I’ve always loved comics that mess with conventional narrative. My sweet spot is somewhere between more conventional comics, and the work showcased in Andrei Molotiu’s Abstract Comics anthology and blog. In my favorite pieces, I love the friction between the art and the texts. Here’s some recent work that I find really interesting, all from the last 10 years or so. They play with conventions of horror and science fiction, and veer into surreal dreamscapes and wild explosions of abstraction.
Michael DeForge, Holy Lacrimony
Holy Lacrimony on Goodreads
Review in The Grind
At Home with Michael DeForge (video interview)
DeForge needs no introduction for most of the regulars here. Holy Lacrimony is his first book in a few years, his dark, twisted, surprising take on a certain instance of alien abduction. The story is probably more linear than most of the other work in this post, but DeForge’s baroque invention is mindblowing.
Bhanu Pratap, Cutting Season
Cutting Season on Goodreads
Review at theartsstl.com
Comics Journal interview with Bhanu Pratap
New Delhi-based Pratap’s second collection, from Fantagraphics. There’s just scraps of text here and there, and no more than whiffs of narratives. But I’m captivated by the flamboyant ideas, the visual non-sequiturs, delirious perspective changes, the Francis Bacon-esque conflating of abstraction and body horror. Squishy, and irresistible.
More samples here
Pratap’s first collection Dear Mother is also available online here
Ana Galvañ, Press Enter to Continue
Press Enter to Continue on Goodreads
Review at Pop Matters
Interview with Galvañ on Spine
Galvañ’s drawing style is disarmingly cute, with a palate of pastels and minimal cartoony figures. She does interesting things with color and texture, and slides effortlessly into abstraction. The design of the collection is immediately unusual and intriguing. There’s what looks like a contents page listing five stories, but none of them have titles. Successive stories are separated by endpaper-like pages, with a similar design theme.
Most of the pieces are cryptic pseudo-narratives, with deliciously unsettling text, and many text-less pages. Overall, this is one of the more original and memorable graphic novels I’ve come across in awhile. Just looking at a random page or two can be disappointing. I had to settle down before I could take in the design and the quiet, contemplative strangeness.
Kate Lacour, Vivisectionary
Vivisectionary on Goodreads
Review at Pop Matters
Interview with Lacour at Comics Journal
A gorgeously designed book that needs to be held for full appreciation. Lots of references to old leather-bound books of medical illustrations, natural history museum displays, cryptozoology, all with a sly sense of humor. No narrative, but who needs it with these beautiful drawings and paintings of surreal creatures?
Erik Svetoft, Spa
Spa on Goodreads
Review at the Guardian
Brief interview with Svetoft (with gorgeous art)
Swedish artist Erik Svetoft’s Spa begins like a fairly typical horror story in a resort, but quickly slides into… something more abstract and Lynch-ian.
JJ McLuckie, Follicle
Follicle on Goodreads
Review at Broken Pencil
McLuckie’s website (with illustrations, more comics, tattoos, etc)
The entire comic is available here
Noel Freibert, Old Ground
Old Ground on Goodreads
Review at the Comics Journal
Old interview at the Comics Journal
Noel Freibert on instagram
Old Ground is one of the most bizarre graphic novels I’ve come across, with forms that stretch like taffy, and spin into abstraction like a horrific acid trip. There’s a frog named Otto, a dog, and two characters that are buried for most of the book. And a strange bloody climactic conclusion.
Daisuke Ichiba, Heartbreak Reincarnation
Heartbreak Reincarnation at Goodreads
Review at asianmoviepulse.com
Samples from the book
Japan-based Ichiba has published a number of books, though only a few have been translated into English, and are put out by small presses such as Italy’s amazing Hollow Press. His work has similarities with horror manga, but pushes into abstraction way beyond (say) Junji Ito. It’s hard to follow the narrative of Heartbreak Reincarnation, but the striking art combines scratchy and detailed line drawing, painting, and photo collages.
