Why is my toe blue?

Incredibly, my done with sharing post got the third-highest number of hits of my posts this month. That's interesting, as, appropriately, I did not share it to my various social streams. So that might mean that there are people following my posts independently. Hello. Glad you're reading. It'd be nice to meet you sometime. ☺

Here's another author you should try. R. A. Lafferty is an absolutely delightful writer. He wrote some novels, but his main contribution to posterity and what you mainly want to pay attention to are his short stories. He wrote gnomic, puckish, playful, whimsical, mischievous, snarky, and sharp and clever stories, full of intelligence, myth and subtle, wry humor and philosophy. He's worth reading if you want to see the world through the eyes of a bizarrely skewed perspective. Recommended.

If you have any appreciation for art, check out Piranesi. Elegantly designed gothic structures, meticulously rendered. Ornate, architecturally precise constructs, labyrinthine dungeons, fantastic towers, magnificent in their splendor and ruin. Gorgeous, lush artwork. Evocative worlds of intrigue and mystery. Powerful, gorgeous, astounding work. Simply breathtaking. You can spend hours. Dive in.

Have you considered how much of history is lost? Most of our records are incomplete. The Library of Alexandria was burned, and was known to contain many histories and records. We have little indications of what the ancient Greeks read and studied, and their civilization went back further than we have records of. They had legends of civilizations going back thousands of years before them. Almost all lost. What we have is really just reconstruction and guesses. Amazing.

Want a cartoon? Sure you do! ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

When all your desires are distilled, You will cast just two votes: To love more. And be happy.

- Hafiz

Artists in the quadrants

In his book, Making Comics, Scott McCloud created a chart categorizing artists according to four intentions — what artists are most interested in, in creating art. His categories are:

Formalist	The Formalist is interested in examining the boundaries of an art form, stretching them, exploring what the form is capable of. The Formalist is interested in experimenting, turning the form upside-down and inside-out, moving in new, bold, untried directions, inventing and innovating. Formalists are the cutting edge, the avant-garde, the ones willing to break tradition and established ways. Strict narrative or craft is not as important as trying something new and unexpected, playing with and breaking traditional concepts, getting to the heart of understanding what art itself is. Individual - Objective - Artistry-first - Revolution-based
Classicist	The Classicist is the artist who focuses on beauty, craftsmanship, and a tradition of excellence and mastery. The esthetic experience of the art is what is important. Art is meant to move and affect an audience, deliver an emotional experience. Classicists strive to perfect their craft in order to produce the most effective work possible. Collective - Objective - Artistry-first - Tradition-based
Animist	The Animist is devoted to the content of art, above all else. The Animist's goal is telling the story, conveying the message, as directly as possible. All the craft in art is in service to the delivery of the content. The goal of art is to effectively deliver its content, with as little that distracts from that job as possible. Collective - Subjective - Representation-first - Tradition-based
Iconoclast	The Iconoclast is interested in portraying raw, human experience in as honest and authentic a way as possible. Art is to hold a mirror to reality, and show the audience the hard, painful truths of existence. The Iconoclast resists pandering, comforting indulgences, or diluting the art, considering that to be selling out. Artistic integrity is critically important to Iconoclasts. Beauty, craft, and standard narrative may be cast aside in pursuit of the expression of the truth of human emotion. Individual - Subjective - Representation-first - Revolution-based

Here are some examples, mapped onto the quadrants:

Here's Scott McCloud giving a talk where he presents his chart. (It's at 5:10 - 6:55.)

Here’s a cartoon! ☺

Planet Four from Andy Martin on Vimeo.

Peace,

Dave Roel.

All cultures impose conformity. Yet all benefit from the contribution of their marginal personalities — those who do not fit the mold.

- Howard Bloom

Some random reviews

So how about some pop culture reviews.

TV. Breaking Bad. Entertaining. Good music. The lesson: getting involved in crime is always a bad idea.

Agents of Shield. Honestly, I'm finding it a little weak. Seems kind of cheap looking. Not really that thrilling. The characters aren't really all that compelling. Sure, it's really early, and I'm willing to give it a chance to settle into its groove. But it seems a bit bland.

Comics. Still enjoying Hawkeye. The current Infinity event is fairly decent cosmic hoo ha, as long as you don't think about it too much. Strangely, I feel that Astro City has taken a bit of a jump in writing quality lately, which surprises me; I've never been overly impressed with Busiek's writing.

I'm actually kind of enjoying what Mark Waid is doing with Daredevil. He's done what he should do, write it the way he wants, without being indebted to the past. He doesn't want to imitate the past, mean streets, gangland crime stories; he's set the thing solidly in the Marvel universe, and writing it as a super-hero book, which I think is a good decision. He's certainly paid more attention to Daredevil's powers than anyone has in a long time, and the story is compelling and solidly crafted. The visuals are pretty inventive, too, especially with the depictions of Daredevil’s radar sense. A good read.

I'm also enjoying Waid's Indestructible Hulk, Slott's Superior Spider-Man, and Aaron's Thor. Not really enjoying Bendis's X-Men, or really any X-books these days, or Forever Evil, or really much of anything DC these days. X-books and DC are really fairly dismal these days.

Now a cartoon! ☺

Bendito Machine IV - Fuel the Machines from Zumbakamera on Vimeo.

Peace,

Dave Roel.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

- Thoreau

Dave's Favorite Writers 3

More of my favorite writers.

Alan Moore. I hardly need to be the one to offer praise for Alan Moore. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the last thirty years. I love him for the same reasons everyone else does: his solid craftsmanship, his delicious prose style, his penetrating insight, his champion imagination, his wealth of knowledge and erudition, his perceptive understanding of psychology and society, his rich characterizations, his smart, clever humor, his deft ability at empathetic characterization, and his sheer, raw power to tell a damn good story.

