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Comic Artists Razz Lichtenstein With The Image Duplicator Show

April 3, 2013 / Klint Finley

Lichtenstein Image Duplicator show

Artist Rian Hughes is putting together a show at Orbital Comics to criticize pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and celebrate his original sources:

“Pop artist Roy Lichtensein currently has a show on at the Tate. While the public is intimately familiar with his work, what they may be unaware of is how closely many of his images were “appropriated” from comic artists like Irv Novick, Russ Heath, Jack Kirby, John Romita and Joe Kubert, who received no fee or credit.

Is this an act of brilliant recontexturalisation? The elevation of commercial “low” art to “high” art? Art world snobbery? Artistic licence? Cultural annexation? Gallery shortsightedness? Or something else?

This show is a chance for real comic-book artists (and other “commercial artists” – illustrators, designers etc) to ask these kinds of questions and share their views, via their work.Every interested comic artist (or illustrator, graphic designer or other “commercial artist”) should “re-reappropriate” one of the comic images Lichtenstein used, and rework it, using some of their ‘commercial art’ drawing skills, to warp and twist it into something interesting and original, and in the process to comment on this type of appropriation.

The IMPORTANT thing to stress is that you’d be going back to the source material and re-reappropriating (sic) Coletta, Novick, Kirby et al – NOT copying Lichtenstein, as we don’t want copyright issues from the Lichtenstein estate …see this as a celebratory, positive show which aims to get the point across that the original artists deserve credit and respect …As suggested by Dave Gibbons, money raised from selling prints or originals will be donated to the Hero Initiative, which helps down-on-their-luck comics veterans: http://www.heroinitiative.org/ Again, a nice way to Give Back the Art.”

The show is accepting submissions.

Full Story (and many more images): Robot 6: Comic artists razz Lichtenstein with the Image Duplicator show

Like That Movie The Game, But Real: Odyssey Works

March 26, 2013 / Klint Finley

Odyssey Works

Odyssey Works is like a real life version of the movie The Game. From The New York Times:

IT all looked so normal: a dozen diners chatting over coffee and hash browns at an outdoor cafe near the waterfront here on an August morning. The cook flipped eggs, a dog sniffed for scraps, and the young woman in the black sweater suspected nothing of the spies and confederates sprinkled throughout. They’d been studying her life for four months and were finally preparing to pull it through the looking glass they’d constructed. Within 36 hours there would be confusion, euphoria, tears, even an abduction.

It was all in the service of art. For more than a decade a loose-knit, multidisciplinary collective called Odyssey Works has been quietly inverting art’s longstanding arrangement with its audience. Rather than a single artist creating for a general population, it directs many artists at a deeply researched population of one. The intricate creations that converge in the group members’ weekend-long performances — sound installations, films, performance art and more — exist only for their chosen subject, whom they’ve come to know very well. Then it all vanishes. The idea is a beautiful inefficiency: a tiny but infinitely more affected audience.

Full Story: The New York Times: A Waking Dream Made Just for You

(via Tim Maly)

Oh, and they’re accepting applications until April 15.

Free Online Comic From Invisibles/Seaguy Artist Cameron Stewart

February 17, 2013 / Klint Finley

Panels from Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart

Cameron Stewart is known for his work with Grant Morrison on Batman and Robin, Seaguy, Seven Soldiers: The Manhattan Guardian and a few pages of The Invisibles, amongst other things. But he also wrote and drew a serialized online comic called Sin Titulo, a surreal mystery in the vein of Haruki Murakami or David Lynch that won an Eisner award. It will be released in print later this year by Dark Horse Comics, but you can read it online now for free.

Sin Titulo

Interview with Stewart on Sin Titulo

Thomassons: Hyperart In Urban Space

February 11, 2013 / Klint Finley

a Thomasson

What is a Thomasson?

Have you ever seen … say, a telephone pole which no longer carries a line, but still stands on the sidewalk? Or maybe you’ve seen a second story doorway in the outside wall of a building that didn’t lead to a landing — or to much of anything — anymore. Ever seen a “stairway to heaven,” a staircase that goes nowhere, or awalkway that ends abruptly in midair? These are Thomassons.

