tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post6603331417354577025..comments2024-03-18T11:06:05.506-04:00Comments on ILLUSTRATION ART: AN EPIDEMIC OF CIRCLE HEADSDavid Apatoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-31782386540748191662014-10-30T11:38:52.957-04:002014-10-30T11:38:52.957-04:00If I may, I think the brick-by-brick metaphor is j...If I may, I think the brick-by-brick metaphor is just narrowly missing the critical issue. Which is that narrative structure and architectural structure are two different things, which respectively bring different properties into a work. For the story, structure provides far more than just scaffolding upon which to loosely hang or house events. The structure itself pervades everything and has tremendous implicit meaning in terms of how the argument of the play is being articulated. This goes from the general level to the act level to the sequence level to the scene level to the beat level to the dialogue or action level of each exchange. The design is controlling everything at all levels.<br /><br />Architecture, by necessity, is nowhere near as composed at the human level. Architecture has grand abstract symbolism and composition, and it has flow in a grand sense, but "story flow" the actual movement of people from room to room, it can only lightly suggest if at all. People have their own stories to live, their own whims and directives. Architecture is more like setting up a treasure hunt or decorating a party. It is hands-off, so to speak. Any particular "easter egg" that is laid into the fabric of an occasion (a bowl of punch, chairs around a fire, an atm machine) or a building (bathroom, terrace, alcove) may be used or not by any particular human experiencing the event. The human narrative in architecture, in other words, is left a la carte. And, if one takes care to notice, (except an elevator stuffed to capacity) any particular room in any particular building is always more vacant than occupied. <br /><br />I think Ware's work is caught in the middle between these two forms; story and architecture. In one sense he surely is controlling everything as a storyteller necessarily does. Yet at the same time, there is that "international style" architectural stand-offishness; so little dramatic forcing, so little emotional expression, and so little spatial economy. So maybe in between architecture and story, the hybrid is something like a subway; A narrow piece of anodyne architecture that is constantly moving and stopping, constricts our mobility in a claustrophobic and awkward space, makes weak, undramatic turns, and is filled with dour people and uninteresting information, from which we wish to escape at the nearest opportunity.kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-59485030520149054182014-10-30T09:21:52.521-04:002014-10-30T09:21:52.521-04:00What is lost if the efficient processing of inform...<b>What is lost if the efficient processing of information dumbs down our appreciation for visual form? </b><br /><br />A great question and the answer is our humanity. David, Ware's merits as a mechanical illustrator and preliterate existential storyteller aside, the absence of the human hand in the geometric imagery you selected was a masterstroke of instinct and questioning regarding our new post literate and post substantial world.<br /><br />The enlightenment ripped language form substance and rendered all, even morality to pragmatism and self interest. As idea began losing its substance and was deconstructed until all meaning was eviscerated, so too was the substance of art reduced and now eviscerated as well.<br /><br />The sad result is such imagery, post substance visual grunts and directives. Is it a wonder people are married to their vices which remain the only substance left to them, or so people feel and are taught to believe?<br /><br />This post has verified what Kev has been saying and trying to elaborate on as well as clarifying your own particular love affair with art. For me it verifies instincts which have haunted me for decades regarding pragmatism, which now appears to be increasingly replacing basic forms of manners and humanity as well as art. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but I wanted to say this post has given a visual face and clarity to certain things which I previously understood largely by instinct and for this I'm very grateful. Also, thanks to the other commentators here too who helped sort out one thing from another.Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-70784069173999972342014-10-29T23:37:58.869-04:002014-10-29T23:37:58.869-04:00Laurence John wrote: "i admire the overall co...Laurence John wrote: "i admire the overall construction of an entire Ware book, rather than each individual drawing. the same way i might not notice a particular brick in a building's facade, but when viewed in totality the building might be a beautiful thing." <br /><br />I can relate to this way of viewing work. When I hold Jimmy Corrigan in my hand and flip through the pages, the totality of the building is impressive. But how do you deal with the fact that in order to experience the story, you must go through every brick, brick by brick, in sequence? How do you deal with the fact that somewhere, once every 200 bricks, is an inconspicuous brick with some minor variation that has special significance? I picked up speed because I couldn't stand the plodding pace, but then some Ware groupie would inevitably say, "Didn't you catch the significance of that bird in that small panel about 2/3 of the way through the book? It just reinforced my first impression that Ware had no clue how to prioritize, which for me is a fatal weakness in an artist or a writer. <br /><br />If people were applauding Ware's elaborate constructions, ornate typography, quality materials, I would agree he is a marvelous craftsman. And based on our discussion, I'll go one step further and say he builds an excellent wall. But he doesn't seem to know how to make an interesting brick. It is hard for me to get interested in the sum total of uninteresting bricks.