the problem with having a standing google alert for my name is that I've got to be constantly reminded of this bastard who is doing more with his life than I've been doing lately:


If only I could cut a swaggering figure in the world like this one here:


Instead, I am this indigestible lump:


The Inkstuds interrogation is here. If you think that's cranky, just you come round here and I'll give you cranky!

Men At Work's Down under 'ripped off' Kookaburra
ONE'S a pub classic, belted out at top volume by tipsy patrons around closing time. The other is a more dignified affair, a favourite of youth choirs and choral groups. Now, as unlikely as it seems, the classic children's ditty Kookaburra and the Men At Work hit Down Under are set to go head-to-head in court amid accusations part of the rock anthem is a rip off.

These idiots can bugger off. I'm sure the lady who wrote the old song, who i think died in 1988 was probably quite happy to see it quoted like that, an indication that it's part of the musical currency of her country. It's when Art becomes the property of accountants that this happens. But having said that, I cannot say that some of my fellow artists are not idiots too.

Last night we had one of those blistering conversations that longtime married folk occasionally have; one of those where you have to get one of the kids to help you find your glasses on the floor afterwards, and in a moment of reflective clarity in the eye of the storm I heard her say that the major contributing factor to the rapid disintegration of our marital bliss is 'the graphic novel.' She didn't say 'that goddam book!', or 'why you can't leave your work at the office!?', but 'the graphic novel', as a concept. It was, to say the least, epiphanous.

still cranky

These strips from 1909 to 1913 are very funny and all that. At this time the title changed every day. The first one in 1907 was 'A MUTT STARTS IN TO PLAY THE RACES,' and four consecutive from 1908:
'A. MUTT IS SUMMONED BEFORE THE INSANITY COMMISSION FOR EXAMINATION'
'DIVERS OPINONS AMONG BOOB INSPECTORS! MUTT ASKS POSTPONEMENT TILL TOMORROW'
'THE LOON COMMISSIONERS, AT DEFENDANT'S REQUEST, SEND HIM TO THE BOOBY CAGE.'
'MUTT SPENDS FIRST DAY IN BUGHOUSE AND IS WELCOMED BY ALL THE BUGS'
It's during that sequence, not in the current book, that A.Mutt meets the diminutive Jeff, an inmate of the booby hatch (no sensitivity toward the intellectually impaired in those days), who believes himself to be the world heavyweight champ, Jim Jeffries. Readers picking up the current book will probably be students of the history of humour to a greater or lesser extent. The most interesting thing the book could have told them is when Jeff's name started appearing in the ever changing daily titles of the strips, but some boob has gone to a lot of trouble to remove every single one of them. And the dates too.

Cranky old bastards.

Having completed The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard I have been spending some time trying to clean up my studio. The archaeological dig has reached the 2006 level, where I find the Comics Journal of July last year. In it there is Groth's obituary of Alex Toth, with a short fragment of an unfinished interview in which Toth is at his curmudgeonly best. On Frank Miller: "I don't like to be associated with Miller in any way... I can't stand his work... I hate what he did to Batman. It's a loathsome, destructive, warped, black, dark take... The age of ugly came in."
On Frank Thorne: "He's got all the talent in the world, that guy, and he just turns out this shit... It's too warped. It's too ugly."
On Italian Franco Saudelli: "They can't do sex without violence over there. It all turns into lousy porn. And a lot of rape and torture and this and that and demeaning crap about women."

I find myself pulling a book off the shelf: The Tristan Chord; Wagner and Philosophy by Bryan Magee, and trying to find a passage that left its mark in my noodle. Magee observes a difference between the old bastard who is cranky (not Magee's actual words I hasten to add, as I cannot find the passage, having neglected to draw a lassoo around it as I normally would) because the world is no longer the way it was when he loved it (Toth), and the old bastard who is cranky because he lacked the power to make the world into what he wanted it to be:

"Paradise is permanently postponed not because of any special wickedness on anyone's part but because it was never available in the first place. To be disillusioned one needs first to have been illusioned."

Well, the teevee thing I told you about two weeks back came off well as far as Greenberg and Tan are concerned (I presume), but not so for Campbell. I can't watch these things and so listened from my studio while colouring, But I gather that the brave and imaginative attempt to explain the 'graphic novel' (from a guy who is quoted explaining it in the wikipedia entry on the subject no less) without referring to comic book culture (a strategy I have cunningly developed to avoid any references to the shit that always drags this thing down), was tossed out and they got another guy to do it sitting in Melbourne's Minotaur Comics, which I presume was the story they had worked out before I arrived and tried to divert it by doing it sitting in a pub. In fact if that very fellow, Bernard Caleo, bless him, had not mentioned the Fate of the Artist, it wouldn't have got mentioned at all, even though I did a spiel on it. So that left me on screen coming out with some tired old crap about From Hell that I got bored with eight years back. File it under noble failures, no actually let's start a label for 'cranky bastard'.

