RUDIMENTS, pt. 729
(sic transit gloria mundi)
There was always a difference
to me in storytelling; the means
of it anyway. My father would
buy and read the 'comics' of the
Sunday newspapers, almost
religiously, and as a form of
high, personal literature to him.
Going over each, while slurping
a cup of light coffee, at the same
table where we ate as a family. It
was Sunday ritual - the comics,
and the dining too. He was very
strict about Sundays. You could
set your watch by when the food
came out, on Sundays. It was
always the same, maybe 2pm.
I actually forget - which is
pretty unbelievable. Perhaps here
is some sort of rebellious son
later-in-life act of getting back
at the father by forgetting his
rituals. Maybe I just need
(another?) shrink.
-
I decided long back to discard the
rest of the world and find my own
means of personal infamy. Done!
If you get around to everything,
leaving your mark on all you can,
it's fairly plausible that your rank
and name will come up in lots of
conversations - for good or bad.
Enemies will be plenty, by that
logic. I always felt that they were
close enough to enemas, actually,
so as not to matter, except for
being their own pain in the butt.
-
Back to Dad and those comics.
I never liked comic art. What's
now mostly called 'Graphic' -
they do everything like that now,
as if people just learned to draw,
as if cuneiform and hieroglyphs
never happened. There are 'graphic
novels' of the Bible and Moby Dick
too. Most every level of 'litrature'
has been rendered, 'Anne of Green
Gables' to 'How to Build Tables.'
That last one is, (I speculate) a
book of drawings for carpenters
and woodworkers. The thing was
to me, always more about the
lack of words and the lack of the
sort of 'intelligent' outlook (at
least) which words impart. Trying
to bluff by, in a comic-book way,
without words, or with a scarce
few, or thought-bubbles or just the
exclamations (or unjust exclamations
as well), of 'Oomph' and 'POW!'
never made sense. The lines are
rough and woodcutty, jugged or
not refined. The senses of placement
and flow don't often seem right,
and the panel by panel delivery is
a pain - both to do and to read.
Give me words and thoughts, in
a paragraph any day. BUT, at
another level, it all worked for
my father. He seemed always
satisfied and able to extrapolate
the line work into the ideas needed
or presented. Perhaps that was
intelligence working, on his part,
or maybe they were just done well
enough - from Dick Tracy to
Moon Mullins; Terry and the
Pirates to Gasoline Alley; Allie
Oop to Prince Valiant. The
short-cut of the line drawing
must have been treasured by
many. Whatever it was, by the
years around 1960, it was all
in place. Much of everything
had been changed over to the
edicts of advertising, TV, movies,
entertainment, product dispersal,
and the load of junk then being
produced and sold as the shining
goodness of the great American
materialist dream. No one thought
twice about emptiness or angst.
Jean Paul Sartre was seen as an
ugly, turtle-faced, crank.
-
America by that time had already
erupted, sort of surreptitiously.
There had already been 'Beatniks'
and drop-outs, mostly they just
were pointed out or talked of.
A couple of those mass-murder
type guys had already killed
people, from towers and car
killing sprees; town-to-town
stuff, like a 1950's Bonnie and
Clyde thing but there wasn't yet
a massive mass-media push
behind it all to blab it and push
it along - the idea of talking up
your Charles Starkweather and
that sort of thing didn't get
rolling until like the Vietnam
murders started, or the 'Charlie
Manson does the mansion'
action movie starring Sharon
Tate. Etc. Once the Vietnam
rehearsals were done, it was
all over - crazy guys came home
with fixations, and everything
was then given permission
to go nuts. Later, even the
expression 'My, my!' had to
be changed to 'My Lai!' As
in massacre. As in Alice's
Restaurant. Whew!!!!
(Do you see how that was
just done? In a comic-book
style of quick-writing, but
without the graphics!!)...
-
Man, I love all that crap. The
doing of it and the thinking of
it. But, let me get back here
to serious matter : I'm about
to try and walk all this into
Al Capp, and society 'then'.
Charles Dickens began as a
comic writer, writing what
would be referred to as
'captions' now, for a then
popular cartoonist. By
practice, the 'comic' image
remains about as crude as
the rough drawing that can
give an idea of the semblance
of the 'dotted' TV image.
It's a draw-down for anything
complicated or 'intense,' so
that even the simplest of
viewers (or 'readers?) can
grasp it. Early on, in fact,
they retained most of the
characteristics of their
woodcut forerunners - by
1895, Hearst Newspapers
had established the comics,
as features and as supplements,
to their newspapers. As simple
and manufactured as was their
'news' - so too went their comics.
Early comics were, 'The Yellow
Kid,' and 'Hogan's Alley,' which
is what it was, at first, called.
'Maggie and Jiggs.' Each was
a low-definition but participational
for of (new) 'entertainment. The
commentary was very light, and
required fill-in by the reader.
When TV finally did come
along - and precisely for many
of the same qualities - it hit
comics very hard. Things were
changing quickly, including the
stance, location, and attitude
of readers. They needed a
'newer world,' and thus the
comics began evolving. One
of the biggest impacts was upon
Al Capp's 'Li'l Abner' - for 18
years Capp had kept Abner
on the verge of a Daisy Mae
marriage. Capp had flipped the
Stendahl approach (Stendahl
was a writer), which had been
'I simply involve my people
in the consequences of their
own stupidity, and give them
brains so they can suffer.' Capp's
version was to involve his
people in the consequences of
their own stupidity and then
'take away their brains so
they can do nothing about it.'
Their inability to help themselves
became a parody of all other
'suspense' comics. The helpless
ineptitude of Dogpatch was,
essentially, the human situation.
Once TV arrived, Capp found
his forms of distortion no
longer worked. He felt Americans
had lost the ability to laugh
at themselves - though he,
it is written, was wrong. 'TV
had simply involved everybody
in everybody more deeply than
before.' He had then to refocus
the Li'l Abner image. Al Capp's
wonderful brew of poking fun,
and parody, had to be toned
down. He did so. Ordinary
life, as portrayed and presented
through TV, had become as
funny as anything in Dogpatch!
MAD Magazine, by this time,
and in turn, had sort of taken
over where the original Abner
had left off. By the 1950's it
seemed the beatniks and MAD
Magazine and Alfred E. Neuman
had the message more right.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
-
The old ideas of 'genteel' art
reflected old society, buttressed
old tastes. Picasso and Joyce
(James Joyce) were fans of
American comics - sparkling,
dynamic. Genteel art evaded
and disapproved all that it did
not know - it 'repeats' the
industrial world, still doing so
today. Popular art, through
the comics, became the means
of the clown reminding us of
all we've lost through society.
I don't know if that's how my
father did or would have seen
any of this as he chuckled in
his Sunday coffee. But I did.
Or do now anyway.
---
Part 3 to follow.
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Part 3 to follow.
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