Tag Archives: humour

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The Ticking and micrographica

Renée French is the creator of the two graphic novels The Ticking (2005: top shelf productions GA) and micrographica (2007: top shelf productions GA).

The ticking is my favourite of the two works.  It’s a wonderful tale of a young boy born with a deformity and shows the many ways this can be seen. We see the downside and upside through Edison Steelhead’s strength and talent and his father’s, Calvin’s, love and fear. It is told simply with few words and beautifully shaded monochrome art. Yet it is amazing what gets across to the reader. I’m not sure I understand what the ‘sister’, Patrice, brings to the story but it makes me want to keep re-reading the story to figure and savour it all out.

Original drawings for micrographica were little more than 1 cm by 1 cm and were magnified for this novel.  Of course they get blown up in size but not much as the book is roughly 12 by 12 cm.  And text is added. Naked mole rats and crapballs and teenage humour and child-like bravery are the essence of the story.  But it isn’t the art that impresses here. It is more the fantastically quick way Moe, Preston and Aldo and their relationships are explored.

I would highly recommend reading (perhaps buying if you are the art savouring kind) The Ticking first. If you ‘get’ it then you may also enjoy micrographica.

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Crispin Glover on Letterman

Crispin Glover’s infamous appearance on Letterman was in 1987 and yet it still is a hot topic on the internet. That fact, in itself, shows how cool the internet is. I, for one, love it when a host like Letterman is challenged by someone trying something original like Glover or, more recently, Joaquin Phoenix. I love the part where David interrupts Crispin to ask Paul about people who drown or die on stage and Paul retorts “Are you talking about you or him?” Great answer. From what I saw it was Letterman who was drowning there… so much so that he left the stage with none of his sense of humour intact. I love the audience booing Letterman at the end!
No one should deserve to be in such a position of power that they can’t or won’t be moved by something new. Perhaps David was having an off night but it all works out, in a funny way, to be a really cool segment. I watched this recent clip with Crispin Glover talking about it and found it interesting and hilarious! Of course, later on, Letterman was able to be big enough to have Glover back on.