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Hergé and the Order of Things
Hooded Utilitarian column on Hergé’s vision and the necessity of comics criticism that engages deep form
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Bruegel, Rembrandt, Crumb and Cartooning
Extended Hooded Utilitarian piece on R. Crumb’s Genesis and the cartoon tradition.
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New Yorker Cartoons: A Legacy of Mediocrity
A deadening force at the heart of the art form, smothering the field in bourgeois mediocrity
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Raphael’s Portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici
The Metabunker summarizes the problems of attribution surrounding the Raphael portrait sold at Christie’s in 2007
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Hogarth’s Chicken Fat
An analysis of Hogarth’s rich imagery as both support and counterpoint to his storytelling
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Interview: Muñoz & Sampayo
Read our 2001 conversation with the Argentine comics grand masters and Angoulême Grand prix winner(s) here.
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The Constant Garage
On Moebius’ comics masterpiece, the Hermetic Garage, at TCJ.com. Addition here
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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.
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Ruppert/Mulot Interviewed
Check this interview with the French cartooning duo over at TCJ.com.
Soul on Fire
This review is was originally published in Danish at Rackham in 2004 and is reprinted here as a supplement to the short essay Yvan Alagbé’s comics that I’ve just published over at The Comics Journal.
The French-Belgian publishing structure Éditions Frémok, or FRMK for short, has now been in the game for ten years, initially separately, as Belgian Frémok and French Amok, and since 2002 together. They have managed one of the most consistent and challenging publishing programs in avant-garde comics. They have unerringly emphasized the boundary-breaking, the experimental, and often fine arts-oriented comics by some of the most innovative creators in Europe, people such as Thierry van Hasselt, Olivier Marboeuf, Dennis & Olivier Deprez, Stefano Ricci, Silvestre, Kamel Khélif, Vincent Fortemps, Michael Matthys, Dominique Goblet, Martin tom Dieck, Nabile Farès, Aristophane, and the Dane Søren Mosdal.
Their publications are unequivocally high art and as such expose themselves to criticism on two flanks. One is the risk of pretentiousness and postulated profundity, the other is the inevitable comparisons with other forms of visual art, comparisons which tend to put this kind of sequential painting to a disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, FRMK’s publication history is one of precarious and not always successfully negotiating these difficulties, but the fact that they persist is entirely to their credit. It is refreshing to see somebody uncompromisingly asserting their belief in the potential of the medium to fathom the wide expressive range that has traditionally been the domain of other media. Continue reading ‘Soul on Fire’