Lynda Barry’s New Book Offers a Master Class in Making Comics

in Art, Books, Comics/Cartoons | November 22nd, 2019

In the same way you don’t have to like the way your liv­er looks for it to be able to func­tion, you don’t have to like the way your draw­ings look for them to start to work.  —Lyn­da Bar­ry

Want to feel more alive in the world?

Get back in touch with your inner four-year-old artist, using meth­ods put for­ward by artist, edu­ca­tor, and g*ddamn nation­al trea­sure Lyn­da Bar­ry.

Mak­ing Comics, the lat­est book from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin asso­ciate pro­fes­sor, MacArthur Genius, and Omega Insti­tute fac­ul­ty mem­ber, bypass­es stan­dard­ized pro­fes­sion­al skills such as ink­ing, sto­ry­board­ing, and let­ter­ing, in order to foment a deep­er emo­tion­al con­nec­tion between car­toon­ist and com­ic.

First things first, you can draw. Stop say­ing you can’t. You can.

Stop say­ing your draw­ings look like they were made by a four-year-old.

In Barry’s expe­ri­ence, the unfet­tered draw­ings of four-year-old artists are some­thing to aim for.

As author and comics his­to­ri­an Chris Gavaler notes in his Pop Mat­ters review:

Mak­ing Comics is a love let­ter to every child who ever picked up a cray­on and start­ed mak­ing marks with unself­con­scious inten­si­ty. Those chil­dren include her col­lege stu­dents. Like her read­ers, some arrive at class with artis­tic train­ing and some arrive with none at all. The lat­ter arrive hav­ing long for­got­ten the unin­hib­it­ed style of image-mak­ing they under­stood instinc­tive­ly as chil­dren. Find­ing each of those chil­dren is Bar­ry’s mis­sion, and she is very very good at it.

Bar­ry, who is child­less, is keen­ly attuned to the sort of play­ful assign­ments that hold imme­di­ate appeal for chil­dren of all ages.

And she doles out instruc­tions on a need to know basis, dis­arm­ing the self-doubt and excuse-mak­ing that plague adult stu­dents who are pre­sent­ed with the big pic­ture too ear­ly in the process.

In Mak­ing Comics, exer­cis­es include draw­ing with eyes closed, draw­ing with the non-dom­i­nant hand, two-hand­ed draw­ing, simul­ta­ne­ous part­ner draw­ing, Exquis­ite Corpse, and trans­form­ing scrib­bles and cof­fee stains by teas­ing out what­ev­er image they may sug­gest.

Bar­ry also con­veys pre­cise instruc­tions with regard to speed and mate­ri­als, know­ing that those can close as many win­dows as they open.

She’s bat­tling the sti­fling impulse toward per­fec­tion, the impos­si­ble stan­dards that cause so many to turn away from mak­ing pic­tures and sto­ries as they mature.

Don’t sweat it! More rock, less talk! Unleash the mon­sters of your id! Invite unfore­seen ghosts into the frame!

As Bar­ry says:

….there are two work­ing lan­guages in human life. One is sort of top of the mind, what we’re con­scious of. The oth­er is this uncon­scious stuff that we might not know about or have access to. The way we access it is usu­al­ly through this thing we call ‘the arts.’ Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that has got­ten removed from the reg­u­lar dai­ly expe­ri­ence of human life. What I’m try­ing to do is to show that there is a way that they can come togeth­er, and that you can make things in a way that makes you actu­al­ly feel alive and present.

Read an excerpt of Lyn­da Barry’s Mak­ing Comics. Or pur­chase your own copy of Mak­ing Comics here.

