Last week, I got the chance to attend an afternoon of readings and on-stage interviews with Haruki Murakami in Møn, Denmark. Although the interviewers were fairly unimaginative and failed to probe below the surface or pursue any of the interesting points made by the author, Murakami was such a charming, unpretentious and earnestly thoughtful speaker…
“Think, for example, of Northrop Frye. Frye’s is now a name that you never hear mentioned but which was then everywhere. CS Lewis, who is now famous for fairy stories, was then famous for being a scholar. Tolkien too was famous for being a scholar, not for elves and so on. There is no prestige…
Jesus is dying slowly, life ebbing from him, ebbing, when suddenly the heavens overhead open wide and God appears in the same attire he wore in the boat, and His words resound throughout the earth, This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus realized then that he had been tricked, as…
The past week-and-a-half or so has seen David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp debated and dissected over at the Hooded Utilitarian, with discussions shooting off in a multitude of directions, amongst them the words-image binary in comics and the potential of comics as literature and the development of comics through modernism to the present day. Today I’ve…
“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” …[Kuchta] said. “How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked. “I guess, I don’t know […] But it’s pretty well — everyone knows.” — Captain Curt R. Kuchta of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig The weekly linkage is back! Which I guess means…
Reporting live from the Angoulême festival: The rain didn’t keep people away. Friday has been fairly busy, with the exhibition areas and tents filled as usual with a broad, heterogenous audience. I spent the day taking in various exhibitions and browsing the exhibitors’ tables in the alternative tent, ending my day of programming by attending…
“one reason there are so many dead in Haiti is that agriculture in the countryside was no longer providing a livelihood for Haitian peasants; they moved in the thousands to the capital, they built shanties on the sides of canyons; all gone now. I won’t go over the arguments against globalization for countries like Haiti…
Thorhauge her! Lige pludselig sker der en masse, og det er jo både fedt og spændende, men kæden er røget af min planlægning og jeg er bagefter med ALTING, suk… Anyway, jeg har en del offentlige arragementer i den kommende tid, samt – ta-daa! – premiere på min splinternye tegneserie, Clint Eastwood! Her følger programmet:…
The picks of the week from around the web. Commonweal: “Culture and Barbarism”. Terry Eagleton offers a compelling analysis of today’s fault lines between secularism and religion, which he analyses in terms of a dialectic of civilization and culture. A thoughtful corrective to the new atheists and an unsettling entreaty for us to confront the…
Just read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), which I often hear hailed as his best novel. I don’t know — I think the premise is good, while the execution leaves something to be desired. This is especially apparent when compared with Henry Selick’s excellent film version from earlier this year, which improves quite considerably upon the…
The English illustrator, painter and comics artist Martin Vaughn-James passed away last week (obits here and here). Perhaps this will be an occasion for comics world to take greater note of this significant artist and innovator in the medium. Owing to his influences and probably especially the fact that he lived in Brussels for the…
Rosinante har netop søsat en ambitiøs tegneserielinie, med speciale i graphic novels, på det danske marked. De to første udgivelser er danske Thomas Thorhauges Kom hjem og engelske Posy Simmonds’ Gemma Bovery. Med denne satsning på dette særlige tegneserieformat, er Rosinante det første danske mainstreamforlag der følger i sporet efter amerikanske bogforlag som Pantheon og…
It seems to be the season for the discovery of sensational portraits. A few days ago The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust announced having found an authentic, contemporary portrait of none less than Shakespeare himself. Its persuasive provenance and resemblance to a number of portraits, most presumably copied from lost pictures, that carry traditional identifications to Shakespeare,…
Lars Bukdahl har fået fingrene i T. Thorhauges seneste tegneserie Jørgen Leth. Som afslutning på en karakteristisk pikaresk om Leths genfundne popularitet, giver han den følgende ord med på vejen: “Sidste værk i bunken af Lethiana er T. Thorhauges lillebitte, virtuost tegnede og karikerede hæfte Jørgen Leth, hvor tegneseriefiguren Leth, mens han fremsiger blanke visdomsord…
We at the Bunker want to pay our respects. Read the New York Times obit, and if you’re part of our cartoon-interested audience, be sure to check out Jeet Heer’s articles on Updike’s appreciation for comics and cartooning here and here. While we’re at it, read his appreciation here. 1978 Cartoon portrait of Updike by…