'[Ben] Jones presents the next attempt at a new drawing style (thin pencil lines drawn on smudgy velum or grid paper, using geometric shapes and simple figural forms to construct a formal pictorial dissection of contemporary art, life and humor), soon to be the next artistic statement seen on Justice T-Shirts and/or Art Collective’s large smelly big pieces of drawing paper. Oh wait, Powr Masters already did that. Hmmmm. Sorry. This is slightly different. It's more Yokoyama-ish.'
from 'Paper Rad (how to draw like this)' by Ben Jones
I started reading a book called 'Style Site', which seems to argue that 'style' can be seen as a collaborative 'site' in which cultural exchange can take place. I find relief in this positive reappraisal of style, which in some ways defines the hipster generation. If everything is a surface, every action a 'put on', then style emerges as a structure in which to engage/explore surfaces, to construct and assemble, to meme and reproduce.
Why is CF so meme-able? In his comics and his blog he constructs a world that is glaringly fetishistic - humans are lines, hands are gloves, information is organized in specific, stylized ways. Compartmentalized. Styles are easy to sort through, to pick and choose.
In comics these compartments extend as far as the author wishes. Comics can be seen as a form of 'total design' - a 'fantasy about control, about architecture as control.' While this can be viewed as a fascist tendency (and fascism is certainly a theme in CF's oeuvre) it can just as easily be viewed as a Buddhist tendency toward a loss of self. If we are all just lines and shapes (existing in a 'floating world') then there is an implied 'other' that is absent. To lose oneself is also to own everything.
There was a great comments thread on one of Sam Gaskin's images, where someone was 'heckling him' for the imagery he was using. His response was something like, "Who owns circles? Who owns triangles? Who owns parallel lines?" The cultural/natural forces that manifested CF also manifested the rest of us! We are all responding to the contemporary zeitgeist and trying to relate that experience back to each other. This is all going on simultaneously and we are all grasping on to whatever language we can find, in a desperate attempt to find our tribe. CF has had a powrful hand in formulating the language we use.
These are all artists whose drawings I strongly admire, many I am friends with. In order from the top:
ola vasilijeva, zach hazard & nick gazin, zara messano, Joshua Vrysen, jonathan chandler, famicon, erin wo, chris day, apollo
hall hassi
84 comments:
Love the examples in this post. A lot. Aswang is a terrible movie though.
Drawing is just another performance
I actually did not draw that picture, although it is my record, it was drawn by Joshua Vrysen aka Tumblecat Poof Poofy Poof.
I found it strange being heckled by that guy specifically because he's someone who once said to me, "isn't all music 'folk music'?" This was really refreshing to read, let's all just relax with the witch hunt, and enjoy being witches.
I think it's a trap to include your perception of one cartoonist's style as a meme.
What you've written about is fascinating but sounds much more like stealing magic.
It's disturbing how tempting it can be to steal magic considering how many established cartoon memes are ready and waiting for exploitation.
I'd give anything to see Christopher's face when he
reads this bit of fan mail.
Yeah, if all "style" is an open-source dialog, why are you all repeating the same sound-bites?
Style isn't really "just surface", unless it's used poorly, and it existed long before hipsters took to Brooklyn; Ideally, it's communicating something. It's a way of condensing and presenting "content" in a simplified manner.Like a short-hand. It's a set of visual cues, really, meant to tie would-be disparate elements into visual coherence.
I think the idea that style doesn't, or can't "really" mean anything, so let's all do what we want with it might be symptomatic of the entitled hipster ( entitled to be an artist cause you like art?) .
On its face, these appropriations just don't work. They all read as C.F knock-offs; they don't bring anything more to the table. They certainly don't deserve an ounce of the effort that went into writing what seems to me to be an apologia for laziness.
Want to make clear I'm not lumping all the images here into one camp.Just noticed Jon Chandlers' images; he's been doing it for some time now, doesn't seem to have much to do with C.F's work. I think he's more indebted to Brinkman, for sure.
'It's disturbing how tempting it can be to steal magic considering how many established cartoon memes are ready and waiting for exploitation.'
'stealing' implies owning, but what does that mean in terms of style/magic?
i think cf's magic is working in that he is able to create a 'legion', or a tribe that speaks the same language, like a cult leader. it is magic when you start thinking in someone else's voice
Or it's laziness that you're willfully mistaking for "speaking".
C.F's stylistic deal is simply being co-opted by lesser talents; the same thing happens in all kinds of media.
It isn't some kind of magical thing, in fact it's the opposite; it's that young people are easy to imprint things on.They're struggling to figure out their own "deal" as "artists", and in this case, they're trying to present aping as some kind of transgressive and cool act. But in reality, It works exactly like any other fashion thing coming into popularity. It doesn't mean it's bad or good, but it's stupid to pretend it's something else.
