Wolfe and Gaiman

Jeff Wilson · 05 Jan 2011, 02:26 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:26:33 -0600
Subject: (urth) Wolfe and Gaiman
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W36375D367312960A838B11CF080 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W36375D367312960A838B11CF080 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D23D6D9.2040604 at io.com>

On 1/4/2011 12:56 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> Antonio: I think Lee's objection was to the term itself in not being dignified enough.
>
> Quite the contrary! I unfortunately trend toward the mission of puncturing pomposity and elitism
> in the arts. A bit of artistic dignity is fine but as it increases it gradually morphs into those
> two balloons I always want to pop. I apologize and try to keep this failing of mine under control.
>
> My objection was only in breadth not elitism of terms. Visual accessibility is just a general
> way I would characterize the differences between Wolfe's and Gaiman's work.
>
> As Witz suggests, even the more prosaic aspects of Wolfe's work can be difficult to render in
> visual form. So how do you convey the idea of immaterial or indeterminite elements like Neighbors or
> Yesod or Brook Madregot or Whorl Gods? I mean, c'mon, the Naviscaput would end up looking awfully silly
> no matter who drew him... 		 	   		

A naviscaput needn't look any sillier than any other scary ship plying 
the waves; the key would be to avoid the anthropic elements like giant 
hands and shoulders and concentrate on the the ship-like structure above 
the waterline, the deformation of the waves and currents from the sheer 
bulk of the creature, and conceal the exact appearance of any limbs with 
muck, trash, and accumulated wreckage. Now that I think of it, several 
Miyazaki films have very unsilly execution of similar giant baddies.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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