I've been wanting to make a post for a while now about taste and coolness and how this relates to art and comics. This is a quick, full-of-holes, half-assed version of that:
I made these "bad taste" eighties mixes to play in the mornings at work when it's busy - it really helps to hear dumb songs everyone's familiar with at stressful moments - the customers laugh and my co-workers think I'm an idiot, but it's successful in context.
There was a recent post on comicscomics where Ryan Holmberg talks about a new book by Yokoyama Yuichi that made me think about him (YY) again in the context of a couple books I've been reading about democracy and elitism. I remembered that I was initially really excited when I saw Yokoyama's work and heard about his ideas but that the comics themselves bored me. I made these comments re Holmberg's post:
"Do you think there’s much more to Yokoyama than beautifully stylized food, characters, buildings, etc? There’s a dry formalism going on that makes for “perfect” stories, but is there any depth beyond the ruthless purity? I think the comics look beautiful, but I’m not sure there’s much more to it than that. Or if there is, “reading” the narrative doesn’t contribute to our understanding of it.
There a human quality, though, to him discussing his crackpot theories in interviews that’s always really exciting to me."
"Panter’s Jimbo doll or Clowes’s Enid, while beautifully packaged objects, are not interesting to me in the same way their comics are. And maybe in Japan, it’s that kind of thing in overdrive. My point was that, with the specific example of Yokoyama, the information the comics are giving you is very similar to what the toys give you, i.e, a fetishization of objecthood and visual stylization. The superflat surface is what matters. I would contrast that with Clowes or Panter, obviously, whose comics explore depth. Neither is an inherently better mode, but Yokoyama is exciting because he has a novel approach that differs greatly from the nineties alt-comix content worship.
Is it a purer impulse that causes someone to make comics and not toys?"
Yokoyama reminds me of Clement Greenberg-era modernism where making the ultimate expression of one's medium, bereft of individual idiosyncrasy is the creative person's ultimate goal. I'm attracted more to the act of creation, how weirdness gets in there and modifies forms evolutionarily. And while those fascistic realizations of pristine form turn me on conceptually, I get nothing from them experientially.
But this isn't necessarily because I prefer more humble, low-brow culture either. While I love reading what the Ninja of Nuntronix writes, I can't muster the energy to delve into newer superhero comics. They're not any lamer than Whitesnake, but somehow I can inhabit the rhythms and melodies of stupid music more easily than the cinegesic panoramae of stupid comics. And I'm not young enough to be swayed by Brynocki's cultural capital alone.
I still keep meaning to read Jimbo in Purgatory, and my booshie, middle-class brain likes looking at it but can't get through it. Been reading The Dark Knight Returns, though, and I can't get enough.
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46 comments:
I know what Yokoyama SAYS, but it's impossible to look at his work and think "Wow, those comics have been purged of individual idiosyncracy," don't you think?
Totally, but you can get that from just looking at any old page of his. Reading them doesn't do anything more.
i think yokoyama's comics are much more fun to read than his ideas are to ponder.
i can never tell how much bullshit he is pushing when he talks about anti-humanism or something, 'specially when he's referring to inviting, intimate books and small-scale ink drawings.
i like when ryan talks about Y.Y. 'making a buck' off his merchandising potentials in japan. ryan seems to disapprove, but it seems like a rad example to follow for an underground cartoonist. i was always psyched to see the newest cereal or toy that coincided with my favorite cartoon.
Brynocki's 'cultural capital' activates those same responses, but at a lower economic level i gather. there is a chippendale 'franchise' of fine art, comics, music, but it feels personal and warm. clearly he is evading a lot of the bullshit that roams the world that raised him by localizing it around himself and whatever community of friends he collaborates with (versus whatever corporation is funding, coldly).
totally different artists, different worlds. same publisher! har har har. oh my goodness. of course we read your blog, frank.
Oh, yeah, B.C. is an amazing art-franchise, but I'm into all the shit he does so it works.
I think Yokoyama's theories are full of shit, but I really like it when people get too ambitious or allow their wacky ideologies to structure their art-making. The results vary from off-putting to genius, but the process is fascinating.
Not to detract, but man, what the eff is going on with those SHORTS???
THose boxer shorts have dick and ball moldings!
What the fuck is going on with your shorts, Jason?
Yokoyama.
high/low in my pants
bro.....
is that philip glass in the background
minimalism/animism
discussion starting.....NOW
sigh
Jimbo in Purgatory is a hard tome to crack for sure, but somehow I think it's readable, even without total research. Like Ulysses.
Funny to have a discussion about "coolness" in a niche within a niche of nerd culture. Not that it isn't fun, but also totally funny.
99.9% of the physical universe is more like a Yokoyama comic than the other comics you mentioned. I don't think people know how to cope with this reality. Saturn exists, right now. That's a haunting concept.
Reality has a lot more to do with the trees that fall in the woods unheard.
Did you ever fall asleep on the train at 4:00am in February and then have to wait for an hour in 20 degree weather for the next train all alone in the cold, silent, dark station? Yokoyama.
