|
Post by owaddled on Feb 12, 2023 4:15:42 GMT
One more thing I hope gets included in the collected edition are the one page 'gag' cartoons with the guy lifting weights, the comic artist thinking about giving up and the "13 years later". I think they complete the artistic statement.
A facile reading of Blood of the Virgin could be "wow maybe making self-published comics is better because no one can take your art from you." But with the gag cartoons you see that the flip side is that maybe it takes 13 years of lonely work to finish the story.
|
|
|
Post by manoopuesta on Mar 27, 2023 22:35:33 GMT
|
|
|
Post by manoopuesta on Apr 6, 2023 17:13:58 GMT
I attended this week one of the book presentations of BOTV, for the Spanish edition. I'm glad I attended cause it was a super nice talk. Harkham mentioned at one point that the diner scene at the end of BOTV was a reference/homage to Peepshow #13, since that issue occurs solely in a diner (with the usual Seth, Joe and Chester chats). I wouldn't have linked these two comics together, so it was cool to hear about it.
|
|
|
Post by arecomicsevengood on May 4, 2023 11:36:27 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mikesheawright on May 4, 2023 19:45:25 GMT
Nice, excited to read this!
|
|
|
Post by bluebed on May 19, 2023 21:12:45 GMT
Finally read the whole thing and enjoyed reading everyone's takes. The ending felt abrupt to me too, but that also felt appropriate in the afterthought. I suppose the two chunks could've used some transition between them, but I thought the final sequence was excellent, and the preceding monologue too--I like how Seymour barely responds, and just sits and listens. After all the previous attempts to wrestle control over his life and work, the last chapter is very pointedly passive, which probably adds to the abrupt feeling, for better or worse.
The New Zealand chapter remains a real stand-out, though--a bold narrative gambit, that I think really paid off. That sequence of her sitting down and standing up through the page is just so good. Him in Myrna leaning on the car earlier, too. And I love how much of the dialogue in the book can feel inconsequential--you never know what will be important or not, and the stuff that's not directly relevant adds up to the hypnotic boredom of them trying to get the film done, etc. A bit like what Seth does, almost. It's also fun to see all the comics connections, in style and narrative--and how they become more streamlined into his style through the story. It's also curious to look closely at how time skips happen in various sequences, but that's for a closer rereading. I also kept thinking how good the acting is, and how little I care if someone's hand is wonky or the proportions are off--in my own stuff I obsess for hours about getting the exact right gesture, but there's so much more you can achieve with just the composition and placement, and then the details barely matter. Anyway. I think the only character that never quite made sense to me was Val, the boss--he's so flat compared to everyone else in the story, it feels a bit jarring. Makes me wonder if it would've been better if he had barely any visible presence, just making decisions behind the scenes and leaving Seymour to deal with them.
Overall, felt very emotional at the end, and it felt earned. The way I read the overall story, it's about acceptance--this is it, all the squabbles and frustrations, you're not working towards anything, this is the thing itself. And there's something comforting in that though, but maybe that's just my cheerful interpretation.
|
|
|
Post by whitecomics on May 20, 2023 11:46:27 GMT
I got the process zine mentioned a few posts up, and enjoyed it. It's devoted entirely to one spread from the Joe story, a mix of sketchbook excerpts and reference photos. You can see how much work went into chiseling down the story, with ideas that seem to have started as entire pages or sequences edited down to just a few panels. That's probably true for the dense Joe pages in particular but of course it applies to BotV as a whole.
One specific example - I'm reading between the lines a bit here, since again the zine just has sketchbook pages with no commentary etc but it's clear that Harkham is considering a sequence with Jean, the actress who appears intermittently in the story. Something like: Joe is driving her and another woman home, they start kissing in the back seat, Joe is surprised, etc. A perfectly competent cartoonist might make this a nice 3-4 panel sequence. Even half a page. For a different type of story that could even be the correct choice.
But in the final strip this moment is a panel and a half, on top of something else. Almost blink and you'll miss it. Really inspiring in terms the layered storytelling you can achieve by being ruthless and exacting as you cut a story down to its essential components without ever allowing it to become simple. Another such moment that I only noticed on my read of the collected edition: the mention of Joy's scar in the Chapter 1 / Crickets 3 party scene. As far as I noticed it never comes up again, and you can imagine how it might be the result of another distilled, previously longer sequence.
