Hi, Everybody!
Part six: Dave answers Michael R.'s question about Marvel & DC comps, pledges to back Lee Thacker's and James Banderas-Smith's Kickstarters, and we end on a cliffhanger about the future of Collected Letters:
And Sean and Living The Line have another new book on Kickstarter: Moonray: Ascension
Please Hold For Dave Sim 3/2024
Audio (again):
Video:
Part four: Dave answers MJ Sewall's question about the pronunciation of "Melvinbone":
Part five: Dave provides an overview on the timeline for the creation of The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, and gives an update on how the work on that is going. All in service of answering a question Jen tried to answer here:Part six: Dave answers Michael R.'s question about Marvel & DC comps, pledges to back Lee Thacker's and James Banderas-Smith's Kickstarters, and we end on a cliffhanger about the future of Collected Letters:
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If you missed out, CAN10 will join the others available here eventually...
And you can get Akimbo thru Diamond:
Friend to the Blog, James Windsor Banderas-Smith has a new Papa Balloon & Cactus Kickstarter. He's offering the Dave Sim variant cover back issues on this campaign. Please back this project, so I can get my new issue.
And Pal to the Blog, Lee Thacker is the artist on a new Kickstarter for a book Dave REALLY liked.
And Sean and Living The Line have another new book on Kickstarter: Moonray: Ascension
Okay, back to Bizness as unusual:
Rigamarole:
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The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:
Your store will be up to 35% offMarch 10, and 20-24.**Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.
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The Last Day Without nothing.
" " " " Dave's signature.
" " " " an Old Cerebus Remarque
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The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill.
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Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".
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Next Time: Dave's not doing the Monday Report until U.S. Tax Day, so probably some faxes kicking around my desk...
4 comments:
Thank you to Dave for taking the time to answer the questions I'd asked of Jen. I've said it on here before but will do so again now, I'm an optimist by nature and I believe Dave will complete Strange Death.
I may not understand parts of it (immediately anyway) I may not even care for it (again, immediately, it took me years to 'get' Form & Void) but I will purchase it out of respect for Dave's artisitry and unique thought process and to learn how vast his Comic Art Metaphysics Theory is.
Thanks also to Matt and also to Jen.
Take care.
A Fake Name
AFN, I still don't "get" Form and Void. But that's at least partly because I absolutely HATED Hemingway when I was required to read him in my high school American Lit class. Guess I'll keep trying.
Tony,
If you don't get Form & Void I think that's fine, but since you commented I thought I'd respond. First time reading all I wanted was more Jaka and Cerebus; not Hemingway, not a safari, not tiny little artwork, none of it basically; it all felt like marking time till they get to the tent in the blizzard.
To compare this to music, sometimes favorite songs or compositions are tracks that need to grow on me, that I just don't quite grasp on first or third listen but later on, suddenly hold appeal. Maybe it's because I'm now used to the twists and turns of the music or because I've changed in some way or a combination but I now appreciate the song.
And I don't mean being forced to hear some overplayed pop tune in the public arena, where there's so much repetition of the song I find myself eventually tapping my foot to the beat but a genuine appeciation for the music.
It happens that way with literature, with a good deal of art where I return to it later and find something new, flipside of course is returning to something you once enjoyed and wishing you left it as a fond memory, the work no longer having the same impact.
This is a rather long-winded way of saying that when I re-read Form & Void with no expectation of more Jaka and Cerebus but rather on its own terms, I could appreciate the starkness.
From the beginning and pretty much always I love Gerhard's backgrounds but there is a definite starkness to the beginning, those trees feel creepy and foreboding and later on the tiny panels convey a uniqeu rhythm within the Cerebus work itself and I read the folly of Mary's hunt not with impatience but on its own merits. I also appreciate the dream sequences with the warthog (?) in front of the church and the talking lion, an interesting surreal note.
A bit of comic art mastery is on display when Fitzgerald just fades, it's haunting and one of the most powerful moments in the series.
Of course, the trapped in the snow sequence is exceellent as is the sense of doom surrounding Cerebus and Jaka as they make their way to Sand Hill Creek.
There's probably more to it than that but this feels like a mighty-long comment already! And I'm not quite sure if any of this is making sense to you or anyone else who comes across it.
The shorter version would be sometimes art just grows on you and you find something that connects. Maybe Form & Void will for you but if it doesn't, like I said up there, I think that's fine too.
I can appreciate the hunt sequence, the art, and understand Dave's point regarding the Hemingways (though I'm not saying i agree with it, I'm just not sure what I make of it really at the moment) but not on a first read, not even on a second.
But you may never like it and that's good too, there's plenty of work out tehre I don't care for, even when I've given it a second or third chance.
I really never thought I'd like the Hemingway parts of Form & Void but there's something about the starkness, the tiny panels and the rhythm of the action that makes for an intense experience.
As for the main thesis, I don't know but I think it's definitely worth reading, at least once.
I hope that made sense.
Good day to you, Tony.
Cheers,
A Fake Name
I replied to Fake yesterday, but Blogger seems to have eaten the comment. Suffice it to say I'm planning to buy the remastered Form and Void to see if it holds up better in "one piece" so to speak. It's funny, b ut I just got done reading "Reads" in "phone book" format, after only having read it in its individual issues form before that. It was only while doing that that I saw how Dave was using the full breadth of the comic book format - including the time gap between issues - in telling that "story." Somehow reading the "volume" continuously lessened the impact of his narrative, metanarrative, or whatever literary term applies. I'm thinking "Form and Void" may have the opposite effect.
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