(Image from No love for me.)

I'm such a fool.

If you read my beef a couple of days back about the Article on Douglas Wolk's book ("Did Ingmar Bergman have to justify Star Wars every time he sat down for an interview?"), and picked up Tom Spurgeon's commentary on it, (not to mention those of Ben Schwartz, and James Vance) you will respond to the following with an accumulation of unkind mirth or of righteous dismay. This is not a qualitative beef. Bergman is great, Star Wars is fun. Neither needs to know about or explain the other. My beef: everywhere I go, why must I always have to represent the whole customary f*****g stereotype of comic books? It is tied to my ankles like clattering tin cans.

I thought that by appearing at a couple of 'writers' festivals' I would have a chance to establish my name as an author with his own world view and humorous thoughts about life. Yesterday on me blog i was so happy, if a little intimidated, to think about my appearance next week in Melbourne in the company of a couple of significant literary figures. Look, I'm not asking much. I don't mind if I come off as a literary jester, for that really is the role of the cartoonist-author (my real fear is that i'll come off as a fuckwit). BUT, today I see the program for the 'graphic novel' part of the Brisbane Writers Festival (12-16 sept), and Astro Boy is all over it... ?

A large number of questions are automatically asked:
If Campbell is to be a fuckwit, can't he be left to do it on his own account? Is Astro Boy connected to the concept of 'graphic novel'? With Eddie Campbell on hand to answer questions, how was such a mistake made? Is the author of that character going to be present? Will there be any authors from Japan? How about authors from other nations who are working in the 'manga' idiom? Surely it's not meant to stand in for the whole medium (whatever that medium might be)? Does it in any way relate to the festival's guests: Campbell? Talbot? Greenberg? Delisle? Tan? Rigozzi? White? And anyway, even if we can't all agree that it is not relevant why is the figure of Astro boy so clumsily traced from here?????

Where have I gone wrong? Sure, I looked away for a minute while my attention was diverted by wrapping up my new book, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, but where have I seriously misjudged the situation? I had a meeting and several phone conversations and explained the whole thing. A certain disgruntlement on my part has been interpreted, I think, as a dislike of the idea of the 'graphic novel,' (really a feeling that the term is useless, and the real irony in all of this is that I don't use the term any more , except when quoting another, which is why I always spell it with the quote marks) which they have taken to mean a dislike of 'comics,' because all the terms seem to mean the same thing, and since they have determined to spotlight the medium (loosely therefore understood as all of 'comics' I suppose), it is necessary to humorously disregard my 'literary pose' of being disgruntled, because that is the sort of affectation that authors like to sport.

"Eddie, Sorry 'the graphic novel' as a whole program is not quite to your taste/opinion." (from an email yesterday. Note that the quote marks were remembered.) Having early in the process sought the opinion of a supposed expert, it is now politely dismissed. Hey, I've got nothing against Star Wars OR Astro Boy. I like them all. Early in the planning they were talking about getting some DC and Marvel people in. I said (phone converation, no record of it), fine, but just call it 'comic books' and lose that pretentious 'graphic novel' tag.

Returning to the 'beef', a chap at Newsarama takes me to task for being critical of Wolk's book without having read it. When I said the book is doing 'more damage than good', I didn't need to go further than the title: Reading Comics; How graphic novels work and what they mean. Analyse it. 'Comics'= 'graphic novel', 'graphic novel'='comics', names for the same thing. Wolk is telling the world that they are one and the same. When Eisner first used the term he used it because he wanted it to mean something other than, or at least more than, comic book (as did the person before him who coined the term). I don't want to get into a semantic argument. If that original intention is now lost, I accept it. I believe Eisner felt that it was lost too. In his last years he was pleased to get his line of books out of the comic book market and into the hands of a mainstream book publisher (Norton). Anyway, that's why I don't use either of these terms any more (I'm going with the old fashioned 'strip cartoon' from here on, or at least till that gets screwed (just noticed I put it in quote marks too... wonder if I should leave them?) and note that I have no objection to 'comic book', which I see as a genre of popular fiction). From Hell is a 600 page strip cartoon.) And as for Douglas, he is an agreeable guy who is probably perplexed to learn that his enthusiastic celebration of his innocent pleasures could possibly be an obstacle to my megalomaniacal world conquest.

Now, lest you think this is all a bit abstract and not worth getting my nickers in a twist over (and as a professional humorist I must admit this is the sublime comedy of it all) I am the guy they have got in to stand up at the front and explain what a 'graphic novel' is, despite having promised myself I would never let it happen again.

From the online promtion:
CYA Later Alligator: The inaugural "CYA later, Alligator" Children's and Young Adult (CYA) Writers and Illustrators Conference will be held in Brisbane on 16 September 2006 in partnership with the Brisbane Writers Festival. This conference is aimed at new and established writers and illustrators of children's and young adult literature. Seminars and master classes will be conducted by well known Australian and International authors and illustrators.

