Random Thoughts

Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps by Art Spiegelman (241x340mm)

In yesterday’s post in this blog series, I promised that it was the very, very final post… so of course here’s another post. Sorry! But it arrived in the mail, so I might as well read it and scribble some words about it.

I bought this because I read a review of Art Spiegelman: Comix, Essays, Graphics and Scraps that said that this book was basically the same? At least they thought so? Which made me paradoxically more curious, because that book was published in 99, and was a very well-done book. So this might be … more, and newer?

And that older book was designed by the Raw crew, and was both very handsome and readable.

This book is not designed by them, but by Philippe Ghielmetti, and edited by the Drawn & Quarterly gang.

And it’s… It’s a much more thorough book than the 99 book. Much longer, heavier and… it just kinda doesn’t read that well? The design is also totally indifferent — there’s nothing particularly bad about it, but it seems like the kind of thing that would come out of a press if you just set the design programme to “auto” and dumped text and images into it.

There’s a lengthy introduction by J. Hoberman, which basically tells us beforehand what the rest of the book is going to tell us.

The 99 book had very few things from Spiegelman’s earliest days, so it’s fun to get some reprints of a bunch of random underground things. It doesn’t work as a reading experience, though — you can look at these pages, but they seem to discourage reading. And, yes, this is a sort-of catalogue for an art show — the year before this book was published, but then the show went on the road for a couple of years. So this approach makes sense, but…

Even binding the Two-Fisted Painters booklet into the book doesn’t make it less staid.

I also find it pretty odd what they’re emphasising in this book. There’s about as many pages about The Wild Party, that execrable poem with Spiegelman illustrations, as there is for the entirety of Raw.

There’s more pages about Maus, but not a lot there, either. Which is perhaps more understandable, because MetaMaus covered Maus in exhausting depth.

I don’t mean to be so down on this book, because there’s a lot to look at here that’s interesting.

And there’s newer strips that I haven’t read before.

And a whole bunch of pages that fold out.

I can’t quite put my finger on why this book feels so slight. Reading it, I got more and more impatient with it all. It might just be me, though. Or it might be the… “design”… if you can call it that.

I mean, it feels very thorough. It just lacks whimsy or surprises or something to delight the reader, which was something you’d always find in something that Spiegelman and Mouly edited.

This is the least essential Spiegelman book ever. Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@꩜🟊! (from 08) and the 99 catalogue are both vastly superior books if you’re interested in Spiegelman. Who is this book even for? Oh, yeah, to sell at that travelling art show, I guess…

I guess:

Spiegelman’s work, seen through the wide-angle lens of Co-Mix is a quest to question everything in his life: childhood, culture, art (including comics), sex, drugs, politics, relationships, time, fatherhood, suffering, and history.

As with just about any project that is connected to Spiegelman, the book-catalog is impeccable in its execution and a good value, offering more comics, more art, and more ideas per pica than many similar publications. As such, it stands well on its own, separate from the actual exhibit.

Everybody likes it:

It’s a fascinating book, that illuminates the overall development and working processes of one of the best ever graphic novelists and comics creators. Maus put visual artistry in the background, so we might forget what a master of visual communication Spiegelman is. The most avid fan will still find plenty new here, and the best pieces like the ‘Two Fisted Painters’ bound in pamphlet, are worth the price on their own.

Perhaps it’s just me:

Ultimately, this well-rounded retrospective of an renowned artist’s eclectic career is an illuminating read and makes for an exciting cultural artifact.

But this is definitely the final book I’m doing for this blog series! I mean it now! I’m packing up all the equipment so that I can’t even make another post even if I wanted to!

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Dead Meat by Sue Coe with Alexander Cockburn (203x256mm)

OK, this is it, for sure this time: This is the final post in this blog series — before the MetaMaus post which is supposed to be the real final post (and was written months ago), and then the extremely final post that sums up the entire thing (also written), and then some index posts.

IT”S THE FINAL ONE I”M WRITING!!!1!

I mean it.

This time.

So the concept of this book is that Coe went around er the country and visited a bunch of slaughterhouses and feed lots…

(I’ve had this book for decades, but I’ve never actually made myself read it before.)

We start with an introduction that’s more than thirty pages long (by Cockburn) about the history of meat eating, with an emphasis on Christian values and stuff. Which seems pretty absurd, because… what… I mean, it’s not that it’s a totally bad essay or anything, but it just seems so out of place. Perhaps it’s my general disdain and disinterest in religion that just made me really impatient with it all, and I started skipping.

Then it’s on to the point of the book: The abattoir visits, but we get another introduction first (it’s the third; there was a short introduction by some other person before that Cockburn introduction), and this time around, I think it’s finally Sue Coe writing? The book doesn’t say, and Coe has usually just done illustrations in her previous books, so I was a bit confused and started flipping back and forth to see whether there was any explanation…

Anyway, in the introduction, she talks about growing up near St. Georges Hill, “possibly the richest place per capita on earth”… and I’ve never heard of the place, so I googled:

Uhm:

Jump to navigation
Jump to search
“St. George’s Hill” redirects here. For the hamlet in Canada, see St. George’s Hill, Saskatchewan.

Coordinates: 51.352°N 0.445°W St George’s Hill is a 964-acre (3.9 km2) private gated community in Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom.

