Starr's out tonight.

The second volume of Mary Perkins: On Stage from Classic Comics Press arrived in the mail a couple of days back and I stopped everything to read it all the way through, breaking only for meals and other life-necessities. I really do love the work of Leonard Starr on that strip, which ran from 1957 to 1979. I discovered it quite late in its run, because it never appeared in Britain. I remember following it in the NY Daily News, its home turf, when I was in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks in 1975.



A Few days back I made reference to the different ways old newspaper comic strips are nowadays presented. I suppose you could oversimplify it and say there is the nostalgia camp and then the Comics-are-ART camp, and I’m leaving out the mass market here, that still has a place for Garfield and The Far Side. Both camps long ago decided to kick out the whole soap-opera photorealist genre from the ‘canon.’ Old time comics historian Bill Blackbeard dismissed the whole lot as ‘dismal talking head soaps’ in The Comic Strip Century that Kitchen Sink Press published. He would have liked comics to stay forever the way they were in... the early '40s(?). In the Art camp, John Carlin just ignored the whole subject in the historical survey in Masters of American Comics. I’ve already cut up the first of those books so that it exists in my collection in pieces, and the Masters book is starting to feel like going the same way. Having denigrated it I should give an example of the kind of nonsense in it that annoys me.
“Hogarth’s sequential narratives and later studies such as The Analysis of Beauty consolidated the graphic experiments of earlier prints and established a complex language of graphic devices that artists have borrowed from ever since.
I have a book of Hogarth’s complete prints; I believe i'm a perceptive reader, but I honestly don't know what Carlin is saying. If anything, Hogarth was trying to hold onto a tradition that was fast disappearing, a tradition of picture making and viewing that involved a very complicated reading of symbols. There is no modern pictorial idiom that works that way. Carlin’s writing represents a kind of historiography that is of late considered bogus, this making a continuous narrative out of art so that one thing must be seen to clearly point the way to the next thing. It is considered thus because it tends to lead to false conclusions. The notion that artists stand on the shoulders of a bigger man before them so that they can see further than the bigger man is one of those metanarratives of which postmodernity chooses to be be incredulous.

These Mary Perkins books themselves have the look of having been incubated in the first camp, the nostalgia one. They are glue-bound and delighfully commonplace and unfussy in their appearance and the typesetting in the introductions is utilitarian, all just like this kind of book used to be twenty years ago. The stories, well, if you haven’t encountered the strip before, see Dirk Deppey’s review of Vol 1 from spetember last, or this other chap here who has fallen in love with Mary. The memory and copies of the strip have survived intact due in no small measure to guys like David Apatoff, who wrote a great piece about Starr on his blog. The last time I referred to him in this blog I may have called him a cranky old geezer, or described him as belonging to the 'flat earth school of art scholarship', head in the sand hoping that when he pulls it out modernism will have gone away. And I wrote what I wrote knowing full well that I would probably need to sing his praises a little further down the line..

My purpose here is to point to two or three aspects of the 'Photo-Realist style', as prof Mendez terms it, in his excellent work on the subject, which somebody must publish in book form! He has three pages on the strip under discussion which would make an excellent monograph just by themeselves.1,2,3, as well as pages on all the other major exponents of the style: Raymond, Drake, Kotsky etc. He has a wonderful survey of the advertising art of the period too, and shows how this connects with the style in the strips. Goddamn it, somebody publish it so I can stop trying to find my way around the peculiar design of his site.

Anyway, what I like. Days like this one from Oct 1957 (in volume 1). I was looking for a model for having figures just talking to each other, with body language carefully noted. Starr was a big influence on my thinking in that direction. Note how both characters appear in all three panels. They start facing, and end with their backs to each other.



The 'talking building' has been much scorned by the 'Vertigo generation', replacing it with the more cinematic 'voice over'. Bring it back, I say. Interestingly, there are two talking buildings in this one sunday, from the mid-seventies which can be seen entire on the Mendez site.



I love the way that, while the main characters always have a high degree of idealization in their depiction, there are so many nicely observed individuals among the secondary characters. The artist is obviously photographing his friends for reference.



After discussion with Classic Press publisher Charles Pelto I intend to write an intro for an upcoming volume of the series in which I'll talk about a lovely 1968 colour sunday tearsheet which I had professionally photographed many years ago so that I could keep it pristine forever, back before I realized that forever is bogus.

FROM HELL: 4/23

As I wrote two days ago, having launched into a 36 page (which in the process of working it through became 38 pages) chapter consisting entirely of one conversation, or more correctly an occasionally interrupted lecture, without any breaks or diversions apart from the passing scenery, Alan started to worry that it he might have bitten off more than we could chew. Remember of course that I received the whole thing in one finished lump so at the time of writing this page, From Hell chapter four existed only in Alan Moore's head. By the time I got to this page I had worked out a number of strategies for constructing such a long range converstional piece. One, as you may recall, was to vary the density of detail for contrast, depending on whether the coach was moving or stationary. We're moving here, so the backgrounds are very impressionistic.

This page also has my favorite all time line of Alan Moore script (end of panel three's description), which I have quoted many times. In another writer's script you will read that 'it is raining', but In Alan Moore's you may read that the precipitation falls 'like morse code for some huge, depressing Russian novel'.



