Radiant Comics

I’m a collector of photography books. Well, I have a few of them anyway. It’s not a very big collection. Especially compared to my comic book collection. They’re not all in one place but I would guess I have about twenty photography books. Occasionally I pull one down and look at it.

One I recently took down off the shelf, a book I haven’t looked at in years, I found especially interesting. It’s”Digital Diaries” by Natacha Merritt. This book was controversial when it first came out in 2000 because it deals with sex. It was accused of being pornography and I can see why but I got nothing against pornography. It’s no more evil than society at large.

“Digital Diaries” consists of Natacha Merritt taking pictures of herself in various stages of undress and also in various sexual acts. That’s why it was accused of being porn or alternately “a young woman exploring her sexuality” blah blah blah. You know the drill. If your offended by such stuff stay away from this book.

What I found most interesting about the book looking back at it all these years later is how it turned out to be such a fleeting work that will never be duplicated. Digital photography back in 2000 was hardly what it is now. I got my first digital camera back in November of 2000 and that was only a three megapixel model. The one Merritt was using wasn’t even that good.

It probably says somewhere in the book what camera she used by I don’t really care. It was a low resolution one far from what any professional would use then or today. The pictures are blocky and full of jpeg artifacts. They are nothing like what we are used to now and this book would never be published today. If you read reviews of the book on Amazon, or some such, lots of people laughed at the quality of the photos. And for good reason.

But it’s the quality of the photos that makes it interesting for me now. And it’s not really the quality of the photos but the quality of the digital camera they were made on. The period of time where this was the state of the digital art was brief and I doubt many books were published using the digital photography of that time. What serious photographer would chose a low res camera that produced images much worse than his film camera to make a book? Not many I guess and no other books that I know of.

All photo books printed these days that are made from digital photographs are indistinguishable from film photography books. That’s how far digital photography has come in such a short time. That’s why we’ll never see a book like this again. It’s a time capsule.

Sure there might be some photographers who choose to work with a low res camera just like there are those who like cheap or toy cameras but that’s a gimmick. Irony as a gimmick annoys me but that’s just an aside. And low res cameras won’t be easy to come by. There weren’t really that many of them. More likely a photographer will res-down his photo on the computer to get that low res effect. That’s what makes this book unique. The low res isn’t an effect. It’s a refection of the time. And most likely no one will publish a high end photo book of low resolution photos. That time has passed.

The photography in the book is actually pretty good. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I like it. A hot chick taking pictures of herself having sex yet trying to make something more out of it than dirty pictures is always an interesting subject. I’ll take it over horses, dogs, or barns but then again I like portrait photography best in general.

The low res quality of the images makes them look like that are from some other time and place. Not quite the world we know but no one is trying to fool us into thinking they’re from another time and place. They just are. They are from a brief moment when digital photography was a completely different beast than regular photography. Now the two are the same thing and we’ve forgotten they were ever so different. And as far as I can tell Natacha Merritt has pretty much been forgotten too. Freaky.

I need some inspiration. Because that sounds like a good idea. I’m usually not a “wait around for inspiration” kind of artist. I like to make art regularly and waiting around doesn’t help me make it. Sometimes I get inspired but mostly I don’t. The work itself is the inspiration. Doing work every day is much more helpful than inspiration.

But still I want some inspiration because it sounds like fun. It sounds like you get some of it and then, bam, you have a piece of great artwork. The art makes itself. I know it doesn’t really work that way but I want it to.

Inspiration is really another word for excitement. You get excited about making something. Strangely enough the excitement can actually get in the way of things and be frustrating. Nothing will bring you down faster than getting all inspired by someone or something, trying to make a piece of art, and it coming out horribly. Man, that hurts. All that inspiration crashes down on you. Ouch. Still, I’ll take the risk.

I think I want to start some large drawings. I’ve made large paintings but I don’t think I’ve made any large drawings since college. I have plenty of twenty by thirty inch paper and thought I would use some of that. I’ll need a bigger drawing board though.

Unfortunately I’m not sure what to draw. I usually draw no bigger than around 11×18 inches. I would then blow the drawings up for paintings but to make a finished drawing at a large size would be another thing entirely. I’m not sure what direction to go in.

I basically draw two different ways. The first way is influenced by surrealist automatic drawing. I try to pull images out of my head that are odd and unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s drawing without a preconceived idea of what I’m going to draw. That’s the way I create characters and worlds that are far out. I like drawing that way and think it suits me.

