antitheses of a classical Greek sea-captain and warrior, deepening the parody. Each, however, caps his individual narrative with a successful cleansing of the deserted home — Toad / Odysseus expels weasels / Penelope’s suitors and Ratty – Mole / Odysseus expels actual / symbolic dirt in his good potter about, dustcloth in hand.
Bechdel explicitly maps Beech Creek onto the landscape of WIND IN THE WILLOWS. I think that in interpreting FUN HOME this parallel must be given considerable weight. Interesting that Bechdel herself, the anti-Odysseus, fails at expurgation, at purification. She returns to battle with the chief monster of her childhood, the father-demon, but he eludes and denies her, escaping forever under the wheels of the “canary-coloured caravan”.
By the way: Sorry for the extra comma in the previous comment. Should have been “Oz / adulthood / sexuality”.
Lauren #8:
To change directions somewhat, if you’re looking for other books for comparison, perhaps another option would be to discuss Fun Home in terms of other significant modern memoirs.
For example, the author of the original review of FH that appeared in the New York Times Book titled his review “The Things they Buried”, which was clearly an allusion to Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam memoir The Things they Carried.
At the time, I found this association of these two books quite striking. Clearly the subject matter differs significantly; but, at the core, the authors share a way of drawing you into the story that is quite powerful.
These are both books that I love, and I’ve always thought that a serious comparison of these two books could prove very interesting.
“She uses Adobe Indesign in ways it was never intended.”
That’s some serious kink, there. And dang, Alex!
Ginjoint #14
“She uses Adobe Indesign in ways it was never intended.”
It’s always interesting to let creative people loose on a system and then stand back and watch what happens.
We were lucky in that the school that my daughters went to had a program in which virtually all students had –or had access to– pretty decent laptop computers. This included all the standard Windows Office applications.
Applications like Word, of course, predictably caused a revolution in how papers were written –and not to mention spell-checked.
But the most interesting was their use of the dreaded PowerPoint.
Since these kids hadn’t grown up knowing that they were supposed to do with PowerPoint they simply jumped in and took off. Some of the stuff they came up with was pretty amazing. E.g. they found ways to make some pretty sophisticated animation; using the slide features (plus a projector) to create –for example– backdrops for stage productions, etc. Not to mention some really spiffy class presentations.
Having sat through our share of tedious, mind-numbing talks where the speaker was simply reading the bullet-points, this all came as a real revelation to most of the adults in the audience.
I loved the taste of the new book! I can’t wait till it comes out. And Alex. Wow. I can’t even follow half of what you said (mostly, I hope, because I haven’t read any of the other works.) Impressive. I s’pose it would unethical for Lauren to just hire you, huh?
@AlexK (#9) — wow — Thank you. Actually I am afraid I am not ‘smart’ enough to do that topic justice. I did, of course, realize Alison herself directly references the Odyssey and also Ulysses. Those seem a bit weighty for me to take on, mostly because I haven’t read either one. (Yikes. I know. I was a lit major in college, too. Twenty-some years ago.)
Comparing it to another memoir (NLC’s idea, #13 above) — that has promise, and I’d considered it myself, but I can’t think of another memoir that’s parallel in any way. (Which just proves how unique and incredible Fun Home is!)
Thanks guys. Anyone else out there with some sort of ‘essay topic’ idea for me?
A page from the new book? I can’t wait!
Lauren,
Just pick an event in the book and discuss how it reflects/is reflected by any of the several works of literature referenced. In addition to the ones Alex detailed (Nice work, Alex!) there was The Importance of Being Earnest and various volumes of Proust. Many other works are mentioned in passing, but stick to the more prominent ones- where Alison did much of the work for you.
Erm, it’s just riffing.
Totally non-grounded, not disprove-able. It just has to sound plausible, and you have five thousand words and it’s on to the next course / paper.
I think that this candyfloss aspect of lit crit pushed me into natural sciences. At least with genes you (sort of) know where you are.
