CF: What's the deal
Sept 15, 2021 14:35:27 GMT
pietrykowski, fatherspukashells, and 1 more like this
Post by papersnail on Sept 15, 2021 14:35:27 GMT
I've always seen CF as an artist who hates expectations and doesn't particularly want a "fanbase." Not to mention he's always dodging imitators, he starts using gaudy digital gradients and prints things on pain-in-the-ass scrolls of easily crumpled receipt paper (that will eventually fade no matter how well you care for them). I was initially so confused by the work collected in Mere, it felt so trashy and dumb, but I've come to love it and realize how intentional it all was. Everyone was chomping at the bit for Powr Mastrs 4 (still are, myself included) and he turns around and makes bizarre riffs on genre comics and loosely stitched sketchbook jokes, dripping them out through Twitter for a few years only to dry up again and go quiet, posting blurry pictures of construction spray-paint symbols and over-lit garbage. I have no doubt he would hate this discussion!
He refuses to be easily google-able, has never maintained a website for more than short periods of time, never offered a publication history, prints things without attribution, and anthology appearances or publications are announced only to never appear. I doubt we'll ever see Powr Mastrs 4 or Warm Genetics House but mostly because I doubt they were ever finished! He's moved on.
It can be frustrating but I can't imagine it ever changing. The best we can hope for is publishers like Mania or Anthology to let him do what he wants and make it accessible. That said, looks like Anthology are bringing "CF’s formally innovative and richly symbolic trilogy to a close" with an upcoming book called Gymnasium. I hadn't considered William Softkey a continuation of Pierrot Alterations so I don't know what to expect from Gymnasium. I just hope that doesn't mean it's the last book they're publishing with him...
"From the ruins of a destroyed library, an abandoned junkyard becomes a city of elemental beings, sentient machines, and fateful transformations. In Gymnasium, acclaimed artist CF deepens and complicates the evocative worlds and mysterious characters first depicted in his books Pierrot Alterations and William Softkey and the Purple Spider, building his previous achievements in comics storytelling into a grand summation of experimental narrative. A hybrid work containing alternating episodes of quiet lyricism and ruptures of vivid coloration, Gymnasium brings CF’s formally innovative and richly symbolic trilogy to a close."
He refuses to be easily google-able, has never maintained a website for more than short periods of time, never offered a publication history, prints things without attribution, and anthology appearances or publications are announced only to never appear. I doubt we'll ever see Powr Mastrs 4 or Warm Genetics House but mostly because I doubt they were ever finished! He's moved on.
It can be frustrating but I can't imagine it ever changing. The best we can hope for is publishers like Mania or Anthology to let him do what he wants and make it accessible. That said, looks like Anthology are bringing "CF’s formally innovative and richly symbolic trilogy to a close" with an upcoming book called Gymnasium. I hadn't considered William Softkey a continuation of Pierrot Alterations so I don't know what to expect from Gymnasium. I just hope that doesn't mean it's the last book they're publishing with him...
"From the ruins of a destroyed library, an abandoned junkyard becomes a city of elemental beings, sentient machines, and fateful transformations. In Gymnasium, acclaimed artist CF deepens and complicates the evocative worlds and mysterious characters first depicted in his books Pierrot Alterations and William Softkey and the Purple Spider, building his previous achievements in comics storytelling into a grand summation of experimental narrative. A hybrid work containing alternating episodes of quiet lyricism and ruptures of vivid coloration, Gymnasium brings CF’s formally innovative and richly symbolic trilogy to a close."