--01. My book Moby-Dick in Pictures is briefly mentioned in this post, down near the bottom, at the blog of The Literary Man. The majority of the post is an interesting exploration of the continued presence of the novel in the current imagination as well as a guide to some of the historical locations in New England one can visit to get a bit closer to the spirit of the thing. Well worth a read, and since I will finally be visiting Nantucket in July of this year (my first trip to New England ever), this piques my interest.
--02. Here is a very good interview with the artist Jeffrey Meyer. And here is one of Jeffrey's many many amazing collages titles "The Language of Babies"...
I first became aware of Jeff way back when The Comics Journal still offered a message board. His postings were occasionally acerbic, confrontational and inflammatory, but he was always honest and never ever misrepresented himself or engaged in any double talk. I respected that enormously, even when I disagreed with him. I have been fortunate enough to share some correspondence with Jeff and he is every bit as genuine in his emails as he was on that old message board. I liked this interview because, again, Jeff is very straightforward, honest, personal and revealing in his thoughts about art, creativity, and what they mean to him personally. Take a look. Also, you can see much more of Jeff's art at his web site GoofButton.
--03. I'm getting very excited about the imminent publication of this massive 14 inch by 18 inch collection Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin - The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelle coming this summer from Fantagraphics. This really is some almost forgotten material, but what I've seen looks absolutely stunning. I'll share more as previews become available, but the cover alone is already noteworthy.
--04. Where They Draw is an interesting blog "showcasing the work spaces and tools of artists." It's fascinating to me to look at the variety of spaces that creators work in, from the very small (apparently, and astonishingly to me, I am not the only artist to work in a closet!) to the sprawling. Of particular interest to me was how many of these artists have computers, tablets, or some other digital component to their illustration process. I think that's a long long way off for me, if it even ever happens. I am thinking of perhaps contacting them to see if I can share some photos of my own closet studio on the blog...
--05. Last December I spent around a week in New York and Philadelphia promoting my book. While there, I was able to meet with filmmaker Dave Shearf...
...who is working on a Moby-Dick themed documentary titled Call Me Ishmael. I visited him in his Brooklyn apartment where we spent hours talking about the book on and off camera, as well as filming an interview about my own exploration of the novel. Dave has recently moved to upstate New York but he maintains a web site and a wonderful blog where he shares his thoughts on everything from baseball to living in rural America to creativity. I was only able to spend a few hours that day with Dave but I've really enjoyed learning more through his blog, and it's time well spent.
--06. A fantastic old post on the blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories shows quite a few really beautiful illustrations by the artist Mead Schaeffer from a 1923 edition of Moby-Dick published by Dodd, Mead & Co. Here is one of my favorites, Ahab confronting Starbuck in his cabin.
You can see my version, and the passage from the novel that each of these pieces depicts, right here. One of the many many things that continues to fascinate me about Moby-Dick is how vast and flexible the book is. Schaeffer's piece is vastly different from my own yet each, in their own way, is true to the novel. And that is precisely why I remain obsessed with this book. Anyway, there are many more of Schaeffer's illustrations at the link so take a look...
--07. This one is for my good friend Gigantic Joe Kuth although I am fairly certain he's probably aware of it. These two posts, again from the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog, showcase Sidney Sime's magnificent illustrations, some for works by Lord Dunsany. Truly beautiful pen and ink work...
--08. Joe Sutliff Sanders, a professor of children's literature at Kansas State University, writes an interesting piece on allusion in modern comics, particularly the tendency of comics to allude primarily to what he terms "low-brow culture." A central idea that "It is generally taken for granted...that picture books are understood by the wider populace to be a noble step on the road to literacy, whereas comics are either a threat or a short-term distraction on the way to real books" serves as the foundation for some well contructed arguments. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this all, and I am painfully aware of my general lack of rigorous critical thinking along these lines. At times, this kind of thinking saps the joy and wonder from reading which is why I tend to keep it at arm's length. That, however, is a flaw of mine and something I feel I need to address. Hmmmm....
--09. Finally, many of you are probably familiar with Penguin Classics and their ongoing re-issues of seminal novels with brand new and very modern covers. They are a mixed bag full of surprisingly effective new reimaginings and real duds. Recently, in an odd bit of cultural synchronicity, they revealed their new cover for Heart of Darkness by none other than comic artist Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy among others. I know what I think, but I am curious. What do you think?