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-27447542111028812632014-10-29T13:37:23.358-04:002014-10-29T13:37:23.358-04:00Thanks for the interesting exchange on Ware and ex...Thanks for the interesting exchange on Ware and existential writers. Ware isn't one for breathing life into the mundane which is the beauty going on in the Everett image, Sisters Pacing Two and Two.<br /><br />The stripped down pre-verbal, grunts and groans work as commands; look here, go there, no stop, see, think, remember, go back and so on. It's similar to the robotic prompts, computer related directives and also mind control techniques, all of which are a growing part of an unavoidable dialogue with a new existential reality.Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-74619401543279123832014-10-29T13:29:20.793-04:002014-10-29T13:29:20.793-04:00David:" But other than that I had a hard time...David:" But other than that I had a hard time finding a single drawing in those 50 pages that I enjoyed or respected"<br /><br />David, when i buy comics it's usually for the art rather than the storytelling. i own foreign comics which i cant even read which i bought just for the art. when i flip through the 380 pages of Jimmy Corrigan i'm also hard pushed to pick out a single panel i like in terms of drawing. there's nothing in it that makes me think "i want to draw like that !" so Ware is something of an exception for me in terms of the comic art i admire, and he's clearly doing something different to other artists i admire for their 'style'. <br /><br />it all goes back to my first comment about 'transparency' of style. when we look at a drawing that has more expressive qualities, that shows variety in the width of line, and the tremor of the human hand (and a myriad of other expressive variables) i think we always view that work as having a more 'subjective' point of view. it's as if the artist 'takes us with them' into their inner state of mind as they drew the image. because Ware is trying to maintain this objective, dispassionate point of view i mentioned above, i think he's deliberately chosen the least noticeable style possible to aid that transparency. <br /><br />the cool, detached point of view is necessary for the particular type of storytelling he does. the storytelling is the point. the 'art' resides not in the line-work of each individual figure. it resides in the way the story is told, in the narrative devices, the page layouts, in the cumulative effect all of those tiny panels as part of the overall experience. when i read his work i feel rather like a scientist looking through a microscope at a civilisation i don't quite understand. it's as if the events are taking place behind glass and i'm powerless to intervene. i'm sure this is due to the many distancing devices already mentioned and also the smallness of the panels. the effect can be uncanny. <br /><br />i admire the overall construction of an entire Ware book, rather than each individual drawing. the same way i might not notice a particular brick in a building's facade, but when viewed in totality the building might be a beautiful thing. <br />Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-89435843995338593722014-10-29T12:02:00.964-04:002014-10-29T12:02:00.964-04:00Anonymous / Lee wrote: "I know this isn't...Anonymous / Lee wrote: "I know this isn't very generous of me, but I might have more patience for Chris Ware's deliberately ugly drawings if they expressed an idea more interesting than, "Boo hoo life sucks."<br /><br />I have that same ungenerous impression of Ware's overall tone-- that he tends to offer a cringing view of the world which high school literature students mistake for sensitivity. But Laurence John, who impresses me as a straight shooter, writes, "i don't think that the sad lives of losers is what the work is really 'about'. nor do i think that the message is 'everything is hopeless'" Since I am here to learn and not just to talk, I am looking forward to focusing on Ware's take on "beauty and dignity of nature" and his "zoomed-out viewpoint of something far grander; the whole universe." Those elements, even in limited quantities, have potentially great redemptive power.<br /><br />Anonymous / Ed from Italy wrote: "The aforementioned Steinberg, or i can think of some Searle stuff or of illustrator Quentin Blake or Comic artist Hugo Pratt, all show a certain Gusto and passion in bringing it down to the essentials.<br /><br />These round head cartoons show no love nor passion, they are just dead flat."