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bookblogging
Jun. 14th, 2008 01:49 pmGraphic novels:
Auster, Paul, author, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, art and adaptation: City of Glass
(dude, whoa. Very cool. It reminded me of reading my current favorite author, Neal Stephenson, when he's off on one of his tangents, like Sumerian mythology. I could have loved to see what they would have done if they'd been able to work in a larger format, as in his introduction, Art Spiegelman comments they had to scrap some idea to fit the small format of the original publisher.
I love a good, mentally fucked-up meta-story! By the way, my roommates and I inherited a soggy, warped, framed print of that painting of The Tower of Babel in our kitchen; it came with the apartment).
Langridge, Andrew and Roger: The Louche and Insalubrious Escapades of Art d'Ecco
(I think Roger does the art and Andrew the writing? The back blurb is right, you won't see ink lines like that on the internet, or at least not very often. Although there's Sinfest, and I know a few artists who do really nice work in pencil.
Hilarious, weird, extremely dense. I'm going to give my eyes a break and not read anymore until I've had a little more sleep or a lot more coffee).
Various: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist
(I missed the boat on this one. Reading this was a bit like reading Marvel's ret-something miniseries, The Sentry. I found the interleaved essays and the credits extremely confusing. I think they were retellings of classic Escapist stories from different eras? They could have been clearer on that. And though I am also interested in seeing current artists reinterpret older styles or stories, with no way of comparing these stories to any of the original material, I was mostly just frustrated by the essay introductions, which talked about work I couldn't look at, and said nothing about the work I was actually reading).
Various: The Big Book of Scandal!
Manga:
Mihara Mitsukazu: The Embalmer vol. 1
(I love this woman's manga; she's weird and disturbing has gorgeous art. It's a bit formulaic, and you gotta wonder just how many people with a close personal connection to his Girl Friday Mayima can embalm without it getting downright creepy, but, hey, it's nice to see something different in the way of romance.
I don't know that it's a tradition as such, but the last three people in my extended family who've died were cremated and had their ashes scattered or buried with a sapling, so the magic and miracle of a dead loved one cosmetically restored to the appearance of sleep doesn't mean very much to me. It did occur to me while reading this that in a society where cremation is the norm and the handling of corpses is the job of a despised underclass, a growing acceptance of handling and looking human corpses is pretty interesting, and probably a signifier of something deeper changing.
It's hard to imagine Western-style burials really taking off in the foreseeable future, though--between Japan's dense population and limited land mass, I'd imagine you'd run out of room sooner rather than later. I suppose you could embalm someone, view the body, and then just cremate them later, although that seems rather wasteful).
Hidaka Yoshiki, author, Tsugihara Ryuji, artist: The First President of Japan vol. 1
(weird to go from re-watching The West Wing to reading this. I'm like, "No, I'm pretty sure the president would want to talk to more advisors before deciding what to do in Korea! I know, because that's what they do in the other fictional political drama." Also, what the hell kind of name is Jefferson Spider? If they just called him Jefferson, I wouldn't mind so much, but Spider? That's the sort of name you use when your character is an ex-prison convict with tattoos, or unnervingly tall and thin and creepy.
It's a pretty cool manga and I want to read more, though).
Auster, Paul, author, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, art and adaptation: City of Glass
(dude, whoa. Very cool. It reminded me of reading my current favorite author, Neal Stephenson, when he's off on one of his tangents, like Sumerian mythology. I could have loved to see what they would have done if they'd been able to work in a larger format, as in his introduction, Art Spiegelman comments they had to scrap some idea to fit the small format of the original publisher.
I love a good, mentally fucked-up meta-story! By the way, my roommates and I inherited a soggy, warped, framed print of that painting of The Tower of Babel in our kitchen; it came with the apartment).
Langridge, Andrew and Roger: The Louche and Insalubrious Escapades of Art d'Ecco
(I think Roger does the art and Andrew the writing? The back blurb is right, you won't see ink lines like that on the internet, or at least not very often. Although there's Sinfest, and I know a few artists who do really nice work in pencil.
Hilarious, weird, extremely dense. I'm going to give my eyes a break and not read anymore until I've had a little more sleep or a lot more coffee).
Various: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist
(I missed the boat on this one. Reading this was a bit like reading Marvel's ret-something miniseries, The Sentry. I found the interleaved essays and the credits extremely confusing. I think they were retellings of classic Escapist stories from different eras? They could have been clearer on that. And though I am also interested in seeing current artists reinterpret older styles or stories, with no way of comparing these stories to any of the original material, I was mostly just frustrated by the essay introductions, which talked about work I couldn't look at, and said nothing about the work I was actually reading).
Various: The Big Book of Scandal!
Manga:
Mihara Mitsukazu: The Embalmer vol. 1
(I love this woman's manga; she's weird and disturbing has gorgeous art. It's a bit formulaic, and you gotta wonder just how many people with a close personal connection to his Girl Friday Mayima can embalm without it getting downright creepy, but, hey, it's nice to see something different in the way of romance.
I don't know that it's a tradition as such, but the last three people in my extended family who've died were cremated and had their ashes scattered or buried with a sapling, so the magic and miracle of a dead loved one cosmetically restored to the appearance of sleep doesn't mean very much to me. It did occur to me while reading this that in a society where cremation is the norm and the handling of corpses is the job of a despised underclass, a growing acceptance of handling and looking human corpses is pretty interesting, and probably a signifier of something deeper changing.
It's hard to imagine Western-style burials really taking off in the foreseeable future, though--between Japan's dense population and limited land mass, I'd imagine you'd run out of room sooner rather than later. I suppose you could embalm someone, view the body, and then just cremate them later, although that seems rather wasteful).
Hidaka Yoshiki, author, Tsugihara Ryuji, artist: The First President of Japan vol. 1
(weird to go from re-watching The West Wing to reading this. I'm like, "No, I'm pretty sure the president would want to talk to more advisors before deciding what to do in Korea! I know, because that's what they do in the other fictional political drama." Also, what the hell kind of name is Jefferson Spider? If they just called him Jefferson, I wouldn't mind so much, but Spider? That's the sort of name you use when your character is an ex-prison convict with tattoos, or unnervingly tall and thin and creepy.
It's a pretty cool manga and I want to read more, though).