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Thursday, 17 April 2008
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
THE ART OF CARLOS ALBERTO SANTOS
Carlos Alberto Santos was born in Lisbon in 1933. He started his aprenticeship as publicity illustrator in 1947. Soon he was doing artwork for comic books. In 1953 he completed his best remembered early work: a history of Portugal in 203 illustrations. The resulting book had 17 editions in 20 years. As a graphic artist he illustrated many books and magazines and was also commissioned by the Portuguese Post to do the artwork for two series of stamps.
His first individual exhibition of oil paintings of historical subjects was held at the National Society of Fine Arts in 1970. His work is in private and public collections and museums in Europe and the United State
His first individual exhibition of oil paintings of historical subjects was held at the National Society of Fine Arts in 1970. His work is in private and public collections and museums in Europe and the United State
The artist presented his oils on 94 instances, including the following individual exhibitions:
-National Society for Fine Arts, Lisbon, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976;
-Faculty Club of the MIT, Boston, 1984;
-Casa da Saudade Library, New Bedford, 1986;
-Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge (USA), 1986.
His work is in collections in Portugal, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Brazil, USA, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.
2 ILLUSTRATIONS MADE FOR "MENSAGEM"
(and the poems with wich they are related)
Mist
Neither king nor law, neither peace nor war,
Define with outline and substance
This dull brilliance of the land
That is Portugal sinking in sadness -
Brightness without light or heat,
Like that which the will-o’-the-wisp confines.
Nobody knows what one wants.
Nobody is aware of one’s own soul,
Nor of what is evil, nor of what is pure.
(What distant anxiety weeps nearby?)
All is uncertain and ultimate.
All is fragmented, nothing is whole.
Oh Portugal, today you are mist...
‘Tis the hour!
King Joao the Second
Arms crossed, he stares beyond the sea
Resembling the promontory of a high mountain ridge-
The limit of the land dominating
The sea that may exist beyond the land.
His formidable solitary hulk
Fills with his presence the sea and the sky,
And the bewildered world seems to fear
That he will open his arms and tear away its veil.
Oil paintings by Carlos Alberto Santos
(for more information :http://www.tabacaria.com.pt/CarlosAlberto/Index.htm )
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
SUPERMAN (RED SON)
What It Is:
Probably the greatest of all the Superman Elseworlds tales, Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son poses some interesting questions. What if Kal-El's rocket had landed in a collective farm in the Ukraine, instead of in Smallville, Kansas? Just how American is Superman, after all? Are the devotion to truth and the love of justice incompatible with the teachings of Karl Marx?
Red Son plays out along a historically realistic time frame, with the Soviets revealing Superman to the world during the presidency of Eisenhower. In the story's first few pages, Ike has to break the bad news to the American people, and it's an announcement that would make the Sputnik launches pale in comparison: the existence of an "alien Superman, committed to Communist ideals whose very existence threatens to alter our position as a world superpower forever." Soviet propaganda images of the costumed alien reveal a character very much like the one we know - except in black-and-white, like the early George Reeves Superman - and with a hammer-and-sickle in place of the familiar 'S' on his chest.
The president calls in America's ace-in-the-hole, Dr. Lex Luthor, who in Millar's tale is an attractive, red-headed dynamo with a ridiculously high I.Q. Luthor plays chess with multiple opponents while reading Machiavelli to stave off boredom, and he just so happens to be married to the beautiful star reporter, Lois Lane Luthor.
Luthor concocts a plan to lure Superman to the United States - Sputnik gives him the idea to engineer a panic in the sky - a plummeting satellite from which the citizens of Metropolis will need to be saved. He correctly calculates that Superman's commitment to pravda and social justice will trump his specific loyalty to the Soviet way just this once. Superman takes the bait, rescuing the city and making a strong impression on Lois, but he leaves a bit of himself on the satellite, which was Lex's gamble. Dr. Luthor will eventually turn a sample of Superman's DNA into the story's Bizarro - an ugly American Superman with "USA" stamped on his chest.
Over the next few decades, Superman succeeds Joe Stalin as the leader of the U.S.S.R., secures an alliance with Princess Diana (Wonder Woman), and continues his battle with the indefatigable Luthor. Lex forms a partnership with the alien android Brainiac, who shrinks a Soviet city before their plans are foiled. Superman's failure to restore the bottled city of Stalingrad to its former greatness will haunt him in the years to come. Yet Superman's greatest challenge is overcoming the threat posed by the Batman - a mysterious, omnipresent symbol of anti-authoritarianism who strikes from the shadows at Superman's empire.
