La-da-da-da-Daa

Here’s a lovely little video that, near as I can tell, has not gone nearly so viral as it deserves. "Superman lay broken … La-da-da-da-Daa."

The naive beauty of it – part childcult, part cynicism about fight scenes – is what Daniel Clowes is getting at, I guess, in this interview.

As a kid, I was really attracted to superheroes, but I never read the comics. I’d buy every single comic, and I had some connection to it, but I didn’t like them, really. I remember talking to my other friends who read superhero comics, and they liked them on such a different level than I did. They were like, “Yeah, when Iron Man fights the guy, and punches him in the face, it’s so awesome!” But it had this pop-art iconographic quality to me that was really charming, and I just loved that aspect of it. I always gravitated towards that part of it, and I could never quite get past that, and that’s what I was going for. I wanted to create a story that lived up to the iconography, but also had something else going on.

If you don’t know who Clowes is, you should. (Go read wikipedia or something.)

Back to the video. It’s by graphic artist Chris Appelhans. His site is here. He has things for you to look at (just click through); and listen to, if you like sweet kinda-Cat Powers piano primitivism plus plangent, warbling vocals. Sticking with pictures: "Ninja" (in honor of J. Quiggin’s recent post.) Additionally, a small confirmation of Clowes’ thesis about the superiority of icons over fight-scenes; ponder the steampunk Alice in Wonderland sketches. Lovely. Take a look at "Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum". Very City of Lost Children, but where do you go, story-wise? Fight-scenes, that’s where, once you’ve armored up so extravagantly. Corollary of the ‘gun on the wall in Act I must be fired in Act III’ principle. Then you’ve left your source material too far behind, I wager. But maybe that’s inevitable in this fallen world. (Naturally, if Appelhans proves me wrong, I couldn’t be more delighted.)

I just read a comics anthology, Flight 2 [amazon], which I bought in part because I instantly adored the Appelhans cover art, which you can see at this very extensive book site. Browse and admire the bits. Then notice that it is, in fact, part of a larger site. Which is mostly a blog. With links to lots of online graphics stuff. Poke around. And they’re bringing out Flight 3 [amazon]. Now, going back to Appelhans’ site, we find the fallen figure on the Flight 2 cover started out here. A gentle giant, childlike but dangerous due to lack of coordination, perched on curly elf toes.

Anyway, Flight 2 is highly satisfactory, but its consistent visual attractiveness significantly exceeds its narrative virtues, I found. There were funny bits, exciting bits, and something that really gives you that Edward Gorey "The Fatal Lozenge" feeling, but via stick figures on post-its. But mostly it felt workmanlike in the story department, with really nice art draped over various sturdy narrative frames as the real attraction; mood the chief effect. Maybe this is partly because several of the pieces are slices out of longer-running comics. Often in those cases you need to read more, and the effect is cumulative. But the nice pictures come through immediately.

I got the video link from Kip Manley, a while ago. If you haven’t noticed, he’s got Long Story, Short Pier up and running again, and a fresh new video link awaits you today. I got the Clowes interview via the ISB.