By "magic" I mean art and by "art" I mean what only the artist can produce.
For my money, CF owns his magic and from what I can tell by studying the examples provided, many of these pieces should be charged with attempted robbery.
I'd like to hypothesize that if CF were to have produced work in the fashion you describe = style as collaboration = he'd simply be another imitation of Moebius rather than the magician he is today.
**********
Do you really believe this:
"If everything is a surface, every action a 'put on',..."
Also, what does "hipster generation" mean?
Are you at all uncomfortable prescribing these terms?
My guess is your not based from the following sentence:
"In comics these compartments extend as far as the author wishes."
**********
If the above sounds harsh... then I guess it is but I want you to know that I applaud your writing about comics. I find much of what you write to be challenging and freaky and it forces me TO SEEK, even when it's uncomfortable to do so.
thanks jason. i'm sure it's apparent that i have to adopt certain stances and draw certain lines, even when my own thoughts about things are often paradoxical.
For example, 'If everything is a surface, every action a "put on",...'
I'm not sure what to think! I haven't believed in meaning for 5 months or so. Right now I am completely unsure, but I write this way in order to create dialogue rather than monologue. Sometimes I do feel that everything is a surface, especially when it comes to the internet.
'hipster generation' to me is the creative class that exists in the information age. It is a specific, queer (as in it refutes itself, does not define itself) demographic that concerns itself with the contemporary & the fashionable.
I am uncomfortable prescribing these terms, but no more so than any other terms!
'In comics these compartments extend as far as the author wishes.'
I was thinking of 'Pico's cabinet' when I wrote that. I see it as an analogy for comics, and for compartmentalizing objects within panels. I sincerely (in quotes) am attracted to that notion.
'By "magic" I mean art and by "art" I mean what only the artist can produce.'
I don't want to deny CF agency, but I do see him as communicating something which existed before him. In some ways the art creates the artist. The art demands agency as well. In this case I'm giving agency to the style site as one might give agency to fort thunder or brooklyn (thanks uland) - I am not familiar with the idea of an 'inspired' artist who works 'outside' the system. I think the celebration of Henry Darger was a funeral/memorial. And didn't he trace all his imagery?
In the information age, property and agency are getting more and more queer. Anonymous hiveminds are blogging/tumbling/memeing content, almost everything seems to be copypasta. Mainstream conceptual art gives everyone the chance to be the storyteller, but who can really claim to be an 'auteur' today?
Please stop using the term meme.
" I haven't believed in meaning for 5 months or so. "
OH MY GOD THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
^.^
I think the idea of style as social site just means sampling. If you can do that in music, why not visual art? And why would that be meaningless?
It does seem to me that CF himself practices a form of overt visual sampling, that his work could be seen as a convergence of disparate kinds of style. I don't really know enough about comics to understand what his references are or to have an opinion how interestingly these artists 'sample' CF though.
I do think, Blaise, that the idea of CF as a cult leader does kind of imply that his followers are just sheep (not saying the artists pictured here are). But yeah, that doesn't sound so magical.
On the other hand, maybe that's an interesting analogy. Pretty sure Jim Jones didn't drink the Kool-Aid (actually Flavor Aid), but he did shoot himself. So perhaps the influential artist has to self-destruct after discrediting his imitators. Hopefully not though.
I don't think the so-called death of the auteur/outsider precludes the fact that some people seem to channel the agency of what came before them better than others. Yes of course all ideas are old as time, but some converge in a person or collective or style more effectively than they might in the followers of that person or style.
I do agree that the information sharing possible on the internet strongly challenges notions of artist-controlled meaning (the same way written words, the printing press, and TV have) but beyond that...hard to say.
Nice ideas for sure Blaise, but I do wish there were more concrete examples of like what these artists are doing with CF's style that's interesting.
one time i saw CF and he had this stethoscope and he was listening to his eye. i asked him what it sounded like and he said "woooosssshhhhssshhh".
i like art that is influenced by a lot of things. that's why i like CF as well as many other current artists, and that's the way i try to be as well. like a collage of the artist's brain.
pay attention to everything you see. listen to your eyes. they're communicating something.
I'm usually afraid to write anything extensive on these things due to my generally inarticulate nature, but here goes...
I fully agree that it totally sucks when someone is obviously aping someone else's style in a direct and uninspired way. But speaking as someone who actually used to break out in hives worrying about my own personal style, I think it's important to give people a buffer period to figure out their shit. In comics specifically, if the story holds up, if it's worth your time, then give 'em a break, they're smart enough to know what's good if they're copying it and they'll sort it out eventually, or they'll just quit. I'd rather see one CF rip-off comic with potential than the 80% of MoCCA exhibitors who are all doing fully original work that sucks balls. Seriously, Toupydoops, shut up.
