the regulator was having this awesome 20percent off sale this weekend, so of course i had to stop in and check out the selection. there was this one anthology that looked awesome: the new smithsonian book of comic-book stories: from crumb to clowes. i was all excited about it . . . and then i brought it home and looked at it more closely.
first of all, their selection of materials really sort of sucks. these are supposed to be the big-name people from the 60s on up, but some of them are really not all that well known*; melinda gebbie, for instance, is mostly known for being married to alan moore. i've never read any of her stuff before, and y'all know i read all sorts of comics. of course, i will not bitch about her inclusion, b/c she's one of only THREE women (out of 36 stories) in the entire thing. where's aline kominsky-crumb? julie doucet? jessica abel? ariel schrag? sarah dyer? all the chicks from the twisted sister anthologies? it's a little ridiculous.
plus, since most of the book is black-'n'-white, some of these great historic stories just look blah. the color is part of what makes works like the dark knight returns or watchmen or sandman so compelling, and that's really a major loss here. i realize there are such things as costs . . . which brings me to my last point.
uh, printer and/or editor error much? two stories are ruined by duplicate pages in place of other pages. what the hell, smithsonian!
don't buy this book. just don't. if you are looking for comic book anthologies, i'll look through mine and recommend some that are actually good.
*not that i don't think these artists are good--i mean, some of them are good--but i do think this anthology leaves out people who are more deserving.
jordon here.
ReplyDeletei have this book in my interlibrary loan queue (along with some of jason's stuff)...i'll take a look at it more closely once it comes in. i did notice while perusing it the other day at b&n that they do include daniel clowes's caricature, which is the best thing he's ever done (though the recent issue of eightball comes close). of course, they may be going on this not because they have taste but because comics journal picked it as their fav dan clowes strip (i think). pretty egregious though they left out jessica abel (can't speak to the others, and i think aline crumb sucks, IMHO).
shameless plug: recent review of spiegelman's book on my site. jason impressions to come too. also possible why-i-hate-seth post, if i'm feeling snarky. lots of comix reading this break.
http://infogluttony.blog-city.com
i'll be interested to hear your take on it--i certainly wasn't complaining about the inclusion of clowes, by the way.
ReplyDeletei think aline kominsky-crumb has more relevance for jewish chicks whihc makes her questionable art easier to jsutify. also, she was one of the first people out there doing autobio stuff, and deserves some props for helping out that trend (i'm a fan of the autobio comics).
off to read your comments on spiegelman--if i wasn't so lazy i'd find mine on this site for comparison, but i have the flu so fuck that noise.
jordon the flaneur here.
ReplyDeleteone thing i do like with respect to aline is when she and crumb do one of those tag-team strips that i've seen in the new yorker. she's got this primitivst vibe going on, the perfect counterpoint to crumb's dramatic, meticulous style. they're just your typical married couple, squabbling on paper. really quite charming.
and actually, those tag-team strips are one of the few instances where i like r. crumb's work. so there you go.
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