F: 2016

12/29/2016

Rumbling Ch. 1

Rumbling Chapter 1
32 page comic book
read most of it here (link)
$3.00

12/19/2016

Spiral

Here's a big file of the geological spiral from Ganges 5, if you want to zoom in or look at it on your retina screen.

Click here for the big file (link)

12/17/2016

Comics 2016 (part one)

Schools

-Comics Workbook

-Parsons School of Design Illustration (dir. Ben Katchor)

-UW-Madison (Lynda Barry)

-CCS? Lost touch with it this year. Same with Wash U (Dowd, Zettwoch, Tim Lane)

-MCAD (where I, Zak Sally, and Tom K. teach, among others (link TK). Anders Nilsen also taught there.)

-The school that hired Sousanis/

-Yale? I don’t know that much about comics skools, to be honest

Pap Pap (and which I paid money for)

-Last Look / Patience / Ware’s Guardian strip and NYer work / Spiegelman’s one pager

-Blammo #9 (moustache, also see: Johnny Ryan)

-Baron Bean / Krazy Kat 1916

-Jim Woodring on Facebook,

-Kim Deitch on Facebook,

-Carol Tyler on FB

CARTOONIST TYPES: Princess vs. Old Grandpa vs. Street Punk vs. Sage/Witch vs. Dad/Mom vs. Content Provider models

-Method: have a relatively large audience, give them free content every once in a while, keep a few levels distance between oneself and them (be cool), stay on top of the Latest Topics, draw big checks from big cities, somehow.

CF&BJ

-Would like to see the new Ben Jones zine, where can I get one? I need to put aside a weekend to read that interview with N. Rudick and think about it.

-CF’s CALL Magazine.

Deep Level Moves

-My life being what it is, I’ve lost contact with some of the cartoonists I’ve learned the most from over the years. I see them, but not much of their work. When they do put work out, it’s too dense, somehow, and I can’t penetrate. If anything, I draw less from a deep knowledge of their work and I just skim off energy what I know is going on deep in the comic, because I know how deep they are seeing, beyond what I see. Their body of work helps sustain me as I drew Ganges #6. cf Anders, Sammy, Marc Bell, John P, Ron Rege, G. Bell, Clowes, Burns, Ware, etc.

Health of the Elder Ones, Careers of Peers, Middle Managers, and Caretakers

-Who is on what medication, who is helping, who is working on retrospectives, who is working on archiving, who has new work, who got divorced, how everyone is doing. Dealing with Alvin’s death.

Tumblrs:

-Santoro’s influence dominates my tumblr, but there are so many other spheres of comics on the internet now too. Need ethnographic data.

-4 Color scans of old comic book pages with sharpness on the dots, pages from the Heritage Auctions

MINN

-RIP Big Brain, Peace to Drivas

-Anders moved to Portland

-Nostalgia Zone and Dreamhaven are incredible, stores of my dreams. Minneapolis is a book lover's dream, it's almost too much for me. I may bury myself in books here.

-Magers and Quinn (best simple comics selection in Minneapolis?)

-trying to get a weekly thing going! (Shout out to STL Drawing Crew)

-Sam Gould??? Univocal???

-Wish I had talked to Eddie Campbell when he was in town. His line was too long at the Book Fair, is my bad excuse.

Bargain Bins:

-DreamHaven (p. good, bw boom, manga, mid 90s)

-Midway Books (89-92 junk, kind of shitty actually)

Comic Books (via The Source in St. Paul)

-Klaus by Grant Morrison

-something about demons, Rafael Grampa mixed with Kerascoet Woman’s face

-Sergio Aragones

-Island

-thinking about the career of John Romita Jr

-thinking about when Cerebus was monthly in the mid 90s

Libraries

The Hosmer Library’s collection, and the MCAD Library’s collections (worth a visit)

New Wave/Grimy Keyboard Krew, Pacific Rim and Genderwave

DeForge, Klaus, Breakdwon, Landfill, Dane Martin, A Degen, BMW

Critical Discourse

-I don’t really follow it, but I’m interested.

-Issues of Morality and Art. Groths of Twitter? Nadel is focused on NYC issues. Tisserand’s Herriman book. Twitter is brutal but necessary (like TCJ and the TCJ Messageboard, maybe?).

-In comics, critical discourse often is mixed in with a lot of Outraged Fan Ranting, as it should be. Outrage lately about sex and superheroes, of course. What others should be doing instead.

