Visiting the Belgian Comic Strip Center

The very first thing we did when we landed in Brussels was find our hotel. Once we were situated and had showered the plane funk off, we set out to find the Bande Desinee (BD) Museum (aka the Belgian Comic Strip Center), which the map told us was only six blocks away.

The map was right. (In fact, all of the maps in Brussels were very deceptive. The streets looked longer than they were and several trips that looked significant on the map were a lot shorter than we thought they’d be. This theme came up especially when we went looking for the comic book murals throughout the city, which is the subject of a later post.)

The BD Museum occupies an old art-deco department store that was designed by Victor Horta in the 1930s. It’s a beautiful space and is worth the visit all on its own. The fact that it houses some very interesting comic book exhibits made it that much more enjoyable.

The guy behind the counter gave us an English guide to most of the exhibits, which we stopped flipping through when we got to their “original art pages” gallery. According to the literature, the pages in the gallery are rotated on a constant basis, so what was out when we were there may not be there now. The art on display was beautiful, from a variety of series – most of which I had never heard of. It was also interesting to see how some pages were physically cut and pasted together to get an effect that looks seamless on the page.

Upstairs from that was a permanent collection about the Belgian comic book magazines – Tintin and Spirou. Several of the more prominent cartoonists from those magazines were profiled, along with examples of their work. Herge and Peyo had special sections dedicated to them, obviously.

The top floor holds special exhibitions that are rotated regularly. When we were there, a leading comic critic was asked to identify 20 titles from a 20 year period – the best comic from each year. The comics identified were very interesting – V for Vendetta, Black Hole, Sin City and a smattering of Manga interspersed with some very unusual European comics. The descriptions of the comics were in French and English, along with an indication listing if the comic had been translated into English; many had not been.

When we got to the gift shop, we found that the section containing comics translated into English was very small. However, there also seemed to be no single section dedicated to superheroes. There were sections dedicated to conspiracy comics, historical comics, westerns, aviator comics, children’s comics, humor comics and a section of titles by author. It was a very different way of looking at the content available, mostly because it was a completely different kind of content than I’m used to getting in American comic book shops.

Although most of the books were in French, I bought a few books that looked very interesting – including one that was in the top floor exhibit about the best comics of the past 20 years. I figured that it was worth figuring out if I was able to read French before the real comic shopping began.

That night, I found that two years of high school French was able to get me about 30% of the content on the books that I had bought. I had no dictionary with me, so I wasn’t sure about a lot of the words, but the grammar and pronouns looked familiar. I figured that language is mostly a combination of vocabulary and context. Vocabulary can be solved with a dictionary and reading comics helps establish the context – enough so that some ESOL classes have taught English with comics books in the past.

Having been to a few more comic book shops, I can confidently say that the gift shop in the BD Museum was pretty much like the kind of comic shop you can expect to find in Brussels. Considering that I really enjoyed the shopping in Brussels, this is high praise. I’d say that it was also head and shoulders above the gift shop in Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, but just about everything is better than Geppi’s gift shop.

The one area of the Museum that we really didn’t get to was the reading room. This was basically a library on the bottom floor that contains copies of most of the Francophone comics in print or 44,000 comics (according to the website), whichever is the larger number. At that point, I was not confident enough in my reading comprehension to attempt a library of that magnitude, so we decided not to browse. Maybe some other time.

Next week, I’ll talk about the rest of the places I bought comics in Brussels – part 3 of a 12 part series.

The Trip in Context

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t reading comic books. I’ve tried to remember what my first comics were and I can’t think of anything specific. I’ve always been a reader – I think I learned to read at four or five. I was certainly a voracious reader of everything by the time I was in elementary school. Comics, happily, have always fallen under the category of “things I like to read.”

My first comics were probably the comics in the newspaper. Broom Hilda, the Wizard of ID, Far Side, Family Circus, Shoe, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, Gasoline Alley and at least half a dozen others. I’m old enough to remember when Calvin and Hobbes started and when Bloom County was really good.

