Now that the Internet and chronic solvent abuse have cruelly abridged my attention span, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything more demanding than aNow that the Internet and chronic solvent abuse have cruelly abridged my attention span, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything more demanding than a businesslike text message (“Where u at bro?”) I’ve come to accept that I’ll never read Sein und Zeit in German – or any other earthly language. I’ll probably never read another novel. I might not read this paragraph.
Which is why Rossetti and His Circle is perfect for me. It’s short, beautiful and practically wordless. It’s also amusing. How come nothing’s amusing anymore? The term itself has a slightly archaic ring, like ‘gallant’ or ‘chaste’. I don’t think anyone’s even tried to be amusing since Dick Cavett went off the air. I watch something like the trailer for the new Mad Max movie and think, ‘Yes, yes, clearly awesome. But where’s the witty insouciance?’ Then again, old George Miller didn’t exactly set out to remake His Girl Friday, did he? So I don’t know what I’m complaining about.
Rossetti and His Circle was first published in 1922. Although it could now almost pass for an avant-garde graphic novel, it must have struck its original audience as bizarrely quaint. In an England that was already reading Joyce and dancing to jazz, here was this dandified aesthete composing a series of cartoons about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an extinct bohemia as remote from Beerbohm’s contemporaries as the beatniks are from us. But instead of doing what most modern graphic novelists would do when presenting some dimly remembered historical period—i.e. dumbing it down—Beerbohm assumes, on the reader’s part, an impossibly granular knowledge of mid-Victorian culture. This, for instance, is a picture called ‘Blue China’:
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Thanks to an editor’s note, I can tell you that the dignified old gentleman here represents Thomas Carlyle and the little guy Whistler, while the vases point back to an old quarrel between the Aesthetes and the Ruskinites. So, yeah, if you happen to be an art historian, this scene might be unspeakably hilarious. Otherwise, though, not so much. And yet it still works somehow: you sense a moral seriousness behind the levity, even if the satire is partially occluded. It may be an inside joke, but the delivery is so perfect that you take the brilliance of the punchline on faith.
Not that it really matters, but I’ve never had the slightest interest in Pre-Raphaelite art. All those ethereal maidens drowning in rivers and whatnot appeal to the same vague romanticism that helped install Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ in a million dorm rooms (right next to the obligatory Robert Doisneau photo). But Beerbohm, a man saturated with irony, manages to make these disreputable painters both interesting and sympathetic. He even gets at the strange nobility of the titular Rossetti, turning that BBW-loving slacker into some kind of hero, a proto-Lebowski – mute, impassive, often recumbent, but still abiding:
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Believe it or not, that picture contains, among other virtues, a sly allusion to S&M. I won’t spoil it for you, though. Just read the book, preferably in a high-quality edition with intelligent endnotes. ...more
In the same way that Dr. Who can only be understood as a daft British travesty of Star Trek—and yes, I’m aware that the former predates the latter, buIn the same way that Dr. Who can only be understood as a daft British travesty of Star Trek—and yes, I’m aware that the former predates the latter, but let’s not muddle a beautiful theory with “facts”—V for Vendetta is really just Batman translated into Estuary English. Having read The Dark Knight Returns and V for Vendetta pretty much back to back, I was granted an overwhelming epiphany: V and Batman are spiritual twins from opposite sides of the Atlantic, each of them a damaged soul enacting a bloody revenge-fantasy while prancing around in a totally gay Halloween costume.
Okay, I’m not 100% committed to this pseudo-insight, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. For the sake of comparison, I offer the following TALE OF THE TAPE:
Scarred by early-adulthood trauma / Scarred by childhood trauma
Ass-kicking androgyne / Ass-kicking asexual
Only apparent superpower: the ability to pontificate endlessly / Only apparent superpower: the ability to take bullets in conveniently non-fatal locations
Jailbait sidekick / Jailbait sidekick
Underground lair / Underground lair
No visible means of support / Independently wealthy
Division of domestic labour unclear / Live-in butler
Yet, despite the genetic similarities, there’s an ideological quarrel going on here: basically, V and Batman are the Christopher and Peter Hitchens of the DC universe – progressive yin vs. reactionary yang. V for Vendetta is what happens when a British anarchist has a hysterical overreaction to Thatcherism; The Dark Knight Returns is what happens when an American proto-Tea Partier has a hysterical identification with Reaganism. I don’t know which hysteria to prefer: they’re both pretty silly if you ask me. I guess Alan Moore deserves points for political exoticism, but a dystopian fiction that imagines neo-Nazis in charge of the BBC is, to put it kindly, not very credible.