A lot of this boils down to friendship as well. I'm someone who takes every opportunity to put my foot in the door and let all my buddies in, and I could defend the artwork of pretty much every person in this post as coming from an informed and sincere place. Great art rarely just "appears" out of thin air, it develops over time, as individual artists working on their own, and as an all-encompassing movement of many artists adapting and changing the "flavor of the week". As far as pencil lines and half-circles are concerned, sure, they show up a lot more often nowadays, but almost never in the same way. Again, reproducing and exploring, with Chris Day's work as an example, CF would never put a Daffy Duck head he cut out of a coloring book on his poster, the tribe moves in a different direction, a member carves a new path. Is it really the shapes that's haunting us the most? I'll admit, it's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction when anyone who puts an elf in a triangle can immediately post it online and we can all find it and puke. Never mind that I could probably find an influence for just about everyone who comments on this thread that could plausibly be owed royalties (yours truly included)...
Shit is shit and gold is gold, and even CF was a snotty kid following around Ron Rege at MassArt. Did you see how many Fort Thunder people he thanked in the first Powr Mastrs book? Ask him to talk about Uke of Spaces Corners County sometime, he'll gush and gush. There's a different club for everything, we could all be on some Slave Labor message board being pissed off at all the Invader Zim rip-offs there are now that Jhonen Vasquez is huge, but we're not, we're just not. We're too busy drawing sarcastic pictures of Garfield (again, also guilty).
Where the fuck did that come from? Sorry, I doubt this incoherent mess helped at all. Internet...
That works for me, Sam.
There's a great expression that I read in a John Berger book: "The Anxiety of Influence."
I'll say one thing, it is better to go THROUGH one's influences than trying to go around them. If one can absorb it all and spit out something new then THAT is how one turns it all into creative gold. Trying to avoid looking like an artist who inspires you can be extremely difficult, time consuming and frustrating. Meaning: do it, absorb it ALL but do it with superhuman tenacity and then will yourself to branch out further on the tree of influence.
Dang, Frank, that is EXACTLY what I was trying to say! Note to self: "concision".
If I'm reading the full text of that Ben Jones thing correctly, he's telling you to go fuck yourself.
Everybody dig deeper.
^I feel like there's a good masturbation joke there but I can't put it together. zzz
Brian, you're not reading it correctly. Trust me.
CF house style
I'll just say that I think a lot of the younger guys here should look to some of the older guys for feedback on the issue of biting; there are lines there that for everyones good shouldn't be crossed. Those old enough to recall the hundred Clowes clones that popped up and disappeared between 93-94 might be able to help you figure out where those are.
They might've all felt like a "tribe" too, but that's not going to hold up with comics, where a single work is authored, usually, by a single guy, who only makes work worthy of notice ( like C.F) when it offers something distinct.
It's not like you guys are all metal guitarists, or mainstream pencillers; "biting" isn't such a big deal when you're working in such a specific, known realm.The awesome thing about C.F is that he's offered what seems like a really new, distinct vision, right? Can you all see the irony—or maybe disingenuousness—there? You guys are hedging around notions of individuality/originality, but you're all biting from the guys who go the furthest in that direction.
— You want that kind of magic yourselves, but you aren't willing to risk anything for it. If you're not getting there yourselves, and if you don't really care about originality, or meaning, why not copy Dan Decarlo, or what have you?
You know it means something, you just want to own it.
Explain it then, Sam Gas Can.
This is a good movie about CF:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390123/
just kidding.
@uland 'Just noticed Jon Chandlers' images; he's been doing it for some time now'
what has he been doing?
'why not copy Dan Decarlo'
why this example? (i don't know my comics history that well)
"Those old enough to recall the hundred Clowes clones that popped up and disappeared between 93-94..."
Keyword to me: 'disappeared'. It's not like the shitty stuff will ever get published, so I don't think it's worth getting all worked up about it. Wait it out, brah.
Also, I think if the goal is to make comics into a medium as popular as film or music, then maybe all the copycatting is a good sign? That's a stretch, but my point is, it's not going to be the downfall of comics, art police can stay at home.
"why not copy Dan Decarlo, or what have you?"
Did you read BodyWorld?
And for Ben's thing, to me it reads as him goofing on him and his buddies, and possibly the vast array of misconceptions there are about their artistic careers. Ben is someone who really worries about biting other people's shit himself, I'm assuming that's why he made those comments about this zine full of half-circles and stripes. It's sarcasm, but it's very surface-level, I assure you.
Also, Austin, I can't wait to see you, you cutie pie, you!
a little more on stealing ... is it still stealing if it's in plain view for everyone to see? on the flip side, what if one doesn't show anyone one's bounty, but keeps these 'thefts' in a sketchbook?
isn't there some discussion right now as to the legality of archiving other's webpages?
do mirrors steal? do cameras?
