Random Thoughts

MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman and Hillary Chute (170x238mm)

So here we are — the final post in this blog series about (sort of) the comics from the Raw Generation, or whatever we’re calling it this week. What started off with Mouly and Spiegelman printing stuff in their loft resulted in larger changes to the world of comics as literature than I think anybody could have imagined.

This is a lavish production, included a DVD ROM with oodles of background material.

I mean… look at all this stuff.

It’s a beautiful object, with all of this artwork reproduced perfectly. It’s obvious that a huge amount of work has gotten into making the book, which makes it frustrating that I can’t find where it says who the designer is. It’s really rare to see a book with no glitches whatsoever.

So: Spiegelman explains what this book is about. He’s tired of being asked the same three questions over and over again: “Why the Holocaust?” “Why mice?” “Why comics?” So he talks with Hillary Chute over 250 pages to answer these questions, once and (hopefully) for all.

We touch upon other things in Spiegelman’s biography, but the book is admirably focused on Maus itself.

One of the many examples included that illustrate how thoroughly worked through every single panel of Maus has been. Endless sketches to get things just right.

Spiegelman talks with insight about Maus and its place in history. And he’s also really entertaining to listen to, I mean read — the book flows very fast.

Some people treat Maus as if it were inevitable. “Sure,” they seem to say, “of course a comic book about the Holocaust would be a major success. Everybody knew that”, and that’s the go-to explanation for why no other comics broke through to the general literature-reading audience (before Fun Home proved them wrong).

But I have to admit that I was shocked and amazed by these pages: Maus was offered to (basically) every single publisher imaginable, and they all passed on it. Some write pretty meretricious responses (like “we already have a cartoon book on our schedule”), and some write a bit about how much they liked it personally, but they can’t see any way to market it.

That it was about the Holocaust wasn’t a selling point for the publishers: It was the main sticking point. They wanted nothing to do with it, and they thought it was impossible to market.

It seems the only way the book got published was because Spiegelman knew the art director at Pantheon personally, and she convinced the publisher to take it on.

Imagine a slightly different world, where Maus had only been published as in insert in Raw? Where it would have been something fondly remembered as “hey, remember that thing? in the 80s? that was great, dude” by some old comics nerds.

We get interviews with Françoise Mouly (and Spiegelman and Mouly’s two children), and even these interviews are really focused on Maus. And I have to say that I love that picture of Mouly fixing up her press in 1980.

Quite a bit of this book is about the reception Maus got. I’m especially amused by the tale of the Polish edition, which got active sabotage by people working on it, it sounds like (and the editor finally had to set up a new publishing house to get it done).

Heh heh.

I find the process pages pretty fascinating.

So much work has gone into the book — here’s one particularly recalcitrant panel that just wouldn’t come together, for instance.

The book ends with an edited version of the Vladek transcripts.

And then some of the people Spiegelman contacted to learn more about Anja’s story.

The book’s a classy job.

Wow, this is a condescending review:

Mr. Spiegelman’s new book, “MetaMaus,” functions as a kind of artist’s scrapbook, chapbook, photo album and storage trunk. Packed with more extras than a new “Transformers” DVD, it’s a look back at “Maus” and its complicated composition and reception. His publisher calls this shaggily engaging volume, accurately enough, a “vast Maus midrash.”

An extended Q & A with Mr. Spiegelman, a kind of swollen Paris Review interview, fills most of the book’s pages, while arty and inky things pack the margins: draft sketches from “Maus”; personal photographs; family trees; official documents like his mother’s passport and his parents’ arrest records from Auschwitz.

OK, that’s it. This blog series is now over, done and finitio. Well. Except for a post tomorrow that sums up the series, and then an index or two.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

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:

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“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.