On an aesthetic level, V for Vendetta isn’t all that attractive, either. Compared to its glossy American rival, it looks a bit dowdy and, well, British. Originally published in black and white, it was only colourized when DC brought it out as a graphic novel. So the artwork has an unhealthy, washed-out tinge to it, like a Frank Capra movie on TNT back in the day.
I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t be reading graphic novels in the first place. These two are supposedly the high-water marks of the medium, but they’re still pretty crude and campy fare, to my taste. They’re graphic, all right, but are they novels? Then again, ‘novel’ has always been a big-tent sort of phylum, hasn’t it? So whatever. If there’s room for William Shatner and the Robert Ludlum committee, then why not the comic-book guys? I can live with that. I’m just not convinced that Joyce and Dostoevsky have anything to worry about quite yet. Prove me wrong, Hellblazer. ...more
Call it art if you want to, but at the end of the day it’s still a dopey comic book about a guy in a form-fitting outfit who runs around beating peoplCall it art if you want to, but at the end of the day it’s still a dopey comic book about a guy in a form-fitting outfit who runs around beating people up. Am I missing something?
But really, I’m just mad at myself for giving four stars to Batman: Year One the other day, apparently during a manic episode. So I’m downgrading this bad boy. Year One has the stronger artwork anyway, and its ectomorphic Batman is drawn on a more human scale, with some of the ludicrous pathos of a young Adam West still clinging to him:
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Whereas Frank Miller’s Batman looks like an elderly bodybuilder in a permanent state of roid rage:
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Finally, I’m still trying to get my head around the psychosexual dynamics of the DC universe. What was Batman thinking when he installed an androgynous 13-year-old pixy as his sidekick—then led her into hand-to-hand combat against a mob of slavering lowlifes? And what’s going on here, hmmm?
What? Shut up. I'm on the rebound from Wittgenstein. Can't a girl just have fun?What? Shut up. I'm on the rebound from Wittgenstein. Can't a girl just have fun?...more
One of my biggest reviewing pet peeves—and indie-rock critics are notorious for this—is the whimsical genealogy, e.g., if the Velvet Underground reuniOne of my biggest reviewing pet peeves—and indie-rock critics are notorious for this—is the whimsical genealogy, e.g., if the Velvet Underground reunited for a battle of the bands in a Texas honky tonk, with Cat Power sitting in for the long-dead Nico and Danger Mouse dropping beats behind a resentful Lou Reed, the results might sound a bit like the new Arcade Fire album. It’s a tired, lazy, monstrously stupid form of comparison. And I’m totally going to use it here.
Imagine, then, that Flann O’Brien and Henri Rousseau, looking to pass the time in purgatory, decided to collaborate on a comic strip. They steal the central conceit from Calvin and Hobbes—all the copyright lawyers are in hell—and hit up Samuel Beckett for some of the metaphysical gags he left out of Waiting for Godot. Then, spotting Charles Schulz in the piano lounge—
Aw, fuck it, you get the idea, and I hate myself enough as it is. That’s sort of what The Book of Leviathan is like. Needless to say, it’s marvellous, just marvellous. There’s a reason the GR punditocracy has pressed this volume to its shapely, collective bosom. Well, two reasons: because Karen told it to, and because the book is really, really good.
And here’s a fun bit of trivia: Leviathan’s creator, Peter Blegvad, is one of the co-founders of the seminal prog-rock outfit, Slapp Happy. How cool is that? Not only is the guy a cartoonist of genius, but he’s also a minor musical legend.
Buck’s conscience: So, what have you been doing with YOUR life? Buck: Well, I wrote a bunch of reviews for this really neat website and, um… Buck’s conscience (storming off): I’m staying out late and I’m coming home drunk. ...more
It’s marvellous that something like Logicomix exists: a graphic novel that seeks to put the Vienna Circle on the pop-culture map deserves a special PuIt’s marvellous that something like Logicomix exists: a graphic novel that seeks to put the Vienna Circle on the pop-culture map deserves a special Pulitzer for chutzpah (read those last three words aloud and you’d swear you were speaking Hochdeutsch). But I sensed an uncomfortable tension here between the genuine profundity of the ideas being explored and the inescapably hammy conventions of comic-book narrative. No doubt there’s a special, tiny place in my heart for hamminess, just as there’s a miniature compartment in my brain for profundity, but mash them up and my uncomplicated soul gets all squirmy. Which, incidentally, explains why Billy Corgan's poetry has never brought me the spiritual sustenance it obviously has to millions of others.
