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\nBy M.K. Brown<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-708-6<\/p>\n
\nBy M.K. Brown<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-708-6<\/p>\n
Sometimes there’s no need to babble on for ages. Sometimes a book just sells itself. However I’m far too vain a reviewer to let things lie without interjecting a few facts and opinions. You guess which is which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Mary K. Brown was usually my favourite cartoonist in National Lampoon<\/b> where her uniquely personal, bizarrely surreal, evocatively awry cartoon observations and visions graced the wildly eclectic Funny Pages<\/i> section for decades.<\/p>\n
Her other regular gigs included stints in Playboy<\/b>, Wimmin’s Commix<\/b>, Mother Jones<\/b>, Twisted Sisters<\/b>, Atlantic Monthly<\/b>, The New Yorker<\/b> and elsewhere. She was one of a rarefied group of creators tapped by Art Spiegelman for his prestigious The Narrative Corpse<\/b> project and one of her most intense cartoons was transformed into the other animation segment of the Tracy Ullman Show.<\/b> (the one you know became The Simpsons<\/b>).<\/p>\n
She keeps her private life to herself but her astounding facility as a painter – particularly watercolours – has won her a second career as a gallery artist.<\/p>\n
Now after far too long a time, she’s back as Fantagraphics adds her to its growing list of all-star cartoonist retrospectives; celebrated here with an astonishingly wide-ranging collection and treasury of her gags, drawings and strips.<\/p>\n
It’s tempting to say that Brown’s work is no-nonsense, but in fact it’s all Nonsense: of the highest, weirdest, wildest, wackiest and most elevated pedigree. It’s human, humane, off-beat and off-kilter: beautifully designed and rendered – whether in line or colour – and ranges from the most audaciously cringeworthy visual puns (‘Overwrought Iron’<\/i>) to manically absurdist almost stream-of-consciousness narratives, satirising suburban banality and angst or almost genteelly walloping Post Modern self absorption, consumerism and decadent ennui\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Moreover, this vast and comprehensive compendium (250 pages at 280 x 216mm) understands the value of pictures over words, so Bill Griffith’s Foreword<\/i> ‘Here’s My Checklist for Everything I want in a Cartoonist’<\/i> is brief and punchy as is Brown’s own Introduction<\/i>, leaving all the more room for her stunning pictorial confections – although she does interject with valuable commentary and background information whenever she feels like it.<\/p>\n
And why not? It’s her book\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
The works are divided into themed sections beginning with ‘Housepeople’<\/i><\/b>, starring faddy folks from the nouveau riche punk to the domestic goddess in poems, gags and strips like the eponymous ‘Stranger Than Life’<\/i>, ‘How to Make a Pair of Pants in 20 Minutes’<\/i> ‘Snakes in the Bathroom’<\/i>, ‘Free Glue Sample’<\/i>, ‘White Girl Dreams’<\/i> and much more\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Her astonishing gift for observation was never better seen than in pieces set ‘In the Workplace’<\/i><\/b>: with outr\u00c3\u00a9 panels augmenting manic features such as ‘Revenge and Forgiveness (A Dental Fantasy)’<\/i>, ‘Russ de la Rocca – Worm Trainer of the Americas’<\/i>, ‘Transference’<\/i>, ‘The Fly Brothers in Hollywood’<\/i> or ‘Coping with Chain Saw Massacres’<\/i>, whilst ‘Science and Technology’<\/i><\/b> encompasses ‘Fear of the Known’<\/i>, grasshoppers and their ‘Inroads into Science’<\/i> and the ever-thorny conundrum ‘Women: What do They Want?’<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
‘A Seedy Part of Town’<\/i><\/b> concentrates on domestic investigation and features more searching questions from the appallingly plebeian White Girl and ‘Earl D. Porker – Social Worker’<\/i> after which ‘Romance and Social Studies’<\/i><\/b> reveals how ‘Love Makes the World Go ‘Round’<\/i>, offers a unique ‘Love Story’<\/i> and exposes secrets of the ‘Singles Bar’<\/i>. Also featured is Brown’s faux bodice ripper ‘A Promise to Remember’<\/i>, and the packed-to-bursting chapter climaxes with ‘Party Time Paper Dolls’<\/i> and the many small adventures of ‘Mercury, Messenger of God’<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The wonders of the world are examined in ‘Travel and Nature’<\/i><\/b> with particular attention paid to ‘Highlights of Guatemala’<\/i>, ‘Loud Ties in Nature’<\/i>, ‘Camel Racing in the Desert’<\/i>, and sundry bestial broadsides. This chapter also reprints ‘Another True-Life Pretty Face in the Field of Medicine’<\/i> (which was adapted as the aforementioned animated adventures of Dr. N!Godatu <\/b>on the Ullman show), as well as the mad Mountie serial ‘Saga of the Frozen North’<\/i>, and is as ever surrounded by many more panel gags and mini strips.<\/p>\n
The cartoon carnival concludes with ‘Way Out West’<\/i><\/b>: a selection of equestrian and cowboy pieces accompanied by the really true secret reason Brown produced so many of the crazy things.<\/p>\n
Included are ‘Custer’s Last Night Stand’<\/i>, ‘Hillbilly Song Jubilee Roundup Time’<\/i>, a triptych of ‘Beans Morocco’<\/i> sagebrush yarns, a series of strangely sensational gun illustrations and all five chapters of that dern peculiar soap opera ‘Western Romance’<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
After a steadfastly odd comicstrip ‘Self Portrait’<\/i> by the ever-entertaining Brown, cartoonist Roz Chast adds her own observations to an appreciative Afterword<\/i> to end this beguiling parade of literary legerdemain and graphic incomprehension\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Clever, challenging and utterly addictive humour that is once seen, never forgotten. And that is a fact.<\/p>\n
Stranger Than Life: Cartoons and Comics 1970 -2013 \u00c2\u00a9 2014 Fantagraphics Books. All comics and text by M.K. Brown are \u00c2\u00a9 2014 M.K. Brown. All other material \u00c2\u00a9 2014 the respective creators. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By M.K. Brown (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-60699-708-6 Sometimes there’s no need to babble on for ages. Sometimes a book just sells itself. However I’m far too vain a reviewer to let things lie without interjecting a few facts and opinions. You guess which is which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Mary K. Brown was usually my favourite cartoonist in National … <\/p>\n