Chapter 4
PAGE 23.
PANEL 1.
THERE ARE SEVEN PANELS OF THIS PAGE, WITH THREE EACH ON THE TOP AND BOTTOM TIERS AND THEN ONE BIG WIDE PANEL IN THE MIDDLE. THESE FIRST THREE PANELS ARE BASICALLY THE SAME SHOT, IN THAT WE ARE SITTING BESIDE GULL AND LOOKING PAST HIM TOWARDS NETLEY. THUS, IN THE FOREGROUND TO THE LEFT WE CAN SEE A LITTLE OF GULL, AS HE SITS ROUGHLY IN PROFILE AND FACING RIGHT. AS BEFORE, MAYBE WE SET UP THE PANEL SO THAT WE ONLY SEE HIS FACE FROM THE NOSE DOWN, SO THAT WE CAN JUST SEE HIS MOUTH AND CHIN UP TOWARDS THE TOP LEFT CORNER OF THE PANEL. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT WE SEE THE BAG OF GRAPES THAT STILL REST IN HIS LAP. AS WE SEE HIM HERE HE HAS TAKEN A GRAPE FROM THE BAG AND IS JUST LIFTING IT TOWARDS HIS LIPS, ABOUT TO PLACE IT IN HIS WAITING MOUTH. LOOKING PAST HIM WE SEE JOHN NETLEY, SITTING HUNCHED OVER HIS REINS AND LOOKING COMPLETELY WRETCHED. HE STARES AHEAD OF HIM INTO THE FALLING RAIN WITH A VAGUELY SICK LOOK. HE IS REALLY STARTING TO WISH THAT HE HADN’T COME.
GULL: Madness is a Dionysian fruit… like grapes.
GULL: Forgive me for not offering you one. Your hands are filthy, and I fear disease.

PANEL 2.
SAME SHOT, ONLY HERE, UP TO THE LEFT OF THE FOREGROUND, GULL HAS PLACED THE GRAPE IN HIS MOUTH AND IS NOW CHEWING IT WITH EVIDENT SATISFACTION, HIS EMPTY HAND LOWERING ITSELF BACK FROM HIS MOUTH TOWARDS HIS LAP AS HE DOES SO. LOOKING BEYOND HIM WE SEE THAT NETLEY HAS TURNED HIS HEAD TO LOOK AT SIR WILLIAM AS HE SPEAKS. WITH HIM FACING US IN THIS MANNER WE CAN SEE HOW ILL AND WRETCHED HE IS STARTING TO LOOK. HE LOOKS THOROUGHLY MISERABLE AND BLEARY EYED. THE RAIN CONTINUES TO FALL AROUND THEM, OBSCURING THE STREETS THAT THEY PASS THROUGH WITH A VEIL OF COLD LIQUID GREY.
NETLEY: I’m not that ‘ungry, sir. I’ve got bad cuts, and feels peculiar, like.
NETLEY: It must ‘ave been that pie we ‘ad, them kidneys…

PANEL 3.
SAME SHOT. HERE, GULL SITS IN THE FOREGROUND WITH BOTH HANDS RESTING CALMLY ABOUT THE HALF EMPTY BAG OF GRAPES. LOOKING BEYOND HIM WE SEE NETLEY, WHO HAS TURNED HIS FACE AWAY FROM GULL SINCE LAST PANEL SO THAT HE IS NOW VISIBLE TO US IN PROFILE ONCE MORE, FACING RIGHT. HIS EYES, HOWEVER (OR AT LEAST THE ONE THAT WE CAN SEE) HAVE SWIVELLED TO HIS RIGHT, SO THAT HE REGARDS GULL ANXIOUSLY OUT OF THE CORNER OF HIS EYE AS HE RIDES. THE RAIN CONTINUES TO FALL LIKE MORSE CODE FOR SOME HUGE, DEPRESSING RUSSIAN NOVEL.
GULL: Possibly… or have these stones and symbols’ morbid airs afflicted you?
GULL: Their language speaks direct to our unconscious mind; provokes unease, as
well the Dionysiacs knew.

PANEL 4.
NOW WE HAVE A BIG WIDE PANEL TAKING UP THE WHOLE TIER, FOR WHICH I THINK A SIMPLE LONGSHOT OF THE COACH AS IT MOVES THROUGH THE LONDON RAIN WOULD GO NICELY. JUST SOMETHING SCRATCHY AND TENTATIVE. A GREY MIST OF HATCHING TO SUGGEST THE DIAGONAL FALL OF THE RAIN; A SLIGHTLY DARKER PATCH OF HATCHING IN THE CENTRE TO SUGGEST THE CONTOURS OF THE COACH AS IT CRAWLS ALONG OVER THE SLIPPERY COBBLES, SOMETHING LIKE THAT? I DUNNO… TO BE FRANK, ED, I’M HAVING A BIT OF A CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE ABOUT THESE PANEL DESCRIPTIONS AND I’M NOT SURE WHETHER I’M JUST WINGING IT OR WHAT. I DON’T KNOW IF THIS RELENTLESS AND LIMITED SERIES OF IMAGES (LONGSHOTS OF THE COACH, FRONT REAR AND PROFILE; CLOSE UP OF GULL AND NETLEY FRONT REAR AND PROFILE) IS ENOUGH TO HANG THE STRIP ON VISUALLY, AND I SUPPOSE I WON’T KNOW UNTIL YOU’VE HAD A CHANCE TO READ THE THING AND GET BACK TO ME. BASICALLY, IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT YOU THINK MIGHT WORK VISUALLY, THEN TRY IT. IF YOU WANT TO USE INCREASINGLY STRANGE-LOOKING COLLAGES OF LONDON BUILDINGS FOR BACKGROUND THEN GO AHEAD. IF POINTILLISM LOOKS GOOD ON THE EARLY MORNING MIST SCENES THEN FEEL FREE TO TRY IT. IF SOME BIG, WIDE, TIER WIDTH PANELS WORK BETTER AS THREE SMALLER ONES, THEN DO THEM THAT WAY, AND THE SAME IF THREE SMALL PANELS COULD SAY AS MUCH IF THEY WERE COMBINED INTO ONE BIG PICTURE. JUST LET DESPERATION BE THE MOTHER OF INVENTION AND TRY TO LOOK ON IT AS A CHALLENGE (ALTHOUGH I HAVE A FEELING THAT IN THIS INSTANCE I MIGHT AS WELL SAY “TRY TO LOOK ON IT AS A CHALLENGE” TO SOMEONE I’VE JUST ASKED TO CATCH A BULLET BETWEEN THEIR TEETH). ANYWAY, JUST FEEL FREE TO TAKE AS MANY LIBERTIES AS POSSIBLE AND CALL ME IF THERE ARE REAL PROBLEMS. IN THE MEANTIME, I’LL CONTINUE TO PUT DOWN WHATEVER PANEL DESCRIPTIONS OCCUR TO ME, BUT YOU SHOULD FEEL FREE TO TAKE ALL OF THEM WITH A PINCH OF SALT, EVEN MORE SO THAN USUALLY. IN THIS PANEL, UNLESS YOU CAN THINK OF ANYTHING BETTER, THE COACH CRAWLS SLOWLY FORWARD THROUGH THE RAIN, HEADING TOWARDS CAMBERWELL AND HERNE HILL.
GULL: Think of it: “Dionysiac Architects”. What CONTRADICTION, with the God
of instinct and unreason thus evoked by Architects; most sober, Apollonian of
men.
GULL: Yet they knew the unconscious was the inspiration whence their towers of
reason sprang. This, HARNESSING its power, symbolically, was their
sublime accomplishment.
GULL: Their symbol was the dreaming moon enclosed by seven stars that represent
Arithmetic, Music, Astronomy, Rhetoric, Grammar, Logic and Geometry,
the pillars of Masonic thought.


