The current lineup is as follows:
2/8/11 Caroline Bren
3/1/11 JCorp
3/22/11 Gil Gentile
4/12/11 Zara Messano
5/3/11 Hall Hassi
5/24/11 Jason Overby
Updates to this schedule will appear in this blog post and on my twitter.
RE-DESIGN SERIES
Comets Comets has commissioned several high profile bloggers to participate in a series of temporary re-designs of our default subdomain over the next few months. Each redesign will be live for 3 weeks.
The current lineup is as follows:
2/8/11 Caroline Bren
3/1/11 JCorp
3/22/11 Gil Gentile
4/12/11 Zara Messano
5/3/11 Hall Hassi
5/24/11 Jason Overby
Updates to this schedule will appear in this blog post and on my twitter.
The current lineup is as follows:
2/8/11 Caroline Bren
3/1/11 JCorp
3/22/11 Gil Gentile
4/12/11 Zara Messano
5/3/11 Hall Hassi
5/24/11 Jason Overby
Updates to this schedule will appear in this blog post and on my twitter.
INTERVIEW
The following interview occured in late October of last year and concerns what has since become "2001". At the time I was working nonlinearly and I had no intention of serializing the comic online. Currently I feel I am working in parallel to real time. I'm not sure how much / if any of the following still lines up with my conception of the project.
Hall Hassi: What project are you working on?
Blaise Larmee: A 'book length' comic.
HH: Describe your process.
BL: My process can be broken down into two basic categories: 'data
accumulation' - building, maintaining, and indexing libraries of files
- and 'pattern accumulation', in which meta structures emerge.
HH: What libraries have you created and what patterns have emerged?
BL: 2 libraries are sprites and rooms. Sprites are a single character,
photographed against a 'blue screen', performing a limited variety of
actions/poses. Rooms are constructed in a vector-based computer
program, using a cube template. Patterns are still in a liquid or
gaseous stage and cannot be discussed without compromising their
private growth.
HH: What libraries are in the future?
BL: Probably at least one 'text' library and possibly an 'object' library.
HH: What are 10 'tags' you would use to identifiy this project?
BL: 2001, bangs, concrete, internet, mall, model, modular,
perspective, suburbia, utopia
HH: Why 2001?
BL: 2001 is the future and the past. I'm using archaic technology to
construct my idea of a constructed utopia.
HH: Why bangs?
BL: Bangs are fun/easy to draw.
HH: Why concrete?
BL: I want to create an illusion of mechanical objectivity. For
example, I would depict a character's hallucinogenic experience as a
fixed camera would record it.
HH: Why internet?
BL: The space I'm creating is minimal and I think the actions in this
space will also be minimal. Binaries emerge: in/out, enter/exit,
open/shut. There is no in-between, for example, in moving between
rooms. No friction. Rooms form hallways and labyrinths. All is built
for lightweight processing so people like myself, using old
technology, will still be able to access content without difficulty.
HH: Why mall?
BL: Like the internet, the mall is a site of infinite interior. I'm
not a fan of malls. There's something inherently awful about the
acoustics. But I'm aware of the similarities between malls and the
space I'm creating.
HH: Why model?
BL: The model is intimate with the image, the pose, the translation of
3D to 2D. The actor and the model are aware of the camera but only the
model will engage with it. I would use 'actors' if I were drawing
scenes, but I'm not. I'm drawing individual characters, photographing
them with a digital camera, and 'dropping' them onto a digital
backdrop. Like most people I project onto the model, but I project
emptiness, which I associate with purity, and introversion, which I
identify with.
HH: Why modular?
BL: The space is modular. Each room is a cube represented as nested
squares. The vanishing point is in the center of the squares. The
'default' nature of the room overpowers any minor modifications which
differentiate rooms. They can be stacked and arranged in basic
configurations. Layers slide over each other. The interface is
durable, capable of processing and displaying a variety of content,
while remaining neutral itself.
HH: Why perspective?
BL: Perspective is translating 3D into 2D and objective into
subjective. It's the interface.
HH: Why suburbia?
BL: I'm kind of creating a safe space. People wear pastel colored
sweatshirts and turtle necks. Everyone's in their socks. Everything's
clean. Everyone's white. Also the suburbs are created from a single
plan by some single ethereal architect (like the single ethereal
authors of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew). And it's all constructed -
negative space is only positive space constructed to look like
negative space. It's all additive. It's reduntant too. It's
repetitive. It's like Peanuts by Charles Schultz.
