This is my number one blog entry, ever. ever ever. I feel like a hugely big nerd.
Where I am right now is, in white river junction, vt. I am about to leave it in 2 or 3 days.
All summer I have been living here and interning at the Center for Cartoon Studies, (www.centerforcartoonstudies.org), only the coolest most amazing school ever. It's opening up this fall with about 20 students and some incredible faculty, including James Sturm (the director of the school and my best bud), James Kochalka (www.americanelf.com) and Steve Bissette (of Swamp Thing and tons of other awesome scary comics)....also some quite impressive visiting faculty including Craig Thompson, Art Spiegelman, Seth, and more. Okay I sound like a big ad. But seriously, this summer was probably the most worthwhile one of my life...cataloguing books, meeting cartoonists (including the Hernandez Brothers! holy shit!), making friends for life. etc. etc. reading and making lots of comics.
I don't know how I even got into comics. It was a way of combining my interests in language and art--in creating narratives through visual symbols other than the alphabet.
I read calvin and hobbes obsessively. but only recently did I get into comics as an art form. it's so much more than it's given credit for. there's so much thought you have to put into timing, placement of everything, color, lines, etc--so much attention to detail and design.
comics I have read this summer: Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers (fucking amazing. they had no formal art training. they are just brilliant.) The Frank Book by Jim Woodring (definitely an influence for wordless narratives). Comix 2000, a collection made in 2000 of 2000 pages of wordless comics. Ice Haven by Dan Clowes. Super Fuckers and Sketchbook Diaries by James Kochalka. I started reading The Sandman--I read the first 3 books, but it's a little too much for me. putting the library together killed me. There are so many books I haven't read. I want to read all the classics--like Krazy Kat--and then all the superhero classics, and then all of the undergrounds, and then everything everything else.
My Div III or senior project is going to be about comics. I am going to make wordless comics. I want to create characters and put them in spaces, and create a world, kind of like Jim Woodring has done. I want to incorporate my interests in maps and exploration and colonialism and encyclopedias. I am having touble solidifying these ideas. I also have to put together my portfolio for my Div II. I'm pretty much screwed.
If anyone reads this and has an idea for me, or an artist to look at, please let me know. I doubt if you read this whole thing. but whatever.
crap, I forgot to call my dad.
