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Lynda Barry: Girlhood through the Looking Glass (Great Comics Artists Series)
Par Susan E. Kirtley. 2012
Best known for her long-running comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek, illustrated fiction (Cruddy, The Good Times Are Killing Me), and…
graphic novels (One! Hundred! Demons!), the art of Lynda Barry (b. 1956) has branched out to incorporate plays, paintings, radio commentary, and lectures. With a combination of simple, raw drawings and mature, eloquent text, Barry's oeuvre blurs the boundaries between fiction and memoir, comics and literary fiction, and fantasy and reality. Her recent volumes What It Is (2008) and Picture This (2010) fuse autobiography, teaching guide, sketchbook, and cartooning into coherent visions. In Lynda Barry: Girlhood through the Looking Glass, author Susan E. Kirtley examines the artist's career and contributions to the field of comic art and beyond. The study specifically concentrates on Barry's recurring focus on figures of young girls, in a variety of mediums and genres. Barry follows the image of the girl through several lenses—from text-based novels to the hybrid blending of text and image in comic art, to art shows and coloring books. In tracing Barry's aesthetic and intellectual development, Kirtley reveals Barry's work to be groundbreaking in its understanding of femininity and feminism.Forging the Past: Seth and the Art of Memory (Tom Inge Series on Comics Artists)
Par Daniel Marrone. 2016
At once familiar and hard to place, the work of acclaimed Canadian cartoonist Seth evokes a world that no longer…
exists—and perhaps never existed, except in the panels of long-forgotten comics. Seth's distinctive drawing style strikingly recalls a bygone era of cartooning, an apt vehicle for melancholy, gently ironic narratives that depict the grip of the past on the present. Even when he appears to look to the past, however, Seth (born Gregory Gallant) is constantly pushing the medium of comics forward with sophisticated work that often incorporates metafiction, parody, and formal experimentation. Forging the Past offers a comprehensive account of this work and the complex interventions it makes into the past. Moving beyond common notions of nostalgia, Daniel Marrone explores the various ways in which Seth's comics induce readers to participate in forging histories and memories. Marrone discusses collecting, Canadian identity, New Yorker cartoons, authenticity, artifice, and ambiguity—all within the context of comics' unique structure and texture. Seth's comics are suffused with longing for the past, but on close examination this longing is revealed to be deeply ambivalent, ironic, and self-aware. Marrone undertakes the most thorough, sustained investigation of Seth's work to date, while advancing a broader argument about how comics operate as a literary medium. Included as an appendix is a substantial interview, conducted by the author, in which Seth candidly discusses his work, his peers, and his influences.Named a Notable Scholarly Publication of 2015 by the Comics Studies SocietyContributions by Georgiana Banita, Lan Dong, Ann D'Orazio, Kevin…
C. Dunn, Alexander Dunst, Jared Gardner, Edward C. Holland, Isabel Macdonald, Brigid Maher, Ben Owen, Rebecca Scherr, Maureen Shay, Marc Singer, Richard Todd Stafford, and Øyvind VågnesThe Comics of Joe Sacco addresses the range of his award-winning work, from his early comics stories as well as his groundbreaking journalism Palestine (1993) and Safe Area to Goražde (2000), to Footnotes in Gaza (2009) and his most recent book The Great War (2013), a graphic history of World War I.First in the series, Critical Approaches to Comics Artists, this edited volume explores Sacco's comics journalism and features established and emerging scholars from comics studies, cultural studies, geography, literary studies, political science, and communication studies. Sacco's work has already found a place in some of the foundational scholarship in comics studies, and this book solidifies his role as one of the most important comics artists today.Sections focus on how Sacco's comics journalism critiques and employs the standard of objectivity in mainstream reporting, what aesthetic principles and approaches to lived experience can be found in his comics, how Sacco employs the space of the comics page to map history and war, and the ways that his comics function in the classroom and as human rights activism. The Comics of Joe Sacco offers definitive, exciting approaches to some of the most important--and necessary--comics today, by one of the most acclaimed journalist-artists of our time.Gary Larson and The Far Side (Great Comics Artists Series)
Par Kerry D. Soper. 2018
Kerry D. Soper reminds us of The Far Side's groundbreaking qualities and cultural significance in Gary Larson and "The Far…