In terms of mainstream comic books, one of my first comics was G.I. Joe #10. I think. I also had a copy of X-Men #169 and remember being surprised a dozen issues later when Storm cut her hair.

My father also had a subscription to Heavy Metal, from issue two or three. Issues of the magazine were always around the house. I certainly wasn’t reading it until I was in my early teens, but I did get around to reading every issue he had by the time I was seventeen.

These days, I read all manner of comic books. I have collected volumes of Buck Rogers, Terry and the Pirates, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Doonesbury, Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. I also have Elfquest, Watchmen, Box Office Poison, Phonogram, The Rabbi’s Cat, Locas, Preacher, Leviathan, Crecy, Y the Last Man, Fables, Umbrella Academy, Asterios Polyp, Age of Bronze, Alice in Sunderland and many, many more on my shelves.

I have attended Small Press Expo for the past seven years. For the first few years, I worked as press, covering the show for a local magazine (that has since folded). I volunteered for a year and have vended for the past three years. Clearly, I am a supporter of (and contributor to) the independent comics movement.

What I like about Anglo-Saxon indie comics is the sense of possibility. I have seen some very creative, amazing presentations. People are really tackling design questions in the sequential medium. There is a lot of raw love for the medium and creative energy dedicated to making something for the sake of making it. There is a financial aspect to it as well, but the people who have the most fun are those who have come to terms with the marginal nature of the market.

I also find it interesting that anything that is not Superheroes or Horror doesn’t really qualify as a full genre in the mainstream comic book market. Which means that anyone who creates something in a different genre is automatically relegated to the indie comic market. As a result, the creative weirdos are intermingling with the people trying to tell regular stories and the medium is far richer for the intersection.

However, there has always been a special place in my heart for French/European comics (known as bande dessinée or BD, an abbreviation you will see throughout these essays). My original impressions were generated by my early exposure to Heavy Metal and it was only recently expanded upon.

One of the things I enjoyed about the French comics that I remembered from Heavy Metal was the sense that comics could be about anything. Certainly, there were the inevitable erotic comics, but I also read comics about historical settings, social commentary, science fiction, weird fantasy and heavily symbolic and/or abstract pieces. The message that I received was that comics can be anything they want to be – something that I took to heart when I first started making my own.

I did some research over the past few years, reading Bart Beaty’s Unpopular Culture, which gave a very good overview of how comics had progressed from the late 70s (which was where my view was fixed, thanks to the likes of Manara, Moebius, Bilal, Boucq and Druillet). Aesthetically, it’s like hearing disco a few times and deciding that you like American music.

My wife, who loves me very much, made a suggestion in August of 2009 that we should take a trip to Brussels and Paris, perhaps with a side trip to Angouleme during the festival. Brussels and Paris are the epicenter of French comics and a trip to the Angouleme festival would have been a trifecta for the serious comics nerd. So I said yes.

We spent a week wandering the three capitals of French comics. We visited two comic book museums, half a dozen comic shops and I bought far more comics than I should have – especially considering the fact that I only speak un peu Francais and nearly every book I bought is en Francais.

I have written subsequent posts about shopping in French comic book stores, my impressions of Angouleme, wandering the streets of Brussels in search of comic book murals and other adventures. But first, I wanted to provide a little context about comics and why this trip was important to me.

Come back next week for my impressions of the BD Museum in Brussels, part 2 of this 12 part series.

Looking back at the Lungs of the World

I have been making digital collage for the better part of a decade, long enough that I am comfortable and confident in my abilities – almost to the point of complacency. In the Spring of 2009, I decided that I wanted to try something different; I wanted to try making art with my own two hands. Something analog.

At first, the intention was to find out what I could do – what I could do well and what I couldn’t. As the pile of pieces grew, I made the mistake of thinking that I could take those pieces and turn them into comic pages (they were drawn on comic book backing boards, after all).

I envisioned a narrative set in a world where random colors and shapes in the background were commonplace and created a set of characters to populate that world. I came up with a story structure that I’ve always wanted to try and I pulled the whole thing together.

