The lines are from (in order): “Gin”, “Green Thumb”, “A Sleepless Night”, “A Woman Walking”, “Animals are Passing from Our Lives”, “A Theory of Prosody”, “Clouds Above the Sea”, “For the Country”, “An Ending”, and “Gin”.

The Hooded Utilitarian is running a roundtable of artists illustrating Wallace Stevens poems.

My version of “The Plain Sense of Things” went up today. It’s a 10 page comic using some but not all of the text from the original poem. I wanted to recreate some of Stevens’ imagery without redundantly mirroring the text, so I excised text as appropriate. That probably means I’m a butcher of a great poem, but I wanted to make something new rather than just a poem with pictures added.

I encourage you to check out the rest of the roundtable (still ongoing), including pieces from a few artists whose work you’ve probably already seem me raving about, such as Warren Craghead, Jason Overby, and Franklin Einspruch. Lilli Carré made a great short animation, and James Romberger made his poem into a Caniff-esque Sunday strip. See the full list with links at that first link above.

This piece and a longer comic I’m working on now for a summer comics class (with Matt Madden and Tom Hart) is part of the reason things have been pretty quiet here and at The Panelists for me. If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, I’ve been linking to pages from my current comic. Silence here does not mean I’m not at work on something.

Mar 2011
28 p., 7″ x 8.5″
black and white, laser printed

A 24 page partially abstract comic created from appropriated image and text. I will be bold enough to call it “comics poetry,” and hope that it might mean something in that context. From the interior:

The images in this comic are appropriated, edited, and redrawn images from “Gene Autry and the Secret of Badman’s Cove” in Gene Autry Comics #19 (1948) as drawn by Jesse Marsh. You can download a scan of the original comic from the Digital Comic Museum at: http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=11930 The text in this comic is appropriated from various books. Each fragment is from a different work, some are slightly edited. Because the excerpts are so short I did not record all the sources, which were found using a keyword combination including the word “cave” (my misreading of the original comic’s title) and a word or words from the original text in the panel where I was placing the new text

$4 plus postage. (Click the button to buy with PayPal)

But, because I have no illusions, here’s the whole damn thing for your reading pleasure.

I started my post on Mark Laliberte’s Brickbrickbrick by noting the publication’s context as a book labeled “poetry” from a literary press. His most recent publication Grey Supreme 1 is published in a rather different context. That “1″ alone tells us something. This is the first of a projected series of annual issues of Grey Supreme. The publication is a slightly larger than normal 32 page pamphlet from Koyama Press. Koyama is not exclusively a comics publisher, but they have, up to now, published more comics than other books.

Does this context help make the reading experience of Grey Supreme more of a comics-esque one than Brickbrickbrick? For most readers, I think it would. This looks and feels like a comic (a nicely printed on thick paper comic). But inside, we find something that is a bit alien as a comic (well, for most readers, I would think). The comics in Grey Surpreme have more in common with abstract comics than conventional narrative comics, despite the representational imagery used by Laliberte.

Grey Supreme 1 contains two works, which are independent but also offer some thematic connections. The majority of the publication contains “Swallow,” a 19 page series of images showing a single arm reaching out of water. The image is an oft-seen shortcut for a person drowning, a last reach for air as he/she goes down.

The images in “Swallow” are at their heart, two-fold: an arm/hand and the water/ocean. Within each image the styles of these two part are varied, as they are also varied from image to image. Quite like Brickbrickbrick, this appears to be in some way a manipulation or redrawing of appropriated imagery, collaged together. Some of the images have that craggy edge to their lines that speaks to an enlarging of ink of paper. Some of the images are digitally precise; some look like old engravings; some are flat colors; some are digital gradients; some are abstracted patterning; some are traditionally representational rendering. One clearly shows the texture of paper beneath and pale flesh of the arm.

The collage-like stylistic contrast within the same image creates a sense of disconnect between arm and water. The arm and the water are not unified, the arm is like an alien object stuck through the water. The two elements are in conflict visually and narratively. Visually, the arm is winning, as it becomes the foreground, the focal object for each image. In contrast, narratively, the water wins the conflict. The arms struggle to reach out, and, in the last image, there is no arm at all, just the water, with three inverted arcs signifying waves but also looking like an abstracted smiling face. This slightly creepy final image, reading like the final victory of the water, is followed by a poem titled “Swallow” or maybe “Sleepy, Hollow” (“Swallow” is printed in white at the top of the page, while “Sleepy, Hollow” is printed in all caps at the start of the text). The short poem, all short words and rolling rhythm, plays as a fitting denouement to the sequence of images. There is the potential for a poem placed at the tail end of an image sequence to feel tacked on and unnecessary, but Laliberte succeeds at this gambit. The poem faces the armless ocean image and is printed in text the same color as the night sky about the ocean, creating a visual unity to accompany the thematic one.