Although it’s only a small part of the story told in Logicomix, I’m fascinated by the unlikely bromance between Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This is sort of unconscionable, but for the sake of brevity I’m going to translate their relationship into buddy-comedy terms: basically, Russell played the skirt-chasing Seth Rogen character to Wittgenstein’s high-strung, undersexed Paul Rudd. Of course, their differences ran a lot deeper than that. During the First World War, Russell’s pacifism landed him in prison, while Wittgenstein took the opposite route, volunteering for active duty on the eastern front and ending up a war hero (yes, brainy, unstable, rich-boy Wittgenstein. War hero. I shit you not. And in justifying his decision to enlist, he’d said that, before becoming a great philosopher, “he should become a human being.” Hard not to love the guy for that.)
I couldn’t philosophize my way out of a paper bag, but as I understand it (partially thanks to Logicomix), Russell and Wittgenstein didn’t exactly see eye to eye on the great metaphysical issues of the day, either. If this means anything to you, Russell was a straight-edge foundationalist, whereas Wittgenstein was a total, punk-rock anti-foundationalist. So what happened is, Bertie spent a good decade of his career building this lovely epistemological sand castle, and then one day his buddy Ludwig comes along and nonchalantly kicks the shit out of it. And so Russell was like, “Dude.” But no harm done. Russell got over it and maybe even secretly admired Wittgenstein all the more for it.
The lesson here is: don’t be friends with someone who’s much smarter than you unless you’re big-hearted enough to accept it. It’s a lesson I refuse to learn, but maybe you can profit from the example. ...more
The Ambiguous Ottoman: A cautionary tale for incautious times
Lobstergirl had been erratic; They found her dangling in the attic.
Giltinan, while doinThe Ambiguous Ottoman: A cautionary tale for incautious times
Lobstergirl had been erratic; They found her dangling in the attic.
Giltinan, while doing math, Dropped a toaster in the bath.
Manny made a woeful face; No one heard him scream in space.
Ceridwen was full of pride When she was finally zombified.
My Flesh kept singing out, Only to be clobbered by a lout.
Daniel was a well-known cad Who made a mobbed-up husband mad.
Stephen needed cheaper thrills; He overdosed on caffeine pills.
Jessica was very rash; A passing boater heard the splash.
Eric washed up on some rocks, The victim of a paradox.
Meredith was deep in torts And didn’t catch the news reports.
Rose was nibbled by piranhas. Sic semper tyrannis.
Eh pissed off her Portland peers With her pseudonymous smears.
Buck churned out some crappy verse. His “friends” pursued the fleeing hearse.
(Note: if I didn’t include you, it’s only because you have an unrhythmical name or because I was too lazy to continue. Or because I actually like you). ...more
As T.S. Eliot stepped out of the Lascaux Caves, he was heard to mutter: ‘Art never improves’ – possibly the most profound thing he ever said.* NevermiAs T.S. Eliot stepped out of the Lascaux Caves, he was heard to mutter: ‘Art never improves’ – possibly the most profound thing he ever said.* Nevermind that it’s demonstrably untrue: Hamlet is a HUGE improvement on Gorboduc, just as The Wire is way, way better than Hawaii Five-O (though how to explain the curious deadness of My New BFF as compared to the irrepressible sparkle, the ‘hard, gem-like flame’ of The Simple Life?)
Well, these comic strips are sort of like the Lascaux Caves of 20th century art. At the very moment when the conventions of the newspaper cartoon were being tentatively codified, Herriman was busy -- oh, God, here it comes, I can’t help myself -- subverting them. Thus, in a strip from 1927(!) he has a character rewinding, ‘as they do in the “movies”’, to the first panel in order to find out what was said there. Or else he’ll suddenly insert a visual non-sequitur just for the fun of it (in one such interlude, Kat and Ignatz disappear into a puddle of spilled ink, like Wile. E Coyote falling into one of those portable black holes he was always throwing around).
So was Herriman a visionary genius decades ahead of his time? I don’t think so. I think he was a talented hack so deeply bored with the set of devices he’d been handed, so cruelly afflicted with the repetitive intellectual stress of having to think up, week after week, new ways for a mouse to brain a cat with a brick, that just for his own amusement, he started adding these little quirks and trills.
And the quirks are interesting, for a variety of historical and aesthetic reasons. Interesting, but not much more. The strips are pungent with period flavour; they move with a loopy comic rhythm; but they’re not, to my taste, all that funny. But hey, let’s face it, someday they’ll be saying the same thing about The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes (sorry, they will).
Ah, but as for Cathy, sweetest Cathy… age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety…
* But did he say that? A cursory web search suggests the story is apocryphal. But, damn it, somebody should have said it. ...more
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