TENM (PDF version)

You can download a pdf version of my abstract comic TENM (52 chaotic sunday strips remix of a same strip of Little Nemo) here, on my own blog.

More about TENM project on this page (in french language).

TENM (excerpt), mfausse, december 2012

"Abstract Comics and Systems Theory," follow-up 1

I mentioned in my talk that, on the flight when I first began thinking of plots of land as possible "found" abstract comics, I did not have a camera with me.  However, in July 2011, when I flew to deliver said talk, I took a camera on purpose, got a window seat, and photographed my way to San Diego.  Then I put together from four of those shots (slightly manipulated in Photoshop) this strip, as one of my pieces for Carousel Magazine's 4Panel, to which I am a regular contributor.  You'll recognize the caption text:

"Abstract Comics and Systems Theory," talk given at the San Diego Comic Arts Conference, 2011

(Note: this is a paper I delivered in July 2011 at the Comic Art Conference, the annual academic meeting of comics scholars held in conjunction with the San Diego Comic-Con, in a session organized by Matt Smith and Randy Duncan.  I've been meaning for a while to expand it and publish it, but as 2012 turns into 2013, I'm realizing that I've sat on these ideas for long enough and that I should get them out there sooner rather than later; so I will post it here for now as delivered, and hopefully start a conversation in view of a future expansion.  Please note the qualifications and excuses in the opening paragraph of the talk.  Calling my approach "impressionistic" still strikes me as right, even though I believe that each point could be defended at much greater length with reference to specific texts.  That being the case, please try to read the essay"poetically" if nothing else, listening for the--possibly only metaphorical--parallel between science and the comics genre to which this blog is devoted.

One more thing:  a full bibliography would be longer, but here were the main books that were on my desk as I wrote this, and from which I scanned all the images below that come neither from comics nor from Google Earth:  Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice: The Mathematics of Chaos,1990;  Ian Stewart and Martin Golubitsky, Fearful Symmetry: Is God a Geometer?, 1992; James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, 1987; Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature, 1984; Hermann Weyl, Symmetry, 1952; Ludwig von Betalanffy, General Systems Theory, 1969; Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, 1983; Edward N. Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos, 1995.

Oh, and now you can see. I hope, why I chose to preface this post by posting the entirety of The World is An Abstract Comic three days ago. The illustrations below are taken from the Powerpoint slides I used in my talk.)

When I gave Randy and Matt the topic for this talk, I did not realize that, in researching it, it would become quite as complex as it since has. In order to fulfill the promise of the abstract, I fear, this talk would need to be twice as long. However, only to treat a small part of it might not convey the full significance of the issue. Therefore this talk will end up being less detailed than I would have liked it to be. It deals with a number of related notions connected to the scientific—physical or chemical, and even sociological—concept of “system”; yet I will need to treat these subjects rather impressionistically. For example, when using a notion such as that of vector field, I will not have the time to give the specific mathematical definition of it, but I trust that the notion of a--in our case--two dimensional field structured by directional vectors should be at least intuitively clear.

The world is an abstract comic

This is a series I did back in 2008, using screen caps from Google Earth. If you go to my posts from June 2008 on blotcomics.blogspot.com, you can find the identities of the various landscapes. I will leave them captionless here.

À M (une vie de François Morellet).

À M, mfausse, décembre 2012

Eduardo Paolozzi

 "Insects' Wings," 1951

 "Will the Future Rulers of the Earth Come from the Ranks of Insects?" from Z.E.E.P. (Zero Energy Experimental Pile), 1969-70

 "Bash," 1971

 untitled, 1973

"Maahantai," 1975

"Appel-Calder," 1975

"Study for Turing 3," 2000

"Turing 6," 2000

"Turing 8," 2000

Memories of a Tragic Love Affair in progress

Four pages

This is what i heard #36, by Le Quoc Viet

this is from Le's works at Art Vietnam Gallery. I'm uncertain whether it's best described as calligraphy or calligraphic art. Le Quoc Viet (or Quoc Viet LE) is a member of the Zenei Gang of Five calligraphy group, who held an exhibition titled Wordless Vô Ngôn at Art Vietnam in 2010.

they're less like comics, but you might also enjoy the superb abstract ink works by Dang Anh Viet (not in the Zenei group) or the trippy calligraphy by Tran Trong Duong, Nguyen Duc Dung, Nguyen Quang Thang & Pham Van Tuan.

if anybody knows any more examples of approaches between abstract comics & Asian brush calligraphy or other ink arts, or perhaps arrangements of scholars' rocks, please share them.

asemic manga

Three color sketches

Made as a complement to and continuation of this one, "Betty's Walk" from 2008.

Untitled Comic Abstractions

Memories of a Tragic Love Affair: an abstract comic by Jamez Mayhem

Roxorsoxoff Comics

This series of comics, entitled "Digitize" comes to you from Will Wells of Roxorsoxoff Comics (www.roxorsoxoffcomics.com). For more fun head to the website or become a fan on Facebook!