Interview with Anthology contributor Mark Badger at The Beat
An excellent interview, discussing his contribution to Abstract Comics and his response to the book as a whole at great length, here:
Mark has also recently completed a great new multi-page abstract comic. I've been trying to get him to finally join the blog so as to post it, and I hope that he does soon, or else I'll just have to go ahead and post it myself... (hint hint)
Great interview! This line made me laugh out loud (given some of the recent discussions here):
"I vividly remember slogging through some Jacques Derrida book and finishing it, the conclusion being essentially that all books were meaningless, and throwing it across the room. You couldn’t tell me that in the first chapter so I don’t have to read the whole thing?"
Great comments about AC -- both the collection and Badger's general inclinations toward the abstract. This interview is also rich with names and links -- very fun and worthwhile to follow!
The artists assembled by Andrei Molotiu for his anthology ABSTRACT COMICS (Fantagraphics, $39.99) push “cartooning” to its limits... It’s a fascinating book to stare at, and as with other kinds of abstract art, half the fun is observing your own reactions: anyone who’s used to reading more conventional sorts of comics is likely to reflexively impose narrative on these abstractions, to figure out just what each panel has to do with the next.
--Douglas Wolk, New York Times Book Review, Holiday Books edition, December 6, 2009 The collection has a wealth of rewarding material... it is a significant historical document that may jump-start an actual new genre.
--Doug Harvey, LA Weekly It becomes a treat to take a page of art - or a simple panel - and consider how the shapes, texture, depth, and color interact with one another; to reflect on how, when one takes the time, the enjoyment one ordinarily finds in reading a purely textually-oriented, narrative-driven written story can - with the graphic form - be translated into something completely different.
--Adam Waterreus, Politics and Prose, "Favorite Graphic Literature of the Year."
...this arresting book is like a scoop of primordial narrative, representational mud. Which is to say, it has vitaminic powers.
--Design Observer
For years, comics (at least American ones) have doggedly refused for one reason or another, to consider other schools of art and beyond mere representation. It's only now we see artists attempting to branch out and try to push at the edge's of the medium's definition. As such I found Abstract Comics to be a revealing, thought-provoking and genuinely lovely book that I'll be sure to be rereading in the months to come.
Great interview! This line made me laugh out loud (given some of the recent discussions here):
ReplyDelete"I vividly remember slogging through some Jacques Derrida book and finishing it, the conclusion being essentially that all books were meaningless, and throwing it across the room. You couldn’t tell me that in the first chapter so I don’t have to read the whole thing?"
Great comments about AC -- both the collection and Badger's general inclinations toward the abstract. This interview is also rich with names and links -- very fun and worthwhile to follow!