From an email:
As discussed you are appearing at the CYA Later, Alligator Conference, on 15th September 2007, at the QUT Creative Industries Precinct in Kelvin Grove at 2.50 to 3.30.
Your topic is: The Graphic Novel Manifesto

(You may or may not recall that Campbell's so-called 'manifesto' was written as a jest, but has become his most reproduced work ever on the internet, even available on Wikipedia and long removed from its original context, and now comes home to haunt him. It was originally written in response to the mass of confusing information that the 'comics community' gives out. Wolk's title is the most recent example of same.) (there's a link in the sidebar if you're new around here)

wait a minute, it's the phone...

(it's my pal White..)
"hey Eddie, have you seen the program for the festival?"

sigh

"hey, nothing changes. it's 1984 all over again...FLASH!
Flash - Ah - Saviour of the universe
Flash - Ah - He'll save ev'ry one of us"
...ha! remember that radio show you were on...

yeh, fuck off.

"Flash - Ah - King of the impossible
He's for ev'ry one of us
Stand for ev'ry one of us
He'll save with a mighty hand
Ev'ry man ev'ry woman ev'ry child
Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to bring back his body"

yeh, Daren, sob... thanks for roning.

AAAAGGGGGGGODAMMMFUCKINSHITTINFUCKINFFFUUCCKFUCKFUCKK!!!!!!

Beastly, that's what it is.

W

ill the world's complainers never learn?
The Scotsman, July 15, reports on the Tintin in the Congo furore.
DAYS after it was labelled "racist", a Tintin adventure book is flying off the shelves with sales soaring by almost 4,000%.
The Belgian comic strip was condemned by Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) bosses for apparently making black people "look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles".
(link thanks to mr j)
There's something admirable about the British in the way they will help themselves to the thing they were told was forbidden. I'm sure it's not just the British, but I was alarmed watching some folks in a 'dry' borough of Alabama on the tv last night ranting against booze, which they have never tried in the lives apparently. So it's definitely not the Alabamalamians. That was me, I'd be off to give it a few serious licks pronto. I'm reminded of an occasion when I did the very thing. I went in to see a movie for no other reason than that some picketers outside the cinema stopped me to sign a petition against it. I made it clear to them that I was now going to change my plan for the evening and go directly inside to see it entirely because they were telling me not to, and worse than that, trying to enlist me to tell other people likewise. Anyway, it was Borowczyk's La Bete (the Beast, 1975). I can't remember anything about it except a girl being chased through the woods to the strains of a Scarlatti harpsichord sonata. That link is to the Internet Movie Data Base and there's a guy there (EVOL666) remembering it better than me:
"THE BEAST is a film that I find kind of hard to rate. The cinematography itself is quite eye-catching and the sets, costumes and locations are elaborate. The plot is a little convoluted and seems to take it self awfully seriously for what ends up being such an unintentionally hilarious film about a chick boning a rat-bear. A good bit of tits, ass, and hairy 70's French bushes to help make up for the dull first half of the film. I have to honestly say, that if it weren't for the graphic scenes of the BEAST spackling all over the willing maiden, this film would have been a real bore - that is unless you like dull dialog and some graphic horse sex. The plot involves something about a monster in the woods that some French aristocrat chick screwed back in the day. Eventually you see "THE BEAST", which looks like a guy dressed in a giant rat-bear costume with a horse cock attached to it. The scene takes place with the aristocrat woman running around the forest looking for a lost sheep. The sheep ends up dead and the woman gets scared. THE BEAST pops up, rapes the chick and shoots 400 gallons of spunk all over her. Eventually the chick starts to enjoy the beast's "attention" which results in some pretty novel simulated sex scenes, including an unnervingly erotic foot masturbation scene where the woman jerks the beast off with her feet.

Right, I'm off to complain about the obscenities on this blog.
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Gallery hopes Stella Vine's naive portraits and colourful biography will bring in the crowds at first major show. -Maev Kennedy-Guardian-Saturday July 14.
"Jolly good luck to her," David Lee said. "She is a hopeless, hopeless painter - but she's done very well."
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LONDON (Reuters) - Can't remember life before mobiles? Chances are you'll also struggle to recall your home phone number and family birthdays. According to a survey released Friday, the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things

Blithering idiots.

I was looking forward to saying something about the Toepffer books, Father of the Comic Strip, and The Complete Comic Strips, from Mississsippi University Press, but they sent my order surface mail and it will take three months to get here. You'd think with the amount of intelligence housed in such an establishment they would figure that a fellow eager to part with ninety seven bucks for two books would be happy to pay air mail to get them within ten days. I told them I would mention on my blog what blithering idiots they are, and that's what i'm doing here. And if it seems too harsh, i'm too upset to think about it properly.