davidthompson

Human Bean Juice

Further to my comments on Zack Synder’s forthcoming film of Watchmen, the first trailer is now online.

Here’s the high-definition version. More. And. Also.

Long Shot

Zack Snyder’s forthcoming film adaptation of the graphic novel Watchmen is, by any measure, a long shot. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic book yarn remains one of the most densely plotted and satisfying examples of the form. The book is artful in its telling, at times ingenious, and rewards repeated reading. And this, for Synder, is part of the problem. The pleasures of Watchmen are very much about how the story is told, i.e., as a comic. The plot often hinges on tiny visual details; graffiti, partly-obscured adverts, a pocketful of sugar cubes – all of which become significant as the story unfolds. Skipping back and forth through the pages and revisiting these details is hard to avoid, and indeed is intended. How this might translate to film isn’t clear.

Moore described the book as “unfilmable,” not least because of its narrative structure, with flashbacks, supplementary “research” and a comic-within-a-comic that serves to counterpoint events. In an interview with Amazon, Moore recounted his reaction to Terry Gilliam’s abortive 1989 attempt to turn “the War and Peace of graphic novels” into a film: “I had to tell [Gilliam] that I didn’t think it was filmable. I didn’t design it to show off the similarities between cinema and comics, which there are, but in my opinion are fairly unremarkable. It was designed to show off the things that comics could do that literature and cinema couldn’t.” In The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, David Hughes quotes Gibbons making much the same point: “With a comic book the reader can back-track; you can reach page twenty and say, ‘Hey, that’s what that was all about on page three,’ and then nip back and have a look. We wanted to take advantage of that difference… We wanted to make a comic book that read as a straightforward story, but gradually you became aware that it had a symmetrical structure.” 

Those unfamiliar with the comic’s plot can find a summary here. Essentially, Watchmen is a detective story set in an alternative 1980s in which Woodward and Bernstein were assassinated and Nixon is still president. The comic’s twelve chapters mark a countdown to armageddon as one by one a group of retired and questionable heroes are eliminated and the world teeters on the brink of thermonuclear war. Investigating the death of a former masked colleague, a disheveled vigilante named Rorschach uncovers a plot of unspeakable proportions and uncertain intent. The looming showdown of military superpowers could in theory be prevented by the one character with super-powers of his own, the casually miraculous Dr Manhattan. Freakishly disembodied by a laboratory mishap, Manhattan is, quite literally, a self-resurrected man. All but omnipotent, this blue transfigured being is assumed to be America’s deliverance and the ultimate deterrent. However, the doctor’s godlike perceptions are proving incompatible with human imperatives: “A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there’s no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?”

Misremembered

Here’s a short Chris Ware animation for the series This American Life.

Just whose memory is it?

More Chris Ware here, on the power of unreal cameras. (h/t, Coudal.)

Borrowed Shame

Via a reader, JuliaM, here’s a footnote to yesterday’s adventure with Amanda Marcotte and the Hysterical Sisterhood. Faced with the aforementioned disapproval, Ms Marcotte’s publishers, Seal Press, distinguish themselves with this:

We do not believe it is appropriate for a book about feminism, albeit a book of humor, to have any images or illustrations that are offensive to anyone… As an organisation, we need to look seriously at the effects of white privilege. We will be looking for anti-racist trainings [sic] offered here in the Bay Area.

Perhaps Shakti Butler and Peggy McIntosh will be willing to screw in the mental braces.

In the meantime, please know that all involved in the publishing of It’s a Jungle Out There, from editorial to production were not trying to send a message to anyone about our feelings regarding race. If taken seriously as a representation of our intentions, these images are also not very feminist. By putting the big blonde in the skimpy bathing suit with the big breasts, the tiny waist, and the weapon on our cover, we are also not asserting that she is any kind of standard that anyone should aspire to. This 1950s Marvel comic is not an accurate reflection of our beauty standards, our beliefs regarding one’s right to bear arms, nor our perspectives on race relations, foreign policy, or environmental policy.

Beauty standards, gun laws, race relations, foreign policy, the environment… Heavens. That covers everything, surely?

UPDATE:

Ah.

Please note that, upon reflection, we realise that the second to the last paragraph of this post doesn’t do a good job of conveying our intended meaning… We apologise that this paragraph undermines our apology. We acknowledge that the images are racist and not okay under any circumstances. We are wholeheartedly sincere in our apology, and the actions we’ve laid out above will be acted upon immediately.

As I mentioned in the comments yesterday, there’s a farcical through-the-looking-glass quality to outpourings of this kind. But it strikes me as more than just absurdity. It’s disabling too, and more than a little malign. One of the surest ways to erode a person’s probity is to make them repeat in public, among their peers, things that are unrealistic and absurd; things they know, or suspect, to be untrue. The more incoherent and ridiculous the claim - or apology - and the greater the mismatch with reality, the larger the effect. Bad medicine.

Tales of Woe

The mighty Cath Elliott, a Guardian regular whose devotion to identity politics and hand-wringing has previously entertained us, now turns her attention to matters of a more mundane kind, with a piece titled, How Do You Keep a Sock on a Dog? Sadly, this rambling and incongruous article about a pet’s plastic surgical collar offers precious little scope for Ms Elliott’s usual agonising, though, of course, the urge hasn’t entirely been frustrated.

I’m feeling guilty because it seems so cruel making him wear it.

