2/25/2011: Weaponized Animals and More!

Okay, although the title of this post sounds like the name of a really dangerous department store, I wanted to make sure that everyone had access to the slide presentation that we've been referencing during our discussion of We3. There, you'll find some other example of cyborg animals in art, some key quotes about animal studies, and the sections on rhizomes and becoming-animal from Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus from which we read in class today.

David Olsen's Prezi: Weaponized Animals

And just because I mentioned it in class, here is a link to the webcomic that literally mocked my ideas about the relationship between the multi-linearity of rhizomes and the visuality of comics. C'mon... you guys were with me on this! (He drew me as a bald professor-type, though. It's like looking into the future...) Also, I am the person who was asked the question about "postmodern narrative theory"... but it was actually the Harry Potter guy who asked the question, not the Pikachu sitting next to him. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up:

Ph.D. Comics - Tales of Comic-Con

See everyone next week!

Dwayne McDuffie: 1962-2011

The esteemed comic book and television writer Dwayne McDuffie died unexpectedly this week. He is perhaps best known for his work as a co-founder of Milestone Comics, which was instrumental in bringing strong black characters to a more prominent position within mainstream comics. He also created the character Static, who was eventually the title character on the animated series Static Shock. McDuffie also wrote for the show Justice League Unlimited, as well as popular runs on the Fantastic Four and Justice League comic books.

ENGL393 Fan Art Challenge!

Within an academic environment, it is often too easy to forget that there are other ways to respond to a text besides the critical essay. And so what happens -- and what can we learn -- when we respond to a creative work creatively? The history of comics in America has a rich tradition of fan art and reader interaction.

For anyone who is interested in some nominal "extra credit" or some random "prize" for the winners, please bring your own Epileptic fan art to class on Friday. What does your drawing of David, Jean-Christophe, the monsters, or the ghosts look like? How does it feel to engage with the book in this way?

You don't have to be "good" at "art" to participate in this. Just try and have fun and see what happens!

David B. on cartooning and reality

"Doing realism in comics is in some ways easy, obviously. Beyond that, it’s interesting to mess around in the drawing, to try to find new ways to transcribe reality. Not to transcribe reality as reality, but to also transcribe what’s behind and around it — feelings, impressions, fantasies, dreams about reality, things of that nature. That’s what I tried to do. With Epileptic, I didn’t want to create a reconstruction of my family’s real life, I wanted a reconstruction of the way it imprinted my imagination and the way I used all of that to build up my imagination. That was what interested me: Transcribing, to a large extent, impressions rather than reality — how to represent an epileptic seizure, for example. I could have represented it clinically, detailing all the symptoms of the disease, or do it symbolically — how it affected me."

- David B. (from an interview with Matthias Wivel in The Comics Journal #275)

A transcription of the entire interview can be found here.

The technical aspects of Lynd Ward's wood engravings

For anyone who is interested in learning more about the processes by which Ward created the blocks used to print the images in Vertigo, this online guide to the special collection at Rutgers University provides some interesting information. Many of the images are also accompanied by a brief interpretive overview, although I will say -- with pride! -- that many of your comments and observations from the class discussions have already addressed what you will find on this site. As always, I appreciate your hard work and active engagement with the course material.

Vertigo by Lynd Ward: An Exhibition