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Post by awfulquiet on Oct 6, 2021 18:47:12 GMT
Post thoughts and discussion on "Discipline" by Dash Shaw in this thread! *Potential Spoilers*Summary: During the Civil War, many Quakers were caught between their fervent support of abolition, a desire to preserve the Union, and their long-standing commitment to pacifism. When Charles Cox, a young Quaker from Indiana, slips out early one morning to enlist in the Union Army, he scandalizes his family and his community. Leaving behind the strict ways of Quaker life, Cox is soon confronted with the savagery of battle, the cruelty of the enemy (as well as of his fellow soldiers), and the overwhelming strangeness of the world beyond his home. He clings to his faith and family through letters with his sister, Fanny, who faces her own trials at home: betrayal, death, and a church that seems ready to fracture under the stress of the war. Discipline is told largely through the letters exchanged between the Cox siblings—incorporating material from actual Quaker and soldier journals of the era—and drawn in a style that combines modern graphic storytelling with the Civil War–era battlefield illustrations of the likes of Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer. The result is a powerful consideration of faith, justice, and violence, and an American comics masterpiece.  www.nyrb.com/products/discipline?variant=37889421541544
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Post by awfulquiet on Oct 6, 2021 21:29:24 GMT
Finally getting a chance to get my thoughts down... This is be kind of stream of consciousness.
Going in to this was interesting because I'm both a big Dash Shaw fan and grew up in Virginia and was weirdly very into the Civil War when I was growing up. But I wasn't very familiar with the Quakers, and I think Dash provided some helpful context in the Bubbles interview.
This wouldn't be the book I would recommend to someone to get them to like Dash's work. But knowing what I was getting into, I really enjoyed it. I feel like it works on a few levels. I finished my first read thru and immediately thought "I want to flip through this again but only look at the pictures.... Then I want to read thru but only concentrate on the text." And I don't very often read things multiple times in general.
That being said, I think the pictures and text work great together. The handwriting, while perfectly legible, made me have to slow down and concentrate. And I think if the images were any more rendered/detailed it would become impenetrable.
It's certainly not a traditional comic, or graphic novel, it borders more on being an art book at times. But it felt like a cohesive story the whole time and it really worked for me.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Oct 6, 2021 21:31:17 GMT
My library request should be in soon! Looking forward to this.
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Post by mikesheawright on Oct 6, 2021 23:44:44 GMT
I think Dash Shaw seems like a rad dude and is always doing interesting things. That being said, I kind of can't stand his drawing style(s) and I'm not sure why. Just something about it hits my brain wrong? Like how some foods taste wrong to some people? Or like some actors' faces just rub people the wrong way and spoil a movie? I had a hard time getting through Bottomless Bellybutton and Bodyworld, after that I bailed.
I am interested in this book though, maybe I'll check it out anyway. Def wanna support NYRC whenever possible.
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Post by thetouchtonetuner on Oct 12, 2021 17:17:59 GMT
Finally getting a chance to get my thoughts down... This is be kind of stream of consciousness. Going in to this was interesting because I'm both a big Dash Shaw fan and grew up in Virginia and was weirdly very into the Civil War when I was growing up. But I wasn't very familiar with the Quakers, and I think Dash provided some helpful context in the Bubbles interview. This wouldn't be the book I would recommend to someone to get them to like Dash's work. But knowing what I was getting into, I really enjoyed it. I feel like it works on a few levels. I finished my first read thru and immediately thought "I want to flip through this again but only look at the pictures.... Then I want to read thru but only concentrate on the text." And I don't very often read things multiple times in general. That being said, I think the pictures and text work great together. The handwriting, while perfectly legible, made me have to slow down and concentrate. And I think if the images were any more rendered/detailed it would become impenetrable. It's certainly not a traditional comic, or graphic novel, it borders more on being an art book at times. But it felt like a cohesive story the whole time and it really worked for me. I was extremely moved by this book as somebody who grew up in Virginia surrounded by Civil War history and with tangential interest in Quakers (came very close to going to Quaker school multiple times, lol). Back when I worked in special education I read a paper about how making text harder to read actually increases comprehension (e.g. if you read an essay in all caps italicized fonts you will actually score better on recall questions about the material). I thought about this multiple times reading this, as the cursive lettering in this book serves as a sort of barrier to entry but ultimately it forced me to take a lot more time reading the letters, which I think was for the better. I really like the choice to use a lot of text from actual Quaker letters, it made this feel like an Art Piece(tm) instead of a book in an interesting way. I thought it was a really great read and look forward to dusting it off my and rereading in a year or two. The concept of a fighting quaker is super compelling to me and brings up really interesting questions about the practice of nonviolence and the possible limits of it. Good book! Sorry for the delayed response, it's been a crazy week! |
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Post by yeahokwow on Oct 15, 2021 1:33:12 GMT
Yo, i just picked up the book today and i’m about 50 pages into it and really enjoying it! Love the flow of it. The first page has this fascinating hold on me. I spent like 5 minutes just staring at it before i turned the page to actually start the book lol. I can’t think of the last time a single page in a comic grabbed me like that. Very excited to get home tonight and read some more of it!
