Sonatina

comics publisher, san francisco bay area

Posts tagged "text"

“I also have had thoughts of buying a majority of your original art at rock bottom prices and selling it later at wild prices. Cornering the Dane Martin art market. But you really are a factory girl — you own the means of production. No majority stake in your art will stay a majority for long. You would keep flooding the market. The real cruel option would be to buy future pages as well … or buy the rights to your characters (how horrible!) but maybe this would backfire. The thing is, your pages resemble currency to me because they are all consistently factory-like productions. And they kind of are even ironic about it in a Charlie and the chocolate factory kind of way. Like each image/text post you make is a “widget”. And you are a slave to the machine in a kind of sexualized way lol.”

– Blaise Larmee (via danemartin)
Grain of Sand Comix —© 2011 Art Spiegelman Small Bits of Infinity “Grain of Sand” was part of my apprenticeship as an underground cartoonist, a way to combine my love for old newspaper comics with a stab at making it all contempo by grafting some taboo subject matter onto the old form. A full broadsheet page in the centerfold of the Gothic Blimp Works was a strong lure, and I gave the page everything I had (which at that time was not much more than giving it hours of fine-line Rapidograph patterning). I wish I’d had the stamina and focus to explore “Festoria” further, instead of just making a one-shot teaser, but there were drugs to take and communes to join. Hey, it was the late 1960s, and I was 21. …  —© 2011 Art Spiegelman Ran across this article while googling old RAW covers. It’s always nice to get a glimpse of a beginning. Read the article in full, and more, over at: POTRZEBIE

Grain of Sand Comix

—© 2011 Art Spiegelman


Small Bits of Infinity

“Grain of Sand” was part of my apprenticeship as an underground cartoonist, a way to combine my love for old newspaper comics with a stab at making it all contempo by grafting some taboo subject matter onto the old form. A full broadsheet page in the centerfold of the Gothic Blimp Works was a strong lure, and I gave the page everything I had (which at that time was not much more than giving it hours of fine-line Rapidograph patterning). I wish I’d had the stamina and focus to explore “Festoria” further, instead of just making a one-shot teaser, but there were drugs to take and communes to join. Hey, it was the late 1960s, and I was 21.

…

 —© 2011 Art Spiegelman

Ran across this article while googling old RAW covers. It’s always nice to get a glimpse of a beginning.

Read the article in full, and more, over at: POTRZEBIE

Chris Ware on Building a Better Comic Book Found this article compelling. I don’t completely agree with everything that’s said but I’m sympathetic to all of it. Space is such a huge concern in all of Ware’s comics, so it’s nice to read an interview that actively provides a few layers of context (background, environment) in which to read the comics. Most of the ideas and facts covered are familiar but it’s almost like the framework of the interview led me to appreciate the small details about interview itself. In turn, his life and work. Specific quotes. It felt humanizing in a way I hadn’t.. considered before.  On his earlier work: Experimental’ comics,” Chris admits. “Well, basically: really pretentious, bad comics. I went through a whole period of doing comics that were about comics, which is something only an eighteen year old should do (or not at all if one can avoid it.) Then I finally starting drawing comics about real life, but without words, trying to tell stories only with pictures and to get in touch with the rhythm that pictures make in the mind when they’re read (what I’ve tiresomely called for years the ‘music’ of comics—essentially the sounds one hears when reading that can’t really be put into words, and seem to harness some odd, primal energy of emotion and action.) On Gasoline Alley: “There was a warmth and an unabashed unpretentiousness to it;” Ware reflects. “It was about family life, which really struck me as sort of gutsy and honest, because he wasn’t simply going for stupid gags or mean-spirited humor; he was really trying to get at something more tender and touching. His work made me feel as if it was ‘okay’ to take this approach, as well—and it had been what I’d been trying to do, but I’d been setting up all sorts of self-conscious art school obstacles in front of myself in the process. I just really wanted to put my deepest feelings on paper, and he helped me to start trying.”

Chris Ware on Building a Better Comic Book

Found this article compelling. I don’t completely agree with everything that’s said but I’m sympathetic to all of it. Space is such a huge concern in all of Ware’s comics, so it’s nice to read an interview that actively provides a few layers of context (background, environment) in which to read the comics. Most of the ideas and facts covered are familiar but it’s almost like the framework of the interview led me to appreciate the small details about interview itself. In turn, his life and work. Specific quotes. It felt humanizing in a way I hadn’t.. considered before. 