PANEL 5.
NOW IN THESE LAST THREE PANELS, ON THE BOTTOM TIER, WE HAVE A LONG SHOT OF THE COACH COMING CLOSER TO US THROUGH THE RAIN, HEADING TOWARDS US DOWN ALONG THE COBBLED STREETS THAT LEAD TOWARDS DENMARK HILL AND THE DESCENT TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF HERNE HILL. IN THIS FIRST PANEL WE HAVE A LONG SHOT OF THE COACH WITH GULL AND NETLEY SITTING SIDE BY SIDE ON TOP OF IT.
GULL: That symbol also signifies the female power within humanity, enfettered by
its ring of stars, that are but distant suns and therefore masculine.

PANEL 6.
SAME SHOT, BUT THE COACH HAS MOVED CLOSER TO US IN THE INTERIM, SO THAT NOW WE CAN REALLY ONLY SEE THE UPPER PART OF THE COACH WITH GULL AND NETLEY SITTING SIDE BY SIDE ON TOP OF IT. WE PROBABLY CAN’T SEE MUCH MORE OF THE HORSE THAN JUST THE TOP OF ITS HEAD OR SOMETHING. THE PANEL IS SET UP SO THAT THE MAIN FOCUS IS THE FIGURE OF GULL AS HE SITS THERE, PERHAPS TUCKING HIS MAP AND RULER INSIDE HIS CLOAK TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE RAIN AS WE SEE HIM HERE. NETLEY SITS BESIDE HIM LOOKING WET AND MISERABLE AND ILL, AND WISHING THAT HE WERE AT HOME IN BED, OR ANYWHERE IN BED FOR THAT MATTER. GULL, FOR HIS PART, SEEMS IMPERVIOUS TO THE RAIN, AND IT SEEMS TO DAUNT HIS SPIRITS OR AFFECT THE FLOW OF HIS DISCOURSE NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY. HE HAS AN INNER FIRE, FIERCE AND COLD, THAT SUSTAINS HIM THROUGH ALL WEATHERS. HIS CHEERFULNESS IN ITSELF IS THREATENING IN SOME OBSCURE WAY. I’M THINKING ABOUT THAT TYPE OF RUGGED OLD SCHOOL MASTER THAT YOU USED TO GET IN THE EARLY SIXTIES, WHERE THEY’D ALWAYS LAUGH DEEPLY AND ROBUSTLY, USUALLY AT SARCASTIC REMARKS OF THEIR OWN, AND THEY’S ALWAYS LAUGH LOUDEST JUST BEFORE THEY TWISTED YOUR EAR OF RUBBED THEIR NUCKLES PAINFULLY ON THE SHORT HAIR AT THE BACK OF YOUR NECK UNTIL IT BURNED. WHENEVER THEY STARTED LAUGHING, EVERYBODY WOULD GET REALLY NERVOUS, AND THAT’S THE EFFECT THAT I WANT GULL TO HAVE.
GULL: Symbols have POWER, Netley…
GULL: Power enough to turn even a stomach such as yours…

PANEL 7.
IN THIS FINAL PANEL, THE COACH HAS COME SO CLOSE TO US THAT ALL WE SEE HERE IS A CLOSE UP OF GULL, WITH PERHAPS A LITTLE OF ONE SIDE OF NETLEY VISIBLE OVER TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE PANEL. GULL IS NOT LOOKING AT NETLEY, BUT IS STARING AHEAD, THROUGH THE RAIN, LOOKING ALMOST DIRECTLY AT US. HIS EYES ARE PALE AND BRIGHT AND UNBLINKING, AND HE SMILES WITH A JOVIALITY THAT IS NOT AT ALL APPROPRIATE TO THE CONTENT OF HIS SPEECH. THE RAIN DRIPS FORNLORNLY FROM THE BRIM OF HIS TOP HAT, BUT HE DOES NOT APPEAR TO NOTICE, GOVERNED ONLY BY THE STORM FRONTS AND THE PRESSURE DROPS OF HIS INTERNAL, MENTAL WEATHER.
GULL: … or to deliver half this planet’s population into slavery.
GULL: Down Denmark hill, towards Herne Hill, then stop.

The blank page

You have to read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy in a facsimile of its original presentation (complete text there, bookmark it) or you can’t get a clear view of all that hankypanky with the typography. Famously there is the blank page where the reader is invited to draw his own portrait of the Widow Wadman: (scroll halfway down) “And possibly, dear reader, with such a temptation… paint her to your own mind… as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you”... ( and on the right, a blank page)

I’ve seen Sterne’s same blank page pop up in a couple of recent books. It is definitely Sterne’s and has been borrowed in an act of homage. The writer is acknowledging a spiritual mentor by correct gestures of obeisance.