"is that philip glass in the background"
hell no - Billy Joel
I will read Jimbo someday. I'm sure it's worth it. And similar to Finnegan's Wake, it is beautiful in pieces.
I'm not anti-cool. It's just useful to recognize that fashion plays a large role in taste and that it's kinda arbitrary.
"99.9% of the physical universe is more like a Yokoyama comic than the other comics you mentioned."
I get what you mean, but I, personally, don't read comics to get a facsimile of the banality of the world. And, also, there's lots of stuff that's missing - the world does exist, but it also is perceived - it has no value until this happens, and each conception that develops is a miasma of thoughts, feelings, smells, sounds, sights, memories, etc. It's not related to our experience as humans until this happens.
Jason, i think that's what Yokoyama does so well though. He gives us a glimpse, and even a doorway into the "lives" of his characters but when we step through that doorway we behold the profound emptiness that is the true nature of existence.
I'd call it alienism more than anti-humanism. It's great fantasy. He takes us on a voyage through a world that really is alien at it's core. I always think about Moebius when I think about Yokoyama for some reason. I think both of them completely re-defined fantasy in comics.
Yokoyama is meant to be read by spiders.
There is a "scientific," materialist perspective that sees only form in the world. Within this perspective, it's easy to see emptiness, but I want to see/make the content. My og point was that the void bores me, and it's only one aspect of the world. I want to fill the void, have faith in some bullshit, not look at it.
I'm not a spider or an ai.
I don't need a Cartesian repackaging of info.rmation I am within the information. I am the information.
Well, who says you have to cut off the chain of identification at "human"? There is life in Yokoyama's work, even if it might resemble insect life more than human life. Beyond that there are physical commonalities connecting us to the nature of "the unwelcoming void" further down the chain as well.
Have you thought about your status as a hydrocarbon lately?
I think I'm just arguing to argue, maybe. The concept of YY's comics is great, but, although the drawings floor me, I feel like it's poorly executed as a comic. Ballard, on the other hand has worked with similar themes, and I find his books riveting. With Yokoyama, it's like watching Rambo or Die Hard without the silly plots or any character identification - hard to sustain interest for very long.
Feels like these books won't fare well over time - they'll seem dated really quickly.
...but it looks really cool now.
that was a good one. Talking to Yokoyama it seems that he just really wants to make "non-Japanese" comics - as impossible as that is for someone so Japanese it's comical. We talked about baseball and fishing. How Japanese is that? haha
The scene in TRAVEL with the shaft of lights coming through the windows made me cry.
Edit: The scene in TRAVEL with the shafts of lights coming through the windows made me cry.
Edit: The scene in TRAVEL with the shafts of light coming through the windows made me cry.
Edit: The scene of travelling of the beam of light which comes passing by the window shouted in me.
Of the very few comic books I pick up each year, Yokoyama is one artist I keep an eye out for. Not because I connect with his narratives, but more he elicits wonder in how a guy could keep that kind of thing up for so many pages. I like to imagine him as a serial killer. In a way I'd rather read someone with a completely alien perspective than me, than someone who comes sort of close to my feelings and ideas. Because then I just end up nitpicking the author. Travel got a little boring for me, but still felt vital in it's own way. I don't think his work is dated at all.
"Talking to Yokoyama it seems that he just really wants to make "non-Japanese" comics"
He seems so crazy-Japanese! I have a lot of difficulty figuring out what's even going on half the time. He needs a John P disclaimer.
Jesse Moynihan - He's totally interesting, otherwise I'd be writing about some truly banal thing. I'm just trying to figure it out is all, why it is so compelling yet so intentionally boring at the same time.
And it's not dated now, by any means. It feels super fresh and of-the-moment. But how about twenty years from now? Is it just interesting because it's new and not lame?
what about before pbox picked him up and he was only in the 'blood orange' issue? and on that french publisher's roster...it was the same work, just in a different promotional context. it didn't feel that different.
from another angle, american publication of Y.Y. feels 'archival' in a way. like how frank king's america is distant from ours, but reflects contemporary ideas, and the collections further our study of that historical connection/dissonance.
Yokoyama feels culturally distant, but resonates with other artists like Brinkman, Ware, CF. Formally, the new baby boom stuff reminds me of Trondheim even. he links up with current trends, but still feels outside of them.
'cool factor'...i dont see kids dressing up quite like yokoyama characters yet....but that would be neat. maybe japanese street fashion is the closest we can compare. i'd like to see kids shave bald patches like his dudes do.
and what about 'ecstatic boredom'?
TRACKSUITS ARE SUPER POPULAR THESE DAYS
Fuck taste. "Appetite for Destruction" is the best rock album of the last 25 years, and Wes Anderson is more racist than Mel Gibson.
@Jeffrey Meyer: no offense, but I STRONGLY disagree.
ftw
Budgie - it would be cool to see how a passage from Travel, for instance, works in a newer anthology (are there any ongoing ones other than Mome?). How does that work relate to "now" from an American comix perspective? I see the Trondheim connection, but Baby Boom lacks the density T's words give his stuff.