Blaise- Jon Chandler has been making comics that look like that for a long time. He's definitely influenced by Fort Thunder and probably likes C.F, but I don't see him fitting into the C.F worship theme.
Dan Decarlo because it's almost a non-style, it's so utilitarian. Dash was really smart to look to that material. It's not something that can stand in for meaning, like a mystic triangle can ( it's not charged ), so it all comes down to what is done with it.
Blaise- You have to think about author-ship when it comes to drawing. It's not like collage; the artist has to lay the lines down.
Really the only reason to draw is because of that quality.
The point about those Clowes clones disappearing is that they failed. They didn't even continue it on their own because biting like that couldn't sustain them. I'd rather see all that energy directed towards something that has a chance at success. It's frustrating to watch others do it while presenting it as a different kind of magical success.
i dont know why everyone is talking about stealing now or whether stealing is okay. i think it's really cool to allow yourself to be influenced by things though. thats how i've noticed generations of cartoonists have advanced, especially recently. fort thunder responded to gary panter, cf responded to fort thunder, and now a lot of young cartoonists are responding to cf (although a lot of us grew up on anime and i think it informs our work, which is interesting and makes it different from how fort thunder responded to saturday morning cartoons).
as for the tribe thing, i dont consider myself part of a tribe of cf fanboys, i think that is silly. i am as influenced by CF as i am Mat Brinkman or Suehiro Maruo or Kazuo Umezu or Dan Clowes or Johnny Ryan or Whatever! i dont think any of us would say we're just trying to draw like cf.
"It's not something that can stand in for meaning, like a mystic triangle can ( it's not charged )"
I disagree, I think that was a very conscious decision for Dash to use those faces in BodyWorld to invoke the feeling of "teen drama", maybe why the adults look different. Felt very "charged" to me in that sense.
I guess I feel like Blaise that it's more just a current language than it is worship. Brinkman birthed the "little dudes in a big fantasy world" story arc, Ben Jones sparked the "I love the 80s" gag style, it's been happening forever and will continue to happen. Even when Donald Duck was big, there was still Super Duck there to waddle haphazardly in his footsteps.
Also, I think where we're not seeing eye-to-eye is that should those others fail to adapt and sustain themselves, well, I just don't give a shit. Spilled milk, abandon all.
Yeah, good point about Archie/teen faces in Body World, Sam.
Maybe I can hedge a bit and say that a rendering of a Decarlo teen doesn't offer the kind of contemporary coolness that C.F ( to his credit, mind you) nails, to the point where Body World needed to absorb that charge and make use of it in order to make sense by offering content that would explicitly resonate with Archie tropes, while these C.F apings don't require that.
I don't see it there, anyhow.
I don't *care*, in the sense that I have something invested in someones' success, Sam, it's more that I'm interested in reading interesting stuff ( as opposed to looking at cool drawings, or whatever), and these elaborate apologies for biting make it sound like it's not gonna happen around here. That's okay, really, but it's kind of a bummer cause it's seems like many here are into really good comics.
Oh yeah, well, if it gets down to a matter of just what floats your boat, all I can tell you is that the internet is a big place, free roam to dig what you dig. For the record though, for better or for worse, I am fully down with this stuff.
I thought I would just respond to this real quick:
"I'll say one thing, it is better to go THROUGH one's influences than trying to go around them. If one can absorb it all and spit out something new then THAT is how one turns it all into creative gold. Trying to avoid looking like an artist who inspires you can be extremely difficult, time consuming and frustrating. Meaning: do it, absorb it ALL but do it with superhuman tenacity and then will yourself to branch out further on the tree of influence."
I agree to an extent Frank, but I think the problem here, and with copycats/younger artists is not understanding the underlying form underneath the aesthetics. It's one thing to handle a pencil like C.F/"draw like CF", but it's another thing to approach composing a picture like CF, and to approach handling color like his cohorts, or to unknowingly use his sense of pacing. I think these are sometimes things that people might pick up more than how the pencil lines a contour.
things that helped me stop worrying about CF so much and just dig his shit:
-interviews
i was super into fort thunder in high school (which ended for me in 2004) and was often tearing my skin off because they were so anonymous via the internet from Minnesota. I wanted to know more, all the time. This lead to a lot of fort-influenced drawing. i think hearing someone talk about their stuff really helps get a picture of who they are, and can often let you enjoy the art in a less anxious (but maybe less intense?) manner.
In the instuds interview, CF talks about treating drawing as a personal practice, not crucifying yourself over doing it properly or fully executing your potential ideas and plans immediately. For someone with such a popular "style", this is a nice thing to hear.
So too are his words about giving up. Reaching a point where you start to hate drawing or feel trapped (by influence, say) and then letting go and letting it just happen of it's own accord. He talks about this (and the "practice" notion) as being freeing and alleviating personal expectations. Expectation seems to be a big part of this whole anxiety.