More cryptic visions from Ichiba here
Sam Liu, 燒 Burn
Burn on Goodreads
Sam Liu’s instagram
Last but not least: I recently discovered the work of Taiwanese artist Sam Liu (not the American artist). Most of his work is in Chinese or text-less. I have not been able to locate articles or interviews (in English or Chinese). His books have minimal distribution even in Taipei (no ISBN; the staff at Taipei’s fabled Mangasick store indicated that they have to wait for him to bring them new product).
Burn is completely text-free. Its distinctive odd, distorted figures have bizarre geometric faces, sometimes quietly going about their cryptic activities, occasionally bursting into flame, or smoke or ashes. The image sequences are fascinating and quietly disturbing.
A couple more examples of Liu’s art:
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p.s. Hey. Today and for the next couple of days the blog proudly hosts a guest entry by the superb artist/composer Bill Hsu lazer focused on some makers of Graphic Meta-stories aka visualised narratives or narrativised visuals or things in that general realm. You’re certain to find works you don’t already know, and it’s great stuff, need I even say. Dig in, thanks, and major thanks to you, Bill. Also, as I stated on Saturday, the blog’s upper half will be dead still for the next two days while I’m off exploring Efteling. Leave your comments as you will, and I will respond to them along with an accompanying new post on Thursday. ** Tosh Berman, I think you told me that once about your dad’s support for the Kipper Kids. Amazing. Thank you. ** Jack Skelley, I was at that PiL show at the Olympic Auditorium, yes. It was harrowing. One of the best shows ever. Yep on the memories front. Actually, I think that post would make a fun Zoom club text choice. Whisper that in Jacqui/Ruben’s ears? ** Sypha, The US would get the Nobel Prize in Miniature Golf Course Design, for sure. Or I mean seemingly since I’ve hardly been to every country much less mini-golfed in them. That’s true. I’ve been to a couple of horror themed ones. They could have been more horrific, but it’s the thought that counts. ** jay, Hi, jay! Yeah, John Duncan’s wok is great in general, and I remember being disappointed that ‘Blind Date’ was the only one with video evidence that I could use since it’s mostly what he’s known for. Nice viewpoint on the Cobain. There’s a big Wolfgang Tillmans show here, and it’s like somebody found some random iPhone on the street and decided to print out all the photos on it and hang them on the walls, and fantasising that’s what the show was is the only way I could sort of appreciate it. I will (enjoy the long lost actual birthday), I’m pretty sure, but I’ll let you know. Have a rockin’ few days. ** Hugo, Thank you, I’m pretty sure I will. We’re not going to Walibi after all. We might dip into Plopsaland, but it’s way over on the coast. The word from other friends of mine who’ve seen ‘Weapons’ is that the visuals are kind of good sometimes but the script is standard fare blah. Hugs and more to you. ** Tyler Ookami, Hi. Oh, shit, sorry, yeah, once the p.s./post are launched I never look to see if there were late breaking comments, which is a bad habit. Does everything have to a be selfie museum? Jesus. But I’ll look at the example you shared. It just feels like selfie experiences and immersive experiences are crowding out the interesting things these days. I should say over here. That is an insane price for what you went through. Japan also has these over the counter legal pain killers that are like someone mixed Xanax and crystal meth together in a capsule, wow. I’ll try that Frost Children EP first, thanks! ** Mari, You’ve never been to an amusement park? Wow. They’re not everybody’s thing, for sure, but … I grew up in SoCal and went to Disneyland three or four or more times a year since I was about two years old. I don’t … think my senior grad class went there, but I was an artsy fartsy stoner student who didn’t close attention. Thank you so much about my work. If it could help dispel your hopelessness in any way, it would be very lucky. Thanks! If nothing else, it’s supposed to 38 degrees centigrade in Paris on the day I’m at Efteling, and getting to miss that will constitute a great success no matter what. Have the loveliest next coupla days possible. ** Steve, Cool, I’ll obviously watch for that. The WfYE record. And in the meantime, your new