Bleu Blah?

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I’d never seen Trondheim’s Bleu, but Derik B. at madinkbeard pointed it out to me as an example of abstract comics which don’t use panel borders (a trope I expressed unease about in this post.

As Derik says in his analysis, Trondheim’s project is pretty amazing in its ability to evoke comics without actually using any of the standard icons that would singify “comics”. I also find it startling just how much like Trondheim’s representational stuff this abstract comic is. Not that I’ve looked at a ton of Trondheim (especially in relation to his output), but, of the things I’ve seen, I’ve been struck by his phenomenal mastery of cartooning and comics language; his tediously pedestrian approach to page composition, and his cute (sometimes overly cute) humor. All of these qualities are retained in his abstract work. Its a tour de force of cartooning, showing that he can create a comic with no props, no plot, no characters — nothing. The tiny blobs with the stars are (in the small size, in the rounded bits, in their smoothness, in the glittery star) undeniably cute; even precious. And the page layout is pretty darn boring; a basic grid that is never violated.

The dullness of the layout is part and parcel of the effort to make the page readable as comics, of course — with nothing else to go on, the only way for it to be comics is for it to be monotonous. It’s a briliant solution as far as the process goes, but I’m not entirely sold on the product. Still, the colors are pretty, and it has a comfortingly attractive pop art sheen that is pleasing to contemplate….I dunno, maybe I’ll have to find a copy and look through the whole thing more closely to figure out what I feel about it exactly. It’s certainly worth thinking about, though, especially for someone like me who’s working (however hesitantly) on creating some abstract comics….

12 thoughts on “Bleu Blah?”

  1. I have a scan of Trondheim’s other abstract comic “Nouvelle pornographie.” It could be the most boring porn comic ever created. If you’d like to take a look, send me an email (derikb AT madinkbeard DOT com)

  2. I just read _From Hell_ and it certainly raises the question of why one would bother reading a blob eating a star (or other “abstract comics”). I certainly couldn’t imagine spending money on one of these, when I can’t even cough up the dough to buy a masterpiece like the one I just read (borrowed from a friend). I guess disposable income will lead people to do anything.

  3. So what are you, some kind of philistine? Who let you in here, anyway?

    You do realize that Trondheim is the guy who did Little Santa, yes?

  4. I don’t know that that scan is strictly abstract. It’s hard not to see the blobs and stars as representational. Representational of what? Well, of blobs and stars, but crucially of blobs and stars which are intentional agents (e.g. the blob wants to eat the stars; the stars want to escape). It reminds me of some classic research in experimental psychology by Heider and Simmel.

  5. I was just teasing really. I took off my college professor hat and put on my “give me a story dammit” hat. Actually, it’s pretty obvious as “jones” says that there is a story here…and so it’s not really abstract at all. And of course Little Santa is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius (and good fun too). I really just wanted an excuse to enthuse about _From Hell_.

  6. Abstractions not an absolute, I don’t think. It’s a relative description of how open-ended the artist leaves the representation. Yeah, you can work out a narrative if you’d like…but the exact terms of the narrative are pretty unclear. And it really is also possible to see it as a single image in a pop-art tradition. To me, at least, it seems like abstract art which makes use of some narrative conventions, rather than a narrative which uses some abstract art techniques.

  7. I still think you are trying for too hard and fast of a division, as I said in my comment on your first abstract comics post below, Noah. That Trondheim is, in the ole lingo of fine art, abstract, but not fully non-representational. (Abstract coming from the Latin “to pull away from,” a kind pulling away from simple representation, but not into complete nonreferentiality.

  9. Yeah, I just pop in and out. I live in Europe, Switzerland mostly.

    The drawings are great! I especially like the Biblical ones. Those works are indeed realatively-abstract artworks “informed” by comics, but not really comics. Thus maybe you are seeing in others a dividion you have in your work … please check out my site and articles, etc that I cited, and you’ll see another possibility that you may or may not want to consider. Both directions are of course equally valuable, just different.

    I may be back again in April — I was in the last Artists Project at the Fair, but won’t do it this time — I think more “insubordinate” things need to occur. But I will probably do something with “the Shark.”

    I love the composition “swoop” in your works, by the way.

  10. Thanks. I actually don’t think those drawings are even informed by comics particularly. They’re informed by illustration, but that’s not really the same thing.
    (I’ve been doing more directly comic related stuff recently, which is what Andrei was interested in.)

  11. Also, I think I miswrote above. I don’t have any problem seeing Trondheim’s piece (or Andrei’s for that matter) as comics. I was arguing at various points that, (a) Trondheim’s work is absract, not representational and (b) that, while you can have abstract comics, they tend to run afoul of certain problems caused in part by their relationship with a more developed tradition of abstract high art.

    So it’s not that they aren’t comics, for me, but that as comics (or as art) I don’t like certain things about them.

    Presuming anyone’s still paying attention….

  12. Or maybe we are talking only to each other here — but still some inetersting questions to muse about.

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