Red Son holds our interest both with these subtle reflections of established DC mythology and world history and with its implied commentary on Superman, who as a Soviet champion is different but not markedly better or worse than the Man of Steel we know. Millar's Soviet Superman has a greater social conscience, reminiscent of the classic Siegel and Shuster character. What the Red Son lacks is Jonathan Kent's doctrine of personal responsibility - a strong faith in the ability of human beings to choose their own destinies and to both see and shoulder their responsibilities. Ultimately, this failing proves to be the Russian Superman's downfall.
Red Son, like any good story, doesn't conclusively answer all of the questions it poses. Rather, it leaves us with a dialogue between two philosophical extremes. Perhaps it is this balance between social obligation and personal freedom that makes Superman seem so essentially American.
QUOTES (5) - LAZARUS LONG (ROBERT A. HEINLEIN)
Always store beer in a dark place.
By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.
Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
Get off a shot fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it.
Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science, it is opinion.
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another - but which one? Differences are crucial.
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et. cetera ad nausea, keep her from drowning them at birth.
Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.
The "pacifist male" is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger.
Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.
A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future.
A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!
Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people.
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly.
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it."
Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.
Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
It is better to copulate than never.
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which can - and must - be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly - and no doubt will keep on trying.
All men are created unequal.
Money is a power aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk.
When the need arises - and it does - you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out - that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.
Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be alive lion. And usually easier.
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have manners and morals of a spoiled child.
Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!
Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded - here and there, now and then - are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.This is known as "bad luck."
In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master."
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must - never for sport.
A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for the beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of man) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own self-hatred. In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women - it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly "natural."Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling of Nature."
"No man is an island - " Much as we may feel and act as individuals, our race is a single organism, always growing and branching - which must be pruned regularly to be healthy. This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limit always dies in its own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth.Being an incurable sentimentalist, I favor the former of these methods - killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of "He's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be."But this may be a mater of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all.
Democracy is base on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?
Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare - most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat-driver syndrome."
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried automatically and without pity.
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni benevolent - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute - get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And visa versa.
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
The more you love, the more you can love - and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of the majority who are decent and just.
Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of wrongdoing - and you don't have to go home in the cold. But it's lonely.
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of - but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Monday, 14 April 2008
QUOTES (4) - ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
-“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
- “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”
-“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid).”
-“The more you love, the more you can love--and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.”
-“Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.”
-“May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live."
-“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”
-"Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.”
-“One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.”
-“Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things”
-“Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”
-“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”
QUOTES (3) - GEORGES W. BUSH
-To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too may one day be president of the United States.
-Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.
-I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable. And I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave -- with all five fingers -- for their hospitality.
-As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water to base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we need to test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating. [from a 2001 Washington TV/Radio Correspondents dinner]
-In my sentences I go where no man has gone before...I am a boon to the English language.
-You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on. -- (spoken at a Washington Dinner, March 2001)
-...it is better to succeed with success than failure
-Children and unborn children should be protected by law and welcomed into life.
-Most of our imports come from other countries.
-States should have the right to enact... laws...particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.
-What our enemies have begun, we will finish.
QUOTES (2) - OSCAR WILDE
-We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892)
-Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
-Thirty five is a very attractive age; London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years.
-True friends stab you in the front.
-How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
-The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
-The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
-There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
-I am not young enough to know everything.
-A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
-By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
-Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
-I couldn't help it. I can resist everything except temptation.
-A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
-Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.
-Bad artists always admire each other's work.
-Don't give a woman advice; one should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening.
-The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
-I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me. (Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892)
-Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
-Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
-Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
-The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
-One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything.
ERNESTO (CHE) GUEVARA - (14/04/28 - 9/10/67)
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Lynch (May 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, el Che, or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, political figure, physician, author, military theorist, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. His stylized image also later morphed into a ubiquitous worldwide countercultural symbol.As a young medical student, Guevara embarked on a journey throughout Latin America and was transformed by the endemic poverty he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to the conclusion that the region's socio-economic inequalities were an insidious result of capitalism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social revolution under President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara’s radical ideology.
Later while in Mexico he joined and was promoted to commander in Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, playing a pivotal role while being viewed as "Castro's brain", in the successful guerrilla campaign to overthrow the U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. After the Cuban revolution, Guevara served in many prominent governmental positions, including President of the National Bank and “supreme prosecutor” over the revolutionary tribunals and executions of suspected war criminals from the previous regime. Along with traveling around the world meeting important leaders on behalf of Cuban socialism, he was a prolific writer of an assortment of books, including a classic manual on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to incite revolutions first in an unsuccessful attempt in Congo-Kinshasa and ultimately in Bolivia, where he was captured with help of the CIA and executed.
