#and we get to see complex politics and character drama and stuff that feels MEANINGFUL

[tea-earl-grey]

i'm not super into star trek novels and the beta canon and whatnot but i'm so glad that i read Last Best Hope because it really makes Picard s1 infinitely better on rewatch (and i say this as a Picard enjoyer/defender). like 100% recommend if you're even a little bit interested in Picard era worldbuilding.

[12izzy3]

Webcomic Recommendations No One Asked For:

I......... Spent 2 hours putting together a list of my webcomic recommendations, with summaries and reviews, because I was reworking my blog... And really I don’t think anyone ever goes directly on to my blog proper, so it feels kind of foolish to have that there where no one will see it, so I’m actually going to post it as well:

Webcomics are honestly just so tight, and there’s such a vast variety of them that there’s something for everyone, if not a few somethings for everyone! I’m personally all about indie games, but if there’s another indie market that I feel like the internet has created a space for it’s comics. After I started writing this I realized I have a uh… Lot of recommendations. Also, I may be an idiot for not using the author’s own summaries???

Regularly updating:

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS - A comic about a college girl, Allison, given mystical powers beyond her understanding, and thrust into a celestial world filled with angels and demons, where the lines of good and evil are blurry at best. With the help of friends she meets along the way, she must navigate her new powers, and save her boyfriend from forces that would destroy existence. Kinda dark thematically (with very rare and minor gore), but a great comic if you love action, fantasy, and fantastic art. One of my favorites.

AWFUL HOSPITAL - Another one of my favorites. After her child becomes terribly sick, and doctors tell her that there’s nothing that they can do, a mother wakes up in a mysterious, otherworldly hospital. She must navigate this confusing and sometimes horrifying hospital to save her child and get home, and on the way, she makes many odd friends and unknowable enemies, and learns that her child’s sickness may be part of something larger. This comic is funny, has cool action, a unique format, and lots of great, though ghastly, character designs.

GUNNERKRIGG COURT - A coming of age story about two girls, Antimony and Kat, as they try to find their place in each other’s lives, and the two clashing worlds that surround them, the massive technological complex that is their school and home, Gunnerkrigg Court, and the forest across the river, where magic and fantastic creatures thrive, under the watchful eye of the trickster god Coyote. Another great one for if you like fantasy, but is usually a lot lighter, with a peak of intensity about equal to… Like, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I think. I’ve only gotten into this one pretty recently, but it’s good.

PARANATURAL - After his family moves to his dad’s old home town, Max discovers that he has magical powers, and becomes part of the Paranatural Activities club at his school, a group of students and their adviser who all have magical powers, and use them to protect the populace from ghosts, as well as investigate the many magical mysteries of the town. This comic is great, and mostly focuses on action and comedy. The art is a very colorful cartoony style, and the characters are drawn very… fluid, rubbery. The best way to put it is that the artist has really put a lot of effort into making characters consistently as expressive as possible, and that good old Disney/Looney Toons/Tom & Jerry stretchiness makes for very good visual comedy.

HOUSEPETS! - Another one of the earliest webcomics I ever read! Housepets is… largely a comedy comic, following the lives of anthropomorphized pets in a small neighborhood. They go on adventures, and live the fun yet complicated lives of an open society of people with unbelievable amounts of free time. However, sometimes there are bigger drama/adventure arcs, which are really good! A lot of the times amazing art or cool action are what draw me into adventure stories, but I just think the plot of this comic can be really good and surprisingly deep for a humor comic. And it’s still loose enough, and in the newspaper comic style that you can usually jump in very often (not every strip, mind you but in pretty small arcs) without feeling like you’ve missed a ton. Long too, lots to read, recommend.

STAND STILL STAY SILENT - SSSS is a comic that takes place 90 years after the end of the world. A zombie-like virus with strong mystical qualities has wiped out not just human, but much of the world’s mammalian life. In Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark), in spite of the virus, society continues to exist, and most people live normal, happy lives. Our comic follows a research team, formed on a hairstring budget to travel into the infected zone, collect information on the virus and state of the fauna there, and, secretly, to collect books to sell back home. A great fantasy adventure drama that updates very often, and has really good art.