show! Everyone, Steve hosts a wonderful radio show, as you probably know, and there’s a new one. Here he is: ‘My radio show will air on Red Berry Radio (redberryradio.com) today at midnight, London time, and 7 PM-9 PM EST. Tune in for Norwegian egg punk, Erik Satie performed on a 13-string guitar, Tracy Chapman mash-ups and Egyptian hip-hop! The Mixcloud link is here. Goddess Bunny was a fascinating performer, and that re-contextualisation was seriously gross. Ah, yes, your ‘Weapons’ opinion conforms to what other of my friends are saying. Avoid. ** HaRpEr //, Yeah, as I was saying, when that exploitative use of Goddess Bunny popped up, it was horrifying. Although I guess it did lead some people into finding her actual work. No, I don’t know that Joel-Peter Witkin image. I’m not a massive fan of his stuff. I always revise as I go along, always have. Works really well for me. But I know some writers don’t like to risk having their impetus to output stalled out. I think writing about painful things always makes you move forward, or it has worked that way for me. Embracing something difficult with writing can be fatal or at least destructive or at least balancing to it in a very good way. Or so says me. Thanks, I’ll try, I will, and see you on the other side. ** Dom Lyne, Hi, D. Thanks. I feel pretty confident that I will (have a great time). It’s a beautiful place/thing. ‘Camelot’ is legendary. I keep reading that there are plans to wake it back up, but it never seems to happen. Routledge, wow, sweet, congrats! I’ll find time for the Doc Who radio drama as soon as I can. Congrats on that too, obviously. Everyone, The fine writer and artist of multiple stripes Dom Lynne wrote a ‘Doctor Who’ radio drama, and the entire thing is newly online and available to your ears, and I strongly recommend that you go absorb that. It’s here and it’s also here. No word on a UK screening yet. Zac and I are having to organise the film’s rollout basically on our own, and it’s a bit overwhelming, but we’re going to start looking for UK options soon. Thanks, bud. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. LA is a good birthing canal, or maybe a fruitful plain. Yeah, as I was just saying, a nice bonus of the Efteling trip is I’ll miss a chunk of our impending heatwave. Stay in the cool. You know certainly how do that stylistically, so … ** Carsten, Hey. Thanks. I was really lucky to be in LA during its performance art explosion and then in NYC when the East Coast equivalent happened. Really, really inspiring times. Most of the North American film festivals use FilmFreeway for their submissions. It’s quite rare that European festivals use it. I think it’s considered a little uncouth or something over here. I post stuff on the films and my books on social media, but that’s all I really do or know how to do. I do think alerting people on social media helps, sometimes a lot. No, I will read the work on your blog as soon as I have the headspace. I’m in a bit of a heavy film supporting period right now, and that eats up a lot of my brain. But that’ll ease up. My pleasure. Thanks, I think Efteling will definitely do the trick. Have a swell next days. ** Misanthrope, Sorry about the MRI delay. Ugh, stressful. Well, happy happy birthday, George! Oh, god, I don’t know what to say about your mom. That’s so scary. I’ll hold out whatever hope there is that the problem is something simpler. So, so, sorry my old friend. Take care, and let me know how it goes. Love, me. ** Okay. Investigate what Bill has placed before you, and I will see you back here on Thursday.
Now available in North America 
Thanks for the opportunity to share some recent favorites with the blog, Dennis. Wow, and I’m up for a few days, hope it doesn’t disappoint.
Loved the return of the LA performance art post, of course. I remember I had to make do with articles in High Performance (very aktionist cover you chose there) or Performance Art Journal in those pre-Youtube days, though of course being in the audience is usually key to the experience. I think Gomez-Pena is the only one I’ve seen in person, maybe 15-20 years ago in San Francisco. The audience was in a van that drove around the Mission, with Gomez-Pena telling stories of locations. What a character. I might have played some audio clips of the Kippers and Rachel Rosenthal on my radio show back in the day.
Hope your trip is starting off well!
Bill
Ooh great post from the person!