Both notorious for his harsh discipline and revered for his unwavering dedication to his revolutionary doctrines, Guevara remains a controversial and significant historical figure. Because of his death, invocation to armed class struggle, and romantic visage, Guevara became an inspirational icon of leftist revolutionary movements worldwide, as well as a global merchandising sensation. He has since been venerated and reviled in dozens of biographies, memoirs, books, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time Magazine professed him to be one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photo of him has been declared "the most famous photograph in the world."
Sunday, 13 April 2008
PRINCE VALIANT
The glare of the coals makes him dreamy, but — faintly at first — he sees a warrior in full armor. Then castles and glittering armies, battles, and much fine fighting. A king and queen. "You will have high adventure, but nowhere do I see happiness and contentment." Horrit the Witch foretold a dismal end for Prince Valiant. Happily, for more than 44 million readers around the world, the prophecy never came true. Today, Hal Foster's epic creation celebrates more than 60 years of high adventure and literary and artistic excellence on the comics pages of the world's newspapers.
It all began when Hal Foster, who had spent several years drawing the popular "Tarzan" feature, was asked by William Randolph Hearst to create a strip for Hearst's chain of newspapers. Thrilled by tales of chivalry, Foster returned to the rich literary tradition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and created "Derek, Son of Thane." Hearst was enchanted by everything about the strip except the hero's name, rechristening him Prince Valiant. A Sunday-only feature, Prince Valiant first appeared Feb. 13, 1937. It remains unique in the world of contemporary comic features, with its combination of narrative adventure and sometimes humorous family drama, its bold artistic realism combined with hints of fantasy, and its historical accuracy in the portrayal of life "in the days of King Arthur." It is a historical novel in serialized form, one in which characters have more than two dimensions — the virtuous have flaws, and the villainous are frequently not without some small virtue. The characters have known defeat as well as triumph. And they have aged over the years.
Though centered on the fabled city of Camelot in Britain, and to a lesser extent on the Misty Isles in the Eastern Mediterranean, the action of the strip in fact ranges all over the world: Prince Valiant and members of his family have visited four continents in the course of their adventures, which have brought them to the marbled courts of kings and emperors, to the domains of Sahara nomads, the whaling tribes of Greenland, and to the exotic worlds of ancient India and China.
The roster of foes Prince Valiant has faced is a distinguished one, the most implacable of whom is the evil Mordred, half-brother of King Arthur, who has proved relentless in his quest to usurp Arthur's throne. Prince Valiant has inspired a number of artistic adaptations since its first appearance. A film version was released by 20th Century Fox in 1954, starring Robert Wagner, James Mason and Janet Leigh. Full-sized color compilations of the strips have been published. Hearst Entertainment's 1991 animated production, "The Legend of Prince Valiant," which earned top ratings and critical acclaim, was sold in more than 100 countries around the world. A limited-edition comic-book series was published by Marvel Comics. And in 1998 a new $20 million medieval epic Prince Valiant, co-produced by Constantin Film and Lakeshore Entertainment, was released.
Prince Valiant represents America's lasting contribution to Arthurian legend, one of the most persistent folk and literary traditions of Western civilization.
WINSOR MCCAY'S LITTLE NEMO
Lost Winsor Mccay Art FoundWinsor McCay’s Little Nemo
It is de rigueur to praise Winsor McCay for “inventing the grammar of comics” or for his draughtsmanship or his imagination. It is hard to read Little Nemo in Slumberland without thinking about all the praise that is heaped on the strip and its creator.
McCay is perhaps the first cartoonist to stray from a realistic setting in his comics. Little Nemo’s dreams are far from the streets of the Yellow Kid or the milieu of Happy Hooligan. While Nemo’s dreams often take place in realistic settings (cities, forests) they are accompanied by an altered perspective (Nemo bounds through a city, standing as tall as the buildings) or fantastical inhabitants. Many of the strips take place in one of the palaces of the King of Slumberland, lushly decorated in the art nouveau and neo-classical style that McCay frequently uses.
McCay created some of the earliest animated cartoons and his interest in animation is obvious in Little Nemo. A great percentage of the strips feature some kind of closely delineated movement (growing, shrinking, stretching) or time sequence, usually both. McCay is a master of this sort of panel progression where some item(s) in the panel slowly changes across a sequence of panels. In most cases this progression is the focus of the strip. This use of panels and timing is unique in early strips, and mostly unique for what has followed. Rare is the cartoonist that uses such a great amount of panel transitions in this way.
