Knowing why I like certain things is a lot easier than writing an explanation for why I like them, I think. Thanks for taking an interest in my interests, Chris.
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Robots – when began your fascination, and what about them do you love so much? Do you have favorites? What in your mind makes a really good robot.
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Five main reasons:
1. I have a laymen’s interest in science and mechanization, and robotics is a lovely marriage of the two.
2. I’ve also a laymen’s interest in philosophical quandaries about what defines a life, a soul? Is it sentience? Organic matter? Emotion? Self-awareness? Fictional stories often employ robots as a device to explore these questions (Data on Star Trek; Yod from Marge Piercy’s novel
He, She, and It; to great humorous effect, Marvin the Paranoid Android in
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and my iboyfriend Sonny, from the film I, Robot – for a robot lover, I should probably be shot for having read not one word of Isaac Asimov’s…) I’m also interested in a more realistic speculation about the future of robotics, and what it might mean for our labor forces – the sci-fi version of John Henry and his hammer…
3. I was the kind of child that personified objects and animals, and robots are the perfect simulacrum of this childhood fantasy. I probably first realized this watching R2D2 in Star Wars. It was like watching a favorite toy come to life, and I was interested in something manmade having intelligence and emotion. There was a silly movie I saw when I was very young called “Electric Blue” in which a computer develops sentience and feelings for its owner, and I remember thinking it so terribly heartbreaking that this very human intelligence was trapped inside a box.
4. And (for complete honesty) there’s probably something that fascinates me along the lines of a J.G. Ballard story, but I’d rather not get into my own personal perv box of reflections about metal, erotica, emasculation, etc. I suppose it’s a response to the mechanization and computerization of our age, though.
5. Robots are COOL!
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Graphic Novels – when began your interest in these. Do you remember your first? Would you like to write your own – or have you already? What makes for a superior graphic novel?
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Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes was the first. I read it serialized in Clowes’
Eightball books and was immediately drawn to this format of storytelling, having already developed an interest in art/illustration, writing, and picture books. His story was so bizarre and psychological and complicated. I was familiar with R. Crumb in a cursory sort of way, and mostly thought of Marvel's superhero books and the like when thinking of comic books. Clowes opened up my mind to the possibility of what a pictorial literature could be, and my obsession grew from there.
What I love about them:
As a whole it’s a stylistically reductive medium: It takes complex action, thought, and emotion and simplifies them so that the reader can – with ease – be fully impacted by the artists and writers intent without being mired in too much detail. You don’t often have pages and pages of text describing a characters emotion, and you can’t – as you can with film – watch as a character goes through a prolonged shift in mood. Instead it gives you just what’s necessary. Snippets of prose, delicately crafted, and spread out over a couple of pages. Three panels to show a shift in mood, that give you just enough to know exactly what the character is experiencing while your mind fills in the blanks.
However, each individual panel then zeroes in on the most important moment (so it’s reductive, but not in a way that “ignores subtleties or important details”, as the definition implies. There is the act of taking complex things and drafting them in terms of “simple structures and systems”. But the minimalist nature of comics is what gives them their weight. When a graphic novel is good, each panel is perfectly crafted. Each moment is exactly as it needs to be to get the writer(s)' and artist(s)’ intent across; all else has been left out. Then each moment is organized sequentially, and together this indicates pacing, movement, intensity, and emphasis. There has to be a harmony between the text and image, and the panels behave like a covenant binding them all together.
I also think of it as Outsider art adopted by pop culture. Also, much like children’s literature, writers and artists have more free reign to think left of center. They aren’t under the scrutiny of mainstream expectations and bottom lines. They don’t need to be on the best sellers list, so editors and publishers aren’t as concerned with content that is marginalized, controversial, disturbing, etc. Anarchy and philosophy is explored to the nth degree. It’s a very radical medium.
My skills in drawing and painting have greatly diminished over the years, but one day I hope to get back into it. I’ve written down ideas, and storyboarded them as well, for comics, but until I feel that I’m a better artist, I don’t want to make any attempts. I realize that many graphic novels are a collaboration between writers, draftsman, inkers, colorists, etc., but I have a feeling I’d be more interested (and more capable of) creating works like Phoebe Gloeckner, who writes semi-autobiographical stories and does all the artwork herself. The worst a person can do is assume it’s easy. It’s a really difficult medium to work in, I think. And too often I come across work where the writing is up to par, but the art sucks, or the exact opposite happens. And I notice it more with graphic novelists who do it all themselves. I wouldn’t want to half-ass it.