Video at the top of the page cour­tesy of Art Book Walk-throughs & Reviews.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fol­low Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Barry’s 2017 “Mak­ing Comics” Class Online, Pre­sent­ed at UW-Wis­con­sin

Lyn­da Bar­ry on How the Smart­phone Is Endan­ger­ing Three Ingre­di­ents of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Lone­li­ness, Uncer­tain­ty & Bore­dom

Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry Teach­es You How to Draw

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Decem­ber 9 when her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain cel­e­brates Dennison’s Christ­mas Book (1921). Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Velvet Underground as Peanuts Characters: Snoopy Morphs Into Lou Reed, Charlie Brown Into Andy Warhol

in Comics/Cartoons, Music | November 14th, 2019

peanut underground

The fun car­toon above was appar­ent­ly found in a “Guide to the Vel­vet Under­ground and Andy Warhol’s Fac­to­ry” pub­lished by the French mag­a­zine, Les Inrock­upt­ibles in 1990. It came around the same time the Fon­da­tion Carti­er pour l’art con­tem­po­rain (locat­ed in Paris) held an exhi­bi­tion ded­i­cat­ed to Andy Warhol. Of course, Warhol famous­ly took a break from paint­ing in the mid-1960s and, among oth­er things, threw his influ­ence behind the up-and-com­ing NYC band, The Vel­vet Under­ground. Serv­ing as the band’s man­ag­er, he “pro­duced” VU’s first album, which meant design­ing the album cov­er and giv­ing the band mem­bers — Lou Reed, John Cale, Ster­ling Mor­ri­son, Mau­reen Tuck­er and Nico — the free­dom to make what­ev­er album they pleased, up to a cer­tain point. Above, you can see these same musi­cians reimag­ined as Peanuts char­ac­ters.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Vel­vet Under­ground Cap­tured in Col­or Con­cert Footage by Andy Warhol (1967)

Andy Warhol Explains Why He Decid­ed to Give Up Paint­ing & Man­age the Vel­vet Under­ground Instead (1966)

A Sym­pho­ny of Sound (1966): Vel­vet Under­ground Impro­vis­es, Warhol Films It, Until the Cops Turn Up

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Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Novel Adaptation

in Books, Comics/Cartoons, History, K-12, Literature | November 1st, 2019

The human imag­i­na­tion can be an extra­or­di­nary cop­ing device in times of trou­ble, a tiny win­dow pro­vid­ing men­tal escape from what­ev­er cell fate has con­signed us to.

Diarist and aspir­ing pro­fes­sion­al writer Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen con­cen­tra­tion camp at the age of 15, chafed at her now-uni­ver­sal­ly-known con­fine­ment in the Secret Annex. She chafed at her mother’s author­i­ty and the seem­ing­ly effort­less saint­li­ness of her old­er sis­ter. Doc­u­ment­ing her dai­ly phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al real­i­ty offered tem­po­rary respite from it.

The lib­er­at­ing pow­er of the cre­ative mind is one of the aspects writer Ari Fol­man and illus­tra­tor David Polon­sky sought to tease out when adapt­ing Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl as a graph­ic nov­el.

The graph­ic nov­el for­mat decreed that entire pas­sages would be cut or con­densed. Polon­sky can use a sin­gle pan­el to show logis­tics it took Anne para­graphs to describe. The inter­per­son­al con­flicts she dwelt on are now con­veyed by facial expres­sions and body lan­guage.

As with Sid Jacob­son and Ernie Colón’s 2010 Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Autho­rized Graph­ic Biog­ra­phy, the diary’s small stage is expand­ed to give read­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those unac­quaint­ed with the orig­i­nal text, a his­tor­i­cal con­text for under­stand­ing the wider social impli­ca­tions of Anne’s tragedy.

But this graph­ic retelling is unique in that it traf­fics in mag­ic real­ist visu­als that should play well with 21st-cen­tu­ry youth, who cut their teeth on CGI, fast-paced edits, and stream­ing teen-focused enter­tain­ments where­in char­ac­ters are apt to break the fourth wall or break into song.

