I wrote about the last few times I went to the Rice Media Center before it closed. Check it out!
Showing posts with label Christopher Sperandio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Sperandio. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2021
I Have a New Article Up at Glasstire
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Robert Boyd's Book Report: Pinko Joe
This video is about Pinko Joe, by Christopher Sperandio. Sperandio has made guest appearances on this blog on several occasions. He is a professor at Rice University and frequently partners with English artist Simon Grennan on projects--including a remarkable series of comics. (I wish I could link to a place where one can buy these comics, but I don't find any such place on the internet--Chris and Simon, you need to correct this!) They have an excellent blog about their partnership, but I wish it included a shop. I reviewed Simon's solo graphic novel Dispossession a while back and I'm glad to be able to do the same for Sperandio.
(Also, please note that in the video, I fault Sperandio for not giving credit to the original artists whose work he appropriated. However, he did--on page 92 of Pinko Joe. he lists the issues of old comics he used as raw material and, where possible, credited the artists. For the record, the artists were Fred Guardineer, Ralph Mayo, Alex Schomburg, Louis Zansky, Leonard Starr, Murphy Anderson and Jim McLaughlin. And work from three comics where he could not identify the artists.)
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Dispossession by Simon Grennan
Dispossession
by Simon Grennan (Jonathan Cape, 2014)
Adaptations of classic literature into comics form are almost universally terrible, so one would be forgiven for imagining that this adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel John Caldigate would be similarly bad. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Grennan (best known for his collaborations with Christopher Sperandio) manages to take this 600-page Victorian novel and condense it convincingly into 93 pages. How does he manage it? He does it by a careful elliptical construction. He lets the pictures tell the story and skips anything unnecessary to the telling. (It helps if you know the outline of the novel before you read it.)
This approach allows him to add a subplot not present in the Trollope novel--a story of an aboriginal second wife who leaves her husband as they interact with the European city dwellers and miners of the story. Their dialogue is in the Wiradjuri language. The Wiradjuri are an ethnic group of Aboriginal people who lived in New South Wales. This subplot seems kind of tacked on, as if Grennan thought it necessary to remind readers that John Caldgate and his companions were all extracting wealth from Australia as colonizers, but it has parallels to the story in Trollope's novel. Caldigate essentially has two wives, which causes him much trouble, as does Gulpilil, the Aboriginal man in the Wiradjuri subplot.
If you had seen Grennan's photo-based comics done with Sperandio, you will be surprised by the artwork here. He has a very loose style, that recalls Blutch's comics. He tells the story in a rigid 9-panel grid on the page, and the work is uncinematic. There are no close ups and the angles are usually straight-on. Most of the characters are shown in full-figure, which reminds me of Gabrielle Bell's work.
The format is quite lovely. 9" x 11" trim-size with glossy, full-color pages. The edition I have is a hard-cover, but Amazon has a Kindle version available as well.
by Simon Grennan (Jonathan Cape, 2014)
Adaptations of classic literature into comics form are almost universally terrible, so one would be forgiven for imagining that this adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel John Caldigate would be similarly bad. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Grennan (best known for his collaborations with Christopher Sperandio) manages to take this 600-page Victorian novel and condense it convincingly into 93 pages. How does he manage it? He does it by a careful elliptical construction. He lets the pictures tell the story and skips anything unnecessary to the telling. (It helps if you know the outline of the novel before you read it.)
This approach allows him to add a subplot not present in the Trollope novel--a story of an aboriginal second wife who leaves her husband as they interact with the European city dwellers and miners of the story. Their dialogue is in the Wiradjuri language. The Wiradjuri are an ethnic group of Aboriginal people who lived in New South Wales. This subplot seems kind of tacked on, as if Grennan thought it necessary to remind readers that John Caldgate and his companions were all extracting wealth from Australia as colonizers, but it has parallels to the story in Trollope's novel. Caldigate essentially has two wives, which causes him much trouble, as does Gulpilil, the Aboriginal man in the Wiradjuri subplot.
If you had seen Grennan's photo-based comics done with Sperandio, you will be surprised by the artwork here. He has a very loose style, that recalls Blutch's comics. He tells the story in a rigid 9-panel grid on the page, and the work is uncinematic. There are no close ups and the angles are usually straight-on. Most of the characters are shown in full-figure, which reminds me of Gabrielle Bell's work.
The format is quite lovely. 9" x 11" trim-size with glossy, full-color pages. The edition I have is a hard-cover, but Amazon has a Kindle version available as well.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Columbus Part 1: CXC
Robert Boyd
Welcome to The Great God Pan's first podcast. Please excuse my learning curve. In this episode, I take a trip to Columbus, Ohio, to experience the first-ever Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (aka CXC) festival.
(Or download it here.)