Here’s a particularly unusal example, wherein the characters’ representation becomes more and more abstract and childlike. A great example of stylistic inconsistency (in a good way) in a comic.
In Little Nemo, McCay also pioneered certain aspects of page layout. He used varying width panels to emphasis the height, width, or relative size (to other panels) of the contents of panels. One famous example has Nemo’s bed growing long legs. The panels start out rather short, but as the legs on the bed grow, so do the panels, becoming taller and taller. Here is half the page, the other half is one strip of very tall panels
His panels also emphasis space. Through page-wide panels, or other larger than normal panels, the space in a scene is emphasized.
In a page from 1905, Nemo gets on stilts that grow taller and taller across five panels, which grow in height accordingly. The space below these growing panels has a corresponding shrinking movement, which is used to show Nemo falling from his stilts when he is attacked by very tall storks. The falling Nemo approaches the ground with the panels shrinking above him. It’s a wonderful sequence that takes advantage of the panel sizes.
Another interesting technique is using a single background broken up across a series of panels, where the foreground does not have a movement corresponding to the background. That is, characters standing still, but the background moving through the panels. Hard to explain, so look at this example where the last three panels show what I am trying to say. Also note the slow transformation of the one figure, typical of McCay’s transitions and transformations.
While McCay is praised for his dreamscapes, I don’t find Nemo’s dreams particularly… believable, as dreams. I find that most dreams have personal resonances, yet Nemo’s dreams (or at least what we see) show little of his personality. In fact, one of the great failings of the strip is how devoid of personality Nemo is. I have read somewhere (so much for citations) the idea that Nemo is empty so as to serve as a reader stand-in. I’m not convinced of the idea, as even then Nemo’s dreams are not like any dreams I’ve ever had or heard of from others. Rather, the dream framing seems to serve as an excuse for the fantastical elements of the story, perhaps more palatable (at the time) as such rather than out and out fantasy. McCay’s Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend strips (more on them in a future post), on the other hand, seem much more believable and necessary as dreams. McCay’s drawing skill is impressive and humbling. While his figures are often tiny in Little Nemo (and not as well drawn as in some of his other works), his backgrounds are the real focal point of the strip. The detail with which McCay illustrates the palaces of Slumberland and the various fantastical places Nemo visits, as well as the normal objects and places that take on surreal qualities, creates a greater sense of realism in otherwise unbelievable contexts.
Looking at some of his uncolored strips (a few examples in the Masters of American Comics book), one can see his unvarying line that seems to exist in two widths, a thin line used for most of the drawing and a thicker one for outlines and emphasis. McCay’s line is precise and often very geometric, as if he knew exactly where the line was going and just put it there.
Much of the visual impact of the strip comes from the colors, which, as I understand it, McCay was closely involved with (more so it seems than any other comic artist (take the rather jarring colors in the most recent Krazy Kat reprint book)). The color palette is enormous and ever changing, from the bright and garish to the dull and subdued. Take a look at this strip (broken into two parts due to its size) where not only do we get a fantastic example of McCay’s background transformations (as focal point of the strip) but also some beautiful coloring in the sky.
Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries (and many that came after him), McCay uses a very strict perspective to create great depth and space in his panels. While many comic strips have the look of actors on a stage, McCay’s pages stretch into the distance. Note the wonderful staircase in the first panel here.
The word balloons and dialogue in the strip are some of the most pitiful, redundant examples of such I’ve seen. The words are scrawled in tiny characters, closely packed within the tiniest possible balloon, and the text itself rarely adds to the strip, instead consisting of endless streams of exclamations and the characters telling us something we already see on the page. It makes “reading” the strips downright difficult. (Any of the examples above will serve.) (It is interesting to note that R.C. Harvey so intent on the integration of word and image, does not discuss this aspect of McCay’s work in his chapter on such in The Art of the Funnies.)
In the collection of Little Nemo strips that I have, Bill Watterson writes that he admires the strip more than he likes it, and I have to agree. The strips are impressive, but on the whole, I don’t find myself wanting to read them. McCay’s imagination and art overshadow and help one overlook his lack of storytelling skill. I can marvel at the transformative sequences, but I don’t care what happens next. I don’t feel moved by Nemo’s adventures. I don’t laugh. I don’t cry. I don’t reflect upon the world or myself.
It’s the storytelling element that I find lacking. McCay’s strip is more like a fine painting than a great novel. This is a place many comics occupy, the pull between the visual aesthetic and the story/narrative/thematic aesthetic, but McCay sits firmly and greatly on the visual side. More so than many works of comics art, McCay’s pages could hang on a wall in isolation from any context, continuity, or narrative.
