Brandl: Batman Abstract? No, but Thor and Captain Bold

As Andrei pointed out, one of the nifftiest comments about "our" anthology has been Deadpool who said, "Can you imagine batman done in that kind of drawing style, I think it owuld be freaking awesome." Thanks million Deady!

Some one of us will have to work on that! I haven't done Batman yet, But I did do a large, two panel oil and acrylic painting (105 x 210 cm / 41 in x 833 in) back in 2001, which was based on a part of the drawing of Thor's bicep by Kirby, right, with a similar bicep drawn by my highly-Kirby-influenced comic artist friend Gary Scoles --- when he and I were only about 11 years old, and of his character (which I also drew), Captain Bold. That is on the left. It is overlayed with two snippets of handwriting, "s" and "p," from a friend in Switzerland who is a novelist, from the German word "Spezial." I wasn't fully into complete sequentiality then, but it was creeping up on me! It was exhibited in a show of mine in Paris (France, the real one), which I did with the experimental New Music composer Duncan Youngerman. He did a great concert in the space of a piece he did inspired by comic artists of the Silver Age.
Oh yeah --- it's titled Team-Up for obvious reasons

And they keep coming...

Chris Mautner pick of the week at Comic Book Resources:

Making this my pick of the week isn’t going to do anything to alleviate my reputation as Snooty McSnootenstein, mayor of Snobville, but this is one hell of a gorgeous book. Answering the question, “Do comics need to have a narrative or be representational in order to still be comics?” with a decisive “Hell, yes,” editor Andrei Molotiu has put together a stunning collection of work from folks like Robert Crumb, Mark Badger, Gary Panter, Patrick McDonnell and Lewis Trondheim. A full review will appear here sometime soon, but in the meantime I’ll just say I liked this book very, very much.

Thanks, Chris! But... I think you mean "Hell, no!"

J. Caleb Mozzocco at Newsarama:

Abstract Comics Anthology: I’m one of those who considers the first two words of this title to be an oxymoron. That, ironically, probably makes me a good candidate for reading this book. It’s edited by art historian and abstract-comic creator Andrei Molotiu and, according to publisher Fantagraphics, it is “the first collection devoted to this budding genre.” You can’t argue with the list of contributors: R. Crumb, Patrick McDonnell, Mark Badger, Gary Panter, Lewis Trondheim, James Kochalka, Blaise Larmee, Panayiotis Terzis, Noah Berlatsky and a whole mess of others. It’s $40 for 200 pages, and you can take a look here.

Jog and Douglas Wolk have their say

Douglas Wolk:

ABSTRACT COMICS

Some serious coffee-table-book action here: an Andrei Molotiu-edited anthology of comics that are just abstract images in sequence, by people from the fine-art and art-comics world, as well as some people I wouldn't have expected: Patrick McDonnell? Mark Badger? Of course, a lot of the fun of reading this is noticing your mind automatically trying to impose narrative on these abstractions. If you want to get a taste of what it's like, Molotiu also runs the Abstract Comics blog.

Jog:

Abstract Comics: The Anthology: You wanted this. You may not have known it, and you probably didn't say it, but your heart was read, your soul scoured, your eyes met to understand what your mind could only scream in silence. Abstract comics. Wednesday is almost here. Let them in. I can vouch for Fantagraphics' production values too: the copy I fiddled with at MoCCA was a really lovely hardcover item, very nicely produced. Editor Andrei Molotiu presents 232 pages of works, ranging from vintage pieces to new efforts, by artists both well-known (Robert Crumb, Gary Panter, Victor Moscoso, Patrick McDonnell, James Kochalka) and less familiar (though you might know a few). Large sample here, but don't stop there; your $39.99 gets you what's looking like the most intriguing comics anthology of 2009.

I'm going to have to start excerpting some of these reviews for blurbs, and post them here (and elsewhere!), preferably with exclamation points after them.

I should add: I'm hoping that both Douglas and Joe end up doing full reviews of the book. I would love to read them.

My favorite comment so far

From here:



You know, it kinda would be.

Contrariété

Artsy-Fartsy

From 2004 - in expectation of our latest review...

That's nice, I guess...

from http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2009/08/this-week-i-get-slight-break-maybe.html:

Abstract Comics Anthology HC

Fantagraphics' newest anthology is a collection of, well, read the title. I saw the book at MoCCA, and it looked pretty nice, which was actually contrary to my expectations. It's definitely more of an art piece, but you can't really expect anything else, I guess. Still, it's fascinating to see what you can do with comics when you're dealing with non-representational, non-narrative imagery, stretching the limits of the medium. Give it a look, artsy-fartsy types! You can download an excerpt at Fanta's site.

Abstract Comics: surpassing expectations since 2009!