“I Guess” by Chris Ware, USA, 1991

On 18 September 201619 September 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1990s, AesComm Theo, Rare/Classic Short Comics, RAW (anthology), Text/Image Tension, USA, WARE, Chris2 Comments

I Guess (a.k.a. “Thrilling Adventure Stories”) by Chris Ware (USA) in: RAW Vol 2, #3, High Culture for Lowbrows, Penguin Books, 1991. Via Glad You Asked.

If words can be drawn, and images written, then the tension between words and images can become quite complex. For example, in “I Guess” (Raw 2:3, 1991, reprinted in Ware, Quimby), alternative cartoonist Chris Ware experiments with a radically disjunctive form of verbal/visual interplay: a six-page story that sustains parallel verbal and pictorial narratives throughout, never quite reconciling one to the other […]. Admittedly, “I Guess” represents a radical questioning of the way comics work […]. Dismantling genre as well as form, Ware’s experiment demonstrates the potential of comics to create challenging, multilayered texts: his simple broadly representational drawings contribute to, rather than mitigate, the suggestive complexity of the narrative, while the blank naive narrational voice both amplifies and undercuts the appeal of the drawings. (Charles Hatfield, “Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature”, The University Press of Mississippi, 2005)

iguess — PAGE 1/6 (colour version, 2003)

“Daddy’s Girl: Visitors in the Night” (first version) by Debbie Drechsler, USA, 1992

On 3 July 20163 July 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1990s, AesComm Theo, Canada, Drawn and Quarterly, Dream/Subconscious, DRECHSLER, Debbie, Imgt Comm, Psychic Trauma, USA2 Comments

Daddy’s Girl: Visitors in the Night (first version) by Debbie Drechsler (USA), in: Drawn & Quarterly (Anthology) Vol.1, #10, Drawn & Quarterly, CAN, 1992. The author’s first name “Debbie” was changed into “Lily” in the Daddy’s Girl collection (Fantagraphics Books, USA). More on the topic in our interview with Debbie Drechsler.

“Visitors in the Night” – or “Daddy’s Girl” as the book was eventually called – is a masterpiece of horror. And it’s all the more horrifying because it is true, and because the actions depicted, the innocence-killing, soul-destroying actions, are happening right now, everyday, all around the world. (Richard Sala, in XeroXed #4, July 2004)

Contains scenes of a sexual nature. Viewer discretion advised.

“Greyshirt: How Things Work Out” by Alan Moore & Rick Veitch, UK/USA, 1999

On 11 May 201611 May 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1990s, AesComm Theo, Building/Floor/Story, Creat Writ: Lesson 12, DC Comics, MOORE, Alan, Spirit (The), Through Space Through Time, UK, USA, VEITCH, RickLeave a comment

Greyshirt: How Things Work Out, script by Alan Moore (UK) and art by Rick Veitch (USA), in: Tomorrow Stories #2, Wildstorm Productions, America’s Best Comics imprint, USA, November 1999. The Greyshirt character is a pastiche of Will Eisner‘s The Spirit.

“In one of the Greyshirt stories in Tomorrow Stories, we did something very peculiar with the panel layouts. We had an apartment building, the same building, upon ever page. There are four horizontal panels on each page. Then, to add another element, we made it so that the top panels are all taking place in 1999, the second panel down on each page is taking place in 1979, the panel beneath that takes place in 1959, and on the bottom panel of each page, you’re seeing the bottom of the building as it was in 1939, when it was a fairly new building. We’re able to tell, by some quite complicated story gymnastics, quite an interesting little story that is told over nearly sixty years of this building’s life, with characters getting older depending upon which panel and which time period they’re in. There’s something that you couldn’t do in any medium other than comics.” Alan Moore (as cited on The Great Comic Book Heroes website), 2001.

Dear students, this story was later published in the collection Tomorrow Stories book 1 (soft cover) by DC Comics.