The photo above is a life mask of Milton Caniff which is property of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Links and photos from CXC (more or less in the order mentioned in the podcast):
In front of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
Chris Sperandio with a Calvin and Hobbes at the Billy Ireland
Jaime Hernandez
left to right: Tom Spurgeon (the Comics Reporter), Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics Books), Jim Rugg and Chip Mosher (Comixology)
Christopher Sperandio at Sol-Con
Ben Passmore at Sol-Con
Daygloayhole issues 1 and 2
Bill Griffith at the Billy Ireland
Jim Rugg and Gregory Benton at the Billy Ireland
Derf Backderf and Dylan Horrocks
Good-bye, Chunky Rice
by Craig Thompson
Hark, A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Dylan Horrocks being interviewed by Tom Spurgeon
Dylan Horrocks being interviewed by Gil Roth for Virtual Memories
Chris Pitzer, publisher of Adhouse Books
Paul Lyons at Hidden Fortress Press
Katie Skelly and her big check with Tom Spurgeon
Welcome to The Great God Pan's first podcast. Please excuse my learning curve. In this episode, I take a trip to Columbus, Ohio, to experience the first-ever Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (aka CXC) festival.
(Or download it here.)
The photo above is a life mask of Milton Caniff which is property of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Links and photos from CXC (more or less in the order mentioned in the podcast):
- Spill Some Stuff
- Comic Books Are Burning in Hell
- Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio
- Comics Art Brooklyn
- Festival International de la Bande Dessinée
- La Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image
- Cartoon Crossroads Columbus
In front of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
Chris Sperandio with a Calvin and Hobbes at the Billy Ireland
Jaime Hernandez
left to right: Tom Spurgeon (the Comics Reporter), Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics Books), Jim Rugg and Chip Mosher (Comixology)
Christopher Sperandio at Sol-Con
Ben Passmore at Sol-Con
Daygloayhole issues 1 and 2
- Invisible Ink: My Mother's Love Affair With A Famous Cartoonist by Bill Griffith
Bill Griffith at the Billy Ireland
Jim Rugg and Gregory Benton at the Billy Ireland
Derf Backderf and Dylan Horrocks
Good-bye, Chunky Rice
by Craig Thompson
Hark, A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Dylan Horrocks being interviewed by Tom Spurgeon
Dylan Horrocks being interviewed by Gil Roth for Virtual Memories
Chris Pitzer, publisher of Adhouse Books
Paul Lyons at Hidden Fortress Press
Katie Skelly and her big check with Tom Spurgeon
- Trashed
by Derf Backderf
- Lumberjanes Vol. 1
by Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, Carolyn Nowak, Noelle Stevenson, Brooke Allen, etc.
- As the Crow Flies chapters 1 and 2 by Melanie Gillman
- Non Binary by Melanie Gillman
- Closing Doors by Mark Rudolph
by 
by 
- Diary Comics
by Dustin Harbin
- Spitball by various CCAD students and professional comics writers
- Screwjob issues 2 and 3
Terror Assaulter (O.M.W.O.T.)by Benjamin Marra
- Columbus College of Art & Design
- Art Spiegelman
Friday, September 27, 2013
Cargo Space: How Does It Rate? A Scientific Study
Robert Boyd
Cargo Space made its debut last night. It looks like there is still some work to do, which better be done fast. It is soon taking a long trip to Tulsa, bringing artists to the prairie. They are scheduled to be in Tulsa at the Hardesty Arts Center on October 4. Chris Sperandio, the prime mover behind Cargo Space will be the Neal Cassidy of this trip. The Cargo Space will be shuffling Houston artists up to Tulsa in several trips. The traveling artists are Daniel Anguilu (one of the artists who painted the exterior, along with Eyeful Art, Dual and Beau Pope), Mike Beradino, Natasha Bowdoin, Robert Pruitt, Rahul Mitra and Seth Mittag.
Cool little figures on the back of the bus.
Welcome aboard!
You can write messages to your fellow passengers on the chalk boards, which will come in handy when various passengers decide they aren't talking to one another anymore.
It looks good but not complete. For one thing, no privacy curtains around the beds.
As I was looking at Cargo Space, especially the paint job, I instantly thought of Ken Kesey's bus and the cross country "acid test" trip it took. And that got me thinking about other famous RV-type vehicles. How does Cargo Space stack up? Well, we won't know for sure until Cargo Space hits the road, but here're our RV-comparisons.
Cargo Space vs. Ken Kesey's Furthur Bus
In1964, writer Ken Kesey purchased a bus for the purpose of taking a cross country psychedelic trip (in both senses of the word) with the Merry Pranksters. At the wheel was Neal Cassidy, Jack Keroac's speedfreak buddy who was the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road. It was an epic trip at the dawn of what we think of as the 60s. They even passed through Houston so that Kesey could meet up with his friend Larry McMurtrey. The whole thing was financed with the profits from Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And the trip was immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
. So how does the Cargo Space stack up?
Cargo Space vs. the Breaking Bad meth lab RV
This Sunday, the final episode of Breaking Bad airs. It's the story of Walter White, a chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer, who decides to manufacture methamphetimine in order to leave something behind for his family when he goes. He teams up with an small-time criminal Jesse Pinkman, and the pair initially cook their drugs in the RV below. Why in an RV? Because the process of cooking meth makes a very powerful and distinct odor, so being able to travel to some place remote, park, cook, then move on is very useful. Even if someone did notice the smell, Walt and Jesse would be gone before anyone put two and two together.
