blargblog

Comic books the "rock 'n' roll" of literature? Useless metaphor. Not much "rock 'n' roll" about the typical comic book shop. Comic books seem more like radio to me: a niche medium which once communicated to a larger audience, dominated by mounds of offensive garbage through which one is required to sift in order to find anything vaguely enjoyable, let alone relevant to one's own life.

Which is more embarrassing: being caught coming out of a comic book store with prominent displays of balloon-breasted Thongazons or being caught listening to Michael Savage?

Good question! Both could be laughed off as ironic indulgences of camp. Just don't be caught by the same person twice!

You're married, but we single men have enough working against us to be caught coming out of a comic book shop by a female of hipness.

I see they still haven't been informed that women write and draw comics. Ho hum. Maybe that rock 'n roll metaphor isn't too far off after all. Boys clubs will be boys clubs. Sexist fuckers.

I wonder why it is that it is acceptable in certain fields to have separate categories for men and women and not others. I speak of the Oscars and the Grammies. Separate categories for male and female vocalists, best actor, best actress, etc. Is it because actors and singers use their voices and personalities as their instruments, while writers and artists are not judged in separate categories because they use inanimate tools that don't instantly identify their genders as the voices and personalities of actors and singers do?

I think left to their own devises, men will usually dole out awards or attention to one "token" woman when talent is being analyzed... if they manage that much. This article didn't even do that much. Considering that the likes of Barr, Abel, Gregory, Tyler, and countless other women have been producing excellent works for decades now, this is unconscienable. Not suprising, but unconscienable. :(

More like unconscious. "Women draw comics?!" The sin of neglect is more often committed out of ignorance than, as the saying goes, malice. Unless she's naked or mudwrestling, men in general tend to not notice when a woman is in the room. Except at comics and scifi conventions, where the novelty (and desperation) attracts. But still, it's not the talent or brains being noticed.

Such are my dim views of the other members of my sex—especially you, Pinky! ;)

You could bristle and complain? I'm not even an alterno-comix geekoid (at least, I don't think I am) and I'm offended!

When I read articles like Hajdu's I find myself wondering if the writer actually knows anything at all about the topic or if he's writing like that (all condecension and pissy) for the bleeding audience? Jeez, if people can't see the art right in front of their eyes, then fuck 'em. Hajdu isn't helping: he's still defining the borders of the ghetto.

I have no hope for humanity.

"Unless she's naked or mudwrestling, men in general tend to not notice when a woman is in the room."

I guess I fall out of the general on this because when I'm in a group usually I am more interested in hearing what women think and am paying attention to them more than men because I find women in general interesting and attractive (talking about more than sex here, though it is part of the appeal of course), and I want to hear a point of view that is different than my own rather than one that simply reinforces my own ideas. Basically I think a big part of the reason I am alive is getting to know and struggling with the task of understanding and loving the differences and similarities between me and the women I am lucky enough to meet.

But I think your observation is unfortunately correct in many cases. I was with a group of friends who saw the sequel to "The Matrix" when that came out, and there was one woman in the group and a bunch of geek males. The geek males were emphatically sharing their views on the film and mostly ignoring the contradictory thoughts of the woman in the group, while I alone was trying to show her I was listening to her and wanted to hear what she had to say.

My generality meant to exclude the sensitive new age guys I tend to hang out with. Guys like you Jeremy, Mr. Sensitive. ;)

Well, all I can say is that I look forward to Jerry's next "Anthology of Great Contemporary Comic Stories," which will --if he practices what he preaches-- not feature 99 men and one woman, but 50 men and 50 women. ;)

I've been reading Tillie Olsen's book *Silences*, and she talks frequently about the irksome practice of editors asigning such overarching titles to literary anthologies, which end up having a miniscule number of female writers, or none at all. She talks about the folly of collections featuring exclusively women being called, "Women's This and That..." While collections featuring men or almost no women are always, "World's Best..." or "Decade's Best..." and so on. She talks about how this reinforces the notion that maleness is the norm in creative pursuits while to be a woman is to be invisible, or segregated, or freakish. A man can be part of "The Decade's Best Writers..." but a woman can only be part of "The Best Women Writers of the Decade..." The difference is inescapable once you ponder it for a couple of seconds. :(

She wrote this around 1976, and I suspect that if anything, the situation has gotten worse, not better, since then. Whichever more macho-than-thou fuckwit (Mailer ?) edited the so-called best Short Stories of the Century back in 2000 seemed quite, quite proud of the fact that he didn't wanna' search for "extra" women (or "extra" people of color) and they couldn't make him !! Nyah !! Literature was a Whiteboy game and by thunder, he was gonna' make sure it stayed that way, with the barest amount of exceptions so the nasty, nasty P.C. police would let him publish. Those Philistines !!!

