Comments on: Japanese Paper Theater

By: Goldrush

Goldrush — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:45:46 +0000

There’s also a Cyclorama in Atlanta’s Grant Park. It depicts the Battle of Atlanta.
http://www.atlantacyclorama.org/history.php

By: jholbo

jholbo — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:51:42 +0000

Thanks for all the suggestions. This is good stuff!

By: pipeau

pipeau — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:37:25 +0000

have a look at:
http://www.museedelimage.fr/
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_d%27%C3%89pinal (if not working, type manually the not American characters: _d’épinal
Images d’Épinal are one of the precursors of the comics in France.

By: Harold

Harold — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:01:24 +0000

Pien-wen used scrolls. Two people held the scroll, unrolling it slowly, as the narrator with a stick pointed to the illustration corresponding to his narration.

In Southern Italy as late as the 1950s, the storyteller used picture panels such as: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EGUmcVK1qSk/0.jpg

in front of which he sang ballads, punctuated by spoken recitation, about the latest grisly murders. He also sold the pictures, I believe. Orazio Strano was one of the last practitioners of this art. In the following Youtube recording he sang about Salvatore “Turridu” Giuliano, the bandit, whom some say was in the pay of the American CIA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUmcVK1qSk

A folk revival version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHdUqux6cIg

and another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZtQN9u0sGY

The early broadsides must have been something like this. They were peddled at fairs in Germany and France.

By: roac

roac — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:22:15 +0000

I read no. 9 and said “Rolf Harris? As in ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport?’ Really?” I had no idea he went on existing after his 15 minutes of Stateside fame were up. A glaring example of US insularity for you.

By: Harold

Harold — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:55:09 +0000

I have this book and agree that the text is a bit disappointing, though suggestive.

One with a lot more meat (and also copiously illustrated) is:

Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and its Indian Genesis, by Victor Mair
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Painting-and-Performance/Victor-Mair/e/9781891640551#TABS
Barnes & Noble Review:

In this extraordinary work of scholarship, Victor Mair traces the global development over a thousand years of a genre of popular Buddhist folk literature from China known as pien-wen, pointing out its origins in India as a form of oral storytelling using painting as an aid, and showing how that form has influenced performance and literary traditions in India, Indonesia, Japan, Central Asia, the near East, Italy, France, and Germany. Professor Mair’s research has important implications for students and scholars of literature, folklore, painting, religion, history, art, and theater and the performing arts, not to mention Chinese popular culture and Indian civilization.

By: Sam Dodsworth

Sam Dodsworth — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:29:35 +0000

One other thing I remember from the performance I saw is that the transition between cards makes it less like comics than you might think. It’s possible to slide cards out quickly or slowly for different pacing effects, or reveal only part of the next picture to show (say) the villain standing triumphant and then the hero appearing behind him. It’s not a giant revolution in narrative technique but it is arguably different from the way panel transitions work in comics.

By: lestin

lestin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:10:42 +0000

Henry “Box” Brown’s “Mirror of Slavery” is another example of an American panorama show—although panorama shows might actually be movies, if we use McCloud’s distinction. Since the images were rolled along between two scrolls, they’d be juxtaposed more temporally than spatially.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:40:22 +0000

“I’m not sure why Holbo wants to disqualify movies and focus only on the visual rather than the performative aspect. It’s rather arbitrary, since kamishibai seems to involve both.”

Yes. It is rather arbitrary. But I’m actually writing something in which I try to think about what makes ‘comics’ different from film and theater. So I’m sort of curious to hear about cases that are more on the comics side. I’m aware of lots of cases on the film and theater side.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:00:11 +0000

I think there is a similar tradition in Turkish culture… Don’t remember what it was called though.

By: Ravi Padiyar

Ravi Padiyar — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:44:02 +0000

Hi..This is Ravi Padiyar from MP…Ujjain
I think the Relics did go on tours in medieval Europe

By: smuhlberger

smuhlberger — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:35:33 +0000

The Gettysburg Cyclorama is a survivor of a huge number of such things, produced with great technical skill to make a lot of money as travelling attractions. Most burned “mysteriously” when movies got to the point of making cycloramas much less valuable than the insurance.

Even today it is quite impressive.

http://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/cyclorama.htm

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:02:11 +0000

The AIDS quilt. And my impression is that popular 19C panoramas went on the road once in a while.

I’m not sure why Holbo wants to disqualify movies and focus only on the visual rather than the performative aspect. It’s rather arbitrary, since kamishibai seems to involve both. It seems very close to shadow puppetry, no?

By: kid bitzer

kid bitzer — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:45:56 +0000

that moving wall site is pretty astounding.

part of the pitch seems to be:
vietnam memorial = real america;
washington, d.c. = false, liberal america.

free the vietnam memorial! bring it outside the beltway, dammit!

still, if statisticians use moving windows….

By: novakant

novakant — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:34:24 +0000

Well, actually the film industry started out exactly that way – as a fairground attraction.