Is this realistic? If you've ever read Methland, the harrowing book about the effect of meth on one small town, you know it is. One of the things meth cooks do in that book is make miniature meth labs in liter-sized coke bottles, then strap the bottles to bicycles which they ride around town as the chemicals react. That way the smell is dissipated. This lead the town to literally outlaw bicycles.
The interior of the Breaking Bad RV was a little bit cramped, but highly functional.
Cargo Space vs. the Girls Gone Wild bus
There was a time in America when these buses criss-crossed America getting intoxicated college girls to take off their clothes on camera. Now that Joe Francis, the leader of the Girls Gone Wild empire, is in jail, I assume Girls Gone Wild is defunct--at least as a bus-based pornographic business.
I couldn't find any photos online of the inside of the bus. Just as well, I suppose. This is a family blog.
Cargo Space vs the Lost in America RV
The first part of this video clip is from the brilliant Albert Brooks movie, Lost in America
. The second part is an ad with really loud music. You've been warned. The RV in the movie symbolizes their desire to escape their lives of quiet bourgeois desperation and their inability to leave bourgeois comforts behind.
Cargo Space vs. EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle
In Stripes
, this innocent looking RV turns out to be pretty bad-ass. Bill Murray and Ivan Reitman use it to rescue their hapless fellow soldiers from Czechoslovakia.
Can Cargo Space live up to its illustrious predecessors? Only time will tell.
Cargo Space made its debut last night. It looks like there is still some work to do, which better be done fast. It is soon taking a long trip to Tulsa, bringing artists to the prairie. They are scheduled to be in Tulsa at the Hardesty Arts Center on October 4. Chris Sperandio, the prime mover behind Cargo Space will be the Neal Cassidy of this trip. The Cargo Space will be shuffling Houston artists up to Tulsa in several trips. The traveling artists are Daniel Anguilu (one of the artists who painted the exterior, along with Eyeful Art, Dual and Beau Pope), Mike Beradino, Natasha Bowdoin, Robert Pruitt, Rahul Mitra and Seth Mittag.
Cool little figures on the back of the bus.
Welcome aboard!
You can write messages to your fellow passengers on the chalk boards, which will come in handy when various passengers decide they aren't talking to one another anymore.
It looks good but not complete. For one thing, no privacy curtains around the beds.
As I was looking at Cargo Space, especially the paint job, I instantly thought of Ken Kesey's bus and the cross country "acid test" trip it took. And that got me thinking about other famous RV-type vehicles. How does Cargo Space stack up? Well, we won't know for sure until Cargo Space hits the road, but here're our RV-comparisons.
Cargo Space vs. Ken Kesey's Furthur Bus
In1964, writer Ken Kesey purchased a bus for the purpose of taking a cross country psychedelic trip (in both senses of the word) with the Merry Pranksters. At the wheel was Neal Cassidy, Jack Keroac's speedfreak buddy who was the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road. It was an epic trip at the dawn of what we think of as the 60s. They even passed through Houston so that Kesey could meet up with his friend Larry McMurtrey. The whole thing was financed with the profits from Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And the trip was immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
. So how does the Cargo Space stack up?
Cargo Space vs. the Breaking Bad meth lab RV
This Sunday, the final episode of Breaking Bad airs. It's the story of Walter White, a chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer, who decides to manufacture methamphetimine in order to leave something behind for his family when he goes. He teams up with an small-time criminal Jesse Pinkman, and the pair initially cook their drugs in the RV below. Why in an RV? Because the process of cooking meth makes a very powerful and distinct odor, so being able to travel to some place remote, park, cook, then move on is very useful. Even if someone did notice the smell, Walt and Jesse would be gone before anyone put two and two together.
Is this realistic? If you've ever read Methland, the harrowing book about the effect of meth on one small town, you know it is. One of the things meth cooks do in that book is make miniature meth labs in liter-sized coke bottles, then strap the bottles to bicycles which they ride around town as the chemicals react. That way the smell is dissipated. This lead the town to literally outlaw bicycles.
The interior of the Breaking Bad RV was a little bit cramped, but highly functional.
Cargo Space vs. the Girls Gone Wild bus
There was a time in America when these buses criss-crossed America getting intoxicated college girls to take off their clothes on camera. Now that Joe Francis, the leader of the Girls Gone Wild empire, is in jail, I assume Girls Gone Wild is defunct--at least as a bus-based pornographic business.
I couldn't find any photos online of the inside of the bus. Just as well, I suppose. This is a family blog.
Cargo Space vs the Lost in America RV
The first part of this video clip is from the brilliant Albert Brooks movie, Lost in America
. The second part is an ad with really loud music. You've been warned. The RV in the movie symbolizes their desire to escape their lives of quiet bourgeois desperation and their inability to leave bourgeois comforts behind. 
Cargo Space vs. EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle
In Stripes
, this innocent looking RV turns out to be pretty bad-ass. Bill Murray and Ivan Reitman use it to rescue their hapless fellow soldiers from Czechoslovakia.
Can Cargo Space live up to its illustrious predecessors? Only time will tell.
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