HH: Why utopia?
BL: Utopia is either 'the beginning' - Adam and Eve - or the distant
future. Our memory of 50's suburbia is that of a fake utopia. Comics
are suited to fantasy, being internal and external at the same time.
My idea of utopia is connected to the architectural plan, capable of
revealing itself in fiction and ideas rather than concrete reality.
The idea of a perfect environment is really appealing to me. My mom's
an interior designer. I idealize spaces. Comics are a way of creating
spaces without using money or resources.
Hall Hassi: What project are you working on?
Blaise Larmee: A 'book length' comic.
HH: Describe your process.
BL: My process can be broken down into two basic categories: 'data
accumulation' - building, maintaining, and indexing libraries of files
- and 'pattern accumulation', in which meta structures emerge.
HH: What libraries have you created and what patterns have emerged?
BL: 2 libraries are sprites and rooms. Sprites are a single character,
photographed against a 'blue screen', performing a limited variety of
actions/poses. Rooms are constructed in a vector-based computer
program, using a cube template. Patterns are still in a liquid or
gaseous stage and cannot be discussed without compromising their
private growth.
HH: What libraries are in the future?
BL: Probably at least one 'text' library and possibly an 'object' library.
HH: What are 10 'tags' you would use to identifiy this project?
BL: 2001, bangs, concrete, internet, mall, model, modular,
perspective, suburbia, utopia
HH: Why 2001?
BL: 2001 is the future and the past. I'm using archaic technology to
construct my idea of a constructed utopia.
HH: Why bangs?
BL: Bangs are fun/easy to draw.
HH: Why concrete?
BL: I want to create an illusion of mechanical objectivity. For
example, I would depict a character's hallucinogenic experience as a
fixed camera would record it.
HH: Why internet?
BL: The space I'm creating is minimal and I think the actions in this
space will also be minimal. Binaries emerge: in/out, enter/exit,
open/shut. There is no in-between, for example, in moving between
rooms. No friction. Rooms form hallways and labyrinths. All is built
for lightweight processing so people like myself, using old
technology, will still be able to access content without difficulty.
HH: Why mall?
BL: Like the internet, the mall is a site of infinite interior. I'm
not a fan of malls. There's something inherently awful about the
acoustics. But I'm aware of the similarities between malls and the
space I'm creating.
HH: Why model?
BL: The model is intimate with the image, the pose, the translation of
3D to 2D. The actor and the model are aware of the camera but only the
model will engage with it. I would use 'actors' if I were drawing
scenes, but I'm not. I'm drawing individual characters, photographing
them with a digital camera, and 'dropping' them onto a digital
backdrop. Like most people I project onto the model, but I project
emptiness, which I associate with purity, and introversion, which I
identify with.
HH: Why modular?
BL: The space is modular. Each room is a cube represented as nested
squares. The vanishing point is in the center of the squares. The
'default' nature of the room overpowers any minor modifications which
differentiate rooms. They can be stacked and arranged in basic
configurations. Layers slide over each other. The interface is
durable, capable of processing and displaying a variety of content,
while remaining neutral itself.
HH: Why perspective?
BL: Perspective is translating 3D into 2D and objective into
subjective. It's the interface.
HH: Why suburbia?
BL: I'm kind of creating a safe space. People wear pastel colored
sweatshirts and turtle necks. Everyone's in their socks. Everything's
clean. Everyone's white. Also the suburbs are created from a single
plan by some single ethereal architect (like the single ethereal
authors of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew). And it's all constructed -
negative space is only positive space constructed to look like
negative space. It's all additive. It's reduntant too. It's
repetitive. It's like Peanuts by Charles Schultz.
HH: Why utopia?
BL: Utopia is either 'the beginning' - Adam and Eve - or the distant
future. Our memory of 50's suburbia is that of a fake utopia. Comics
are suited to fantasy, being internal and external at the same time.
My idea of utopia is connected to the architectural plan, capable of
revealing itself in fiction and ideas rather than concrete reality.
The idea of a perfect environment is really appealing to me. My mom's
an interior designer. I idealize spaces. Comics are a way of creating
spaces without using money or resources.
