Admiration Overload.

After another long and horrible day at work that I'm not going to get into, at my transfer in 's Hertogenbosch on my way home I decided 'fuck it' and went to the Sylvester comics store to finally buy the stuff I know has come out by now. Had an interesting talk with store- and publishing agency-owner Sylvio where once again I tried to convince him of the worth of webcomics AND of the Stripliefhebbers Forum which I really think stands apart from the bulk of online forums, but I have no clue if it was to any avail. Anywho.

I am currently in awe. Of several pieces of art. And that's what I want to talk about in this post because I need to get it out of my system. My eyes are shimmering with excitement just to get these thoughts down 'on paper', so to speak, and it's a feeling I haven't had in a long, long time. I wish the feeling could be about a comics idea but that hasn't happened in months - although I feel intrigued by taking on the Dutch 'christianity' next week in Worst Case Scenario, but that's a different story and definately not the excitement I'm talking about here.

First of all, I bought Bone album 9. The final, FINAL book. Rounding up a series I've been collecting for a decade now, and lord knows Jeff Smith worked on it longer than that. And although I feared it would be very constructed, pathetically tying up the incredible chaos of loose ends that the other albums left up to and including album 8, everything falls into place. I really should have had more confidence in Smith's genius, man. The book had me laughing, crying, and closing the last pages (there's a few loose extras that appeared along the way in the loose issues and have now been included in this last album - but, unexpectedly, fit awesomely well at the end) with a full feeling of closure. You read these books and fall in love with the characters, and find yourself wanting more and more through all of Smith's wonderfully intuitive writing tricks, and yet, with this final album, the story is over. You're not sad, you're not happy, it just works. It really is over. Milking this out would be wrong, and this series has definately become a prime example of integrity, 'keeping it real' as fake people like to say, making art as opposed to marketing a popular product. I'm in deep, deep awe and anyone who hasn't given these books the slightest chance to enter their worlds is poorly off for it.

Then I made another mistake, I popped in the SECOND dvd of Almost Famous. I know and love the movie, but when I bought it I found out they insered a second dvd - which usually just contains extras, or deleted scenes, or interviews, or whatever. Well, .... bloody hell. This second dvd is the same movie, except the EXTENDED VERSION. And where most extended versions DO add to the movie but don't CHANGE it, this really is a different movie altogether. The original really put the emphasis on the mother who's worried sick about William travelling along with the band Stillwater trying desperately to write his article on them and falling in love with Lady "Penny Lane" Goodman, but the REAL movie... I can't believe they cut so much out. The editor of that movie should be lined up against a wall and shot. It's a miracle the cut version came out so well because so damn many great jokes, tender moments, insightful and intelligent dialogue, and key moments have just been tossed on the editor floor. I am glad, incredibly glad, that Cameron Crowe had the decency to include this uncut version (titled "Untitled") in the package, and even more glad that I decided to watch it. Where the cut version makes Russell initially come off as 'mysterious' because he's barely talking in the first part of the movie, this version has him chatting away and at the same time make it painstakingly clear why he's not yet SAYING anything yet, at least not anything William can use in his article. The 'funny' decisions (because you don't quite know where they come from) in the cut version are decently worked up to in this version (you get to see the stuff that leads up to it) which makes the movie and the story flow. I have no clue why they cut all this great stuff out - probably because they feared the public wouldn't understand the observational gems and storyline twists that the REAL version so masterfully contains. I dunno. There's also a lot of dramatic irony that was cut away - again, I suspect this was because the editor feared the audience wouldn't 'get it' - like predictions that in 1993 there'd be electric cars flying over our heads, and that Mick Jagger wouldn't still be trying to be a rock star at age 50.......
I loved it. I'm exhausted and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow but I'm.. well, touched, by this version. The real, uncut version, is art. Ironic art, because it deals with the difference between edited-from-a-commercial-point-of-view art and because nearly every section dealing with that HAS BEEN CUT OUT OF THE COMMERCIAL VERSION. I love it. I've come to admire several other Crowe movies but hot damn, Almost Famous is my current favourite movie. I'm sure I'll trade it in again once something even more genious comes along (something always does) but deep inside I'll still treasure this version.. because it says everything I'm trying to stand for. And everything about western and pop culture there is to say. All stuffed in a sweet tale of a 15 year old reporter who gets to have the greatest adventure of his life with a band and an incredibly intuitively wise groupie (whoops, band aid...) who, in the end, appears to really be the one who's 'almost famous'.

I've also begun to read Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage. Since even Thompson himself is calling it a 'light snack' and doesn't want it to be taken as seriously as Blankets or Goodbye, Chunky Rice, and so far it seems as light as he warns us it will be (I also skipped through it a bit to see what kind of story I'm reading - story-reader fault 1, but I occasionally do this and it never really hurts the experience for me) I hope this will get me a little less unimpressed with the art in this world. Because with these kinds of Goliaths facing me, how can I ever hope to make anything even worth catching some of their shade ???


I can't help but chuckle at the 'mojo' joke in Almost Famous, by the way. The part where editor Ben talks about a new machine called a mojo, which transmits pages through the telephone.. "It only takes about 18 minutes per page." Makes me value my dialup speed a whole lot more.