Hey friend it’s good to talk to you I hope your weekend was great! Mine was amazing I got to hang out all day Saturday with a new friend. We went to this zinefest downtown oh and I got so much great stuff and met really nice people and then after that we went to this pretzel place and saw a show and I got so many hugs and hugged and that was amazing even when they gave me more than 1 and then after we went to this place called the barzarre.and that was great because they had a goth night. Overall 12 hours and then I worked yesterday so today is my full day home to myself and everything feels scattered physically and mentally
Oh sorry if I’m in very very sporadic right now I just finished writing a good bit like 2 hours and I couldn’t make myself stop writing even though I was frustrated and I think it’s because now that I’ve stopped there’s this chaos and now I can’t ditt still or maybe it was a distraction but even when I was writing why was everything spinning in my head and I couldn’t get anything down. Rhetorical question. Maybe I’ll go read to calm myself or something
I hope I didn’t say anything wrong or eye roll worthy of the Mira Corpora book the other day but your probably just busy but idk. I’m at page 90 and I like the no-adult runaway kid tribe concept, I..wish I could say more.
Have you ever eaten Italian Tiramisu? I bought some yesterday as the guy convinced me and it’s so delicious.
How was your weekend? I couldn’t make the gym this morning because I couldn’t retain more than three articles of clothes in my head, sressed out and ditched the idea. At least I get more writing time despite feeling as if the progress was stagnant for 2 hours.
Oh my friend gave me this book which might be helpful, it’s about balance and spiritual. They have a really good library, they seem to be into Kerouac and Ginsberg and when they say things they are so smart and introspective and it’s promising.
I’m excited to see your movie and I hope to have more intelligent sentences with you throughout the week! Oh, what are you planning for Halloween?
You know, I think I know what the problem is with the book. Trying to recapture the flow, like, while editing sometimes it just feels like your staring a hole into the screen/paper and shit isnt being connected and it’s all just an unstructured promising blob waiting to be properly tuned yet you keep breaking the strings.
Just a thought
Anyways, again, have a good day
Good morning. Pshh forgot you were going to be gone,How was it? Gosh I can’t wait to go to the Nederlands one day!
Right now I’m siting at a Vietnamese cafe I just ate a Banh Mi and strawberry boba authentic not that trendy minimum wage teenage made crap at Tap tea
and am literally just finishing up Mira Corpora. I was in a odd state two days ago but, trust my voice from today more than the voice that commented days ago . I would suppose you have read the book before? Duh me. I think it’s amazing especially the end, when he’s imprisoned. I just thought it was brilliant, a haunting dream, the structure of a fragmented identity. The way the main character attempts to preserve a beauty and innocence, detaching awareness to his distressing surrounding almost creates a haunting perspective. Also the chandelier scene, it’s just very poignantly written, I was teary. It makes you think of a bird with maimed feet fallen from a nest and just the imagery. Like the chandelier dragging behind as wings or a while after reading I felt very bleak and then chandelier scene and I’m sure that’s why.
I would love to master that style as so.
Oh I don’t know why I’m sharing so much about the book. I would love to see his plays, I’ve been needing to read/ and watch playwrights because my writing has become verbose from external anxiety and playwrights tend to be very minimal.
Update: I just found out the author lives in Charlotte N.C oh so close and good to know that this part of of the place is populated with good writers
I got more time to look at the post of graphic novels. I think my favorite from the section is Vivisectionary
It reminds me of the book Anatomica I got in NY by Joanne Ebenstein. Absurd + pragmatic early illustration of human anatomy. It was even signed. I like fantasy anatomy. There’s these videos I watch that go something like “The science behind werewolf transformation””the science behind wendigos.”
I will probably overwhelm with all my comments once your done reading all this back from your trip my bad.
These all look really interesting. I need to get more into comics like these. I think the last graphic novel I read was Fun Home by Alison Bechdel in high school for English class. I played the album for some of my friends last night and they all said they really liked it. Fingers crossed that they were telling the truth. I’m gonna start shooting music videos this week. Can you say anything about what the script is going to be about? Or is it a secret? I read an interview with you from a little bit ago where you said you were pretty much done writing novels, do you think that’s still the case? I really want to start making more films, but I’m not very good at writing screenplays. I’ve thought about adapting every single book I read into a screenplay as an exercise. Anyways, I hope you have a great time at Efteling!
Hello!
