That is such a simple cover but I think it's sort of perfect. Really pretty if you ask me (and that's not just cause Char himself is easy on the eyes). It does the material (some pretty important writing) justice, but there's no bells and whistles. A solid introduction, the poems printed clearly.
What New Directions does well, I think, is show their care for the material with economy. The recent Yoshihiro Tatsumi reprint books are a good contrast. I admire everything about those Tatsumi books...it is good design by any measure and while I have quibbles with Tatsumi's comics here and there, I'm always interested to read something by him.
But "something about those Tatsumi books design ask me to like them more than I ever could," to quote Jesse McManus. It's a specific thing...like the books, like the design, but it still feels like overkill.
In comics I sometimes feel this thing where the production of a book seems to be saying "dont you realize how wonderful this thing is???" Whereas in the world of literature you can have a cover like this
A lot of times, good book design lets the work speak for itself.
Y'know those ultra fancy editions of Dickens or Bronte or James?
I've always felt those are pretty cheesy. In a lot of ways I feel like we're in that phase right now for how 'important' comic book collections look. Not as bad, and I think much better intentioned...but still. A little too worried with convincing the audience of the materials worth. And yes, of course Tatsumi is a tougher sell then Bronte to Joe Schmoe. But so is Rene Char or most others on NDP's roster.
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in traditional book design the binary of exterior/interior breaks down into cover/interior
comics, moreso than text-centric books, constantly bridge the gap between exterior and interior
"While prose tends toward pure ‘interiority,’ coming to life in the reader’s mind, and cinema gravitates toward the ‘exteriority’ of experiential spectacle, perhaps ‘comics,’ in its embrace of both the interiority of the written word and the physicality of image, more closely replicates the true nature of human consciousness and the struggle between private self-definition and corporeal ‘reality.’”dan clowes
if the interior of a comic book is simultaneously exterior and interior, what function does its cover serve?
in the 840 page comic 'a drifting life' by yoshihiro tatsumi, the covers become a thin paint job applied to a massive structure that derives its stability from its interior
facsimiles, such as 'maggots' by brian chippendale and 'moresukine' by dirk schwieger, present the cover as an portable shelter for nomadic contents
'powr mastrs' by cf and 'scott pilgrim' by bryan lee o'malley use a basic template which allows a 'housing complex' structure to emerge
the binary of exterior/interior breaks down into other binaries, including physical/emotional, concrete/abstract, medium/massage, and poetry/prose
Your example of the Char book raises an interesting question for me. Has a comic collection ever been released with a photographic portrait of it's artist on the cover? You see it done all the time with poetry and philosophy. I think Tatsumi would be a prime candidate considering the singularity of his work. Aren't Tatsumi's books in the end about Tatsumi more than anything else? I'm wondering what kind of reaction this would get out of people.
The photo covers would be a very French book design, they tend toward much simpler and uniform designs. I've not seen any French comics do that though.
I think there is a tendency to want to showcase the comic's art on the cover to attract the browser.
I tend to like the really basic no-frills design of (literary) publishers like Editions Minuit: http://www.leseditionsdeminuit.com/f/index.php
Bande dessinee publisher L'Association also does great simple and uniform designs.
I remember reading a blog post a while back about the Tatsumi covers that argued that the covers (while pleasing to the eye) were too narrowly cast and suggested an aesthetic that the work itself didn't actually offer. In other words they were nice, but completely out of context.
It seems to me that Tatsumi's work is about as low maintenance as it gets in terms of not being weighed down by the "comics are not just for kids" narrative. I would feel comfortable handing a Tatsumi book over to any serious reader without providing too much contextual premise. They stand on their own feet quite well.
It seems to me that more people should be reading those books than the target market the covers set out to reach. I would imagine the same could be said for other comics.
I've be thinking about this a lot - comics that use the quieter design of certain book presses. I've been looking at ND covers, as well as many of the covers from Dalkey Archive and the now iconic New York Review of Books editions.
yeah...well photo covers of the author in comics would be odd, i think. since cartoonists make visual art i think they should put their art on the cover...ts more the low key naure of tht char cover that i find striking.
yeah dalkey archive has a lot of great covers too. nyrb covers are all pretty but all so similar. when i worked a a bokstore i remember all their titles blurring together due to the samenes of design.
i should also say that i think NBM is a great comics publisher. one of my favorites. they do some horrible books...but it obscures how wonderful a lot of their line is. i know at times their design is 'ugly'...like, the dungeon books are ugly in one way....but also sort of perfect. id rather them do blain books then first second.
