I took a little bit of an extended break. Extended vacation. It's good. I have been trying to rest and relax. It has really paid off. For Christmas this year, Santa brought me an electric typewriter! He knows that I'm good for goodness' sake. I have been reading a lot and some of it has been good and some of it has been not so good, so we'll hit the highlights and leave the rest for another day. Wintering was a terrific read. I'd heard about it when everyone was raving about it during our first pandemic winter, and this winter was really the right time for it. It's very difficult to tell ourselves that we need to rest, or even to tell other people that we need to rest - especially now, when we all have pandemic exhaustion and are supposed to continue on with daily life as though it were normal for people to be dying in scores every day from a health crisis that could've been over by now. It's A Lot. I think people are trying to pretend it's Not A Lot, but it is, and that's okay. Take a break. The world will keep turning.
I'm going to segue directly from Wintering into Fierce Love because I think they pair well together. When we nurture ourselves in our times of difficulty, that's the only time we'll be able to nurture others in their difficult times. That is what living in community is about. We can't pour from an empty cup. I think that Fierce Love is my book of 2022; I got it from the library but I'm going to have to buy it. We have to start being more involved in the well-being of others, of our communities. I love this book and it's really been inspiring! Fun fiction: So, I checked out a lot of comic books to read and I happened to pick up this Warren Ellis Moon Knight TPB & what a joy, what a delight! I particularly enjoyed it because I didn't need to know a lot about anything that was happening - the character is well-enough explained for the new reader AND all the stories were standalones! I haven't read any kind of superhero comic for YEARS that has not been part of some larger arc and the individual comics stood alone. YEARS!! I didn't even realize it until I read these, and it was such a breath of fresh air honestly. Just fantastic, fun, witty, a great time. I am also working my way slowly through Krazy And Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Benevolent And Amiable Brick (I snagged the next one, too, for when I finish this one). Krazy Kat is so good and it is a delight to read. I have never read anything like it and I love George Herriman's little puns and alliterations. I usually read a few of the strips before bed and they're like little treats at the end of the day. Hope y'all are staying warm and staying safe! Feliz ano novo!
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It's a little busy around here and rather than be busier, I am going to take a little break from the blog. Winter is a season of rest, so rest! You don't have to do every single thing.
See you after the semester's over! XOXOXO Royal The above is a panel from my sketchbook that's from 2010. When I was a kid, my parents divorced, and my dad compensated by sending me care packages full of comic books from the local store in LA. (It's actually, I found out, the same store whose owner had a comic book themed wedding back in the '90s, when things like that were still pretty unusual. I was so impressed when I found out, because there had been a photo of the happy couple in Wizard magazine.) Some time in middle school I started reading Marvel comics and collecting trading cards. Eventually my single issues were all sold or given away, excepting the single issues I have of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise. It's hard to justify dragging the long, heavy comic book boxes along from state to state. And even though I still read comics and still liked superhero comics, it's the Disney comics I read as a kid that really stuck in my mind. Underground comix artist Victor Moscoso talked about Carl Barks in a long interview he gave to Gary Groth of The Comics Journal: "None of the other artists that did the duck stories came anywhere near him. I didn’t know his name — Crumb told me his name. We were talking about it and he was very knowledgeable in comics, so I asked him, 'Hey, who was the good duck artist?' That’s how he was known: the good one. And he says, 'Carl Barks.' That was the first time I ever heard the name, because they were all signed 'Walt Disney.'" (I had never heard of this particular distinction before I'd read this interview - by the time I was old enough to look back on duck comics, Carl Barks was already a known name - so imagine how surprised I was when I googled, in quotes, "the good duck artist" and google just immediately returned "Carl Barks" as a result.) I was on the hunt for a couple of Christmas themed Donald Duck stories I'd remembered as a kid. This is not one of them, but it is a stellar example of Carl Barks' gorgeous lettering: I absolutely adore his lettering. It is so crisp in this story. I love the little flair on the "n" in "in" on the title card. Even the word balloons themselves are gorgeous. What I was looking for was a story called "Letter to Santa", which was originally published in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1 back in 1949. (This story has been republished in the collected Carl Barks hardcovers - it's in Trail of the Unicorn, which is Volume 8.) Michael Sporman uploaded the recolored version onto his blog, in two parts, so you can read this wild story if you want to - part one is here and part two is here. (There's no "next post" navigation on his blog that I could find, so it might be easier to navigate like this.) It's so good, like most of these comics are, and it's perfect for the holiday season. (I was really more of a fan of Donald than Mickey, but Mickey Mouse did have some good detective stories. I really enjoyed the Thirteen Ghosts story and the one about Kali's Nail. I don't think a lot of people understand how often Mickey Mouse has a handgun in the comics - and uses it!) Victor Moscoso is also terrific. I didn't realize how much his work influenced mine until I started re-reading Zap. As a teen, I'd scored some issues from a friend of my stepfather ("Don't tell your mother you have these," he said), so I must have had them somewhere back there in my brain. Here's one of Moscoso's pages from Zap Comix #2: Victor Moscoso is absolutely a professional and if you love art shop talk like I do, that long interview I linked above is just fantastic. I think often about his application of color theory to concert posters and his references to Josef Albers.
By the time R. Crumb had asked Moscoso to do Zap, Victor was the oldest of the underground artists and he already had a family, so it's funny to read his reactions to the other Zap stories: "...I thought the taboos were all illusions, until Crumb did 'Joe Blow.' Then I realized, OK, you can chop off a guy’s penis and eat it. That’s all right. But you can’t fuck your children. There are limits in this civilized society." The above is a little story about Natalie Goldberg and Katagiri Roshi. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I went to Goodwill one day and found a very highlighted copy of Writing Down the Bones and I was so excited. I hadn't read it in so long. It was like meeting an old friend.
The other day I was looking for it and then I realized that it was one of those books that the post office lost when they lost a whole box of my books that they are allegedly looking for. It's so frustrating. I have already lost so much this year and then the reminder that I have lost even more just because USPS can't do the single job they have is insult to injury. Anyway, I found a super cheap copy for $4 total and ordered it. I am excited for it to arrive. I have been letting loneliness toss me away lately. Some days are better than others. I used to have a post-it note that said "If you were busier, you wouldn't think about it as much", which is probably true. The motto for this week is "Keep swimming!", like a shark. I have not been super great at doing that, but I still wake up every day and make an attempt. To-do list items get checked off. I am just isolated, lonely, angry, and impatient. I don't know how to really change that, other than to keep swimming. So here we are! |
AuthorArtist, essayist, divinity school dropout. Here for a good time, not for a long time. Archives
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