Go to: Skimlines, by Sandy Kim (via Tom Spurgeon)
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
9/29/2017
7/29/2017
More NonSense: Comic-Con 2017 Edition
Go to: Comic-Con International
Comic-Con International in San Diego (at least until 2021) is the big comics-adjacent event this July. How did this year's super-massive convention go down? Here are a few links to get you started:
Words:
Moviepilot reports on DC's future publishing initiatives. Todd Allen reacts to the news that the comics industry is close to collapse.
John Lewis leads a march through the San Diego Convention Center.
Comics Announcement: The Terrifics by Jeff Lemire and Ivan Reis.
The 2017 Eisner Awards.
LA Times
Vox on the the film juggernaut that is Marvel Studios.
The Verge
The Beat, more, more, more,
io9, more, more, more, more,
Time
Tor
Women Write Write About Comics
Videos:
Comics Announcement: Superman: Year One by Frank Miller.
The Beat,
io9, more, more, more, more, more, more, more,
Lupita Nyong'o, more,
Estelle
Tested
Yellow Productions, more,
Hyper RPG
Trailers & Clips:
io9, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more,
Vox, more, more, more, more, more,
Photos:
Bleeding Cool
The Guardian
io9
Reuters
Space.com
Glen Weldon lists ten comics that changed the medium. It's a fairly conventional list since most pundits would agree with his choices.
Glen Weldon also lists his top 100 graphic novels.
Glen Weldon lists the most influential newspaper strips.
Matthew Thurber lists 10 cartoonists for art lovers.
Abraham Riesman on the rapidly expanding kids comics market.
Shannon Wattres, Tom King, And Veronica Fish list 17 comics to read at the beach.
Amanda Shendruk analyses gender representation in comics.
Abraham Riesman on the fallout over Marvel making Captain America evil.
Christopher Butcher employs the somewhat unsatisfying "Marvel will be Marvel" observation when commenting on the publisher's recent woes.
Tom Holland trying to pass off as an American teenager in order to experience what life is like for students attending American high schools is cute. Then again, critics are going gaga over his portrayal of Peter Parker in "Spider-Man: Homecoming."
The "Marvel Cinematic Universe" version takes more liberties with the character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko than the two previous Sony Studio incarnations. But the changes have actually resonated with the MCU audience because they still manage to tap into the character 's core appeal. Take his relationship with Tony Stark/Iron Man. Peter's classic Spider-Man suit being gifted to him by Tony would seem like a violation of the superhero's reputation for self-reliance and creativity. But the relationship also hones in on Peter's often troubled history with terrible father figures. And Tony, who essentially substitutes for Norman Osborne/Green Goblin as wealthy industrialist with dubious motives, is as terrible a father figure as any. Peter's rejection of his generous offer at the film's end is in line with the character's emerging maturity. In the meantime, his hacking of the suit's parental controls is what any overprotective adult should expect from a very bright, if not too experienced teenager.
Holland's dorktastic Peter isn't the lonely outcast of Lee and Ditko. But the bumbling hero who learns to rely on a supportive network is one of the more welcome changes of the Miles Morales/Kamala Khan generation. More importantly, Holland is the most convincing adolescent of any actor ever tasked to play Peter. And it is refreshing to see him interact with a similarly young (not to mention multiethnic) cast of actors after so many MCU films populated by serious-looking adults.
Alex Abad-Santos on the film's homage to the iconic scene in Amazing Spider-Man No. 33.
Pepe the Frog now has a lawyer in Kimberly Motley.
Sean T. Collins lists the top 40 "Game of Thrones" characters and the top 25 episodes in anticipation of the series July return on HBO.
RIP Joan Lee, spouse of Stan Lee.
RIP Sam Glanzman (December 5, 1924 - 2017), veteran artist known for his many war comics made for Charlton and DC in the 1960s and 1970s.
RIP Flo Sternberg (March 17, 1939 - July 23, 2017), Marvel's 'Fabulous Flo'. Tribute by Michael J. Vassallo.
RIP George Romero (February 4, 1940 - July 16, 2017), director of "Night of the Living Dead". the film that spawned the modern zombie genre. Reactions from his colleagues.
RIP Martin Landau (June 20, 1928 - July 15, 2017), veteran Hollywood actor, whose credits included "Space: 1999", "North by Northwest", "Mission Impossible", and "Ed Wood".
RIP June Foray (September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017), celebrated voice actress. Tribute from Matt Zoller Seitz.
7/12/2017
6/21/2017
Gallery: Amazon History Painting
Go to: Art Station, by Houston Sharp, Raffy Ochoa etc. (via Kaitlyn Booth)
5/25/2017
More Nonsense: Kung fu Kenny Edition
Go to: DNA, by Kendrick Lamar
Marvel had to release a statement to reassure fans, due to the backlash over its latest event Secret Empire.
At Marvel, we want to assure all of our fans that we hear your concerns about aligning Captain America with Hydra and we politely ask you to allow the story to unfold before coming to any conclusion.1978 documentary The World of Comic Books is now available online. It's an interesting time capsule of the Bronze Age comics industry, complete with onomatopoeia (pow, swoosh, boom!), canned sound effects, and accompanying bombastic narration that could have been written by Stan Lee himself. The documentary even gets to throw shade at the casual sexism of comics fandom. But the best part is seeing artists such as Neal Adams, Jim Steranko and Trevor Von Eeden in their prime.