More: Hyperart Thomassson Index Form

(via Interdome)

On King City’s Portrayal Of Women

February 10, 2013 / Klint Finley

And for all Brandon Graham seems like an intelligent guy who really thinks about the portrayal of women in comics he’s still made a book that’s male gazey as hell. An important quote from the interview:

“Yeah I think that’s the big problem. It’s like, ok dudes, we’ve tended to your boners since the dawn of time. Can someone else have a turn?”

And it’s ace that he’s noticed things shouldn’t mainly be aimed at straight males. It makes me feel a bit bad for being all “ooh look at the objectification” as he comes across as a definite Force For Good in interviews but, well, the women in this comic still are totally aimed at that straight, male audience, aren’t they?

It’s an extension of that whole aspect of illustration that you see constantly on yr Tumblrs and Deviantarts and in grafitti and on music posters and such: young, straight men like drawing ‘badass’ idealised women in the kind of clothing they find attractive on a person. It’s for the male gaze and it’s not really subversive or new. Yeah, the line between ‘sexy’ and ‘sexist’ is a fine one, but I think this comic steps over the line?

Full Story: The Slow Bullet: Brandon Graham’s King City: My Continuing Adventures in being No Fun

(via Graham himself, who tweeted: “Here’s a article criticizing (in a lot of valid ways) the ladies of King city. I do still stand by the soap opera joke… Warheads is in a lot of ways me trying to grow past some of what I did in KC. I’m still cool with that stuff it’s just not where Im at now” [1] [2])

Discordia

January 20, 2013 / Klint Finley

No, it’s not about Discordianism. It’s about the real world discord and human misery that is the political situation in Greece. It’s written by Laurie Penny and illustrated by Molly Crabapple, and it’s worth your time.

It’s not just political journalism, either — it touches on youth culture, the way a movement’s drug of choice reflects the zeitgeist, art, feminism and more.

You can buy the digital single from Amazon, or see a preview and read an interview with Penny and Crabapple here.

Best Of 2012/Technoccult Gift Guide

December 18, 2012 / Klint Finley

It’s the end of the year, which is a good time to reflect on what my favorite bits of media were for the year. I figure this list can also double as a guide for any last minute gifts.

I’m sure there’s stuff I’m forgetting in each category, so I may update this again later. Feel free to recommend stuff I might’ve missed!

Comics:

This was a big year for artist/writer Brandon Graham. Three of his releases were favorites of mine this year:

King City cover by Brandon Graham

King City, which was the subject of my interview with Graham.

Prophet: Remission cover

Prophet, a book written by Graham with a rotating cast of artists.

Escalator by Brandon Graham cover

Escalator a collection of short stories written and drawn by Graham. I think this is actually my favorite of the three.

Casanova Volume 3: Avaritia

Besides all the Graham stuff, I really liked Casanova Volume 3: Avaritia by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba.

I haven’t finished Hawkeye – Volume 1: My Life As A Weapon by Fraction and David Aja yet, but I’m enjoying it so far.

Also, I haven’t read Glory Volume 1: The Once and Future Destroyer by Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

I don’t buy very many single issues, but here are some that I bought and liked:

COPRA # 1 by Michel Fiffe. This was a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t heard of Fiffe before I saw it promoted by Floating World Comics. It reminds me a bit of Graham’s Prophet in that it’s an indie artists’ take on super hero comics of the past. I haven’t read the second issue yet but plan to pick it up soon. There’s a preview of issue 1 here and issue 2 here.

The Secret Voice

Secret Voice # 1 by Zack Soto. If you don’t feel like paying, you can check this one out online, along side The Yankee and other great stuff at Study Group Comics.

The Secret Life of DB Cooper

The Secret History of DB Cooper # 1. Really dug the first issue, still waiting for the trade paperback.

Music

Bruxa victimeyez cover

Bruxa: Victimzeyez, a free digital album that I’ve mentioned before. Elements of dubstep and chopped and screwed hip hop with a trace of witch house.

Monolake: Ghosts cover

Monoloake: Ghosts. Minimal techno with a hint of dubstep.

Filastine: Loot cover

Filistine: Loot. I’m not sure how to explain this one — a fusion of lots of different styles of electronic music from all over the world.

The Seer album cover

The Swans: The Seer. New album from an old school no wave band.

Tweaker: Call The Time Eternity cover

Tweaker: Call the Time Eternity. Long awaited third solo album from Trent Reznor’s former right-hand man.