These are the read­ers to whom the project is most inten­tion­al­ly pitched. As Fol­man told Teen Vogue’s Emma Sar­ran Web­ster:

I tru­ly believe that in a few years, when the very last sur­vivors will have died, the angle that will be tak­en from the sto­ry will be that with every year, we are 10 years fur­ther away from the orig­i­nal. […] There is a severe threat that the things we have to learn from it will not be taught and learned if we don’t find a new lan­guage for them. So any new lan­guage in my opin­ion is blessed, as long as it stays with­in the frame­work and reach­es young audi­ences by means of their tools, which are now very visu­al.

Ergo, Kit­ty, Anne’s nick­name for her diary, has been per­son­i­fied, emerg­ing from the lit­tle plaid book’s pages like Peter Pan’s shad­ow, ear atten­tive­ly cocked toward the secrets Anne whis­pers into it.

The melo­dra­mat­ic Mrs. van Daan’s prized fur coat has an anthro­po­mor­phized rab­bit head col­lar, capa­ble of join­ing in the dia­logue.

Polon­sky pays homage to artists Edvard Munch, whose “degen­er­a­tive” work Hitler had removed from Ger­man muse­ums, and Gus­tav Klimt, who paint­ed many works that were con­fis­cat­ed from their Jew­ish own­ers by Nazi decree.

Young read­ers’ mod­ern sen­si­bil­i­ties also guid­ed Folman’s approach to the text. The spir­it of the orig­i­nal is pre­served, but cer­tain phras­ings have been giv­en a 21st cen­tu­ry update.

The snarky Secret Annex menus and diet tips he allows his hero­ine harken to the direct address of var­i­ous meta teen come­dies, as well as the blis­ter­ing par­o­dy of the Sara­je­vo Sur­vival Guide, a pur­port­ed trav­el guide writ­ten dur­ing the Siege.

Noble goal of engag­ing the next gen­er­a­tion aside, there are no doubt some purists who will view these inno­va­tions as impo­si­tion. Rest assured that Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graph­ic Adap­ta­tion is sanc­tioned by Anne Frank Fonds, the char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion estab­lished by Anne’s father, Otto.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Only Known Footage of Anne Frank

Read the Poignant Let­ter Sent to Anne Frank by George Whit­man, Own­er of Paris’ Famed Shake­speare & Co Book­shop (1960): “If I Sent This Let­ter to the Post Office It Would No Longer Reach You”

How Art Spiegel­man Designs Com­ic Books: A Break­down of His Mas­ter­piece, Maus

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Novem­ber 4 when her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain cel­e­brates Louise Jor­dan Miln’s “Woo­ings and Wed­dings in Many Climes (1900). Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Story of Ziggy Stardust Gets Chronicled in a New Graphic Novel, Featuring a Foreword by Neil Gaiman

in Books, Comics/Cartoons, Music | October 22nd, 2019

Film has always been a medi­um that seeks to enter­tain as well as edi­fy, fram­ing thrills and chills for prof­it, and fram­ing com­po­si­tions deserv­ing of the label of “art.” Very often it has done both at the same time. Every casu­al stu­dent of the medi­um will, at least, admit this much. But nev­er have the dif­fer­ences between movie art and enter­tain­ment seemed as mag­ni­fied and polar­ized as they are now, in the midst of debates about com­ic book fran­chis­es and the fine art we call cin­e­ma.

What­ev­er the rea­sons, film has not reached the détente between art and enter­tain­ment achieved by pop­u­lar music—another medi­um depen­dent on late-19th/20th cen­tu­ry record­ing tech­nolo­gies and born of a thor­ough­ly mod­ern com­mer­cial matrix. Of course, not all pop aspires to art. But the idea that music can be huge­ly entertaining—drawing on the “low” gen­res of fan­ta­sy, sci­ence fic­tion, and com­ic books—and also wor­thy of cul­tur­al immor­tal­i­ty has become uncon­tro­ver­sial in large part because of the career of one musi­cian.