Saturday, 12 April 2008
ALIX
Alix, or The Adventures of Alix, is a popular Franco-Belgian comics series drawn in the ligne claire style, by one its masters, Jacques Martin. The stories revolve around a young Gallo-Roman man named Alix in the late Roman Republic. Although the series is renowned for its historical accuracy and stunning set detail, the hero has been known to wander into anachronistic situations up to two centuries out of his era. The stories unfold throughout the reaches of the Roman world, including the city of Rome, Gaul, the German frontier, Mesopotamia, Africa and Asia Minor. One voyage goes as far as China.
Alix is fearless, generous, and devoted to just causes. Born in Gaul, separated from his parents and sold into slavery, he is later adopted by a Roman noble contemporary to Julius Caesar. This mixed background provides Alix with an identity crisis and divided loyalties, especially in the context of the founding myths of French nationalism revolving around Vercingetorix. In the second adventure Alix is joined by Enak, a slightly younger Egyptian orphan, who remains his constant companion and sounding board. Critics have suggested that Alix and Enak are closet homosexuals, and parodies have overtly depicted them as such. Originally forbidden to have a female companion by the 1949 law governing children's literature, Alix later finds himself entangled with amorous women, but he always hesitates to commit, and the pursuit of social justice provides a pretext for moving on.The authors
Jacques Martin created the Alix series as one of his earliest heroes, and he continued solo conception, plot, dialogue and illustration for fifty years, even while developing other series such as Lefranc. Due to failing eyesight and advancing age, Martin has since 1998 gradually retired from the series, turning over tasks to various assistants. Rafael Morales became his first assistant, taking charge of the final illustrations with some assistance by Marc Henniquiau, while Martin continued writing the stories and performing the first sketches and layouts.[1]. In 2006, Martin turned over the final writing task to François Maingoval, while still conceiving the main story line in rough draft form. In 2008, Maingoval shifted his attention to a spin-off series (see Alix raconte below), while Patrick Weber assumed the mantle of writing the main Alix series.Characters
Alix: the hero of the series in the title role, pure of heart, perpetually twenty-five, and wise for his years.Enak: a boy of fourteen, who meets Alix in Le sphinx d'or. Not originally intended as a principal character, he becomes Alix's constant and faithful companion.
Arbacès: sworn enemy of the heroes, this crafty and cruel Greek keeps turning up in their path.
Julius Caesar: friend and protector of Alix, the latter nevertheless finds himself sometimes torn between just causes and the interests of the great man.
Pompey: Caesar's rival, he repeatedly seeks to eliminate Alix, obviously without succeeding to end the series.
Vanik: cousin of Alix.
Astorix: Gallic chieftain, and father of Alix, not to be confused with Asterix, his burlesque counterpart who entered the world stage a little more than a decade later.
Honorus Galla: Roman governor, friend and loyal lieutenant of Julius Caesar, who adopted Alix as his son.
HUGO PRATT
Hugo Pratt, Existentialist Author
by Andrew B. Etri
Hugo Pratt lived an adventerous life from an early age! He was born near Rimini on the 15th of June, 1927. His father, a Frenchman of English descent, had a criminal record and had to go to Italian Abyssinia to find work: he eventually became an Italian colonial policeman! Pratt's mother was Venetian and Hugo lived in Venice until the age of 10 when his father brought the family to live in Addis Abeba. In 1941, following the British conquest of Italian East Africa, Pratt's father was interned; he died of an infection in a POW camp the following year. The Pope and the Allied powers arranged for the repatriation of Italian families in Africa and Hugo and his mother returned to Venice in 1942. After the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 the Germans set up a Fascist puppet state in northern Italy. That year Hugo Pratt was sent to the Scuola Militare di Città di Castello, in Umbria. In September 1943 he was drafted into the "Battaglione Lupo", a corps of the Fascist 'Social Republic'. He served as an interpreter in the intelligence section until the surrender of the Axis forces in Italy. He was then shipped to Australia. Returning to Italy in 1945 Pratt studied at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts. At that time he created his first comic book hero, a hooded crimefighter named Asso di Picche, in collaboration with Mario Faustinelli and Alberto Ongaro. In 1950 Pratt moved to Argentina where he worked for a variety of publications including Cesare Civita, Editorial Abril in Buenos Aires and Editorial Frontera. He also taught at the Escuela Panamericana de Arte during this period. Returning briefly to Venice in 1952 he married, but was divorced 5 years later.