<br /><br />That, for me, is the heart of this post. We can put aside Ware, and politics, and the words and themes of modern stories, and just focus on the marks on paper. There is indeed a gusto and passion to the lines of artists you mention that is simply absent from the circle heads of Brunetti, Gauld and Ware. I am certain that the current artists love the artists you mention, and the New Yorker used to hire such artists, but I agree that today's circle head work is "dead flat." David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-20939079365657427202014-10-29T11:33:13.967-04:002014-10-29T11:33:13.967-04:00Laurence John-- This is a language I can relate to...Laurence John-- This is a language I can relate to. I do admire the writing of Vonnegut, Camus, Beckett, Dostoevsky, Kafka etc. (I've never read Céline, but looked into him and now I understand why. That boy was cray cray.) Perhaps my admiration for these authors is part of the problem-- I see how beautifully and intelligently the alienated and the pathetic can be handled, and it makes me wonder why anyone would settle for Jimmy Corrigan. <br /><br />For example, Vonnegut (who for me is the most enjoyable read of the bunch) may write about sad disaffected people but he captures their predicament in a sharp, coruscating prose laced with humor. There are gems on every page. Dostoevsky is slower and tougher going for me, but each sentence is incisive and you always sense a shining intelligence and profundity behind his writing. None of the writers you mention make the mistake of portraying bleak, desolate lives in real time. There is a firm, discriminating editorial hand behind each of their works.<br /><br />I wouldn't expect Ware to try to use the full vocabulary of these authors in a comics medium, but I would expect him to make effective use of grouping and sequencing and economy and staging. Do you see some compensating strength in Ware in these categories? Ware's pacing makes me restless. In Jimmy Corrigan, he stretches a visit to the doctor's office into 450(!!!) panels. (And if you think it took a long time for me to count all those panels, imagine how I felt about reading them the first time.) Some of those 450 panels are devoted to fantasies about the nurse or comments from Jimmy's father, but Ware also devotes a huge number of the panels to a bird outside the window, or to the crinkling of the paper on the examination table where Jimmy sits. Whenever Jimmy's father coughs, that's a whole separate drawing. In fairness, sometimes Ware squeezes a "koff kaff" into one drawing. (Panel one: doctor enters the examining room. Panel two: doctor moves a chair ("squeek squeek"). Panel three: doctor washes his hands ("sssshhhhh"). Panel four: doctor opens a drawer labeled "towels." Panel five: doctor dries his hands with the towel. Panel six: doctor disposes of towel in a drawer labeled "used towels." Panel seven: the doctor finally begins to speak.) Which of the authors you mentioned would pace their stories that way? Dear god, carbon based life forms aren't meant to survive at that pace. <br /><br />It is possible that the quality of the drawing makes me more impatient. I have infinite patience for spending time in the company of rich, rewarding drawings. But Ware clearly doesn't want us distracted by (or taking refuge in) the images that move his story forward. His flat, hardscrabble drawings truly are informational graphics. Ware has to label those drawers "towels" and "used towels" because readers couldn't tell what the doctor was doing from the drawings alone. <br /><br />I think it's fair to ask whether I am being too impatient with Ware because I don't like dwelling on the sad lives of losers. I do have a natural fondness for heroic responses to squalor (Kollwitz over Grosz). Yet, I love Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, and you can't beat that for degradation and squalor. If Ware's pages were numbered, I would ask you to point me to the "grander," "sublime" passages. (After all, I missed Amy Corrigan on your diagrammatic layout page.) The theme you've distilled into one short passage ("this is what life is. the mundane and the cosmic. both happening side by side, but usually oblivious of each other") seems to me a very worthwhile subject for a book the length of Jimmy Corrigan. I only wish that Ware wrote with your focus and ability.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-75188561249832645152014-10-29T04:54:19.156-04:002014-10-29T04:54:19.156-04:00David, i think if you don't 'get' Ware...David, i think if you don't 'get' Ware by now there's very little hope that i can change your mind at this stage. He seems to be one of those artists you either 'get' or don't. <br /><br />i could place Ware in a tradition of writers such as Vonnegut, Camus, Beckett, Céline, Dostoevsky, Kafka etc. writers who also take a look at sad, pathetic, desperate individuals. but that might sound like i'm trying too hard to attach some of their cult status to him. it might sound too fawning. besides, if you're not a fan of writers who deal in the existential, the absurdist, the alienated, you're not going to like Ware. <br /><br />a lot of people complain that his work is all just misery, and why should they spend their time reading about an insignificant loser such as Jimmy Corrigan ? well, do we steer clear of fiction containing murderers, rapists, madmen, thieves and good-for-nothings simply on the basis that we don't wish to spend time in their company ? of course we don't. literature is full of wretched creatures. <br /><br />so how would i validate his work to those (like Kev) who say that there's nothing heroic or insightful or illuminating about any of it ?