Sieze the Moment! An Interview with El-P & Aesop Rock pt. II of III
This is continuing my 2003 interview with El-P and Aesop Rock. Here’s part I and here’s part III.
Matthias Wivel is the administrator of the Metabunker. He is Head of Research at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and a co-founder and the current chairman of the Danish Comics Council.
Sieze the Moment! An Interview with El-P & Aesop Rock pt. I of III
To mark the release of New York hip hop veteran, innovator and impressario El-P’s second solo album, and first solo effort in nearly five years, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, the Metabunker re-presents an in-depth interview yours truly conducted with El-P and fellow innovator and Def Jukie Aesop Rock in El-P’s home/studio back in the…
In the World
I hope you are reading Lewis Trondheim’s comics blog “Les Petits riens” – while at first sight perhaps seeming slight, it marks an exhilarating departure for his drawing and, by extension, his taking in of the world around him. As always laconic, he says he started the daily strip journal to teach himself watercolour, and…
Prototype or Parallel?
One of the discontents of art historical connoisseurship is how we, the practitioners, have been trained to hunt for the prototype of any given invention. We are so used to seeing precedents everywhere, even when dealing with some of the most original and inventive artists ever, that we sometimes forget how unpredictable art, and creativity,…
High and Low II
Because I think at least bits of it are worth a second look, this is just to follow up on the discussion about modernism, high and low in art, and how all of this pertains to comics that Comics Journal critic Noah Berlatsky and I, amongst others, have conducted here and on the Comics Journal…
Arnold Drake RIP
One of the great originals of the American Silver Age, Arnold Drake, has passed away. Mark Evanier provides a both informative and touching obituary. To me, Drake is significant for the creation of a number of characters and stories that showed the obverse of the four-color universes of other superhero comics of his time. “The…
du9 in English!
The premier French site of comics criticism has now launched an English-language version, containing selected content in translation. This means, for example, that you can now read Xavier Guilbert’s review of Shigeru Mizuki’s masterly NonNonBâ (which I also reviewed a couple of days ago), as well as interviews with Edmond Baudoin and Lorenzo Mattotti, amongst…
High and Low
Over on the TCJ message board, Noah Berlatsky replies to my criticism: “Hi Matthias. You raised some interesting points in your review. For myself, though, when I was six or seven I thought Peanuts was hysterically, fall-down-on-the-floor funny. Still do, for that matter. I didn’t talk more about Chris Ware in the Schulz essay in…
Ghosts of the Past
My first exposure to the work of Mizuki Shigeru was indirect, in the form of Miike Takashi’s wonderful 2005 film Yôkai daisensô (eng. The Great Yôkai War), which I saw last year. Amongst the most impressive aspects of that thoroughly enjoyable movie was the often iconically simple and inventive character designs given to the host…
Puppy Love
The most consistently readable, if also frustrating, new writer at the Comics Journal the last couple of years, Noah Berlatsky, has just put his first and best piece for the magazine, on the reception of Peanuts by today’s alt-cartoonists, online at the blog he contributes to. I often find myself disagreeing with Berlatsky, as will…
Support Fantagraphics!
It seems like everyone in the comics blogosphere by now knows about Fantagraphics’ new Defence Fund, launched to help them through the bullshit lawsuit they are facing from cranky has-been SF writer Harlan Ellison (pictured). However, I still gotta plug it here, just because. Concerning the merits of Ellison’s case, I’m sure Kim and Gary…
In Defense of Negativity
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…
Yvan Delporte RIP
Just learned from Thierry Capezzone that Belgian comics writer and legendary editor of Spirou magazine, Yvan Delporte passed away this morning, at the age of 78. My impression of him is that he was always something of a cantankerous, and very vocal, character on the Belgian comics scene, and his merits as editor of Spirou…
Rindom Redux: Barks i 70erne
I forbindelse med mine undersøgelser af danske udgivelser af Carl Barks’ Anders And, dengang bølgerne gik højt i forhold til den stadigvæk skandaløst ringe tilrettelagte Carl Barks Samlede Værker (CBSV) fra Egmont, fik jeg bekræftet hvad jeg havde hørt: at de danske oversættelser af historierne fra førsteudgaverne i Anders And-bladet mellem 1946 og sen-60erne, udført…
Angoulême 2007: The Flix!
We admit that we’re rather late here, but here are our photos from the Angoulême festival, about 5 weeks back. Enjoy!