Nicola Streeten reports on two comics exhibitions: Shoah et bande dessinée and The Inking Women.
Jia Tolentino profiles G. Willow Wilson.
Christopher Butcher talks TCAF.
Tom Spurgeon reports from this year's TCAF.
It's time for the Jedi to end. And it just took 40 years.
Shawn Setaro on the connection between kung fu cinema and hip hop culture.
Robert Foyle Hunwick on the rise of Chinese fight clubs.
Maren Williams on the sedition charges brought against Fahmi Reza for portraying Prime Minister Najib Razak as a clown.
Charles Pulliam-Moore on the death threats levelled against transgender webcomic creator Sophie Labelle.
It boggles the mind that there are racist Star Trek fans who reject the cast of the latest series Discovery. It's Star Trek!
R.I.P. Roger Moore (October 14, 1927 – May 23, 2017). He was the James Bond of my generation.
4/01/2017
Guardians of the Louvre
Translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian
As cliche as this now sounds, one of Art’s most lauded virtues is its ability to transport the viewer from their immediate surroundings with the power of imagination, and deposit them into a very different place and time. This is a quality exploited with often eye-catching results in the luxuriant watercolors of Jiro Taniguchi. Whether it’s the everyday bustle in the streets of Tokyo, the austere beauty of the Himalayas, or as in Guardians of the Louvre, the majestic halls of one of the world’s great museums, located in one of the world’s most elegant city centers. Taniguchi’s photo-realistic level of detail captures both the works of art on display within, and the architectural splendor of the Parisian skyline. When his fictional avatar beholds the museum’s famous Pyramid entrance and gasps at the structure’s crisp lines, the scene works because the panel reproduces what someone would witness with their own eyes: The modernist blend of steel and glass offsetting the massive Baroque facade of the surrounding palace. The mind-boggling precision of his hand drawn line drawings does not falter throughout the entire book.
The premise of a Japanese artist spending several days exploring Paris, only to fall into a fevered dream which involves the intervention of one the Louvre’s most famous statues, has little in the way of plot. And the educational intent that animated the project doesn’t leave much room for interesting character development. But it does allow Taniguchi to reflect on his artistic heritage. The two most successful chapters center around the artist communing with Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Vincent van Gogh, two painters who’ve had an enormous impact on modern Japanese aesthetic sensibilities. His private reverie on viewing Recollection of Mortefontaine allows him to walk in the steps of Corot and wander the landscape until he meets the master himself. A day-trip to the town Auvers-sur-Oise creates a similar occasion with van Gogh. Admittedly, this is a little reminiscent of a similar scene in Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, though Taniguchi’s touch is lighter and more deft.
Recreating the work of Corot, van Gogh, and Barbizon school painter Charles-François Daubigny traces a line linking these artists to Taniguchi’s own body of work. He shares with them a devotion to landscapes, a similar kind of sensuality, not to mention a reverence for a sublime natural order represented in their paintings. His comic panels are not a form of slavish reproduction, but a recognition of an unspoken personal connection.
Not all the museum’s works elicit the same level of emotional investment. The artist follows the usual tourist tradition and visits the Mona Lisa upon entering the premises. But his main takeaway is to be overwhelmed by the throngs surrounding the Louvre's most famous resident. Large crowds being an inescapable part of famous museums is not a particularly original observation. But having acknowledged the Mona Lisa’s undeniable importance justifying the attention heaped upon it, he quickly moves on.
The Raft of the Medusa, another celebrated work, is only discussed within the context of the Louvre's WW II history. The museum’s caretakers went through a lot of trouble to transport the massive painting to a safe location as the Nazi invasion became imminent. Taniguchi illustrates wartime Paris in sepia tones, imitating archival footage. Sure, this is fascinating stuff in a National Geographic TV documentary kind of way. Moving the museum’s vast (and fragile) collection into hiding was a truly monumental endeavour. But the net effect of Taniguchi’s narrative choices only serves to distance the reader from the story, as his protagonist can only passively observe events from the sidelines.
In the end, this isn't a story about the Louvre. Taniguchi's makes no grand statements and delivers no keen insights about Art itself or the state of art museums. This is a picturesque book about cross-cultural influence experienced by one creative individual, and expressed through the art he produces. The Louvre is too vast a place to be absorbed within a few days visit, or one slim volume. But like Taniguchi's artist, anyone can discover some tiny part that would be of value to them.
1/23/2017
1/04/2017
R.I.P. Tyrus Wong (October 25, 1910 – December 30, 2016)
Go to: Tyrus the Movie
Tributes by Heidi MacDonald, Margalit Fox, Elaine Woo, Audie Cornish, Sean Rossman, Patrick Hipes, Halle Kiefer, Sam Barsanti, Jacob Bryant,
Wong has been the subject of a documentary, by Pamela Tom.
Images via Christopher Jobson
11/08/2016
9/28/2016
11/09/2015
8/05/2015
9/26/2012
6/18/2012
Sculpture: Guy Laramée's Book Carvings
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| El amor por las montañas |
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| The Great Wall |
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| Biblios |
This is every bibliophile's nightmare. But those are some pretty landscapes.
4/10/2012
2/15/2012
12/04/2011
10/05/2011
9/14/2011
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