Whoa what an awesome list!! Really excited to dive into these. I often have trouble finding comics that actually interest me, but these look so cool.
Thank you, Bill, for such a cool post and I hope you have a great day!! ヾ(≧ ▽ ≦)ゝ
Thanks Mari! Hope the online resources are helpful, and you’re having a good week too.
Bill
Very cool stuff there. On that note, may I recommend another lively combo of word & image called “In the Shadow of a Mad King”, with words by Jerome Rothenberg & images by his granddaughter Sadie: http://www.poems4change.org/madking/mk-gallery.html
I hope Efteling is treating you well as I type this.
I agree that social media self-promotion of one’s work is effective. I only use Facebook for that, but it sure does help. Also, I’ve branched out a bit with my YouTube channel, where there’s audio of me reading each poem, & that in turn is embedded in every blog post. This morning on my blog’s statistics page I saw a recent surge in clicks from Mexico, which delights me, given that I view Mexico as my spiritual home of sorts. And I think I mentioned that you hosting my ethnopoetics day also caused quite an uptick in traffic on my site.
I guess the last frontier for me is getting the chapbook published. Maybe I shouldn’t care, but I do want a print copy out there in the world. Roadside Press turned it down, but I submitted it to seven more publishers. And if none of them bite I’ll just self-publish.
The heat is certainly on in Germany & I’ve spent the past three days hitting the lake as much as I can. Swimming is one of the few sports I can do without any impediments post spinal surgery, & in this kind of heat there’s nothing better. You never swim at all?
Thanks Carsten! The Mad King pieces look good, especially the paintings. Will spend more time with them soon…
Bill
@ Bill, congratulations on this! Especially loving Noel Freibert’s work here.
Turns out we’re getting the start of our heatwave today. For lunch I went to my local Italian place Franco’s and enjoyed some affogato which is basically just coffee tipped on top of your ice-cream, but it turns out to be really delicious. Highly recommended should you not be initiated.
Thanks Ben! Glad you like Freibert and the post. I have to try to get Freibert’s t-shirt on his instagram…
Bill
Hey Dennis,
Hope you enjoyed your days away at Efteling. I was showing photos of it to Anthony yesterday and he got freaked out by the people in the jester costumes, so I’m gonna have to work harder on him.
Camelot’s status is a bit weird for me given it was like the local attraction, and most people preferred Alton Towers. But I have a lot of good childhood memories from there, even my younger brother remembers the time we went there and bought those plastic water-pistol swords… my dad forbade us to use them as pistols. I told my brother to dip his in the dog’s water bowl, my dad found it wet and *bam* no more swords. Haha.
Do you and Zac work in tandem on the rollout or work on different aspects? Now it’s a completed film, do you feel more ownership over it and its future?
Thanks for the shout out,
Hugs and love,
Dom xx
Familiar with DeForge and Ichiba’s work, others are new to me. When I visited Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (essentially a giant mall-like flea market for toys and comics), my favorite store was a really tiny one called Taco-Che that sells comics of this type, both Japanese and European. Are you familiar with Garo? It was a Japanese anthology that published experimental comics from 1960 to sometime in the 2000s. It was fairly widely circulated, so Japanese flea markets often have very cheap old issues. I have a few from the 90s (mostly because I collect Nekojiru) that I got when I was in Japan. Sam Liu’s work is the artist in this post who looks most like what would typically be in there. The Freibert crucifix strip reminds me of a comic strip that the artist Usamaru Furuya published for many years that often used crucifix imagery. It was sort of a gag strip with very gruesome punchlines in a guro style that often had lots of references to other manga if you can imagine that? All of strips translated into English are here (you can turn the pages with arrow keys): https://mangadex.org/chapter/20e76d23-e317-4740-b4c2-d4ccac25dca9/1
Thanks for all the resources, Tyler!
I went to Tokyo a few times almost 20 years ago, but my friends never told me about Taco-Che. Is it fairly new? Nakano Broadway is such a trip.
I’ve never seen issues of Garo, though I know some of the better known artists like Maruo, Hino, and the Tsuge’s (Yoshiharu’s Nejishiki is one of my life-changing manga experiences). What other Garo artists would you recommend who are somewhat similar to Sam Liu?
