Despite many obstacles, our office has officially moved into it's new space. It only took me hollering at smartass people and my mighty muscles of steel, but we did it! Also, I had an excellent MoCCA last weekend and a surreal time at the WFMU Seven Second Delay Party. I'll catch up with photos, links, and whatnot on that soon.
Until then, I'm leaving all stress and laptop at home and am leaving tomorrow for a well-deserved rest on the gulf. Will be back in a week and will miss you lots in the meantime.
I'll be at the MoCCA Art Festival this weekend! Sitting at my normal tables in the large back-room, against the windows, on the ground floor. I don't have anything really new, possibly something in the works, who knows? If I have time to price and sort, my very fashionable Breaking Up original art pages will be available for purchase. But you can stop by and say hello and see my usual slew of graphic novels and trades, slightly modified versions of last year's tees, and some other art.
Haven't seen the Sex & The City movie yet since I decided to do a casual marathon of the whole show, an episode or two before I crash at night. Of course, I loved it when it aired, I was addicted to the New York antics and the stylings of Patricia Field. However, watching it now as a thirty-something it's a totally different experience. No longer is the question, which character do you identify with, but knowing the answer is you can relate with each person's issues because in some, and sum, they are all you. And, the show is so incredibly well-written, in its effort for each episode to tackle a sex/relationship issue while maintaining growth and a steady narrative through the seasons.
Especially Carrie and her emotional entanglement with Mr. Big. When she's hurt and suffering, Sarah Jessica Parker has this gesture where she droops her shoulders, pitches her head forward, in miserable defeat to this guy who rules her heart and common sense. Which I understand, I was stranded with Chris Noth in Penn Station, under the big departure/arrival board and it was quite discombobulating. Maybe also because I have this notion that Big is actually retired NYPD Detective Mike Logan.
Hollywood's "mystified" response to Sex and the City's $55 million opening weekend — who knew women liked to see movies with their friends? — proves once again that despite being more than half the population, women are still a niche market in the movie business. After helpfully identifying which moviegoers contributed to SATC's success ("women"), bewildered Hollywood number-counter Paul Dergarabedian added, "This was to women what Indiana Jones and Star Wars, let's say, are to men." The only people who aren't surprised at SATC's summer-blockbuster numbers are women — who've known all along that Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte are, in fact, superheroes. No, not the kinds of female superheroes invented by men for men, vinyl-clad fantasies like Electra or Catwoman. The women of SATC don't fly or have awesome weapons or even drive very often — but they do save each other from bad guys.
The media frenzy leading up to last week's release of SATC — in newspapers, magazines, and “dudeblogs” — provided every possible critique of the fabulous four, as though the movie were a study in social realism, or an Austen-like movie of manners, or (depressingly often) a nightmarish horror show with men as its victims. But early in the film Candice Bergen, as Carrie's imperious Vogue editor, Enid, nails the movie's real aesthetic when she asks Carrie to pose for the magazine's pages as a 40-year-old bride, saying she's the only woman her age who could do the shoot "without the Diane Arbus undertones." Superheroes exist outside the laws and boundaries the rest of us have to abide by; while men want to see themselves flying and fighting, women are more interested in pushing other limits. How old can you be and still be hot? How many times can you break up and still be in love with someone? How many hours of the day can four working women conceivably spend together?
Pointing out that Carrie could never afford her apartment, let alone her wardrobe, is about as useful as questioning Robert Downey Jr.'s ability to create cold fusion in a cave in Afghanistan — it misses the point of the movie entirely. Why is it okay for Iron Man to collect expensive cars but materialistic for Carrie to collect shoes? Surely her carbon footprint is the smaller of the two. Politely, we don't ask what the Hulk says about American men and their relationship to rage, so why should we tolerate attacks on Samantha's legendary libido? Sam Jones is no more a real cougar than Dr. Jones is a real archaeologist, but they're both good summer fun. So wise up, Hollywood, and start giving us some more female superheroes. And please, take a hint from Sex and the City, and dress them in Vivienne Westwood, not vinyl.
Brilliant video, brilliant week here in New York City! The sun has been out in full force and I've got tan lines all ready to show for it. I'd spent a sunny Sunday in Staten Island's Snug Harbor gardens, a Monday sidewalk cafe lunch on Houston Street with my sister, then the rest of the week is a bit of a blur, I'm sure due to being drunk on sunshine.
I'd started my comic pencils, I think the first time in a year that I'm working in full 11x17. It started off slowly, but I'm getting the knack again and am full speed ahead. One of my most favorite things in drawing stories is getting to choose what the characters are going to wear. Unlike the hipsters in today's video, I've opted to place our heroes in chic lodge-wear. Our superstar is wearing a John Varvatos-inspired coat and, I've got the sidekick in high-heeled boots!
(The girl on the left is wearing snowboots inspired by Puma's El Roo and Texture boot, the chick on the right has on my leather vintage boots I got from Flying A last fall.)
One, I know I feel pretty powerful when wearing kickass heels, and honestly, the argument that it's 'not realistic' just goes out the window when you're talking action/adventure fiction. Plus, if you're a super-heroine that can't manage heels, maybe it's time to hang up the cape. Wouldn't wearing a stacked wedge or stilettos be one of those Danger Room trials? Spikes on shoes can be a real weapon! For fighting villains and romancin' dudes...
Anyway, happy Dance Party Friday and happier weekend filled with golden rays!