I love the NBM porn books. Those are nicely designed, ah,spreads and covers.
Austin: "yeah...well photo covers of the author in comics would be odd, i think. since cartoonists make visual art i think they should put their art on the cover..."
I'm not sure that is always 100% true. For example, with the Tatsumi collections there was never never any specific "cover art" created for those stories because they were originally anthologized. The art used in the D&Q designs looks nice, but it used completely out of context.
They didn't have any art on hand where the message was "this is Tatsumi" because Tatsumi never made anything specifically like that. In that case I think a portrait would have been appropriate.
I think it would make sense with some of Eisner's work as well.
i think that had i found those tatsumi books as a little kid (excluding 'drifting life') i would've loved their austere production values, and probably the dirty bits too! i think the moomin and john stanley books would've made me cream, scream and dream.
but yeah, there's a lot of book fetishism in comics, and it might be a good thing economically, in times of ipads and whatnot. that's why clowes made wilson's paper so thick, right? 'bookness'. but as i age slightly, i want heavy production less. even if it supposedly buffers the aesthetic stronghold of the work, i always fuck up really nice books.
maybe i just need to clean up my act, and my room.
but i haven't bought a graphic novel in a long time, but i bought all of the walser books put out by NYRB and NDP. they're beautiful things, and stuck out like bolts of lightning when i was shelving hundreds of paperbacks this year. i've bent their spines and dented their corners, but those books haunt me and vibrate like magnets.
if publishers went more often with simpler production, could we have more books coming? melville house, and their deluge of obscure novellas, seem to be using an interesting model.
Shit, Autin - I realized while we were talking about this (and I was going on about the importance of being able to put the book in my back pocket) that we may have been talking about different editions of the Céline book. The one I have and was excited about is actually one that Signet put out a few years earlier than the New Directions version. There's something crummy and lame about the Signet copy that really hits me right.
On the other hand, I totally agree with you about New Directions in general (and the cover of the ND Journey to the End of the Night is one of my favorites of all time). There's no bullshit, no puffing up - those books are just about transmitting the content.
I think Blaise is right that comics design nowadays seems to be about collapsing the distinction between form and content, but when I see "A Drifting Life" I want to read the shit out of it (and did) in a way that I don't immediately want to with more aesthetically compact books like Ninja or fancier, more "important" looking books like the Tatsumi ones.
Love is Roach Killer...
Oh, yeah, and Blaise and I (Austin, didn't wanna bring up this touchy subject with you yesterday - ha ha) had talked about how it's funny that Wilson is Clowes's first book to be published initially as a hardcover considering it seems way more suited to the comic book format than Ghost World or Ice Haven. Even though the book looks beautiful, the design detracts from it, to me. I keep going to the bookstore and almost buying it, but the thick paper with the matte finish keep me away every time.
'wilson' reminded me of 'in the shadow of no towers'
novelty children's books
these are pretty in a way that comics will never be
Considering that it's the most successful format for comics on the planet, isn't it strange that nobody in alt comics is putting out thick trashy books on newsprint? When I looked at that King Terry "red book" I thought, "I want to see more comics like this." Artists seem to like the aesthetic of newsprint right now, why not for long format?
Every time I see one of those free apartment guides I wish it was a comic book.
Yeah...I felt that way about Wilson to. I lvoe Clowes so much though that I sort of feel like "well, if thats how he wanted to do it, who am I to complain?" But it would have made a great super thick comic.
Felt the same way about Lilli Carre's The Lagoon. Great book...would have been interesting as a two issue mini series instead of a graphic novel.
I heard the Kuti Kuti guy is doing a big phonebook style book with huge contributions (like 60 pages) from regular contributors.