And comics, if anything, are even less evolved than literature, I'll wager. Bleah. Future topic, "Kev: Groth or Mailer ? Who's the Bigger Pompous Piece of Shit ?"

Oy. An anthology of comic book artists will have to be assembled by someone else, if by Jerry you were referring to moi. (Miss Piggysque, non?) I'm no longer really keeping up with the form except for the activities of my friends. As far as art in general goes, the one I keep up with the most avidly these days is music, and I love the work of many dozens of rocktacular women in that artform.

Well, I feel the same way, actually. Sorry about the typo(s). After a full week in the Gummint Gulag, don't expect clear thought. :o Except in my case it's usually jazz women, not rock women. Like, f'rinstance:

http://www.adarovatti.com/index.html

Cool! Never heard of her before. I'll see if I can download a few examples of her music to get a feel for whether or not I might dig her thang!

I'll take this opportunity to plug a friend of mine, who is a woman singer-songwriter who is having the premiere live performance of her twelve-piece rock band next Thursday here in Portland (since you like Ada, I'll note the sax player's a gal in this band, too). Here's her embryonic website:

http://www.redvenuslovearmy.com

Click on the "Click to hear a live sneak preview" link to download an MP3 of one of their tunes performed live. You might find it interesting since Ada, from what I gather, is a practitioner of funk as well as jazz. These guys have a bit of funk influence in their bassline.

Whoo-hoo !! :)

Hey, I guess I lied. Here's one woman in comic books whom I don't know personally but whose work I follow avidly. She's awesome-riffic!

http://badlydrawncomics.com/

Click on the drawings which go down the side of the page on the right side to see sample pages from the comics. "The Turing Test" gag cartoons and the parody of the comic strip "Cathy" are my faves. I ordered all of her comics from her and luv 'em!

Another comment on music, apropos of nothing. While fixing some dinner I flipped on the TV and happened upon what appeared to be a fluff documentary on Elvis on the country music channel. Stopped there as No Doubt was doing what turned out to be a fairly mediocre version of "Suspicious Minds." Anyway, in between the musical numbers by contemporary artists, there were soundbyte interviews with various musicians doing the typical VH1-style soundbytes about how great Elvis was. What struck me as hilarious and subversive/ironic was that one of the guys giving these soundbytes about how great Elvis was happened to be Chuck D. of Public Enemy. Yep, Chuck D., whose biggest hit contains the lyric: "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me you see / Straight up racist that sucker was / Simple and plain / Mother fuck him and John Wayne."

Either this event was just a sign of Chuck D. needing a paycheck someone was giving us a nice little wink-and-nod moment. Funny stuff.

Yo, Chuck! This shit is serious!

I think it was Ray Charles who was once quoted as saying that Elvis only became a star because he was White. He basically ripped off dozens of far more talented Black musicians and was crowned a hero. What else is new ? :(

Bah. Cursed Comcast. I can't get Pinkham's link to open. Will try again later. :o

I think that's a simplistic caricature of Elvis. A lot of black musicians respected him, and he had a large black fan base. Remember, too, that he grew up poor white trash in the South, and was exposed to black music at a very young age. There was a lot of interaction among black and white musicians back then, despite or even in spite of Jim Crow. When Elvis was good, he was really good. When he sucked, he really sucked. But don't write him off as just a ripoff artist. He deeply loved that music and played it with respect. Check out his gospel records. Those were deeply felt recordings that remain popular with black christian audiences.

All that may be true, Kevin. But you only need to study Elvis' fate vs. that of say, Sam Cooke or Johnny Ace to see the truth of what Ray Charles was saying.

Sam Cooke? Wasn't he killed by a woman who alleges he tried to rape her? More or less as ignominous and disappointing as Elvis' later drug overdose, I guess. All distasteful. But how is Elvis' style comparable to Sam Cooke's? Or are you saying Elvis' success should have been Sam's? Both were brilliant performers and artists, developed individual signature styles and made recordings that are truly classics of American pop. The success of Elvis is a pretty complicated affair, owing in parts to timing, his appeal to middle class teens looking for something rebellious to throw money at—a rebellion that was part manufactured, but given the vicious reaction by the South's racist clergy who accused him of miscengenation, of polluting young white minds with black music (many blatant allusions to racist stereotypes of blacks as aggressive, untamed sexual animals), I'd say the rebellious rep was well-earned. More than he could handle, of course; he just wanted to jam, play some cool tunes. So off to the Army he went like a good ole boy.

Maybe I've gone far afield from your point, though, but then, I don't really get it. Sam Cooke and Johnny Ace were stars in their own right. James Brown emerged around that time, and he will be damned if some guy like Elvis would keep him down. A lot of black musicians were ripped off during the 50s & 60s (or even today), but it's the record industry, the managers and reps and execs and their awful contracts who do the ripping off. Even The Beatles got shafted. If Ray Charles wants to point the finger, why start with a pawn like Elvis? Why not the Chess brothers or Ahmet Ertegun or somebody like that?