But! I've thought about it more, and despite some very compelling defenses in this thread and elsewhere I still don't love the ending as much as I love the rest of the book! At least for me, it's missing some of that complexity, that layering.
|
|
luke
New Member
Posts: 46
|
Post by luke on May 20, 2023 14:49:37 GMT
I got the process zine mentioned a few posts up, and enjoyed it. It's devoted entirely to one spread from the Joe story, a mix of sketchbook excerpts and reference photos. You can see how much work went into chiseling down the story, with ideas that seem to have started as entire pages or sequences edited down to just a few panels. That's probably true for the dense Joe pages in particular but of course it applies to BotV as a whole. One specific example - I'm reading between the lines a bit here, since again the zine just has sketchbook pages with no commentary etc but it's clear that Harkham is considering a sequence with Jean, the actress who appears intermittently in the story. Something like: Joe is driving her and another woman home, they start kissing in the back seat, Joe is surprised, etc. A perfectly competent cartoonist might make this a nice 3-4 panel sequence. Even half a page. For a different type of story that could even be the correct choice. But in the final strip this moment is a panel and a half, on top of something else. Almost blink and you'll miss it. Really inspiring in terms the layered storytelling you can achieve by being ruthless and exacting as you cut a story down to its essential components without ever allowing it to become simple. Another such moment that I only noticed on my read of the collected edition: the mention of Joy's scar in the Chapter 1 / Crickets 3 party scene. As far as I noticed it never comes up again, and you can imagine how it might be the result of another distilled, previously longer sequence. But! I've thought about it more, and despite some very compelling defenses in this thread and elsewhere I still don't love the ending as much as I love the rest of the book! At least for me, it's missing some of that complexity, that layering. I've said this elsewhere, but the last issue fell flat for me. The scene between Seymour and the elder filmmaker felt romantic/nostalgic for the 70s B-movie milieu in a way at odds with what I think the rest of the book was aiming for. There was an unlived-in quality to the dialogue, like an amalgam of quotes cribbed from film history books.
I've only read the issues as they came out, though, so it's possible I'll have a different reaction to it in the context of the book.
|
|
|
Post by awfulquiet on May 21, 2023 1:22:40 GMT
I've only read the story this one time in the collected edition and I felt similar about the end. It was underwhelming after the first couple chapters left me thinking "wow, I've been an idiot for waiting this long to read this." It didn't feel rushed, but it kind of feels like there's a missing chapter.
One other thing that bothered me throughout was how Seymour and Ida's dialog was entertaining, but often seemed like they were talking like early 2000s Brooklyn hipsters. I dunno, I wasn't alive in the 70s. Maybe it's accurate.
|
|
|
Post by bluebed on May 21, 2023 2:48:14 GMT
I think it feels particularly abrupt after that very dense and long penultimate chapter—I kept thinking that if the final thing was the same length (or very short, on the contrary), it would’ve worked better, otherwise it’s that middle ground, not too short, not too long.
|
|
|
Post by bluebed on May 23, 2023 23:14:08 GMT
|
|
|
Post by whitecomics on May 26, 2023 0:49:30 GMT
I've been thinking about this the past few days. "You don't choose to be the cartoonist you are." Definitely rings true, and in one sense it's very simple. Don't force yourself to draw, to make stories, etc. like someone else or in a way that doesn't come naturally to you. Be happy with what comes out of your pen.
But as you think about it more, it gets more complex, or it leads to complex implications. What's the difference between accepting you are the cartoonist you are, versus not letting yourself get in a rut or become too repetitive? What are the key elements of you as a cartoonist? Is it a good idea to articulate them (to yourself, to others) or is that dangerous in the same way that it's dangerous to be too self-aware about the Big Ideas in a story you're working on?
Hmm...
|
|
|
Post by bluebed on May 26, 2023 2:25:58 GMT
Same! I've been tormenting myself for years about that disconnect between the stuff I like to read and the stuff I end up making, despite my intentions. It is healthy to have a bit of that disappointment at the end, I think, and to try to change and shift things, but the tricky things is to be prepared for your work to go its own way, and for you to probably get over it by the time it's half-way... You can drive yourself nuts admonishing yourself for your failings, but then you see people really loving everything they do and it's a different kind of trapping. Got to figure it out for yourself of course, there's no universal way, but I've always admired the way Perec approached it--his books are a bit of a mixed bag, but I like that he'd pick a direction and commit to the bit, and then do something totally different, but in the end each one of his books could've only been written by him. I think the year he died he did an interview where he talked about all the things he's planning to write, among them a sci-fi book, a picturebook that he was planning to do with the Babar guy, etc etc.. I want to try and be more like that, pick a direction and go wild, no second-guessing and halting, then analyze it when it's done and move on to the next thing. Process over result, etc. The main thing is to keep going with it day after day, no breaks, even if you work on it a little bit.. that's something I've been struggling with, too--abandoning a thing, then getting back and realizing you've lost momentum and probably forgotten the story/style you were going for. Harkham said elsewhere that he started working on the next comic right after finishing Blood of the Virgin. So easy to get bogged down in emails, edits and production, and then you start a new thing eventually and it feels like you've never drawn anything, ever. Anyway, sorry for derailing the conversation into process talk, but I'm guessing almost everyone here is a cartoonist, so why not!
|
|