@Lauren (#17)
Following NLC’s suggestion to compare to another memoir… how about comparing the family dynamics of Fun Home to Art Spiegelman’s Maus? Another graphic novel, another dysfunctional family story, with parallels of the two-ton elephant in the room family secrets, suicide, etc. and very introspective narrators/artists. You could make comparisons/contrasts on visuals as well as dialogue.
Excited for Book 2. Yee-haw. [Anyone else notice that the leather daddy got toned down? I know Alison loves those guys (or maybe it’s the faeries she loves… or just all us queers). But I guess it can make sense to tone it down a little for the book (– unlike last time, she can be sure as heck that this book will be read by tens of thousands of people!)]
Lauren –
For something completely different and quite fun, compare the various axes (as in axis not ax) of Fun Home and the Amelia Rules series by Jimmy Gownley.
Just proving that there are wingnuts on the other side of the pond…
Bloomberg is reporting that the head of the British white supremacist party (BNP) called Obama a bigot.
Apparently there’s quite an uproar over having this guy interviewed on the BBC, because the BBC is funded with public money. BBC’s defense is that the BNP holds two seats in the European Parliament, and the BBC has a duty to scrutinize public officials.
My take… if you don’t want wackos on your publicly-funded airwaves, you definitely don’t want them in your elected bodies of government. Vote the bums out.
Quoting from the article:
—
The BBC, which is funded by a license fee from U.K. households, says under its charter it is obliged to “scrutinize” and “hold to account” all elected officials. It’s the first time a member of the BNP, which gained two seats in the European Parliament in June, has appeared on the Question Time program.
In an interview with the Times newspaper published today, Griffin attacked the U.S. president as an “Afrocentric racist bigot” and called for American blacks to be resettled in Africa “because the two peoples living side by side would cause problems forever.”
—
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayg1myW8NDHo
I feel I should comment on the BNP but I think I’ll leave it to people who’ve been on Anti-Nazi demonstrations.
But yes, we have our own bono fido fascist party who think Hitler and Mussolini had the right idea. I really don’t know what the fuss is about him appearing on the BBC. The programme he’ll be appearing on in about 10 minutes time is Question Time which is a weekly show where politicians and pundits get asked usually topical questions from the audience.
There are already enough small f fascists appearing on there like the right-wing Hitchens bro, Daily Mail columnists, etc who might condemn Griffin publically but I have long suspected would quite agree with “sending them all home”.
Halfway through the Question Tiome programme. It’s all directed around the Griffin man. Normally QT would have a dozen different topical questions. This is all about the BNP. Now if they had stuck to questions on the minutiae of day-to-day politics – should we pay for rubbish removal by weight, what about traffic in London, should we bring back the dog licence, should kids start school later, how to save Royal Mail from going bust…. he’d have nowt to say.
Bonnie Greer, sitting on his left, is looking sicker and sicker.
This man appeared in a video with KKK and David Duke, and says he did it to wean away KKK supporters. He’s not even clever.
@Pam I: I was afraid it would centre around purely the issue of race, thereby providing Griffin with a platform to spout his brand of bigotry. Like you say, if it had been an ordinary QT then questions on domestic and foreign policy would have shown up the intellectual bankruptcy of the party.
Sad news… comedian Soupy Sales died last night in hospice in the Bronx. He was 83.
Watching this year’s baseball post-game interviews, I noticed a new trend that harkens directly back to Soupy. There’s often a shaving cream pie shoved in the face of the heroic player as he is being interviewed on field. I doubt any of them know about Soupy’s pie throwing and the connection to their face o’ cream.
No doubt Soupy brought pies with him to Heaven. I hope St. Peter takes his pie in the face in good humor.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125626969710303305.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories
And now for some good news… The US Senate has passed a measure that expands the definition of Federal hate crimes to include those based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
The measure, called “The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” was attached to the Pentagon budget bill. Obama is expected to sign the bill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204689.html
Quoting from the article:
—
The measure would extend the current definition of federal hate crimes — which covers attacks motivated by race, color, religion or national origin — to include those based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It also would make it a federal crime to attack U.S. military personnel because of their service.