The crucifix motif is (I think) actually more of an artifact of its general graveyard setting. I’m not familiar with Usamaru Furuya, that mangadex work looks terrific, thanks! Music of Marie also looks incredible. Will try to hunt down a copy ASAP.
Bill
Thanks to everyone for checking out the post and kind words! Thanks to Dennis for the opportunity. Got off a long flight and am still jet lagged… look forward to your return and Efteling stories tomorrow, Dennis.
Bill
Thank you Bill, for platforming these artists, and Tyler Ookami for platforming Furuya. Daisuke Ichiba was definitely my favourite here, I love how all the various competing forms of art (photography, drawing, text) interact slightly independently of one another. Comics are definitely an awesome medium, I totally need to get back into them. I’ve definitely read a few recently, but they’re more invested in homophonic text/picture harmony rather than the awesome polyphony on display here.
Hope Efteling was amazing. It looks awesome from photos. I’ve been good, I ended up seeing some other old school friends again, which was awesome. Oh, and I’m playing the new Zelda game finally, and I’m really enjoying it – particularly the giant dark underground area you need to “explore” with glowing arrows. Incredibly, incredibly sinister, to me at least. Having to map out space using projectiles feels so limited and dangerous, in a fun way. Other than that, nil from me. See ya!
Were you able to ride on Symbolica ? Welcome back to Paris! If you were outside at the theme park all day, was the heat a problem?
Do you have to return to promoting the film right away?
I finally listened to Nina Garcia’s album today. She’s great! Was her live show improvised?
The post office tried delivering the package containing my parents’ ashes three times, but I happened to be out each time they came. Since they needed my signature, they gave up and shipped it back to the funeral home. I’m pretty pissed off. The funeral home has agreed to mail it to an alternate address, where there should always be someone around to sign for it, but I will have to pay another $64 in postage!
Hi Dennis! Hope you had a nice trip – I haven’t been to an amusement park in ages, but Efteling looks very cool. In Estonia we only get those travelling amusement parks that set up in mall parking lots, which are something to do but not super exciting.
I did manage to find some time for writing over the weekend, thanks. I’ve actually felt a lot less intimidated by writing in general since discovering your books last year, I guess because they make me feel less pressured to stick to one template of how a novel should look and more like I can be free to play around a bit (so thanks for that too).
On that note, I also finished reading ‘The Marbled Swarm’ this week and I think I’ll have to re-read it soon with a more careful eye since I got very lost at times, though I guess getting lost was the point.
Also thanks to Bill for the post, Cutting Season and Old Ground especially look super intriguing 🙂
Hey there, Dennis! I hope things have been going well with you. Yes, the library trip went well for me. The main benefit was being able to develop my central character. I’m not sure if it’ll be the main focus yet, but they will be a part of a large age gap relationship. I’m interested in exploring how strands of communication can strengthen a bond between views formed from different experiences. A sequence I wrote involved the character observing and feeling their partner whilst sleeping. Once that was finished, I thought to myself how the other person may respond while they’re dreaming. Here’s an excerpt below of what I wrote. It’s a work in progress, but I think there’s something here that I’d like to expand upon:
“In my dreams, my flesh pulls apart. The bed I share with Char illuminates into a playground. Pure vibrant reds that spread across the slides are stripped off and wrapped around me. The naked metal that remains stretches and pokes my skin. Each pressured indent produces a clanking sound from my insides. Clocks turn their arrows. Skin twirls into a new shape. Yesterday, the metal strangled my neck and pushed me out of my body. Distorted yearnings of a delicate voice came into full audible focus. Strands of my hair slid between themselves and reverberated sounds akin to paper tearing apart. When I swam across this hollow plain, notes of a debilitating synthesiser played. Each note pressed would allow galaxies to spawn. I’m breathing, but there’s no sound to be recognised. No concern over the utterances I speak. Floating on with ease. The world loves me that way.”