Elvis is a symbol that a lot of people will pour their aspirations and grievances into, but little of it has bearing upon the truth of Elvis the human being or the artist. I often feel the latter two are constantly undermined by the former, which is a shame. Those Sun recordings are some of the best music ever made in this country. It's hard after all these years to disentangle their worth from the hype. The best place to start is just put the records on and go, cat, go.

Moment of clarity: P. Diddy is the black Elvis. He's popularizes for young audiences the music of square old British musicians like Sting and David Bowie.

Hm. Had a moment to think about it. A more elegant comparison: P. Diddy is Led Zeppelin in reverse, taking British music by old white English people and popularizing it for young Americans. He even used a Led Zeppelin song on the "Godzilla" soundtrack and appeared with Jimmy Page on SNL.

There ya go.

Well, I hit allmusic.com, as I always do when I want musical-dirt and both I and the search engine are feeling slow and lazy:

"...Early in the day on December 11, 1964, while in Los Angeles, Cooke became involved in an altercation at a seedy motel, with a woman guest and the night manager, and was shot to death while allegedly trying to attack the manager. The case is still shrouded in doubt and mystery, and was never investigated the way the murder of a star of his stature would be today. Cooke's death shocked the black community and reverberated far beyond..."

Thing is, Kev, I'm not really arguing with your point that Elvis was a real musician and not a hack (for at least part of his life). But I still think that, historically, Ray Charles was correct. The history of music in the U.S. repeatedly shows that if you want lasting fame (not just fame in your own lifetime), it helps greatly to be White. If you want to decrease your chances of being ripped off and dying, if not destitute, than less comfortably than you deserved, it helps to be White. And however much serious students (or serious dabblers) in music history know the real story behind the formation of popular taste, you can still flick on your TV or eavesdrop in a bar and constantly hear people say things like "Elvis invented this-or-that..." or "Benny Goodman was the greatest jazz musician ever..." or, etc. etc. Most people in this country really do have a poor understanding of where so many of the innovations that we now take for granted originated. Hell, it's everywhere. I seem to recall reading that one of the reasons Vernon Reid and others wanted to start the Black Rock Coalition was because they felt that Blacks, too, had forgotten that there was once a time where there was nothing novel or strange about Black musicians with guitars.

Actually, the apothesis of what Charles was talking about, I believe, can be summed up by turning on any "Classic Rock" station in North America, I'll wager. If they're still anything like they were when I was growing up/toiling in various shit jobs where there was a radio, they play that annoying Bob Seger song "Old Time Rock 'N Roll... but they never play any of the music Seger was actually waxing (no pun intended) nostalgiac for. I've always found that more than a tad bizarre, myself. The face of "Classic Rock," except for Jimi Hendrix, is a uniformly pale (and 99% male) one.

Oh, and Johnny Ace died young, playing a game of Russian Roullette. :( I think it speaks volume that I personally never heard of either him or Cooke until I hit my college years. Elvis, well, that was a different story...

Elvis is more of a grad school thang.

Grad school ?? Fuck that. If my parents had that kind of money burning a hole in their pockets, I'd make them buy me a small villa in the South of France. :p But not one next door to Robert Crumb.

You're just his type, Amy.

Ewwwwwwwwwwww. ;)

But not one next door to Robert Crumb.

Even then, Amy, I'm not sure you'd be safe, since he's wandering all the times through the fields and forests of the Midi, according to this interview ("Crump"! What were they thinking?).
He's a regular illustrator for a New Age magazine (check out the postcards), while his daughter is keepin' it real in one of Paris' hottest areas.

I mean:
According to this interview over at Scorbut.be.

Er... Sophie Crumb. "This orange juice costs four Euros!" is not exactly the best punch line I've ever seen. On the plus side, she's not as derivative of her parents as Monte Wolverton:

http://www.pacificnet.net/toons/

Oh, c'mon, Kevin. My butt isn't THAT big !! I'm one of those woman who stores most of those vending-machine donuts on her stomach, not her butt. :p

OTOH, I do own a big pair of boots. Okay, forget France. How about a nice villa in Spain instead. Mmmm... paella... ;)

When I lived in Spain as a child we once stayed in a Spanish family's house for a weekend. To honor our visit, the family was to fix paella the next day after we slept over. During the night, the crabs somehow escaped in the kitchen and had to be captured the next morning, before getting turned over to their fate as boiling water swimmers. One of the crabs was an ex-Nazi and had microfilm V-2 rocket plans hidden in its shell that I accidentally swallowed. Okay, that last sentence was made up.

If it were true, Pinkham, it'd explain one heck of a lot. ;)

Unusual ideas can make enemies.

I am the enemy of penis enhancement pills!

What else can i say after all this ?!