Pratt created some of his most important strips in South America including Sgt. Kirk (1953), a western; Ernie Pike (1956), a WWII story; and Anna della Jungla (1959), a jungle adventure. From Argentina Pratt moved to London, England, working for the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Pictorial and Fleetway Publications. After a brief return to Argentina, where he edited the magazine 'Mister X', Pratt moved back to Italy, working for the Corriere dei Piccoli in Milan, then in 1967 for the monthly Sgt. Kirk. He also created Capitan Cormorant, a pirate story; Luck Star O'Hara, a detective strip; and Ballad of the Salt Sea (Una Ballata del Mare Salato), a tale of the South Seas, in which Corto Maltese made his first appearance as a minor character.
By the late '60's Western adventures had lost much of their appeal and on April 1, 1970, Pratt introduced Corto Maltese as a regular series for the French weekly Pif-Gadget. In 1973 he started to work for the famed Belgian comics magazine Tintin and created Les Scorpions du Désert, a World War II story. Cush, a character in the latter tale, provides Corto Maltese's apparent epitaph, stating that Corto disappeared during the Spanish Civil War, presumably dying fighting for the Republican side.
Pratt created a number of independent comic strip series in the last 20 years of his life, the most notable being Cato Zulu (1984), a tale of the colonial wars in South Africa; Jesuit Joe, (1978-1984), about a Canadian Mountie who is a law unto himself; and West of Eden, an adventure story set in East Africa. He authored two graphic novels illustrated by Milo Manara; Indian Summer, a tale of Puritans and Indians in New England, and El Gaucho, a tale of early 19th century Argentina. He also wrote several novels and an autobiography. Pratt died of cancer at his home near Lausanne, Switzerland, on August 20, 1995.
Graphically Hugo Pratt was strongly influenced by Milton Caniff, whose comic strip, Terry and the Pirates, began as a contemporary (1934) South Pacific adventure serial. Caniff was a master of black and white brushwork and his signature image was a powerful contrast defined by negative space. Pratt imitated this as well as Caniff's use of broad, powerful brushstrokes. Pratt contrasts frames full of thoughtful exposition with action sequences devoid of words.
Equally important were Caniff's complex and often tragic characters, his use of pathos, ongoing sub-plots, mysterious and powerful femmes fatales etc. Pratt developed his own minimalist style, with dramatic contrasts and enigmatic dialogue. His work is picaresque rather than conflict-oriented. We are on a quest where the journey is the goal; treasures are there only as excuses for exploration.
Pratt was diligent in pursuit of historical detail and liked to give his tales an air of the outre. Fictional characters mingle with real historical persons like Stalin, Jack London, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc. There is more than a hint of Kurosawa in Corto Maltese: he is a kind of laconic samurai, presenting an air of cool detachment to the world but compulsively sympathetic to the underdog and the oppressed. Like Caniff Pratt created a number of femmes fatales as foils for his hero. Pratt's are elegant, ambitious and devious, and for the most part possessed of an indestructible sang-froid. Pratt's ability to depict complex characters made it possible for him to present effective drama and tragedy in the confines of a comic strip.
At first Corto's adventures are (relatively) prosaic but Pratt's sense of irony and literary tastes slowly take over the development of the stories. Corto Maltese in Siberia is in my opinion the best of the 'straight' adventures; some Corto fans prefer The Celts. Perhaps the latter displays Pratt's characterization abilities best. In my opinion Fable of Venice is Pratt's best work. Pratt has begun to play with his medium; fantasy, memory, and spirituality blend into a deeper kind of adventure. Les Helvetiques is a literary fantasy strongly influenced by Hesse's Jungian mysticism; Pratt is struggling to use his medium to convey ideas rarely touched on in Comix. Finally in Mu we leave the mundane sphere in search of a lost world of ancient truths.
CORTO MALTESE - BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Corto Maltese Bibliography
by Andy Etris
Irritatingly there are multiple versions of the Corto Maltese albums, depending on whether you are reading in English or another European language. Then there are colorized versions of the stories! In addition the American publisher NBM took considerable liberties in translating the tales (the ones they bothered to translate!) My big beef is that NBM decided to swap around some of the stories so that there is little relationship between the organization of the European and American albums! Where English translations exist, the publisher’s name is given in parenthesis after the title (if not, the original French title).