Firstly, Dave Eggers You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002)
"The boat was skipping and then there would be a larger wave, or we would hit a regular wave a certain way, and the pause between when we became airborne..." (and on the right, a blank page, followed by two more blank pages, then another half) ... and WHACK when we landed..."
It starts on page 156 in the copy I have, but I smell a rat because I gather that the original presentation started with the first page of text on the cover, like so:



and if they've shifted that indoors then the numbering's all 'whacked", and I'll need this one also in 'a facsimile of its original presentation' .

Secondly, Jonathan Safran Foer in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). The blind woman has been writing her life story, hundreds of pages, not knowing that the ribbon was removed from the typewriter some time before. The husband: "I picked up the pages and wandered through them, trying to find the one on which she was born, her first love, when she last saw her parents, and I was looking for Anna too, I searched and searched, I got a paper cut on my forefinger and bled a little flower onto the page on which I should have seen her kissing somebody, but this was all I saw:" ... (and on the right, a blank page, followed by two more blank pages, then)..."I wanted to cry..."

In Playboy, jan 2004, Foer, the unstoppable collector, wrote a whole essay about blank pages "I'm writing this essay for a magazine that, for all of its other attributes, is distinguished by its unclothed women. What about an unclothed page?"
"I started collecting empty paper soon after I finished my first novel, about two years ago. A family friend had been helping to archive Isaac Bashevis Singer's belongings for the university where his papers and artifacts were to be kept. Among the many items to be disposed of was a stack of Singer's unused typewriter paper..."
He keeps the topmost of these blank pages and it becomes a spiritual talisman, launching an obsessive quest that leads Foer to many blank pages, and ultimately to Freud and Anne Frank in an extraordinary little article found in a most unexpected place.

FROM HELL: 4/01

I wanted to write about a book that arrived in the mail yesterday, but I've only just finished reading it so that will have to wait a little. Instead I'll dip into a file of Alan Moore's From Hell selected script pages that my daughter Erin typed out for me a few days back.

This is the first of a what makes an interesting juxtaposed pair consisting of the first page of chapter four, in which Alan Moore makes some very bold decisions, and a later one from the same chapter, which I'll show later, in which he seems to be having a crisis of confidence in the plan he sets up here at the beginning. All very revealing stuff.

I may seem to be playing fast and loose with the scene as imagined by Alan, but I had the whole thing in front of me and judged that these flashbacks at the beginning would work well as unframed and imprecise recollections with the coach thrust upfront instead of coming from afar, for a dynamic contrast as an opener. Hell, if it was going to be a challenge to hold the reader's interest, let's begin with a loud call to attention.



FROM HELL
CHAPTER FOUR: WHAT DOTH THE LORD REQUIRE OF THEE?” (36 PAGES)
PAGE 1.
PANEL 1.
HELLO, EDDIE. SORRY IT’S BEEN SO LONG IN COMING, AND I HOPE IT’S WORTH THE WAIT. BIT OF A FUNNY EPISODE ALL ROUND, THIS: IT’S THE LONGEST TO DATE, AND YET, UNLIKE THE GULL EPISODE, IT ISN’T STAGED IN A RAPID SUCCESSION OF ONE OR TWO PAGE SCENES THAT HOP ABOUT ALL OVER THE PLACE AND THUS SUSTAIN THE READERS’ INTEREST MORE EASILY. WHAT WE HAVE HERE, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE FIRST TWO OR THREE PAGES, IS ONE LONG CONTINUOUS SCENE THAT ALL TAKES PLACE OVER THE COURSE OF A SINGLE DAY, AND ALL REVOLVES AROUND A SINGLE CONVERSATION-CUM-LECTURE THAT IS DELIVERED TO JOHN NETLEY BY SIR WILLIAM GULL ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR COACH-JAUNT AROUND THE CITY OF LONDON. IN TERMS OF SUSTAINING A CONVERSATION OVER THIRTY ODD PAGES, I THINK YOU’LL AGREE THAT IT PRESENTS SOME POTENTIALLY SERIOUS STORYTELLING PROBLEMS. IN LIGHT OF THIS, I SPENT A LONG WHILE TRYING TO THINK OF WAYS TO TART THE STRIP UP USING CONTINUOUS BACKGROUND PANELS OR SIMILAR VISUAL DEVICES. I THOUGHT OF LIBERALLY SPRINKLING THE STORY WITH FLASHBACK PANELS TO THE ANCIENT TIMES THAT GULL IS TALKING ABOUT, SO THAT WE COULD LIVEN THINGS UP BY SHOWING BOADICEA IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE, OR HAWKSMOOR CACKLING, RUBBING HIS HANDS TOGETHER AND SACRIFICING CHICKENS AS THEY LAY THE FOUNDATIONS TO CHRISTCHURCH. THIKING ABOUT IT, HOWEVER, I THOUGHT “NAHH”. THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS STORY, I’VE CONCLUDED, IS ABSOLUTELY STRAIGHT AND WITHOUT EMBELLISHMENT; RATHER LIKE A DRY VOCAL MIX IN A RECORDING STUDIO AS OPPOSED TO LOTS OF ECHO AND REVERB AND WHATEVER. OF COURSE, THIS WILL ALSO BE THE MOST DIFFICULT WAY TO DO THE PIECE, BUT I THINK IF WE JUST HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THE NARRATIVE, WE CAN MANAGE IT.
BROOK STREET TOWARDS THE GROVESNOR SQUARE END. IT IS AROUND SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING ON THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST, 1888, AND IT IS NOT YET LIGHT. A LOW BLANKET OF LUKEWARM MIST AND FOG ROLLS THROUGH THE STREETS, LIKE GREY AND GASEOUS TUMBLE-WEEDS, AND EVERYTHING IS STILL. THE HIGH HOUSES TO EITHER SIDE OF THE STREET ARE SILENT, AND THE ONLY SOUND IS THAT OF DISTANT HOOVES UPON COBBLES, GROWING SLOWLY CLOSER. AWAY DWON THE END OF THE STREET WE SEE THE RELATIVELY SMALL AND INDISTINCT APPARITION THAT IS JOHN NETLEY’S COACH AS IT APPROACHES THROUGH THE MURK, ITS CARRIAGE LANTERNS BURNING WITH A WEAK AND SULPHUROUS LIGHT. NETLEY HIMSELF IS ALL BUT INVISIBLE, A BLACK WART PROTRUDING FROM THE BLACK AND BOX-LIKE SHAPE OF THE CARRIAGE AS IT RATTLES THROUGH THE PRE-DAWN GLOOM TOWARDS US. THIS EPISODE’S TITLES GO, AS USUAL, IN THE WHITE SPAPCE TO THE LEFT OF THE OPENING IMAGE, WITH THE OPENING CAPTION SET IN THE FIRST PANEL ITSELF.
TITLES (IN WHITE SPACE): Chapter Four
“What Doth The Lord Require of Thee?”
CAPTION (IN FIRST PANEL): Brook Street, London. August, 1888.