Side." In the 1980s, Gary Larson (b. 1950) shook up a staid comics page by introducing a set of aesthetic devices, comedic tones, and philosophical frames that challenged and delighted many readers, even while upsetting and confusing others. His irreverent, single panels served as an alternative reality to the tame comedy of the family-friendly newspaper comics page, as well as the pervasive, button-down consumerism and conformity of the Reagan era.In this first full study of Larson's art, Soper follows the arc of the cartoonist's life and career, describing the aesthetic and comedic qualities of his work, probing the business side of his success, and exploring how The Far Side brand as a whole--with its iconic characters and accompanying set of comedic and philosophical frames--connected with its core readers. In effect, Larson reinvented his medium by creatively working within, pushing against, and often breaking past institutional, aesthetic, comedic, and philosophical parameters.Due to the comic's great success, it opened the door for additional alternative voices in comics and other popular mediums. With its intentionally awkward, minimalistic lines and its morbid humor, The Far Side expanded Americans' comedic palette and inspired up-and-coming cartoonists, comedians, and filmmakers. Soper re-creates the cultural climate and media landscape in which The Far Side first appeared and thrived, then assesses how it impacted worldviews and shaped the comedic sensibilities of a generation of cartoonists, comedy writers, and everyday fans.Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip franchise, the most successful of all time, forever changed the industry. For more than…
half a century, the endearing, witty insights brought to life by Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy have caused newspaper readers and television viewers across the globe to laugh, sigh, gasp, and ponder. A Charlie Brown Religion explores one of the most provocative topics Schulz broached in his heartwarming work--religion.Based on new archival research and original interviews with Schulz's family, friends, and colleagues, author Stephen J. Lind offers a new spiritual biography of the life and work of the great comic strip artist. In his lifetime, aficionados and detractors both labeled Schulz as a fundamentalist Christian or as an atheist. Yet his deeply personal views on faith have eluded journalists and biographers for decades. Previously unpublished writings from Schulz will move fans as they begin to see the nuances of the humorist's own complex, intense journey toward understanding God and faith."There are three things that I've learned never to discuss with people," Linus says, "Religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." Yet with the support of religious communities, Schulz bravely defied convention and dared to express spiritual thought in the "funny pages," a secular, mainstream entertainment medium. This insightful, thorough study of the 17,897 Peanuts newspaper strips, seventy-five animated titles, and global merchandising empire will delight and intrigue as Schulz considers what it means to believe, what it means to doubt, and what it means to share faith with the world.Spirit of the Delta: The Art of Carolyn Norris
Par Dorothy Sample Shawhan. 2011
Raised in West Virginia, self-taught artist Carolyn Norris (b. 1948) moved as a young woman of twenty-one to Cleveland, Mississippi,…
a quintessential Delta railroad town on the famous blues Highway 61. To create one of her first paintings, she tore the wooden back off a dresser to use as a canvas. She painted with available house paint and completed the painting with face makeup. Thus began the realization of a passionate need to paint. Eventually, Norris came to serve as the visual griot of Cleveland. She has used a variety of media, painting on canvas, wood, paper, cardboard, glass, plates, tiles, sheets, floor covering, and mirrors. She also uses her garage door as a giant mural chronicling community events. In her extraordinary images, Norris shows daily black life in the modern Delta. Spirit of the Delta contains 115 color images pulled from Norris's twenty-five years as a painter. Her existing artwork has been photographed by noted local photographer Kim Rushing and copies of the works that no longer exist have been found whenever possible. The book features a biographical essay on Carolyn Norris by Dorothy Sample Shawhan and an essay on her artwork by critic Patti Carr Black, who places Norris within self-taught traditions. In an interview with folklorist Tom Rankin, which took place in 1991, Norris explains the centrality of art in her life.Michael Allred: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Christopher Irving. 2015