Thankfully, others take their guilt very seriously indeed and reach almost operatic levels of indignation and remorse. Among them is Amanda Marcotte, whose Pandagon website provides a safe and hegemony-free environment in which devotees can rend their garments and gnaw at their own wrists. The latest drama, discovered via Protein Wisdom, concerns the inadvertently scandalous imagery chosen to illustrate Ms Marcotte’s new book, It’s a Jungle Out There: the Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments. The illustrations in question, which parody 1950s comic books - themselves very often parodies - have injured feelings on a truly devastating scale:

I feel so nauseous and sleepless about this whole thing that I felt the need to weigh in as well.

And,

In the history of this country, there has always been one broad and well-lit path for oppressed classes of people to “better themselves” — side with the oppressors against someone else. That is exactly what these images are depicting: women gaining power through helping men against savage, violent brown people.

There ensues a long and emotionally fraught debate about whether to withdraw the offending publication, or boycott it, or reprint the book denuded of its connotations of “white privilege”.

I’m not going to pretend any of this is easy. Of course it’s hard to figure out what to say when you are under attack, when you feel defensive, when you feel like throwing up your hands and saying “Fuck it.”

However, while much of the feminist blogosphere still trembles with shock and umbrage, the greatest expression of feeling is found at Ms Marcotte’s own site, where the suitably chastened host offers an apology.

I can understand why anyone would choose to boycott a book with these images, and I respect that choice. Hopefully, once they are removed, people will reconsider supporting the book if they like the content. I, for one, will be ripping the pages out of my copy but keeping them as a reminder to be alert.

Not to be outdone, hundreds of Pandagon readers begin a chorus of wailing and righteous theorising.

Like I said in the thread at Feministe, that’s not a kitschy and ironic use of racist imagery. If that were actually the point, the purpose of the images, OMG, that would NOT make it okay. The use of images of scary black native men to convey a sense of danger is a blatantly RACIST use of racist imagery, wherein the racist message is the point. Offensive. Very, very offensive.

It isn’t long before a phantom subtext is discovered, and combed over in great detail. 

Although one can still make the argument that using colonialism/expansionism as the underpinning for a metaphor to describe the ‘battles’ of feminism is inherently problematic. But racistly depicted indigenous peoples? This clearly crosses the line. It suggests that what feminists need to conquer is dark people.

And, 

I really, really didn’t see the racism ‘til it was pointed out to me. THEN I saw it, oh boy did I see it! And I was so ashamed of my blindness.

And, a personal favourite,

White privilege is deeply rooted. It takes concerted effort to sensitise oneself (if one is white, that is) to recognise it, both in oneself and in the world around one. Hell, my husband and son are Asian, and sometimes I forget they’re not white like me.

If you’ve a stomach for high drama and competitive pseudo-grief, the Pandagon comments may entertain as a kind of identity politics pantomime. There is, I think, something quite compelling about watching people elevate paranoid self-loathing to the level of both piety and art form. A more realistic, and quite funny, discussion can be found at Protein Wisdom.

Update: The sorrow escalates.

Ease your guilt with a donation.

Imaginings

A directory of visual concept art.

From Star Wars to Iron Man. Related. And. 

Jetpack Envy

I toyed with the idea of writing something about the latest Turner Prize winner, Mark Wallinger, and his generic, vacuous gestures. But, frankly, it’s all too dreary and enough has already been said. 

This, however, cheered me up no end.

Illustrations by Tom Gauld. More. And. (Via The Roar of Comics.)

Looking Good

Comics are above all a visual medium and how they look is a matter of no small importance. Lapses in writing can to some extent be redeemed by very strong artwork, but a badly drawn comic is much more difficult to forgive. Thankfully, Frank Quitely draws very well indeed and is once again working with Grant Morrison, whose writing is often rather good. Quitely’s previous collaborations with Morrison, on New X-Men and We3, are among the finer examples of the comic book form. Their latest collaboration, All-Star Superman, lends subtlety and charm to what is, for me, an otherwise tedious character. Quitely and Morrison manage to give the well-meaning man of steel a measure of personality, and mortality, and pleasing emphasis is placed on how the central characters relate. The overall tone is one of affectionate nostalgia, with small character details set against amusing spectacle.

The most recent instalment finds our hero usurped by a pair of long-lost Kryptonian astronauts, Bar-El and Lilo, whose detachment from the “squalor” around them is refreshing in its candour and logic. (We also learn that the influence of Earth’s new champions extends to fashion, with Jimmy Olsen taking inordinate pride in his new Krypton-style “overpants”.) The inevitable tussle between Superman and his replacements is brief and visually witty, not least when Superman is hurled into the Moon, cracking it rather badly and prompting a hasty repair job involving several national landmarks. It’s a moment of pure visual whimsy, one of many. All-Star Superman doesn’t have the psychological grit of New X-Men or the emotive edge of We3, but Quitely and Morrison spin an engaging yarn that’s always a pleasure to look at and that even makes Superman an interesting character. Which is something Bryan Singer failed to do, armed with $200,000,000.

Evil Schemes, Thwarted

Brace yourselves, aesthetes. Via Marble River comes the mind-shattering return of the Ed Wood of comics, Mr Fletcher Hanks. A complete, and bewildering, adventure, first published in Fantastic Comics #1, December 1939, can be found here. “The Brain wants all Earth people destroyed.” And Dianna’s space belt won’t work.

More of Hanks’ unhinged dramas here and here.

The Fletcher Hanks anthology, I Shall Destroy All the Civilised Planets, can be ordered via Amazon and Fantagraphics. (H/T, Journalista!)

Tracking Down Ditko

Here’s Jonathan Ross’ excellent BBC4 documentary about his personal hunt for Spider-Man co-creator, Steve Ditko.

Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.  More on Ditko’s art and politics here.

If the YouTube clips disappear again, try via here, here, here or here.