TV: GEORGE MELLY – DOCUMENTARY

I’m not sure you’ll learn that much from this documentry on Surrealism, but I’m only posting it so I can see the late George Melly strutting his dandy around London. I’m not a fan of Jazz or Surrealism, but for some reason I do like George. It may be his attitude. If only I could carry off my selfishness with equal style!

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./[ … >>> some time ago I came to an understanding regarding my own physical ugliness. You may say “That’s a lot to come to any kind of terms with” or you may say “what on earth are you talking about” and I’d appreciate both points of view without difficulty. However I’d point out that while beauty is only skin deep – ugliness goes all the way through! OK, so that’s an old joke, but seriously I am forever ‘ugly’ simply because someone a very long time ago told me that I was. It stuck in my head. A common enough occurrence I’m sure. A less delicate personality might have shrugged it off. I don’t feel anyway about it now of course. I’m too old for those games, but I do like to play with my own image, squishing it into strange shapes and patterns. A little harmless gurning keeps me sane. You may say that I’m in love with myself. Well, you may say it. It is a free country. I am extraordinarily selfish it’s true, but love is a strong word. Far too strong for this time of the morning./[ …

COMING SOON … MORE …

PHLEGM

I’ve been neglecting some links I must have come across ages ago and then promptly forgot about – I’m paying for it with this one. How am I going to get ahold of those back issues?

It’s Phlegm. Go there now. It has content. Lovely lovely content.

ARTY – SALE

Just thought I’d let you know about a magazine I’ve enjoyed and let you know there is a sale of back issues on too. This is art rather than comics but I likes me a good old-fashioned zine. Bish bash bosh. Slap it together and see what happens. I shall be buying some more of these items myself before they are all sold out.

Like this sold out one in my possession. Bworhahahaa!

All you need is the name ARTY!

GREAT WORKS OF RATHER LOW ART?

We've not strayed too far from home have we?

Much as I’ve enjoyed my love affair with comics over the years even I struggle to compare them favourably alongside the many other art forms I’ve held an interest in for the 30 or so years I’ve been able to appreciate them properly. Discounting forms that hold little in common with what we all understand to be ‘comics’ or even ‘comic strips’ then comics have been around for at least as long as film and yet no one really associates film with being inherently childish. Films may have childish themes and subjects (and even methods sometimes) but the effort that goes into financing, producing and marketing them involves such a level of skill and such backing that no one feels able to dismiss what they eventually see with quite the same ease that they can a comic book. Calling any work a graphic novel doesn’t so much help as draw the shortcomings of the medium into even greater relief.

I love film so it’s easy for me to defend it. A handful of titles should suffice. Citizen Kane, Henry V, Once Upon A Time In The West, Annie Hall, Lifeforce (hehe). Insert your own favourites – it isn’t difficult. I love comics too, but not quite so easy to defend as a medium I think you’ll find. Maus (I’ve not read it), Watchmen (I thought it was er not very good), Akira, (Er … that’s about it), Marvel Two-In-One (hehe). Insert your own favourites if you can. You’re an intelligent person. Even you can see this argument failing?

A late thought here. If I listed my personal favourites I’m afraid they’d all be from before, during or just after the second world war!!! Any later and they might be English strips. I mean I enjoyed some of Claremont’s X-men, I enjoy the Fantastic Four, I appreciate Superman and Batman, there’s a lot of strips and talent I like … but I’m talking great here. Timeless classics that weather passing fads. Superheroes just ain’t that great a subject. Wait, I thought of one Love and Rockets! Phew, do I really have to think that hard.

Will Eisner sums up the problem best in the introduction of The Theory of Comics and Sequential Art (1985) : “For reasons having much to do with usage and subject matter Sequential Art has been generally ignored as a form worthy of scholarly discussion … I believe the reason for this sits as much with the practitioner as the critic … unless comics address subjects of greater moment how can they hope for serious intellectual review? Great artwork alone is not enough.”

Greater moment. Hmmm! Ah, Love and Rockets! Do you see what I’m saying? Hell, do you agree? I suppose, just to make it clear, that despite what Eisner describes as serious intellectual review, we can substitute “how can they hope … to be taken seriously at all?”

That book would have carried more weight for me if he’d left the words ‘comics and’ out of the title. Never mind. But that is what’s dragging us down here. The weight of negative expectations. I expect every comic I read to be rubbish because more often than not they are. That wouldn’t be so bad if only their ambitions were set just a little higher. Even a trivial entertainment like comics can afford to carry a little more weight. Discuss.