Re cool: among alt-comix bros, YY is "cool," hip, whatever. It's in good taste, you have to have a good amount of cultural knowledge to "get it" or even come across it. My grandma or dad wouldn't understand it, etc.
Jeff - yeah, but that album has become "legit." What about Warrant? Isn't that bad taste? Or some new coutry singer? What makes G n R better?
@Sam Gas Can: Offense strongly taken, get out of here
@Jason: I was just kidding I only really listen to The Beach Brothers, The Carpenters and ABBA, get out of here
@Yokoyama: I'd love to see him make a porn comic, get out of here
That would be awesome
It seems like some are forcing a narrative upon the comics of YY that isn't really there, or maybe I just don't see it.
I like his drawing, and the way his comics pages move, but he's mostly involved with concepts. He decidedly refuses to offer an entry point for humanistic concerns. That's sort of the point, right? As such, I like his work, but it isn't something that can edify, or offer particular insight, imo.
With that in mind, I can't imagine that I'll keep reaching for his work.
And Jason is right; it will age poorly; it's just too fashionable not to.
If Y.Y. is fashionable / temporary, I'd be interested to hear what cultural tide he's biting from. I don't recognize one. The only thing I can link his themes to is old-as-dirt Japanese alienation sentiments. Although his style is immediately recognizable as Japanese, I can't place him with other Japanese comic artists. Perhaps because I don't know my manga. But I'd be curious to hear what other artists people here link him with in the flow of comic/art world fads.
And my comment was removed... why?
I said:
I'm a bit perplexed by the "age poorly" and "lack of humanity" arguments made against YY -- if the latter is true, it seems it would invalidate the former.
At the very least his work will last longer than all the "new phantasy" (or whatever their ilk is called) douches like CF or Fort Thunder whose work is, to me, far more cynical and of its time (basically 20-somethings indulgendtly regurgitating their pop-trash childhoods of TV cartoons). YY's work on the other hand displays a genuine observational curiosity about how the world works. It may not be profound, but it's unique and thoughful, and in a way that transcends language or time (even moreso than the above-mentioned Ballard, whose work I adore and agree is a fitting comparison, but I'd question how meaningful it would be to a non-technoloigal-non-western reader).
At the same time, I'd argue against the idea that YY's work is inhuman to begin with. Everything humans do is human: eating, fucking, birthing, drawing comics, building shelters, recording data, philosophizing, blogging (yes, even blogging), killing, suicide, etc. No art/artifact exists that isn't human.
Except maybe Ed Gauthier's TCJ posts, get out of here.
U - exactly
Jesse Moynihan - By fashionable, I mean fashion-forward - that it's concerned more with style and how it presents itself than content or depth. That type of thing (IMO) generally doesn't fare well over time. It reminds me of Patrick Nagel - very cool surface but it looks so dated now. I could very well be wrong.
Jeffrey -
"Ballard, whose work I adore and agree is a fitting comparison, but I'd question how meaningful it would be to a non-technoloigal-non-western reader"
whoa, I am stuck in my Portland bubble - you're totally right!
But, while, everything humans do is human, our perspective of it is tied to being within a human body, feeling and thinking and hearing and seeing and smelling and tasting, etc. A "neutral" observer does not exist.
I guess you guys who think YY is low on content haven't read much Zen. I think there are plenty of undercurrents in his work that resonate in that tradition.
I think YY's work is really interesting. All I meant was that, a) He doesn't offer what I'd call edifying narratives, like those that pretty much every modern work of fiction attempts ( or attempts to subvert); pathos, etc. Basically, stories about being human told from a human perspective. That doesn't just mean made by the biologically human, but expressed with certain values in mind; the idea of the individual psyche/soul, the value of life as an experience, etc. An autistic person, though biologically human, would have a hard time telling a humane story.
b) I think his work looks really cool. I think that things that look really cool now are bound to fade a little bit; tastes change, and no one likes to be reminded of the things they used to like that no longer match current tastes.
c) None of this means his work isn't serious, good stuff.It just doesn't provide the things that I keep reaching to the bookshelf for, year after year. It will remain an oddity on the shelf, like it's meant to be.
Uland, don't you find that the lack of evident humanity in YY's work actually draws humanity itself, as an idea, front and center? By making what's human alien he turns both concepts on their head and presents a unique perspective.
I don't see YY's work losing much over time. Maybe some of the surface, but the mechanics of his work, the "pure comics" are on such a high level. It's the kind of stuff that only comes around once a generation. I see future critics worshiping Travel.
Ian- That's sort of what I meant by us projecting human qualities onto YY's work that aren't really there. It seems like it's something we've just conditioned our brains to do. We can't help it.
But it's a projection. His M.O is to strip that from his work. I believe him when he says that.
"...haven't read much Zen."
read lots. YY is too stylized for Zen. Zen is much less mechanical, less formulaic, much more surprising. The world is the world, but that's what it is, not a structure that is an abstraction of it.
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