A common enough sentiment in an election year, but in this case, the speaker is Batman, and the proof is the 30-minute labor of love above.
Five years ago, father and son Batman fans Sean and Aaron Schoenke spent $27,000 to make City of Scars, this thrillingly grim entry into the canon.
The Joker may have escaped, but the Schoenkes part ways with a certain Hollywood franchise by confining the cynicism to the story. The prospect of measly box office returns didn’t stop them! They knew from the get go that their take would be zero. DC Comics allows ordinary mortals to use its characters in their own independent projects, provided they don’t attempt to realize a profit.
Predictably dismal box office figures aside, the Schoenkes’ efforts have paid off splendidly in other ways. City of Scars, and its 2011 sequel, Seeds of Arkham, below, have garnered a generous helping of attention and awards (The Wall Street Journal called City of Scars “impressive”), and the talented volunteer cast and crew have benefited from increased visibility. Rather than rewarding himself with a new car or a mansion in Bel Air, Schoenke the Younger broke with tradition, and cast himself as Nightwing.
Box office totals notwithstanding, the same cannot be said for the stuff the studio churns out. (The system is broken, remember?)
The Schoenkes have channeled their indie success into a franchise of their own, Super Power Beat Down, a monthly web series wherein viewers get to decide which superhero won the staged battle. Watch it below, in preparation for choosing the next victor.
Anthropology, authenticity, medieval aesthetics, the media, literary theory, conspiracy theory, semiotics, ugliness: the late Umberto Eco, as anyone who’s read a piece of his bibliography (which includes such intellectually serious but thoroughly entertaining novels as The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, and the still-new Numero Zero) can attest, had the widest possible range of interests. That infinite-seeming list extended even to comic strips, and especially Charles Schulz’s Peanuts (which did tend to fascinate literati, even those of very different traditions).
Just over thirty years ago, the Italian novelist-essayist-critic-philosopher-semiotician wrote an essay in TheNew York Review of Books about what made that strip one of the most, if not the most compelling of the twentieth century.
“The cast of characters is elementary,” writes Eco, rattling off the names and later enumerating the resonant qualities of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Violet, Patty, Frieda, Linus, Schroeder, Pig Pen, and “the dog Snoopy, who is involved in their games and their talk.” But from this simple design arises a rich and complex reader experience:
Over this basic scheme, there is a steady flow of variations, following a rhythm found in certain primitive epics. (Primitive, too, is the habit of referring to the protagonist always by his full name—even his mother addresses Charlie Brown in that fashion, like an epic hero.) Thus you could never grasp the poetic power of Schulz’s work by reading only one or two or ten episodes: you must thoroughly understand the characters and the situations, for the grace, tenderness, and laughter are born only from the infinitely shifting repetition of the patterns, and from fidelity to the fundamental inspirations. They demand from the reader a continuous act of empathy, a participation in the inner warmth that pervades the events.
In this sense, Peanuts succeeds on the same level as Krazy Kat, George Herriman’s highly absurd, highly artistic, and enormously respected strip (though it sometimes took up entire pages) that ran from 1913 to 1944. Thanks only to the earlier work’s rigorous adherence to themes and variations, Eco writes, “the mouse’s arrogance, the dog’s unrewarded compassion, and the cat’s desperate love could arrive at what many critics felt was a genuine state of poetry, an uninterrupted elegy based on sorrowing innocence.” But Peanuts’ cast of children adds another dimension entirely:
The poetry of these children arises from the fact that we find in them all the problems, all the sufferings of the adults, who remain offstage. These children affect us because in a certain sense they are monsters: they are the monstrous infantile reductions of all the neuroses of a modern citizen of industrial civilization.
They affect us because we realize that if they are monsters it is because we, the adults, have made them so. In them we find everything: Freud, mass culture, digest culture, frustrated struggle for success, craving for affection, loneliness, passive acquiescence, and neurotic protest. But all these elements do not blossom directly, as we know them, from the mouths of a group of children: they are conceived and spoken after passing through the filter of innocence. Schulz’s children are not a sly instrument to handle our adult problems: they experience these problems according to a childish psychology, and for this very reason they seem to us touching and hopeless, as if we were suddenly aware that our ills have polluted everything, at the root.
But the capacious mind of Eco finds even more than that in the outwardly humble Schulz’s work. If we read enough of it, “we realize that we have emerged from the banal round of consumption and escapism, and have almost reached the threshold of meditation.” And astonishingly, it works equally well for all audiences: “Peanuts charms both sophisticated adults and children with equal intensity, as if each reader found there something for himself, and it is always the same thing, to be enjoyed in two different keys.” And Schultz continues, even sixteen years after his own death and the strip’s end, to show us, “in the face of Charlie Brown, with two strokes of his pencil, his version of the human condition.”
