I was a little more experimental with this batch, but not too far out.
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I could not figure out what to do with hero, and ultimately settled on a simple foundational hand with a gothic inspired H.
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This beacon was lifted from a book of Modern Display Alphabets by Paul Kennedy.
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I had a hard time with dapper so I went for an architectural script using a flat brush.
My time as a draftsman is a constant reminder of the arbitrariness of “good”. Most calligraphic scripts have thick verticals with thin horizontals, which is backwards from my training in architectural lettering.
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I flailed bit before landing this bake, mashing the hake brush lowercase b, with the thick A and then K & E with thin verticals.
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Another architecturally flavored fracture, this time with a thin ruling pen.
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I’m finalizing the edits on the morning of the election; let’s hope it runs smoothly. At my job, we’re expected to “volunteer” (with pay) at least once during our tenure with the county. I begged out this year, due to the timing with the airport modernization. I’ll be repaid with interest when paying my dues during the upcoming presidential election.
Cya next time!
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PS—Pearls Awaits the Tide. Stephan Pastis, 2021
Pearls Before Swine publishes a treasury every 18 months, which I dutifully purchase it whenever it drops. I guess this makes it a periodical “subscription”, similar to the only magazine I subscribed to—Metropolis (ostensibly for the art and design, but really for the Julius Knipl comic on the back page.) I guess comics is the only art that I regularly support.
Why is Pearls such a regular habit?
It helps that Pastis has a similar political affinity. We are children of the same generation, with a cynical view of the corporate capitalism while happily skewering the excesses of the left. He had always tweaked the comic book censors, but this volume (collecting strips from late 2018 to early 2020) rang a warning about a cancel culture before it anti-woke became popular.
Beyond politics, he takes a balanced worldview. Life isn’t not easy, but it’s sprinkled with moments of sweetness. He intuits that our technology tears our our social fabric and warps our individual outlooks, but he is not relentlessly dreary. And of course his puns. He forces them with aplomb. The more convoluted the more better, and then he breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge the egregiousness of the act.
These treasuries are especially fun for his author’s notes. Most of them are inane, but they add extra levity and provide a glimpse into the comic artist’s life.
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This treasury covers the year leading up to the pandemic, with the last strip coming from March 2020. Given the months-long lead time for newspaper comics, these strips are all firmly pre-pandemic. However, it is impossible to read them without the awareness of the gathering storm clouds. I’m curious what will be in the next issue.
I should also note that this is the first issue that my daughter read. It’s maybe a little early, but I wanted the book and she loves comics, so it’s now in her hands.
—January 2022
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PPS—The Ultimate Mother Goose and Grimm 20th Anniversary Treasury, Mike Peters, 2005
What happens when an editorial cartoonist hits the funnies? Mike Peters won a Reuben for this work as an editorialist, and then has spent the last 37 years making Mother Goose and Grimm. The quality in the treasury is high, he’s clearly accomplished, but why comics over editorials? Sometimes life lets you pick a future, but you only get one.
Maybe the prestige of being a rarely read editorialist maybe paled against the notoriety of a widely read artist? Or maybe keeping up with the daily chaos became a constraint that burned him out? I’ve got to imagine the merchandising is opportunities are much better! I guess there are a million reasons why someone makes a momentous career choice.
Unfortunately I must critique this volume since each page has three strips, but many gags seem to span more than three hits. After religiously reading unabridged Pearls before Swine treasuries, I’ve developed a sense of when a joke has been played out, and many feel cut short in this book.
Even so, it’s well worth a read. I would have picked up unabridged treasuries for this series, but they don’t exist. All I can do is to hope for a 40th anniversary collection sooner rather than later.
—January 2022
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PPPS—The PreHistory of the Far Side, Gary Larson, 1989
This winter, I dug up this 10th Anniversary celebration for my daughter, who loves comic books. She prefers the story based comics, like Peanuts, but I thought she should see what can be done in a single panel.
Unlike my critique of Mother Goose and Grimm, continuity in an anthology is not a concern for this series, since there are no overarching story lines.
Instead, this a a nice summation of an Gary Larson’s work with his thoughts about his work and past. Interestingly (like Makoto Kobayashi), he retired from cartooning just a few years after publication, at the ripe old age of 44.
Maybe the daily grind of being a cartoonist that wears you out. Especially after you’ve hit fabulous success. Between increasing expectations and decreasing need, maybe you just lose “it”. I wouldn’t mind having that problem, but what would I do with the rest of my life?
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There isn’t much to say about the book itself. It’s great.
Once the boy gets a little older (and less destructive) I’ll pick up the Complete Far Side. As the kids grow out of toys, I’ll most likely start getting them more books and this would make a lovely Christmas present at some point.
—January 2022
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PPPPS—Collage
—October 2026
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