CUCUMBER QUEST - In spite of order this is actually the last one I’m writing, and I’m tired, so I’m going to copy the book one summary from Amazon:

What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?

Cucumber Quest is good, the art is colorful and bright, all of the characters are relatable and real, including the villains, there’s cool adventures sequences and plot, and it’s a very fun comic. There’s humor and love and struggle in the comic, and it’s very well done.

GIRL GENIUS - Girl Genius follows Agatha Heterodyne, up and coming mad scientist, on her many adventures to save herself, her friends and the world if it’s along the way. It’s hard, however, competing with an entire world of mad scientists, as well as the Heterodyne legacy, one filled with chaos and bloodshed up until recently. I like Girl Genius a lot. It doesn’t move through the story very fast, but there’s a lot of solid world building, and more importantly, very intriguing sci-fi action and adventure happening inside of that world! I’m also pretty sure they do a radio show or podcast or something with additional Agatha adventures on top of the comic.

SUPERNORMAL STEP - After leading a life as a drifter after the death of her father, Fae is pulled into an alternate world where magic is real. There, she tries to find her place in life, master the magic that the world around her runs on, and get home to plain old earth in one piece. Lots of cool action, every character has really got their own style of magic. I can honestly tell you that it’s good, but I read it over such a long period of time that it’s got a pretty vague impression in my head.

ATOMIC ROBO - Robo is a skilled an dedicated scientist. He’s also an atomic robot built and raised by Nikola Tesla. Atomic Robo follows the titular character on the many adventures of his life, from WWII to the present. As the head of Tesladyne Industries, Robo is dedicated to researching the outlandish, the weird, the impossible! And when the world calls on him, he and his Action Scientists defend it from giant monsters, cosmic anomalies, and mad science. Atomic Robo is great if you love action, robots, monsters, humor, and velociraptors duel-wielding uzis. Highly recommended.

DUMBING OF AGE - As the title would imply, Dumbing Of Age is a pretty standard coming of age comedy! Starring a wide cast of likable and complex character, DoA follows a group of college freshmen as they learn more about themselves, and grow beyond the bubbles that they were raised in. I think the underpinnings of the comic are pretty strongly on humor, but there’s a lot of drama, and conversations about meaningful things too. There are lots of varying depictions of drama, depression, anxiety, and the ways people deal with pressure, and fear. But there’s also a lot of love and friendliness. It’s a good comic, and probably the only solid slice-of-life on my list.

MANLY GUYS DOING MANLY THINGS - This comic follows The Commander, a bio-engineered super soldier sent back in time to run a temp agency. This particular temp agency specializes in reintroducing particularly brutish video game, comic, and movie protagonists back into normal polite society. Duke Nukem isn’t much of a man for customer service, however. Later on the comic drifts more toward Commander’s personal life. (So slice of life, but with a buff, and actually surprisingly sensitive and forward thinking, super commando from the future.) Has been in a bit of a slump in terms of updates recently, but they still happen.

GRRL POWER - Sidney, a slightly hyper nerd who works at a comic shop, stumbles upon an artifact that gives her a variety of superpowers. After being exposed, she becomes a member of the government’s brand new super hero organization. This comic is a lot of fun, with some cool superpowers and super fights. Lots of humor, very consistently, in any given scene. Sadly, it is a bit fan service-y, though in the grand scale of things it’s not the worst offender (though definitely the worst you’ll see on this list).

SWORD INTERVAL - This is a pretty new one for me, but it’s great. At some indeterminate point in the past (potentially as far back as the civil war, if not farther), the earth became exposed to monsters and magic in ways that it wasn’t before. Humanity still exists and survives, but plagued by supernatural forces. Our main character is Fall, a very new monster hunter, who after years in witness protection, has decided to track down and kill the Hierophant, the powerful monster that killed her parents. Sword interval does a lot of really cool fantasy stuff, with new takes on classic monsters, and magic and monsters in settings that we don’t often see them in, out in the open in present day. It’s something I wish we could see more. Good action and art, particularly character design.

