Chris Ware's The Acme Novelty Library # 18

In his panel presentation "A Socio-semiotic Approach to Underground Comix" at ICAF (International Comic Arts Forum: http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org/) '98 Alvizze Mattozzi wrote the following: "mainstream comics belong to what A. J. Greimas [Greimas, 1976], the french-lithuanian linguist and semiotician, called socio-literature, that is the mass culture version of ethno-literature like myths and legends. Greimas thinks that socio, as ethno-, literature is characterized by three features: - non interference of the narrator; the narrator or any relation with the enunciation level is hidden, so that facts, events, look as they are narrating themselves [;] - lack of, what Greimas called, "semantic codes"; that is the absence of instruction[s] about the use of the text [;] - fixed forms and genres."
Mattozzi compares socio-literary comics to underground comics which, according to him: "tend to give relevance to the enunciation, whereas mainstream comics tend to give relevance to the enunciate." Mass art tends to "be transparent" (hiding its style). The narrator is impersonal (it's the third-person omniscient narrator if one exists at all) and the action is underlined. There's no place for the first-person subjective narrator and, obviously, an intimate confessional mode is totally unacceptable and immediately labeled as "boring" (yes, you may use an Homer Simpson tone while reading the word).

I don't agree with everything of the above (Jack Kirby didn't hid his graphic style, not to mention the "in your face," "rock star" attitude of Image comics). Héctor Germán Oesterheld (see P. S. below, please) used a first-person narrator (Caleb Lee) in "Ticonderoga" (a series of connected short stories beginning in Frontera mensual [frontier monthly] # 1, April, 1957, with drawings by Hugo Pratt at first, Pratt and Gisela Dester, later, and Dester alone at the end: Frontera Extra # 39, February, 1962). The problem of generalizations such as these is that they may not be totally wrong (I, for one, think that this one isn't...), but what happens when we stumble on mass art that doesn't fit the theory? Maybe we prefer to say that it isn't mass art at all rather than to acknowledge that our theory is simply wrong? (Here's the instructive example of critics Lawrence Langer and Elisabeth Hess in denial, as cited by Robert Witek on Imagetext vol 1, # 1, Spring, 2004: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_1/witek/.)

In one of my last posts I wrote: "the best visual artist isn't someone who just has technical abilities (that's a virtuoso), a great visual artist is someone who uses visual thinking in a remarkable way." By "remarkable" I not only mean "intelligent," I also mean "relevant."

Chris Ware's The ACME Novelty Library # 18 (The ACME Novelty Library, 2007) uses a first-person subjective narrator, the tone of his stories is diaristic, his layouts are very innovative and bold, his narratives belong to no recognizable genre (maybe we could try "Confessionalism," I guess...).

In conclusion: Chris Ware's comics in The ACME Novelty Library # 18 are not mass art. We'll take a closer look at why in our next coda...

Image:

The ACME Novelty Library # 18's cover by Chris Ware. His sobering, austere graphic style seems almost ironic if we put it in the context of the childish, garish, unfortunate, history of comics covers...

PS I must apologize to all the regular followers of The Crib for this long gap. It happened because I dedicated myself lately to file my comics in a database. I started with Editorial Frontera and that's why it hasn't been easy to detach myself from Héctor Germán Oesterheld's (Hugo Pratt's, Arturo del Castillo's, Carlos Roume's, etc...) great creations.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld's and Carlos Roume's Nahuel Barros' Last Story - Coda

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Images:

1. Tintin teaches Congolese children all about their homeland: Belgium, of course (Tintin au Congo [Tintin in the Congo] by Hergé, Editions du Petit «Vingtième» [the little «20th Century» publishing house], 1931; the "wonders" of colonialism!); in the Portuguese edition published in O Papagaio [the parrot] # 230 (1939), the story was titled "Tim-Tim em Angola" [Tintin in Angola]; Tintin teaches Angolan kids all about their homeland: Portugal, of course (as an aside: O Papagaio was the first mag in the world, Belgium included, to publish "Tintin" in color);

