Today on the site, Sean T. Collins on The Basil Plant.
When considering a comic this simple in form, the natural assumption is that function will follow. Panel by panel, page by page, the story will proceed in linear fashion, building meaning like a block tower. It’s comics as a solidly written college essay, or even just one paragraph therein, each sentence serving just enough of a purpose to connect its neighbors, the whole equalling the sum of its parts precisely. That’s how it seems The Basil Plant will operate—at first. First-person narrative captions float above a series of self-portraits, describing a method of anxiety management that’s novel, though not dramatically so: “When my anxiety is too great to bear, I sit in the sun and eat a pear. “I can’t remember how I got to this method, but it works.” There are flourishes here that might cause your ears to prick up a bit — that rhyme in the first panel, or the way Lannes situates herself on a park bench with no visible means of supporting itself, floating in midair as if existing for no reason other than to support her.
Elsewhere:
James Sturm has a pretty funny comic online that addresses a very common cartoonist's disease. I guess people are mad about this comic, but I can only find "So and so is mad about this comic" type messages. I dunno, seems like a pretty dead-on satire to me.
The best news of the upcoming weekend is Anya Davidson's solo exhibition in Brooklyn at Tomato House.
Here's a bit of a Renee French interview.
I'm inexplicably glad to know about this DVD release. Also, when is someone smart going to write the Bob Kane story. The contracts, the clown paintings, the ghosts, Hollywood, etc! My favorite kind of cartoonist story.
And something is a'brewing at Angouleme with new Bill Watterson art, thus sending all of the comics internet into a tizzy.
