Grendel and a morning squandered
Aug. 17th, 2007 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishAck. I've spent the better part of the day in front of a computer screen and accomplishing nothing.
I'm still reading the large amounts of Grendel that I acquired recently- there's lots and lots of it to get through. Sadly, it's one of those lovely artfully composed comic books that do not translate well in scanned form. In order to read the text, the image must be enlarged; the whole page won't fit on the screen, and so it makes the art harder to appreciate. (It is for this reason that I cannot read David Mack's Kabuki series in scanned form- the continuous scrolling makes it impossible to follow the art and ideas across the pages.) However it's lovely reading- the earliest renditions of the Grendel character are easily the most traditionally comic booky, and by the end of the fifth version (these are limited series, mind you, so reading them is like going through potato chips- you can't stop until you're stuffed), you can already see the point of the comics changing. It's less about the obvious plot, and becoming more like what Matt Wagner himself calls it, a study in the nature of aggression.
Anyhoo, the large amount of Grendel I have has made me waste the morning in a rather delightful way. I'm only just now leaving my post-lunch fugue state with the aid of some truly horrible coffee and a harder chair. I might accomplish something yet, but I'm hardly feeling any urge, and I might very well just explore the internet for a while longer. Or even get a movie- anything is possible when you're alone in a college library.
I'm still reading the large amounts of Grendel that I acquired recently- there's lots and lots of it to get through. Sadly, it's one of those lovely artfully composed comic books that do not translate well in scanned form. In order to read the text, the image must be enlarged; the whole page won't fit on the screen, and so it makes the art harder to appreciate. (It is for this reason that I cannot read David Mack's Kabuki series in scanned form- the continuous scrolling makes it impossible to follow the art and ideas across the pages.) However it's lovely reading- the earliest renditions of the Grendel character are easily the most traditionally comic booky, and by the end of the fifth version (these are limited series, mind you, so reading them is like going through potato chips- you can't stop until you're stuffed), you can already see the point of the comics changing. It's less about the obvious plot, and becoming more like what Matt Wagner himself calls it, a study in the nature of aggression.
Anyhoo, the large amount of Grendel I have has made me waste the morning in a rather delightful way. I'm only just now leaving my post-lunch fugue state with the aid of some truly horrible coffee and a harder chair. I might accomplish something yet, but I'm hardly feeling any urge, and I might very well just explore the internet for a while longer. Or even get a movie- anything is possible when you're alone in a college library.