2. African women were "naturally" servants to their colonial mistresses (panel from Tim Tyler's Luck newspaper comic strip by Lyman Young, 1933);

3. panels from the Tarzan newspaper comic strip by Burne Hogarth (page 445, September, 17, 1939; as published in Tarzan in Color Vol. 9, NBM, 1994): after my detection of Lavater's physiognomy theory in the series Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond (cf. my April, 19, post) and Tarzan (cf. above), I must conclude that it was important as a visual short cut to newspaper (and comic book, I'm sure) comics artists (I also detected it in the Asterix albums, by the way); to see how it works we just need to compare the good guy's appearance (athletic and handsome, even if approaching middle age) with the baddies' mugs (the African baddie is a mean looking "savage;" the Caucasian baddie isn't in very good physical shape and looks like a rat: baddies rarely shave); the captive woman is young and attractive and, in the first panel, has the pose of a Christian martyr;

4. more panels from the Tarzan series by Burne Hogarth (page 356, January, 2, 1938; as published in Tarzan in Color Vol. 7, NBM, 1994): the word "savages" (and "horde") is actually used to define the African attackers (the name "Ishtak" sounds like a whip cracking); they're depicted as an ugly bloodthirsty lot while the colonists are "pious folk" (the Christian iconography couldn't be absent; there's even a Moses figure); the colonial popaganda can't get more obvious than this; forget slavery, forget the exploitation of Africa's natural resources by the colonial powers, forget reality: when Francis Lacassin compared Burne Hogarth with Michelangelo (in a cliché that became famous: "Tarzan rencontre Michel-Ange" [Tarzan meets Michelangelo], Giff-Wiff # 13, first quarter of 1965) he could only be kidding!;

5. panel from "The Tall Man," Cowboy Comics # 144 Buck Jones, September, 1955, Charles Roylance (a), writer unknown; American Indians are seen as superstitious children that are easily deceived by the Caucasian hero;

6. page from the "Nahuel Barros" series (Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 95, June, 24, 1959); Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Carlos Roume depict this peaceful meeting of two different worlds beautifully (Pedro becomes friends with Chonki; this one and the following quotes, my translation): "...[Pedro] didn't know it at the time, but there, near the thick blackness of the grazing, something was happening. Something big. The birth of a friendship.";

7. another page from the "Nahuel Barros" series (Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 96, July, 1, 1959); Chonki answers Pedro's question "Why do you, the Pampas, attack the Christians' settlements?": "the huincas, the Christians, taught us... [...] we still own the desert! But we don't own ourselves anymore... [...] The huinca says that we are savages, that we're beasts... the Pampas, it's true, aren't the same [as the Christians], we aren't better or worse than the huincas..."; (to those who defend that comics are primarily a visual medium this page may seem too wordy; I don't understand such a logophobia though: why be against words if they're greatly written?; are mediocre drawings better than great words?; besides: the best visual artist isn't someone who just has technical abilities (that's a virtuoso), a great visual artist is someone who uses visual thinking in a remarkable way; in this page Carlos Roume delivers his own messages: he uses the thistle as a symbol of the Pampa: the plant's thorns are a reminder of how hard life in the desert is; the bird (an howl) represents freedom and knowledge; the moon (the circle: Pedro) represents perfection (the unity) and change (because of the moon's phases);

8. Sgt. Kirk sez (Héctor Germán Oesterheld - w -, Jorge Moliterni - a -, Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 101, August, 5, 1959): "Do you know doctor, what I've just learned?... / That there are no palefaces, or indians... there are just men... just men [...]";

9. Nahuel Barros says that he also wants to explore Patagonia (Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 101): "That's how Pedro, Chonki and Nahuel Barros began travelling southbound. Their backs turned to civilization, facing the unknown..."; Carlos Roume repeats the symbolism of the thistles (Nahuel, Chonki) and the moon (Pedro) between them.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld's and Carlos Roume's Nahuel Barros' Last Story

Children's adventure comics in the 20th century were frequently colonial popaganda. The examples are quite numerous, but I'll just cite the American newspaper comic strips "Tarzan" (1929 - c. 2000) and "Tim Tyler's Luck" (1928 - 1996) or the Belgian album Tintin au Congo (Editions du Petit «Vingtième», 1931; British edition: Tintin in the Congo, Sundancer, 1991).