PANEL 2.
THE REMAINING TWO TIERS ON THIS PAGE HAVE THREE PANELS EACH, AND CONSTITUTE THE FIRST IN OUR SEQUENCE OF THREE FLASHBACKS. THIS FIRST FLASHBACK TAKES PLACE IN A RECEEPTION ROOM, SOMEWHERE WITHIN BUCKINGHAM PALACE, AND WE SHOW THE WRETCHED AND DISTRAUGHT WALTER SICKERT AS HE SHOWS THE BLACKMAIL LETTER THAT HE HAS RECEIVED TO ALEXANDRA, THE PRINCESS OF WALES. IN THIS FIRST PANEL, RIGHT UP CLOSE IN THE FOREGROUND, WE CAN SEE THE SLIM WRIST AND HAND OF THE PRINCESS, ENTERING THE PANEL FROM OFF TO ONE SIDE AND HOLDING THE BLACKMAIL LETTER THAT WE SAW LAST EPISODE. IT NEEDN’T BE CLOSE ENOUGH FOR US TO READ IT ALL, BUT WE SHOULD AT LEAST BE ABLE TO SEE IT CLEARLY ENOUGH FOR THE READERS TO BE AWARE THAT IT IS THE SAME LATTER THAT THEY SAW AT THE CLOSE OF OUR LAST EPISODE. LOOKING BEYOND THIS, INTO THE SPACIOUS AND BEAUTIFULLY FURNISHED DEPTHS OF THE ROYAL RECEPTION ROOM, WE SEE WALTER SICKERT AS HE SITS THERE SLUMPED IN A SUMPTUOUS ARMCHAIR, HIS ELBOWS RESTING ON HIS KNEES AND HIS HEAD IN HIS HANDS, LONG FINGERS RUNNING DISTRACTEDLY THROUGH HIS SANDY HAIR. HE DOESN’T LOOK UP AT US OR AT THE OFF-PANEL PRINCESS ALEXANDRA AS HE SPEAKS, BUT SEEMS LARGELY TO BE CONDUCTING A DIALOGUE OF WRETCHEDNESS WITH HIMSELF. MORNING SUNLIGHT, PEARLY AND DIFFUSE, FALLS THROUGH THE HIGH WINDOWS INTO THE TICKING-CLOCK STILLNESS OF THE RECEPTION ROOM, WHILE FROM THE WALLS. OLD MASTERS REGARD THE SCENE DISPASSIONATELY WITH YELLOWED OIL-PAINT EYES
SICKERT: You’re the only person I can turn to, Alix. You’re Eddy’s mother..
SICKERT: You see, I just don’t have the money. They think I’m rich, but…

PANEL 3.
WE REVERSE ANGLE NOW, SO THAT SICKERT AND HIS CHAIR ARE OVER TO THE RIGHT OF THE FOREGROUND, WITH PRINCESS ALEXANDRA VISIBLE OVER TOWARDS THE LEFT OF THE BACKGROUND AS SHE STANDS THERE, HER PROFILE SLIGHTLY TURNED TOWARDS US, READING AND RE-READING MARY KELLY’S LETTER WITH AN EXPRESSION OF REGRET UPON HER CALM AND QUITE BEAUTIFUL FEATURES. IN THE FOREGROUND, SICKERT SITS UP A LITTLE, REMOVING HIS HEAD FROM HIS HANDS SO THAT HE CAN EMPLOY THEM TO MAKE VAGUE, WRETCHED GESTURES IN THE AIR BEFORE HIM AS HE SITS, PALM UPWARDS AS IF IN EXPLANATION OR SUPPLICATION. THROUGHOUT, HE KEEPS HIS HAUNTED GAZE FIXED ON THE FLOOR
IN FRONT OF HIM, HIS FACE DESPERATE AND WRTECHED WITH ANXIETY. HE CANNOT LOOK AT ALEXANDRA WHILE HE SPEAKS, AND FOR HER PART SHE CONTINUES TO READ THE LETTER AND DOES NOT LOOK AT HIM. WE CAN TELL, HOWEVER, THAT SHE IS LISTENING TO HIS PITIFUL MONOLOGUE WITH AT LEAST HALF AN EAR AS SHE CAREFULLY RE-READS THE FATEFUL MISSIVE.
SICKERT: Well, sometimes I AM, when I’ve SOLD something, but I don’t manage
money well, and…
SICKERT: Oh, it’s all my fault. You trusted Eddy to me, and I let all this happen: The
baby, the wedding…

