Cages by Dave McKean

When Dave McKean’s comic Cages was originally released from 1990 to 1996 (and collected in hardcover in 1998), there was very little discussion of comics as literature. A genre that is now regularly featured in The New York Times Sunday Book Review would rarely, if ever, make an appearance. When comics books became serious, they were only taken serious to a point. Readers of Art Spiegleman's Maus were either people who already read comic books, or people who didn’t but didn’t read any other comics afterward. But it was good evidence that the under the right conditions, the comic book could be seen as serious literature. 

Today, even some superhero comics can merit being called serious as well, though it often takes a feature film to generate interest in a new generation of comic readers that have long been exposed to books like Blankets, Epileptic, and Fun Home. In its day Cages was sadly overlooked by McKean fans and all but the most serious comic reader. Only now, after the cognoscenti has decided comics can be taken seriously, is it getting a much deserved, and affordable, paperback release from Dark Horse Comics in September.

Before T-Rex there was:

What's the Web Without God?

We all wish we could block out some things we see on the internet. No matter how carefully you try to tailor a search query, you’ll often find yourself with stinging eyes at the various dreadful things that populate the electronic collective consciousness. And often those examples of violence, sexual degradation, bigotry, and racism come from the religious among us. Who doesn’t sometimes wish they could filter it out?

Enter GodBlock, a supposedly soon-to-be-available web filter that will, according to the website, “block religious content”: scripture, names of religious figures, and something it calls “religious propaganda,” an ill-defined but somewhat useful catchphrase when making light of religious ideas and trying to show how religion has been used to propagate all manner of human ugliness. GodBlock’s tagline is “Protect your children.”

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Ensemble Economique: Standing Still, Facing Forward

I have always been a bit skeptical of the movie soundtrack as a listening experience independent of the film for which it is ascribed, but I am fascinated with the idea of a soundtrack for a film that doesn't exist. Brian Eno, of course, brought this idea into popular music, but hauntology, (and the folks at Ghost Box), has taken this to a slightly different place; a nostalgia for films that seem like they might have existed, but never have.

Brian Pyle's Ensemble Economique new album Standing Still, Facing Forward is a soundtrack to a surrealist horror film, an orchestral backdrop played against a expressionist silent movie, a memory of a something shown late on a Saturday night when you were a child; none of which ever existed, but you are certain you saw them. There is something immediate to this music, and while there are natural sounds (birds, storms), nothing is given away. Images of jungles become crypts become deserts become basements become dark corners become other worlds entirely.

From a technical point of view, it would probably be a thrill to watch Pyle work, to see what goes into the crafting of these pieces, what he sketches beforehand, and what his own imaginary films look like. Admittedly, this is a pretty dark record. There is not a lot of space to catch a hopeful breath. But the sheer creative impulse behind it makes so many things seem possible.