In the formulaic and manichean children's western comics genre the indians were "the savages" whom the white hero needed to defeat in order to save the good guys from some barbarous torture and death. (See: http://www.bluecorncomics.com/savagena.htm.)

I knew all of the above when I recently read the "Nahuel Barros" series (nine stories in Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal: # 7, October, 16, 1957 - # 101, August, 5, 1959; two stories in Hora Cero Extra!: # 6, February, 1959, # 7, March, 1959) by the greats Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w) and Carlos Roume (a).

Roume is one of those graphic artists that are enormously underrated. His loose brush depicted faces with great Naturalism. He was more of a portraitist than a landscape artist though. His landscape views of the Pampa were always evocative, but a bit sketchy for this scribe's taste...

On the other hand I stressed admiration for Héctor Oesterheld on this blog already, but I also know that he was a workaholic. He wrote almost all of the stories that his Editorial Frontera (frontier publishing house) put in print. Some of them undoubtedly suffer because of that: they're either rushed, or formulaic. The point is: when he was good, he was very good, and even in his less inspired moments we can find some phrase that's the mark of a genius.

"Nahuel Barros" is kind of an Argentinian western set in the Pampa region. It isn't exactly revolutionary when we compare it with its northern cousin. The Pampa indians are presented more as an abstraction against which the white guys have to fight than anything else, good or evil (to Carlos Roume's credit, some of the lower class "white guys," soldiers and settlers, of course, look more like the Indians they are fighting against than they look European - whatever that means). Nahuel is uneducated, but he has a great practical intelligence and a great knowledge of the Pampa (he is a "baqueano," a quiet expert on everything related to the region). Also: in a typically Oesterheldian way he's very modest: he just believes in doing his job, he doesn't embark in the hero mythology.

So, I was disappointed... until the untitled last story, that is...

I wrote about the absent hero before on The Crib. I referred at the time to another Argentinian comics character, Alack Sinner. Here's what I said: "Alack Sinner is part of that meagre gallery of what I called elsewhere "the absent hero." Against North American inspired mass art hero mythology, the true anti-hero that is Alack Sinner disappears gradually to show the world around him. This is an Argentinian tradition that goes back to the often lauded Oesterheldian "collective hero" (what we have here is the anonymous collective anti-hero)."

I can't say the same thing in Nahuel Barros' case, but it's true that he's just dead weight in his last story. Writing in a commercial medium for children Oesterheld knew that he had to follow some genre rules. Even if he couldn't forget his hero completely, in order to go beyond those rules he could, and did, tone down his actions...

On the other hand it seems to me that Oesterheld wanted to surpass manicheism jumping to the "wrong" side. In this story we (the readers and main characters) aren't hunters (Nahuel and friends are the pursuers), we are the hunted.

Is this story worthy of the best Oesterheld? Maybe not... In the end it's just a simple story about a boy growing up, that's all... Why is it here as part of my canon, then? In the same issue in which the story ends Sgt. Kirk (drawn by Jorge Moliterni) says, while being delirious (my translation): "...there are no palefaces, or indians... there are just men... just men..." Such a clear anti-racist statement put in the context of the late fifties' commercial comics culture is amazing. And it deserves to be remembered.

Who were the Pampa Indians? I found the following on a www site (http://tinyurl.com/cpfm85): "The designation of "pampas"; to the aborigines who were populating the pampas was not [...] self-imposed, but came imposed by the Spanish. The word isn't even from their own language, but Quechuan, and means "plain". So, all the Indians who were living in this geographical territory known as pampas were called pampas, in spite of the fact that they belonged to different cultures." The same site mentions a substitution of Puelches-Guenaken for Mapuche and Araucanians: "(it is good to remember that this phenomenon of ethnic substitution here in our country was called Araucanizacion of the Pampas and Patagonia)."

