(no subject)
on suffering
from allison bechdel's blog.
Somebody on the blog said they miss the sketch diary entries I was putting up for a while. I miss them too. I started one the other day about the two hours I spent sorting out a fraudulent charge to a website called Mr. Skin with my credit card company. But then I realized the cartoon would take at least another hour, and why throw good time after bad?
Although in a way, that’s a workable definition of the creative process. Nevertheless, I set the cartoon aside. Then today I realized it’s time to put my next strip up, but I put it up last week by mistake, so I drew this one panel of the credit card fraud cartoon to post instead.
I’ve been thinking about Charles Schulz (”Peanuts”) and how this new biography portrays him as a depressed, ambitious, driven, bitter person who devoted himself to his cartoon children and neglected his real ones. Thanks, Shado, for the link to Laura Miller’s review in Salon. It fit in nicely with the discussion here about Doris Lessing “abandoning” her children and the whole question of whether it’s possible to be a successful artist AND a good parent/partner/family member.
I guess you sort of expect poets and writers to be tortured souls, but it’s jarring to think that someone who draws a comic strip could be just as angst-ridden. There’s a good article in the Times about Schulz and “the cult of the suffering artist” that’s worth checking out just for the illustration-Charlie Brown painted in the style of Van Gogh’s earless self-portrait.
Silvio pointed out that Dr. Seuss was another isolated, depressed guy producing “light” work. Norman Rockwell, too, was a tortured wretch who neglected his family so he could spend all his time making paintings of happy families. I guess I’m fascinated by this phenomenon for obvious reasons. When I read the bit about how Schulz’s wife (the first one or the second?) had an item on her mental to-do list, “9-9:15, Comfort Sparky,” I flinched with rueful recognition.
Comics! Nobody knows what an excruciating business it is trying to wring humor from this bleak, pointless existence.
**************************************************************
in other words-
it's probably good that i'm single.
i wreak less havoc that way.
from allison bechdel's blog.
Somebody on the blog said they miss the sketch diary entries I was putting up for a while. I miss them too. I started one the other day about the two hours I spent sorting out a fraudulent charge to a website called Mr. Skin with my credit card company. But then I realized the cartoon would take at least another hour, and why throw good time after bad?
Although in a way, that’s a workable definition of the creative process. Nevertheless, I set the cartoon aside. Then today I realized it’s time to put my next strip up, but I put it up last week by mistake, so I drew this one panel of the credit card fraud cartoon to post instead.
I’ve been thinking about Charles Schulz (”Peanuts”) and how this new biography portrays him as a depressed, ambitious, driven, bitter person who devoted himself to his cartoon children and neglected his real ones. Thanks, Shado, for the link to Laura Miller’s review in Salon. It fit in nicely with the discussion here about Doris Lessing “abandoning” her children and the whole question of whether it’s possible to be a successful artist AND a good parent/partner/family member.
I guess you sort of expect poets and writers to be tortured souls, but it’s jarring to think that someone who draws a comic strip could be just as angst-ridden. There’s a good article in the Times about Schulz and “the cult of the suffering artist” that’s worth checking out just for the illustration-Charlie Brown painted in the style of Van Gogh’s earless self-portrait.
Silvio pointed out that Dr. Seuss was another isolated, depressed guy producing “light” work. Norman Rockwell, too, was a tortured wretch who neglected his family so he could spend all his time making paintings of happy families. I guess I’m fascinated by this phenomenon for obvious reasons. When I read the bit about how Schulz’s wife (the first one or the second?) had an item on her mental to-do list, “9-9:15, Comfort Sparky,” I flinched with rueful recognition.
Comics! Nobody knows what an excruciating business it is trying to wring humor from this bleak, pointless existence.
**************************************************************
in other words-
it's probably good that i'm single.
i wreak less havoc that way.