UNPACKABLE FφRMS
"It really starts in geometry. It starts in understanding that as a painter, as a artist of any kind, a jeweler, a drawer, a printmaker, y'know, you're dealing with these proportions, and it's about, like, trying to find the proportions and how you work those proportions and move ideas in space through that - those harmonies, and it's just, that's rejected because there's this cult of, like, the genius artist, and you're supposed to intuitively figure out, well, the funny thing is that your intuitive guessing on a lot of those things matches up with a very specific metronome or color coding, harmony, and scales that are just there period whether you want to deal with them or not."
-Frank Santoro
I started thinking about the idea that my vomit wasn't inherently interesting while listening to Matt Seneca's podcast interview of Santoro.
I naturally tend toward disjunction when I'm making comics. It arises from an inability for me to get my story straight, to have a narrative or imagery to impart that I don't discover as I'm producing it. There might be a less obvious organizational strategy that forms a pattern from the chaotic elements, an overarching intentionality, but that generally reveals itself during the making, and doesn't presumably exist prior to that.
Here are notes for a strip I might soon make:
Anniversary
1. Get espresso - "oh this is actually good"
2. What are we going to do about Rita?
3. What do you mean (she wants me to take R to Omsi or something like that)
4. Well, she's gonna be restless and we shod wear her out befire Sierra watches her
5. We could go to omsi... Good idea.
6. Sm Latte!
7. How was the espresso[hands giving iffy symbol]? Great
8. Shoukd it have been bad? Fuck - my palette is no good.
9. Here you go pea
10. Tastes latte (makes face)
11. My palette does suck - M's is much better - latte art looks like crap
12. Would you be bummed if I took her to omsi?
13. That would be awesome.
14. Cool
15. Poppy - wash Rita's hands?
16. Sure monk - come on
17. Crazy walking
18. Wash hands & r almost opens door while i'm peeing
19. Look at the moths, monk
20. Let's go see mama
21. If you wanna just go now its cool
22. Ok. I need more coffee so i'll swing by Belmont
23. R & I walking
24. I shoukd get a cup at the annex
25. Rad - Liam
26. Waiting for a coupke panels while he talks to dudes
27. Hows it goin?
28. Do you have any Leka Wato?
29. Maybe
30. Can I get a cup?
31. I've got the day off - its my anniv. I'm taking this wild lady to omsi to say happy annuv
32. Whisper - i love omsi
33. Yeah its rad, awesome for kids in the winter
34. Rita throwing bottle And laughing
35. Well i sgould get going - shes getting restless
36. Walking, listening to ten cent plague
37. Augh - this is too much! Too sweet and maple-y
38. Chugging (i need the energy for omsi)
39. Ok, bug, lets change your diaper, then go
40. Change diaper & lose poop
41. Im gonna eat something firsr. Want some turkey?
42. Ooops we're out - want some roast beef?
43. Making sandwich - more roast beef?
44. Get in car to drive to omsi
45. Get there - R and I run thru parking lot to get there
46. Go in & do sci stuff
47. Thwn upstaits
The idea is to draw an autobiographical strip something like "Michelle" in Solipsist's Doodles where I'm trying to avoid interfering with what happened as much as possible, presenting unsculpted narrative information as much as the comics form will allow.
My wife and I saw the new Sofia Coppola movie "Somewhere" on our anniversary the other day. It's very slow, short on plot, has minimal dialog. My assumption is that Coppola wanted to avoid controlling to a degree how the viewer generated meaning from what they saw, to dodge fixed semiotic connections developing from the imagery. Somewhat. The movie wound up being kinda dumb, thwarting its sophistication by tacking on a couple of obvious scenes near the end that were more prescriptive. Regardless, it reminded me how it is not possible for comics to be "objective." The creator must make decisions about everything he does.
I really love Jonathan Bennett's strips in The Believer. There's a simplicity of design that functions elegantly to present the story/gag. The lettering is beautiful. The forms don't read as schematic - they're organic and subtle like Schulz's.
The spot color strip format he has developed is perfectly suited to his style. When not constrained by its restrictions, his work feels less alive, flatter.
Why do I like these strips so much? There's a heavy bias in alt (art, indy, post-art, whatevs) comics toward formalist strategies, theories of aesthetic propriety (even if these are admittedly only personal). I find myself drawn to this type of cartooning. I love Santoro's mystic comicscomics posts on systems, his rants about the golden ratio and the visual organization of classical painting. There is, apparently, a strong physiological basis for being attracted to this stuff. Is that objectivity?