I bough X-TG’s DESERTSHORE / THE FINAL REPORT, but because I’ve been working on my own album I haven’t listened to it yet.

Movies

I didn’t see many movies this year, and I liked even fewer. Here are the ones I liked:

Looper

Cabin in the Woods. Technically I guess this came out in 2011, but I think most of us saw it this year.

I haven’t seen The Master yet but want to.

Books

I didn’t read many new books this year, but I did read and like:

Non-fiction:

Information Diet

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption by Clay A. Johnson

American Vampire in Juarez

An American Vampire in Juarez: Getting My Teeth Pulled In Mexico’s Most Notorious Border Town

Fiction:

Psychopomp Volume One: Cracked Plate by Amanda Sledz. My interview with her is here and an excerpt from the book is here.

The Rise of Siri by Shlok Vaidya. Science fiction that reads more like design fiction — this is all about the ideas, not the characters. Already a little dated since Apple has announced that it’s bringing some of its manufacturing back to the U.S.

Can Art Be Comics?

November 8, 2012 / Klint Finley

No, I’m not asking whether comics can be art — that’s a tired question that I think has been decisively answered in the affirmative. But if we look at Scott McCloud’s basic definition of comics, “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence.” Does that include, for example, gallery exhibitions?

After all, what is an art gallery but a collection of juxtaposed pictorial images? Perhaps not all are in deliberate sequence, but at least some consideration is paid to how the pieces are arranged. And of course that’s to say nothing of paintings or other visual arts meant to be displayed in a sequence, such as the sequence of images in The Scrovegni Chapel and Alex Grey’s Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (to name the first two examples that spring to mind).

McCloud would seem to include art in his definition. He mentions hieroglyphs and Max Ernst’s “A Week of Kindness” in Understanding Comics. But overall fine art doesn’t get much attention. McCloud seems to imply throughout that comics is about storytelling, but his definition doesn’t include narrative, and surely there are examples of non-narrative comics.

Other definitions, such as David Kunzle’s would seem to exclude art (as well as hyroglyphs) like by definition. According to Jessica Abel and Matt Madden’s Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, Kunzle’s prerequisites for a comic strip include the following: “The medium in which the strip appears and for which it is originally intended must be reproductive in nature; that is, in printed form, a mass medium.”

That definition would toss gallery art right out then, since even though it may be reproduced on posters or in coffee table books, those aren’t the media for which it was originally intended.

But defining a medium by the intent of its creators is slippery, especially in an age in which artists may expect their work to be printed in some form. And what to do about the existence of art exhibitions that are deliberately created to be comics, such as Daniel Duford‘s Sleeping Giant (pictured below)?

It’s not a terribly important question — I’m not interested in seeking “legitimacy” from the arts establishment anyway. But I think it’s an interesting one.

New Psychedelic/Surrealist Comic By Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing Out Now

October 23, 2012 / Klint Finley

Brendan McCarthy (known for Zenith, Rogan Gosh and more) and Al Ewing (writer of many a 2000 AD strip) have a new comic out called Zaucer of Zilk, which has been running in 2000 AD but is now available in the States from IDW:

More preview pages at Comics Alliance

Interview With Study Group Comics’ Zack Soto

October 16, 2012 / Klint Finley

The Comics Reporter interview with Study Group Comics publisher / Secret Voice creator Zack Soto:

About 10 years ago, I was sort of helping Tom Hart with the brainstorming part of setting up his old Serializer site, which was part of this webcomics ring called Modern Tales. I think I was sort of supposed to be his assistant? I didn’t do much aside from a couple of site graphics, though. That was interesting to be on the periphery of something like the early days of MT, but it seems like a million years ago, which it sort of is in Internet time. For a long while, I really sort of ignored webcomics, other than reading the occasional Achewood or what have you. It wasn’t until the one-two punch of Dash Shaw’s Body World webcomic and Jordan Crane’s What Things Do site that I sort of “got it,” or more precisely, that the content of webcomics sort of hit my particular interest zone. Both of those efforts really seemed to get at what the medium could be in a way that spoke to me.

The Comics Reporter: CR Sunday Interview: Zack Soto

Also, The Comics Journal ran a piece on how the print version of The Secret Voice was reformatted for the web that includes a short interview. Here’s a sample comparison:

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