I’m not going to say that it was an unqualified disaster, but it certainly wasn’t my best effort. The most important thing I can say about the Lungs of the World was that it taught me a number of things.

First, I learned that I have to start with a story. This was probably what got me into the most trouble. The pages were just random doodles that I built up until they fit into the story that I was putting together as I went along. This is not an optimal way to make sequential art. Lesson learned.

Second, I learned with kinds of effects work and what don’t. I expect I’ll be exploring this in the months and years to come, but I don’t know how much of that will be for public consumption.

Third, I learned that I have some small ability to create characters that pop, visually. This is not insignificant. Good design can make a character iconic, which allows it to live beyond the timespan allotted by the pages that it starts on. This is absolutely something that I will be working to improve upon; it’s a skill worth cultivating.

Today, on Christmas, the last four pages go live. The story hangs together, after a fashion, but it’s closer to a heavily roughed in sketch of a narrative than a polished piece destined for retail sales. I am deeply grateful that webcomics allows creators like myself to present experiments to the reading audience with no real financial commitment, but my intention was not to fall flat on my face; but then again, it never is.

More than anything, the Lungs of the World is a cautionary tale, a reminder to myself that it’s okay to try new things, but that not everything I try has to go live.

The Lungs of the World

I’ve always said that I can’t draw and I’ve always meant it. In the spring of 2009, I decided to find out exactly how badly I can’t draw.

I keep buying art supplies in the hopes that I can make interesting things with them, but I never do. Over the course of several weeks, I used those art supplies to make random marks all over a pile of comic book backing boards – on the theory that if anything good came out of the experiment, I might be able to show it to people.

After a bit of tweaking and a lot of page shuffling, I finally figured out what kind of story I could tell with these random pieces that were not specifically designed to go together. I even had a page that gave me the name of the story – The Lungs of the World.

It’s an experiment, in every sense of the word. I was trying different techniques to see what worked, artistically. I used a classic story structure that I’ve always enjoyed, but one I’ve never tried before. I’m trying a new distribution method and I’m looking to apply the lessons learned from Weapons of Devotion – which ran in the spring of 2009.

There will be four new pages of content every Friday from July 10th through Christmas, 2009. It’s a complete, stand-alone story that probably won’t have any sequels, but I don’t like to make idle promises.

The webcomic can be found here. Enjoy!

HeroesCon

I just got back from HeroesCon and I haven’t even unpacked the car yet. It was good to meet so many great, creative people who have such a passion for the medium.

The conventions I usually go to do not have a lot of people in costumes, so it was really neat to see these people wandering around. There were three scouttroopers from the 501st that were amazing.

I also talked to a lot of interesting artists, whose names I’m not sure I rememeber. Good thing I got business cards.

I was interviewed by Chuck Moore of ComicRelated for their convention podcast and I saw the live demo for Longbox. Very interesting stuff, with a lot of potential.

Porno for Pirates

That the human eye is drawn towards attractive or well-composed visual images is self-evident. I find it interesting that human beings have adopted this penchant for, say, stopping to notice a nice sunset, into their mating rituals. This is self-evident, too; we are sexually attracted to well-composed faces and elegant curves (male or female) and points are given (quite literally) for overall presentation.

Wrapped in Armani or tied up in Japanese rope bondage knots, the external accoutrements (should) only ever serve to enhance the natural curves of the individual (concealment is a close cousin in purpose, admittedly). At the same time, this dual role of clothing spotlights the underlying reality: everyone on the street, on the bus and in your office is naked under their clothes.

This is hardly a profound revelation, but the amount of avoidance, distraction and cultural morality that is directed towards nudity and its implied sexuality would suggest otherwise. In fact, there is a great deal of social stigma associated with nudity, enough that the mere act of being naked is considered shameful. By extension, the act of observing nudity has been shackled with similar shameful connotations. For all their power, though, these connotations are externally applied and do not necessarily reflect the power that nudity provides to our lives (through reproduction, to name but a single circumstance).