<br /><br />well, i don't think that the sad lives of losers is what the work is really 'about'. nor do i think that the message is "everything is hopeless". there are frequent digressions which contrast the petty / ultra-mundane aspects of modern life with the beauty and dignity of nature. there are many passages which linger on the passing of time, weather, or the changing of seasons. (what would be called 'the sublime' in other artist's work seems to go unnoticed in Ware's). the sad, unfulfilled lives of most of the characters are always juxtaposed with a zoomed-out viewpoint of something far grander; the whole universe. it reminds me of something like this from Ernest Becker's 'the Denial of Death':<br /><br />"if he gives in to his natural feeling of cosmic dependence, the desire to be part of something bigger, it puts him at peace and at oneness, gives him a sense of self-expansion in a larger beyond, and so heightens his being, giving him truly a feeling of transcendent value"<br /><br />it's as if Ware is saying "this is what life is. the mundane and the cosmic. both happening side by side, but usually oblivious of each other"<br /><br /><br />---<br /><br />anyway, that's why i think he's a good storyteller. more on the drawing part later. <br />Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-58918967040839814472014-10-28T23:36:21.971-04:002014-10-28T23:36:21.971-04:00Laurence John-- I found the page in Jimmy Corrigan...Laurence John-- I found the page in Jimmy Corrigan, thanks. Good golly, that's ol' Amy Corrigan! It has been so many years since I read Jimmy Corrigan, I didn't recognize her but I took advantage of this opportunity to go back and re-read the 50 pages leading up to the page you linked, thinking they might shed some light on the page we're discussing. In my view, you definitely picked the best of the 50.<br /><br />I though Ware's snow effect was nice, and most of those pages with snow had a nice mood and palette to them. I was also grateful that none of figures were from his "circle head" period which is the subject of this post. But other than that I had a hard time finding a single drawing in those 50 pages that I enjoyed or respected. <br /><br />A huge percentage of them were repetitive drawings to slow the passage of time-- a pacing tool which I think could work well if it was used judiciously as a contrast to "normal" pacing, but which, when overused, turn the reading experience into the Bataan death march. I think that long, slogging march is part of my problem with Ware that I should attempt to put aside for purposes of this exercise-- he asks such a mountain of effort for what seems like a mole hill of a pay off, it's difficult for me not to feel cheated for my time commitment. That, plus I am trying to get over being irked by the fawning "Chris Ware is god" crowd that is so laughably ignorant of the recent history of graphic arts. Those two ingredients have probably combined to put a chip on my shoulder that isn't helpful for any kind of objective analysis. <br /><br /> David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-13567044540082435592014-10-28T18:12:38.854-04:002014-10-28T18:12:38.854-04:00That's what I was trying to get at, that the i...That's what I was trying to get at, that the info graphic is literary in function but a pre-verbal language of grunts and groans, simple recognitions, directives without visual relief or inflections and so instinctively repulsive.<br /><br />I guess some people find these same raw qualities cryptic and fascinating.Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-31239677602226279572014-10-28T18:09:18.507-04:002014-10-28T18:09:18.507-04:00David,
the diagramatic page is from Jimmy Corrig...David, <br /><br />the diagramatic page is from Jimmy Corrigan too... it's about 20 pages from the end. <br /><br />more soon. <br /><br />Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-51767781085293972362014-10-28T16:47:05.773-04:002014-10-28T16:47:05.773-04:00Laurence John-- The page I was referencing was not...Laurence John-- The page I was referencing was not the page from Jimmy Corrigan (your first link) but the second page, the one you cited for its diagramatic layouts. That's not from Jimmy Corrigan, I believe. (I would not feel comfortable mouthing off about Chris Ware's work if I had not paid my dues and read Jimmy Corrigan from cover to cover. I found it very slow going, in part because the drawings hurt my eyes-- literally.) <br /><br />I think Ware's drawing has improved since then, and his later work, such as Building Stories, comes in smaller doses so I don't find it as stultifying. Your diagramatic layout piece, which is apparently from a later period, was more interesting to me than the Corrigan page. <br /><br />Don't abandon me on this, I beg you, because I view you as my single best opportunity to "get" Ware's work. The vast majority of the critiques of his work on line are so fatuous they just make me angry at Ware. (For example, take a look at http://blog.1979semifinalist.com/2007/11/02/hands-down-the-greatest-movie-poster-of-all-time/ where the writer begins, "Chris Ware is a god among men, it’s good to see EVERYONE is finally getting this." This sentence is her opening to an article on why Ware's first movie poster is "Hands Down The Greatest Movie Poster Of All Time." But there's no effort at honest analysis, no thoughtful comparisons to other relevant artists or to historical styles, just adolescent drivel. Angry commenters who have written in to this blog in the past haven't done much better. ) I assume there must be something special in Ware, and like Diogenes I am looking for one honest man who can help me with it. So far you are the brightest, most articulate and patient advocate I've come across so you're stuck with the job.