Michael Allred (b. 1962) stands out for his blend of spiritual and philosophical approaches with an art style reminiscent of…
1960s era superhero comics, which creates a mixture of both postmodernism and nostalgia. His childhood came during an era where pop art and camp embraced elements of kitsch and pastiche and introduced them into the lexicon of popular culture. Allred's use of both in his work as a cartoonist on his signature comic book Madman in the early 1990s offset the veiled autobiography of his own spiritual journey through Mormonism and struggles with existentialism. Thematically, Allred's work deals heavily with the afterlife as his creations struggle with the grander questions—whether his modern Frankenstein hero Madman, cosmic rock 'n' roller Red Rocket 7, the undead heroine of iZombie (co-created with writer Chris Roberson), or the cast of superhero team book The Atomics. Allred also enjoys a position in the creator-driven generation that informs the current batch of independent cartoonists and has experienced his own brush with a major Hollywood studio's aborted film adaptation of Madman. Allred's other brushes with Hollywood include an independent adaptation of his comic book The G-Men from Hell, an appearance as himself in Kevin Smith's romantic comedy Chasing Amy (where he provided illustrations for a fictitious comic book), the television adaptation of iZombie, and an ongoing relationship with director Robert Rodriguez on a future Madman film. Michael Allred: Conversations features several interviews with the cartoonist from the early days of Madman's success through to his current mainstream work for Marvel Comics. To read them is to not only witness the ever-changing state of the comic book industry, but also to document Allred's growth as a creative genius.Expressions of Place: The Contemporary Louisiana Landscape
Par John R. Kemp. 2016
Expressions of Place embarks on a journey across the rural and urban landscapes of Louisiana via the talents of thirty-seven…
artists located all around the state. Many are acclaimed professionals whose paintings are included in major private and public collections regionally and nationally. Others have found their followings closer to home. All, however, strive to express impressions of the land with artistic styles that range from traditional to the symbolic and almost totally abstract. Such a variety of interpretation becomes possible in a landscape that changes from dark cypress-shrouded bayous, trembling earth, grassy prairies, the gritty streets of inner city New Orleans to vast wind-swept coastal marshes and the piney hills of north and central Louisiana. Rather than stand as an encyclopedia, catalog, or history of the visual arts in Louisiana, Kemp's book is instead a celebration of the state's evocative landscape in the work of accomplished contemporary artists. It includes an introductory essay, which places these creators and their works in historical context. Expressions of Place provides readers with individual essays and biographical sketches in which the artists, in their own words, give insight as to what they paint, how they paint, where they paint, and why they are drawn to the Louisiana landscape. Particularly inspiring, the artists discuss their interpretations of that landscape directly with the viewing audience. Expressions of Place remains as much about the landscape of the artists' imaginations as it is about the land itself. With each painting, they have created visual poetry of a land and environment that has become a defining part of their lives.Samuel M. Gore: Blessed with Tired Hands
Par Barbara Gauntt. 2015
Born in Coolidge, Texas, Samuel Marshall Gore was the sixth of ten children born to a Baptist preacher and a…
mother described as “an angel.” From early childhood, Samuel Gore remembers enjoying making things, and gives credit to his mother and grandmother for his interest in art. Gore went on to be an art teacher and professor for more than fifty years, mostly at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. He has shown work in exhibitions and galleries for more than forty years. In 2012 the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In the first part of this volume, Barbara Gauntt traces how a concept in the mind of the artist comes to execution. Gore uses sketches on scraps of paper to inform studies in clay, as the piece Christ, Fulfillment of the Law begins to take its inspired shape. The project, expected to take about a year, lasts nearly two as Gore works to capture the constantly changing image forming in his mind. The 12' x 8' bronze, bas relief sculpture, a sister piece to Moses, Deliverer of the Law commissioned for the Mississippi College School of Law, moves from a small work area in the sculptor’s home to a shop on his property. There he builds the full-size piece on an armature of wood, foam