Mimi is a must in my mix. I think a thousand horrified comic fans are surely going to speed by this post, but hold up! It's an amazing dance track to get your Friday going and surely you can't say no to concession staff doing flips, an animated Mariah, catfight in the ladies' room, and dudes getting their comeuppance?
If only I could get the Office 54 gents to back me in the video's opening dance routine for our MoCCA table, but with only two weeks to pack and move our studio to Office 34, work on my special mini-comic, getting merchandise organized as I listen to Mariah's new album, I sadly doubt it's going to happen. Next year!
This week, I got glowing approval on my current comic project's thumbnails and have moved onto penciling the pages. We'd also delivered another job's project work-list, mock-ups, and storyboard, and I'm in chat with an editor to read a graphic novel script that sounds extremely promising. Cross your fingers for me!
With so much accomplished, the sister and I went out to Sandbox Studios/SBX Creative's ICF benefit party. In addition to supporting their efforts to provide education in photography to kids, we heartily enjoyed looking at art and catching up with the ladies. As the DJ turned out 80's tracks on the turntable (I never in a million years thought I'd hear Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" pump out of massive speakers), I thought to myself, "Oh, this must be nostalgia night for the 30-somethings..." Then Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" came on and all the 20-somethings went nuts dancing. "It's not nostalgia, it's retro-hip!"
I have been aware that the 80's style had been the thing for awhile, but this was something else. I saw the chic move into early 90's with guys actually sporting the Kid 'n' Play gumby hair wearing Afrika medallions earnestly doing the 'running man'!! What a night to forget my camera, I've no evidence to show you the amazing thing that is the 90's except for a bonus Mariah video featuring ODB...
Wish that video were full-sized, but you get the idea. It's Friday! Yet, I feel the week is somehow beginning instead of coming to a close. Maybe it's because I've finished up twenty-two pages of thumbnails for a crazy fun story I'm working on and am terribly excited to get to next phase, had lovely meals with long-time friends... or, it could be I'm still pretty silly from the champagne and courvoisier I had at the LRG/Courvoisier event last night. If you're down and around the Lower East Side, you can see my CV art hanging on the wall at Reed Space. As well as a LRG designed Wii and a CV Napoleon military jacket. Yes.
I'll be in Brooklyn tomorrow for a knight-themed birthday party, but YOU should go to The Dance Parade!
Even though I work most everyday, weekends too, the end of the week still feels so good. And it's been a long one with organizing and retrenching the ol' website, planning out summer to winter schedule, and mucho sketchin' and illustratin' goin' on. Not to mention it was my little bee's birthday and we seriously got our party on downtown and in Brooklyn. I was sore the next day!
Anyway, it's Dance Party Friday, and tho I may be wearing my wellies I will pretend I have my red shoes on.
My little graphic novel Cheat, published in 2003 by Oni Press and edited by Jamie S. Rich, has been translated to Italian.
This is the first and only book which I'd written and illustrated myself... and after five years on the shelf, it really shows. Which isn't to say that I'm not proud of it, I really am. Even though the art is crude and the dialogue stilted, I think it bears a mark for the type of emotional story I wanted to tell (and still tell-tale again). A woman's drama of burdened relationships.
Well, I never get tired of looking at Kelley Seda's design/color treatment of my cover illustration and I'm hoping that the romance language can only lend the book a bit more authenticity! If any of you out there are fluent, here's a review from Fumetti Di Carta - Garage Ermetico:
I DISEGNI
Delicati, dolci, malinconici. Disegni tracciati con uno stile personale, che paga con grazia gli inevitabili debiti con altri e più famosi artisti per poi giungere a una sintesi che contiene in se', contemporaneamente, una gran delicatezza e una certa forma grezza che aggiunge fascino al segno.
Le grandi vignette in cui non compaiono persone pare trasudino una sorta di ineluttabile stanchezza.
...come diavolo fa un disegno a "trasudare ineluttabile stanchezza"?!?... Chissà. Forse, al di là della sacrosanta soggettività grazie alla quale ognun vede ciò che vuole e ciò che può - e sa - forse, si diceva, i disegni della Norrie riescono a trasmettere la malinconia e l'instabilità caratteristiche di un'intera generazione.
E' come quando si è in una stanza vuota, che non si conosce bene e della quale non si conosce a fondo l'abitante: ecco che guardando gli oggetti che compongono l'ambiente, respirandone l'atmosfera stessa, ci si fa un'idea, giusta o sbagliata che sia (ma può esistere in questo campo un'idea "sbagliata"?...) delle emozioni che hanno dimorato o che ancora dimorano lì. Christine Norrie coi suoi disegni riesce a trasmettere questo tipo di sensazioni in modo forte.
I bianchi e i neri sono usati morbidamente per conferire particolari emozioni, per aumentare l'intensità di un momento; tanto bianco smarrisce, molto nero rende pesanti le emozioni vissute in quell'istante, la loro alternanza comunica l'insicurezza e l'instabilità, i fraintendimenti e le illusioni destinate a rimanere deluse.
Un cenno alla bellissima copertina - che si può ammirare a colori nella sovracoperta e in bianco e nero sulla copertina sottostante - la cui figura principale ricorda le giovani donne protagoniste dei romance/love comics pubblicati da Marvel e DC negli Anni 60 e 70, mentre il design generale di Kelley Seda impreziosisce il tutto con suggestioni neo-liberty.