-Don’t know what goes in YA Librarian or Parent or Walking Dead, Brian K Vaughn, Saga, circles, but that’s another huge part of comics I often wonder about—what’s that all about? Near enemies.

Publishers
-D&Q and Fanta Anniversaries.

-Breakdown/Landfill, the best UK comics publishers
-I like a lot of Retrofit comics

-Self Made Hero and No Brow are interesting. NoBrow will last much longer and seems more smart. Interesting how both sidestep US/UK Comics history for the most part, and go either France or Japan.

-2D Cloud and Uncivilized, MINNEAPOLIS

-Canada. Annie and Peter and Devlin/Burns. Chester Brown and DeForge/Tamaki lifestyle cartoonists. Patrick Kyle. Marc Bell spending most of the year in Minneapolis and not seeing him enough.
-YA and Children's comics, the stuff I see at the Hosmer library. Toon Books

-I didn’t read as much as I used to, but I read a ton, relative to most people. I read a lot of Olde Canon Comics (The Best Comics): Baron Bean, Wash Tubbs, Gasoline Alley.

-I put out 2 zines, Comix Skook USA #4 and #5. I drew most of Ganges #6, but a lot of it was first written in 2014. A lot has changed in my life since then. I may be losing my mind, but I also think I’m drawing the best work of my life (the question is how much is that saying?).

-The Internet: my daily life is full, so I don’t look at it that much anymore. I don’t like it that much. I prefer books and magazines and reading things in print. I still draw a lot of inspiration and energy from it, though. I’m trying not to tell anyone about how they should live their life, other than to buy my comics. Dealing with spam is like a major thing in our lives, what a world. Who will read all the spam? Who will speak for the spam? Who will collect the spam and archive it for future historians? Who cares that I posted this on my blog?

I just read the new Blammo and it was amazing. Everyone should read it. When I clean up my apartment in a few days maybe I’ll upload a longer list of things in Part 2.

Dec. 17, 2016

12/14/2016

Final Week of the Semester (first draft)

Well, here we go. Time to see what they did this semester. It's a somber party, with everyone getting a chance at the dj booth. It goes on for over 5 hours each day.

If you are interested in my new zines, COMIX SKOOL USA, there are now 5 issues. They are notes and handouts I've used in my classes at MCAD, where I teach 6 separate courses over the course of the year.

Visual Storytelling
Intro to Comics
Comics 2
Advanced Senior Seminar
Experimental Comics
Character

Watch this space for more info, but if you would like to order them, they are available from Quimby's in Chicago, or Spit and a Half.

If you would like to order them directly from me, send money to me in Paypal. It's $20.00 for all 5 issues, $5 for each one individually.

Email me for more information and to order.

thanks
K

PS Destroyer's Rubies is 10 years old! Canada!
PPS Remember when Todd McFarlane gave all his favorite bros like $100,000 or something to write a few issues of Spawn? Remember how awesome they were?! Canada! I would like to offer $100 to Michael DeForge, Seth, and Marc Bell to write the next few upcoming issues of GANGES. Email me.
PPPS Minnesota. Congratulations to Tom and Jordan and everyone for the ODOD line. Gabrielle's new book is out next April. Sorry I've missed the two events for your book, Anders and Jay. It's a good book!

12/06/2016

Tuesday Patron Party: Page For Sale

The whole page looks like this without the pencils. There is pencil shading on it, though.

$250

Inquiries write: 1000kevinh@gmail.com

Also see: LCRW Cover

12/05/2016

and then

12/02/2016

Hutton sketches, 2013, 2014

12/01/2016

G5 notes

-from 2014 or 2015. Working on the two spiral spreads that originally were supposed to both go into Ganges #5, but ended up split between #5 and #6. (Frank Santoro layout guides.)

11/30/2016

page from a book

Bought this at the MCAD book sale and opened randomly to this today.

-R. Niebuhr, "...the frantically constructed tribal solidarities of the age of decay."

11/29/2016

Nightmare

11/28/2016

September 27, 2016

11/27/2016

11/10/2016

Descriptions of a Man 3

Then there was another side to the picture—the indispensable exception that proved the rule. This man, the sight of whom excited such extraordinary affection, whose voice had for most of those who heard it such a wonderful charm, whose touch possessed a power which no words can express—in rare instances, this man, like the magnet, repelled as well as attracted. As there were those who instinctively loved him, so there were others, here and there, who instinctively disliked him. As his poetic utterances were so ridiculous to many, even his personal appearance, in not a few cases, aroused equally sarcastic remark. His large figure, his red face, his copious beard, his loose and free attire, his rolling and unusually ample shirt-collar, without necktie and always wide open at the throat, all met at times with jeers and explosive laughter.

