PX79: I’m in Training to be Tall and Blonde

I’m in Training to be Tall and Blonde by Nicole Hollander (210x137mm)

I thought it might be amusing to include a few things that’s sorta “adjacent” to the putative subject matter of this blog series. Nicole Hollander was a friend of Lynda Barry’s, started working a few years earlier (Hollander 76; Barry 79), appeared in similar places (weekly newspapers), and also has a very distinctive ink line. So why not have a look at her first collection?

I’ve been a huge fan of Sylvia ever since the (late) 80s — it’s a hilarious series. But I’ve never gone back and read Hollander’s earliest work (which has been out of print for many decades).

This book collects work from 76-79, and it’s striking how fully formed Sylvia (without a name yet) is already at this early stage.

This is earlier, I’d guess, and Sylvia doesn’t quite look like what she’d look like later… but it’s basically all there.

If you look at Lynda Barry’s first few years, she’s relentlessly experimenting with different rendering styles and approaches to cartooning, but Hollander seems to slip into one type of cartooning very quickly, and has basically remained there ever since. Not that there’s anything wrong with that when it’s this good, but it’s a marked difference from most of the people I’ve covered in this blog series.

Futura!

That one made me laugh out loud.

Hey! The Supreme Court were way ahead of the times!

Wow. Well, fortunately, we’ve gotten rid of all these insane people like Schlafly from politics, right?

This generally isn’t a very angry collection — it mostly leans hard into being funny (and it is). But sometimes it does go grrr.

Gendering’s hard!

So, to sum up slightly: Hollander doesn’t come from an underground background, and neither does she come from the art-schoolish background of many of the people in this blog series. She works instead in a gag strip tradition that nevertheless seems to be in some sort of dialogue with what’s going on in more avant comics? I think?

Another thing that separates Hollander from the people in this blog series is that she was basically ignored by The Comics Journal: There’s no review of this book in the archives — or any of her other books. She’s basically doesn’t exist in the alt-comics world.

Larry Rodman writes in The Comics Journal #144, page 43:

Nicole Hollander and Lynda Barry, the mav-
erick women of the film, have a sort of spiritual
association which nourishes both of their com-
ic strips. The conflicts of uoman against the
world, against nature and against herself follow
familiar lines. Like Guisewite, Hollander and
Barry are concerned foremost with relationships
in general, the influence of a mother figure in
particular, and the communication of experi-
ence. It is in the formal aspects of writing and
drawing where they innovate. They take the
facade of traditional domestic comedy and go
at it with a wrecking ball. In the film, we see
them in Hollander’s home discussing their pro-
cesses as writers pursuing an elusive idea. The-
oretically, a continuing cast of characters, once
set in motion, will generate stories. Nicole
Hollander’s strip, Sylvia, depends less on a tight
ensemble than does Lynda Barry’s Ernie Pook’s
Comeek, but both women need to prod their
subconscious for their texts.
Nicole Hollander’s themes are taken from
current events and the social condition. “[I
wanted] some way to respond to what’s happen-
ing around me,” as well as to play with concepts,
exaggerate, and generally keep that “kernel of
outrage.” Possible sources for ideas include
books, magazines, television, and eavesdrop-
ping. Sylvia is more political than the average
daily strip, and, consequently, is in self-
syndication. Satiric social comment is often
presented through fantasy: Hollander uses an-
thropomorphism, space aliens, fortune tellers,
angels, and the Devil to Offset her “real”
characters. Sylvia, in effect, can go anywhere,
and is only grounded by the artist’s personali-
ty The titular character herself — flamboyant,
outspoken — is Hollander writ large. “[Sylvia]
speaks her mind, she’s never at a loss. I’m often
at a loss for words.” The character’s perfect con-
fidence is not so much a projection of the Car-
toonist’s ideal self as a product of her concen-
tration. Hollander can take seven hours to com-
pose a precise one-liner Or put-down.

Oh, right, this is a review of the film Funny Ladies, where (amongst other things) Barry and Hollander interview each other. Hm… perhaps I should get that…

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Oda

All the intertubes were atwitter about the Oda Speakers last year. The concept is pretty odd: You buy these speakers, and then you buy a subscription to a series of concerts. You can only listen to these concerts on these speakers, and the speakers don’t really do much else. They do have a line in, so you can plug something else into them, but they don’t do bluetooth or anything.

There’s no social dimension, and there’s no video. There’s just the speakers that suddenly switch themselves on, automatically, when there’s a concert.

It sounded like such a strange concept that I had to have a couple. But it’s only available in the US. And there’s a long waiting list.

But I used a US forwarding service! I haxored it! And I finally got my speakers the other month…

So let’s look at them.

Epic unboxing sequence:

What… Oh! Steel stabilising magnetically attached thingies.

The speakers look mighty nice. Apparently hand-crafted by hipsters in Brooklyn.

So much plastic packaging! Two full bags! That’s not very hipster!

So this is what they look like… The speakers are very light, but with the metal plates they’re very stable.

There’s an app, of course.

When there’s nobody playing, you can stream nature sounds from Kaaterskill Farm (and some other places — it changes once in a while).

