By Emma Firestone Samuel Beckett’s austere existential vision of the loneliness of the individual facing the inevitable—death—has become familiar. Not cosy, exactly, but familiar. For revivals of the best-known plays (Endgame, Happy Days, Krapp’s Last Tape ), I reckon, the consequences of this familiarity have mostly been positive: conceived for an audience not just prepared…
Attended a talk by Tony Blair’s former Press Director, the Alastair Campbell, at Pembroke College tonight. It was, unsurprisingly, a bravura performance – one of the most impressive displays of seamless rhetoric I have witnessed in a long time. Possibly best known, at least abroad, for his involvement in selling the Iraq War to the…
Got my first Žižek experience yesterday. I was simultaneously impressed and underwhelmed. My only exposure to his work until today had been through the plethora of other authors citing him these days, and through a friend who enthusiastically appreciates his iconoclasm and originality, and also does a killer impression of the man. I have been…
Contrary to large parts of the comics intelligentsia who dismiss it by default, and the masochistic fans who dis it but keep coming back for more, I do not want to dump unreservedly on Marvel’s Civil War. Sure, it is easy to make fun of, what with its ineptly handled attempts at political allegory and…
Eddie Campbell is totally on point in a couple of posts (here and here) concerning Roy Lichtenstein’s use of comics imagery in his paintings, and does his best to rub out the old bugbear, fueled by the inferiority complex comics fans often habour on the behalf of their preferred medium, that Lichtenstein was a plagiarist.…
Yesterday, it was 13 years ago that Jack Kirby died. Always stirring to be reminded of an oeuvre as unique as his. I just read his swan song, The Eternals, in its entirety and though it is widely considered to be a flawed effort, it is simply astonishing work. The first half a dozen issues…
I efteråret stod der et mægtigt slag i den danske tegneserieverden. Slaget var både af principiel og ganske konkret karakter: Ivar Gjørup, der i over 20 år har tegnet striben Egoland, var nonchalant blevet tilbudt en alvorlig forringelse af sin placering i den avis der har været stribens hjem i næsten ligeså lang tid, Politiken.…
På et netbaseret dansk tegneseriefanzine er min gennemgang af det seneste Strip! blevet diskuteret. Reaktionerne var bekræftende forudsigelige: de to tegneserietegnere Frank Madsen og Henrik Rehr reagerede med institutionel harme og hovedrysten (begge har jo aktier i at danske tegneseriekultur forbliver kedelig og uengageret), hvorimod de øvrige debattører (med en enkelt hardcore-buff som undtagelse) lå…
As a manifestation of comics as an art form, this year’s festival was the best in a long time. It was the happy result of the synergy of a market in which a number of quality comics unprecedented in the past 25 years have become available, the reform of the awards to match this fact,…
It was the best and worst of festivals at Angoulême this year. On the one hand, it was logistically chaotic because the exhibitor’s space had been moved to the suburb of Montauzier, a half-hour walk away from the city centre, with no restaurants, no cash machine, no trashcans, and no soul. Most of the debit…
In time for the festival, Thierry Groensteen, Director of the national comics centre (CNBDI) here in Angoulême, and one of France’s preeminent comics historians, -theorists, has put out a collection of essays charting the cultural reception of the comics medium in France over the last half century or so. Half history book, half timely, critical…
Since it’s Tintin-creator Hergé’s centennial this year, the rights holders at Moulinsart have organized a large retrospective showing of works from his whole career in collaboration with Paris Beaubourg (that’s the Pompidou Centre to anyone not on the team). The show takes up a large part of the basement area that opens to the main…
Some might have thought that, the pirates would leave the Angoulême festival alone, now Lewis Trondheim had been elected President and reformed the awards. Not so. Despite the invitation – from Trondheim, not the festival, we understand – to avant-garde cartoonist and -publisher Yvan Alagbé to sit on the jury, he and his colleagues at…
Skulle man være i tvivl, skal det straks fastslås: tegneserietidsskriftet STRIP!s bagmænd, Paw Mathiasen, Poul Petersen, Benni Bødker, Lasse Holm og Thomas Berger er alle hædersmænd. Oven i købet nogle overordentligt gemytlige og rare hædersmænd, vi er vilde med dem! Drengene har siden marts 1998 sikret danske tegneseriefans et magasin, som er udkommet 4 gange…
Was lucky enough to catch the show of Quattrocento sculptor Desiderio da Settignano at the Louvre on its last day. You gotta be a bastard not to be taken in by the Florentine stil dolce – sweet style – of which Desiderio (c. 1430-1464) is one of the masters. He is easy to love, but…