PANEL 4.
SAME SHOT, ONLY HERE, IN THE FOREGROUND, SICKERT CLOSES HIS EYES AND LETS HIS HEAD SINK BACK INTO HIS HANDS IN A GESTURE OF COMPLETE SURRENDER TO DESPAIR AND MISERY. HIS EYES ARE
SCREWED TIGHTLY SHUT AS IF TRYING TO BLOT OUT HIS GUILT AND SELF-DISGUST, BUT TO NO AVAIL. LOOKING BEYOND HIM, WE SEE ALEXANDRA AS SHE STANDS THERE IN THE OPALESCENT LIGHT OF THE MORNING ROOM. SHE LOWERS THE LETTER THAT SHE HAS BEEN READING, BUT DOES NOT PUT IT DOWN. IT HANGS THERE IN HER HAND AS SHE TURNS HER HEAD TO CALMLY REGARD SICKERT WITH AN EXPRESSION OF DEEP SYMPATHY AND PITY. SHE IS A KINDLY WOMAN, WHO, FOR THE MOST PART, THINKS AS LITTLE OF THE FAMILY THAT SHE HAS MARRIED INTO AS THEY DO OF HER. SHE IS THEREFORE NOT UNMOVED BY SICKERT’S PLIGHT, NOR WITHOUT REGRET IN THE COURSE THAT SHE KNOWS SHE MUST ADOPT. SHE GAZES SADLY AND STEADILY AT SICKERT’S BOWED HEAD AS HE SITS THERE AND WHIMPERS, PITIFULLY.
SICKERT: Oh God, Alix..
SICKERT: What am I going to DO?

PANEL 5.
WE CHANGE ANGLES NOW, SO THAT AS WE SEE SICKERT HERE HE IS SITTING IN PROFILE TO US, FACING RIGHT, STILL WITH HIS BROW SUNK IN HIS HANDS. OUR EYE LEVEL IS ROUGHLY THE SAME AS SICKERT’S IN THIS PANEL, SO ALL WE CAN SEE OF PRINCESS ALIX AS SHE APPROACHES HIM FROM BEHIND IS A VIEW FROM, SAY, HER SHOULDERS DOWNWARDS, WITH HER HEAD AND SHOULDERS OFF PANEL UP TOWARDS THE TOP LEFT. SHE REACHES OUT WITH ONE AFFECTIONATE AND MOTHERLY HAND AND PLACES IT TENDERLY UPON SICKERT’S SHOULDER, A FRAGILE GESTURE OF CONSOLATION. IN HER OTHER HAND, SHE HOLDS THE LETTER. SICKERT, SUNK DEEP IN THE WELL OF HIS OWN MISERY, DOES NOT LOOK ROUND AT HER AS SHE SPEAKS FROM BEHIND HIM, OR RESPOND TO HER LIGHT TOUCH UPON HIS SHOULDER. HE IS INCONSOLABLE. SINCE HER HEAD AND SHOULDERS ARE OFF PANEL, ALIX’S BALLOONS ISSUE FROM OFF HERE.
ALIX (OFF): Poor Walter.
ALIX (OFF): Of course, you understand that after the trouble last time, I won’t be
able to keep this to myself?
ALIX (OFF): I’m sorry, Walter, but it’s Victoria…

PANEL 6.
NOW WE HAVE A SHOT AS IF LOOKING UP THROUGH SICKERT’S EYES AS HE LIFTS HIS HEAD AND LOOKS WEARILY AND UNCOMPREHENDINGLY UP AT THE PRINCESS, WITH SICKERT HIMSELF NOT VISIBLE HERE. WE LOOK UP INTO ALEXANDRA’S SAD AND PITYING GAZE AS SHE STARES DWON AT US WITH A WORLD OF SORROW AND REGRET IN HER EYES. SHE DOESN’T LIKE THE COURSE OF ACTION THAT SHE MUST TAKE UP, BUT IT IS THE ONLY ONE OPEN TO HER.
ALIX: Victoria will have to be told.

PANEL 7.
IN THIS LAST PANEL, WE CHANGE OUR POINT OF VIEW FROM THE LAST SHOT SO THAT WE ARE NOW LOOKING DOWN, AS IF THROUGH THE EYES OF THE PRINCESS, INTO THE UPTURNED FACE OF WALTER SICKERT AS HE SITS THERE IN THE PLUSH ARMCHAIR. WE REALLY ONLY SEE HIS HEAD AND SHOULDERS HERE, LOOKING UP AT US AND THE OFF-PANEL PRINCESS WITH A LOOK OF DULL, SICK HORROR ON HIS FACE. HAVING SEEN WHAT HAPPENED TO ANNIE CROOK FOR AN INNOCENT AND UNINTENTIONAL TRANGRESSION OF THE ROYAL WILL, SICKERT CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO DIMLY IMAGINE WHAT MIGHT BE IN STORE FOR THOSE WHO WOULD ATTEMPT PREMEDITATED BLACKMAIL. HE LOOKS UP AT US, PUPILS DILATED BY SUDDEN COLD DREAD. HE IS IN HELL ALREADY, WAITING FOR THE REST OF OUR CAST TO JOIN HIM.
No Dialogue

Linkin', blinkin' and nod.

I've been casting around to see what some old buddies of mine are talking about.

Neil Gaiman on Jan 6 linked to a Washington Post gallery of images of the colossal scuptures of Ron Mueck. There's something deliciously humorous about doing a fretting woman, in bed, on a colossal scale (technically 'larger than life') which in antiquity was reserved strictly for deities.


Dave Sim on jan 12 and 13 reads Gary Groth in the comics journal #279 reading the Eisner/Miller book from Dark Horse that took an Eisner award last July. We must regard all awards as completely meaningless from here on alas (well, but then I guess it as always been so). Sim is one of the clearest thinkers I know, which should not be taken to indicate either agreement or disagreement on my part. He obtains more knowledge from a couple of quoted paragraphs than Groth , Eisner and Miller altogether.

