through derby, connecticut...my quest for charlton comics...

stay tuned...

6.29.09...the nypd have introduced the term e.d.p. to their

jargon...an emotionally disturbed person...twenty years ago, if

a naked guy was running down delancey street with a bloody golf

club, the cops would have called him a total fucking pycho...

today he’s an e.d.p...

6.26.09...i’ve been spending time at the strand recently...

a fine bookstore...a superior book store...old comics in

pamphlet format are now available there for sale...back issues

of dc comics...in long boxes...i was checking out a copy of

superman #405...published in 1985...with cover art by

eduardo barreto...the secret life of perry white?...no...

the mystery of the super-batman...the issue was pretty beat

up, but what the hell...a case can be made that the strand

is...is...uh...well-l-l-l...i’ve never been to powell’s

bookstore in portland...

6.25.09...illegal digital comics...web comics...computer comics...

panel designs...what doesn't work at all digitally are double page

spreads...splash pages aren't so good either...long vertical

panels are tricky too...so technology means comics of today are

going back to basics?...back to the panel designs of yesteryear?...

6.24.09...some definitions...swinging comics, low-budget comics,

conceptual comics, personal comics, tag-team comics, popular

comics, absurdist comics, that-which-is-impossible-to-define

comics...

6.23.09...a surprise ending that doesn’t end up as

Big-Loud-In-Your-Fucking-Face...something along the lines of

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX...

6.22.09...there’s a patricia highsmith short story entitled

‘the barbarians’...it’s about a guy who spends his weekends trying

to paint...outside his second floor window, every sunday, a group

of five loud, stupid, obnoxious grown men play two-bag baseball,

disturbing the guy’s peace and quiet...the guy gets fed up with

the noise and drops a ten pound stone on one of the ball player’s

head...does the ball player die?...do his friends take revenge on

the painter?...does the painter get arrested?...no...the ball

players return the next sunday, the injured one with a

bandaged skull...and this time they are even louder than

before...they win, you see...the barbarians...they always win...

6.19.09...maybe, in the future, there will be fewer definitions

in comic book land...indy comics, art comics, underground comics,

mainstream comics...that would be a good thing, i think...these

terms were undoubtedly useful at some point, but now?...or

perhaps the marketplace will play a role in shaping how different

types of books are classified...as is the case with the phrase ‘the

‘graphic novel’...i noticed there has recently been an evolution

in marketing terminology, and there is now something called the

‘young adult graphic novel’...and the ‘tween graphic novel’...

so...what next?...the ‘adult genre fiction graphic novel’?...

6.18.09...i’ve always kinda liked that old stan lee way of

over-the-top cross-referencing / cross-promotion in comics...

where an asterisk is added, like a footnote or something...

as opposed to incorporating the information into the script...

i was checking out the preview to ‘red robin #1’ and there’s

a line which says: “batman is dead, right?”...huh...are you

asking me or telling me?...captain america is dead...this i

know...but fear not, true believer...he shall return...

6.17.09...this is what i have to say about youth culture...

i’m old...i’m on the wrong side of forty...i’ve lived

life/lives...i’ve loved and lost...how/why exactly am i

supposed to get excited about stuff that’s being targeted

to twelve-year-olds?...

6.15.09...typing hours of emails on an iphone with your thumbs

is a complete hassle...the scorpion’s 1972 video ‘i’m going

mad’ bears a likeness to ac/dc’s 1975 video for ‘jailbreak’...

i’m thinking about getting a buddha fountain...i could seriously

use some serenity in my life...

6.11.09...as i get older, i find myself listening to more

t. rex...is this so wrong?...and ‘70’s country too...jerry

lee lewis...‘she even woke me up to say goodbye’...

6.10.09...“i heard she’s been polished more times than the

hope diamond”...

6.9.09...free content...pictorial piracy, digital bootlegs,

hi-rez heists...see it, scan it, swap it...for better, for

worse...for richer, for poorer...for now, forever...i do

think there is a future for ink-on-paper books...a future

for trades, long form comic storytelling...comics with

spines...although this is my own un-scientific, un-provable

theory...as far as the individual, periodic, serial,

four-dollar-per-floppy funny book is concerned: i have

no clue...but that easy ad money is getting hard...some

historical context: doom patrol was cancelled back in

the ‘60’s with a purported circulation of a quarter of

a million copies...if i’m remembering correctly...

6.9.09...the whole notion of a comic art pantheon is

rather absurd actually...it’s far too limiting, and

overlooks too many deserving personages...a canon, eh?...

i don’t know...those things always end up resembling a high

school summer reading list or something...

6.9.09...if you’re anywhere near nyc at the moment,

reading this, check out the francis bacon show at the

met...it’s an experience...one bacon is an eye-opener...

a room full of bacons is a journey into hell...i do tend

to agree that he’s an artist who found the formula...and

then spent the rest of his career painting one painting...

i’m thinking specifically of someone like peter saul...who

modified his style every decade, re-inventing himself as

he went along...which might have made for a more interesting

retrospective...but why should an artist care about

retrospectives?...i also think it’s bit of a stretch to

say that bacon has any relationship to comics/sequential

art...yes, the triptychs bear a resemblance to three comic

book panels...but i would suggest that’s where the association

ends...bacon isn’t interested in telling a story, in beauty,

in humor, in joy, in whimsy, in uplifting the human spirit...

if anything the stuff is like some psychotic version of

impressionism, where the viewer’s encounter conjures up an

immediate emotional reaction...the work is so strange, manic,

brutal...emotion literally charges off the canvas, attacking

the viewer, bludgeoning unsuspecting eyeballs with anguish,

meat, pain, humiliation, degradation...with colors that seem

to hang like layers of decaying flesh...it’s autobiographical

painting...the work doesn’t ask to be loved, to be liked...

it’s just there...confronting you, accusing you...casting a

nasty spotlight on your own feebleness...what’s interesting

is that he more-or-less built a career out a few disparate

images...velasquez’s pope innocent x, the scream of the nurse

in eisenstein’s battleship potemkin, muybridge’s photography...

and himself...his life, soul, mind, animal nature...his frailty

and flaws...i would say that the success of the work, the

‘genius’ as it were, lies in it’s out-there-ness...i can’t

imagine a time, a hundred years from now, five hundred years

from now, when these paintings won’t look fresh and original...

6.8.09...the show was a blast...finally got around to procuring

a copy of tom neely’s fantastic book ‘the blot’...track this

down if you haven’t read it...had a twenty minute talk about

matt fox and jay disbrow, among other things, with r. sikoryak...

he has a new book to be released by d+q which looks highly

amusing...chatted briefly with nate powell and evan dorkin...

i refused to sell copies of obsession to two fifteen year old

girls...gave a copy to jerry robinson...picked up dash shaw’s

very groovy torture hospital...so an excellent weekend all

in all...and yesterday went to the santoro/panter confab...

westermann, nutt, peter fucking saul...