David Bowie, rock and roll’s orig­i­nal space alien super­hero, used his bank­able per­son­ae through the decades to give cre­dence to the idea of “art rock,” to real­ize its glam pos­si­bil­i­ties, to turn the rock auteur into an actor. He learned from a host of exper­i­menters, both his direct influ­ences and his spir­i­tu­al pre­de­ces­sors. And he inspired a legion of suc­ces­sors who weren’t afraid to play char­ac­ters in their work, to mix inter­ests in phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture, and the occult with the flam­boy­ant, campy styles of the comics. (A mix comics them­selves played with in both pop­u­lar and under­ground man­i­fes­ta­tions.)

Bowie embod­ied the future when he appeared on the scene as Zig­gy in 1972, after years of labor­ing in obscu­ri­ty and a few fleet­ing brush­es with fame. “The incar­na­tions of David Bowie were, in them­selves, sci­ence fic­tion­al, “writes Neil Gaiman in the for­ward to a new graph­ic nov­el, BOWIE: Star­dust, Ray­guns, & Moon­age Day­dreams, which tells the sto­ry of Bowie’s rise as Zig­gy. “All I was miss­ing was a Bowie com­ic,” says Gaiman of his own fan­dom. “And, miss­ing it, I would draw bad Bowie comics myself.” Zig­gy Star­dust espe­cial­ly called for such treat­ment.

Bowie wore the glam rock Mar­t­ian mask with such com­mit­ment no one doubt­ed that he meant it—only what, exact­ly, he meant by it. “He defied clas­si­fi­ca­tion,” notes Simon & Schus­ter, “with his psy­che­del­ic aes­thet­ics, his larg­er-than-life image, and his way of hov­er­ing on the bor­der of the sur­re­al.” Fit­ting­ly, the com­ic is drawn by an artist who real­ized a psy­che­del­ic, sur­re­al­ist cre­ative vision of Neil Gaiman’s: Michael Allred, who worked on the Sand­man series.

The sto­ry, “part biog­ra­phy and part imag­i­na­tion,” reports Rolling Stone, is writ­ten by Steve Hor­ton and col­ored by Lau­ra Allred. You can order a copy here.

via Rolling Stone

Relat­ed Con­tent:

96 Draw­ings of David Bowie by the “World’s Best Com­ic Artists”: Michel Gondry, Kate Beat­on & More

David Bowie Songs Reimag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers: Space Odd­i­ty, Heroes, Life on Mars & More

Fred­die Mer­cury Reimag­ined as Com­ic Book Heroes

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Best of the Edward Gorey Envelope Art Contest

in Comics/Cartoons, Creativity, K-12 | October 21st, 2019

What a delight it must have been to have been one of Edward Gorey’s cor­re­spon­dents, or even a postal work­er charged with han­dling his out­go­ing mail.

The late author and illus­tra­tor had a pen­chant for embell­ish­ing envelopes with the hairy beasts, pok­er-faced chil­dren, and cats who are the main­stays of his dark­ly humor­ous aes­thet­ic.

(A num­ber of these envelopes and some 60 post­cards and sketch­es are includ­ed in Float­ing Worlds: The Let­ters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumey­er, which doc­u­ments the cor­re­spon­dence-based friend­ship between Gorey and the author with whom he col­lab­o­rat­ed on three children’s books, includ­ing the delight­ful­ly macabre Don­ald Has a Dif­fi­cul­ty.)

The Edward Gorey House, a beloved Cape Cod res­i­dence turned muse­um, has been keep­ing the tra­di­tion alive with its annu­al Hal­loween Enve­lope Art Con­test.

Com­peti­tors of all ages vie for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have their win­ning (and run­ners up and “very-close-to-being-run­ners-up”) Gorey-inspired entries dis­played in the Gorey House and its dig­i­tal exten­sions.