Nahuel Barros' last story narrates the discovery of the Pampas by a boy from Buenos Aires and his friendship with Chonki, a Pampa Indian. In the end both characters go South to explore the mysteries of Patagonia. Meanwhile, where's Nahuel Barros? Instead of bringing the boy, Pedro Quiroga, back to "civilization" and his family, he accompanies both friends in their exploration trip... An unrealistic turn of events, no doubt, but a telling one, nonetheless: in a surprising escapist ending they turn their backs to the ugly reality (the huincas - new Incas, meaning: "invaders" - and their shock against the "Pampas)"; but a "savage" goes with them this time... Even more telling: it was Chonki's idea in the first place...

Images:

Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal [zero hour's weekly supplement]'s covers by Carlos Roume: # 73 (January, 21, 1959), # 87 (April, 29, 1959).

Caricature - Coda

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Images:

1. caricatures by the supreme genius of the second millennium: Leonardo da Vinci (after 1490);

2. the last panel of a "Flash Gordon" sunday page (April, 24, 1938) by Alex Raymond (as published in Flash Gordon, "The Tides of Battle," volume three of the Kitchen Sink reprints, 1992); the caricature in this image is more a plot problem than a matter of drawing style: following the pseudo science of physiognomy many comics artists in manichean children's adventure comics used their characters' outer appearance to convey their personality; the Edward G. Robinson look-alike above is obviously a villain; this absurd theory is a caricature of science, of course, so, even if the image is not what I, for one, call "a caricature," the use of physiognomy to tell a story is a narrative caricature through visual means (another problem that I have with "Flash Gordon" and other strips like it is how racist these comics are when beauty canons are chosen to combat evil: the hero is a blond, athletic, upper class, Caucasian stereotype, the villain, Ming, is the stereotype of a 19th century Chinese ruler);

3. James Gillray was a better artist than Alex Raymond; he proved it mocking physiognomy one hundred and forty years before the "Flash Gordon" page above was published (print, 1798);

4. Honoré Daumier did this comic (the metamorphosis of king Louis-Philippe into a pear; a slang for "idiot") after drawings by Charles Philipon (c. 1831): Le Charivari, January, 17, 1834 (where the images appeared with a text); after being condemned they had to publish the judges' sentence in their magazine (they gladly complied, as we can see): Le Charivari # 58, February, 27, 1834;

5. Thomas Nast's "The Brains," Harper's Weekly, October 12, 1871; the drawing represents corrupt New York politician William Marcy "Boss" Tweed;

6. one of the worst racist stereotypes to ever appear in a comic: Chop-Chop, a character in the series "Blackhawks" by Reed Crandall (here in a detail of a drawing published in the History of Comics, vol. 2, by Jim Steranko, Supergraphics, 1972); what's shocking is the contrast between the way in which the other characters are physiognomically represented and the crass Chop-Chop stereotype (besides from Chop-Chop I could cite Will Eisner's Ebony White and many other "mammies," "coons," etc...);

7., 8., 9. contemporary comics artists are trying to use caricatural drawing styles in new, creative, serious (believe it or not), ways;

7. page from Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library # 14 (Spring, 2000); we must distinguish between caricature and caricatural drawing; the character Jimmy Corrigan can't be a caricature because it doesn't exist (there's no referent); but he was drawn in a caricatural way; Chris Ware views the drawing in a comic as a kind of writing; these are more like puppets than complex representations of people; emotional connections with the reader come more from the story itself than from these cold, distant, visual representations (the mask effect of Art Spiegelman's animal heads in Maus comes also to mind); or... we connect with their alienation precisely because they are apparently disconnected from the world around them;

8. page from Malus by Jochen Gerner (Drozophile, Spring, 2002); Jochen Gerner uses the ironic tactic of applying caricatural representations (and his drawings are even more schematical than Chris Ware's) in ways that are unexpected (but mostly ironical): here he applied it to the news of real road accidents;

9. page by Seth published on the front cover flap of the dustjacket of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories (edited by Ivan Brunetti, Yale University Press, 2006); the last panel may be the punchline, but I completely agree with it because, even if I like them, I don't follow Kantian aesthetics into art-for-art's-sake-land.