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-59543776531581708772014-10-28T15:31:18.823-04:002014-10-28T15:31:18.823-04:00After taking a good look at that piece that Lauren...After taking a good look at that piece that Laurence linked to, the info-graphic sequential-fiction genealogical representation... and thinking about that bird one (where it threatens to be run over in the last panel) I think Laurence's view has to be accepted into the overall view.<br /><br />I think the merit of Ware's work is <i>not</i> related to illustration. And it isn't great writing, in the sense that I also don't find it insightful. It does stake out new territory in terms of developing the diagrammatic end of the comic book language. Even though, in many ways, it isn't all that effective diagrammatically. <br /><br />The bible that David flagged up is an interesting entry-point into another problem with the navel-gazing egg-head mentality... their endless recursive searches for minute connections within a very small purview. Now, I haven't read the book, and maybe Laurence you can correct me on this... There is the bible with the pressed flower on the shelf in the end table, and then it is isolated out to the left, and then it is opened up, and then we see the flower inside, and then we see the flower before pressing, and then we see the blue-dressed mother as a young child picking the flowers, and then we pull back to the long horizontal (backgrounded panel) of the homestead.<br /><br />Essentially what Ware is doing here is <i>unpoeticizing</i> or <i>untranslating</i> something that is much more economically said in english as approximately; "the bible with the flower she had pressed, the one she had picked from the lawn as a child, was tucked in the kitchen end table as she raised her own child." And I believe he is diagramming this out in visual prose in order to demonstrate that anything you can write in English can also be written in graphics without resorting to words.<br /><br />Now, a great many illustrators, comic book artists and graphic designers have understood this down through the years. To demonstrate it is actually a merely academic matter. And this demonstration by Ware feels academic for that reason. It seems to me to serve very little except to prove that graphics can be used as prose. This diagrammatic prose should not be mistaken for cinematic expression, although Ware is always using cinematic sequences too.<br /><br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-43049881120579654762014-10-28T14:38:10.021-04:002014-10-28T14:38:10.021-04:00David,
i should point out that the page i linked ...David,<br /><br />i should point out that the page i linked to that you're discussing is just one page of a 380 page graphic novel (Jimmy Corrigan). it's not intended to work as a stand-alone one page strip. <br />i was just using it as an illustration of the type of diagramatic layouts that Ware occasionally uses, and which i personally think are doing something new (as a narrative device) within the comic medium.<br /><br />David: "How do his painstaking little drawings and circles and charts enhance our experience?"<br /><br />if you really want to know the answer to the above question i'm afraid you'll have to read the whole book. <br /><br />as for Ware's style (or lack of) and how it works (or doesn't, as the case may be) my first comment in this comment section explains my take on it. <br />Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-66071878300564253582014-10-28T13:36:22.171-04:002014-10-28T13:36:22.171-04:00Sean Farrell-- Thanks for your comments. I agree t...Sean Farrell-- Thanks for your comments. I agree that these images seem to be "generic without subjective meaning" that seems to makes shapes more approachable and interesting. Lotte Helinga wrote a very interesting article about the transition from handwriting to printing books in the 15th century, where she described the trade offs when moving from personal, subjective letters to generic forms: "through the first half-century of printing we can see a relentless process of simplification of graphic form at work. This simplification consisted of a selection of those features of script that were essential for communication, and, conversely, the rejection of the endless variation in form and function that the writing hand can create. Written script forms can be ambiguous; there can be innumerable small distinctions in, say, the value of a capital as expressed by graphic means. In typography, on the contrary, such variation is impossible, once forms have become fixed in metal they force you to make decisions...." We may be witnessing something similar with information graphics.<br /><br />Anonymous wrote: " I think they fail to see the drawing in comics as a thing in itself."<br /><br />One interesting thing to me is that many of these artists-- Brunetti, Spiegelman and Ware, for example-- are true lovers and appreciators and historians of the drawing in comics and illustrations. They love that stuff, and I suspect they love it so much they have found a way to insert themselves into that world with words and thoughts, because they just can't do it with pictures.