2019’s theme is the high­ly evoca­tive “Uncom­fort­able Crea­tures” … and depend­ing on the speed with which you can exe­cute a bril­liant idea and deliv­er it to the post office, you may still have a shot—entries must be post­marked by Mon­day, Octo­ber 21, with win­ners to be announced on Hal­loween.

In addi­tion to Stef Kiihn Aschenbrenner’s win­ning enve­lope from the 2018 contest’s over-18 cat­e­go­ry (top), some of our favorites from past years are repro­duced here. Our inky-black hearts are espe­cial­ly warmed to see the spir­it of the mas­ter kin­dling the imag­i­na­tions of the youngest entrants—special shout out to Daniel Miley, aged 4.

View five years’ worth of notable Hal­loween Enve­lope Con­test entries on the Edward Gorey House web­site (2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014) or down­load the offi­cial entry form and race to the post office with your bid for 2019 glo­ry.

Entries must be post­marked by Mon­day, Octo­ber 21 and addressed to Edward Gorey House, 8 Straw­ber­ry Lane, Yarmouth Port, MA 02675 USA.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lemo­ny Snick­et Reveals His Edward Gorey Obses­sion in an Upcom­ing Ani­mat­ed Doc­u­men­tary

Edward Gorey Talks About His Love Cats & More in the Ani­mat­ed Series, “Goreytelling”

Edward Gorey Illus­trates H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in His Inim­itable Goth­ic Style (1960)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Novem­ber 4 when her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain cel­e­brates Louise Jor­dan Miln’s “Woo­ings and Wed­dings in Many Climes (1900). Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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20 Years Before John Cage’s 4′33″, a Man Named Hy Cage Created a Cartoon about a Silent Piano Composition (1932)

in Comics/Cartoons, Music | September 26th, 2019

Quite a find by Futil­i­ty Clos­et:

In John Cage’s 1952 com­po­si­tion 4’33”, the per­former is instruct­ed not to play his instru­ment.

Amer­i­can music crit­ic Kyle Gann dis­cov­ered this 1932 car­toon in The Etude, a mag­a­zine for pianists.

The cartoonist’s name, remark­ably, is Hy Cage.

Need any back­ground on Cage’s 4′33″? Explore the posts in the Relat­eds below.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cage’s Silent, Avant-Garde Piece 4’33” Gets Cov­ered by a Death Met­al Band

John Cage Per­forms His Avant-Garde Piano Piece 4’33” … in 1’22” (Har­vard Square, 1973)

The Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4’33”

The BBC Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Per­forms 4′33,″ the Con­tro­ver­sial Com­po­si­tion by John Cage, Born 100 Years Ago Today

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Imagined Medieval Comics Illuminate the Absurdities of Modern Life

in Art, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons, Fashion, History, Museums | September 16th, 2019

In 2005, the U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture revised its famous food pyra­mid, jet­ti­son­ing the famil­iar hier­ar­chi­cal graph­ic in favor of ver­ti­cal rain­bow stripes rep­re­sent­ing the var­i­ous nutri­tion­al groups. A stick fig­ure bound­ed up a stair­case built into one side, to rein­force the idea of adding reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to all those whole grains and veg­gies.

The dietary infor­ma­tion it pro­mot­ed was an improve­ment on the orig­i­nal, but nutri­tion­al sci­en­tists were skep­ti­cal that the pub­lic would be able to parse the con­fus­ing graph­ic, and by and large this proved to be the case.

Artist Tyler Gun­ther, how­ev­er, was inspired:

I start­ed think­ing about the mes­sag­ing school chil­dren in 1308 were force fed to believe was part of a heart healthy diet, only to have the rug pulled out from under them 15 years lat­er when some monk rearranged the whole thing.

In oth­er words, you’d bet­ter dig into that annu­al goose pie, kids, while you’ve still got 6 glass­es of ale to wash it down.