11/07/2016

November 7

Descriptions of a Man 5

It is certain, also, perhaps contrary to what I have given, that there is another phase, and a very real one, to the basis of his character.

An elderly gentleman I talked with (he is a portrait painter and a distant relative of the man), who was much with him, particularly through the years of his middle age and later, tells me that Glenn Ganges in the elements of his character, had deepest sternness and hauteur, not easily aroused, but coming forth at times, and then well understood by those who knew him best as something not to be trifled with.

The gentleman alluded to agrees with me in my delineation of his benevolence, evenness and tolerant optimism, yet insists that at the inner framework of the man there has always been, as he expresses it, "a combination of hot blood and fighting qualities."

He says my outline applies more especially to his later years; that Glenn Ganges has gradually brought to the front the attributes I dwell upon, and given them control. His theory is, in almost his own words, that there are two natures in Glenn Ganges.

The one is of immense suavity, self-control, a mysticism like the occasional fits of Socrates, and a pervading Christ-like benevolence, tenderness and sympathy.

But these qualities, though he has enthroned them and for many years governed his life by them, are duplicated by far sterner ones. No doubt he has mastered the latter, but he has them. How could Glenn Ganges (said my interlocutor) have taken the attitude toward evil unless he enfolded all that evil within him.

11/03/2016

Descriptions of a Man IV

He was especially fond of children, and all children liked and trusted him at once. Often the little ones, if tired out and fretful, the moment he took them up and caressed them, would cease crying, and perhaps go to sleep in his arms. One day several ladies, he, and myself attended a picnic given to hundreds of poor children in London. I lost sight of my friend for perhaps an hour, and when I found him again he was sitting in a quiet nook by the river side, with a rosy-faced child of four or five years old, tired out and sound asleep in his lap.

For young and old his touch had a charm that cannot be described, and if it could the description would not be believed except by those who knew him either personally. This charm (physiological more than psychological), if understood would explain the whole mystery of the man, and how he produced such effects not only upon the well, but among the sick and wounded.

11/01/2016

Description of a Man 2

Almost all his writing was done with a pencil in a sort of loose book that he carried in his breast pocket. The book consisted of a few sheets of good white paper, folded and fastened with a pin or two. He said he had tried all sorts of note-books and he liked that kind best. The literary work that he did was done at all sorts of times, and generally on his knee, impromptu, and often outdoors. Even in a room with the usual conveniences for writing he did not use a table; he put a book on his knee, or held it in his left hand, laid his paper upon it and wrote so. His handwriting was clear and plain, every letter being perfectly formed.

He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated; would often gather and arrange an immense bouquet of them for the dinner-table, for the room where he sat, or for his bed-room; wore a bud or just-started rose, or perhaps a geranium, pinned to the lapel of his coat, a great part of the time; did not seem to have much preference for one kind over any other; liked all sorts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses.

Perhaps, indeed, no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Glenn Ganges. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him; all sights and sounds, outdoors and indoors, seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the men, women and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked anyone), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. He was in this and in everything entirely natural and unconventional. When he did express a preference for any person (which was very seldom) he would indicate it in some indirect way; for instance, I have known him to say: "Goodbye, my love," to a young married lady he had only seen a few times.

10/30/2016

Description of a Man 1

His favorite occupation seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree-frogs, the wind in the trees, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a feeling of pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people. Until I knew the man it had not occurred to me that anyone could derive so much absolute happiness and ample fulfillment from these things as he evidently did. He himself never spoke of all this pleasure. I dare say he hardly thought of it, but anyone who watched him could see plainly that in his case it was real and deep.

He had a way of singing, generally in an undertone, wherever he was or whatever he was doing, when alone. You would hear him the first thing in the morning while he was taking his bath and dressing (he would then perhaps sing out in full, ballads or martial songs), and a large part of the time that he sauntered outdoors during the day he sang, usually tunes without words, or a formless recitative. Sometimes he would recite poetry, generally, I think, from Shakespeare or Homer, once in a while from Bryant or others. He spent very little time in writing. It is probable that he never did give much time to that occupation. He wrote few private letters.

While he was with us he would write a letter to some Canadian, about his travels, his condition, and his latest doings and thoughts, and get fifty or a hundred copies and send them to his friends and relations, especially the girls and young folks, and make that do for correspondence.