<br /><br />Another Anonymous-- Apart from brief contacts in Raw, I was not very familiar with Amy and Jordan. While the words are not always to my taste, I see what you mean about the visual images. There is more humanity and definitely "world with lines that is a thing in itself."David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-44938664473688143102014-10-28T12:44:15.129-04:002014-10-28T12:44:15.129-04:00Laurence John and Kev Ferrara-- I'm not well ...Laurence John and Kev Ferrara-- I'm not well positioned to criticize pictures for their content... I like too many illustrations of dumb content myself (Coby Whitmore illustrations of 1950s women's magazine fiction, 1930s covers to Spicy Detective pulp magazines, Kurt Schaffenberger art for Lois Lane comics, etc.).<br /><br />The problem is, the artists we're discussing force us to appraise their content because there's nothing particularly remarkable about the pictures. Any competent artist could easily replicate these images-- no special skill or talent required. Girls in high school have been drawing characters similar to Brunetti's in the margins of their notebooks for decades. Laurence's "diagrammatic layout" from Chris Ware strikes me as technically indistinguishable from the airline information card I posted: circles and arrows direct the flow of information, small sequential boxes with little scenes containing geometric figures with a minimum of detail, all on a white background. <br /><br />So if the difference between a sensitive genius and a staff artist is not their drawing ability, it must be in the inspired content-- the message (and what Laurence might call its cinematography). Well, if we're forced to turn to the content to evaluate what's special, let's go there, and let's focus on Laurence's diagrammatic layout as a useful example.<br /><br />Ware's page seems to me like a cross between a genealogical chart and a shoebox full of memorabilia. It inspires feelings of wistfulness over the fact that children grow up, old people die, and each individual who comes and goes has a personal story with its own sights and sounds and smells. It's pretty clear that Ware is a sincere fellow with melancholy moments and that he likes to ruminate about such feelings. (It is also clear that he has a better work ethic than many of the 3 billion other people on the planet who share those ruminations). <br /><br />OK, so I get that Ware taps into those feelings. Where I have trouble is with the artistic value of what Ware contributes to them. I suspect I could look through any stranger's random collection of faded photographs and pressed flowers in an old shoe box and experience the same feelings that Ware tries to evoke. How do his painstaking little drawings and circles and charts enhance our experience? Does he shape the direction, timing or depth of our experience in some way? Does he explain something we wouldn't understand from the original items? Ware empties out the shoe box and lingers over its random contents (often at a slow, lugubrious pace) but do you feel illuminated by his diagrammatic layout of those contents?<br /><br />Let's be specific about Laurence's linked image. Ware shows us an informational graphic of a bible in a separate panel. What does that do for you? He also has an offshoot from the timeline to show that the girl picked a flower which was later pressed in a book. Where does that go? What does it do for the viewer / reader? Fondling old army photos, medical records and baby pictures evokes feelings but it only takes us so far. I'm not looking for a linear story, but would expect to find a stronger hand of the artist (or voice of the writer) before I start crediting Ware with some worthy artistic insight. Remember, poets have been grappling with this same tristesse since Neanderthals walked the earth. If someone was hungry to be enriched by the arts on this subject, why on earth would they turn to Ware? Why not turn to Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman (unless of course words without pictures are too steep a hill to climb these days)?<br /><br />Laurence (or others who have succeeded in decoding Ware), can you point to something profound or poignant in Ware's diagrammatic approach?David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-5122554189102766362014-10-28T09:03:34.707-04:002014-10-28T09:03:34.707-04:00The problem is that thes artists look like thy can...The problem is that thes artists look like thy can't draw, maybe they can... but from wht i see here they've given it up completely.<br /><br />The aforementioned Steinberg, or i can think of some Searle stuff or of illustrator Quentin Blake or Comic artist Hugo Pratt, all show a certain Gusto and passion in bringing it down to the essentials.<br /><br />These round head cartoons show no love nor passion, they are just dead flat. <br /><br />Ed from Italy<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-75791502921697550562014-10-27T22:14:08.036-04:002014-10-27T22:14:08.036-04:00Kev,