Caricature

1.

2.

3.

4.

Comics and caricature are two very different things. If images are used in most comics this means that the whole array of visual styles may be used by comics artists. This is rather obvious, but not on the minds of those who view comics through stereotyped colored eye glasses. They simply link comics and Saturday morning cartoons or something similar: comics are funny; comics are silly pictures; comics are childish... etc... comics are caricatures...
There are reasons why caricature was used in such a massive way in comics since the 18th century. Some have to do with the medium of distribution: the newspapers. Caricature was once a powerful tool to satirize politicians (e. g.: the Boss Tweed affair, the Louis-Philippe affair) and, until the recent crisis, editorial cartoonists called newspapers their home (comics artists were their "compagnons de route"). Plus: since politicians lost all power, making fun of them is like satirizing the court jester (what's the point?). On the other hand, inasmuch as economy is the only real game being played, no one laughs at those who really detain power because: 1) maybe (I certainly don't) we really don't know who they are (?); 2) they own the media and they aren't very fond of the idea, to say the least...

But, to quote Peter David, I digress...

Other reasons to explain the above are practical (or technical if you wish): comics are very hard to do; in order to be efficient and deliver his or her work on time a cartoonist has to rely on visual shortcuts. Caricaturing is about exaggerating certain features, sure ("caricature" comes from the Latin word "caricare," which means "to charge"), but it is also about simplifying situations. Sometimes it's about stereotyping (as we all know there's an ugly history of racial caricaturing out there). (These deadline problems shouldn't worry alternative artists with day jobs, I suppose...)

Ernst Gombrich wrote about caricature's history (see link below) having just positive things to say about it. He asked himself why did caricature appear so late in the history of art (?). Gombrich's answer makes sense to me (at least the part that's rooted in Sociology, not psychoanalysis; i. e.: it's not Ernst Gombrich's conclusion, it's Rudolf Wittkover's and Heinrich Breuer's: Die Handzeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini [Bernini's drawings; Bernini was, after the Carracci brothers - & cousin -, one of the first and, duh... best caricaturists ever...], H. Keller, 1931): "The other explanation [...] seeks a solution in the evolution of civilization and society. The spirit of witty criticism and mockery on one side, the sense of the individuality of people on the other, were not developed in a way which would lead to the appreciation of the joke of caricature. Certainly there is truth in this explanation. The social atmosphere of the beginning of the seventeenth century is marked by a culture of wit, esprit and an insight into human nature which created the immortal types of Don Quixote and Falstaff." Gombrich goes on contextualizing caricature as part of the newfound artist's freedom during the Mannerist period: "we are now able to describe caricature in the psychological terms which cover the whole ‘Manneristic’ conception of art. In caricature, too, the artist projects an image transformed by the primary process [the "transformation, ambiguity and condensation" of dreams], giving it as his view of the man. He consciously alters his model, distorts it, plays with its features, and thus shows the power of his imagination — which can exalt as well as degrade. Instead of an objective portrayal of the outer world he substitutes his subjective vision, thus starting an evolution which leads by a winding road to its culmination in modern art."

All this is fine and dandy, but it seems to me that caricature debases its subject most of the times. That's what Pierre Bourdieu says in Distinction (La distinction, Les Editions de Minuit, 2002 [1979]: 229), Harvard University Press, 1984: 208 (translation by Richard Nice): "authority of whatever sort contains a power of seduction which it would be naive to reduce to the effect of self-interested servility. That is why political contestation has always made use of caricature, a distortion of the bodily image intended to break the charm and hold up to ridicule one of the principles of the effect of authority imposition." Why have comics artists persisted (something that they continue to do, as a matter of fact) in using caricature as their chosen style if they want to be serious artists, then? My guess is that tradition is a mighty force to reckon with. Comics artists admire and follow other comics artists before them and this is a very difficult thread to break. As difficult as the obsolete mandatory use of India ink on white paper...