My second way of drawing is the traditional “think of something and then draw it” kind of drawing. Come up with an idea and then execute it. Often that type of drawing involves referencing things with photos and real life. The results can be as far out as my other drawing but the starting point is different. And it’s usually a little more grounded in the “real” human figure. I’m not sure which way will work best for me with a large drawing. That’s why I need some inspiration.

I’ve been doing a lot of pointless drawing lately. By pointless I mean that I have had no end in mind for it. Usually a drawing is a preliminary work. It’s a step towards getting to a finished painting, print, photograph, or whatever. That’s why drawing doesn’t always get the respect of the others and also why it can be the most interesting. Especially to other artists. Drawings are often called the “guts” of a piece of art.

I’ve been making drawings with no idea if they were going to be finished works. I’ve been doing them because I’ve been in a period uncertainty about I want to do. Since I can’t decide I may as well draw. That beats sitting around being frustrated.

It’s that uncertainty that breeds the desire for inspiration. Uncertainty is in no way exciting and excitement blocks out uncertainty. That’s why I want some of it. Now where do I find it?

This week’s interesting new tool is a laminating machine. I’ve been meaning to get one for years and years but for some reason it took me until this week to actually get one. They are really not that expensive. This one cost me forty five bucks plus another fifteen for 8.5×11 inch laminating pouches. It’s worked well the times I’ve used it so far.

I got the machine to make cards. Trading type cards that is. I created a fortune telling system a couple of years ago and when I made a prototype deck of cards I used hand burnished cold laminate to make the cards. That stuff was a bit of a pain. I had to place a piece of the plastic on the front of the card and a piece on the back and then burnish them down one by one being careful not to get air bubbles in the laminate. That took a bit of doing, maybe five minutes a page, and I had about a ten percent failure rate.

The laminating machine is much quicker and easier. Put the piece of paper I printed the cards on into the pouch and run it through the heated up laminating machine. Piece of pie. Takes all of thirty seconds. So far my failure rate has been zero percent and I don’t expect it to climb higher.

I didn’t have an exact project in mind when I bought the laminator this week so I tested it out with an old unfinished project. My “Moment in Time” cards. I came up with that idea last winter or so. I have a lot of Manhattan street photos that I have taken over the years. Some at public events and some right out on the street. I never make anything out of the vast majority of them so I decided to make trading cards out of some of them.

I like trading cards. Maybe it’s nostalgia or maybe it’s populism but trading cards were the artwork of childhood. They were something that every kid had and could hold in their hands and look at. I like their intimacy and their preciousness. Even though they were mass produced and not really precious if you were a kid your copy of the card could be precious to you.

Moments in time is the concept of my trading cards. I made up a template with that phrase written down the left hand side and the photo goes underneath it. On the back of the photo is a water design with the time and place the photo was taken plus a brief description written by me with a little bit of observation and a little bit of speculation about the stranger in the photo.

The project is about the fleeting instances of life that the camera catches. It’s a pretty obvious concept but somehow the trading card format makes it come alive for me. I’m making them the slightly taller than baseball card/playing card size. It’s a standard size but not the usual one. I also have a round corner punch to finish off the cards. Durable art that you can fit in your pocket. That’s what appeals to me about this project. That and contemplating the nature of time.

Going back through the photos in itself is an exercise in contemplating the nature of time. I’ve only gone back to 2005 when I used to shoot at the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in Bryant Park before work. These photos are all of strangers and not friends and family but they still get me wondering about the nature of time.Who is this person and where are they now?”, is the general question that comes to mind. I haven’t even gone back to some of my old 35mm street shots yet. That’s back in time for you.

All of the photos I’ve made into cards so far (twenty four of them) have been summer shots. Everyone is in the sunshine and they all look warm and happy. At least that’s what I read into them. I tend to guess at my subjects states of mind. That’s another reason I’ve liked these moment in time cards. I get to make up stories. Always a fun thing to do.

Football season is here and I am not one to be counting his chickens before they hatch. That’s one thing a lot football fans love to do but I don’t. You look at your favorite team’s schedule (mine is the NY Giants) and figure out which games they should win. You can have them at 7-1 in a moment.

Fans of any give team are usually optimistic when looking ahead at the schedule. Maybe it’s that if your team stinks there is no reason to look ahead but everyone I know who counts their chickens always counts in their team’s favor. But if there is one thing I know about the Giants it’s that some games that they should win they lose and some games they should lose they win. That’s why they play them and why I don’t schedule-guess.

I’ve actually been playing a video game lately. It’s “Magic: The Gathering” for the X-Box 360. Sure it might not really count as a video game because it’s a translation of an actual card game but it’s the only reason I’ve had to turn on my X-Box in ages. Well, besides using it as my media center.