19 comments:
I am no artist, Matt so I can only a personal opinion - it doesn't work for me. I think the large heart in the background is too literal an interpretation, too obvious - the figure in the front would perhaps have been enough - although it might invite comparisons with Smeagol (Gollum from Lord of the Rings) and again placing the hand on the heart is so obvious! I would like to see a cover that invokes something of the dark atmosphere of Heart of Darkness - which could be abstract - maybe small illustrations hidden within a larger scene. If you took the key sentences of the novel "The Horror! the horror " - there must be a thousand different ways of interpreting that statement. I think H of D is actually a very sensory novel so I'd probably like to see something that invoked that kind of feeling in the cover too.
I can see that cover on the front of a Robin Cook novel though!! I am now interested to what your professional opinion is!
I like the Heart of Darkness cover aesthetically. I love the way he's drawn the heart. The figure elicits a more complicated reaction. That's supposed to be Kurtz, I'm pretty sure, though it's interesting (but perhaps not very meaningful) that the skin tone makes it ambiguous which of the novel's wretched human figures we are looking at right now. After all, while Marlow is horrified by everyone he meets along the river, his horror takes a very different form for Kurtz vs. the helmsman vs. the Russian vs. the manager. Visually conflating them doesn't really work. I realize that this is clearly not the Russian or the manager, but it might well be the helmsman, a member of the crew, or one of Kurtz' subjects. And the horror of Kurtz is not particularly that he becomes difficult to tell from his subjects, either on a physical or emotional level, though maybe I'm just saying that because I keep wanting the book to be less excruciatingly racist than it is (where, in fact, you have to start Heart of Darkness with the idea that it is everything it's critiquing and there's no use in trying to separate anything out).
Still, I don't think that "he's become indistinguishable from his subjects" is supposed to be what's wrong with Kurtz. If that were the case, Conrad would have portrayed him with more dignity.
Plus, the figure looks like Gollum, and while there is certainly some Gollum in Kurtz, I very specifically object to his physical positioning on the cover. It makes him look small. Part of the body horror of Kurtz is his immutable length ("length" not "height," I'm pretty sure). Unless it's not him.
This is sort of a "comment coming soon" comment from me. I have to be in Cincinnati (about two hours away) most of the day today for what I am almost certain is a private book event for my book. Both of you left very thorough and thought-provoking comments and I did not want to rush my response.
I will say that I found it amusing and intriguing that each of you, presumably strangers to one another, mentioned the resemblance of the central figure on the cover to Peter Jackson's version of Gollum. That's almost another post in and of itself!
More tomorrow morning.
Whoah, thanks for putting those Sime links up, I had NOT seen those...which are in fact probably the best scans of his work that I've ever seen.
The Sime book collection I have, and everywhere I've seen his work on the web, reproduces his illustrations at a very small size, and far too murky (murkily?).
So I'll be right-clicking on all of those images!
Difficult.
I find the cover intriguing.
But I also did read the book, years ago, and -for me- they do not match.
The heart of the darkness, after all, is not a muscle.
And, yes, the Gollum thing.
Still - I'd probably pick up the book in a bookstore to have a closer look. That is what a cover aims for, isn't it?
So, looking forward to your opinion!
First, Jane. It doesn't work for me either and in general I like Mike Mignola's art quite a bit. My feelings were very similar to your own - this cover is disappointingly literal and shows a real lack of imagination. I'm more turned off by the heart than by the figure of Kurtz, although I don't think Kurtz works very well either. There is very little ambiguity in the cover either, and Kurtz's expression, with his slightly downturned head and read eyes, seems to radiate sullenness and truculence more than the haunted empty hatred and brutality I would have expected.
That is hardly a "professional" opinion and I still don't consider myself an artist, but it is my honest reaction. Strangely, I think this would work quite well as the cover for a graphic novel adaptation of Heart of Darkness where, by the very nature of adapting the work to that medium, ideas and representations would become simpler and more literal.