I ran into Jesse McManus on my way out of my studio, and we talked about the additive nature of comics. He suggested that his process (blue pencils, scanning and repositioning, etc, i.e, the way a lot of cartoonists work) is subtractive in that images are compiled and refined to their essences. But we as cartoonists will always be builders more than editors. A good example of this is Sammy Harkham's newest Crickets:
The above image is a composite of two pages from that issue. It shows the same living room at two different points in the story. Blaise brought it to my attention as an example of a lack of continuity. Which I love. We don't have to be consistent. And I like that comic for the opposite reason that I enjoy Bennett's: it refuses to be aesthetically fussy. I'm not sucked into the diegetic space of Bennett's Believer strips, but I am totally immersed in Sammy's.
Jesse and I also discussed the irony that we are each making work that is the opposite of what we like reading. I love longer narratives I can get lost in, and he digs formal experimentation. There's something enigmatic about the contrast.
I quit
Almost posted this in response to this post on The Panelists, but it didn't seem appropriate to set such self-involvement in that context:
"Blaise and I were talking today, and I mentioned this post, said that I hadn't yet read it, but it made me aware of his "Magic Forest" page again and reminded me of some of his earlier work like his very perfect zine Wigwam or other drawings similar in aesthetic. This work feels very unlike comics to me, and it makes me want to give up the medium altogether because comics are almost never this graceful."
"Magic Forest" reads as comics, I think, mainly because Blaise is known as a cartoonist. He told me today that he at one point decided that everything he did would be comics, thus freeing him from the question "what is comics?" I feel like I come at this from the completely opposite direction.
Everything I make is so informed by comics that I think I need to tell myself now that I should stop making comics in order to give myself license to explore non-narrative ways of expressing myself aesthetically.
I have a hard time feeling comfortable making art that isn't comics, but comics are a losing proposition. This blog is much more fun because people will read it and react directly, and I can react back, etc.
With comics, I feel like I put too much effort into something that doesn't communicate effectively. The immediate payoff that comes from blogging or more traditionally "artistic" pursuits like drawing/painting is so much different, so much purer an exploration of my impulses than cartooning.
I am so entrenched in this - how to define myself?
REALITY AS AN EFFECT
'An example of ['virtual'] would be the meaning, or sense, of a proposition, which is not a material aspect of that proposition (whether it be written or spoken) but is nonetheless an attribute of that proposition.'
propositions are a cheap way to enact or re-enact certain scenarios via metaphor. i still do not understand why the 'real' is preferred in culture today. why is the physical 'enactment' of a francis allys / felix gonzales torres / marina abromavic narrative better than the depiction of that narrative? is it just the aesthetics of reportage? why is it still more exciting to hear about something that 'actually happened' even if that event is completely abstract to you? is it just the 'authenticity effect' of photography or the 'news item'? i understand the hierarchy of real over virtual in terms of food, rent, etc, but why does this extend into the virtual worlds of digital and print culture? is reality simply a better narrator?
why is there an expectation to commit resources to constructing an 'art piece' when those resources could be used for something 'useful' instead?
why actually transport a dead tree from the amazon to seattle? why not just not and say we did? why not say that part of the art piece is no one is allowed to see any evidence of the tree's relocation? why not use a hundredth of a tree and print the narrative on paper instead?
Obviously, I view comics as a space of the virtual / the proposition. A space to propose any of those artistic things that cost a ton of resources - plays, films, 'acts', installations, sculpture, architecture, etc.
2 contemporary art trends in the last decade: newspaper aesthetics, re-enactments / reconstructions,
1 popular tv show: the office
DRAWING SCULPTURE
Some things have been said about working in pencil - new atmospheric possibilities, erasure as metaphor, liminal qualities, etc.
Traditionally the comics penciller is a foggy bridge between transdimensional worlds, using line (2D) to translate mass (3D). Imagine the penciller working in a gestural version of AutoCAD, building, moving, and erasing virtual masses, shifting perspectives - 'down and dirty' sculpture on a dynamic screen. The inker takes these virtual masses and cleans them up - aestheticizes them for the static screen - flattens them. The virtual weight of the pencils is translated into lines - 'line weight' - and crystalized as a 2 dimensional form.
This binary approach to drawing - pencilling vs inking - is the definition of cartooning. When I draw people I draw as an inker, even if I am drawing in pencil. I render 2D lines - aestheticized 2D lines - over mentally projected forms.