Beyond that, I was able to see some friends today. There’s a cosy Cornish town that’s not too far, called Looe, that I visited. We spent some time on the beach and wandered all around the place. I enjoyed myself, thought I was quite exhausted. The temperature over here has been particularly bad, and I was only able to manage 3 hours of sleep. I’m surprised I had the energy to keep conversations afloat. Hopefully, I’ll rest well tonight.
Wish you all the best with the week ahead! Take care.
Hey! Hope you had a great time. I’m back into the swing of it as far as writing is concerned. I even managed to polish off some short pieces I was working on intermittently and send them to online journals and stuff, on top of working on the novel.
As far as writing about painful subjects is concerned, I totally get what you mean about balancing it when it comes to how deeply you throw yourself into them. I’m purposely trying to remove a lot of the interior feeling. I guess the narrator is someone who is observing someone else who they sort of don’t know, so I’m working with the details on the surface, but crucially that gets muddied when details from the imagination are added and blah blah blah I could go on forever.
Yeah, the ‘Frost Children’ EP ‘Soul Kiss’ with Haru Nemuri might be the best thing they’ve done to date but I love them and basically everything they do. As someone who was deep into the hyperpop thing in 2019/20, I’ve been really invested in how those artists are now moving beyond that. I think Jane Remover and Underscores are doing really interesting things in particular. It’s like a sort of post-punk moment for the scene and artists are really branching out and doing what they want, and in Frost Children’s case they seem unpredictable.
I haven’t really read many graphic novels since I was a teenager and reading Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and so on, and I really never know how to find an access point that leads me to other writers to explore, so thanks Bill! I think ‘Vivisectionary’ and ‘Follice’ are the ones that stick out to me the most.
I hope ya finish ya novel. I like yr comments, so if you finish anything, do send it here.
Hey Dennis.
Super cool post from Bill! I need to get back into comic books. I used to read Batman and a bunch of Crumbs “Fritz the Cat” in middle school, but beyond that I’ve been kinda stagnant.
I used to know people who got pissy about the term “graphic novel” or “comic”, which always amused me. It’s interesting how steadfastly people hold onto those terms, like when my mom read “I wished,” she told me that it seemed “more like poetry than a novel”. — It wasn’t critical, but sometimes I wonder what it is people think a novel needs to have to be a novel.
I hope you enjoyed Efteling, and if you did pass through Plopsaland, do tell me all about it, since I’ve never been; my Flemish friends speak highly of it, but they also say it might just be nostalgia. I remember convincing some kids in elementary that the actor for Kabouter Plop was a serial killer cannibal rapist behind the scenes. Beyond that, I have no connection to the character.
In the meantime, I’ve been in a depressive funk where I wonder if anyone really cares about anything I do, idk, I get these bouts of nihilism and boredom. I haven’t even sent in the email for the grant yet because I keep modifying it. I find it very hard to hype myself up and believe what I say about myself. I wish I could just put stuff out and have people like it, and beyond that, I wish I didn’t need to fully exist beyond reading, creating, and being a good friend to people. This episode will pass, no doubt, I just wish it didn’t feel so long while I’m in it.
I hope Alice finishes her work, because it’s so poetic and she’s so kind, and a good friend to everything and everyone. I wanna travel around with her more.
I hope Harper finishes their work because it seems interesting, and I like their comments.
I hope Connie comes back with her church videos because they’re so entrancing and funny.
I like what I read of Jack Skelley and hope he continues work on whatever it is he’s doing, regardless of his pervasive and crippling fear of Kathy Acker, I like seeing him around here. I also wish his daughter the best with FFS cuz I had a friend who had it and it sucked for her, but it made her happy, so I hope she is happy.
I hope Roma enjoys the freedom in her novel.
I wish Steve the best with his mother’s ashes and the damn postal service, which I hear is haphazardly awful in America.
Something something…HOPE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD AMEN!
I hope all this because I don’t wanna be all miseryguts about myself, all the people here are great and nice, and I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful time. I’m gonna pace my living room now, thousand hugs. Morning will tell if these feelings I have now are productive or just result in me crashing on my bed for far too long.
Have a good one, peace.
Thanks, Hugo! The postal service used to be much better here.