BACK - Abigail is back. From the dead? From a very long sleep in a box underground? She doesn’t know either. She doesn’t know a lot of things. What she does know is that she’s got two guns, is nearly indestructible, and is prophesied to go north to the capital and end the world. With the help of the young cleric Michael, who supplements her absolute lack of all knowledge and common sense, Abigail fights her way through the kingdom, and past the kings many superpowered deputies. Back is cool, back is funny, and sometimes has some good action. I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites, but it’s a comic I started and I’ve kept up with, so that’s saying something.

MARE INTERNUM - Not very long yet, and I only recently read it, but Mare Internum is really good. I don’t want to spoil it too much, honestly, especially because it’s so short, but it’s a sci-fi adventure comic about being trapped, underground, on Mars, and finding life there. The art is great, the story so far is well written, and the dialogue is good. I really don’t want to spoil it, but there are some great concepts in it and you should read it.

OPHIUCHUS - A very new comic about an ancient stone guardian who is whisked away to another, far off world. Here, he is employed to help two of this world’s denizens defeat the blight that has corrupted and destroyed their once almost utopian world. The art for this is really good. The comic is not currently long enough to comment on much else, but it seems interesting, sci-fi with a touch of fantasy.

Slowly Updating:

AVA’S DEMON - Ava’s Demon is about a girl, Ava who has spent her entire young life haunted by a ghost that torments her, before finally making a deal. The ghost, Wrathia, will help her become a normal girl, with friends and a normal life, but first, Ava must track down the ghosts of Wrathia’s most powerful allies, and help her dissolve the massive interplanetary empire that is TITAN. Ava’s Demon is amazing. The story is good, but I think the comic’s greatest strength is absolutely stunning and polished art. Strong recommendation.

THE PROPERTY OF HATE - RGB is a self-described monster, a sharp dressed man with a TV for a head. However, he’s looking for a hero to guide on a quest. RGB whisks our young protagonist, the Hero, to a world that exists beside our own a world completely fueled and inhabited by our creativity, our stories. RGB protects the Hero from these dangers, guiding her on a mission unknown, through a world that, although mystical, seems to have lost its hope.

HE IS A GOOD BOY - Slow but large updates. This comic follows the life a sentient acorn, Crange, after the death of his parent (a tree) to a lumberjack. Crange is kind of a bit of a loser, and stumbles around his world of sentient rocks and bugs getting into all sorts of trouble and hijinks. These hijinks almost always result in someone’s death, which Crange is impressively unphased by. HIAGB is fantastic, in my opinion. The art is great, the humor is great, especially the visual comedy, and the story is good. However, it gets real dark, and gory. But if you’re fine with that, it IS a (dark) comedy comic, and a good one.

THE LAST HALLOWEEN - One Halloween, the darkness opens up, and monsters pour out from the seams between our world and theirs. Approximately 7 billion monsters, in fact. Mona, a young girl and horror fanatic finds herself thrown into a world of chaos and horror, on the run from her own monster, and forced to look for a way to save the world, with the help of ghosts, zombies, vampires, and even monsters themselves. In spite of the fact that this comic can be VERY dark, I think one of its big hooks is humor and likable characters, on top of great art and plot. I really like it. This comic maybeshouldn’t be on the slow update list, but the artist is just picking up speed after a long hiatus, so…

ROMANTICALLY APOCALYPTIC - The apocalypse happened, and Charles Snippy missed it. Humanity was wiped out in a war against it’s own, ever-present AI, and Charles Snippy, a scientist/tour guide without the implants made it out alive, only to wander alone this is until he meets Zee Captain, an ever positive, gender question mark, maniac who wanders the wasteland with their insane assistant Pilot. Snippy, Captain and Pilot wander the wasteland, facing off against monsters, raiders, and the laws of physics in a mind warping and illogical adventure.

On Hiatus:

DERELICT - Like a surprisingly large number of comics on this list, in Derelict, the world has ended. A strange Miasma travels the world, killing billions, and bringing with it gargoyle-like monsters who fear the daylight. However, the world goes on, in a small, broken way, and our story follows a scavenger in this new world.

HELVETICA - So, you die, and then what? Well, life goes on. This is what Helvetica learns, after he dies and reemerges into an afterlife that seems shockingly similar to the world of the living, with work, pressure, responsibility, danger, and just plain old boring life. Except everyone is a skeleton. Helvetica is very resistant to accept this new life in death. This one is pretty short so far, and hasn’t updated in a while, but it’s good.

