Comix Friday: Nine-panel drama, and a book rec

How did I miss this? The San Jose Public Library is hosting a Jewish literature discussion series called "Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel." The first three sessions (out of five) covered Will Eisner's "A Contract With God," Art Spiegelman's "Maus" and Ben Katchor's "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer." I'm hoping to make it to the April 26 discussion of Harvey Pekar's "The Quitter."  More information here. The discussions are held on Sundays from 2-4 p.m. at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, 150 E. San Fernando Street.

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Lauren Weinstein, author of "Girl Stories," made a comic last month for Creative Time, an organization that commissions and presents "adventurous artwork" in New York City (that description doesn't do it justice - definitely check out their site).

Creative Time has solicited 12 artists to create a comic with just nine square panels, and is posting one of the comics on its website every month of 2009. Lauren's comic is quite moving and very different (in tone and style) than the work of hers with which I'm familiar. I recommend it.

On her blog, Lauren says:
"I found this format to be really challenging.  It's been a long time since I’ve done something short and I approached it like I was writing a poem."

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Hat tip of the week to Steven Bergson of the Jewish Comics blog. I'm (very) slowly going through a looong and awesome list of Jewish comix-related links he sent me...thanks so much, Steven!

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Last weekend I finished Rutu Modan's "Jamilti and Other Stories." This book blew me away - Rutu Modan is soooo incredibly talented, it's unreal.

"Jamilti" is a series of short comic stories that Rutu wrote over the course of a decade, from 1998 to 2007. Each story in "Jamilti" plays with different styles of illustration and storytelling - "Bygone" is in black and white, "Homecoming" is done in a one-panel-per-page picture-book style (but don't mistake it for a childrens' story!), and "Jamilti" almost looks as though it was drawn with crayons. The fact that every story looks totally different makes it such a treat to turn to the next one.

A few of the stories struck me as being somewhat Edward Gorey-ish, in the sense that they tackle rather macabre stuff with a playful air. "The Panty Killer" is probably the best example of this, being both quite disturbing and quite silly at the same time (the title should tip you off to that right away). A more overtly Gorey-esque story is "The King of the Lillies," which is set, most deliciously, in an early-20th century Swedish sanitarium. While the artistic styles are very different, it's reminiscent of Gorey's trademark Victorian settings, bizarre twists and inconclusive endings.

Highly recommended for Rutu's fans and soon-to-be fans. I loved every page of this book.

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Comix Friday is published in the Art Scene blog every Friday, and focuses on Jewish comic artists and Jewish-themed comix. If you know of anything I should be blogging about in Comix Friday, let me know!

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