Connecting with a piece of work and then wondering why what you're making is not totally like that, until you actually will it to become so, which is a scary and powerful thing to will oneself to do, because it can never be!
It's an amazing fantasy. It's also one of the great functions of art, to fantasize and transcend, right? It also reminds me of the best Ben Jones article:
http://www.usscatastrophe.com/kh/ben.html
Getting wrapped up in the "anxiety of influence" can get in the way of enjoying drawing, and by association, enjoying your life, which should totally involve drawing, cause drawing is really fun, as that Ben Jones interview seems to say. it can be a place of freedom, with no expectations.
No one is expected to draw like CF except him. Maybe folks expect they will live a life like he does if they start drawing like him? But what kind of life does he live? I don't think that's anyone's business except his own, but he does put himself in an interesting and prone position by distributing his art at all, and he seems quite aware of this.
-seeing him in person
i know that for me, seeing Kites play live and talking to CF on different occasions felt like a manifestation of many feelings I had when diving into his supposed life and world through the drawings, zines and records.
I ordered stuff through the mail from him and the hand-written notes and hand-printed goods gave me a sensation that both buffered the work, making the whole package totally satisfying, but added to the mystery.
When i got to see him live and have a chat, i felt i had gotten a fuller picture, but no longer felt obligated to think about him so much. He wasn't such a mysterious quantity anymore, just some dude that i respected. The interviews serve this same function. I don't deny that he's still in my head, but so are Brian Eno, Henry Darger and Mat Brinkman.
i think it's cool and apt for this thread that CF and BJ spent time together as young dudes formulating their "idea style" of art through collaborative zines. That they morphed and traded ways of drawing, jokes and feelings. I guess the whole influence thing is somewhat like that, but one-sided, distant and shitty-feeling. There's a Martin Cendreda strip in Kramers Ergot 5 that totally nails this gnarly feeling better than I could.
But it is balanced out by the fact that we're totally, completely fortunate to be living in the same time period as each other. I'm often amazed at the thought that when I sit down to draw, I'm maybe drawing along with a lot of other artists who've had a huge impact on me (depending on the time zone).
Then again, it's also cool that a drawing one does might outlive the drawer, and thus, exist in the same time as drawers centuries later. CF has mentioned the Powr Masters story existing in the distant, distant future. So what if it actually lives that long, and that people in that time can look back and see what a fucking retard he was for thinking everyone wore gloves all the time? Just kidding. Only Brinkman will stand the test of time.
Har Har.
Dear Mr. McManus
You might want to consider this particular Edit:
"For someone with such a popular "style", this is a nice thing to hear."
You may have meant "From"
Because your personal and distinct style is imitated only by lemurs and snails, and i fucking hate all of them.
Get a grip on yourself, kid.
thank you for watching out for me
i'm just trying to get by, anyway....
it's good to have a healthy guide, or atleast a savvy commentator, following at your heels, like a crippled pug.
i resent that, and deem you a fool
a fool....and a bastard.
i'll crush you, no remnants.
only dust and a faint vibration.
also, a scabby paw, pointing south.
AWK!!!!
nice to hear! nice to hear!!
KAH-micks!!
KAH-micks!!
crunch crunch crunch
(I'm eating a handful of seeds, BTW)
from the great webpage jesse linked to, this may explain ben joneses relationship with the nazi knifers\kutis\etc:
'I wish there was a rival gang in my town that also made books of copies. I really do, I think I would enjoy beating them. I do not do self promotion other than wanting to give as many books to many people as I can. Just to piss of the rival gang, I don't like to sell things. I want you to have stuff so you can either be part of my gang, or start you own gang to inspire me to become stronger, and to then beat your gang. I will. My gangs include Paper Radio and Paper Rad. I will totally destroy your gang's copies. Unless you are Fort Thunder, they are the strongest gang, I pay homage and sacrifice my honor humbly to their complete and superior reign.'
Honestly, when i first saw CF's stuff I thought "oh, this guy really likes Henry Darger." Not sure now if he does but to me its more Darger that's in the air and people are picking up on it.
So I feel a bit funny about all these other people being thought of as CF clones. To me, its people doing their own thing with Darger in the back of their heads, with varying degrees of success.
Also...I have nothign but respect for Cf's art. It's high level, well done work in every respect. But rarely have I been moved by it as much as this guy:
http://www.printeresting.org/2009/05/15/frederic-coche-auteur/
I don't think either guy is "better" then the other...but I get a richer sense of life from Coche. But hey that's just me.
They're all cheap Cornell/Blake knock offs!
No wait I mean this guy is the best:
http://www.spamula.net/blog/2007/05/palmers_sketchbook_of_1824.html
This "style" of drawing has been around forever. It's just oddly in vague right now.
