All PostsThe Spring semester has started, and I’m taking a class. Dr John Lent (publisher of the International Journal of Comic Art and author of numerous books and articles) was teaching a graduate course on comic art at my University, so I signed up. Why do you care, dear reader? Well, this class, and more specifically the paper I will be writing for this class, will be taking up a lot of what otherwise would be my blogging time for the next few months. That probably means fewer reviews, but I’m hoping to post about the class or about readings I am doing, as well as whatever else comes up as I research and write my paper (topic still undecided, though I think I’ve narrowed it down to two options).
Dr. Lent’s interests in comics are significantly different than mine. He is much more focused on history, sociology, and politics (he is in the Mass Media department, after all) than I will ever be. I’m excited to hear more about these issues, though, thankfully my paper can be on any comic art related topic, so I can still write on formalistic and/or narratological aspects of comics. The class will include lectures on a wide range of international comics as well as animation.
In other arenas, there has been an excess of interesting discussion about comics criticism in the past few weeks online. Most of it is coming from the ever engaging Hooded Utilitarians. In case you missed it:
Best Online Comics Criticism 2009 (Hooded Utilitarian, organized by Ng Suat Tong)
Judges (links to their individual choices):
Noah Berlatsky
Frank Santoro
Tucker Stone
Matthias Wivel
Ng Suat Tong (who hasn’t chimed in on an individual level)
Brigid Alverson (who was asked to participate but didn’t have time by the deadline)
I was surprised and delighted that Frank and Tucker both voted for my piece on a page from Rubber Blanket. (Thanks, guys!)
It’s well worth your time, if you haven’t already, to go through those links and read the various nominated posts/reviews/essays. Lots to read that you might have missed over the past year. And even if you did read the work already, much of it is worth rereading. (The two nominated pieces on Crumb’s Genesis were a propos to me as I’ve been reading that volume this week.)
I wish I had kept track of criticism I really enjoyed over the past year, but I neglected to do so (I actually planned to after being asked to contribute to a best of criticism for 2008). But a 2010 “best of” is already in planning, so I’ll be keeping closer tabs this year.
The Utilitarian’s roundtable on the manga xxxHolic also drew out some interesting comments on criticism (and manga criticism in particular). This post (and more importantly the comments) is a good place to start as any. Also don’t neglect to follow some of the manga criticism links Utilitarian vommarlowe offers. A series of three posts on a manga series I’ve never heard of were quite the interesting close reading of a few pages.
As a parting and related comment, I recommend your attention to a piece of criticism from the tale end of 2008: Domingos Isabelinho on Francis Bacon’s Triptych May-June 1973. How can you resist a piece that starts: “Simply put, Francis Bacon’s Triptych May – June 1973 is the best comic ever made.” And with Isabelinho you know he’s going to back it up. It’s a dense, brief post that sends me out to various other readings. If you aren’t following his blog, The Crib Sheet, I highly recommend you do. You might also read his post on Hokusai’s One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji.
Thanks a lot for your kind words Derik!
The phrase “Simply put, Francis Bacon’s Triptych May – June 1973 is the best comic ever made” is a bit provocative if the reader doesn’t take into account that I distinguish between the restrict comics field and the extended field. Francis Bacon’s triptych is part of the latter.
Sure it’s provocative. The out of context quote was my attempt to get people to click over! I do like your use of the “restrict” and “extend”.