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Had a weird moment while watching these Stan Brakhage experimental films. There's one he did called "Eye Myth" that's an animation made by painting directly onto 35mm film frames. It took about a year to make, and it looks cool... and it's nine seconds long. Brakhage did a lot of other unusual things, but I don't think he ever did that again. During this time he was also raising a bunch of kids with his wife while (I think) unemployed.
This made me realize:
1. Comics are easy.
2. In Jonathan Lethem's novel The Fortress of Solitude, the author surrogate character's father Abraham is a painter, like Lethem's father (whom I knew very slightly because he was a regular at the Quaker Meeting I attended). Abraham becomes increasingly unavailable as a father due to spending all his time on a massive endless project where he is... painting directly onto 35mm film frames. When I first read this, I just thought it was a nice idea of how to represent the ultimate grandiose-yet-tiny artistic pursuit. But now I'm pretty sure it was more specific: Lethem's joke was, "This guy is like Brakhage, except he doesn't stop."
This made me realize:
1. Comics are easy.
2. In Jonathan Lethem's novel The Fortress of Solitude, the author surrogate character's father Abraham is a painter, like Lethem's father (whom I knew very slightly because he was a regular at the Quaker Meeting I attended). Abraham becomes increasingly unavailable as a father due to spending all his time on a massive endless project where he is... painting directly onto 35mm film frames. When I first read this, I just thought it was a nice idea of how to represent the ultimate grandiose-yet-tiny artistic pursuit. But now I'm pretty sure it was more specific: Lethem's joke was, "This guy is like Brakhage, except he doesn't stop."