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Post by teemcgee on Oct 19, 2021 17:25:09 GMT
I think Dash Shaw seems like a rad dude and is always doing interesting things. That being said, I kind of can't stand his drawing style(s) and I'm not sure why. Just something about it hits my brain wrong? Like how some foods taste wrong to some people? Or like some actors' faces just rub people the wrong way and spoil a movie? I had a hard time getting through Bottomless Bellybutton and Bodyworld, after that I bailed. I am interested in this book though, maybe I'll check it out anyway. Def wanna support NYRC whenever possible.
I do think his figure drawing has a kind of plasticated quality to it that I could see not being to everyone's taste, but I'm on board.
I read this book a week or two ago now but I'm not sure what to say of it - I felt this was perhaps the straightest story I've read of Dash's, no big formal conceits outside of the paneless storytelling, just the pleasure of pure image making (which maybe got a little lost in the mass of whatever pages I was reading that week).
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Post by thebeautifulpuffin on Oct 20, 2021 2:55:30 GMT
The outfit I went with finally[/] sent me a shipping notice... Very much looking forward to catching up both with Mr. Shaw and this thread.
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Post by awfulquiet on Nov 1, 2021 13:03:23 GMT
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Post by BubblesZine on Nov 3, 2021 16:48:10 GMT
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Post by bayls171 on Nov 7, 2021 23:28:45 GMT
I forgot to post my thoughts.. oops. Read it a few weeks ago
As everyone else has said, Shaw breaks all conventions of the medium for this book. For I’ve always liked how sketchbook-type process pages in the back of comics look but I’ve never really been able to focus on them because it’s just disjointed drawings of stuff that would eventually become a story. This book captures how those types of pages look and feel but uses them in a very well defined narrative. The story is told with a lot of text but the images are great in how suggestive they are, often without capturing reality closely at all. That alone makes this a worthwhile read imo
The story overall isn’t brilliant, but has a fair amount of depth.. I think a lot of experimental comics tend to lack an actual story, which is usually fine but its nice when there's one that takes a concept and makes a story out of it. The ideas around war and quakers is much more developed than I thought it would be.
Overall I enjoyed it. Didn't totally hit with me but there was a lot I liked about it
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Post by awfulquiet on Nov 8, 2021 0:37:05 GMT
This book captures how those types of pages look and feel but uses them in a very well defined narrative. On this point, I'm so glad there was more or less a simple, traditional narrative arc. I was worried it was more or less going to feel stream of consciousness/more abstract. But it's really pretty straightforward. |
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Post by disneyweirdness on Jan 6, 2022 21:19:46 GMT
This book captures how those types of pages look and feel but uses them in a very well defined narrative. On this point, I'm so glad there was more or less a simple, traditional narrative arc. I was worried it was more or less going to feel stream of consciousness/more abstract. But it's really pretty straightforward. I'm about halfway through it and I'm surprised at how much of a page turner it is turning out to be. I kinda thought this would be a book to be admired and not read, if you know what I mean. |
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