For RF, I suppose I should not be entirely surprised (and I mean that in a genuinely amused and friendly way) that you and I once again differ rather significantly in our appraisal of a cover. Apologies for repeating a phrase from the comment above, but I really find this cover disappointingly literal and a great deal of that has to do with the giant heart. It is well rendered, yes, but in making such an obvious and overt connection with the title, and in seemingly tying human psychology to something as mundane as a belief that it originates in the heart robs the book and its ideas of their complexity and power. This is the kind of image I would expect from a very talented high school senior, not a middle aged artist working at the height of his powers. To me, it almost looks as if he did not read the book, or that he maybe read the Cliff's Notes version and dumbed the whole thing down.
On the other hand, I agree with you more about the figure of Kurtz. Your remark about skin tone was very interesting, and that is an angle I had not considered. Sadly, I feel like that was probably a happy accident and not Mignola's intent, but I can't know for sure.
That idea that "Heart of Darkness is everything it's critiquing" makes any attempt to illustrate it - on the cover or otherwise - a monstrously difficult challenge and it is PRECISELY that which makes this entire project quite terrifying for me. I am not sure that I have the sensitivity and awareness necessary to navigate that without either falling into the same trap Mignola did (overly simplifying the bones of the story for the graphic novel generation) or missing the point entirely and creating something deeply personal with only a tenuous connection to Conrad's ideas.
I find your remark about Conrad perhaps portraying Kurtz "with more dignity" if he indeed means that Kurtz has "become indistinguishable from his subjects" interesting as well. In conceptualizing my own illustrations, I keep circling back to the idea that no one in the tale has much dignity or even humanity. True, the white Europeans are every bit the rapacious and cruel beasts Conrad portrays them as, but other than simply suffering beyond belief, I am having trouble seeing the Africans in a significantly positive light. At least so far. It's been a few years since I read the story and I am only about a third of the way through this time so perhaps that will change. I think that being married to a woman of color has made me perhaps overly sensitive to personally adopting any notion at all of the "noble savage."
Finally, I absolutely agree with Kurtz and his size. My Kurtz looms very very large. One of my earlier illustrations (for my "Graphic Canon" version of story) virtually saints Kurtz and transforms him into an unholy icon of unimaginable influence. I'll draw heavily from that for these pieces.
Joe, awesome, I'm so glad I was able to connect you with that Sime stuff. That blog, Golden Age Comic Book Stories, is an absolute treasure trove of illustration and art. You could spend hours there. I don't know where he gets his scans but they are almost always big and gorgeous.
Now if only someone would put out a nice big new high quality book of Sime's illustrations. And Harry Clarke's. And Kay Nielsen's. And so on...
Projektmanager, it is so fascinating to me that all of us in some way remaked on the Gollum / Smeagol resemblance. In some ways, that kind of seemingly endless self-referencing is why I find pop culture to be so vexing. It's almost as if the creators of this stuff think that the average person just doesn't know how to handle something original and new so it always has to reference something known and familiar. Like pitching a Heart of Darkness movie as "Gollum in Africa." I can, sadly, almost imagine that exact scene happening in some Hollywood back room office right now.
Matt, you're so right about Pop Culture. And yet, what you are talking about is the second row, salvaging and exploiting what happens in the first row -- also (to put it more positively) popularizing certain phenomena and opening them up for a wider audience.
In earlier comments I told you I discovered (some)Graphic Novels only because they were turned into major motion pictures, drawing more or less heavily on the visual arts of the originals. For me, the same is true with video games. For a person of my generation it is perhaps already unusual how little I know about games -I only remember playing ONE adventure game when my family first acquired a PC back in 1994. Other than that - nada. I do realize there is a whole not-so-sub culture out there that I know nothing about other than that they made a movie out of Lara Croft and Dungeon and Dragons. But without those movies, I would not even know that.
Still, there are avant-gardists in every genre, and they too profit from second-row enablers/money-makers who use their avant-gard-ish skills or fame for their own profit. Happens all the time, everywhere. And, as I said, often the popularized copy-clone enables us to find the "original gollum"...
Projektmanager, you are absolutely right and I admire your optimism about popular culture. I do tend to get entirely too cynical and jaded about it all and while, at times, it feels good to be that angry, it is also a slow poison that I know is worse for me in the long run. I, too, must admit that had it not been for Heavy Metal magazine comics in the 1970s, I would have taken much longer to discover stories like The Odyssey and so on. So even I am a part of that second row borrowing from the first row thing.