board, and netting covered with clay. From chaos arises the beauty of detailed faces and a work of art that tells a story. The second section of the book covers the artist’s career from the late 1940s into the twenty-first century. Superb photographs of both two- and three-dimensional pieces show the artist’s diverse style and talent. Gore says that he “want[s] people to put their hands on [his] sculpture” because that is how he experiences his art. Gore sees no end in sight to his work. Moses started preaching at the age of eighty, so Gore figures that he is just getting started. This volume features detailed information about all of the artwork included; an interview with Samuel Gore in which the artist discusses his career, technique, and philosophy; a timeline of his life and career; and a foreword by noted Mississippi artist and former student, Wyatt Waters.Seth: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Eric Hoffman, Dominick Grace. 2015
Canadian cartoonist Gregory Gallant, pen name Seth, emerged as a cartoonist in the fertile period of the 1980s, when the…
alternative comics market boomed. Though he was influenced by mainstream comics in his teen years and did his earliest comics work on Mister X, a mainstream-style melodrama, Seth remains one of the least mainstream-inflected figures of the alternative comics' movement. His primary influences are underground comix, newspaper strips, and classic cartooning. These interviews, including one career-spanning, definitive interview between the volume editors and the artist published here for the first time, delve into Seth's output from its earliest days to the present. Conversations offer insight into his influences, ideologies of comics and art, thematic preoccupations, and major works, from numerous perspectives—given Seth's complex and multifaceted artistic endeavors. Seth's first graphic novel, It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, announced his fascination with the past and with earlier cartooning styles. Subsequent works expand on those preoccupations and themes. Clyde Fans, for example, balances present-day action against narratives set in the past. The visual style looks polished and contemplative, the narrative deliberately paced; plot seems less important than mood or characterization, as Seth deals with the inescapable grind of time and what it devours, themes which recur to varying degrees in George Sprott, Wimbledon Green, and The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists.The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation
Par Todd James Pierce. 2019
Besides Walt Disney, no one seemed more key to the development of animation at the Disney Studios than Ward Kimball…
(1914–2002). Kimball was Disney’s friend and confidant. In this engaging, cradle-to-grave biography, award-winning author Todd James Pierce explores the life of Ward Kimball, a lead Disney animator who worked on characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Jiminy Cricket, the Cheshire Cat, and the Mad Hatter. Through unpublished excerpts from Kimball’s personal writing, material from unpublished interviews, and new information based on interviews conducted by the author, Pierce defines the life of perhaps the most influential animator of the twentieth century. As well as contributing to classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Kimball established a highly graphic, idiosyncratic approach to animation alongside the studio’s more recognizable storybook realism. In effect, Ward Kimball became the only animator to run his own in-studio production team largely outside of Walt Disney’s direction. In the 1950s and 1960s, he emerged as a director and producer of his own animation, while remaining inside Disney’s studio. Through Kimball, the studio developed a series of nonfiction animation programs in the 1950s that members of Congress pointed to as paving the way for NASA. The studio also allowed Kimball’s work to abandon some ties to conventional animation, looking instead to high art and graphic design as a means of creating new animated forms, which resulted in films that received multiple Academy Award nominations and two awards. Throughout his life, Kimball was a maverick animator, an artist who helped define the field of American animation, and a visionary who sought to expand the influence of animated films.Jeff Smith: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Frederick Luis Aldama. 2019
First with his magisterial fantasy Bone to his mind-bending, time-warping sci-fi noir RASL, Paleolithic-set fantasy Tüki: Save the Humans, arthouse-styled…
