Graphic Novels

[Black Swan]

She should at least get her money back. That's a problem whenever you buy anything off the street. Once I bought a little greasy bust made of clay for a dollar signed Ravelli at a church bazaar. I had to clean it with a toothbrush to get the slime off the thing. It sold at auction for $1500. That was a lucky strike but I kept thinking of who had donated it.

 

[Rekrab]

No, I didn't. That sounds like a good one. Too bad she had to given it up. I once had a CDV (Carte de Visite) photo of a woman I thought looked an awful lot like Emily Dickinson, and on the back it had the mark of a photographer from her home town (Amherst?) Turned out it was Emily's cousin.

 

[mjp]

That's rough to have 30-50 grand snatched from your pocket like that.

Or $96, depending on how you look at it.

 

[Rekrab]

My wife would think it was $50 K. I'd think it was $96. Just depends on how you look at it.

 

[d gray]

this was pretty good -

 

[Bukfan]

Indeed it was! I just read it myself. However, I do have a few complaints. The panels are too small, due to the small size of the book. I wish it had been a bit larger. Also, I don't like that he keeps reusing the same drawings over and over again. He just changes the distance of view (long distance-medium distance-close up), and that's amateurish or just lazy work. Finally, I don't like that the facial expressions are the same neutral expressions all through the book. They never change their blank stare. That said, it was an interesting read. He sure knows how to argue his point of view on prostitution, and it's nice to see comics being used to present and debate some serious social issues.

 

[Digney in Burnaby]

My eyes are pretty poor for small drawings and even smaller type fonts. That was a drawback (heh!) to Chester's memoir/polemic.

 

[d gray]

from crumb's website - him talking about the book and how small it is...

"Just recently he published a great book, maybe one of his best books. It's called Paying For It. It's great, well worth reading. The only problem with it is the pages are printed so small that you have to read it with a magnifying glass. They sent me an advance copy of the book, just a galley copy, and asked me if I would write something about it, a blurb, and I did. But when I wrote praising the story, I also wrote, "I hope you're not planning on printing this as small as this galley you sent me. It's unreadable! I had to read it with a magnifying glass. Is this the size you're actually going to print this?' The people at his publishers, Drawn and Quarterly, wrote back and said, "Oh we really like what you wrote and we're going to use it as the introduction of the book.' But they did not address my question about the size of the pages. And they printed it that size. It's too bad. It's really a shame they did that. Maybe Chester Brown wanted it that size, I don't know.

Also, I don't like that he keeps reusing the same drawings over and over again. He just changes the distance of view (long distance-medium distance-close up), and that's amateurish or just lazy work.

i didn't notice that - i'll have to get my magnifying glass out and have a look.

 

[mjp]

I don't like that he keeps reusing the same drawings over and over again.

Then you wouldn't like David Lynch's strip that ran in the LA Weekly back in the 80s and 90s...

That was the strip every week. The only thing that changed was the text in the third panel. It always struck me as absurdly hilarious.

 

[jordan]

paying for it was definitely an interesting read, but i don't really like brown's more polemical work. his schizophrenia essay is the same thing. it's clear from his earlier work that he's pretty emotionally closed off, and he owns up to that - i never liked you is so great because he's honest about how he affected the people around him who tried to get close to him, and it's pretty devastating in an understated way. this new one, though... his conviction that he is right is just exhausting when it comes to telling a story. i'm inclined to agree with him (except about his post-romantic utopia in which all sex is an economic transaction), but the way he sets up his friends and patsies who just exist to parrot arguments he finds ineffective is pretty irritating, and he's so wrapped up in showing why he's right that he doesn't really bother to tell a compelling story.

 

[Bukfan]

Then you wouldn't like David Lynch's strip that ran in the LA Weekly back in the 80s and 90s...

That was the strip every week. The only thing that changed was the text in the third panel. It always struck me as absurdly hilarious.

I don't know the series, but I would probably love it if I found it funny. I would have an issue with the constant repetition of the same drawings, but I would'nt let that stand in my way for getting a good laugh.

paying for it was definitely an interesting read, but i don't really like brown's more polemical work.

"Paying For It" is the first book of Brown's I've read and I think he carried his pro-prositution arguments a bit too far, almost (?) to the point where love was something that wasn't worth getting into (unless it was the non-sexual love you feel for family and friends). To him, paying for sex is the ideal way of having sex, but that does'nt have to be the case for everybody else. Him being an oddball probably explains why he thinks so. Apart from that, I do agree with most, if not all, of the arguments he makes.