I think that a big part of what makes me so cynical is my strong feeling that these days too many people are content to stop with the second row. They may discover something like Greek mythology through a movie like "Wrath of the Titans" or a videogame like "God of War" and never think to dig any deeper and discover the inspiration behind those games. Hopefully, again, I am the victim of tunnel vision here and there is more of that happening than I realize.
Regarding the heart on the cover: it is literal, but I don't find it disappointingly so. I think it's a fair move to tie psychology to physiology. I actually think it's almost the subversive move these days (despite a culture that medicalizes mental illness to the point of calling it "mental illness"). It's my feeling that much of how Kurtz ends up this way is that he ignores his body, with its instincts and drives and fevers -- he feels himself to be a creature of intellect that has conquered the body, and so he eventually falls prey to his drives in the worst, least self-aware possible way. He lacks the basic quality of empathy explicit in the acknowledgement that Africans and Europeans are embodied in the same fashion. Moreover, Marlow's own psychological state is entirely inseparable from physical illness (he is increasingly feverish throughout the second half of the book and acknowledges it only very late, when he reaches the point of physical collapse). So I think that portraying the novel's psychological twists in terms of biology is fair enough.
Your navigation metaphor is very apt.
It is true that Conrad really doesn't grant anyone in the book much dignity. I should've reconsidered that remark. I do think that he extends dignity to Marlow (natch) and to the two women, although both Kurtz' Intended and his implicit mistress are obviously fraught with a lot of things that keep them from portrayal as complete characters.
I do love your earlier Heart of Darkness pieces and am very eager to see the one you describe, which I don't think you have published here due to the book still being upcoming.
Hmmm. 13 comments now.
RF, I needed some time to think about your last comment. I understand what you're writing (which is no surprise, you are extremely articulate) but for some reason it is not sitting well with me. Not in the sense that I find it offensive or you wrong, it's just that I am having a great deal of trouble seeing things from your perspective which puzzles me as my mind is often very flexible.
I'm writing primarily about this: "I think it's a fair move to tie psychology to physiology. I actually think it's almost the subversive move these days (despite a culture that medicalizes mental illness to the point of calling it "mental illness")." I am responding now because I am fumbling toward some kind of conclusion that the vast difference in our ideas about that stems from significantly different perspectives on (and I like the precise, academic terms for these ideas so I hope these will do) modernism versus something more classical and traditional. One of the things that has always appealed to me about "Heart of Darkness" is that it was initially presented to me in high school in an English class heavily focused on "the classics." In spite of that, the language and the ideas and the tone of the book always seemed to me to be exceptionally modern and forward thinking. That was magnetic to me. I may be wrong, but it seemed like a bold rejection of Romantic ideals, rooted more firmly in some kind of psychological empiricism. Jesus, I hope this is making sense. That is why I am having such a hard time seeing psychology tied to physiology, or accepting it as subversive. I'm still struggling with this, and I don't at all mean to imply that I think you are quaint or wrong or dumb. It's just such a different mental framework for me.
You know what, Matt? I haven't read H of D for many years now - but I think it's time for a reread with all this academic discussion! It will also pave the way for examining your illustrations in fine detail. I am going to make copious notes!
In the meantime, can we discuss the covers to The Famous Five next? I might find that easier:))
I'm really grasping here myself, which might be why it's hard to get into my mindset: it's not quite my mindset, either. It is an extreme reach for me to try to make sense of Heart of Darkness and my response to it, and ditto anything related to the points I am trying to hit about embodiment and mental health. A very complex emotion.
Jane, this is about as deep as my academic understanding of, well, anything really ever gets. I am (and I mean this in total sincerity) in more or less constant awe of RF (who I have been fortunate enough to meet) for sharing brilliantly elucidated thoughts in a decidedly un-pretentious manner. I learn from just about everything she posts, but I often feel as if I am struggling just to keep up with her.
RF, I will be curious to learn if perhaps seeing "Heart of Darkness" from a significantly different perspective, through my illustrations, might affect your struggle. I will certainly not be offended if it does not, although I am strangely relieved to learn that you struggle with the book as much as I do. Strangely, the sprawling and much more chaotic "Moby-Dick" still seems like surer mental footing for me, and that's saying a lot.
I also feel a lot safer with Moby-Dick. At least the ship in that one doesn't start out sunk.
RF, to borrow a tired social networking analogy, if one could "like" a comment on blogger I would certainly have done so for yours.
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