superheroic miniseries Shazam!, and his latest children’s book Smiley’s Dream Book, Jeff Smith (b. 1960) has made an indelible mark on the comics industry. As a child, Smith was drawn to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Carl Barks’s Donald Duck, and Walt Kelly’s Pogo, and he began the daily practice of drawing his own stories. After writing his regular strip Thorn for The Ohio State University’s student paper, Smith worked in animation before creating, writing, and illustrating his runaway success, Bone. A comedic fantasy epic, Bone focuses on the Bone cousins, white, bald cartoon characters run out of their hometown, lost in a distant, mysterious valley. The self-published series ran from 1991 to 2004 and won numerous awards, including ten Eisner Awards. This career-spanning collection of interviews, ranging from 1999 to 2017, enables readers to follow along with Smith's development as an independent creator, writer, and illustrator.Jeff Lemire: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Dale Jacobs. 2022
In a 2019 interview with the webzine DC in the 80s, Jeff Lemire (b. 1976) discusses the comics he read…
as a child growing up in Essex County, Ontario—his early exposure to reprints of Silver Age DC material, how influential Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC’s Who’s Who were on him as a developing comics fan, his first reading of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and his transition to reading the first wave of Vertigo titles when he was sixteen. In other interviews, he describes discovering independent comics when he moved to Toronto, days of browsing comics at the Beguiling, and coming to understand what was possible in the medium of comics, lessons he would take to heart as he began to establish himself as a cartoonist. Many cartoonists deflect from questions about their history with comics and the influences of other artists, while others indulge the interviewer briefly before attempting to steer the questions in another direction. But Lemire, creator of Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth, The Nobody, and Trillium, seems to bask in these discussions. Before he was ever a comics professional, he was a fan. What can be traced in these interviews is the story of the movement from comics fan to comics professional. In the twenty-nine interviews collected in Jeff Lemire: Conversations, readers see Lemire come to understand the process of collaboration, the balancing act involved in working for different kinds of comics publishers like DC and Marvel, the responsibilities involved in representing characters outside his own culture, and the possibilities that exist in the comics medium. We see him embrace a variety of genres, using each of them to explore the issues and themes most important to him. And we see a cartoonist and writer growing in confidence, a working professional coming into his own.Alison Bechdel: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Rachel R. Martin. 2018
Due to the huge success of her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2006 and its subsequent Tony…
Award–winning musical adaptation in 2009, Alison Bechdel (b. 1960) has recently become a household name. However, Bechdel, who has won numerous awards including a MacArthur Fellowship, has been writing and drawing comics since the early 1980s. Her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF) stood out as one of the first to depict lesbians in popular culture and is widely hailed as an essential LGBTQ resource. It is also from this comic strip that the wildly popular Bechdel Test—a test to gauge positive female representation in film—obtained its name. While DTWOF secured Bechdel’s role in the comics world and queer community long before her mainstream success, Bechdel now experiences notoriety that few comics artists ever achieve and that women cartoonists have never attained.Spanning from 1990 to 2017, Alison Bechdel: Conversations collects twelve interviews that illustrate how Bechdel uses her own life, relationships, and contemporary events to expose the world to what she has referred to as the “fringes of acceptability”—the comics genre as well as queer culture and identity. These interviews reveal her intentionality in the use of characters, plots, structure, and cartooning to draw her readers toward disrupting the status quo.Starting with her earliest interviews on public access television and in little-known comics and queer presses, Rachel R. Martin traces Bechdel’s career from her days with DTWOF to her popularity with Fun Home and Are You My Mother? This volume includes her “one-off” DTWOF strips from November 2016 and March 2017 (not anthologized anywhere else) and in-depth discussions of her laborious creative process as well as upcoming projects.The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston (University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses Series)
Par University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses. 2019
