201110260333.jpg

§ An interview with Gary Panter? Whoopie! It’s by Matt Seneca? Double whoopies all the way!

PANTER: Each medium has its characteristics, and I try to address those strengths or weaknesses in the medium; and also, to join the conversation of the medium. I’m interested in the conversation of art history, especially as this pertains to my lifetime or the twentieth century, and where I project that it might go. That’s one of the games that modern art plays: where does it go, and what does it affect by trying to go? And so, usually in fine art, you’re making a kind of pregnant or puzzling object, or some object that has presence and which calls to people, hopefully. It arrests them for a second and various things happen, whereas in a comic, I want people lying in bed reading it. I want people lying in bed and reading it, and you forget you’re reading it, and you go in the story, and you’re like, “Whoa! What happened?” And you either remember it or you don’t. Especially with this new comic, because I’ve done experimental stuff that doesn’t allow you to do that at all. You have to struggle the whole time. But this next comic is trying to be seductive in a conventional sense.


§ Along the same lines, at the prize-winning end of his book tour, Seth sums up the Graphic Novel Moment

“It’s a pretty clear sign that graphic novels or comic books have actually reached a point where they can be judged on their content rather than on their media,” the 49-year-old told the Toronto Star from New York City.

§ Sean T. Collins rounds up defenses of HABIBI against Orientalism by Eddie Campbell and Leela Corman, , who both have strong arguments.

§ Despite some grumbling about the Mid-Ohio Con, overall it seems to have been a very successful show. Tony Isabella loved it!

Wizard World did an outstanding job. I watched their staff handle several problems in swift satisfying manner the afternoon before the show and several times during the show. I confess I was one of those problems – a revised floor plan had my Artist Alley table so far back in the hall that I was barely in the convention – but they resolved the situation efficiently. I thanked them then for their kind consideration and I thank them again here.

§ Matt Tauber didn’t like the crowd and coined the term “future disappointees” for people standing in a line which they will not get to the end of, but overall he had a swell time too.

§ Is Frank Miller’s HOLY TERROR an Islamophobic publication? The matter is getting aired:

“We are witnessing a growing industry of information and fear-mongering, and this work fits in the centre … It’s unfortunate that Islamophobia is becoming mainstream,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil-rights group. He described the work as “shameful”. In a post on his website dated September 23, Miller unapologetically defended Holy Terror as a piece of “naked propaganda”, but propaganda in a “virtuous” sense.

§ Oddities of the past. Boing Boing reports on how Frank Frazetta drew Tarzan getting very excited in the presence of two hot jungle girls. But Frazetta quelled the excitement.

Alex wanted it. Frank said that he would have to remove the penis. Alex agreed. I was thoroughly despondent sitting there watching this scenario play out before my eyes. “My God, Frank, you can’t take out that penis. It will ruin the piece.” I said it calmly and quietly while Alex was looking at other potential acquisitions. Frank simply said: “I can draw another one.” I’ve heard this before and it never happened. Alex was willing to pay 45K for the piece.

Speaking of Frazetta AND Eddie Campbell, again, Campbell has been blogging up a storm about Romance Comics, and in this one he talks about Frazetta’s romance comics. So far, no penis removal.

1 COMMENT

  1. “Miller unapologetically defended Holy Terror as a piece of “naked propaganda”, but propaganda in a “virtuous” sense.”

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virtue

    Righteousness propaganda… Mr. Miller, your 72 virgins have been reserved.

    Meanwhile, The Sermon on the Mount is readily available in a variety of graphic novel editions…

    (But Mark Twain said it better with “The War Prayer”.)

  2. I dunno… “Holy Terror” to me feels like this old guy desperately wanting his world view to be explained using familiar superheroes. Only, they’re not familiar superheroes because DC didn’t approve it. So, Holy Terror is left as a mess of an old guy basically yelling “Get off my lawn,” but with superheroes.

    I just realized Miller is still becoming Neal Adams.

  3. Miller, in his recent interviews about Holy Terror, says he “doesn’t know squat about Islam, but he knows a damn lot about al-Qaeda”, except that he refers to the English translation of al-Qaeda as “The Cell” (a statement uttered by one of the terrorist characters in the book), when the well-and-commonly known translation of al-Qaeda is “The Base”.

    And this underscores why I think Frank Miller is an out-of-touch, increasingly irrelevant creator and more of a sad, pathetic joke every day: The man who brought us “anaconda venom”, exploding bleach bottles and missing-child milk posters for kids who have been abducted six hours later, and stated that Iraq declared war on the United States and continues to insist that the War on Terror be fought using a World War II template, has simply become intellectually and creatively lazy.