VIBE - Hasn’t update in a year and a half, but what’s there is good (Honestly, it’s super sad it hasn’t update, I like it a lot). Vibe follows Baron, a young shaman, a spiritual master who is able to expel negative emotions (bad vibes) from the human body. Only those emotions then become monsters, who a shaman must fight to complete the process! With the help of his Loa (they’re like familiars), he navigates life as a teenager, and his increasingly complex and dangerous life as a shaman. I really like this comic. There’s a lot of very cool and dynamic action, and the artist makes great use of a ton of bright colors.

THE ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER - This one hasn’t updated in about a year, but what’s there right now is good. Charles Christopher is a Sasquatch, living in the woods on the edge of society. Though he himself is fairly soft, and simple, the wilderness around him is full of anthropomorphized animals who go about shockingly human social and professional lives. The comic follows Charles Christopher as he interacts with the world of these animals, and becomes tangled in a vast spiritual quest.

POWER NAP - Hard to know exactly where to put this one. It’s currently VERY slow updating. Power Nap takes place in a world where the majority of mankind is reliant on a drug that allows them to live 24/7 without sleep. However, there are those who are allergic to the medicine, who live their lives out of sync with their peers, protected by the government, but effectively second class citizens. However, in a sleepless world, over-saturated by virtual reality, the human subconscious has found ways to seep into reality.

THE FANCY ADVENTURES OF JACK CANNON - I want to start this out by saying this comic is probably dead, without a 100% resolution. However, it’s currently 492 pages, and a LOT of the storyline covered in that span was resolved. Such that, if they’d wanted to, I could’ve seen the author wrapping it up. I digress. Jack Cannon is about a kid moving to a new school, where he finds the bullies are able to hack reality. Somehow immune to hacks, Jack fights the bullies, and in doing so, puts himself on the stage of a worldwide battle against hackers. Lots of really cool action in this, one of the first few webcomics I read.

Complete:

HOMESTUCK - If you’re here, you are probably at least aware of Homestuck. It’s about a bunch of goofy awkward teen friends who get sucked into a cosmic (video) game, with the fate of the universe at stake, but you know, they’ve still got that teen angst. Time travel is involved. It’s a very long, fun, and dramatic comic which is heavily influenced by RPGs and point and click adventures.

THE ADVENTURES OF DR. MCNINJA - The pressures of being a doctor AND ninja are immense, but on either front, you can trust that Dr. McNinja is the man for the job. Born into an Irish ninja family, Dr. McNinja longs for a life where he can do medicine in peace, but finds himself constantly pulled into a string of action packed adventures, fighting giant monsters, bandits riding velociraptors, and dueling radical interdimensional kings. This one if fairly long, a bit over 1800 pages, but it’s really good and well done. Again, there is a lot of both action and humor (I’m big on that), with some surprisingly meaningful and well-done story arcs in spite of how silly the premise is.

REMIND - This one is about a girl who lives in a lighthouse on the edge of a town whose main draw is the “Lizard Man” legend that her own father made up. However, after her cat one day starts walking on two legs and talking, claiming to be one of many said lizard men, they both go on a journey to discover the truth. This one was OK. The story and sci-fi elements are both alright bot not great. But it’s not super long, so if you have the time, maybe read it.

[icawritestbh]

REVIEW: Moonlight Drawn by the Clouds

I love reading books and watching tv shows and movies, and even though I have yet to gain the ascendancy to be a /critic/ of professional work, I like critiquing stuff anyway. Hahaha. I'm especially particular about plotlines, and I've been obsessing over Bo Gum a lot, so why not write about it?

So here's a short review of Moonlight Drawn by the Clouds. It's alternate title is Love in the Moonlight, but I prefer to refer to it as Moonlight Drawn by the Clouds because this is the direct translation from the Korean title and when you watch the whole thing, you'd see that it's the more meaningful title between the two.

Like I said, I have no ascendancy to be a real /critic/, so don't take this seriously as this is just my opinion.

 WHAT IS MOONLIGHT DRAWN BY THE CLOUDS?

