The above image—titled Red Girl #1—is from the sketchbook of Mollie Ray, a British cartoonist and the subject of an in-depth, recent profile on the Broken Frontier site. (Giant, Ray’s wordless graphic novel inspired by her family’s struggles after her brother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, is forthcoming from Faber & Faber.) For examples of Ray’s work, visit her website, where you’ll find the short story “Two Stones” and visual examples from her longer works At Any Given Time and My Friend, The Dark. Also check out her Instagram account.
Painter Alex Gross specializes in pop culture subjects; one Gross image features two different movie versions of the villainous Joker (as played by Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger) in a room decorated with pills, flowered wallpaper, and a burning monkey-with-cymbals toy. But I’m especially enchanted by his mixed media work, where he paints directly over abandoned antique photographs, turning the people in the pictures into superheroes, Star Wars characters, Ziggy Stardust, Beetlejuice, etc. As a commentator on the Dangerous Mind site notes, “These mixed media paintings raise questions about the relevance of history, family, and memory in our neo-liberal consumerist world—where fictional characters have far more currency and longevity than familial ties or dead relatives.” See Gross’ transformed memories here: one, two, three.
Patrick McDonnell’s charming comic strip MUTTS has been in newspapers since 1994. (Read some MUTTS here.) In its whimsical, slapstick, sometimes poignant humor, MUTTS reflects McDonnell’s love of such older strips as George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (1913-1943)—in fact, in 1986 McDonnell co-edited a fantastic sampler collection of Kat. McDonnell has also begun creating paintings that mix old comics characters and the visual styles of other cartoonists with high art allusions and the splatters of Abstract Expressionism: the results, on McDonnell’s Instagram account, are weird and often beautiful.
We’re big fans of MAD here at the Club, and Mental Floss recently posted a very good capsule history of the magazine. (We continue to be troubled by the decision—made by parent publisher DC Entertainment in 2019—to convert MAD to a mostly-reprint publication only available at comics shops and through a subscription. We miss seeing MAD at newsstands and grocery stores, nestled quietly but subversively between Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest.) The most prominent elements in every issue of MAD were its relentless parodies of popular movies and television shows; at CBR there’s a fun article about how the celebrities lampooned in these parodies feigned anger at MAD’s creators (i.e. the “usual gang of idiots”). The example above is the cast of Two and a Half Men (2003-2015) expressing their “dismay” over MAD’s attack.
More Boomer History Dep’t: Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times were two film critics who, between 1975 and 1999, co-hosted several TV shows where they discussed, debated, and rated (“Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?”) contemporary movies playing in American theaters. (Search “Siskel and Ebert” on YouTube, and you’ll find lots of clips from their shows.) This month, The Ringer website launched the first episodes of an eight-part podcast series, Gene and Roger, which promises to both tell the history of the Siskel/Ebert partnership and to analyze their lasting influence on pop-culture discourse. Check out the first episode of Gene and Roger here—it’s a must-listen for movie fans.
Last week, artist Tatsuki Fujimoto’s story “Look Back” was released for free and in English on the Viz Media site and other outlets, and immediately became a worldwide sensation. “Look Back” tells the tale of two young schoolgirls who bond over a mutual love of drawing comics (called manga in Japan), until their years-long friendship ends because of a violent tragedy. (Parents should know that “Look Back” reads left to right, as most translated manga does, and is for readers in their teens and older.) After you read “Look Back,” consult Hilary Leung’s CBR article for a comprehensive summary and a survey of the connections between Tatsuki’s work and real-life events.
This weekly blog post is written and compiled by Craig Fischer. To send along recommendations, ideas, and comments, contact Craig at [email protected] [.]
