Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Daniel on Perry Bible Fellowship
Daniel is a good friend of mine. Alison has been two busy to contribute lately, so to tide you over I'll put in this commentary from Daniel Saunders:
Check out the latest to see who one of his cartoony heroes is. Now I think this isdefinitely the best comic strip currenlty running, much as I love Bob theAngry Flower (definitely read http://www.angryflower.com/crownm.html). It's not just that he's the most artistically ambitious cartoonist to everlive - check out the chinese one - but I think he may be the Kafka of ourage, in the way he takes the anxieties and feelings of horror andvulnerability and unfairness a sensitive person experiences and blows themup to absurd magnitudes, and so makes them funny, and makes us all feelbetter. In particular the fear of being utterly destroyed by the universefor completely careless reasons - both he and Kafka wrote animal storieswhere the animals live under threat of being invaded and utterly wiped outby vastly more powerful beings.(http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF094ADTheChaosGrid.htmlhttp://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF080ADAgronox.html)
He takes the common dark feeling, that sometimes bad events pile ontop of a particular person in a
completely unbalanced way, and turns it into
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF070BCMarthaOrphanage.html
that our private dreams may be totally absurd
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv22/temporary/PBF052BCTodayIamGoingtoFly.html
not to mention the whole can of worms of our messed up sexuality
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF014BCElephantDream.html
And then of course there''s
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF048BCTodayismyBirthday.html
Irony is the standard mode here, that last-panel kick in the teeth, but it's only to help us cope with the less over-the-top but still painfulironies of living. It's sick alright, but healthy sick.
Check out the latest to see who one of his cartoony heroes is. Now I think this isdefinitely the best comic strip currenlty running, much as I love Bob theAngry Flower (definitely read http://www.angryflower.com/crownm.html). It's not just that he's the most artistically ambitious cartoonist to everlive - check out the chinese one - but I think he may be the Kafka of ourage, in the way he takes the anxieties and feelings of horror andvulnerability and unfairness a sensitive person experiences and blows themup to absurd magnitudes, and so makes them funny, and makes us all feelbetter. In particular the fear of being utterly destroyed by the universefor completely careless reasons - both he and Kafka wrote animal storieswhere the animals live under threat of being invaded and utterly wiped outby vastly more powerful beings.(http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF094ADTheChaosGrid.htmlhttp://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF080ADAgronox.html)
He takes the common dark feeling, that sometimes bad events pile ontop of a particular person in a
completely unbalanced way, and turns it into
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF070BCMarthaOrphanage.html
that our private dreams may be totally absurd
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv22/temporary/PBF052BCTodayIamGoingtoFly.html
not to mention the whole can of worms of our messed up sexuality
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF014BCElephantDream.html
And then of course there''s
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF048BCTodayismyBirthday.html
Irony is the standard mode here, that last-panel kick in the teeth, but it's only to help us cope with the less over-the-top but still painfulironies of living. It's sick alright, but healthy sick.
