SPECTATORS - Part 111
Plus, BKV talks Talking Heads!
No time for my usual rambling monologue!
Brian here, and this is a particularly jam-packed installment of Exploding Giraffe, so let’s get right to our new pages of Spectators from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks.
Voyeuristic specters Val and Sam have been scouring the living world for an elusive, intimate three-way (learn how and why anytime in our handy Archives), and now they’re about to investigate a mysterious old Manhattan structure suggested to them by a ghostly gal pal of Val…
To be continued with Niko’s latest full-color flashback next week.
Spectators wouldn’t exist with readers like you, so thanks for being here, especially those of you who’ve chipped in anything at all during these lean times.
In last week’s chat thread with you generous paid members in The Tower, I simply asked how everybody was doing, and your responses ranged from heartwarming to harrowing with everything in between.
Loyal reader Rob wrote:
You know, I’m actually doing well. As easy and justifiable as it would be to commiserate and discuss some hardships, I have been trying to remind myself more recently of how lucky I am to just be alive right now, and have the things I have, relationships, hobbies, etc. A coworker of mine always responds to this with “I’m on the right side of the green,” and I tend to favor that outlook.
Meanwhile, Katherine had a somewhat less rosy—if equally colorful—outlook:
I’m firmly in the glass has liquid in it camp. Is it full? Is it empty? Is it full of piss? Guess it depends on the day. My stepmother died in March. She and I had a strained relationship but her death has impacted me greater than I could have ever imagined. She was 68, and way too young to die. I’m also trying to figure out the taking care of a newly widowed parent thing (I’m an only, so no sibling help). This growing older thing is so very weird. I guess that’s the empty and/or piss answer. The glass is half full answer is I just returned home from a trip to Alaska where I had two consecutive days of clear viewing of Denali. I never knew it was a thing that only about 30% of people visiting the park are able to see the peak. (It’s so tall it creates its own weather which usually covers the peak.) I felt like that was a nod from the universe that things are going to be okay.
Beautifully said. My condolences on your stepmother.
And sorry our faithful intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe could only award one winner this copy of the excellent Precious Metal (first issue on stands now) signed by our new friend Darcy Van Poelgeest:
They selected longtime Tower member Jose C., who shared:
I retire on Thursday (city job in NYC). Looking forward to this next chapter in my life.
Congrats on the major life achievement (and the signed swag), Jose! Hope you’ve been enjoying your first days of this next chapter.
Reading everyone’s comments throughout the week has become a new favorite form of procrastination from my looming deadlines, so thanks again to those of you who took the time to check in with your fellow giraffes and me.
Around this time last year, I shared my “Favorite Comics of 2023 (so far),” and I’ll have a similar list from the first half of 2024 coming soon, right after I finish a few more late entires I just started reading and loving.
My #1 book from that above list was Impossible People by the hilariously insightful and brutally honest Julia Wertz.
If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in the Bay Area this Thursday, you can see Julia in person, along with some other incredible cartoonists:
"What Are You Working On?": Comic Artists Julia Wertz, Hilary Campbell, Rita Sapunor, and Briana Loewinsohn
Jun 13, 2024 - 7:00pm
Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED.
Come on out to the shop at 7pm on Thursday, June 13 for an evening of community, conversation, and lots of comics! Join us at Pegasus Books Downtown for comics readings with Julia Wertz, Hilary Campbell, Rita Sapunor, and Briana Loewinsohn. We’ll be seeing and hearing what each artist is currently working on--plus, books and zines will be available for purchase at the event. See you there!
More details over here, and please let us know if you end up attending.
Something else well worth your time this week: from my pal Wyatt Cenac, who’s been making me laugh and/or question every aspect of existence since we were in third grade together.
This is a pilot for a podcast that I made with Pineapple Street Studios. The premise was to take a comedic and kinda thoughtful look at the ways in which race plays a role in every aspect of our lives from the serious to the seemingly trivial. For this pilot, we dive into how race plays a role in something incredibly childish: LEGO
It’s a pilot, so it’s a little rough around the edges, but it was fun to make and a lot of people put a lot of hard work and energy into it, so it felt like that effort was worth sharing. Sometimes you make things and for whatever reason in this intersection of art and commerce, they don’t work out. But thankfully the internet is more than happy to make space for those projects, so they don't have to collect dust on a shelf and in the minds of the people who made them.
Damn, wouldn’t you love more episodes?
Wyatt wisely avoids most social media, but be sure to check out his site, where you can subscribe to his newsletter and check out other fascinating “lost” projects.
Finally, for this week’s bonus nonsense, I wanted to talk about a band that had a profound impact on me as a creator (and reveal which of my old comics has a strange connection to these legendary musicians).
Last Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to get to see all four members of Talking Heads live and in person to mark the 40th anniversary of Stop Making Sense, the best concert film of all time, directed by the late, great Jonathan Demme.
More on this unforgettable evening after the jump, but everyone else, have a killer week, and Niko, Fonografiks and I will see you back here next Monday evening for more free Spectators.
By the time I finally discovered Talking Heads, the band was already on the cusp of breaking up.
It was the spring of 1990 and I was 13 years old. During a Saturday afternoon drive to bowling (or whatever the hell we used to do back then), a friend’s cool dad popped in a cassette and played “Stay Up Late.” I was hooked from those first weird sounds out of David Byrne’s mouth.
Talking Heads’ music was sharp, unsettling, propulsive, and unlike anything on the radio or MTV or anywhere else on my plane of existence.
Before the internet, hearing all of a band’s past catalogue was challenging, especially in my suburb of Cleveland, but I searched out Talking Heads songs with the same obsessive fervor with which I had been hunting down Alan Moore back issues.
I also read whatever I could about the band, trying to understand how such a wholly original creation came together, and more importantly, how that tight group of like-minded artists could eventually tear itself apart.
Cut to 1999, a year after I graduated college, when I heard that Vertigo Comics was looking for an unconventional new take on Swamp Thing.