I believe that there is an inherent artistic component to the basic composition of the human body. I do not believe that I am alone in this; various attempts have been made to take the sexual implication out of the nude figure through artistic representation, with varying degrees of success. In recent years, however, there has been a backlash against this, with so-called Erotic Art, a term that signifies that the artist has (consciously or unconsciously) captured the sexuality implicit within the context of the nude and, in doing so, not apologized away the relationship between the two.

I’m all for this. It makes sense, really. So what do I do about it?

First of all, I am unashamed of the fact that I look at pictures of naked people (or whatever you want to call it; pornography, erotic art or clinical photos) wherever and whenever I can. There is an undeniable sexual thrill that comes with this, but that’s not my primary purpose; I’m looking for interesting or well-composed pictures. While I do take note of what the specific image is, I tend to pay attention to and find myself commenting on good textures or colors and good curves instead.

It sounds strange, but that’s where my attention is drawn. A poorly focused full-beaver shot is not necessarily more seductive than the curve of a hip in good lighting and a well-composed picture of a body in fishnets can be more erotic than either. By now, my friends are used to comments from me disparaging the quality of pornography in certain venues and the fact that I appreciate the artistic photo shoots in Playboy more than the centerfolds.

What I am forced to apologize for is my really dirty secret: I am the modern age equivalent of a pirate. Entire books have been written on the subject of how different cultures have dealt with the rise of technology and its effects on this kind of subject matter. (Go read the Christy Report, for example.) Instead of lingering over the history of the format, we’ll take the fact of Internet pornography as read and move on to the specific issues associated with nudity on the Internet and how they apply to this specific instance. Anyone with a decent computer, basic applications, basic skills and an Internet connection can acquire an extensive home pornography collection for their hard drive in only a few hours. I have all of these and an active interest.

But, like I said, I don’t just acquire Internet porn for the purposes of sexual gratification. And, while I don’t doubt that there is a deluge of redistribution piracy in nudity and other content being offered on the Internet (among other media platforms), that is not the only other use such images can be put to. Using commercial graphics programs (Photoshop being the best example), any image can be manipulated to such an extent that the final product bears little or no resemblance to the source image.

Such is an unforeseen and – frankly – ungovernable aspect of the degree of technological and cultural overlap in our lives, especially in the United States. Arguably, it is also a valid art form, one that comments on and mirrors contemporary imagery, similar to the Readymade art of the Dadaists. The art of collage has become subtler, but the fact that is has begun to reach the shores of painting drives and entrances me.

I mix images together using layer effects and filters, combining the colors, textures and shapes of the various pictures until something new and different is created. Often, there are two or three source images and as many as nine or ten different layers in a given image. These images can take as much as an hour or two to create and a lot of thought and patience goes into each one. Often, there are various versions of the same picture, due to the fact that each version is too good to throw away.

The fact remains, though, that they are photographs – they come from snapshots of reality and remain snapshots of reality. The reality that each source image references is still visible and evident in the final product, even if the image is no longer immediately recognizable as a photograph. At the same time, the captured reality has been altered and reshaped until it no longer describes a reality that we inhabit. Instead, the reality that these remixed images describe is of an abstracted sensuality.

The curves of pornography remain, but removed from their context to such a degree that they are barely recognizable as such. For some images, aspects of the color, texture and composition of these otherworldly images capture the eye, only to reveal specific details upon further inspection. In other instances, the images are mere enhancements that do nothing to mask the tribute they pay to the source image. Both are valid art forms, in my opinion.

What’s more, they are separate and distinct from their roots, enough so that they could be called originals. In the end, though, beauty (and its attendant implications of sexuality, originality and morality) is in the eye of the beholder. But the beholder is not the only person whose opinions seem to matter.

The primary concern among distributors of any kind of content is anonymous viewers stealing images and redistributing them as their own, which (rightly) falls under copyright laws. But what about private collectors? And what about collage or works that contain a portion of, but are significantly different than, original pieces, a noted exception under copyright laws, very similar to what is done with sampling in music? Where is the line between Negativland and Andy Warhol?

