vaguesteph newsletter: opacity/ permeability
“opacity”
hi! thanks for reading!
the good thing about this being a newsletter “in which i just decide to do whatever i want” is that i’m allowing myself to navigate from “theory comics” to diary comics and back around or in between those whenever and however i like. it’s not inconsistency if it’s been declared an aspect of the work, lol!
while working on this comic i thought of this tweet, which i personally think is pretty cute/ funny/ relatable,
and then i remembered there’s a “classic” 2016 comic where i drew the character as a ~funny dog picture~ that also references neon genesis evangelion… you can read it here if you like!
this time, the drawing in the bottom right of the comic is a reference to a shot from neon genesis evangelion that heather warren-crow wrote a beautiful passage about in “girlhood and the plastic image”… i think about those sentences and this image quite often. (this is page 136 of the book to give an accurate citation ;~))
i like how she comments on characters holding the work together, but at the same their representations and the “style” they are depicted in are inconsistent/ always shifting- this is sth hiroki azuma also writes about in “otaku: postmodern database animals”- and it’s something i relate to a lot with my work, too. the ongoing presence and ongoing being re-written and re-drawn of a character who is changing and (shape-)shifting but at the same time, like a soap opera star, always staying the same. it is them that the world forms itself around. is the continued narration creating a coherent self, or does it all stay in fragments? this is the power of cartooning!!! ;-)
a friend told me that in the last newsletter, it sounded like i was going to send all the storyboards/ episodes of my thesis project to everyone on this mailing list as soon as they’re finished. that’s not the case, sorry! i’m basically planning to do this newsletter on the side, though i may share some excerpts if i feel like it.
hope you had a good week!
*if you want to talk to me or comment on anything, reply to this newsletter or email me at vaguesteph @ gmail.*