Contributions by Megan Abbott, Michael Almereyda, Kris Belden-Adams, Maude Schuyler Clay, William Dunlap, W. Ralph Eubanks, William Ferris, Marti A.…
Funke, Lisa Howorth, Amanda Malloy, Richard McCabe, Emily Ballew Neff, Robert Saarnio, and Anne Wilkes TuckerThe Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston is an examination of the life and work of the artist widely considered to be the father of color photography. William Eggleston was born in 1939 and grew up in the Mississippi Delta town of Sumner. His innovative 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York helped establish color photography as an artistic medium and has inspired photographers and artists around the world.Edited by Ann J. Abadie, the catalog contains fifty-five Eggleston photographs, thirty-six that were featured in The Beautiful Mysterious exhibition at the University of Mississippi Museum from September 2016 to February 2017. Eggleston’s longtime friend William Ferris, a celebrated folklorist, donated all the photographs to the Museum. The photographs range from 1962 into the 1980s, representing each of Eggleston’s projects during that time. Some of the photographs are inscribed with Eggleston’s rare handwritten notes about location, people, dates, and projects. Eight of Eggleston’s early dye transfers are in the collection. Many of these works had not been on public display before this exhibition, including black-and-white images that are unique-copy single prints.This is a penetrating examination of the influence of the Mississippi Delta and the American South on Eggleston’s work and of Eggleston’s influence on photography and other creative fields.The Paintings and Drawings of Clarence Major
Par Clarence Major. 2019
In the first volume to collect the paintings and drawings of Clarence Major, readers are offered six decades of unique,…
colorful, and compelling canvases and works on paper—works of singular beauty and social relevance. These works represent Major’s personal painterly journey of passionate commitment to art.This generous selection of more than 150 paintings and drawings shows us the melding of rich ideas and fertile images, the braiding of imagination and motif. With their pleasing arrangement of elements, the works come vividly to life. Major often juxtaposes a decorative scheme with his own unique choice of color combinations, reinforced with rigorous brushstrokes that release chromatic energy. The paintings complement and challenge the great traditions of Realism, Impressionism, and Expressionism.Major is primarily a figurative and landscape painter. Here we find landscapes of singular vitality, rich in color and design, dramatic landscapes, and cityscapes representing, among other things, Major’s extensive travels in America and Europe. We are also treated to Major’s signature figurative work. In these paintings, he ventures fearlessly into familiar yet unexpected areas of richness.Also included is an introductory essay, “The Education of a Painter,” written by the artist, which further sheds light on and helps to lay a biographical, social, and historical foundation for this essential volume, reflecting a lifetime of serious commitment to painting at its best.Steve Gerber: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Jason Sacks, Eric Hoffman and Dominick Grace. 2019
Steve Gerber (1947–2008) is among the most significant comics writers of the modern era. Best known for his magnum opus…
Howard the Duck, he also wrote influential series such as Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, The Phantom Zone, and Hard Time, expressing a combination of intelligence and empathy rare in American comics. Gerber rose to prominence during the 1970s. His work for Marvel Comics during that era helped revitalize several increasingly clichéd generic conventions of superhero, horror, and funny animal comics by inserting satire, psychological complexity, and existential absurdism. Gerber's scripts were also often socially conscious, confronting, among other things, capitalism, environmentalism, political corruption, and censorship. His critique also extended into the personal sphere, addressing such taboo topics as domestic violence, racism, inequality, and poverty. This volume follows Gerber’s career through a range of interviews, beginning with his height during the 1970s and ending with an interview with Michael Eury just before Gerber’s death in 2008. Among the pieces featured is a 1976 interview with Mark Lerer, originally published in the low-circulation fanzine Pittsburgh Fan Forum, where Gerber looks back on his work for Marvel during the early to mid-1970s, his most prolific period. This volume concludes with selections from Gerber’s dialogue with his readers and admirers in online forums and a Gerber-based Yahoo Group, wherein he candidly discusses his many projects over the years. Gerber’s unique voice in comics has established his legacy. Indeed, his contribution earned him a posthumous induction into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.Robert Kirkman: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series)