Does fair use apply to images found on amateur erotica sites? These images are not offered for reasons of profit, but instead for the purposes of sexual fulfillment, by the people and for the people. In such cases, should it matter if these kinds of pictures are used for something besides purely pornographic pictures? Is it a noble endeavor to want to add artistic meaning to an image that was not created with artistry as the primary purpose?

More interesting is the idea that only blatant plagiarism could ever be considered as a reasonable use for these images. Whatever the original intent of the creator of the source image, the concerns about their ongoing distribution and intent of that distributor are identical. Given the relentless strip-mining of popular culture that has served up entire pastiche and nostalgia platters without any pretense at originality combined with oversaturated cross-media tie-ins, the reaction is understandable.

I have shared some of the images that I have manipulated with the authors of the source images and the responses have been varied. While I have been complimented on the artistic elements of the new images, the more common response has been outright accusations of theft. One photographer said “I will say that you seem to be interested in artistic expression and I would encourage you to push yourself toward an original creation…inspiration from others is always evident but you must make your art your own,” which somewhat misses the point.

The purpose of art should be to inspire. That the person being inspired is another artist, who uses the inspiration directly or indirectly, seems to be rarely considered when the works are being created and should not cause detriment to those artists who are inspired. That another artist has drawn something from the works presented to such an extent that they wish to tell the creator of their inspiration about it should not be discouraged.

Furthermore, the reaction of these artists begs the question, Why does it make them uncomfortable that their art causes me to want to create instead of masturbate? If I had written to them describing how wonderfully aroused their images made me feel, would the reaction be different? Is the role of the viewer merely passive? Or is the viewer somehow instructed to create a reaction to the static image presented, no matter what the subject matter?

When people view pornographic images for the purposes of sexual gratification, do they masturbate to the images alone? Or do they create a scenario in their head based on the images that are presented? I wonder.

Castle by David Macaulay

I love David Macaulay. When I was about 11 or 12, I received a pile of David Macaulay books for Christmas from my parents. They were Pyramid, Cathedral, Underground and Castle – all about how the edifice or structure at hand was built. My adult self is able to identify each as an album-sized, perfect bound 80-page book. My younger self just knew them as awesome.

I pored over each of them at length, absorbing pertinent details and memorizing facts. I read all of them multiple times, but I think Castle was my favorite, for two reasons. First, it’s one of the books that has survived multiple moves, meaning that some instinct has made me hold on to it. Second, it was about castles, which featured prominently in the AD&D-soaked imagination that held my brain in a fog during those years.

The interesting thing about my fascination with AD&D at the time was the sourcebooks – the articles about imaginary places. Castle was exactly like those articles and sourcebooks – with better pictures and a narrative that fitted with my interests. (In case it’s not clear, I really do feel that I was the ideal audience for these books.)

The great part about the books (all of them shared certain characteristics, so it’s fair to point out that they all used them well) was the use of cross-sections.

Observant readers might note Macaulay’s art style. To my eye, it’s very similar to the comic book creators of the day (1977), which adds an extra dose of familiarity. I also like the way that the people are static, but give the impression of movement. Because of this cartoony + action style, I count David Macaulay as a sequential artist that has influenced me.

In addition to feeding my love of planning and process and cross-sections, these books showed a different way of presenting sequential art – something that I’ve always found worthy of replication. The three panels below show the art from pages 33, 47 and 65. Note how the size of the town grows and and how the text is presented next to the images, as extended captions.

The other Macaulay book that is worth picking up is Motel of the Mysteries – a story about an archaeologist who discovers a motel that was buried in a mudslide and mistakes it for a necropolis.

In the course of looking up the links for the books, I discovered that Macaulay has a new set of books out – Ship, Mill, Mosque, City (Roman), and Unbuilding (which is the story of the unbuilding of the Empire State Building). Of course, I am enough of a fan to spend ten minutes reading about each book and figuring out how much it would cost to buy them all.

Needless to say, Macaulay comes highly recommended.

The Dreamer by Will Eisner

I picked up The Dreamer by Will Eisner in Midtown Comics in New York City on Sunday (that would be the 3rd of May for those that want to be precise about such things).