Did I mention that the speakers switch themselves on by themselves? They do. But you can set a “Do Not Disturb” time period. I kinda like the way they magically just switch themselves on?

So… OK, the concept is a bit precious. But I like that somebody’s thinking about new ways to connect musicians and audiences. The Oda broadcasts limit themselves naturally to a very select number of people (since you have to have the physical speakers), and in a way that feels like a … new way to have a local radio station? So it’s intimate? And immediate? Because you can’t listen to these concerts later: Once it’s over it’s over. The speakers stream via wifi, and there’s no audio out on them, so you can’t even record the music if you wanted.

But there’s obviously been some pushback to the sheer impracticality of the concept — Oda recently announced that they’ll be making it possible for people that own the speakers to stream the concerts via other gadgets, too.

I think the Oda people have come up with a very interesting approach to getting an alternative way to experience music; making it less … industrial? again.

But what about the audio quality? It’s fine. There’s not much bass, but then again, they aren’t doing any dance music. The most famous person who appears regularly is Terry Riley, I guess, and there’s a lot of… eh… spiritual? music? Gongs and stuff? So kinda new agey? It’s a bit hippyish, which shouldn’t be surprising.

But like tonight, Elizabeth King suddenly started singing while I was here on the couch, minding my own business:

It’s fun? Perhaps I’ll grow tired of being… interrupted?… in this way after a while, but not yet.

I would appreciate a greater variety of music, though.

A Cerebus-Inspired Roundtable on Sexism in Comics

I was reading World War Illustrated 3 #16 when I happened upon an article by Trina Robbins that vaguely intersected with two recent subject matters on this blog: Cerebus and Art Spiegelman.

Cerebus had raped Astoria, and Dave Sim had invited women to write in with their reactions. Robbins was impressed by the responses, so she invited four of them to participate in a roundtable: Robbins would show them excerpts, and then they talk about them.

I don’t think anybody saw this Cerebus plot twist coming.

One of the pieces that Robbins shows the women is… A thing by Art Spiegelman? I didn’t see that coming! I had never heard of this strip: It’s called The Viper, and it sounds like the entire plot of the story was… well, read yourselves.

I’m guessing that’s not a strip that’ll appear in many Spiegelman retrospectives, eh? When Googling this, I find a lot of mentions of The Viper, but a different one:

When you first enter, you’re greeted with a wide range of Spiegelman’s earlier work. In addition to Blasé, a fanzine he created as a teenager, there is “The Viper,” an outrageous noir-esque comic about a man attempting to rescue strangers

The original art sold in 2005 for $6500.

Uh huh:

The Viper was the most vile antihero ever modeled after Will Eisner’s The Spirit, and it earned the 23-year-old Spiegelman recognition in the underground. He created the character after meeting Robert Crumb, who inspired him to “get in touch with your inner psychopath.” Spiegelman’s chest may not swell with pride when he looks back on The Viper (“I’m not proud of my Viper period. It was a poor imitation of Eisner…it was a period I went through”), but it was probably something he had to get out of his system. At least it only took him a year or two. It’s taken Crumb a lifetime.

The panel was split on whether Chantal Montellier’s piece was sexist or not.

Sabrina Jones writes in the introduction how hard is was to get the WW3 people to do an issue on sexism.

It’s a really strong issue. As with most of WW3, it’s mind-bogglingly hard to scrounge up a copy. Perhaps somebody should just scan it and upload to archive.org.

JUST KIDDING.

Comics Daze

It’s a nice afternoon, so I thought I’d try reading out on the balcony…

Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gil Kalish: Caroline Shaw: Narrow Sea

17:27: Le château des animaux vol 2 by Delep & Dorison (Shadow Zone)

Oh, so this is basically a riff on Animal Farm? The level of anthropomorphism here is interesting: All the animals look like perfectly normal animals, except that some of them can somehow grasp tools in their paws… but these animals look very real otherwise.

I haven’t read the first volume, but this was just excruciating to read. It’s basically about how a cat Gandhi protests against the new farm overlord. It goes on forever, and nothing interesting happens.

Blue Iverson: Hotep

18:18: The Giver by Lois Lowry adapted by P. Craig Russell (Haughton Miffin)

I’ve read the novel before (a long time ago), but I’m a Russell fan, so I thought I’d give this adaptation a go.

Russell makes a lot of interesting choices (that work well), like doing the first … half? of the book in this vague style — with almost looks like he’s reproducing blueline work, but it isn’t quite that. (It’s a sci fi book about a very, very regimented society.)

And then we get more distinctly rendered artwork when the protagonists learns more about what the world. It’s a choice that makes absolutely perfect sense… but it gives us a whole bunch of pages to get through before we finally get some beautiful artwork in the final chapter.

Coil: Swanyard (1)

19:26: The Adventures of Hergé by Boquet, Fromental and Stanislas (Drawn & Quarterly)

Oh, yeah — wasn’t this published in the Drawn & Quarterly anthology many decades ago? … ah, yes. But that was slightly abridged. No wonder this seemed eerily familiar.

