Letter

One of my fondest art-school memories is Art Spiegelman telling the entire history of comics in an hour from within a cloud of cigarette smoke in the old auditorium on Columbus Drive. I didn’t grow up with comics nor ever made any, but some of the best artists of our time have dedicated themselves to the form.

Chris Ware, a master of the medium, was a grad student at the ‘Tute. He’d been published in Spiegelman’s anthology magazine Raw already, but was in the painting program, attempting to make “serious” art. Cartoonists are forever battling the perception of being lowbrow or less-than so-called fine artists.

I think Terry Zwigoff’s Robert Crumb documentary is one of the best movies about an artist ever made. Seeing him in the new movie about Spiegelman creates a link that’s hard to break. Judging solely by what’s on film, Spiegelman is a far less flawed individual than Crumb. I don’t know if that’s truly so as I know neither of them personally.

Spiegelman is haunted by his family history and the work he will forever be known for is all about his father’s WWII experiences but aside from a very Jewish brand of neurosis he doesn’t strike me as a damaged individual. The chainsmoking (now vaping) may counter that view, of course. No one can see inside anyone else really.

What I like best about the film is how it shows a whole community and network that was created to counter the conformist/consumerist culture of this country. As Emil Ferris said in the Q & A afterward, what artists do is needed now more than ever.

I still don’t “get” comics for the most part. I like some of the drawing and some of the writing but it rarely coheres into a whole. I’m either reading or looking but not both at once. Might be something wrong with me or just the fact I didn’t catch the comics bug early enough for it to burrow in properly.

Whatever your relationship to comics is, you should go see the Spiegelman movie.

My drawing from the front row during the Q & A.

I have a few signed and bookplate-stamped copies of Babbitt and Marvel Universe for sale. If you’d like one, send me $25 (postage included) via your favorite mode of payment and I’ll send it right out.

Also, I made another bookstore zine.

Nathan Knapp’s Daybook is the best piece of new writing I’ve read in a long while. I read the first few pages into a microphone, then wrote a review. But that wasn’t enough. So, after he wrote me a nice note about my review, I invited him to record a talk. So that’s what we did.

It’s difficult to isolate why one thing grabs you and another doesn’t. I’ve put down a book after a sentence and left a movie fifteen minutes in more times than I can recall. But sometimes a phrase or a scene will be enough to let me know that I’m in and I won’t be getting out till the thing is over. Then I’ll regret it wasn’t longer. Best case scenario a piece of art should feel like you don’t want to be anywhere else.

There’s something good happening with my public domain project that I can’t talk about because it’s not in a legal document yet but if things break the right way I’ll be plundering the classics bin for years to come.

It’s strange how a desperate act borne of frustration can become a bridge to some kind of stability and offer a little hope.

I’m at a multiplex watching the new Looney Tunes movie (go see it, it’s amazing!) when Mick texts that his 90s band is playing at the Bottle, says he’ll put me on the list. An invitation is catnip to me. It’s so rare now, that I almost never say no.

Another friend once called this thing of old bands reuniting “zombie bands”. The internet won’t let any band die. That guy’s 90s band recently put out a retrospective box set and played the requisite reunion shows. The world will always make us eat our words.

I’m at the dumb pizza place next to the Bottle. It’s where Bite Cafe used to be so it always feels like haunted burial ground when I go in there. At least I don’t tell the counter person I used to work here twenty-five years ago anymore. Mick is in a booth finishing his meal with his bandmates. We say hello and he says he’ll be right back.

We haven’t seen each other since he played here two years ago. He looks weary. He had to get up at 5am to catch a flight from NYC. His drummer is still en route from Detroit. The whole thing feels like a slog. He tells me he hasn’t played live with any of his non-zombie bands in over a year.

I give him a copy of my Moby Dick after he says he never finished the book. I’m happy it’s out in the world now. We say goodbye so Mick can restring his guitar before playing. Says it’s been a few months and that pushing it is just asking for trouble.

The next night I’m scheduled to fill in at the bar. I haven’t pulled a shift in three months and stupidly don’t realize when I agree to it that it’s St. Patrick’s Day. I get there early, anticipating it’ll be a zoo. It’s busy but nothing crazy. Only thing is Paolo isn’t showing up. We keep looking at the clock and he keeps not walking through the door. I’m supposed to be the second bartender. Skyler, the afternoon tender, finally agrees I need to hop on in Paolo’s stead.

Word comes that Paolo has food poisoning and won’t make it in. Luckily, Tim lives just down the street. He walks in before it strikes 9pm. It was a little ragged but we get through the night in one piece. At some point, I somehow drop a martini shaker top so deep behind the beer taps, I have to lie prone on the floor and stretch as far as I can to fish it out.

I ask Tim what it’s like to play in his old band and he says it’s the best job in the world. But it is a job. It’s not the thing that makes him want to get up in the morning. He says he feels lucky that he gets to do his thing. Feels bad for people who only get asked to recreate things they did decades ago.

It’s a thing that’s very hard for me to imagine. The closest thing is the times when somebody asks for the kind of painting I made thirty years ago and all I can offer them is to make a copy. It’s a hollow thing done almost entirely for money. It’s like being a cover band of yourself.

There’s an older couple at the bar. They’ve been here for hours. The guy keeps trying to engage Tim or I in conversation with comments that ride the line between knowing and obnoxious. He looks vaguely familiar. On his way out he gives me a handful of tiny stickers that say STEPHEN DEDALUS IS A TURD. The next afternoon I do a little internet searching and determine the guy is probably an artist who used to be famous for making fake stamps.

I text Tim about it and he writes back He wanted to be recognized.

We all do. One way or another.

I wrote a review of Nathan Knapp’s Daybook.

If you’d like a non-Bezo’s Bazaar option to buy a copy of The Marvel Universe, your time has come and my shop is now a store once again.