Random Thoughts

Griffith Observatory by Bill Griffith.

Bill Griffith’s most famous creation is Zippy the Pinhead, of course, which is still running today. These days, I mostly read them via Arnold Zwicky’s blog, where he explains all the references. (They can be pretty obscure.)

I’ve always enjoyed Zippy, but reading it in collections (which has been my main venue) has frequently left me feeling exhausted. When you pile up all those absurdities page after page, it’s a bit overwhelming.

Griffith Observatory was a full-page less-than-weekly comic strip Griffith did in the late 70s. In it, he looks a contemporary mores and gives humorous twists to them.

Fashion comes under scrutiny a couple of times…

… and Griffith here predicts Madonna! Very prescient.

Things have changed a lot since the 70s, huh?

The role of critics hasn’t, though.

In the final five page piece, Griffith sort of explains the entire “Observatory” concept, and explains the toll it’s taken on Griffith. Here we see Griffy analysing even restaurant booths.

It’s a really fun collection. It’s a period piece, and that makes it even more amusing.

Griffith is still very active. In addition to doing a daily Zippy strip, he also created a graphic novel the other year. It’s about his mother and the long affair she had with a comic artist, and Griffith delivers a sympathetic and thoughtful portrait. I think this is the most bizarre reaction to the book I’ve seen. It’s rare to see somebody read a work from such an unanticipated angle. Well, I didn’t anticipate it, at least…

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Life Under Sanctions, Psychonaut #1-2 by Aleksandar Zograf.

These comics were written during (and after) the ex-Yugoslavian wars in the early to mid nineties, and are like despatches that try to explain what’s going on.

Jim Woodring provides the introduction, which you might think is an odd choice for a book about war. But Zograf is a very introspective artist, and writes as much about his dreams and hypnagogic visions than he does about war.

Zograf’s art is somewhat primitive, but filled with symbols and strange emanations. He also puts these intra-panel symbols on most his pages (here there’s just a simple triangle, but they can become quite complex).

Zograf’s analysis of the war, however, isn’t really that insightful, I’m sorry to say. That is, I don’t really feel I’ve learned anything much from reading these comics that wasn’t readily apparent anyway.

Zograf’s inability to make sense of the conflict may be the result of his rather particular world-view. Things are imbued with mystical meaning…

It may also be because of Zograf’s approach internal. These two panels are a good illustration of what he’s doing: The first panel is basically a summation of what Zograf has (I would guess) read in the newspapers. The second panel is about one of Zograf’s dream. There’s very little about what Zograf or his friends are actually experiencing during the war.

The few short pieces written by Gordana Basta are very different. (Zograf is Basta’s boyfriend, and the Saŝa mentioned is Zograf’s real name, I think). She writes about what’s happening to them personally, what she’s seen while out working as a nurse, and what people are doing. It’s a strikingly different storytelling approach.

Zograf can be kinda funny, though.

A third issue of Psychonaut was published by Monster Pants Comics, and Zograf has continued to publish in English occasionally. The last book was apparently Regards from Serbia from Top Shelf Productions in 2007.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

Verbatim #1-2 by Carl Belfast.

Autobio comics is one of the major genres in art comics now, and it’s difficult to recall just how controversial they were in some circles in the early 90s.

This is yet another parody of the genre, and it’s not completely successful, I think.

Gaze into his navel…

Belfast’s art style is a bit hard to pin down. I think I see some Peter Kuper in that drawing, for instance, but…

… not here at all. (Having the mother look into the camera is pretty amusing here.)  Here the artwork looks more like Dave Cooper, perhaps?

The autobio artist has to make sure that they utilise every experience in their work.

Hm… I guess that’s Julie Doucet, Lloyd Dangle, uhm… Roy Xero? Who can that be?, Harvey Pekar and Daniel Clowes.

The second issue isn’t autobio parody. It’s about the author moving to hillbilly country in Tennessee, and the adventures that ensue.

It’s all rather odd, but amusing.

It looks like Belfast has done very little else in comics but these two issues. He’s written a story in One-Fisted Tales published earlier, but I can’t find anything afterwards. Perhaps “Carl Belfast” is a pseudonym?

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.