Monday, November 14, 2005

Open Letter to the Taxonomists Of Visual Literature

In establishing/revising
a taxonomy of visual literature,
one that exhaustively details every habit within
visual/concrete/asemic/noise/cutup...
where are comics ?
silent/formalist/experimental ?
strip/novel/gag ?

I find it cute that xerox static and letraset funtimes,
rubberstamps and mail-art cut ups
find place in the discussions
of visual poetry
more often than comics.

Old. What we call comics...is very, very old.

3 comments:

Geofhuth said...

Billy,

I write about comics frequently enough, even acquired quite a few more books of the stuff recently--in preparation for future thinking on the form. Comics is an important form to me.

Here's where I discuss comics in the taxonomy of verbo-visual art. But I've talked about comics all along, for the first time in my tenth blog entry (quite a few hundred postings ago).

Hey, and bpNichol was sure interested in comics!

Geof

Vasilios Billy Mavreas said...

Thanks Geof !
Hope i didn't come off as TOO bratty!

Geofhuth said...

Hah! Billy, not at all. It was gently said, and I'm with you on this. People too much ignore comics as a serious artform. Tho I have to admit I've never cared for superhero comics, despite their centrality to most comics aficionados.

Geof

PS Your envelope arrived today. The full-page piece is stunning. Makes me wish I could draw!