You know who else had a good letters page was Ivan Brunetti in Schizo. I couldn't find a good scan but here are some excerpts (re-posted from some review):
"Assuming for a moment that all of these letters are indeed from the names Brunetti provides us with, despite some questionable quotables (‘You can always retreat into a complete fantasy world like I have,’ is attributed to Seth, who goes on to explain his love for Charlotte’s Web), the messages convey fairly accurately the precise amount of desperation lovingly squeezed into the first issue. Brunetti is let off fairly easily by some of the old guard, like Art Spiegelman (‘I enjoyed watching you suffer’) and Bill Griffith (‘Bitterness and self-loathing elevated to art’). Others pull fewer punches, like Kaz (‘…most of your stories are about two things: how much the world sucks and how much you suck. It does get a bit tiring after a while’) and Julie Doucet (‘Like there’s nothing left to live for!…It reaches a point it’s nauseating’).
The true sign that Brunetti managed to surpass the standard level of cartoonist self-loathing to new levels of transcendence, however, comes with letters written by Chris Ware (‘After reading your comic book, I had the overall impression that maybe I wasn’t such a bad guy overall’) and Joe Matt (‘Anyone that thinks I’m pathetic obviously hasn’t read your comic yet’). Testimonials like those are nearly as good currency for entrance into the pessimist hall of fame as a signed letter from Camus or Kafka."
Kochalka!
You know who else had a good letters page was Ivan Brunetti in Schizo. I couldn't find a good scan but here are some excerpts (re-posted from some review):
ReplyDelete"Assuming for a moment that all of these letters are indeed from the names Brunetti provides us with, despite some questionable quotables (‘You can always retreat into a complete fantasy world like I have,’ is attributed to Seth, who goes on to explain his love for Charlotte’s Web), the messages convey fairly accurately the precise amount of desperation lovingly squeezed into the first issue. Brunetti is let off fairly easily by some of the old guard, like Art Spiegelman (‘I enjoyed watching you suffer’) and Bill Griffith (‘Bitterness and self-loathing elevated to art’). Others pull fewer punches, like Kaz (‘…most of your stories are about two things: how much the world sucks and how much you suck. It does get a bit tiring after a while’) and Julie Doucet (‘Like there’s nothing left to live for!…It reaches a point it’s nauseating’).
The true sign that Brunetti managed to surpass the standard level of cartoonist self-loathing to new levels of transcendence, however, comes with letters written by Chris Ware (‘After reading your comic book, I had the overall impression that maybe I wasn’t such a bad guy overall’) and Joe Matt (‘Anyone that thinks I’m pathetic obviously hasn’t read your comic yet’). Testimonials like those are nearly as good currency for entrance into the pessimist hall of fame as a signed letter from Camus or Kafka."
In the same issue of Optic Nerve, Adrian Tomine also printed a letter from . . . Brunetti. Weird.
ReplyDelete