Where do superheroes come from? The concept didn’t just emerge fully formed into the world when, say, Superman showed up on the cover of Action Comics in 1938. Humanity has enjoyed stories of superhuman hero figures since time immemorial; you can find precedents for the superhero deep in the mythologies of a variety of cultures. When the Russian illustrator Roman Papsuev looked deep into the mythology of his own culture, he found plenty of material he could carry right over into a modern visual idiom. And what with the current Game of Thrones-driven wave of swords and sorcery in the global pop-culture zeitgeist, he picked the right time indeed to publish his elaborate drawings of Russian folklore heroes in the style of today’s high-fantasy comic books, movies, TV shows, and video games.
“The first characters were based on the author’s feelings and fantasies,” writes Daria Donina at Russia Beyond the Headlines. “He began, of course, with Ilya Muromets — the main Russian epic hero and the strongest bogatyr or warrior.” Then, “the more the author got immersed in the subject, the more accurate his pictures became.
He began to reread the tales and study the works of famous folklorists.” Donina quotes Papsuev himself: “ ‘What I like most is when people look at my pictures and then begin to read the tales and understand why, for instance, Vasilisa the Beautiful has a doll in her bag or why Vodyanoy rides a giant catfish. This grassroots revival of ancient folklore through my humble project gives me great pleasure.’ ”
You can browse all of these illustrations and more at Papsuev’s Instagram page, which includes not just finished pieces but works in progress as well, so you can get an idea of just what sort of process it takes to render a Russian hero for the 21st century. To a non-Russian, this all may seem like simply a neat art project, but any Russian will recognize these characters as central to a set of stories themselves central to the culture. “The tales are stamped in the subconscious from childhood,” Papsuev says in the Russia Beyond the Headline article, and as with any material with which people grew up, any reinterpreter takes them into his own hands at his peril.
“This project has no relation to real history or real life,” says the artist. “These are just tales, trapped in a world of games. It’s a fun project. Don’t take it too seriously.” But which enterprising Russian developer, I wonder, will take it seriously enough to go ahead and make an actual video game based on Papsuev’s too-heroic-to-waste folkloric characters?
Gather round, children and listen to Grandma reminiscin’ ‘bout the days when studying comics meant changing out of your pajamas and showing up at the bursar’s office, check in hand.
Actually, Grandma’s full of it. Graphic novels are enjoying unprecedented popularity and educators are turning to comics to reach reluctant readers, but as of this writing, there still aren’t that many programs for those interested in making a career of this art form.
At the very least, you’ll learn a thing or two about layout, the relationship of art to text, and using compression to denote the passage of time.
It’s the sort of nitty gritty training that would benefit both veterans and newbies alike.
Ready to sign up? The free course, which starts in February, will require approximately 10 hours per week. The syllabus is below.
Session 1: Defining Comics
Identify key relationships in sample texts & demonstrate the use of various camera angles on a comics page
Session 2: Comics Relationships
Create Text-Image and Image-Image Panels
Session 3: Time And Space
One Second, One Hour, One Day Comics Challenge
Session 4: Layout And Grid Design
Apply multiple panel grids to provided script
Session 5: Thumbnails
Create thumbnail sketches of a multipage scene
“He would turn over in his grave if he knew I’m about to read this,” says Stan Lee, Marvel Comics’ grand poo-bah, before launching into Clement Clarke Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.” Moore’s 1823 poem helped solidify various ideas about Santa Claus and Christmas, especially in America, much like Lee and his co-creators forged the mutli-character Marvel Universe that now dominates 21st century mythology.
So who better to read the origin story of this costumed superhero than Stan the Man? Because we’re talking about Good St. Nick, a beloved non-human who is able to traverse the earth in the span of one night, squeeze down chimneys without getting stuck, burned, or even dirtying his clothes, gives presents freely, and whose sled is powered purely by magical reindeer, all with their own names. Plus he lives in a fortress of toymaking quasi-solitude at the North Pole.
Lee really gets into the carnival barker style in his reading from 2009, much like his own overheated prose in the pages of his comics. You can still hear the busy pulse of his native Manhattan in that gravelly voice. And if you’re wondering if Lee puts his own spin on things, wait till the end.
Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
In the mid 1960s, when the Batman TV show was in full swing, a New Jersey toy company released a children’s record of Batman & Robin songs. Called The Sensational Guitars Of Dan & Dale, Batman & Robin, the album featured, as WFMU’s Beware of the Blog notes, “one of the greatest uncredited session combos of all time, including the core of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and Al Kooper’s Blues Project.” Anonymously, Sun Ra played on organ, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, Tom McIntosh on trombone & Danny Kalb on guitar.
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Jean Giraud, better known as Mœbius, may have passed away in 2012, but he gave his many fans glimpses into his unparalleled artistic imagination right up until the end. In 2010 and 2012, the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain put on Mœbius-Transe-Forme, the first major exhibition in Paris devoted to his work, and one that, at Mœbius’ request, explored “the theme of metamorphosis, a leitmotif that runs throughout his comics, drawings, and film projects” and that presented his work in a variety of ways that even some of his most avid readers, used to experiencing his work only on the page, would never have seen before.
One such way took the form of The Dancing Line, a series of videos which capture Mœbius drawing live on a graphic tablet, offering an artist’s-eye-view into how he transformed a blank digital canvas into a window on the world he spent his career creating. Here we have three selections from the series: at the top we have Mœbius filling in the details on the face of Malvina from The Airtight Garage.
