An Introduction of Sorts to the Way I See Comics
Been thinking about the creation of a comic book lately, mostly in relationship with one of my collaborative projects. On my mind, the formalism of Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's Watchmen, Will Eisner and Gil Steranko's typographic experimentation, Dave McKean and David Mack's use of mixed media, Ben Templesmith and Jack Kirby's weird and energetic compositions, Hiroaki Samura, Osamu Tezuka, Stan Lee and the Marvel way of scripting, the division of labor in American and Japanese comics (and to some extent, some Franco-Belgian ones), the nine panel grid as the sonnet form of comic books.
Some may be surprised not to see any European names in the mix (the British ones being more in the tradition of American comics than in the continental one's - I've pretty much set mind on the United Kingdom being the 51st state of America, as in the New Model Army song), but I grew up with American comics as reading material, the way Pierre Joris grew up with rock'n roll in the 1950s-60s. Not really as a form of pro-Americanism in any form (I also read Tintin, Spirou and Astérix, after all), but translated American, then Japanese comics were cheaper than the standard European album. Consider this. The standard monthly anthology published by Lug, then Semic and Panini/Marvel France costed around 10 francs (when I started reading them) to 25 francs (when I moved here)(2 to 5 dollars) and included 100 pages of Spiderman, the Avengers, X-men and more (DC was unpublished for the duration of the 80s and early 90s after the bankruptcy of publisher Artima). Meanwhile, a typical French album would contain 40 pages of art for 20 dollars.
Some may be surprised not to see any European names in the mix (the British ones being more in the tradition of American comics than in the continental one's - I've pretty much set mind on the United Kingdom being the 51st state of America, as in the New Model Army song), but I grew up with American comics as reading material, the way Pierre Joris grew up with rock'n roll in the 1950s-60s. Not really as a form of pro-Americanism in any form (I also read Tintin, Spirou and Astérix, after all), but translated American, then Japanese comics were cheaper than the standard European album. Consider this. The standard monthly anthology published by Lug, then Semic and Panini/Marvel France costed around 10 francs (when I started reading them) to 25 francs (when I moved here)(2 to 5 dollars) and included 100 pages of Spiderman, the Avengers, X-men and more (DC was unpublished for the duration of the 80s and early 90s after the bankruptcy of publisher Artima). Meanwhile, a typical French album would contain 40 pages of art for 20 dollars.
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