So it’s in the UK? I guess?

I’m just belabouring the point here, because the book is really vague about itsy bitsy details like this, as, like, what country she’s talking about.

Hersham sounds like a fun place.

Coe wasn’t allowed to take any pictures in the slaughterhouses, but she did sketches, and then we get the resulting paintings reproduced in the book.

It’s pretty nauseating.

I mean, not pretty.

The main section of the book is basically paintings and drawings paired with a very matter-of-fact text where Coe describes her meeting people working at these places, and how the animals were treated.

Cor is pretty sympathetic towards the people working in these places.

Haunted by the meat you’re eaten.

Did I mention that the text is pretty tough to read?

And the artwork’s no picnic either.

*sigh*

And then the book is rounded out with reproductions of Coe’s sketches.

I don’t think I’ll be eating anything today.

Or ever again.

Oh, was the introduction insightful?

Cockburn’s introductory essay traces the history of the meat industry with his customary shrewd sociopolitical insight, but without falling into polemics. Dead Meat will appeal not just to those interested in animal rights, but to anyone who cares about how society functions.

Reviews seem to split basically on political lines:

I recommend Dead Meat as required reading and viewing for vegetarians and meat eaters alike, because it attempts to address very complicated issues.

So there’s a few reviews from morons who are all “oh, but she’s exaggerating”.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

The Huge Book of Hell by Matt Groening (267x266mm)

This is in the same format at The Big Book of Hell. That book was published in 90, and was a ten year retrospective featuring many strips not published before, along with a “best of” from the published collections.

This one is published just six years later, so it’s not another decade-long retrospective… so… what is it, then?

So the indicia says that there’s bits here from the previous two Life in Hell collections, and bits from calendars.

The Big Book was (almost) completely sequential, but this one is arranged by subject, apparently.

The strips don’t really cohere per theme, though, so it mostly seems like some intern that had picked stuff at random. The two strips above are from the “Dreamland” section.

I’m guessing the page to the left is from a calendar… and I can’t recall seeing that page to the right before? (By Groening with Gary Panter.)

I can’t recall seeing this page before, either? (It’s even funnier in retrospect, because Groening seems to be saying that he’s somewhat in a rut, and in 87 he created The Simpsons.)

The oldest strips here are from 83, but the majority are from the 90s. And I think I’ve read about two thirds of the strips before, but it’s fun discovering these new strips (well, new to me) hiding between the familiar hits.

Some of the sections seem to work better, like the one about how awful Republicans are.

I don’t mean to imply that this is a bad book or anything: It’s a lovely collection of lovely Life in Hell strips — but I just don’t know why they’re collecting it in this haphazard way. Why not just do a complete, chronological reprinting of Life in Hell already? I’d love to read that.

Well, perhaps I do know why this book is like this: It’s just not a book geared towards nerds. And it’s a scrumptious book as it is. But it’s frustrating.

One of Groening’s rare strips about his childhood. Hippies are the best.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Songy of Paradise by Gary Panter (294x378mm)

I had totally forgotten about this book. I mean, both that I had it and what it’s about.

Oh, right — after doing Dante, Panter is now doing Milton.

Swanky.

Anyway, this is a very large, thin hardback book with metallic inks on the cover — so it’s basically like all of Fantagraphics’ Panter books. (They have somewhat different sizes, though.) I wonder why they hit on this format… it seems so incongruous with Panter’s artwork. Perhaps that’s why? Panter described them as “fetish objects” in an interview…

Jimbo in Purgatory was very, very dense. This is much lighter reading… and it’s funnier.

It’s so short, though. It feels very slight.

Yes:

I enjoyed Songy of Paradise from an adaptation perspective, and I love the detail it has for being such a quick read. I think you will enjoy it more if you have some experience with Milton or Panter’s earlier works, but it is a fun book on its own.

It’s apparently very deep:

Which is a huge part of their appeal, of course. At 35 bucks, a book this slender (if gorgeous) had damn well better give you plenty to mull over, and there’s no doubt that this does : I’ve read it four times since buying it just over two days ago, and new elements — as well as new ways of interpreting previously-noted elements — reveal themselves each time, and easy answers are not just in short supply, they’re downright non-existent. Is Songy’s dipshit dialogue and general obliviousness a sign of his pure-hearted innocence, or of contemptible ignorance? Is he simply a stand-in for Christ, or for the author himself? Are the subtle changes Panter makes to Milton’s conclusion meant to make his “happy ending” ironic — or anything but?

[…]

Multi-layered without being intimidating, endearing without being cloying, precise without being clinical, Songy Of Paradise is as close a thing to a working definition of a comics masterpiece as you’re ever likely to find.

I guess it might be more interesting for people who are er “interested” in religious stuff?

There was even a roundtable:

When I first finish Songy of Paradise, I’m struck by the comic’s unparalleled demanding that the reader step back. The book is large — this many by this many inches. These dimensions are by no means an accident, and they don’t seem to be a last minute decision either. Each page at about the size of an art print for one’s wall, the work is independently beautiful, even if removed from the narrative and seen at a glance. Panter’s understanding of composition in putting this book together makes it a pleasure to look at, whether you’re fluent in its references or not.

[…]

I think the complexity of Songy is of a different order… it’s more Little Lulu than anything else.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.