Images:

1., 2. in the images above I compare the imposing mass of Agathla's Needle in Monument Valley

(1. painting by James Swinnerton, a pioneer of American newspaper comics; image published in Jimmy Swinnerton, The Artist and His Work by Harold G. Davidson, Hearst Books, 1985) with a completely deflated image of the same monument

(2. caricature by George Herriman, c. 1925; as published in Krazy Kat, The Comic Art of George Herriman by Patrick McDonell, Karen O'Connell, Georgia de Havenon, Abrams, 1986); it's exactly because caricature debases things that Chris Ware said the following: "Artists like [...] myself, are all trying to tell potent stories with the tools of jokes. It's as though we're trying to write a powerful, deeply engaging, richly detailed epic with a series of limericks." (Dangerous Drawings by Andrea Juno, Juno Books, 1997: 33);

3., 4. the same comparison may be done here between a serious painting by Lyonel Feininger

(3. Vogelwolke [bird cloud], 1927) and one of his comics pages

(4. Wee Willie Winkie's World, 1906; detail; I find Wee Willie Winkie's World quite charming, though...).

PS Ernst Gombrich on caricature:
http://www.gombrich.co.uk/showdoc.php?id=85

PPS According to this site:http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/ The Crib is worth exactly $0.00. That's very disappointing! I thought that it was worth at least $1,00. Darn!...

Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds Interview

Images and sounds:

my third post on this blog is titled "Rutu Modan's Jamilti." Here's, as a distant kind of second coda to that post, an interview with Rutu about her great graphic novel Exit Wounds

.

Art Spiegelman's Maus - Coda # 2

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Images and sounds:

1. the cover of Breakdowns, From Maus to Now by Art Spiegelman (Belier Press, 1977);

2. "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" (page published in Breakdowns: 1977 [Short Order Comics # 2, 1974]) quotes a Duke Ellington song to give the reader (with the "dripping faucet" continuous bass allusion), a sense of rhythm; in this page Art Spiegelman also experimented with collage, Cubism, out of sync word / image combos, the back-and-forth eye movement of the reader following the ball bouncing, etc...; Spiegelman explained this page panel by panel in Alternative Media magazine (Fall, 1978);

3. Art Spiegelman did some graphic experiences while creating Maus (The Comics Journal # 65 - where this image was also published -, August, 1981: 116): "One solution I thought was interesting involved using this Eastern European children's books wood engraving style that I'd seen in some books of illustrations. But I found myself thoroughly dissatisfied with these woodcut illustrations. [...] The cat, as seen by the mouse, is big, brutal, almost twice the size of the mouse creatures [...]. It tells you how to feel, it tells you how to think, in a way that I would rather not push."; this is a definition of kitsch according to Umberto Eco (The Open Work, Harvard University Press, 1989: 181; translation by Umberto Eco and Anna Cancogni): "the prefabrication and imposition of an effect.";

4. Art Spiegelman at Auschwitz: photo published in the first "Maus" pamphlet (Raw, Volume 1, # 2, December, 1980);

5. Art Spiegelman's cover of booklet five of the "Maus" serialization in Raw (Volume 1, # 6, May, 1984);

6. the cover of Maus, A Survivor's Tale, book one (My father Bleeds History) of two, by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books, 1986);

7. as many New Yorkers (see topper "The New Normal" in the first page of the book, below), Art Spiegelman was greatly affected by the 9 / 11 events; the same haunting image was used as a cover of The New Yorker (September, 24, 2001) and as the cover of his book In the Shadow of No Towers (Pantheon Books, 2004);

8. In the Shadow of No Towers' first page;

9. Animation film by Lars Edwards (and crew; music by Pat Carney, The Black Keys) publicizing Art Spiegelman's latest (sketch)book(s; three to be exact) (Be A Nose, McSweeney's, March, 2009).