It is a kdrama about a female eunuch, Hong Ra On, who has been disguising herself as a man since she was a kid, and about the ambitious yet unconventional Crown Prince, Lee Young, who is preparing to become king of Joseon. The two cross paths and fall in love as they untangle the issues surrounding Ra On's family and the politics of Joseon.

 THE GOOD

1.       Characterization + Acting

 Lee Young is a very complex character, who is just layers on layers. From the onset, he's very cheeky and mischievous. But as we get to know him more, he is shown to be very brilliant, courageous and genuine in his desire to be a good king for the people. He's deeply loyal to his friend, Byeong Yeon, his lover, Ra On, and to the memories of his mother.

  And Park Bo Gum does an amazing job making this entire character come to life. Despite Lee Yeong having a very different (or even opposite) personality from Bo Gum, Bo Gum acts him out so naturally. And every side of Lee Young was made believable through Bo Gum's acting, as well as the cohesiveness of the story. Bo Gum is really such a talented actor; he can express so much without saying a word.

 [MAJOR SPOILER]

Probably my favorite scene in the series was the end of Ep 16-start of Ep 17, where we approach the resolution to some of the story's major conflicts: the capture of Hong Gyeong Nae, Ra On's identity as both Lee Young's lover and the daughter of Gyeong Nae, and the loyalty of Byeong Yeon to the Prince and the rebels. As the first two conflicts were unfolding, the feelings of distress and confusion were so evident in Bo Gum's face as he was trying to think on his toes to arrive at the best solution.

 And then, out of nowhere, Lee Young turns and directs his sword at the Prince instead. The utter confusion as to how to react to his best friend's betrayal was portrayed so perfectly.

 [END OF SPOILER]

 Park Bo Gum was truly the standout of the show because his character was, hands down, the most complex.

 Hong Ra On was also a very interesting character, although she was definitely more interesting at the beginning when she was actively facing her problems. There comes a point where she  becomes a more passive character (who is always the victim) which I understand because she was always in a tough and seemingly hopeless circumstances. Kim Yoo Joon also does a great job breathing life into this cheerful and playful young girl who tries her best to cope with problems and conflicts too difficult for a regular 18-year-old to handle.

 And as a whole, all the actors and actresses performed well. Our other main characters, Byeong Yeon and Yoon Sung, were also very lovable. Even though they were not given the spotlight, you also root for them and feel sad for them when [MAJOR SPOILER] they almost die/die lol [END OF SPOILER]. The bad guys were also well-acted, and you really despise them as they try to bring down our prince. Shout out to the evil queen, who has perfected that look of malice.

 2.       Cohesiveness of the storyline

 The writers of the drama definitely adhered to the Chekhov's gun principle, which states that "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." This basically means that everything placed in the story has to have some sort of relevance. I can't think of a single element placed in the story that didn't have a greater meaning in the end, which, to me, is how stories should be written.

  THE BAD/NOT SO GOOD

 There are more things on this list than the "Good," but that's because the two things I wrote in "Good" were very general and applied to the show as a whole. The four things I'm listing down below are small and nitpicky, and do little to offset the two major good things I pointed out.

 1.       It was predictable

 Do I even need to put a spoiler alert before saying that [MAJOR SPOILER] our two lovers end up together? That Prince Yeong becomes king? [END OF SPOILER] I don't think so, but that's a flaw of kdramas in general.

 2.       The love triangle

…which wasn't a real love triangle to begin with. Yoon Sung never stood a chance. Never. And tbh, all it did for the plot was just add a little more drama, but it didn't advance our story.

 3.       Yoon Sung's character

I love Jinyoung as Yoon Sung, but I really think they could have developed Yoon Sung's character more. All throughout the story, he was nothing but the silent partner of our main characters, who did nothing but help everyone, even the Prince who has become his rival. In relation to my previous point, they didn't even make him a believable contender for Ra On's love. Also, he made so many sacrifices for Ra On even though their relationship wasn't so deep. I couldn't help but wonder why he was so in love with her even if they never really got close. If they were gonna make him the hopeless romantic martyr lover of Ra On, I think they should have deepened their relationship so that the love triangle will be of more significance and so that the endearing character of Yoon Jung wouldn’t be limited to a plot device.