I've been admiring the Walter Everett yo...Kev,<br /> I've been admiring the Walter Everett you passed along my way, Sisters Pacing Two and Two. For anyone not familiar with it, it is a very tender painting of some nuns taking some physically challenged children out for some fresh air and it's a wonderful work filled with theological and mystical meanings and basically these meanings involve very delicate but quietly heroic virtues, now long dismissed and forgotten.<br /><br />As I've been thinking about this painting I was reminded of a trader on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange who boasted proudly that “Capitalism had done more good for the world than all the acts of corporal mercy in history combined”. <br /><br />It's a very serious statement, despite the huge amount of schools, hospitals and even some universities founded and staffed by just such sisters, many of which have since been secularized and taken over by corporate collectives. There is merit in the statement, but in short what it attests to is the vast economic, scientific and medical superstructure which has grown up around us since WWII.<br /><br />I don't think the superstructure is about to give up on its goals and there are as many honors students at top science schools as available spots. Yes, many are from China, but more schools will be built and numerous state schools now have higher academic standards.<br /><br />The loss of meaning Laurence John mentioned is part of the infantilism you have described so well on this post and it began in earnest with one of the triumphs of the west, the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima. It made me wonder how the delicate virtues attributed to supernatural concepts such as self giving in the Everett painting could ever have survived the world economic superstructure. Then I came across an article on 8 curious survivors of the Hiroshima blast. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Schiffer" rel="nofollow"> “Here is a Wikipedia account on the survivors who were still alive and well in 1976. Wikipedia". </a><br /><br />I agree it is immoral to despair.<br /><br />PS: Sorry, I meant to delete the word plays on a previous comment. Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-24769434194765944892014-10-27T22:01:10.785-04:002014-10-27T22:01:10.785-04:00Donald, yes, I know it sounds like that because I ...Donald, yes, I know it sounds like that because I am using the word conversation as an example of a complex medium between two people to help visualize art as a complex medium between artist and the viewer, to demonstrate that art isn't like a simple binary piece of information like a chemical reaction, but that art is a separate reality made up of the work of the artist and the experience of the viewer. <br /><br />A conversation is similar in that it is different than the two individual people. An info graphic can't act for this capacity as its visual is too dead and limited to trigger complex imagery and feelings.<br /><br />Information graphics act in the opposite way of Tom Wolfe's criticism of endless words substantiating vapid images. <br /><br />The image of the man and woman doesn't say restroom, but we literally or verbally understand or at least recognize the images as restroom for men or women. So the info graphic is acting as a replacement for the words and is not art, which is a complex medium between people.<br /><br />I apologize if that was torture. Thanks.Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-64877282832618130172014-10-27T19:35:49.980-04:002014-10-27T19:35:49.980-04:00David,
Thanks very much for this. I always look f...David,<br />Thanks very much for this. I always look forward to a new post here.<br /><br />I know this isn't very generous of me, but I might have more patience for Chris Ware's deliberately ugly drawings if they expressed an idea more interesting than, "Boo hoo life sucks."<br /><br />That's a really boring idea that has been done to death already and the critics who fawn over him are embarrassing to read.<br /><br />Thanks again for the great blog; I've lost track of how many great artists I've discovered here.<br />Best regards,<br />LeeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-76346397058910871432014-10-27T19:20:59.353-04:002014-10-27T19:20:59.353-04:00Hmm. Words versus images. Maybe Tom Wolfe in &qu...Hmm. Words versus images. Maybe Tom Wolfe in "The Painted Word" wasn't exaggerating after all.Donald Pittengerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11307228686847434740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-71749504531614994082014-10-27T16:51:51.965-04:002014-10-27T16:51:51.965-04:00The information graphic tells us something in a wa... The information graphic tells us something in a way that no actual conversation can take place. It's like answering recorded computer prompts on a telephone where the conversation is not really a conversation at all, though there is some kind of transfer of information.<br /><br />Art is a third person between two people where subjectivity plays is central to what makes it art and what makes conversation a conversation. We communicate with this tertiary intermediary place called a conversation or art which doesn't quite exist in either party.<br /><br />The New Yorker cover with the isolated people in a park is telling us how each is seeing the world through a different gadget or their own lens, filter or training. It's an ideological speech made with info graphics and moves like someone just learning to read. The-cute-people-are-all-looking-at-the-butterfles-through-a-gadget-tee-he. Do-you-get-it? See-the-scientist-in-the-uniform-seeing-through-his-education? He-is-seeing-something-differently-than-the-artist. It's pedantic and exclusionary because it simply dictates to us what's going on. It might be appropriate for Highlights Magazine, or a Weekly Reader, where the young reader is being aided in learning to notice differences, but why for an adult magazine? I think Kev is correct that there is something infantile and condescending going on here.