Magic: TG for the X-Box is a pretty good translation of the game. It’s really only a small fraction of the vast trading card game but for a ten dollar download it’s well done. The computer AI is alright. I’ve yet to play a human opponent on it though. I used to play the game all the time in the mid 90’s with some of my buddies at lunchtime when we all worked together. It was a nice break in the workday and we had fun. It’s fun to play again a little again.

Buying M:TG was also the first time I’ve spent money in the X-Box virtual marketplace. I’ve never bought anything before because unlike the iTunes store, where I buy games for my iPod, you can’t spend cash at Microsoft’s virtual marketplace. First you have to buy “Microsoft Points” and then you spend those points “Buying” things. Oh, and one point does not equal one dollar. Eight hundred point equals ten dollars.

So good luck figuring out how much something will actually cost you. Plus you could have points left over. You have to buy points in the increments that they sell them in. Those increments might be more than how many points what you want costs. It all reminds me way too much of Itchy and Scratchy dollars from an episode of “The Simpsons”.

Speaking of the Simpsons their twenty first season opening show that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote was good. I’m one of the few people I know who still watches the show and that was a stand out episode.

There is still no new car for me yet but I’m feeling more mellow about that. Since I don’t use one to commute their is no real hurry to get a new one. I think getting rid of my old car took a lot of stress away. It was twenty one years old (like the Simpsons) and a ticking time bomb of repair bills ready to go off. And I found out the right rear wheel was about to fall off. I was right not to trust it. I don’t have the car repair skills to keep it running on the cheap and am glad it’s gone. But what one should I buy and how much will it cost? Ahhh… the questions of modern life.

A video game I almost bought last week was Halo 3: ODST. By “almost bought” I mean I had the money in my hand and was at the store looking for the special edition (it comes with a X-Box 360 wireless controller) but the didn’t have any for me since I didn’t pre-order it. After I got home I read the reviews on the game and though they were good there were plenty of complaints that the game was short and not worth the money. Originally it was supposed to be released as an expansion pack but Microsoft decided to charge full price ($60) for it. I’ll wait until next year when it’s cheaper.

So that is some news that is all about games. Football and video. Too bad there is no good football video games anymore.

What comic to read next? That is what I’m thinking about tonight. You think it would be an easy question to answer but somehow I make it complicated. I’ll break it down into categories for you.

The first category is obvious. Get a comic from my new comic pile. Those are the latest ones I’ve purchased that I haven’t cracked open yet. That pile isn’t usually big. Tonight it has five comics in it. Sometimes I like to know I have some new comics to read so I don’t want the pile to get down to zero. I don’t buy very many of new comics so I don’t want to read them all at once. It’s a little way of having something to look forward to.

The second category is new graphic novels. Anything like the Rick Geary books or “George Sprott” by Seth that I might have lying around. They stand on their own and are not part of any series. They are new stories from a favorite author/artist. Sometimes I let these sit around for a little while too. It took me a few weeks to get to reading “George Sprott” because I enjoyed the idea of having a new book by Seth to read. They don’t come out very often. I get to graphic novels by cartoonists I’m unfamiliar with quicker because I want to see if they are good. A strange little habit.

The third category is new collections of comics. Hard bound or trade paperback they are the way I read a lot of mainstream superhero stuff from Marvel or DC these days. I buy the latest Hercules series this way plus I’ve kept up with some of the Spider-Man books as they come out in collected form. “Young Liars” and “Criminal” are two other books I buy when they bind them all together. Sometimes when I want to check out what’s been going on in a mainstream book the I don’t regularly read so I grab a collected. Sometimes they sit on my shelf for a while because I’m not in the habit of reading the series. I have a few collected things I haven’t read lined up. I could pick any one of them.

Category four is collections of old comics. Some of them I’ve read the originals before and some of them I haven’t. I’ve got Creepies. Eeries, a volume of Herbie, a couple of Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Demon. That’s just off the top of my head without looking. There always seems to be less of a rush to get to these. Maybe because, even if the printing is new, the comics are old. They’ve been around for decades. What’s one more week? They can wait. Who’s ever in a rush to read a twenty year old comic book?

The final category is, of course, all the comics that have been sitting on my shelf for years. The collection. Sure I’ve read them all before but some not for decades. I have plenty to pick and choose form. Too many some say. All sorts of genres and subject matter. I could pick for nostalgia, style, curiosity, artist, writer, character, or any other reason I can think of. I have a lot of comics. So what should I read?