One other aspect of “Swallow” that adds to its effect is the rhythm of the images. The sequence is made of two single page images followed by a double-page image followed by two single page images, etc. Like the rhythm of the poem, a perhaps another indicator of Laliberte’s poetic background, this adds a rolling water motion to the sequence, a steady pace that becomes familiar and comforting.

The second piece in “Grey Supreme” is a seven image photographic sequence showing a view outside Laliberte’s window titled “Double Rainbow.” A large pit in the earth foregrounds graffitied buildings, construction machinery, and a low skyline. From the expansive sky over the scene, a rainbow arcs just off-center. The image is repeated seven times, each one manipulated to be tinted, in sequence, each of the seven colors of the rainbow (thus the title).

By itself, “Double Rainbow” is a quick recognition of the amusing concept followed by a sense of the thinness of it all. But, in conjunction with “Swallow”, the resonance allows for a greater appreciation. If “Swallow” is a struggle between man and nature, where nature is victorious and fearsome, “Double Rainbow” shows us a more complicated case where man seems to be winning over nature physically, while nature takes an aesthetic lead. In “Swallow”, water is an overwhelming force, in “Double Rainbow”, water is the purveyor of beauty in a single drop.

“Double Rainbow” also ends with a page of text, though this text seems more like a title page/addendum than the text in Swallow. The page lists the location of the photograph and a brief explanation of a rainbow. It’s not clear that’s it meant to be part of the sequence, and it doesn’t read as such.

I mentioned above that “Swallow” has more relation to abstract comics than conventional narrative comics, but I don’t think it is completely divorced from narrative work. Allow me a tentative attempt at explanation… Abstract comics foreground the visual elements of comics as visuals. From panel to panel, or page to page, we read the images qua images, not as a sign of some narrative/diegetic meaning. A more convention narrative comic foregrounds the meaning behind the images. This isn’t to say the images aren’t appreciated or read for their visual qualities, only that that is not the primary motivation.

“Swallow” exists somewhere between these two points. By repeating the same content in a variety of styles, Laliberte pretty much forces the reader to read these images as more than just the signifiers of arm/water. A focus is placed on the way the arm/water are represented, on the formal qualities of the line/color/texture/composition as well as the pacing of the images through the pages. Yet, behind these repeated images there is a narrative, however slight, that can be constructed, read into the repetition. What really makes it a narrative, to me, is that last image, the one without the arm. That shows change on a different level than the rest of the images. They all change on a purely stylistic visual level, but that last image creates a narrative change, and through it retrospectively creates the whole sequence into a time sequence. It is not just a series of arms in water, it is an arm over time, struggling in the water, then… failing.

At least that’s how I read it.

Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo is a collection of 56 ink drawings of enso (circles). Seo provides translations of the text that accompanies the enso images and commentary on the works. I thought I’d share two of them.

This one is by Shibayama Zenkei (1894-1974, none of the works are dated in the book so I’m just giving the creator’s dates). The text reads: “Beyond the wind, listen to the bamboo” and then the signature. Note the second line of text (remember going from right to left) is only one character stretched out. That is the character for “bamboo”, which Shibayama has transformed to look a bit like bamboo.

This one is by Yamada Mumon (1900-1988). The text reads: “Nothing lacking, nothing in excess.” The enso itself is wonderfully simple, yet subtly complex. There is just a slight irregularity in the upper area where the paper shows through, that nicely offsets the lower area where the brush stroke began and ended (most enso are done in one stroke). It is in pieces like this where I appreciate the concision of the Japanese language/characters. Being able to say whole words with a single square character really fits with the simplicity of the image.

I wrote about a book on Haiga back in the beginning of the year. Haiga are basically haiku paintings, poetry mixed with ink paintings. There doesn’t appear to be many books in English on the subject. One of them is Haiga: Takebe Socho and the Haiku-Painting Tradition by Stephen Addiss (University of Hawai’i Press, 1995). Between the two books I’ve read I’ve become enamored with the work of Inoue Shiro (1742-1812). I’ve not found any info about him nor any other images.

This one is called “Self-Portrait”, and the text reads:

No color or scent
when flower-viewing–
stuffy nose

The image is so completely abstract and dynamic with varieties of line and wash.

Less abstract and dynamic, but still a lovely simplicity:

Instead of home–
the cool moonlight’s
straw mat

Perhaps my favorite one, very similar to the Mount Fuji haiga by Shiro in my other post (scroll down, you’ll see which one I mean).