What would it mean to draw sculpturally? To view positive and negative space not in a graphic sense but in a spatial sense. To draw without concern of silhouette. To ignore or view with indifference the single fixed camera.
One could easily imagine the fetishization of these techniques - 'poorly' composed drawings, 'random' camera angles - but this would merely be 'anti-2D'. Is virtual sculpture - sculpture created and embedded in the screen - possible without respect to the image? Imagine the sculptor who works only by sight, perhaps from a fixed perspective even. Or imagine the opposite: the blind sculptor working only by touch - doesn't he or she still possess a 'viewpoint' - an objective viewpoint - behind the eyes?
Who was it who said: 'sculpture is experienced in the present, as time and space moving together, and remembered as a series of images'. Comics is memory: a stream of images (or: a bank of images through which we flow). The internet combines the present moment with memory, merges the stream of time with the stream of space, accumulating the present moment into a virtual mass of images.
"[...] the exhibition as a 'photogenic space' to be cut up into sequences by the viewer-actor [...]"
- Nicholas Bourriaud
Perhaps this is the closest to sculpture we can come to: pictorial translation of a virtual 3D space designed with translation in mind. 2D memories of virtual space.
Puzzle Cartographer: Apologia
"Interesting, but like most art that is produced in the world, these hypertext creations seemed to be much more engaging to create than to consume."
-Reif Larsen
"The best thing about the book, frankly, is the gold-embossed cover, which the above image really doesn’t convey.”
-the Comics Reporter regarding "The Future"
I've been trying not to draw "my character" lately. It's gotten too easy. I wanted to get away from representationalism styled in cartoony ways probably because I'm sick of comics. But I commisioned myself today to make this drawing:
As Emerson said:
"a.f.c.i.t.h.o.l.m."
I don't think it's fruitful to place too much emphasis on purity when making art.
Being an artist, for me, is this complex, gooey mess.
I'm not sure I, as a reader, would be very interested in the art I'm making if I hadn't been the one who made it. But I don't think that matters. Much more than half of the urge to make comics is the thrill of doing something that I, in the moment, think is cool. Unexpectedly succeeding in particular, is exciting and can give me a tremendous rush that carries throughout my day. Being on the precipice where something seems fucked and suddenly, in one instant, either by conscious decision or lucky accident, it all comes together. The struggle and the payoff. That kind of desire mechanism is what drives all of us biologically, buddhas notwithstanding.
The other part is showing your work and getting a reaction and having that inform the next thing you make in some way, participating in the ongoing aesthetic debates and arguments about fine points. It doesn't have to be strategic, mostly it's unconscious.
For several years I drew comics (Jessica, Exploding Head Man) and showed them to nobody other than my friends (who were mostly uninterested/unimpressed). I'm not sure whether I'm better off now or not, but at least I'm still making art and still excited (though occasionally conflicted) about that.
There are too many things going into the soup of what motivates me to unpack it or divine the purity of my impulses, and, yes, cultural capital does motivate me - $$$$ doesn't really, but that's what aesthetics are, right - discerning cool and reacting to it?
But I suck at it. I decided not to do any more tabling (who cares, I know) because it seems like a waste of money and time. And I've been made a couple pdf comics really quickly lately that, though they aren't the best, most thought-out work I've done, make me want to quit printing minis altogether.
I don't know where I fit, but it's too much of a pain in the ass to connect with the irl scene so I'll just continue to make a bunch of shit and post all of it online to satisfy my craving to be seen.
-Reif Larsen
"The best thing about the book, frankly, is the gold-embossed cover, which the above image really doesn’t convey.”
-the Comics Reporter regarding "The Future"
I've been trying not to draw "my character" lately. It's gotten too easy. I wanted to get away from representationalism styled in cartoony ways probably because I'm sick of comics. But I commisioned myself today to make this drawing:
As Emerson said:
"a.f.c.i.t.h.o.l.m."
I don't think it's fruitful to place too much emphasis on purity when making art.
Being an artist, for me, is this complex, gooey mess.
I'm not sure I, as a reader, would be very interested in the art I'm making if I hadn't been the one who made it. But I don't think that matters. Much more than half of the urge to make comics is the thrill of doing something that I, in the moment, think is cool. Unexpectedly succeeding in particular, is exciting and can give me a tremendous rush that carries throughout my day. Being on the precipice where something seems fucked and suddenly, in one instant, either by conscious decision or lucky accident, it all comes together. The struggle and the payoff. That kind of desire mechanism is what drives all of us biologically, buddhas notwithstanding.