Dirk Deppey links to a piece in the Arts section of the NY Times See You in the (Restored, Reprinted) Funny Papers
This is about the current crop of old newpaper strips collected in attractively made books, to be differentiated from
"Those earlier reprint series — ‘Terry and the Pirates,’ ‘Flash Gordon,’ ‘Prince Valiant’ — appealed largely to men in their 50s and 60s who wanted to relive their boyhood. The new crop of books aren’t being read by people who have a nostalgic memory of first reading them...
...the work is emphasized, not the kitsch merchandising that the more popular strips often generate. Seth’s “Peanuts” covers are minimal, for example, focusing on the emotions of Schulz’s strips rather than the crowd-pleasing imagery of Snoopy’s Red Baron or Lucy’s psychiatry booth."
“The world of Charles Schulz at the drawing board is an entirely different world from the Charles Schulz in stores, television, theaters or Japan,” said David Michaelis, the author of the forthcoming “Schulz: A Biography.”
“What Seth has done is take a diamond out of its old setting, polished it and reset it in a way that makes it sparkle more."
This interests me because it chimes with something I said in my Comics Journal interview of a year ago. I attempted to explain that I felt that when everybody has finished arguing about what a 'graphic novel' is, a few years down the track, the term will come to be associated with the particular zeitgeist of these last couple of decades.
That is to say, just as we refer affectionately to the early comics as 'the funnies', whether they were funny or otherwise, the comics of now will be referred to as 'the graphic novels', whether or not they are 'novels'. And if this zeitgeist had to be analyzed and described, then the hallmarks of this phase of the medium would be a respect for the authorial voice and an affection for the book as an interesting object.
Thus we should be looking to understand the 'graphic novel' as a culture, a complex of ways in which things are done, and are expected to be done, which is quite different from the ways in which they were done previously. Furthermore, when the exponents of this new phase turn their attention to repackaging the 'funnies' then we have the interesting proposition of the older works reevalued and presented anew within what I called the 'graphic novel sensibility'.
This proved too complicated for many readers of the interview who asked 'yes, but is it or is it not a graphic novel?' since comic book people's heads tend to form a world of exact and unmalleable definition.
Anyway, the article, or more correctly, the people quoted in it, recognises the finer points of difference between different eras without trying to posit an overview.

Another link via Dirk to news item about the great British cartoonist Carl Giles. I showed a little detail of his work, from one his old books that I have here, in the interview I did with Malaysian cartoonist Lat at the First Second site (where you can also find a 'trailer' for the black Diamond Detective Agency. If you listen to that, please turn the sound off) (as Honeybee might say). Anyway, everything you need to know about Giles, with examples in a tribute page by Steve Adams.

FROM HELL: 4/29

Another in an occasional series of single page selections from Alan Moore's From Hell scripts. I've been picking them for anecdotal or some other special interest. This is one that had to be rethought in the finished work due to a logistical problem about the precise location of the old Billingsgate fish market (i.e. Upon investigation it didn't fit a point on the pentagram). Therefore it's an unusual page in that there isn't really an illustrated version of it and all that's left of the scene, apart from some important lines of dialogue moved elsewhere, is in the typescript. Shame to have lost all that fish imagery.

The shifted dialogue apppeared on what is now page 30 instead of 29 due to an earlier logistical problem regarding a bridge which I had resolved by adding in an extra page of art.



Chapter 4
PAGE 29
PANEL1
THERE ARE THREE WIDE HORIZONTAL PANELS ON THIS PAGE, TAKING UP A TIER EACH. IN THIS FIRST ONE, WE HAVE A WIDE ANGLE SHOT OF BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET, FOR WHICH I’M AFRAID I COULD GET VERY LITTLE IN THE WAY OF USEFUL REFERENCE. WE SEE THE VARIOUS FISH STALLS SET OUT WITH THE TRADERS AND CUSTOMERS BUSTLING AROUND THEM. THE MAJORITY OF THE BUSTLE SEEMS TO BE GOING ON TOWARDS THE LEFT OF THIS WIDE PANEL, WITH PEOPLE THRONGING ABOUT AMIDST THE BUCKETS OF FISH ENTRAILS, PICKING THEIR WAY OVER COBBLES SHINY WITH PARED-AWAY SCALES AND SLIVERS OF FISH SKIN. OVER TOWARDS THE RIGHT OF THE PANEL, BEYOND THE IMMEDIATE PRECINCT OF THE MARKETPLACE, WE SEE NETLEY’S COACH, WITH HIM AND GULL SITTING ON TOP OF IT, SURVEYING THE SPRAWL OF BILINGSGATE. ASSAILD BY THE STENCH OF FISH GUTS, NETLEY LOOKS QUEASIER THAN EVER, WHILE GULL SEEMS COMPLETELY RELAXED AMIDST THE STENCH AND CLAMOUR AND CONTINUES TO CONVERSE IN HIS USUAL, GENIAL FASHION. THE RAIN IS DEFINITELY STARTING TO THIN OUT HERE, WITH NO MORE THAN A FEW SPOTS FALLING. ABOVE THE MARKET, THE SUN THREATENS TO PEEK THROUGH ITS RAGGED BANDAGE OF CLOUD, ALTHOUGH IT IS BY NOW VERY LOW ON THE HORIZON, AND NOT FAR AWAY FROM SUNSET. THE BALLOONS BELONGING TO THE MARKET TRADERS ARE ALL FREE FLOATING AND TAILLESS, AND THEY JUST BOB AROUND ABOVE THE CROWD OVER TO THE LEFT OF THIS WIDE PANEL. GULL’S BALLOONS ARE DISTINGUISHED FROM THEM BY VIRTUE OF THE TAIL THAT POINTS TOWARD GULL.
TAILLESS BALLOON: YE-O-O! All alive TURBOT!
TAILLESS BALLOON: Fine grizzlin’ SPRATS, large an’ no small!
TAILLESS BALLOON: Had-had-had-had-HADDICK!
TAILLESS BALLOON: Now or never! Five brill a pound!
TAILLESS BALLOON: YE-O-O!
GULL :Sometimes, an act of social magic’s NECESSARY: Man’s
triumph over Woman’s INSECURE, the dust of history
not yet SETTLED
GULL : Changing times erase the pattern that constrains society’s
irrational, female side…


