[Flickr: Pierce Place]
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[Quote: A Book for Everyone and No One]
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[Flickr: Dylan]
[Style: A Softer World]
You'll recall that part 1 of my holiday loot recollections actually began some time between the two December birthdays that I celebrate every year. Therefore, part 2, subtitled "Comics," and featuring an interesting triangulation of my tastes:
Exhibit A: The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories (Amazon). You would be well within your rights to ask me why I got a book the content of which is already entirely online. You would be well within my rights, however, to remember that the book has been out for less than 3 months, received more than 27,000 pre-orders, and is heading for a 3rd print run already. I'm a big believer in supporting webcomic artists by picking up their books even if (and even because) their work is available online. Also, PBF is high-larious and utterly incorrect in the process. It makes me laugh and wince at the same time. Also? Here's from an interview with Nicholas Gurewitch:
I encountered a letter to a newspaper that questioned how I could make light of Jesus comically. She wondered, in her letter, whether I had any fear of God. Reading her question, I did have fear of her.
Exhibit B: The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Amazon) is a graphic novel in the sense that it's a story told at least partly through images, but the illustrations and the prose alternate pages and sometimes sets of pages. Invention is a much more earnest story, and the drawings are (intentionally) much more cinematic. It won the Caldecott medal this year, and is in that sense a children's book, but honestly, it's a little more all ages than that. The rhythm of the illustration, and that the book features automata and references the birth of cinema, are part of its appeal for me.
Apropos of nothing, the author is the first cousin, once removed, of legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick.
Exhibit C: The Nightly News (Amazon) was the one book I saw over the holidays that made me cheer inside when I saw it. A lot of folks are putting it on their Best of 97 lists, and with good reason. Take one part V for Vendetta, update it by about 20 years, and add in equal parts of media fatigue, contemporary graphic design and infographics, and you've got the makings for TNN. Seriously, it's the kind of book that, 20 years from now, will either mark a milestone in the industry or a missed opportunity. It's that interesting, and that different from anything else being published. Hickman's working on several new projects right now, and it will be equally interesting to see how his style persists, changes, etc.
Interesting to me, at least. That's all for now.
Overheard this evening...
I first caught wind of this over at Planet Karen, one of the few blog/comics I follow regularly. Seems that an artist (Todd Goldman) basically lifted this piece of "art" directly from a webcomic produced some five years ago (Dave Kelly's Purple Pussy), going so far as to reproduce even the details like the curl of the tail, eyelashes, etc. It's pretty egregious. And the cartoonists, they are less than pleased, needless to say. Most of the webcomic artists that I follow "give their work away" and struggle to make ends meet with Cafe Press tchotchkes, compilation books, etc. It's not tough to imagine why having someone else display their work in a gallery and sell it for $$$ might rankle them.You can find some links and more detail over at Juxtapoz, which is where the above graphic comes from.
I keep my ear to the ground, and typically forward to Becky mentions of plagiarism, intellectual property, etc., that I come across, particularly when I deem it unlikely that she'll have seen them. And I did with this case as well. What struck me, and part of why I forwarded it, as I was tracing out links was Scott Kurtz's suggestion:
David, you should make that panel open source. You should encourage everyone in webcomics to do a praying pussy strip. Make this one image synonymous with the act of plagiarism that Todd Goldman committed on you. Then ride the wave of attention and publicity and use it to bring your work the exposure it deserves. Turn something bad into a huge opportunity for yourself.
The idea here is that, rather than policing and seeking damages for the plagiarism, Kelly could get even more mileage from it in the long run by diluting the aura that Goldman is attempting to capitalize on. And that's something that I haven't seen much of as I come across the occasional discussion of plagiarism. I'm relying here on a pretty dim memory of Benjamin's "Work of Art" when I mention aura, but there's a sense in which Kurtz's suggestion turns Benjamin's point (which can be read nostalgically) into a creative (commons) strategy. And that's kind of cool.
(Oh, I should mention too that I'm not sure that there's a phrase right now that's abused and misused more than "open source." As sympathetic as I am to almost every context where it's used, I've heard a number of otherwise savvy people use it like a magic spell when they simply mean "free" or "non-proprietary." It's starting to work its way under my skin.)
That is all.