The Early Years (NBM)
The original French title - La Jeunesse de Corto - is a bit misleading, as the main characters in this adventure seems to be Rasputin and Jack London, rather than Corto. In early 1905, at the end of the Russo-Japanese war, Jack London (then an ambitious war correspondent) gets into a brawl with a Japanese officer. Rasputin is ostensibly a regular soldier in the Russian army, but when a whistle signals the end of the war he choose to disregard it, killing both an enemy officer as well as his own superior - on the dubitous grounds that nobody asked him his opinion! And Corto? As usual, he's more interested in hidden treasures than politics, and in this story we find him daydreaming about the famous gold mines of king Solomon...
Ballad of the Salt Sea (NBM, The Harvill Press)
Between 1913 and 1915, Corto and Rasputin are both employees for the mysterious "Monk", perhaps the last great pirate. From his headquarters at the secret island of Escondida, he controls large areas of the Southern Pacific, to the benefit of the Germans - who, in lack of more trustworthy allies and in dire need of coal supplies, find themselves forced to deal with freebooters and defrocked priests. The Ballad is much more than a tale about modern pirates, however. Above all, it is a great sea epic, with an athosphere reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's novels. The many references in the Ballad to famous maritime tales (such as Melville's Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, the story of Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) clearly demonstrates that Pratt aspires to place his first major work in this particular tradition. The Ballad is also a collective novel: Instead of the "single hero-formula", the narrative portrays a number of characters which are of equal importance. Though many consider the Ballad as the first Corto Maltese adventure, this is only partly true. If there is a principal part in this story, it can perhaps be said to be played by the Pacific Ocean itself - at least the very first sentences in the Ballad appear to suggest this: "I am the Pacific Ocean and I am the largest..."
The Brazilian Eagle (NBM)
This NBM album consists of 4 episodes set in South America's Atlantic coast. In the first episode we find Corto Maltese escaping the tropical heat on the shuttered verandah of Madame Java's pension, when the alcholic former University of Prague Professor Jeremiah Steiner enters. The orphaned Tristan Bantam appears with a mysterious map and discovers that his sister, Morgana, is a pupil of the voodoo priestess Gold Mouth of Bahia, Argentina. There Tristan and Corto rendezvous with Morgana. They continue to Itapoa where they are sent on a mission by Gold Mouth to end the exploitation of native labour by wealthy landowners. The adventures conclude in Brazil.
Banana Conga (NBM)
In 1916 Corto is in Dutch Guyana posting bail for the dipsomaniac Steiner. Together with Tristan Bantam they are pitted against Rasputin and the heirs of pirates in a treasure hunt involving four aces made of whale bones. Then Corto washes up on the shore of a small Caribbean island and receives a head wound from the beautiful Soledad Lokaarth. Steiner consults with South American trader Levi Columbia and tries to help Corto recover his memory using hallucinogenic mushrooms; they travel together in a dream quest for Eldorado. Corto again stumbles into the intrigues of "Gold Mouth" in the episode "Banana Conga" which pits him against agents and double agents of the U.S. government. We also meet the young prostitute Esmeralda, whose mother loved Corto, together with 'bad girl' Venexiana Stevenson.
Voodoo for the President (NBM)
Corto Maltese must once again post bail for the drunken Jeremiah Steiner before sailing to a corrupt Caribbean island republic. There he finds Soledad Lokaarth being tried for voodoo practices by a kangaroo court. In "Fables et Grands-peres", Corto helps a European surgeon find the grandson brought up by the child's other grandfather, an Indian sorcerer and medicine man. In the final story of the NBM version Venexiana Stevenson turns up in Venice in WWI.
A Mid-Winter Morning's Dream (NBM)
Arguably the best of the series. Set in Europe during the war years 1917-1918. In the European version Corto arrives in Venice in the first of six stories; at the behest of Levi Columbia he is seeking a map to the lost mines of El Dorado. In the NBM version we begin in northern Italy where Corto is the moving power behind a plot to recover hidden Albanian gold during the battle of Caporetto. Next Corto is in Dublin after curfew looking for an old friend: an Irish Republican dead at the hands of British counter-insurgency forces. Then he's off to Brittany where he meets Cain Groovesnore in a tale of spying in WWI. More skullduggery is afoot in Great Britain and Faery King Oberon manipulates Corto into saving the Allied high command with the aid of Merlin and Puck. Corto winds up at an Australian aid station on the western front and witnesses the death of the Red Baron, the great German ace of WWI.