The imag­ined over­lap between the mod­ern and the medieval is a fer­tile vein for Gunter, whose MFA in Cos­tume Design is often put to good use in his hilar­i­ous his­tor­i­cal comics:

Mod­ern men’s fash­ion is so incred­i­bly bor­ing. A guy wears a pat­tered shirt with a suit and he gets laud­ed as though he won the super bowl of fash­ion. But back in the Mid­dle Ages men made bold, brave fash­ion choic­es and I admire them great­ly for this. It’s so excit­ing to me to think of these inven­tive, strange, fan­tas­tic cre­ations being a part of the every­day mas­cu­line aes­thet­ic.

The shapes and struc­tures of women’s head­wear in the dark ages are tru­ly inspir­ing. Where were these milliners draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from? How were they engi­neered? How com­fort­able were they to wear? How did they fit through the major­i­ty of door­ways? What was it like to sit behind a par­tic­u­lar­ly large one in church? I’m still scrolling through many an inter­net his­to­ry blog to find the answers. 

Kathryn Warner’s Edward II blog has proved a help­ful resource, as has Anne H. van Buren’s book Illu­mi­nat­ing Fash­ion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Nether­lands.

The Brook­lyn-based, Arkansas-born artist also makes peri­od­ic pil­grim­ages to the Clois­ters, where the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um hous­es a vast num­ber illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts, pan­el paint­ings, altar pieces, and the famed Uni­corn Tapes­tries:

On my first trip to The Clois­ters I saw a paint­ing of St. Michael and the dev­il almost imme­di­ate­ly. I don’t think my life or art has been the same since. None of us know what the dev­il looks like. But you wouldn’t know that based on how con­fi­dent­ly this artist por­trays his like­ness. After gaz­ing at this paint­ing for an extend­ed peri­od of time I want­ed so bad­ly to under­stand the imag­i­na­tion of who­ev­er could imag­ine an alli­ga­tor arms/face crotch/dragon pony­tail com­bo. I don’t think I’ve come close to scratch­ing the sur­face.

Every time I go to that muse­um I think, “Wow it’s like I’m on Game of Thrones” and then I have to remind myself kind­ly that this was real life. Almost every­thing there was an object that peo­ple inter­act­ed with as part of their aver­age dai­ly life and that fas­ci­nates me as some­one who lives in a world filled with mass pro­duced, plas­tic objects. 

Gunther’s draw­ings and comics are cre­at­ed (and aged) on that most mod­ern of conveniences—the iPad.

The British monar­chy and the First Ladies are also sources of fas­ci­na­tion, but the mid­dle ages are his pri­ma­ry pas­sion, to the point where he recent­ly cos­tumed him­self as a page to tell the sto­ry of Piers Gave­ston, 1st Earl of Corn­wall and Edward II’s dar­ling, aid­ed by a gar­ment rack he’d retooled as a medieval pageant cart-cum-pup­pet the­ater.

See the rest of Tyler Gunther’s Medieval Comics on his web­site and don’t for­get to sur­prise your favorite hygien­ist or oral sur­geon with his Medieval Den­tist print this hol­i­day sea­son.

All images used with per­mis­sion of artist Tyler Gun­ther

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Make a Medieval Man­u­script: An Intro­duc­tion in 7 Videos

Medieval Monks Com­plained About Con­stant Dis­trac­tions: Learn How They Worked to Over­come Them

Why Knights Fought Snails in Illu­mi­nat­ed Medieval Man­u­scripts

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Octo­ber 7 when her month­ly book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domaincel­e­brates the art of Aubrey Beard­s­ley, with a spe­cial appear­ance by Tyler Gun­ther. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, Praised as the Greatest Comic Strip of All Time, Gets Digitized as Early Installments Enter the Public Domain

in Comics/Cartoons | July 15th, 2019

“As a car­toon­ist, I read Krazy Kat with awe and won­der,” writes Calvin and Hobbes cre­ator Bill Wat­ter­son in his intro­duc­tion to The Kom­plete Kolor Krazy Kat. The cre­ator of quite pos­si­bly the most beloved com­ic strip of the past thir­ty years calls Krazy Kat “such a pure and com­plete­ly real­ized per­son­al vision that the strip’s inner mech­a­nism is ulti­mate­ly as unknow­able as George Her­ri­man,” the artist who wrote and drew it for its entire three-decade run from 1913 to 1944. “I mar­vel at how this fan­ci­ful world could be so force­ful­ly imag­ined and brought to paper with such imme­di­a­cy. THIS is how good a com­ic strip can be.”