I like to fuck girls
I understand the confusion regarding identity, speaking as a ghost who haunts the Hotel of the Sheraton in downtown Fresno, California, many people ask me "Who were you when you were alive?" and I find cannot answer...I borrow the names and personalities of the guests and their daughters who visit here, reading from their luggage tags.
truthfully, I have forgotten who I was.....
If you feel the anxiety of influence, think of me in my vaporous state, unable even to close my hand hold the lightest gauge of pencil...a glove helps,and this is why Michael Jackson wore one, to keep from dropping the microphone...now you know...
Anxieties over influence can be useful if you want to create compelling work. If you don't, if you just want to have fun and "explore", there's really no reason to engage in dialogs that are fundamentally about determining the value in whatever you might create.
Anxiety is what happens when you don't know how to resolve a problem you really feel like you need to solve.It can be irrational or perfectly reasonable, but the measure isn't, imo, how bad it makes you feel. None of it should be easy.
I was really surprised to see my picture in this article (It's the living room with the goblins coming in through the window. my name is Leon Sadler, from the gang 'famicon' based in england in europe)
i think sam gaskan, frank santoro and uland are right.
i started scrolling down the images in this article and quickly became pissed off, and then i saw my own one there and now i feel really weird!!
i honestly didnt see how close to a CF drawing that was until now!!
maybe it will be insiteful to hear from one of these artist being discussed and what they can say to explain it?
I am a really huge fan of CF< i think about his work a lot and i try Really hard to prevent my works to look like his. if you look at my work there is no speicific style. that drawing that was chosen seems to be a bit anomalous actually.
(this response is hard to write as i dont want to just be defending myself! please look on here for a quick example of the rest of my work http://snakzstock.com/lms/140docs/main.htm )
I'm very careful about what works i choose to publish/exhibit/reproduce and this one would never have reached that stage, i wasnt that happy with it and only really put it on my blog as part of a silly joke: http://catthorpe.livejournal.com/127017.html
this is a problem with the internet, bloggging, flickr etc.
A number of years ago, when i first saw CF, ben jones, and mat brinkmans, and brian chippendale's work, i was so amazed by it all, al these elements i stole from thier work started appearing. I was so inspired and enouraged by it, it really helped me realise what i want to spend my life doing.
But now, in my gut, I'm really embarrassed by that work i was making. I try hard to squash that by tellling myself how important it was to my development, but i still feel very ashamed of it.
i thought (until now) that i'd managed to get over it but i can see i still have some way to go! i'm know im still young and developing! It's extremely fucking important if I'm making 'finished' works that I don't infringe another persons ideas so this realisation today is realy horible but now i'm excited to see what happens next
now i see my drawing in this context i wish i'd put it as 'friends only' and not let frederic put it on his site. sorry CF and sorry everyone for this one!
i think a reasonable response to seeing these guys stuff is to be sad and pissed off as it's difficult to remind yourself that these guys will (hopefully) move past it soon. and even then it's still really horrible to see, like a hearing a really useless cover of your favourite song.
it's totally different if it's being used for commerce though, even if it's a very limited cassette release or gig poster. I once bought a record because i was tricked by a cover which was a bad brinkman rip off and felt really stupid and angry when i realised it was a clone. its disgusting to use a clone CF drawing fro your record cover if you can't get the real thing, just go for something else instead!!
uhhhh this response took me over an hour to write for some reason
EVERYONE SHOULD START USING THE WORDS 'meme' AND 'hipster' MORE!!!
Copies of Powr Mastrs are going to outlive all this other stuff and into the future due to their weird sturdy cover material.
"it's about what you choose to draw, then how well you draw it"
Leon, thanks for responding and linking to your blog. really nice images there.
i understand that emotion of feeling embarrassed but my gut instinct (maybe coming from a liberal background) says 'no shame!', 'no regrets!'
you were drawing your landscape at the time, and that landscape was being created by certain artists you were attracted to. in some ways you manifested these artists into your life. you curated them.
ideally i suppose you would create your landscape from entirely your own image, but a) is that possible, b) is that solipsistic
also, i agree about the relevance of hipsters/memes to this conversation. i think we (western contemporary youth) still have this strong relationship with originality that we don't know what to do with. it's not as simple as postmodernism ('nothing original exists') but it still seems in that same line of thought. i don't mean to speak for everyone, but i think this is still a big concern. it's not necessarily a moral question (is this stealing, is this wrong), it's probably more related (for me) to identity.
i think a lot of our responses to these unanswerable/paradoxical questions is with sarcasm, our form of 'mu'.