I would love to be part of that KutiKuti book. That's like my dream format. I love those tabloids - found them in my studio the other day, and they mesmerized me.
seeing shonen jump issues from 15 years ago gives me the rush that the big kuti book might pull off. seems like japan has the 'phonebook' ideal nailed.
and the 'tankoban' format seems pretty near what we're discussing in prose preferences. functional paperbacks. stick em in yer pocket, throw em at your friend. trades!!
maybe the serialization makes it harder to enjoy each volume's object-hood? of course not. but dudes love talking about specific issues of comic books ('marvelous coma')....im surprised there's not more dudes praising mid-series manga issues.
i dont doubt theres a few blogs out there picking apart mid-series manga......
but its nice to think of clowes, walser and matsumoto in the same breath
jeez louise
Jesse, you're right about the NYRB editions - really compelling. And, Austin, I agree about the sameness of the NYRB covers, but there are a few that pop - like Walser's Jakob Van Gunten - and when they do, they're that much more exceptional. Also, the children's/YA editions they've added have some really compelling and patient covers. Like John Masefield's BOX OF DELIGHTS.
dude, jacob van gunten is the central thing! excellent.....
that book has changed my universe over the last year, as it should anyone who encounters it. the NYRB cover, an ink drawing by the brother of the author, is super striking and draws you into the whole universe of the book in the best, no-nonsense way.
my brain could explode talking about that book. my brain and soul both. they'd leak out my skin, onto my copy of jakob van gunten itself. and we can't have that. no. no. must keep things quite clean. i've decided to keep everything clean. how can i not? it's a pleasure to be quite clean for those above you, those with the better say in things.
I would love to read a big phone book of comics! The kuti thing...an anthology like that sounds dreamy. I guess we're in an odd time where comics need to be placed in bookstores in order to reach a much, much larger audience. Wilson, of course, had to be in book-form so that it could sell in bookstores. Publishers are packaging comics to subconsciously tell readers "this is important!" which can be a little irritating...certainly I don't enjoy every design-decision, I can tell when a book feels an inch too big... though sometimes I'm convinced.
I like the way Vertical packages Tezuka's work a lot.
My favorite extravaganza comic, so far, is the Doug Wright book---feel like a little kid opening a Christmas present.
Austin, you're so pretentious.
more pretentiousness, please!
Yo, phonebook. Let's do it. Text stock for the cover though. It should flop like a piece of french toast. Bible paper if possible.
keep it newsprint
keep it microscript
keep it clean keep it Swisss
keep it japanesss sweep it floor
sleep on it buckwheat pillow
http://www.inderondetoren.nl/detail/19/19395.jpg
Regarding the use of an author photo on the cover of a comic book, two things come to mind:
- It's interesting to see graphic novels whose "about the author" page feature an actual photo instead of a drawing, and it's interesting to consider why, in each case, some cartoonists draw a self-portrait and others use a photo.
- It's particularly interesting when the content of the comic is autobiographical, and in that case having a photo cover would be even more arresting or challenging as you enter the comic's drawn world and the artist's representations of themselves. Imagine all the Joe Matt collections with his photo on the covers, for example.
Also, for decades (if not most of an entire century) cartoonists were "hidden" in more ways than one, and there is some benefit to that. How many prose writers of R. Crumb's stature are as genuinely nerdly as he was? Let's face it: handsome men or beautiful women on the back cover of a novel sell more books... and I bet even among comics the same would be true, if cover photos were the norm. It's something that could be troubling considering all the young female cartoonist (and a few male ones) who just happen to be HOT AS HELL but can't draw or write for shit, HAHAHA.
Just a thought.
MICROSCRIPTS.
LIVE IT, BELIEVE IT.........
IF THE FUCKING PELICAN IS STILL PERCHED
OR IF ANYONE DIGS "SWISS ASSHOLES"
CHECK THIS BUOYANT BOY OUT:
http://www.amazon.com/Microscripts-Robert-Walser/dp/0811218805
HOW WILL THIS INFLUENCE OUR WORLD:
if walser is given the deluxe treatment,
should we be ashamed?
OR RATHER
should we just get library cards and healthy japanese footwear to carry us there.
.......?
That book looks amazing Jesse.
Thankfully, books are one of the last places on earth where a persons ideas outweigh everything else.
When Zak and I were working on the Mosquito book, our inspirations were City Lights/NDP and Black Sparrow Press... that combined with some L'Association, and you have what I'm looking for in a (King-Cat) book cover.
this comment section is sweet
"Artists seem to like the aesthetic of newsprint right now, why not for long format?"
because most of us draw thirty pages a year,
so it would always have to be an anthology,
and who can coordinate that?
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