by matthias wivel & friends
I know, it’s been ages, but I’ve finally written a new installment of my column DWYCK over at The Hooded Utilitarian. This time, I draw upon the great Degas exhibition at the Royal Academy last year to discuss the artist’s inquiry into time, space, and movement and its relation to comics. Go, read.
Above: Edgar Degas, Grande arabesque, Time One, Two, Three, c. 1880-85.
I used to write a regular column at Hooded Utilitarian called DWYCK. Then stuff happened. And the column didn’t happen, for way too long. But now I’m back! Er, at least for the moment. No, I’ll really make an effort!
Anyway, the essay I have up now is on Craig Thompson’s remarkable new comic Habibi and on its discouraging reception by comics critics. I touch upon several of what I perceive to be key issues in the criticism and analysis of comics and hope it will stimulate some discussion. Go, read.
Bruegel, Rembrandt, Crumb and Cartooning
Extended Hooded Utilitarian piece on R. Crumb’s Genesis and the cartoon tradition.
Interview: El-P & Aesop Rock
Click here to read our 2003 in-depth interview with two of New York’s finest.
One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest — Comics Between Old and New
A survey of comics and cartoon history in parallel and opposition to that of the fine arts.
On Comics History and the Canon
A selection of writings on comics for use by teachers, students, and people otherwise interested
Worlds of Difference
Essay on role-playing games as a formative experience, in honour of passed D&D creators Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
New Yorker Cartoons: A Legacy of Mediocrity
A deadening force at the heart of the art form, smothering the field in bourgeois mediocrity
A Certain Tendency in French Comics
Click here to read the extended Metabunker debate on the current (problematic?) state of nigh-mainstream French comics.
Continuous Creation — Titian’s Nuova Natura
On Titian’s aesthetic of the unfinished and Renaissance notions of the subjective.
Fabrice Neaud interviewed
An interview with cartoonist Fabrice Neaud on autobiography, reality and risk in making comics about life
Feed for Posts
More on comics criticism at the Hooded Utilitarian
Michael Kupperman on the issue at hand
In the latest instalment of my irregular column at the Hooded Utilitarian I present a late entry in the debate kicked off last month by Eddie Campbell, with his essay for The Comics Journal, “The Literaries”. In his essay, Campbell took issue with the insistence by some critics not just of comparing the achievements of comics with those of other art forms, but also what he saw as an unfortunate, concomitant tendency to understand comics by the logic of other media, especially literature.
It should come as no surprise that I’m sympathetic at least to the second part, having long thought that the visual aspects of comics tend to get short shrift in serious comics criticism. So… well, do pop over and take a look at my column. And do comment — it’s a difficult issue and one that needs more thought, so I would love to hear what you think.