Grey 10 — PAGE 1/8 (and cover of “Tomorrow Stories” #2)

Grey 14 — PAGE 8/8 (along original artwork)

“Barnyard Animals” by Craig Thompson, USA, 2002

On 10 May 20167 October 2021 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 2000s, AesComm Theo, Dark Horse, Psychic Trauma, Talking Animals, THOMPSON, Craig, USALeave a comment

Barnyard Animals by Craig Thompson (USA), in: Dark Horse Maverick: Happy Endings (anthology), Dark Horse, USA, September 2002.

Dear students, the anthology Dark Horse Maverick: Happy Endings is available @ Kinokuniya bookstores.

More on the topic in my paper Muted and Mutated: Animal-headed characters in autobiographic trauma-related comic books in: Asylum, the magazine for democratic psychiatry: Comics & Mental Health Part 4, Winter 2015, Vol.22/4, Monmouth (UK).

Innovative/Notable Webcomics (I): Memory Lane

On 6 May 201611 May 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn AesComm Theo, Animation/GIF, CARRÉ, Lilli, Creat Writ: Lesson 16, Infinite Canvas, NILSEN, Anders, On Comics Legitimation, Self-referential, Through Space Through Time, WARE, Chris, WebcomicsLeave a comment

THE BLOODY FOOTPRINT by Lilli Carré

In The Bloody Footprint (link) published by The New York Times on February 5, 2015, American multidisciplinary artist, illustrator and cartoonist Lilli Carré explores a personal memory yet later reclaimed by one of her childhood friends. Who experienced the event and who made its recollection her own? An intimate and effective take on the blurred contours of memory through a clever blend of prose, comics and GIF animation.

MIRROR by Chris Ware & John Kuramoto

More animated film than webcomics (yet using comics features), Mirror (link) is the result of a collaboration between The New Yorker and the radio program This American Life. Through a cover for The New Yorker and its expansion as a short animated feature, extraordinary American cartoonist Chris Ware – with the assistance of John Kuramoto -revisits a radio interview (and an interesting reflection) of writer Hanna Rosin and her daugther about parenting, makeup and teenage self-awareness. Published by The New Yorker on November 30, 2015.

Cover-Story-Chris-Ware-ART-690x942-1448407478

ME AND THE UNIVERSE by Anders Nilsen

In Me and the Universe (link), American cartoonist Anders Nilsen cleverly combines diagrammatic storytelling and the infinite canvas feature to explore his place in the Universe, from ancestral past to more-or-less present and distant future. Published by the New York Times on September 24, 2014.

WHY I LOVE COMICS by Chris Ware

Echoing Anders Nilsen‘s Me and the Universe, Chris Ware‘s Why I Love Comics (link) also depicts an artist’s lifetime on Earth. Playing with iconic solidarity and text spatialisation, the first word of each rounded panel spells out an acrostic hidden message. Published by The New York Times on October 16, 2015. Note also the epigraph:

“Cartooning is the art of turning time back into space.” Art Spiegelman.

“In the Search for the Ninth Art” by Fabrice Neaud, FR, 2008

On 5 May 20165 May 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn AesComm Theo, Batman, Braiding, BUSCH, Wilhelm, Creat Writ: Lesson 01, France, Little Nemo, NEAUD, Fabrice, Rare/Classic Short Comics, TintinLeave a comment

In the Search for the Ninth Art (“A la recherche du 9e Art”) by Fabrice Neaud (FR) in: Qu’est‐ce que la Bande Dessinée aujourd’hui (“What is Comics Art Today?”), Beaux Arts éditions, France, 2008.
Copyright ©2008 Fabrice Neaud/Beaux Arts/TTM éditions

003 — PAGE 3/8. “Histoire de M. Jabot” by Rodolphe Töpffer (CH), 1830/1831.

004 — PAGE 4/8. Up: “Histoire d’Albert” by Rodophe Töpffer (CH), 1845. Bottom “Impressions de voyages aériennes et maritimes de Mr. A.A.N. Trouillard épicier de la veille” by Cham (FR), unpublished and unfinished story, France, 1847-1848 but may be earlier than 1840.