PANEL 2.
IN THIS SECOND WIDE PANEL WE CLOSE IN UPON GULL AND NETLEY AS THEY SIT FACING US ATOP THE BOX OF THEIR COACH. GULL IS SITTING GAZING CALMLY TOWARDS US AS HE SPEAKS, ABSENTLY PLUCKING ONE OF THE REMAINING TWO OR THREE GRAPES, BUT GAZES STRAIGHT AHEAD AT US WITH HIS PALE GREY EYES. PERHAPS WITH HIS FREE HAND HE GESTURES TOWARDS THE SQUALOR OF BILLINGSGATE SURROUDING THEM, THE MURKY OUTLINES OF WHICH WE CAN SEE RISING UP IN THE BACKGROUND BEYOND THE COACH. NETLEY, SITTING ON THE RIGHT HERE, LOOKS VERY SICKLY INDEED, AND HAS PERHAPS PULLED OUT A HANDKERCHEIF TO PROTECT HIS NOSE FROM THE STOMACH-TURNING SCENT OF THE FISH. THE VERY LAST FEW SPOTS OF RAIN SPLASH DOWN UPON THE REEKING COBBLES, AND THEN THE RAIN IS OVER AND A LATE AFTERNOON LIGHT ONCE MORE BEGINS TO GRADUALLY PERVADE THE MARKET PLACE.
GULL: Our workers, lately given VOTES, now talk of SOCIALISM, talk of
RIGHTS, riot in Trafalgar and won’t quit ‘til they are shot, whereon
their fury DOUBLES! King Mob’s clamour drowns out Apollonian debates.
GULL: Reason’s BESIEGED: For all our science we are become an age of table-
rappers, tealeaf readers and Theosophists; where Dr. Westcott founds his
“Golden Dawn”, mistaking hokum for the wisdom of Antiquity!
GULL: The Séance-Parlour’s murmurings; the gutters’ pandemonium…these threaten
Rationality itself!

PANEL 3.
NOW, FOR THE FINAL SHOT OF THIS PAGE, WE ARE LOOKING ACROSS THE SLAB-TOPPED COUNTER OF ONE OF THE MARKET STALLS. SPREAD OUT UPON THE SLAB AND RANGING ACROSS THE PANEL ARE A ROW OF FRESH FISH. THEIR SIGHTLESS EYES ALL STARE COLDLY AT THE LIGHTENING SKY, A CHILL AND WATERY GLEAM OF LIGHT IS GLISTENING ON THEIR BELLIES. TO ONE SIDE FO THE PANEL, MAYBE WE SEE THE ARMS OF A FISHWIFE INTRUDE INTO THE PANEL FROM OFF, CAUGHT HERE IN THE ACT OF SLITTING A FISH’S BELLY OPEN. HELD IN HER STRONG HANG, ITS DEAD EYES STARE AND ITS MOUTH SAGS IN DISMAY AS THE KNIFE SLICES EFFORTLESSLY UPWARDS THROUGH ITS WHITE FLESH. LOOKING BEYOND THIS, AND WHATEVER SHADOWY FIGURES ARE GATHERED AROUND THE MARKET STALL WE ARE LOOKING AT THE REAR OF NETLEY’S COACH AS IT HEADS AWAY FROM US, MAKING ITS WAY BACK ALONG THE RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY OR THEREABOUTS IN THE DIRECTION OF SPITALFIELDS, ITS PENULTIMATE SHOP. AS THE COACH PULLS AWAY, GULL CONTINUES HIS DISCOURSE WHILE LUCKLESS FISH HAVE THEIR STOMACHS RIPPED OPEN IN THE FOREGROUND.
GULL: Our Sufragettes demand that women vote, and have equality!
They’d drag us back to that Primordial nursery, the rule of instinct and the
Tyrrany of mother’s milk!
GULL: We can’t have that.
GULL: Not though they bawl like all the fisher-wives of Billingsgate,
Named for the Sun God Belinos.
GULL: Up Cotton Street, beside East India Docks towards Commercial Road.
GULL: Come, why so SILENT! Is your biliousness worse?

51!!!!

Yes, fifty one. Well, you don't expect me to 'fall back on my laurels,' to borrow an unfortunate conflation of two separate metaphors I once heard a tv soccer commentator use, so let's press ahead.
My Pal Evans just gave me the heads up for Cefn Ridout's double review of Bechdel's Fun Home and Satrapi's Chicken With Plums in the Weekend Australian. A few months back Cefn also wrote a neat review of The Fate of the Artist for the same paper after I sent him a copy of the book (he had earlier written a big spread on Eisner and I was unhumbly soliciting a similar exravaganza), causing the local representatives of my publisher to wonder how somebody they had hardly heard of before, me, had gotten a big double page spread review in the national paper, with huge colour author photo and all ( a leftover from their From Hell movie session from five years back).

Cefn has been living in his native Australia of late and I think edits a magazine about manga. He is one of those folk who keep popping up where you least expect them and ekes out a living, I have always assumed, in an editorial capacity around his favourite subject of comic book art. He was a mainstay of the British small press in the early '80s when he and a couple of other blokes, as Acme Press, put out a mag called Speakeasy, which ran to over a hundred issues and had slick colour covers toward the end, with Rian Hughes design too before Hughes did all that fancy stuff for Vertigo. He edited the Dr Who magazine in '85. Acme published Alan Moore's newspaper strip Maxwell the Magic Cat in four volumes, and packaged the first complete Alec: The King Canute Crowd for Eclipse.


Cefn and his partners pulled off some great coups, like acquiring the rights to do a comic book James Bond in 1989. I remember them telling me they weren't allowed to take the movie script away to adapt so one of them, Richard Ashford I think, had to sit in a small room with it and copy it out longhand to the best of his ability, 'adapting' it as he went along. Needing the American market they worked in a packaging capacity, so that Dark Horse tends to get all the credit for it now. They did a memorable original Bond story with art by Paul Gulacy, at a time when the movies weren't half as interesting. Ridout and Ashford also made a long interview with John Romita that was published as The Art of John Romita by Marvel in a gorgeously designed edition, except that for a hardcover it just had a glue binding and my copy has come a little loose since wee Callum used to trace the pictures in it, presumably sometime after he thought Spiderman looked like this:


and sometime before he himself looked like this: