Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
My ears are still ringing from seeing Black Breath last week (and my neck is kinda sore, too) but that hasn’t stopped me from going to shows. Last night was Soul Asylum at the Troubadour.
Seiichi Hayashi from Japan, Charles Glaubitz from Mexico, Jason from Norway–every time I attend Comic-Con I encounter at least one international artist with jaw-dropping, original talent who seems to redefine what comics can be. This year it was Brecht Evens from Belgium. His translated, painterly graphic novels, The Wrong Place (2010) and The Making Of (2012) are gorgeous slices of life that convey the power, drama, and luminosity of life without tights or capes. Or outlines or word balloons, for that matter.
Brecht’s storytelling ranges from stream-of-consciousness to dreamy and his panels swing from hyper detailed to quite sparing. But his gorgeous, voyeuristic pages always have a natural pace, truthful tone, and resonating message about the art of being human.
After meeting Brecht at the Drawn & Quarterly table, attending his panel with no visuals but plenty of interest, and then having dinner with the same crew as him at Comic-Con, I followed up with some questions about his work via email.
MW: It was a pleasure to meet you in San Diego, and I hope you enjoyed your visit. What were some observations that you took away from your first Comic-Con ?
BE: Thank you, and thanks for showing my comic book to the actress who played the scientist who tells the President the world is going to end, in The Day After Tomorrow!
There were a lot of nice people to meet at Comic-Con, but as a place, including the area around the convention center, it felt like walking around in a shopping mall for a week. Very peculiar.
Last night I attended the opening of (de)Constructing Chinatown, the Chinese American Museum‘s newest exhibit. The group art show was envisioned by curator Steven Wong as a creative way to reflect the diverse peoples and perspectives that create L.A.’s Chinatown. I didn’t get to say hi to all of the artists (or even Steve, who was in New York) but I did get to catch up with my old friend Shizu Saldamando (above). Her impossibly fine–and effortlessly cool–pen-on-bedsheet works are featured prominently, right next to the show’s main signage and statement.
Besides the camaraderie and the creativity of making the print version of Giant Robot, what I miss most is getting free music. I loved opening bubble mailers full of review CDs with bios, stickers, and other stuff. Sure, 90 percent of it was shitty but I got exposed to a ton of great bands and people that way. Now I have to seek out new music just like everyone else.
That being said, sometimes I still get hooked up. Here’s some stuff I got from friends during my recent Comic-Con trip, with a radical split 7″ as a bonus.
This roundup of shows begins in San Diego, where I spent a long weekend for Comic-Con. Sorry, no partying with Dethklok or Andrew WK, but there happened to be a couple of rad shows at one my favorite venues of all time: The Casbah. Of course, there was Vivian Girls (above) but first came The Mattson 2 (below). A perfect way to cap off Comic-Con’s preview night.