 4.       The major death and almost death scene

 [MAJOR SPOILER]

 I really loved Byeong Yeon's death scene. As I mentioned earlier, my favorite scene in the show was when he directed his sword to the Prince. Later on, we see that in doing so, he was able to save the rebels without causing real harm to the prince, instead sacrificing his life because of course, the palace won't let him get away with threatening the prince like that. So he puts his sword down, then the palace guards attack him.

 The only problem with this beautiful death scene is that you later find out that it wasn't actually a death scene. Byeong Yeon's meaningful sacrifice becomes less meaningful because he didn't actually die. To me, it's such a waste of that scene which the writers invested a lot in.

 On the other hand, Yoon Jung dies for Ra On in such a stupid way. In the last episode, in his attempt to save Ra On, he ends up single-handedly battling his own guards and dying. I mean, c'mon. Our Yoon Jung is so much smarter than that. Obviously, the writers just wanted to kill off the character so they just wrote a silly death for him that wouldn’t complicate things and fit in the one hour time limit of the final episode. Meanwhile, they invested so much in Byeong Yeon's almost death.

 IMO, they should have just kept Byeong Yeon dead and kept Yoon Jung alive. Then although our beloved prince loses his best friend, maybe in the end when all the conflicts (esp. the political ones) are resolved, he could finally reconcile things with Yoon Jung again. After all, it was clear all throughout the show that the two still cared for each other but just couldn't be friends because of all the politics. It would have given the ending a nice bittersweet touch, instead of Yoon Jung’s death being the bitter part of the bittersweet end, but doing little to move me because his death scene was just so dumb.

 [END OF SPOILER]

 OVERALL

 I recommend this show especially to those who have already developed their kdrama goggles and can overlook (or have learned to embrace) the tropes of the kdrama world. It really is worth the watch. (If I end up watching more kdramas and writing more reviews, I'll develop a numerical rating scheme but for now, a qualitative rating will do)

Lol. This may seem out of place in this blog but writing reviews is something I want to learn also since I’m so fond of nitpicking these things with my friends. 

Thinking of writing reviews on another platform though cus I had difficulty formatting this on tumbr.

[nofomoartworld]

Bad at Sports Sunday Comics with Matthew Thurber

By Max Morris

I was first made aware of Matt Thurber’s work when the first issue of 1-800-MICE showed up at Quimby’s bookstore in Chicago. The style of screwball antics conflated with surrealist political drama (one plot point features an immortal bluegrass-star vampire streaking through space, and his apocalyptic approach toward the earth) was of immediate interest, and I recall being surprised that the heady brew of strange plot devices actually moved toward a climax. Today we present some selection from Art Comic, Thurber’s ongoing serial, and I was pleased get a chance to ask him a few questions on his work.

    Max Morris: Back in 2014, you wrote this article for The Comics Journal Website , “Letter to a Young Cartoonist”, that stirred some controversy at the time. A bulk of the article dealt with the ramifications of posting comics work on Tumblr and Social Media, among other issues of challengers to the new generation of comics artists. This was in a time when that felt like the primary way to see new work being made by current creators. A little under 3 years after you posted that article, a lot has changed.  Looking back at this article, what words do you have to say to the young cartoonist today?

Matthew Thurber: I feel more than ever that printed media contains autonomous power that is almost magical. All internet publication is embedded in and framed by another corporation. With print, as soon as it flies off the press it belongs, like the land, to “you and me”. The disturbing thing about social media is they change the terms of publication from one of total freedom, to one where you are being allowed to express yourself. Because they grant it… they can take it away. Social media echo chambers are destructive: look at what they have helped to do in terms of ripping our country in half, replacing everything with a simulation of reality. Is that what you mean by “a lot is changed”? We’re opting into 1984 because it feels good. It’s so seductive to feel like you’ve done something in pseudo-reality.  We need to learn to live without the internet, to distribute artifacts in physical space, to know how to talk to each other again. It is so much more meaningful and beautiful.  And guess what??? I’m part of the problem because I’m on INSTAGRAM (@mtshelves)! What a miserable hypocritical worm!!!! And the worst part is….I LOVE it! I love the ego pampering attention and the immediacy despite my complete conviction that it sucks!