Blaise, I think you may have nailed it there with the sense of identity. I guess for me, I tend to just look at things on the scale of whether they are "good" or not, if I like it; not where it's coming from, but where it is, which may be the wrong course of action, I really can't say. Also, if I am personally close to the artist in any way plays a huge part in it too, which also may be wrong. I should probably be more impartial. So it goes...
seems to me to be an apologia for laziness.
this is kind of a weird question, maybe a little offtopic, but why do younger artists tend to get drawn to like the most recent 10 years of drawing? there have been thousands of years of drawing, and their drawings always look like something from the past 5 years. is it because these artists are so easy to copy?
I mean, love or hate CF/BJ they're not exactly drawing in the most technically demanding way. what about lasansky? masson? picasso? even painters, or contemporary artists or musicians? cy twombly? not every artist should reference these guys, or not anyone should, but huh. I love all types of drawings, but it seems like everyone wants to draw as bad as they can sometimes (the fort guys hardly being the first to draw the way they do). I'm far from an even adequate drawer myself, but I just find this weird.
"did picasso draw as bad as he can?"
"do mirrors have eyes?"
-blaise
we got a real european, a real ghost, a real santoro, some real twits and some real sweethearts here. there must be something heavy about fake dudes that brought all this reality to the fore. or maybe we're all stupid from turkey and this makes us feel better. or worse.
Blaise, do you consider yourself apart of the tribe? i'm kinda surprised you didn't include one of your own images for this post.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I1uIF_hZo9U/SspRUQct83I/AAAAAAAAA-Y/rR93sYbapbs/s1600-h/gaze-taem.jpg
this is not meant in negative tone, no hate.
-F
@anonymous^ i do. here is a more extreme example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3316/3647663900_48cc2ab7eb_o.jpg
i wasn't sure how posting my own image in my own blog post would be perceived (though i'm sure i've done that before)
@anonymous^^^ your question could be re-phrased, 'why do artists within the past 10 years get drawn to the most recent 10 years of drawing? '
" your question could be re-phrased, 'why do artists within the past 10 years get drawn to the most recent 10 years of drawing? '"
that's not true at all though. i go to art school and I see kids who draw all kinds of ways-- but I will say that it seems to be the more "in" thing to be as "bad" of a 'draftsman' as possible. CF wanted to draw like Jim Lee. I find that like the most profound thing ever, considering now people want to draw like him and BJ. Doesnt that fuck with anyone elses head?
I understand and appreciate the huge varieties of approaches to drawing...but I think to consider yourself part of this so called "tribe" and to talk about it in relation to one artist's 'style' can show how seemingly shallow your well is.
uuhh not sure if i want to join this conversation now... it takes up too much bloody time
umm
firstly Jonathan Chandler's work looks nothing like CF's, there aren't even any vague traces there of CF's so-called memes
i was kind of taking the piss what i said about memes and hipsters! hahaha
anyway, blaise I'm happy you liek my work but i'm very unhappy about your thoughts on it being ok to steal CF's style.
and i think a lot of people draw like CF and Ben Jones cos thier work is so strong and exciting and the most simple way of celebrating it is to try and draw in the same way. the only problem then is when you release it into the world, or if you don't realise you're doing it, or if you think it's ok to do it!!
its crazy so many people are discussing this, it's as simple as:
its lazy and lame to steal another person's style
the only way it can be forgiven is if it's clearly part of a learning practice and not part of someone's real actual work
LMSN said: "...its crazy so many people are discussing this, it's as simple as:
its lazy and lame to steal another person's style
the only way it can be forgiven is if it's clearly part of a learning practice and not part of someone's real actual work"
What's it called when a young priveleged white hipster swipes the style of a mentally ill virgin from a hundred years ago? Oh, except in Darger's case it wasn't a "style" or "lifestyle choice" like it is for C (Thundercats) F
right, henry darger was a victim without agency. cf is a victimizer with agency
I have no idea what that means
Who exactly is CF "victimizing"?
The thrill of making multiples of one's work leads a lot of us to publish before we're fully formed as artists. CF didn't make Powr Mastrs until he was in his thirties. If you see some of his early entries in Paper Rodeo their as "bad" or derivative as any of the examples on this post.
The artists work in the post are in the process of transforming into what they will be. so relax.
