Shortly. Thus. And So.
I woke up last Friday with the kind of nausea that makes you forget you ever felt any other way. The kind that makes your forehead break into a cold sweat, the kind where you don't even know if you can make it to the bathroom because moving will only make it worse. I vomited several times over the course of 3 hours, until it got to the point where nothing was coming out but the most basic fluid, the yellowy pain known as bile. I saw myself in the mirror and was frightened by the look in my eyes. I felt disgusting and pathetic, I felt like Rusty Brown.
I recently read Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library 16 and was completely blown away. His layouts have reached new levels of cinematics, so much to the point where I find myself remembering it in movement. The art of comics has long intimated at movement: the scratch marks by a inky cape, a red vinyl boot, a green and shiny gloved fist. But Ware's movement is slow and purposeful, like the precise snowflakes that decorate the opening pages.
ANL 16 has many characters other than the profoundly pathetic Rusty Brown (with whom I feel an unwelcome kinship towards). There's his future friend by default, Chalky White. His sister Alison, beautiful and real. A collection of teachers at the snow blanketed school from Rusty's father to Mr. Ware himself. All different but all struggling to make sense of their loneliness. Everything seems to point to some semblance of order or fate, a reasoning for these people to be brought together: the clean lines, the rounded edges, the reference to snowflakes, the architecture of the school itself, the square panels.
But that's not the case. He let's you know this by an omniscient voice on a blackboard referring to something not hinted at by visuals, the commingling smells of the school itself. The inherent pointlessness of "dissecting" out of the miasma the origin of each separate odor. We do this thing in our heads, we make ourselves main characters in a story. When we're probably a lot closer to the static that TSSHHT's across the title page of ANL 16. A random and loud scattering of specks, impossible to differentiate.
Like in One Piece, I want all the people I care about to be on a ship outside of reality. Floating on the sea, together forever. Outside influences are only quick distractions from the loyalty of our friendship and our crew, waiting for defeat. I know that this is a fantasy, and it gets me hurt often. This is why I am like the sad collector Rusty, his denial of reality in exchange for plastic. I refuse to acknowledge the randomness of our intertwinings, I refuse to swallow that existential moment. When Chris Ware draws himself into the story, miserably trying to be helpful, thinking about getting dumped while his paintings loom above him explosively cold, I cringe. I respect it, but disavow it entirely. Surely life isn't so desperately lonely!
And then I see myself: not thinking about anything at all, my knees pressed into the graying linoleum, my mouth stretching over the nauseatingly smooth curves of the toilet, vomiting loudly.
I recently read Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library 16 and was completely blown away. His layouts have reached new levels of cinematics, so much to the point where I find myself remembering it in movement. The art of comics has long intimated at movement: the scratch marks by a inky cape, a red vinyl boot, a green and shiny gloved fist. But Ware's movement is slow and purposeful, like the precise snowflakes that decorate the opening pages.
ANL 16 has many characters other than the profoundly pathetic Rusty Brown (with whom I feel an unwelcome kinship towards). There's his future friend by default, Chalky White. His sister Alison, beautiful and real. A collection of teachers at the snow blanketed school from Rusty's father to Mr. Ware himself. All different but all struggling to make sense of their loneliness. Everything seems to point to some semblance of order or fate, a reasoning for these people to be brought together: the clean lines, the rounded edges, the reference to snowflakes, the architecture of the school itself, the square panels.
But that's not the case. He let's you know this by an omniscient voice on a blackboard referring to something not hinted at by visuals, the commingling smells of the school itself. The inherent pointlessness of "dissecting" out of the miasma the origin of each separate odor. We do this thing in our heads, we make ourselves main characters in a story. When we're probably a lot closer to the static that TSSHHT's across the title page of ANL 16. A random and loud scattering of specks, impossible to differentiate.
Like in One Piece, I want all the people I care about to be on a ship outside of reality. Floating on the sea, together forever. Outside influences are only quick distractions from the loyalty of our friendship and our crew, waiting for defeat. I know that this is a fantasy, and it gets me hurt often. This is why I am like the sad collector Rusty, his denial of reality in exchange for plastic. I refuse to acknowledge the randomness of our intertwinings, I refuse to swallow that existential moment. When Chris Ware draws himself into the story, miserably trying to be helpful, thinking about getting dumped while his paintings loom above him explosively cold, I cringe. I respect it, but disavow it entirely. Surely life isn't so desperately lonely!
And then I see myself: not thinking about anything at all, my knees pressed into the graying linoleum, my mouth stretching over the nauseatingly smooth curves of the toilet, vomiting loudly.
posted by themerrygo at 12:33 AM
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