Just above, he draws the title character from his even better known comic series Blueberry, the unconventional Western he created with Jean-Michel Charlier. Below, you can watch the creation of a piece called “Inside Mœbius” — not a self-portrait, exactly, but a portrait of the sort of artist that exists in Mœbius’ world drawing a portrait of Mœbius himself.
“Staying alive for an artist means to always be in an unknown part of himself, to be out of himself,” Mœbius told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “The exhibition in Paris, the theme was transformation. Art is the big door but real life is a lot of small doors that you must pass through to create something new. You don’t always need to go far.” Nobody, artist or otherwise, stays alive forever, but Mœbius knew how, in the time he had, to stay as alive as possible by constantly seeking out those unknown parts. The Dancing Line videos show us how he felt his way through that terra incognita, pointing the way with the expansive body of work he left behind toward all those small doors we, too, must pass through to create something new of our own.
Cartoonist turned educator Lynda Barry is again permitting the world at large to freely audit one of her fascinating University of Wisconsin-Madison classes via her Tumblr. (To get to the start of the class, click here and then scroll down the page until you reach the syllabus, then start working your way backwards.)
As in previous classes, the syllabus, above, spells out a highly specialized set of required supplies, including a number of items rarely called for at the college level.
It’s become a time honored tradition for Barry’s students to adopt new names by which to refer to each other in-class, something they’ll enjoy hearing spoken aloud. For “Making Comics,” Barry is flying under the handle Professor SETI (as in “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”), telling the class that “images are the ETI in SETI.”
The students have responded with the following handles: Chef Boyardee, Ginger, Lois Lane, Rosie the Riveter, Regina Phalange, Arabella, Snoopy, Skeeter, Tigger, Arya Stark, Nala, Nostalgia, Akira, Lapus Lazuli, The Buffalo,Mr. November, The Short Giraffe, Nicki Minaj, Neko, Vincent Brooks, Regular Sized Rudy, and Zef.
(Sounds like a rough and ready crew. What name would you choose, and why?)
As usual, Barry draws inspiration from the dizzying bounty of images available on the net, bombarding her pupils with findings such as the lobed teeth of the crab-eater seal, above.
What to do with all of these images? Draw them, of course! As Barry tells her students:
Drawing is a language. It’s hard to understand what that really means until you’ve ‘spoken’ and ‘listened’ to it enough in a reliable regular way like the reliable regular way we will have together this semester.
That’s an important definition for those lacking confidence in their drawing abilities to keep in mind. Barry may revere the inky blacks of comics legend Jaime Hernandez, but she’s also a devotee of the wild, unbridled line that may be a beginner’s truest expression. (Stick figures, however, “don’t cut it.”) To her way of thinking, everyone is capable of communicating fluently in visual language. The current crop of student work reveals a range of training and natural talent, but all are worthy when viewed through Barry’s lens.
The teacher’s philosophy is the binding element here, but don’t fret if you are unable to take the class in person:
We rarely speak directly about the work we do in our class though we look at it together. We stare at it and sometimes it makes us laugh or we silently point out some part of it to the classmate beside us. To be able to speak this unspoken language we need to practice seeing (hearing) the way it talks.
That earlier-alluded-to rigor is no joke. Daily diary comics, 3 minute self portraits on index cards, pages folded to yield 16 frames in need of filling, and found images copied while listening to prescribed music, lectures, and readingsare a constant, non-negotiable expectation of all participants. Her methodology may sound goose‑y but it’s far from loose‑y.
In other words, if you want to play along, prepare to set aside a large chunk of time to complete her weekly assignments with the vigor demanded of non-virtual students.
Those who aren’t able to commit to going the distance at this time can reconstruct the class later. Barry leaves both the assignments and examples of student work on her Tumblr for perpetuity. (You can see an example here.) For now, try completing the 20 minute exercise using the assigned image above, or by choosing from one of her “extra credit” images, below:
Set timer for three minutes and begin this drawing using a yellow color pencil. Try to draw as much of the drawing as you can in three minutes. You can draw fast, and in a messy way, The important thing is to get as much covered as you can in three minutes. You can color things in if you like. Look for the darkest areas of the photo and color those in.
Set a timer for another three minutes and using your non-dominant hand, draw with orange or color pencil to draw the entire drawing again, drawing right on top of the first drawing layer. The lines don’t have to match or be right on top of each other, you can change your mind as you add this layer. You can move a bit to the right rather than try to draw directly onto the first set of lines.
Set a timer for another 3 minutes and use a red pencil and draw it again, using you dominant hand, adding another layer to the drawing. Again, you don’t have to follow your original lines. Just draw on top of them.
Set a timer for another 3 minutes and use a dark green pencil to draw the entire drawing one more time on top of all the others.
Set a timer for 8 minutes and use a dark blue pencil to draw it one more time.
Spend the last 8 minutes inking the image in with your uniball pen. Remember that solid black is the very last thing you’d do given your time limit. You want to make sure to draw all the parts of the picture first.
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