After the break, it's time for a new episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell!
This week, the boys are playing with fire by talking about Alan Moore: will this be the end of our fair podcast? Probably not, because he refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the comics in question: it's the all new In Pictopia (from FU Press!) and the never-gonna-be-new-again 1963 (from Image's cool kid days!). Don Simpson, Steve Bissette, Chester Brown & Dave Gibbons: get ready to be name checked, boys!
You can take a look at a lot of the books we talk about on this show on our Bookshop page. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast, and, because it is Bookshop, will also go to support indie booksellers. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner. We also set up an instagram for the show if you want to bet money on future hot takes!
The story Tucker told about the Doonesbury and the dick toes sounded familiar, so I did some sleuthing and it was discussed previously in the episode entitled Heathcliff, The Getalong Gang, Mange, Doonesbury, and Dads at around the 27 minute mark. One can now only imagine the kind of mental imprint this panel left on a young Tucker Stone. Seeing it again would be like Proust eating the Madeleine unlocking his whole childhood in one striking moment.
Posted by: Tyler | 2021.05.01 at 10:11
Great discussion. I do think that it would useful to be a bit sharper about the distinction between parody, pastiche, replication and simulacrum: parody classically (as in Jameson's Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Capitalism) is satirically and has bite; pastiche is more spoof than satire, it's toothless parody (late period Mad as against Kurtzman's Mad which was parody). Republication, I'd argue, is an attempt to capture the mood of the old with some modern style -- say Byrne's Fantastic Four; simulacrum is trying to create a copy of something that has no original, that is to forge an artifact that could be from an imaginary past (I think the Tales of the Black Freighte counts).
What's interesting with Moore is he's worked the whole spectrum of this.
I'd contest Tucker's claim that comics borrowed from radio serials (unless he means comic books). The reverse is true: comic strips preceded radio and influenced it. The early radio shows were taken from comics (Amos and Andy was influenced by The Gumps, Orphan Annie etc.)
Posted by: Jeet | 2021.05.01 at 17:40
Tyler, you are a prince and that was my favorite comment i've read, ever, anywhere, on anything. Jeet, i tolerate other people mentioning radio but would never mention it myself, as I have no respect for it as a medium, genre, or hobby. BZZZT, fix your ears, wasn't me
Posted by: TUCKER | 2021.05.01 at 20:53
Wait, that wasn't Tucker? Maybe Matt? It was an hour 10 minutes in. I tend to think of everyone on this podcast as Tucker doing different voices.
Posted by: Jeet | 2021.05.02 at 13:42
"Or not just stolen from Antonioni". Goddamn Matt is correct yet again.
Posted by: Moose | 2021.05.14 at 23:32