Through the ages
rising above the mountains–
tonight’s moon

The character for “moon” is the last (ie on the left) character in the text of the poem, set off on its own line and slightly larger, placing it as both part of the poem and as representationally in its place above the mountain.

I’ve also quite enjoyed The Way of the Brush Painting Techniques of China and Japan by Fritz van Briessen, which focuses on a more refined version of ink painting, but it’s section of technique and the different methods used in traditional Chinese ink painting where really informative with some nice example images. That’s worth searching out if you are interested in the topic.

Issac also commented:

It’d be interesting to hear you talk a little more about the ways in which the form of, for example, a sonnet counts as “constraint,” when other formal considerations (Schulz’s four-panel layout in Peanuts or the generic assumptions of, say, detective fiction) don’t count. In some ways, the formal constraints of a sonnet are dictated by genre, so that they hardly seem optional for Shakespeare; on the other hand, if someone chose to draw a webcomic with the same constraints of panelization that Schulz used (four square panels only), wouldn’t that be a formal constraint?

Some key differences are apparent between the sonnet, the Schulz example, and generic conventions. Generic conventions are easiest to place outside the realm of constraint because they lack systematization in almost all cases&em;excepting an Oulipo offshoot, called Oulipopo (the extra po standing for “policière”) which worked to apply constraints to detective fiction.

The case of Schulz and comic strips are “institutional” constraints (a term which I think I took from Jan Baetens (this article)). The key part for me is that these constraints are pushed onto the artist from above. Granted, the artist voluntarily chooses to create work within the institution (in this case newspaper comic strips), knowing the constraints that will be applied, so they probably do fit into all the elements of my definition of constraint as I list them in my presentation.

How does this differ from the obstruction model taken up by Madden and Hart, where Madden passes the constraint down to Hart? Perhaps there is no real difference, and I should modify my statements in that presentation. I can’t help feeling that an issue of power and authority comes to play here that makes me want to push the institutional constraints to the side. I would say that your example of someone choosing to work under a panel structure similar to Schulz’s would be an example of constraint. That element of choice contrasts nicely in my mind with the idea of constrained creation. The institutional power issue is what makes me balk at including the Schulz example in my particular categorization. Though, if you’ve seen the Von Trier film, The Five Obstructions (where Madden and Hart’s project originated), the exertion of power is a major part of the film and its tensions.

The case of Shakespeare and sonnets may be even more thorny as my knowledge of the subject is limited. I’m not clear on how sonnet structure is dictated by genre (perhaps you could elaborate on that). I don’t see poetic forms as genre, but a sonnet is a systematized form. The goal of the Oulipo at its early stages (and perhaps still, though I believe the idea has lessened greatly in importance) was to create forms for use by other writers. The actual creation of works would serve as examples of those forms. This harkens back to forms such as the sonnet where it is shared and used by many writers. One can imagine that a form gaining such widespread use would create a different perception (more genre-like) than, for example, the constraint used by Harry Mathews to write his book Cigarettes (a constraint based on permutations that he has never fully divulged) which was only used once.

To connect this to the previous case, I don’t believe anyone was imposing sonnets on Shakespeare. He could have easily written some less structured type of rhymed couplets (though at the time, I believe there were expectations of what a poem was that are more restrictive then modern times). The difference between the sonnet form as genre-like and a prose genre like detective fiction is the strict formal constraint of a sonnet, absent in detective fiction. Detective fiction has certain expected elements, but there is no definitive structure to it. In some strange sense this makes me think of different ways people have tried to define “comics” from the very clearly delineated definition (like Kunzle in his History of the Comic Strip) to less structured ideas like what I put forth in my column on the topic.

Me (my avatar) presenting in Second Life

In other news about me, or not about me as the case is here, a couple poets/artists/? released “For Godot” issue 1, a 3785 page PDF that has about that many poems attributed to a huge range of people (mostly poets, I think) but actually written, I assume, by the creators of the issue. Strange and rather funny, though some of the “authors” seem pretty upset by the whole thing. I’m not sure how I got included in there. I haven’t written poetry for years, but I like the one attributed to me (page 497):

“Attiring temerity”

Like an implied term
Like a silent term
-Derik Badman

Oddly, when I did write poems, they were often that short.

Every task involves constraint,
Solve the thing without complaint;
There are magic links and chains
Forged to loose our rigid brains.
Strictures, structures, though they bind,
Strangely liberate the mind.

James E. Falen. Quoted in Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (p. 272) by Douglas Hofstadter. (Thanks to Stephen Frug for this one: Attempts: James Falen, An Odelet in Praise of Constraints.)

Steven Lynn. Text and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory (2nd ed, 1998), p.25.

Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. Understanding Poetry (1938), p. 527.