On his earlier work:

Experimental’ comics,” Chris admits. “Well, basically: really pretentious, bad comics. I went through a whole period of doing comics that were about comics, which is something only an eighteen year old should do (or not at all if one can avoid it.) Then I finally starting drawing comics about real life, but without words, trying to tell stories only with pictures and to get in touch with the rhythm that pictures make in the mind when they’re read (what I’ve tiresomely called for years the ‘music’ of comics—essentially the sounds one hears when reading that can’t really be put into words, and seem to harness some odd, primal energy of emotion and action.)

On Gasoline Alley:

“There was a warmth and an unabashed unpretentiousness to it;” Ware reflects. “It was about family life, which really struck me as sort of gutsy and honest, because he wasn’t simply going for stupid gags or mean-spirited humor; he was really trying to get at something more tender and touching. His work made me feel as if it was ‘okay’ to take this approach, as well—and it had been what I’d been trying to do, but I’d been setting up all sorts of self-conscious art school obstacles in front of myself in the process. I just really wanted to put my deepest feelings on paper, and he helped me to start trying.”

Bill Griffith on Inkstuds To be honest, I had a pretty vague understanding of who Bill Griffith was before hearing this interview. I thought of Zippy. Arcade. Well, I guess I still think that? But after hearing him talk about his work and relate some stories from the underground.. I feel.. deeply fulfilled. Seriously motivated to check out his stuff and explore that era a little harder. It was just nice to hear someone speak so eloquently and so personally about underground comics.. I feel like that rarely happens. Relating thoughts about the raw, unburdened art of Rory Hayes (probably the pure storytelling highlight of the interview.) The divide and frustration he felt around a lot of his cultural peers. The divide many cartoonists felt. Himself, Spiegelman, Crumb. Frustrations with the youth counter-culture, other cartoonists. Feeling very much like outsiders in their informal community and medium. How so many wonderful cartoonists of his era, that they were close to, had no real background in comics. At all. How that fresh perspective was such an asset. Totally pushing their own boundaries and the boundaries of the medium out of sheer interest. Personal interest. Feeling like what they were doing was in some way different than what had come before and subsequently worth it. How it was fun. Taxing. Fulfilling. I don’t wanna push this too hard, but I feel like I relate. Or potentially relate. The desire to make comics that stand on their own.. in whatever way. Taking the steps to make that happen. And to be genuinely invested. “Underground” as a term that places artistic integrity over commercial viability ALWAYS. That’s the value. I feel like money and art (comics) are linked in so many ways now.. but it’s just something else to talk about.  Feel like this is one of the comics histories worth engaging in and understanding. — * The streaming audio seems like it’s not working. Download if you must.

Bill Griffith on Inkstuds

To be honest, I had a pretty vague understanding of who Bill Griffith was before hearing this interview. I thought of Zippy. Arcade. Well, I guess I still think that? But after hearing him talk about his work and relate some stories from the underground.. I feel.. deeply fulfilled. Seriously motivated to check out his stuff and explore that era a little harder.

It was just nice to hear someone speak so eloquently and so personally about underground comics.. I feel like that rarely happens. Relating thoughts about the raw, unburdened art of Rory Hayes (probably the pure storytelling highlight of the interview.) The divide and frustration he felt around a lot of his cultural peers. The divide many cartoonists felt. Himself, Spiegelman, Crumb. Frustrations with the youth counter-culture, other cartoonists. Feeling very much like outsiders in their informal community and medium. How so many wonderful cartoonists of his era, that they were close to, had no real background in comics. At all. How that fresh perspective was such an asset. Totally pushing their own boundaries and the boundaries of the medium out of sheer interest. Personal interest. Feeling like what they were doing was in some way different than what had come before and subsequently worth it. How it was fun. Taxing. Fulfilling.

I don’t wanna push this too hard, but I feel like I relate. Or potentially relate. The desire to make comics that stand on their own.. in whatever way. Taking the steps to make that happen. And to be genuinely invested. “Underground” as a term that places artistic integrity over commercial viability ALWAYS. That’s the value. I feel like money and art (comics) are linked in so many ways now.. but it’s just something else to talk about. 

Feel like this is one of the comics histories worth engaging in and understanding.

—

* The streaming audio seems like it’s not working. Download if you must.