CR Week In Review



The top comics-related news stories from January 16 to January 22, 2010:

1. Jacques Martin dies; last of the surviving initial masters of the ligne claire school of comics-making.

2. Notre Dame independent newspaper editor resigns after cartoon seeming to endorse or at least make light of violence against gay people ends up in last week's edition.

3. TOON books receive honors from ALA, which made for a fine time to reflect how the line was initially turned down by major publishers.

Winner Of The Week
TOON Books

Losers Of The Week
No matter the relative class of the apology, whatever was going on at the Notre Dame-area independent student newspaper The Observer that allowed them to loft a goofy and hateful cartoon on their community.

Quote Of The Week
"The phallic shaped book represents the male's totemic power; he uses his superior access to wealth (his 'inheritance' as a male) as a form of seduction. The male occupies the literal 'seat of power,' sitting in a purple chair, the color of royalty, which in the US means Rich People, and he is positioned in a Masonic mystic triangle formed by three gems. And the female is off to the side, looking on excitedly and admiring his 'account.' His masculinity is a form of exaggeration and ornamentation (gems with their own tassles), like a male bird's mating dance. Gloria's face and hand gestures communicate her surprise at, and her appreciation of, the phallus/book's ostentatious size and shape, saying, 'I'll bet I know what kind of book that is.' She is responsive to the ritual display he enacts for her benefit -- and for us, as he looks at the viewers, for we are the third party in this love triangle. Had she placed a 'bet' as she suggests, she would have won. She certainly knows what kind of book it is in a literal sense: a book that records and displays the Rich family's riches. But does she know what kind of book it is in a symbolic sense? Like the superhero comic, the children's humor comic can often explore an erotic power fantasy, playing out a cultural script about gender, money, and desire -- a sexual economy that the child (Richie, Gloria, the reader) intuits yet cannot articulate." -- Ken Parille

*****

today's cover is from the 1940s-1950s mainstream comics publisher Avon

*****
*****
 
posted 9:00 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives