Very, very late on posting this….
Because I think it happened in January. But it was this magical night in Philadelphia, warm and ever so slightly misty, and very dark, and I worked a bit latish in center city to then walk over to the Borders bookstore to Charles Burns’ book signing. Whee, there I was, [trying to pretend not to be terrified at being out in public where I could be observed and despised by my fellow humans who would recoil in disgust and possibly crush me like a worm were they to notice me, for how could they not then instinctively intuit my loathsomeness and the need to rid this plane of existence of an evil of my ilk?!] getting to meet this great artist at last whose work just inspires me to my core. And besides being this amazing artist whose crisp black and white inkinesses and negative space somehow by sheer vibration create color, being this prolific imaginer whose dark baroque eruptions dance elegantly with language clean as a Morandi painting in words, he’s a real sweetheart, super nice and gracious. I’ve never been able to really understand the whole color-out-of-black-&-white thang, I just stare at his pages at length. If you’ve never read his stuff, please don’t deny yourself this experience of beauty. You might go to his entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Burns_(cartoonist) as a start, because for some reason I’m not finding his actual website tonight–I’m lucky if I can walk and think at the same time actually, we’re dealing with humongous sinus infections in an epic microbial badminton match around here–or look at the hardcover collection of Black Hole which is what he was signing and discussing that evening. When I spoke to him I of course told him how fantabulous he was, but mostly we talked about our BREEEEEELLLIONNTT seventeen year old daughters and how they’re juuuuust starting not to be too embarrassed by us 😀 and how one of our former publishers who’ll remain unmentioned is a total asshole. And bless his heart, Burns is a Philly boy now, too, after doing the childhood-as-trek-around-the-U.S.-cauza-Dad’s-job that I and many other artists did as well. Go buy his books, y’all….
Angela Bocage 