I’ve been working my way through the Will Eisner library for a number of years now and I’m always interested to run across something new that is more off the beaten path. The Dreamer is very far off the beaten path. It’s basically a story of how Will Eisner “broke into” comics in the late 1930s – just before the outbreak of World War II. In only 48 pages, he manages to squeeze in the creation of Eisner & Iger, Superman, Batman, Wonderman and The Spirit and all of the personalities and artists that were involved in their origin stories. For people who like these kinds of fictionalized glimpses into the history of a subject that they are devoted to, this book is solid gold.

Mind you, it was published in 1986, ~50 years after the events depicted in the book. This means that two things are present in abundance – a foreknowledge that everything will work out for the main character and the fact that Eisner’s trademark layout style is very well established, making this look like every other Eisner book – creative layouts made with a genuine effort to make individual pages look distinctive.

In fact, one of the interesting things about the book is that each page is more or less self-contained. The conversation on the page advances the story in some way, but still manages to present a complete thought (usually a joke). Another great thing about this book is that the story explains exactly why Eisner is able to produce such a cogent history of the pre-war comics industry in New York City – because he did a of high-volume of work on deadline, and practice makes perfect.

Will Eisner wrote a lot of books on a lot of subjects and most of them are reviewed elsewhere. The thing I’m trying to learn from him as a creator is how to pace each page to keep the story flowing. His layouts also make great inspiration for how to make a static page look interesting.

Publishing

To me, publishing is three distinct pieces: production, marketing and distribution. Production is basically everything up to and including printing. Marketing is telling people about your product, which you can actually do while it is in production. And distribution is about getting your product to people. An easy way to think of it is that production is about creating a supply, marketing is about creating a demand and distribution is about fulfilling the demand with the supply. And that’s publishing in a nutshell.

Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

I found this book when I was working at the Barbarian Book Store in Wheaton in 1992. I picked it up because I was a full-on Sandman devotee and would pick up just about anything with Neil Gaiman’s name on it. In the Spring of 1993, Gaiman signed my copy. I have since misplaced this signed copy.

Since that time, I have come to realize that Dave McKean’s fingerprints are more obvious in the work than Gaiman’s, which is interesting because it shows much more about my shifts in taste and perspective over the years than it does about the work itself. Last year I was browsing in Big Monkey Comics in DC when I ran across the reissued anniversary edition, which I picked up. As I mentioned, I still don’t know where my original copy is and I really wanted to read the story again – and look at the art.

My perceptions aside, there are some notable differences between the editions. There is new material in the newer edition, for example – a handful of two-page stories at the beginning of the book and a coda at the end of the book that was written in 2000. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story is fairly straightforward: the main character is a renowned film director who has just found out that he is dying of cancer. Instead of seeking treatment, he throws himself into writing his last film – a film that he knows he will not be alive to see filmed. The film is about the apocalypse that didn’t happen in 999 and the act of writing it becomes a means for him to deal with his impending death.

The story was originally serialized in The Face – a British fashion magazine – and in between chapters, McKean added two page inserts that sampled text from the original script of the story. These chapters add an element of noise to the story, enhancing the thematic power of the whole book. The subject of noise comes up periodically throughout the story as well, most notably in this page (which I still see as a masterwork of layout and design).

You may have noted that the page is done entirely with overlapping photographs – well spotted. A majority of the story is made using McKean’s now-trademark mixed media process. With this work, though, he used a lot of photoreferenced material, as well as a good amount of straight photography.

A friend of mine read this book and told me that she could see exactly where I got my inspiration from. And she’s exactly right. These days, I wear the fact that I am heavily influenced by Dave McKean on my sleeve, but that does not change the impact that the book had on me when I was taking my first, tentative steps into graphic design in college.

Below is another page from the end of the book, showing how the panel breaks are often subtle. It’s an approach that I’ve drawn from more than once, to varied effect.

Overall, you should find a copy of this book and give it read. If you are a Neil Gaiman fan and you do not own this book, you are doing yourself a disservice. This is doubly true if you are a Dave McKean fan.