MM: In your current ongoing serial Art Comic (which we are previewing in this article) you satirize High Art and all of its follies- your earlier work 1-800-MICE and Infomaniacs could be seen a parody of culture at large, but Art Comic seems to have a specific focus on the world of fine arts- what inspired this move?

MT: I didn’t know what I wanted to say exactly at first. It’s taking shape. I’m interested in how the art world functions as an industry steered by wealth and not by philosophy or ideas, despite the mythology that it is an idealistic pursuit, and how no one talks about the meaning of money in art or how that is never seen as the subject matter or part of the content of art. You’re just supposed to go to these gallery shows and ignore the context. The myths are stronger than the reality.

People wouldn’t go to art school otherwise the definition of art as wealth dovetails with the acceptance of craft as being obsolete, or in an outsourcing of craft or technique to make objects for the artist-manager-boss. Technical skill is replaced by verbal or conceptual dexterity, or of a performance of self, or just by the existence of celebrity.  So that, and what the role of schools are in this, and what the role of narrative art and illustration is in all this. And how changes in the art scene reflect the overall development and gentrification of New York, since I moved here in 1996.

So Cooper Union gave up on its mission of providing free tuition in 2014 and I started to make a story based on my own experiences mixed with these absurd paranoid premises. Like that there was actually a conspiracy of artists to repress their students and that Matthew Barney’s Cremaster was taken away from him and became a symbolic representation of a real estate transaction.

Additionally to working as a cartoonist, you have worked as a multimedia artist in theater, performance, and other mediums. Do you feel that affects your work as a cartoonist, and vice-versa?

Yes… in a way it’s all the same energy. Increasingly it seems impossible to think of just doing comics. I’m dying to make an animated film- I just have to get this comic done first. I like to experiment and learning different techniques is part of my process, I guess, maybe even more important than the subject in a way.

I just worked with a group of 8 volunteer non-professional actors, and such, to perform what was basically a dance piece called “Terpinwoe”. We had one rehearsal and that was it, and the performance was great. The theater stuff started as an idea to do a puppet show called Mrs. William Horsley.  But the idea of puppetry evolved into a general idea of ‘modeled experience’. Now Mrs. William Horsley has turned into a human puppet show, with actors. It’s more fun than being in any band!

But I think for me, the narrative impulse is behind everything. It’s always a kind of illustration of a story or something resembling a story. The idea of depiction. I would love to make comics that were more abstract, like dance pieces, maybe that’s what Yokoyama does, or Milt Gross. And after something happens like this theater piece I ricochet back into wanting to read and draw quietly and maybe that’s good. But I don’t know why more “Artists” don’t work in comics and why cartoonists get so settled into their medium. I think that is changing a lot actually. Any form is for any artist. I believe in “Amateur Enthusiasm”.

Much of your work utilizes psychedelia, visionary imagery, and absurdity- you also seem to enjoy intertwining plots and complex character development. When structuring a narrative, how do you consider resolving these two seemingly opposing themes?

I don’t know if I consider these tendencies resolved and that’s OK. That’s why novels exist, to embrace contradictions. I like very unexplained and strong imagery, like in dreams. Also, I like beautiful and complicated structures and plots. My favorite artworks are when you get both at once, like how “Mulholland Drive” messed with the logical side of your brain, but through the use of really subconscious imagery. Or Harry Stephen Keeler, whose crime stories are logical to the point where it makes no sense at all. Or Daniel Pinkwater, who somehow balances absurdity and very warm and human characters, or Raymond Roussel whose writing is all an attempt to make connections with the totally random subconscious imagery generated by word-play.

I worry about my characters not having any psychological depth. I wonder about emotional manipulation to get across my ideas. Is it even ethical? Elaine May is good at it- see “A New Leaf”. But if you try to do that it usually looks disgusting in the way that Hollywood movies make you want to vomit with their stupid emotional manipulation. I love ridiculous melodrama, or silent films where stuff just happens and humans are reduced to sacks of flour to be thrown around.

I guess that I think making a graphic novel is one way of keeping many unresolved, inconsistent elements together in suspension as in a soup where there are chunks of this and that floating in different shapes and sizes.

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