Corto Maltese in Africa (NBM)
From the shores of the North Sea to the shores of the Red Sea! This album takes Corto Maltese to the African theaters of the First World War. The story begins in the Yemeni desert where a group of British troops are in Tuban, held prisoner by the Turks. Corto and the Danakil nomad Cush meet there during a mission to rescue a Bedouin petit prince; the pair then travel to Abyssinia where they consult aged sorcerer - or fallen angel? - Shamael, the poison of God, who may be able to resolve a dispute involving two lovers of different religions. Corto winds up in German East Africa where an African secret society of 'leopardmen' helps him avenge the murder of the brother of Captain Slutter (Ballad of the Salt Sea.)
Corto Maltese in Siberia (NBM)
A superb story. This album begins in Corto Maltese's home in Hong Kong; at the behest of a Chinese Secret Society Corto, Rasputin and a Chinese agent roam northern Asia in pursuit of an armored train carrying Imperial Russian gold. Quite a challenge because the train is guarded by Cossack troops of the White Russian dictator Admiral Kolchak! The quest is complicated by the Russian Civil War, with Bolshevik troops fighting White Russians supported by Allied powers and Chinese bandits and warlords looking for a piece of the action. We meet Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, descendant of Teutonic Knights, a White Russian officer who became for a time King of Mongolia, riding at the head of his Cossacks in pursuit of a mad dream of glory. A number of characters comment on the apparent disappearance of Corto at the end of the adventure; however he reappears in 1920 to chat up the (female) Chinese agent! Who is the mysterious She?
Fable of Venice (NBM)
This is a self-conscious tale of intrigue and hermeticism set in the early years of Italian Fascism. The real main character of the story is the city of Venice; we linger in the shadows of its secret courtyards, navigate its canals, gaze from its balconies and leap from its tiled roofs. Freemasonry supplies a great deal of the atmosphere of a story which is very occult, full of esoteric symbols and historical references. We are also treated to a collection of Pratt's magnificent character studies. A personal favorite of mine!
The Golden House of Samarkand (La Maison dorée de Samarkand)
Having left Venice Corto contemplates English Romantics on the roof of the Kawakly Mosque in Rhodes. Chased off by Italian occupiers he winds up in a cabal of Turkish plotters where he discovers he has a doppelganger. Corto recalls that his mother had warned him that meeting one's double is a presentiment of death! It turns out not to be Corto's... He re-unites with the Italian Carabinieri Captain Sorrentino before leaving for the Dervish School of Mawlawiyyah. Corto is seeking the Persian treasure which Alexander the Great hid in Central Asia, but it just so happens Rasputin is in a nearby Turkish prison: The Golden House of Samarkand! Venexiana Stevenson makes a surprise appearance as Corto narrowly escapes death at the hands of Turks, Kurds, and Armenians - he is saved from a Bolshevik firing squad by a phone call from Stalin!
Tango (Y todo a media luz)
Corto Maltese slicks back his hair and dances the tango in this tale of gangsters, gamblers, corrupt cops and persecuted prostitutes. It is 1923 and Corto is in Buenos Aires looking for Louise Brookszowyc, the beautiful Polish immigrant who nursed Corto in 'Fable of Venice'. Louise had travelled to Argentina to work for the "Warsavia", an organization passing itself off as a social service but in reality a white slavery network. Corto meets former acquaintances Esmeralda and Butch Cassidy as he seeks revenge on those responsible for his friend's death.
The Secret Rose (Les Helvétiques / Rosa Alchemica)
This story begins in the Swiss village of Montagnola in 1924. Accompanied by Jeremiah Steiner Corto Maltese has gone to Switzerland to visit the exiled German mystic writer Herman Hesse. Corto meets the Klingsor knight, alias Herman Hesse, alias Wolfram von Eschenbach. The story is dream-like and filled with alchemical and esoteric references, giving the reader some difficulty in following the ins and outs of the plot! Corto meets Death, the Devil, King Kong, Eve, Joan of Arc, and the Marquis de Sade in a mixture of modern and medieval myths. Literary fantasy rather than action adventure.
Mu
Pratt plays with the mythic and fantastic in his final Corto Maltese album. At long last Corto has followed up on the map of Mu first introduced in "The Secret of Tristan Bantam". All of Corto's friends are aboard a ship chartered by Levi Columbia, which has reached the island indicated on Tristan's map. The expedition is menaced by the gang of Black pirate Dandy Roll and Quetzal warriors. Also on the island is downed aviatrix 'Tracy Eberhard' - who falls in love with Rasputin! Soledad Lokaarth, too, finds a mate. Corto passes through a series of tests in order to enter the underground world of the Amazons and save them from their enemies. He learns the secret of the lost world aboard a Chinese junk after his friends abandon Levi Columbia! Not a satisfying ending to this wonderful series...
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