<br /><br />The same is true with the scientists and engineers working on the new designer baby. It reads at the same clunky pace, golly-gee-whiz-look-2009-is-now-so-old. Tommy Trainer is also simply telling us what is going on. The cryptic Wares are a conflict in motion, both visually exclusionary and a kind of pretentious Where's Waldo, inviting us to figure it out, but with a hopeless ending as Kev points out. <br /><br />By comparison, the Nancy comic strip was drawn from a child's horizon line, an effective device for entering Nancy's little world. It wasn't dismissive or exclusionary as are the info graphic or robo prompt. And though its vocabulary was incredibly simple, it spoke to its readers without talking at them.Sean Farrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-23371153141761964922014-10-27T13:57:22.059-04:002014-10-27T13:57:22.059-04:00but this is the modern existential dilemma. if we&...<br /><b>but this is the modern existential dilemma. if we're all just fearful, trembling creatures in a godless, indifferent universe, then what exactly is there to make manly, heroic art about ?</b><br /><br />This "cosmic perspective" is quite a presumptive one for a human being to take. It is the fallacy of scientism that whispers in our ears that we know much of anything about anything. Rank foolishness, as I see it. We don't understand the present or the past any better than we understand the future. We don't understand reality in the least whether it is computed, holographic, all in our heads, recursive, refractive, paradoxical, merely energy trapped by geometry, or what have you. We don't even understand how gravity keeps us from flying off the planet. In the great long run, with unfathomable epochs of time, who is to say that we can't defeat aging, defeat physics, defeat the weaknesses of biology, transcend the smallness of our scale, defeat the heat death of the universe, and on the way defeat this terribly corrupting meme of meaninglessness which saps the will and joy of so many... <br /><br />In the meantime, in the only real perspective we can know, meaning (Pragmatist version) is the consequences we intend to produce on ourselves, those around us, our town, our society, our world, our solar system... There are still battles to be won on so many fronts it boggles the mind. And thus still heroes to champion, and opportunities to develop metaphoric heroes to represent the struggles of our tribes and species. Just as Tarzan represented a particular kind of struggle during the peak of industrialization; as Batman did for corrupt and cramped modern metropolises that towered up during the 20th century.<br /><br />This is not to say that there is no drama in the quotidian events of the everyday. There is. But the emphasis on the quotidian and childlike seems to me to be evidence of an abdication of the larger responsibilities we have before us. And the larger thoughts, the steelier determination, and the greater physical and mental courage required to tackle them. If all our "unacknowledged legislators" are pusillanimous twerps, the future of the west is doomed. And what of that infant... that meaningful intrusion into all Ware's meaninglessness. How narcissistic to bring a child into the world to fill up his emptiness, only to bequeath a meaningless hell to them outside the walls of the home? A hell that they must eventually meet. This is why navel-gazing is selfish and immoral and why it is to be despised. <br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-11121373627840637522014-10-27T13:08:59.358-04:002014-10-27T13:08:59.358-04:00I think what the article is missing is a real unde...I think what the article is missing is a real understanding of how comics work (up to the date at least).<br /><br />MORE DETAIL: Is good for an author who wants to represent his imagination. Or an author who doesn´t want to use too much words in his comics.<br /><br />LESS DETAIL: Is good for an author who wants to put all the strength in the idea and doesn´t care too much about his imagination being represented. Also good for someone that uses a lot of words in his comics and wants to have a nice balance.<br /><br />Ware is not someone who wants to tell you too much about his imagination. He just wants to share the basic ideas. Curiously he loves Herriman and Crumb.<br /><br />I don´t agree he is not too good at drawing. Read his sketchbooks. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-76586976302993941072014-10-27T12:49:43.253-04:002014-10-27T12:49:43.253-04:00If you want to really undestand what Ware is loosi...If you want to really undestand what Ware is loosing with his approach to comics read one good strip of Amy and Jordan, by Beyer.<br /><br />He is evoking feelings and memories, he is clear, he has rythm but at the same time he is showing you a world with lines that is a thing in itself.<br /><br />That is not looking like a typographic catalog. I agree with the author of this post that what Ware and company are loosing is the INDIVIDUAL approach to the drawing in comics, which is what defines, mostly, art. The individual.<br /><br />I think that that kind of approach is a popular art trying to be high art again. The same old story once again.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com