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Dec. 2nd, 2014 09:38 pm
What you pay for
Today at the gateway to campus, some young uns were handing out free books. "AND IT'S NOT THE BIBLE!" crowed one of them. Another was calling the volume "free art and music". At first I thought it was some student project. But as I caught a glimpse of one in passing (I'm always on my way to lunch when these giveaways are going on), I noticed it was shrinkwrapped, which seemed just a bit too...commercial for an undergraduate product.
On my way back, I spotted one of the tomes abandoned atop a signal box. It was a book and CD set bearing the name of Rich Shapero, and I made a mental note to look him up later. One of the kids was still slinging books when I passed by again so I asked him, "What's the deal with this anyway?" He explained that it was the work of a "former student" who was now a publisher.
"But why give them away for free?" I asked
"I think it's some sort of tax write-off for him."
He gave me a potted summary of the book (something about events in an Australian mining town being a metaphor for our time and yadda yadda) and explained that the CD was composed to be listened to along with it. I refused a copy, however, with the excuse that I had "too much on my reading list already". Which is true, but at the same time, I whiffed legendary badness.
I was not disappointed. The Amazon reviews for his previous work are hilarious in the way only wantonly vicious book reviews can be. This work fares a bit better, but only because when most reviewers would give you zero stars or less if they could, there's nowhere to go but up. He has his defenders, not all of which seem to have been bought with venture capitalist largess. But he does seem to lack a healthy appreciation of his own limitations.
My current reading is Bechdel's Fun Home, which was retrieved for me from a discount bin at the local comic shop. I am, of course, a fool for having waited this long to read it. Even if you already love Bechdel's work from Dykes To Watch Out For, you will be impressed with what she does with this autobiographical tale of her tragic gay father. I've never been as struck before at something possible in this format that can't really be done in any other medium. Film allows you to have narration over scenes which bear a less-than-direct relationship to it, either elaborating on its message, subtly undercutting it, or opposing it completely. What it does not allow you to do easily, however, is to include dialogue in these scenes. If you want the audience to understand what's being said, you need to pause the voiceover.
But Bechdel doesn't need to do that. She can tell one story in captions while simultaneously exploring other, generally related ones in the panels. And the reader has the freedom to read them in any order, in essence constructing their own unique reading experience every time. She didn't invent this technique, of course, but I can't remember the last time I saw it employed so effectively. Of course, I haven't really kept up with the latest crop of graphic novelists--something reading this has made me resolve to rectify.
On my way back, I spotted one of the tomes abandoned atop a signal box. It was a book and CD set bearing the name of Rich Shapero, and I made a mental note to look him up later. One of the kids was still slinging books when I passed by again so I asked him, "What's the deal with this anyway?" He explained that it was the work of a "former student" who was now a publisher.
"But why give them away for free?" I asked
"I think it's some sort of tax write-off for him."
He gave me a potted summary of the book (something about events in an Australian mining town being a metaphor for our time and yadda yadda) and explained that the CD was composed to be listened to along with it. I refused a copy, however, with the excuse that I had "too much on my reading list already". Which is true, but at the same time, I whiffed legendary badness.
I was not disappointed. The Amazon reviews for his previous work are hilarious in the way only wantonly vicious book reviews can be. This work fares a bit better, but only because when most reviewers would give you zero stars or less if they could, there's nowhere to go but up. He has his defenders, not all of which seem to have been bought with venture capitalist largess. But he does seem to lack a healthy appreciation of his own limitations.
My current reading is Bechdel's Fun Home, which was retrieved for me from a discount bin at the local comic shop. I am, of course, a fool for having waited this long to read it. Even if you already love Bechdel's work from Dykes To Watch Out For, you will be impressed with what she does with this autobiographical tale of her tragic gay father. I've never been as struck before at something possible in this format that can't really be done in any other medium. Film allows you to have narration over scenes which bear a less-than-direct relationship to it, either elaborating on its message, subtly undercutting it, or opposing it completely. What it does not allow you to do easily, however, is to include dialogue in these scenes. If you want the audience to understand what's being said, you need to pause the voiceover.
But Bechdel doesn't need to do that. She can tell one story in captions while simultaneously exploring other, generally related ones in the panels. And the reader has the freedom to read them in any order, in essence constructing their own unique reading experience every time. She didn't invent this technique, of course, but I can't remember the last time I saw it employed so effectively. Of course, I haven't really kept up with the latest crop of graphic novelists--something reading this has made me resolve to rectify.
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