The other part is showing your work and getting a reaction and having that inform the next thing you make in some way, participating in the ongoing aesthetic debates and arguments about fine points. It doesn't have to be strategic, mostly it's unconscious.
For several years I drew comics (Jessica, Exploding Head Man) and showed them to nobody other than my friends (who were mostly uninterested/unimpressed). I'm not sure whether I'm better off now or not, but at least I'm still making art and still excited (though occasionally conflicted) about that.
There are too many things going into the soup of what motivates me to unpack it or divine the purity of my impulses, and, yes, cultural capital does motivate me - $$$$ doesn't really, but that's what aesthetics are, right - discerning cool and reacting to it?
But I suck at it. I decided not to do any more tabling (who cares, I know) because it seems like a waste of money and time. And I've been made a couple pdf comics really quickly lately that, though they aren't the best, most thought-out work I've done, make me want to quit printing minis altogether.
I don't know where I fit, but it's too much of a pain in the ass to connect with the irl scene so I'll just continue to make a bunch of shit and post all of it online to satisfy my craving to be seen.
FEEL ROMANTIC/NO ART STATUS II
"When you say 'who wants to live with something' it sounds very collector oriented...Which is not how I think about work. I think that all the works are not something that I would want to look at all the time, and I think that's what makes interesting art to me. And I think there is something about duration, there's something for me about the fact that the photos are going into an exhibition-that's why it's so hard for me to make projects for printed matter, part of my practice is the fact that something would be taken down."
-Elad Lassry
I've been thinking a lot about success lately, what it means, how it relates to the practice of art-making.
I was reading an interview with Elad Lassry (a currently successful art-maker) in the most recent ANP Quarterly. I guess you'd call him a conceptual artist, but contemporary art is fairly specific and pedantic about labeling movements (it is discussed in the interview, for instance, that Elad is not part of the "New Conceptualism" movement) so who knows? Many of the ideas discussed ("the image," "the death of authorship") fit well with the abstraction I've built in my head to represent the social system of the contemporary art scene. These ideas elevate photographs, images, readymades, sculptures, etc. to something other than their quotidian selves. It seems like a game about knowing rules that are constantly shifting. It reminds me of fashion, how nothing has an absolute value, just a relative one according to what the conventions of the moment are.
This dialogue is what art has become, every successful artist engaged unwittingly (wittingly?) in a performance to keep themselves and their work "relevant." duh, duh, duh, duh, duh... Here's one of Lassry's photograph-objects:
"It's not that they're not stand-ins-they are-but part of what the work deals with is this potential of subjecthood, this slim potential for the unknown that leaves this need for other objects to enter, so all of a sudden there has opened a space to more than one headshot, because between them there are these multiple possibilities that became relevant to me." -E.L, again
I have a romantic attachment to particularity. I cling to the mid-twentieth century notion that language can't describe everything. Or this character I'm playing who is invested in having an ethos thinks so. It's tricky.
This is a performance for myself, a framing device for me.
The point is, though, why make a conceptual work? Is it to leave an artifact of the time you spent thinking? Is it a way to engage with a physical space and include others in the process of making sense of it? There's little more that I get from Lassry's images than: "huh - this confirms my expectations and prejudices." Or is that reductive bullshit? What do I do with it? Why are conceptual works usually just "profundity" in the form of a punchline? The art world seems so insular, making an object-that-is-incidentally-a-photograph-and-may-or-may-not-be-a-reference-to-the-history-of-art-and-objecthood-in-general seems like a cop out, a way to have something to sell and promote that is also critical of that side of things, less a spiritual practice than a way to have your cake and eat it too. But there's a support system of artists and patrons that facilitate that kind of work. I'm not a part of that world: bitter gripe, bitter gripe, bitter gripe... I tweeted this after the Portland Publication Fair:
"I'm a sucker"
I am a very self-indulgent maker. While the work I'm creating does engage with the concerns of culture, I'm less interested in participating in the social aspect of art than in using art-making as a tool to fill time, give me focus and goals, help me understand my surroundings and find "meaning" in things (or at least have epiphanies).