005 — PAGE 5/8. “Puis”; then. “Quand soudain”; when all od sudden. Bottom left; “Der Virtuos” by Wilhelm Busch (DE), 1865.

BRAIDING: “The way panels (that is the images in the panels) can be linked in series (continuous or discontinuous) through non-narrative correspondences, be it iconic (repetition of certain symbols or elements) or other means. In a way this is a kind of rhyming for comics.” Derik Badman commenting the term introduced by Thierry Groensteen in: Système de la bande dessinée, Presses Universitaires de France, 1999.

GW01 — On “braiding”, from the first Graphic Writing lesson, CommArts, Chula

“Big Tex” by Chris Ware, USA, 1996

On 5 May 201628 January 2020 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1990s, AesComm Theo, Fantagraphics Books, Rare/Classic Short Comics, Through Space Through Time, USA, WARE, Chris4 Comments

Big Tex (one-pager) by Chris Ware (USA) in: Acme Novelty Library Vol VII, #7, Book of Jokes, Fantagraphics Books, Summer 1996.

“Like how does something happen, and … how does it reverberate through time? And that act of memory is important, and comics are great for memory. Like even when you have a short comic, like a three-panel comic, you’ve got a past, a present and a future as soon as you look at those three boxes. And that allows you to reflect and compare times.” Art Spiegelman, NPR interview, 2011

“Looking for Nemo” by Benoît Peeters & François Schuiten, JP/BE/FR, 1991

On 5 May 20165 May 2016 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1990s, AesComm Theo, Belgium, France, Japan, Little Nemo, Onomatopoeia, PEETERS, Benoît, Rare/Classic Short Comics, SCHUITEN, FrançoisLeave a comment

Looking for Nemo, tribute to Winsor McCay (and Little Nemo), script by Benoît Peeters (FR) and art by François Schuiten (BE) in: Morning magazine, Japan, 1991. English edition followed by French publication, 1996 (for colour quality’s sake).

“Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams.” Ivan Chtcheglov, Formulary for a New Urbanism, 1953.

Hommage Nemo 1996 — PAGE 1/2 (French version)

Hommage Nemo 1991 — PAGE 2/2 (French version)

“Here” by Richard McGuire, USA, 1989

On 3 May 201621 March 2020 By Nicolas VerstappenIn 1980s, AesComm Theo, McGUIRE, Richard, Rare/Classic Short Comics, RAW (anthology), Through Space Through Time, USA, Waffle Iron, WARE, Chris4 Comments

Here by Richard McGuire (USA) in: RAW Volume 2 #1, USA, 1989.

“It was the first time I had had my mind blown. Sitting on that couch, I felt time extend infinitely backwards and forwards, with a sense of all the biggest of small moments in between. And it wasn’t just my mind: “Here” blew apart the confines of graphic narrative and expanded its universe in one incendiary flash, introducing a new dimension to visual narrative that radically departed from the traditional up-down and left-right reading of comic strips. And the structure was organic, nodding not only to the medium’s past but also hinting at its future.” Chris Ware, The Guardian, December 17, 2014 (see below for link to the article).

Dear students, the 2014 extended version of Here is available @ Kinokuniya bookstores.

A few pages from the 2014 version of Here (by Pantheon Books) and Chris Ware on Here by Richard McGuire – a game-changing graphic novel (for The Guardian).

An interesting adaptation of the original six pages of McGuire’s Here into a short film (“about a series of events in time that happen in one point of space: the corner of a room in a normal house”). Student-produced at the RIT Dept. of Film & Video in 1991, by Tim Masick and Bill Trainor for their senior thesis project.

And an interesting GIF of Richard McGuire’s complete original version of Here.

View post on imgur.com

	Sebastian pagan on “Batman: The Third Mask…
	Stacey on “Big Tex” by Chris…
	Dave Cooper on “No Escape” by Pat…
	Comics Zine ‘GAP/ช่อ… on Comics Zine ‘GAP/ช่องว่า…
	#UltraVioletChalleng… on #UltraVioletChallenge – Part 3