High praise, espe­cial­ly from the hyper­bole-resis­tant Wat­ter­son, a sharp-eyed crit­ic of his art form and per­ceiv­er of its unre­al­ized poten­tial. “Quirky, indi­vid­ual, and uncom­pro­mised, Krazy Kat is one of the very few com­ic strips that takes full advan­tage of its medi­um. There are some things a com­ic strip can do that no oth­er medi­um, not even ani­ma­tion, can touch, and Krazy Kat is a vir­tu­al essay on com­ic strip essence.”

The “self-con­scious­ly baroque nar­ra­tions and mono­logues” show that “words can be fun­ny in them­selves”; “the sky turns from black to white to zigza­gs and plaids sim­ply because, in a com­ic strip, it CAN”; its sur­re­al Ari­zona desert set­ting “is a char­ac­ter in the sto­ry, and the strip is ‘about’ that land­scape as much as it is about the ani­mals who pop­u­late it,” Ignatz Mouse, Off­is­sa Pupp, and the tit­u­lar Krazy Kat.

Ignatz Mouse “demon­strates his con­tempt for Krazy by throw­ing bricks at her” (though their gen­ders, so mod­ern observers note, were nev­er quite sta­ble), “Krazy rein­ter­prets the bricks as signs of love,” and Off­is­sa Pupp, the desert’s lone law­man, is “oblig­ed by duty (and regard for Krazy) to thwart and pun­ish Ignatz’s ‘sin,’ there­by inter­fer­ing with a process that’s sat­is­fy­ing to every­one for all the wrong rea­sons.”

Now read­ers every­where can feel that sat­is­fac­tion for them­selves at the web site of Krazy Kat fan Joel Franu­sic, who has launched a project to find and dig­i­tize (using Machine Learn­ing) all of Her­ri­man’s strips that have so far fall­en into the pub­lic domain. Franu­sic writes of hav­ing got into Krazy Kat in the first place because of the pres­ence of Calvin and Hobbes in his child­hood: “I remem­bered how Bill Wat­ter­son ref­er­enced Krazy Kat as a big rea­son why he insist­ed on get­ting a larg­er full col­or for­mat for his Sun­day com­ic strips.”

I myself first picked up a Krazy Kat col­lec­tion as a Calvin and Hobbes-lov­ing ele­men­tary school­er, and soon found myself cap­ti­vat­ed by the sheer den­si­ty of strange­ness in its pages. But read enough of Her­ri­man’s mas­ter­work, and that strange­ness takes on a strong mean­ing that nev­er­the­less dif­fers from read­er to read­er. “Krazy Kat has been described as a para­ble of love, a metaphor for democ­ra­cy, a ‘sur­re­al­is­tic’ poem, unfold­ing over years and years,” writes Chris Ware, anoth­er of the most respect­ed com­ic-strip artists alive. “It is all of these, but so much more: it is a por­trait of Amer­i­ca, a self-por­trait of Her­ri­man, and, I believe, the first attempt to paint the full range  of human con­scious­ness in the lan­guage of the com­ic strip.” And now, 75 years after its con­clu­sion, much more of human­i­ty can enjoy Krazy Kat than ever. Explore dig­i­tized scans at Franu­sic’s web site. Or pick up a copy of the new edi­tion of The Com­plete Krazy Kat in Col­or, a col­or fac­sim­i­le of the com­plete pages of Krazy Kat 1935–44.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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