You feel smarter after reading Alan Moore. You feel you know more about how the world works. You know something you didn’t before. If you’ve never read anything of his, check him out, and for goodness’ sake, never watch any movie based on one of his books. If you have, forget it and read the book — the book is better.

Here’s the opening of one of my favorite Alan Moore stories.

Neil Gaiman. Again, not an obscure writer. He’s one of the most well-known authors on the planet. If you’re any kind of a regular fiction reader at all, chances are you have an opinion of him already. But his popularity shouldn’t obscure honest assessment of his work. His fame is due entirely to his ability — he really is quite a good writer. But I don’t need to be the one to offer encomiums to him. You’ll be able to find plenty.

Here’s a completely random bit from Sandman.

Now here's a fun cartoon.☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

- Albert Einstein

Dave's Favorite Writers 2

So why don’t I tell you about some more of my favorite writers.

Jonathan Carroll is a remarkable fantasist, a prodigious imagination, and a searing, emotionally affecting writer. His work twists and plays with your expectations, delights with the inventiveness of the confabulations, and somehow always drills to the core of your heart. He is highly regarded in the field as a superb writer. Sample any of his works, and you’ll be hooked.

Tom Stoppard is a playwright. His work is filled with wordplay, intellectual rumination, puns, inventive scenarios, enthralling characters, compelling ideas, and plenty of humor. Reading Stoppard (or watching a production of one of his plays, if possible) is an intellectual joy. He is a writer who respects the audience’s intelligence. Give him a try, if this sounds like your kind of thing.

Jorge Luis Borges is not in any way obscure — he’s one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century. There’s little I can say to add to the abundant praise he has deservedly received. He was a titanic imagineer, a writer of sublime intellect and interest. He wrote mental joyrides through universes of thought and possibility, constructed elegant machines of concept and magic. His stories insinuate themselves into your mind, expand your horizons, altering you forever.

These writers get my highest recommendation — their works have provided me with endless hours of stimulation and delight. Give any of them a try, if they sound like the sort of thing you’d be into.

(No links — I presume you know how to Google.)

This week’s cartoon is an all-time classic. ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

A man is as strong as he will let himself be. That is the first truth of magic.

- Alan Moore

Dave's Favorite Writers 1

I enjoy reading. I have learned a lot from reading challenging writers. Let me tell you about some of my favorite writers.

I used to read a lot of science fiction. I have read and enjoyed the work of the classic writers of the field, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, etc. But many of my favorite SF writers are ones that are more obscure.

One of my all-time favorite SF writers is Stanisław Lem. Lem wrote delightful books that enthralled me. He wrote very intelligent, clever stories filled with a love of language, logic, puzzles and whimsy. The Cyberiad is a wonderful book, telling the stories of two friendly rival inventor robots, who travel the universe getting into all sorts of odd and unlikely adventures. The Cyberiad is appropriate for all ages, but Lem wrote novels for adults as well. He has been poorly served by movies, at least in America. Solaris, starring George Clooney, was based on his book, but don't let that prejudice you against him. The book has little resemblance to the movie. The Congress, starring Robin Wright, is loosely based on Lem's The Futurological Congress. I'm sure the resemblance of the two will be tenuous.

Another of my favorite obscure SF authors is Lucius Shepard. Shepard is well-regarded, having won many awards in the field. He writes in an extremely dense, rich, flowing, prose style that I find quite beautiful to read. The strength and beauty of his sentences is breathtaking. His stories are brutal and gripping, often set in very dangerous locations, depicting the underclass of the world. His muscular, powerful prose takes you on unflinching tours of the unglamorous lives of the underprivileged, and he concocts fantastic scenarios of first-rate imagining. His best-known series is probably the Dragon Griaule series, a series of stories concerning a mile-long, 750-foot-high dragon, paralyzed from an ancient battle. I find his writing endlessly compelling.

It seems I have gone on too long. That's what happens when you get me going on some of my favorite subjects. I have many more writers I planned to talk about. I'll have to save them for future blogs. Here's this week's fun cartoon. ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

Perfection may not be attainable in this life, but that's no reason not to strive for it.

- Scott McCloud

Animation

Animation is one of my favorite artforms. It's a beautiful art, evocative and capable of great depth. Animation has a long, rich history of wonderful work. The beauty and sentiment of Disney can often be breathtaking, and the humor of the Warner Bros. cartoons and the anarchic madness of Tex Avery can be delightfully satisfying entertainments.

I remember spending much of my childhood watching Saturday morning and after school television cartoons, indiscriminately. The quality of the writing or the animation didn't matter — it was a cartoon, therefore it was worth watching. At the time, that meant a lot of Hanna Barbera, and mediocre adventure shows. But gradually, I developed some discrimination.

There has been a renaissance of animation since the Simpsons hit big. Today, animation is a solid presence on television, and there are specialized cable channels devoted to animation, both old and new. Animation is no longer considered as kid's stuff-it can be seen as worthy of respect.

In the movies, Pixar has become a juggernaut of quality movie-making. Their movies are both critical and commercial successes. And internationally, every industrialized country has its own animation industry. Japan in particular produces animation respected worldwide.

There are some great sources for one to follow the history and news of the artform of animation. Cartoon Brew is probably the best source for current news, and Comics Alliance also covers animation news. Animated Views covers news with podcasts, and Animation Scoop is a full online animation magazine. A little looking will turn up many more sites, of course.

From time to time, I'm going to post up a fun animated cartoon here. Here's one for this week. ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.

- Ethel Barrett