C'mon! It's fresh, new, exciting! Why does fashion exist at all? It's sexy!
this is kinda really eye opening as an all around art newbie. I came across this style through o. vasiljeva and was so into what all the above artists were doing, all the while having no idea about CF or his amazing books! I thought I had my influences figured out (silly idea!).. Now the image and pedestal I've had these artists on has been affected. This has taught me an important lesson on inspiration- I feel totally embarrassed that I didn't even know about CF when I see posts & comments like this! I guess I missed the boat or am too naive, I don't read art news or go to shows, I can probably count only about 3 or 4 contemporary artists I really keep up on (two pictured here!) and the rest of my time is spent on birthing a self-indulgent vision,, trying to stay pure to my own shit.. now I'm learning how fickle it can all be! So naturally all of this has caused a great re-evaluation and re-classification of my own art, and now more than anything I feel liberated knowing cf's work.. He has obviously mastered what he does, which is something I probably would been scraping the surface of for years, thinking I was being original. Taking back in the artists pictured, I still appreciate it and love it dearly but in a whole different way. In a way I feel comforted knowing a huge influence of theirs, like they have been to me. Like I said, I'm an art newbie, so I can't really key into the ethical dialog along with you informed dudes but I thought I would drop in to say thanks for exposing me to something I otherwise wouldn't have had the chance to see and appreciate
- L
whats wrong wit all of you! why worship only CF and neglet the new talents?Just because Cf is more notorious, doesn't mean others rip him off! They have their own style and vision which happens to be close in technique. The work of Famicon and Ola s not that close to CF at all if you know their drawings better! They take it on their own levels If you think it's too close then ceck out Bilibin and Darger and see for yourself who CF is ripping off!
F
no man, I totally agree! I'm not trying to discount the work here, it wasn't even the point of the author. My statements were mere speculation and an admittance of embarrassment of not knowing someone so influential to them, thus shaping but not destroying at all my view of the artists! Leon's work is mind-blowing, super creative and super talented stuff. He's got a huge archive of work that is purely his own, of course! He's one of my favorite artists and finding out about CF didn't change my view of him at all. I also really loved that he wrote on this thread. Ola is perhaps my favorite artist ever, and the things she's doing now are blowing my mind, not to mention I haven't seen one drawing in a year or so from her! I think TEE SEE's right, the images here could perhaps show a certain transformational process that no one should get too hung up on. we all have destinations and it's all really pretty shit that makes me really happy and excited and inspired to see. hope I wasn't disrespecting anyone in my previous post!
-L
also, it was mentioned numerous times, where the heck does CF have a blog?
What exactly is "up" with the plethora of "anonymous" commentors? Grow a pair, or at least half-a-pair, folks. I don't ask that you have hair on your junk, but at least have a pouch, a'ight?
PEACE OUT, PUSSYEATERRZZZ
• Influence from elders/teachers = OK
• Influence from contemporaries = OK if it makes sense in terms of the artist's oeuvre (or in the case of fanart/parody)
"good artists borrow great artists steal"
Blah ...
PS: Anonymous posting is the modern way, deal with it
I am alone
blaise,
thanks for your admiration.
i admire yr work too!
i didn't see this until today.
i guess i could have a really long response where i talk about what CF's work means to me, but instead i'll just say that i think all artists "sample" other artists whether consciously or not and i have nothing negative to say about it as long as the artists (1) realize it/are honest (2) don't put on airs & (3) keep growing.
i recall a post on here about how small the "comics community" is and that one little thing can make people so affected/upset/etc. -- but i think it's better that people just keep putting work out there...
overall, good discussion! cheers.
Famicon is awesome, CF and I both think so.
Hey Ben, I've been meaning to talk to you about something for awhile, but it's so hard to bring up when we meet up every sunday in the graveyard to listen to noise rock cd-r's and talk about scarves.
But, here it goes.. you have been biting my style really hard too lately. I let some things go but the whole nieves zine thing? C'mon bro. After much thought I decided I'm cutting you off of my ideas at the beginning of '10.
You see, it was cool during the whole paper radio days, but now that I've become a careerist, I have to put my foot down. Money is tight and terrible haircuts don't pay for themselves man.
Please don't hate me. We can still be elusive and mysterious, as well as ride the ft thunder wave as long as it takes us, right?
your boy, christopher
^Shut the fuck up CF fake CF. Graduate middle school, get a new scarf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8yoSAiwY18
what is CF
Centrifugal Force
Yeah, I've grown pretty tired of the cult of territorialism when it comes to style. It's like art has become an escape act for a lot of young cartoonists. "How can I fit in with what I like without being labeled a knock-off?"
You'll go crazy worrying about that stuff. The truth is, there is a fingerprint to everyone's artwork. There is something about the way you do things that nobody else can do. As long as the artist continues to nurture that seed who cares what soil it grows in?
If Charles Darwin had the same attitude as most of the critics he would have bludgeoned every new finch he discovered on the Galapagos for being a thinly veiled knockoff.
Fort thunder was an absolutely fascinating event in comics history. But they opened doors, they didn't close them. You can call it "stealing someone's magic" or you could call it extrapolating on a good thing. Chris Day a CF knockoff? I think Chris Day has taken that style of graphic design to another level. At this point I like his designs better than CF's.
Found another total C.F. ripoff, here. TOTALLY shameless. When will these people ever learn that we are on to their game?
Interestng stuff. Thanks for the namecheck.
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