Women read Wolfe too (& seriously weird comic recs!)

Hmpf MacSlow · 16 May 2008, 20:40 · from 2008-May.txt.gz

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From: hmpf1998 at gmx.net (Hmpf MacSlow)
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 22:40:44 +0200
Subject: (urth) Women read Wolfe too (& seriously weird comic recs!)
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>
>Have any other women posted?
>Patty

Yes. Me, among others. Although I only post very rarely, and never, 
so far, anything particularly insightful. I've only read TBotNS once, 
in 2003, and feel it needs several readings before I can start 
talking about it in an intelligent manner; haven't had time to 
re-read it with the attention it deserves since then, alas. Will 
definitely do so after I've finished university, which will be 
sometime in 2009.

Sort of OT, but... if anyone around here is also interested in 
comics, I'm writing my M.A. thesis about some comics who I feel share 
some of the depth and strangeness of Wolfe's creation, although 
they're very different on a philosophical/ideological level. And one 
of them actually uses the word 'Ascian' for a nomadic people it describes!

So, since we've just seem to have passed through another round of 
recommending authors and books, let me recommend some seriously deep, 
seriously weird comics:

Carla Speed McNeil: Finder

Website/samples: http://www.lightspeedpress.com/
A few reviews, because I'm too busy right now to give my own:
http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/032_finder/032_finder.htm
http://archive.salon.com/books/review/2005/08/05/mcneil/index1.html
Possibly my very favourite review (you have to scroll down a bit, to 
the part titled 'Finding Carla'):
http://www.vogelein.com/JanerBlog/2005/10/

Okay, that was actually only the moderately weird comic. Now for the 
seriously weird:

Donna Barr: everything she's done, i.e. The Desert Peach, Stinz, 
Hader and the Colonel, Bosom Enemies, Afterdead

I haven't found any really comprehensive review yet, so I have to do 
this myself:

Donna Barr's been producing comics for decades now, and they're all 
just *barely* this side of totally insane - and fascinating, in a way 
that's often disconcerting. In many cases I still don't entirely know 
what I actually think about them. Which is a definite parallel with 
Gene Wolfe's work, for me! Donna Barr's world is filled with 
fictitious gay brothers of famous Wehrmacht generals, people who 
unexpectedly turn into horses, centaurs who fight in some close 
analogue of the First World War, rabbits who want to turn human and 
befriend harpies... not to mention that her latest work, the webcomic 
Afterdead, unites all these unusual characters in a world that is 
even more bizarre, namely some sort of far-future/life-after-death 
version of the Third Reich.

All of which sounds as if it's carefully designed to offend just 
about everyone. And really, it's incredibly hard to recommend these 
comics without going 'no, no, no, it's *not* like you think!' all the 
time. Especially if you haven't figured out what you think yourself, yet.

They're... *challenging* comics, on a number of levels, which come 
from a deeply personal, deeply idiosyncratic place. And, really: 
they're not like you think. I swear. ;-)

Donna Barr's website (which includes links to free downloads of her - 
possibly - least weird comic, The Desert Peach, in the 'store' section):
http://www.donnabarr.com/

Hmpf (really a woman, despite the gender-neutral nick *g*) 

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