October 1, 2026
I turned down a speaking gig yesterday and it felt so good. I have been saying yes to Dig-Me-On-The-Stage-Cavorting for as long as I can remember. I know there will be exceptions, but as of December 19, I am out of that game.
Meanwhile, I am still on the hunt for a new kind of narrative truth.
Daily Whip Out:"A Study for The Id Grid"
When the concept of graphic novels first appeared in 1976 I thought for sure there would be some imaginative improvement on the comic strip, but no, it simply extended the worst elements of comics with the worst of the worst being those damn word balloons, with arrows pointing at who is talking. Seems like something from the Civil War, which in fact, it is!
My theory is that the narrative grid is ripe for innovation. It needs an evolution into something else. I flirted with this concept in the book I co-wrote with Jana:
And in my subsequent art show at the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona:
But at the very least, I want to pursue more imaginative explorations of the narrative form.
Random Notes On The Road to Enlightenment
It's all about the contradictions: On some level sanity is a bit insane. In order to be funny you need to think sad first. You only get to keep what you give away. And so it goes. . .ad infinitum.
"There is a visual uncertainty to match a 1970s uncertainty about what American history even means."
—Mark Cousins, in his 15 part documentary "A History of Cinema: An Odyssey," about the movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller
"I'm a lawyer, you idiot!"
—The punchline to Rustler's Rhapsody
"If you push away hard enough from the representation of a thing by its opposite, you'll get to the thing you're pushing away from."
—Paul Schrader, mangling a Freud concept to make a point about movie making
A New Honesty On The Wing
Combine scraps and organize them into a meaningful story. Stop chasing commerciality. Reject the current trends. Stop trying to hit a home run. Be more playful. Accept where you are and be with it. Don't write what you know. Write what you feel.
And by all means tease. Tease. Tease!
Their torrid affair ended with just three words.In "Of Mice And Men," John Steinbeck humorously describes a cowboy bunkhouse full of "those Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe."
"Hey, Grandpa, get off the stage!"
—Youngsters who are finally getting their wish
I think your Illustrated Times books are the road to redesigning the graphic novel. As a self-described graphic novel connoisseur, I will never forget seeing The Illustrated Times of Billy the Kid for the first time and thinking it was the most original graphic storytelling idea I'd ever seen. Keep expanding on the idea; you're damn near there. Reimagine it without the historical verbiage and just the raw visual emotion of the story. Look at Milo Manara's Indian Summer. If you removed the word balloons, you still understood the story; it's the most beautiful and emotional graphic novel I've read. Let your art tell 75% of the story: find the human story and damn trying to mine every fact. Have some fun; you've more than earned it! Best wishes!!
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this would be up your alley but in a recently published book, “Rebecca”, written by Kate Beaton and illustrated by Sydney Smith, there are a couple of sequences where panels are used to tell the story in what is essentially a picture book. As a life long fan of graphic narrative, it was a very thoughtful use of sequential storytelling to give emotional weight to an excellent story.
ReplyDeleteYour Billy The Kid book was excellent, the added bonus being that, unlike a lot of graphic “novels”, it had clear storytelling.