58 - VOTE

"I'm just a banana and I approve this message."

Tomorrow is the voting deadline in the USA, Whether you vote for the Donk or the Phant, please vote and remember, the world will still spin Wednesday morning.

And just to take the sour taste out of your mouth, here is a vote that truly doesn’t matter, but is fun.

CON DEBRIEF

Chattanooga Comic Con was fun, I want to give a huge shout-out to the staff and volunteers who took great care of me. I also got to hang out with some cool peers at the show. I did two commissions at the show, one was a drawing on a Funko Pop, and the other was a traditional ink sketch of Vampirella (very fitting for the spooky season)

SKETCHBOOK VOL 21

I momentarily miscounted my sketchbooks because I had two going at once, one large and one small. Anyway, here is the cover of Vol 21 and the last page, which contains portraits of my children.

To celebrate I will be making another sketchbook tour video soon.

PROJECT “Coal”

Here is one of the character designs. I just finalized all the paperwork for this project so I can officially get the ball rolling. First step: Thumbnailing.

PROJECT “Beaver”

This book is 90% complete. I had a meeting with the writer where we discussed the final edits. We also discussed our next project TBA.

PROJECT “Association”

I submitted sketches and some final art for this project. I can’t share any more details but I can share an unused sketch and let you infer the book’s subject matter.

HOPE NEVER TO SEE IT

I had a marketing meeting about the launch of this long-awaited graphic novel about the Civil War. We launch March 1st and we just got word that the book will be $20 which is a fantastically low price. More signing tour and launch party details to come soon.

WATCH: Interview with the Vampire

Okay, hear me out, this movie is awful. But it does tell a compelling story. The title gives the gist, a man interviews a vampire and we learn about his life. But the compelling bit comes at the end when the Vampire shares the thesis of his story and the interviewer totally misses it. I think it speaks to the facade that we give to someone else’s life, coveting it despite the horrors that it might contain. Not for kids, sudden nudity and violence is sudden.

LISTEN: Atmospheric Synth playlist

This is the playlist that I listen to while writing this newsletter and any other writing I need to do that requires non lyrical music. There are a few lyrical songs in the playlist that I just skip when they come up.

READ: BLEGH

I have been sorely lacking in my reading of late. I usually read in the evenings and my evenings have been quite full lately. I am 90% though a novel right now and have been hoping to write about it for the last three newsletters. I recently picked up some missing volumes of some comics at a con so I hope to sit down and really enjoy some literature this next month.

PLAY: Spades

We played a group version of Spades with small rule variations every round and switched partners periodically. There were three tables and at the end of each section the loser would descend a table and the winner would ascend a table to keep the games balanced. At your new table, you would also join a new team member. I came in 3rd out of 12 and it was a great way to meet everyone in the group.

Comedian. 2019. By Maurizio Cattelan, came back into the public eye this last week as it was announced to be for sale at Sothebys in late November. The work consists of an ordinary real banana taped to the wall with duct tape and a certificate of authenticity that includes diagrams and instructions for proper arrangement.

The piece is very much in line with Duchamp’s landmark readymade work, the Fountain.

It speaks to the absurdity that has entered the art world.

Fountain. Duchamp. 1917

I once heard a great description of modern art.

“Something anyone could do, but someone else did it first.”

Enter, Comedian.

A problem I see with modern art is the confusion between a brilliant idea and skillful execution.

Skillful execution without a good idea is often seen in my sketchbook. I am fiddling with rendering techniques and how to make something LOOK good, but it rarely tells a story with any nuance. A head is a head, nothing brilliant there, just precise rendering.

Nowhere is this clearer than the generative art matrices colloquially called, A.I. Art. A user simply types in an idea and the computer renders an image based on the textual input. Brilliant idea, zero skill.

I see it in my field of comics all the time. If someone approaches me with a cool idea, my retort is often, “That sound’s cool, you should make it.” To which the original ideator most often bemoans his/her own lack of skill to execute. And that may be true that you cannot always execute on a good idea. However, this should not mean that we elevate ideas above execution.

What is so brilliant about a Banana taped to a wall? Well, first of all, the piece was widely panned by the art world. Noah Charney summed it up best “Comedian is neither beautiful nor does it exhibit skill, so it represents the Duchampian path." Even this critique is seen as praise by nihilists who applaud the Dadaists.

Comedian premiered at an art fair that was predominantly canvas paintings. So the “brilliance was merely that it stood out. If you were to attend a wedding and chose to wear a tuxedo t-shirt are you being brilliant or are you just standing out?

The element of the work that appalls me the most is, oddly, the certificate of authenticity.

How do you know that something has value? Say I was to give you a baseball card signed by the legendary Babe Ruth. Is that valuable? Yes, it was touched by a legend and he left his mark on it. There are few to none in existence making it quite rare as well. However, you would probably want some certification that it was in fact signed by THE Babe Ruth and not just anyone who can copy his penmanship. But even in this case, the Certificate is not the real object of value, the signed card is actually the work of value.

What is stopping me from duct taping a banana to my own wall and claiming ownership of Comedian myself? Mostly self respect and a desire to not be overwhelmed by fruit flies. Beyond that, there truly is nothing because there is no value to the artwork itself. What Cattelan is actually selling is the idea that this has value, nothing of innate value at all.

What is the call to action? What do I want to encourage you to do?

I want you to desire beauty. A banana on the wall is not beauty. It is silly, and silly has a place. The banana’s place is the in kitchen, not over the mantle. Don’t confuse silly ideas for brilliance, Or brilliant ideas with skillful execution which is, by nature, beautiful.

The Uncertainty of the Poet. Giorgio de Chirico. 1913

Cheers,

&