Here’s a spiffy entry from Josh Hadro’s blog at the Library Journal Insider, about the NY Comicon and one of my favorite cartoonists Gary Panter. It may only be of interest to comic book nerds, err fans, but I do think Hadro’s summary of Panter’s Rozz Tox Manifesto could be loosely applied to some aspects of librarianship (the debate between open source and Microsoft comes to mind) as well as to artists in general.
“Artists should embrace capitalism as a mechanism for distribution of their work, and that they can actually be more effectively subversive by getting their ideas into the mainstream than they can by railing against The System from the fringes, trying to persuade others to their cause by the sheer conviction of their belief.”
April 24, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hm, Gary Panter’s a new one for me. I’ll have to check him out.
Some of my favorite graphic novels/comics are the Sandman series, the Watchmen and V for Vendetta. I find Dave McKean’s surrealism in the former so weirdly appealing.
April 24, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I highly recommend checking out Gary Panter’s stuff. His drawing style is really crude and can take a minute to get used to, but he’s really quite good.
It’s funny you should mention those 3 Vertigo books, as those were the first non-superhero comics I ever read (along with Garth Ennis’s Preacher), and are pretty much responsible for my love of adult-oriented comics. Have you heard they’re making a Watchmen movie?
April 24, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I did hear something about a Watchmen movie! I’m totally stoked! Do you know when it’s scheduled to be released?
April 24, 2008 at 9:07 pm
It’s supposed to be out next March, and from the stills I’ve seen it looks pretty rad. I’m trying to reserve my stokedness until I see a trailer of some kind, as it seems like it would be a difficult story to squeeze into a two hour movie. Also, from what I’ve read about Alan Moore, he doesn’t like to get involved in adapting his comics to movies, so there’s no real guarantee about how it’ll turn out. Damn purists!