So this is a biography of Hergé, drawn in his style. It’s telegraphs a lot of the story — if I didn’t know a lot of this already, I don’t think I could have made any sense out of much of this.

So it kinda functions like a … souvenir? for people who are already really into Hergé? “Ah yes, here’s the bit where he did that thing, and here’s that bit with the guy that co-wrote the Moon books”…

But, I mean, it’s pretty good?

Stereolab: Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements (1)

20:01: West End Boy by Tomas Lagermand Lundme & Rune Ryberg (Cobolt)

This is a very odd book. Except for the first few pages, it all takes place in a hotel room. Which makes me wonder whether this was adapted from a stage play? Or a very low-budget indie movie?

So Much Drama! It’s about a sex worker who *gasp* finds out that the older, married guy who’s paying him isn’t actually planning on them spending their lives together in the countryside.

OOPS SPOILERS.

Xeno & Oaklander: Hypnos

20:19: Comics For Choice edited by Ø. K. Fox & Whit Taylor

This is an anthology about abortion. There’s a wide range of approaches — but most of them are really straightforward.

Some are appropriately angry.

And some of this I didn’t know about, like the Jane network that performed abortions in the early 70s? Wild!

There’s a few pretty…. er… amateurish things in here, but quite a few like the above, are cool.

Heh heh.

(It was getting too windy outside, so I moved inside.)

The Sophie Foster-Dimino thing is absolutely devastating.

Neil Young: Archives Vol. II (8): Dume (1975)

22:08: Sangen, vi ikke kendte by Christer Bøgh Andersen (Fahrenheit)

Hey! This is signed and with a sketch from the artist? Thank you, Faraos.

I’m not super excited about the palette — everybody’s doing this desaturated thing now?

But it’s a really lovely book. I don’t know whether it’s autobio or not, but if it is, it’s been really well digested and considered. Autobio people often drop into an axe-grinding mode that’s offputting, but this is really smart. The point-of-view character is this teenage guy with an older sister and a younger brother, and the book is more about them than himself.

The central scene, with the dinner at the neighbour’s house, is pure magic. Perhaps too magical? It does feel very real and it is moving, but it’s also a scene that feels very calculated in this book. That is, the structure of this book is totally perfect — and that can start to feel fake?

Anyway, it’s a fantastic book.

Stian Westerhus: Redundance

22:51: The Stringer by Ted Rall & Pablo Callejo (NBM)

Oh god, not another journalist biography comic book! I hate these so much!

And this flashback style gets really boring really fast.

But… but… WHOHO! Rall pulled a fast one on us! It’s not a book like that at all! Wow! That’s cool. Good one, Rall.

Callejo’s artwork is quite pleasing — he sometimes goes kinda Tardi in his lines, and that’s even better, but even when he’s not doing that, the pages are quite attractive.

Now, I imagine everybody hates this book, and, yes, the storytelling gets really choppy after about the halfway point. It’s like things don’t quite connect? It manages to feel like it’s too long and there’s not enough connecting tissue… at the same time? That’s a unique achievement. So … this isn’t a good book, but I like the concept of it.

The Comics Journal:

Ted Rall knows nothing about journalism, just as he knows nothing about anything. The Stringer is another impressive low point in a career composed of little else.

Tee hee. Score!

JPEGMAFIA: All My Heroes Are Cornballs

00:10: Billionaires by Darryl Cunningham (Drawn & Quarterly)

What the…

What the…

This is just a straight-up Wikipedia dump of some evil people?

Not today, Satan.

JPEGMAFIA: All My Heroes Are Cornballs

00:14: Det må du selv om by Johan Krarup (Cobolt)

Oh, deer. This is kinda exactly what I was worried that other Danish book was going to be.

It’s about a dorkish kid, and it’s all about him, him, him — and how his parents just sucked, and his teacher sucked, and his sports trainer sucked. (And, to be fair, how he, himself, sucked.) So many axes to grind.

I mean, it’s not… awful or anything? But it’s so undigested.

And I just had huge problems keeping the Jeff Lemire-looking characters separate. Fortunately they keep calling each other by names in ever other speech balloon — otherwise it would have been impossible to tell who’s who.

Jane Siberry: 2020: A World Without Music

00:51: Tin Foil #3 by “Floyd” Tangeman

Is that the perfect way to open the book or what?

Is the theme of the issue different medias? Here’s something that seems drawn unto skin…

And here’s some knitted work, and there’s other stitched things, and pieces that look like they’ve made with food and glue?

Anyway, it’s a pretty thrilling issue. Every piece is a surprise. Love it.

Various: The Wire Tapper 52

01:27: Silas Corey 1 by Fabien Nury & Pierre Alary (Faraos Cigarer)

Oh, this sort of art style has been hegemonic in French(ey) comics for a decade now. It’s a sort of mix of… er… let’s go with post-Jandy classic children’s comics style (which is a post-Franquin style) mixed with Japanese dynamics.

And I’m pretty sick of it.

But perhaps it’ll be good anyway.

Well… it’s not so bad? It’s a fairly standard plot, but much more convoluted than normal. But it was just kinda boring? I think I won’t buy any further volumes in this series.

And now I’m all comicsed out.

Nighty night.