Par Terrence R. Wandtke. 2021
Robert Kirkman (b. 1978) is probably best known as the creator of The Walking Dead. The comic book and its…
television adaptation have reinvented the zombie horror story, transforming it from cult curiosity and parody to mainstream popularity and critical acclaim. In some ways, this would be enough to justify this career-spanning collection of interviews. Yet Kirkman represents much more than this single comic book title.Kirkman’s story is a fanboy’s dream that begins with him financing his irreverent, independent comic book Battle Pope with credit cards. After writing major titles with Marvel comics (Spider-Man, Captain America, and X-Men), Kirkman rejected companies like DC and Marvel and publicly advocated for creator ownership as the future of the comics industry. As a partner at Image, Kirkman wrote not only The Walking Dead but also Invincible, a radical reinvention of the superhero genre. Robert Kirkman: Conversations gives insight to his journey and explores technique, creativity, collaboration, and the business of comics as a multimedia phenomenon. For instance, while continuing to write genre-based comics in titles like Outcast and Oblivion Song, Kirkman explains his writerly bias for complex characters over traditional plot development. As a fan-turned-creator, Kirkman reveals a creator’s complex relationship with fans in a comic-con era that breaks down the consumer/producer dichotomy. And after rejecting company-ownership practices, Kirkman articulates a vision of the creator-ownership model and his goal of organic creativity at Skybound, his multimedia company. While Stan Lee was the most prominent comic book everyman of the previous era of comics production, Kirkman is the most prominent comic book everyman of this dynamic, evolving new era.Ben Katchor (Biographix #2)
Par Benjamin Fraser. 2023
The recipient of a 2000 MacArthur fellowship, Ben Katchor (b. 1951) is a beloved comics artist with a career spanning…
four decades. Published in indie weeklies across the United States, his comics are known for evoking the sensorium of the modern metropolis. As part of the Biographix series edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, Ben Katchor offers scholars and fans a thorough overview of the artist’s career from 1988 to 2020. In some of his early strips published in the 1980s in the New York Press and Forward, Katchor introduced one of his quintessential characters, Julius Knipl, a real estate photographer. By crafting Knipl as an urban flâneur prone to wandering, Katchor was able to variously demonstrate his absurd humor and linguistic whimsy alongside narratives packed with social critique. Three volumes collecting the Julius Knipl strips, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer; Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay; and The Beauty Supply District, helped cement Katchor as a distinguished comics artist and social commentator. Later works, such as The Cardboard Valise, Hand-Drying in America, and The Dairy Restaurant, have diversified his comics legacy. Rooted in close analyses of the artist’s numerous series and collections, each chapter in Ben Katchor is dedicated to a distinct aspect of the urban experience. Individual pages from Katchor’s work depict not only the visual, but also the auditory, tactile, and olfactory dimensions of life in the city.Gorey Secrets: Artistic and Literary Inspirations behind Divers Books by Edward Gorey
Par Malcolm Whyte. 2021
Edward Gorey (1925–2000) was a fascinating and prolific author and artist. Of the one hundred delightful and fascinating books that…
Gorey wrote and illustrated, he rarely revealed their specific inspirations or their meanings. Where did his intriguing ideas come from? In Gorey Secrets: Artistic and Literary Inspirations behind Divers Books by Edward Gorey, Malcolm Whyte utilizes years of thorough research to tell an engrossing, revealing story about Gorey’s unique works. Exploring a sampling of Gorey’s eclectic writings, from The Beastly Baby and The Iron Tonic to The Curious Sofa and Dracula, Whyte uncovers influences of Herman Melville, Agatha Christie, Edward Lear, the I Ching, William Hogarth, Rene Magritte, Hokusai, French cinema, early toy books, eighteenth-century religious tracts for children, and much more.With an enlightening preface by Gorey collaborator and scholar Peter F. Neumeyer, Gorey Secrets brings important, uncharted insight into the genius of Edward Gorey and is a welcome addition to collections of both the seasoned Gorey reader and those who are just discovering his captivating books.