I know I've been mostly silent on this blog, but today's kind of a big day for me!
First, I am thrilled and honored to be a part of the first day launch of the Comics Journal's new website. The first part of my five-part essay, "
Birdland Reconsidered" (which itself is part of my larger ongoing
Shelf Life project analyzing the works of Los Bros Hernandez) is now online. Please let me know what you think! This essay represents literally months of writing and research, and I would love to hear any and all feedback on it.
Also, coincidentally, today also sees the final post in my six-part look at Alan Moore's "Lost Treasures" at
Trouble With Comics. The final piece discusses Moore's classic "The Bowing Machine," a truly inspired story that first appeared in
Raw vol. 2 #3.
For the sake of convenience, here are the permanent links to all six posts:
6 comments:
Marc,
Strong work on the Moore stories, and congrats on the Comics Journal gig! I look forward to digging into your Birdland articles.
--Rob
Thanks a lot, Rob! And congrats to you as well. Nice to be writing alongside you again.
Hey Marc. I quite enjoyed your Birdland essays, and I think you've provided a valuable service in terms of breaking it down on a scene for scene basis, so well done there.
That said, I was a bit miffed to see my post on the comic quoted without any supporting links.
My rambling essay was an overly enthusiastic attempt to discuss how the book seems to promise a world where "all you need is fuck", only to ackowledge that this might not be enough through its final shift in perspective. You definitely went into this in more detail, and you make a number of points that I didn't through a different set of references, so props for that.
Still, some of the quotes that you've used to show how most people have overlooked Birdland's thematic depth were actually efforts to elaborate on the book's theme. This disjunction might reflect a lack of clarity on my part, or it might just be that my writing style doesn't speak to you, but I didn't dismiss Birdland for being "just plain filthy" -- that was where I started!
Sorry to bother you about about this on your blog, but the lack of linkage seemed a bit off to me.
What can I say: I've got a big ego, and baby, it needs to eat!
On the other hand, you do call me a "prominent blogger", so -- hey, that's news to me!
More food for the ego.
Yes.
More lovely, lovely food...
Nyum nyum nyum
Hey David. Thanks a lot for your comments and sorry if I misrepresented your review at all, which was not my intention. I actually thought it was very well written, and one of the best I came across online.
As for not linking, I do feel badly about that. As you could probably tell by the way the end notes were sort of haphazardly added in, the essay was written specifically for the print magazine, but when TCJ suddenly decided to stop publishing and move online, the essay was already in process. I had originally intended to include a full bibliography citing all the references I used, but that got chopped out of an earlier draft and the links never got added. Again, I'm really sorry about that!
Ah, I did wonder about whether the magazine's change from print to web could've been a factor, but then Mr Angryhead jumped in and told me I'd been wronged!
Thanks for the info, and for being so polite about this when I was being pretty stroppy.
Also: hey, more food for my ego!
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