The measure was approved, 68 to 29, with a majority of Republicans voting against it. The House passed the same bill Oct. 8, also with most Republicans opposed.
[… snip …]
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is named for Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998, and Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas in 1998. Shepard’s family founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which helped lobby for the measure. Offered repeatedly by the late senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill had stalled previously in the Senate, and President George W. Bush vowed to veto it if it reached his desk.
But Obama said he plans to sign the measure, a key moment for a president who has been subject to criticism from some gay and lesbian activists who say he has not pushed hard enough for their agenda. Obama has vowed to do so, and said he will repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
—
And in “Here’s why the Republicans are bad for business as well as people” news, comes word that loose cannon (they’d like you to call him “maverick”) GOP Senator John McCain has introduced a bill preventing the Federal Communications Commission from enacting net neutrality rules.
Net neutrality, for those unaware, ensures that the corporate entities which control the datacomm pipelines can’t block, restrict, or control network traffic to the advantage or detriment of one party over another. For example, if your local ISP has a deal with Vonage for VoIP telephony, they can’t block, restrict, or slow down traffic for a competing service, such as Skype. If your local cable company is your ISP, they won’t be able to mess with streaming video from Hulu, Youtube, or other video content sites.
McCain’s bill is fancifully titled “The Internet Freedom Act.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But I suppose naming it “The Internet Lockdown and Restriction Act” might not have good spin potential.
(… goes back to reading headlines while on the daily 7AM conference call …)
And now for the stupid police story of the day… A man making coffee in his own kitchen at 5:30AM while in the buff was arrested for indecent exposure.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/101909_man_caught_making_coffee_naked_faces_charges
I sure as hell don’t dress up to make coffee at 4AM when I get up. Somewhere in between guzzling OJ, vitamins, and coffee, I shower and dress. Arrest me.
Of course, the Fairfax County VA PD won’t be dropping the charges because the poor shmo whom they arrested isn’t rich, powerful, or connected.
Note to Mentor… the last post which should have been #31 had one URL, how did it end up in blog purgatory? Perhaps because the link was to a Fox News affiliate? That’s on your blacklist? 😉
[hoh#32: The message has been approved. As a side note: So far as I can determine the “blacklist” is maintained by WordPress. That is, it’s not “local”.]
For the word and language lovers among us, comes the NY Times column formerly penned by the late William Safire, “On Language.” This week’s guest author was Ben Zimmer of visualthesaurus.com. The topic was nothing that arch-conservative Safire would likely have written about: the origins of the word “Ms.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html
He notes that the NY Times didn’t add Ms. to its list of honorifics in their style manual until 1986. Notable for me in the article was the lack of exploration of that decision, perhaps a quote or two from those on the Times’ usage panel explaining what was behind their slow adoption of the term. The silence speaks volumes.
NLC, 13, if you’re still reading this, could you expand on the comparison of _Things They Carried_ and _Fun Home_? I too like both books quite a lot but would not have compared them.
Could a more artistically sophisticated person tell me what “lightboxing” is? Ok, looking at something on a lightbox, I’m not quite as stupid as I sound (usually), but looking at what on a lightbox? The CCS blogger uses it as if it is different from “photo reference”.
Alison’s use of depth in the new drawing is striking. The figures near the bottom of the frame overlap the figures higher up, but they aren’t much if any larger — the figures don’t get smaller with distance. It gives the drawing a dreamlike effect, at least for me. The previous sketch was also graphically interesting, with its strong perspective and point of view. I am looking forward to seeing the new book — not just reading it.
Another potentially interesting comparison, also involving the USA/Vietnam war, would be between Fun Home and Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country. (The original book, not the Bruce Willis movie!)