Posts Tagged ‘cartoonists’
“All good things must come to an end”*…
Rusty Foster reports that…
Matt Bors announced that The Nib is shutting down after its retroactively ironically themed final issue, “The Future.” “The Nib has published more than 6,000 comics and paid out more than $2 million to creators.” It will be replaced by: nothing, just another void where independent cultural criticism used to be…
Today in Tabs
The Nib will be online through August; you can still enjoy it’s extraordinary offerings (and buy its issues) until then. Happily Rusty’s Today in Tabs continues– one hopes for a long, long time…
[Image above: from KC Green‘s “This Is Not Fine,” on The Nib]
* Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
###
As we bid a fond adieu, we might recall that it was on this date in 1844 that inventor (and celebrated painter) Samuel F.B. Morse inaugurated the first technological competitor to the post when he sent the first telegraph message: “What hath God wrought?” Morse sent the famous message from the B&O’s Mount Clare Station in Baltimore to the Capitol Building. (The words were chosen by Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of the U.S. Patent Commissioner, from Numbers 23:23.)
“Cartoons are not real drawings, because they are drawings intended to be read”*…
Hilarious, subtly subversive, and unique for his time, Virgil Partch was a 20th-century gag cartoonist whose “pleasingly grotesque style” still delights people today. Virgil, cousin of the composer Harry Partch, began his career at Disney, but left after a few years to supply cartoons, all signed “VIP,” to essentially every major outlet– though only a few to The New Yorker, as editor Harold Ross hated VIP’s style.
The Rumpus features more of Partch’s work, and a Q&A with designer, writer, and filmmaker Jonathan Barli on the life and work of the absurdist and visionary cartoonist, the subject of Barli’s new book, VIP: The Mad Life of Virgil Partch (Fantagraphics).
* Chris Ware
###
As we draw the line, we might recall that it was on this date in 1863 that miniature dancing chanteuse Lavinia Warren married Charles Sherwood Stratton… or, as he was better known, General Tom Thumb. The couple met as performers in P.T. Barnum‘s shows. Lavinia was hotly pursued by the tiny entertainer Commodore Nutt, but her affections belonged to General Tom Thumb from their first introduction.
The nuptials, promoted by Barnum, were front-page news: held at Grace Episcopal Church in New York, they were followed by a gala reception at the Metropolitan Hotel, attended by family, friends, and one thousand people who paid Barnum $75 each. With Barnum’s help, the couple became perhaps the most famous public personages of the 1860s: President Abraham Lincoln and his wife hosted a reception for the newlyweds at the White House; and Tiffany and Co. gave them a silver coach; and they amassed a fortune performing.
Wedding photo by Mathew Brady
If you prick us, do we not bleed?…
The Immortal
Designer Revital Cohen is fascinated by the relationship of the natural with the artificial. A frequent collaborator with with scientists, bioethicists and animal breeders, she creates objects that are critical, provocative… and all-too-plausible.
Consider, for example, her recent work, The Immortal (pictured above)…
A web of tubes and electric cords is interwoven in closed circuits through a Heart-Lung Machine, Dialysis Machine, an Infant Incubator, a Mechanical Ventilator and an Intraoperative Cell Salvage Machine.
The organ replacement machines operate in orchestrated loops, keeping each other alive through circulation of electrical impulses, oxygen and artificial blood.
See more of The Immortal here, and more of her other pieces– the genetic heirloom, the electrocyte appendix, et al.– here.
***
As we go with the flow, we might send fiendishly ingenious birthday greetings to Rube Goldberg; he was born on this date in 1883. A cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor, he is best remembered as a satirist of the American obssesion with technology for his series of “Invention” cartoons which used a string of outlandish tools, people, plants, and steps to accomplish simple, everyday tasks in the most complicated possible way. (His work has inspired a number of “Rube Goldberg competitions,” the best-known of which, readers may recall, has been profilled here.)
Goldberg was a founder and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and he is the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year.
You must be logged in to post a comment.