I received an e-mail from someone calling themselves "not-cf" saying:
"If you put Which Episode, Spiderman, Jesus, SS/BW, et al. in a book, please let me know. Sum uv #1 draw i eva c"
I know not to take this very seriously, but I also know that if I make more comics like those pages, folks would be interested in what I'm doing. Why should I give a shit? Why do I do this?
Alright - I'm getting sick of this: too earnest, too earnest, too earnest. Here's a list of other things I might've discussed:
Manny Farber
succe
can't get away from didacticism but feel like I should just be making images that look cool
"the image"
EC comics and conceptualism
this tweet about this:
Readymade vs cartoonist's style
Internet vs physical distribution
Self vs "mediated" self
Bric O Brac
Here is a bunch of art that's been given to me by friends and artists I admire. This is stuff we have pasted up around the apartment.
There are a lot more cherished pages/drawings/notes that I dont have with me in Stockholm...but here are a bunch for you guys to enjoy! A Cometscomets happy holidays post, if ever there was one.
T Edward Bak drawing
Intense drawing by former roommate and all around genius Bald Eagles
Cherished mail art from Blaise...we're using it as a mobile
Happy birthday note drawn by all star cast: Nate Doyle, Bill Kartalopoulos, Mollie Goldstrom, Jesse McManus and BK Broylerz!
aaannnndd a happy birthday card from Aaron Renier
Mindblowing Sammy Harkham, Anders Nilsen, Jordan Crane, Souther Salazar and Brian Ralph mash up, from 2002
Strong advice from Souther around the same time period? This drawing meant a lot to me over the years...
Stockholm artist and friend Elisabet Ericsson drawing
Incredible Fiona Logusch print...one of my favorite artists.
Aidan Koch drawing from one of the last days I was living at 282 Broadway...Aidan happened to be in town and drew this at our kitchen table
A great Jesse McManus panel sequence
John Hankiewicz litho above a Clara Bessijelle etching
Two amazing Mollie Goldstrom drawings
Drawing by my mom
My old cool boss Matt D did this rad poster for the release party for Windy Corner #3
Matt Leines traded me this for one of the pages in Christina and Charles...first original art I ever owned
Lis Timpone drawing
Lilli Carre drawing from a sketchbook
Juliacks and Jesse Mcmanus mash up, drawn while I was out of town once and given as a gift
Drawing by my old roommate Chris Ortiz
Really old sketchbook drawing from the great Dave K
Andrew Smith, he of the great comic Sausage Hand, drawing above an Aidan Koch drawing...
and, closing us out, some Dunja Jankovic collages. I'm supposed to draw over these for a collaborative effort with Dunja but they're too nice for me to muck up.
There are a lot more cherished pages/drawings/notes that I dont have with me in Stockholm...but here are a bunch for you guys to enjoy! A Cometscomets happy holidays post, if ever there was one.
T Edward Bak drawing
Intense drawing by former roommate and all around genius Bald Eagles
Cherished mail art from Blaise...we're using it as a mobile
Happy birthday note drawn by all star cast: Nate Doyle, Bill Kartalopoulos, Mollie Goldstrom, Jesse McManus and BK Broylerz!
aaannnndd a happy birthday card from Aaron Renier
Mindblowing Sammy Harkham, Anders Nilsen, Jordan Crane, Souther Salazar and Brian Ralph mash up, from 2002
Strong advice from Souther around the same time period? This drawing meant a lot to me over the years...
Stockholm artist and friend Elisabet Ericsson drawing
Incredible Fiona Logusch print...one of my favorite artists.
Aidan Koch drawing from one of the last days I was living at 282 Broadway...Aidan happened to be in town and drew this at our kitchen table
A great Jesse McManus panel sequence
John Hankiewicz litho above a Clara Bessijelle etching
Two amazing Mollie Goldstrom drawings
Drawing by my mom
My old cool boss Matt D did this rad poster for the release party for Windy Corner #3
Matt Leines traded me this for one of the pages in Christina and Charles...first original art I ever owned
Lis Timpone drawing
Lilli Carre drawing from a sketchbook
Juliacks and Jesse Mcmanus mash up, drawn while I was out of town once and given as a gift
Drawing by my old roommate Chris Ortiz
Really old sketchbook drawing from the great Dave K
Andrew Smith, he of the great comic Sausage Hand, drawing above an Aidan Koch drawing...
and, closing us out, some Dunja Jankovic collages. I'm supposed to draw over these for a collaborative effort with Dunja but they're too nice for me to muck up.
