SPECTATORS - Part 124
Plus, BKV’s 2024 Gallery & Museum Tour!
Are you ready for some baseball?!
Brian here, and while most of my country of origin seemed to be celebrating the return of football, some old pals and I headed over to Dodger Stadium to watch our beloved Cleveland Guardians… who got absolutely shellacked by the Boys in Blue. Still, hot dogs were consumed, foam fingers were purchased, good times were had.
And never fear, sportsball haters, today’s installment of Exploding Giraffe will once again focus more on the arts, starting with some gorgeous new pages of Spectators from my sophisticated collaborators, artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks.
As always, you can get caught up on spectral protagonists Val and Sam’s whole story so far in our handy Archives, but the short version is that things are finally heating up over in the increasingly chaotic land of the living…
Such excellent work from Niko and Fonografiks, huh? To be continued with more cinematic sinfulness next week.
And speaking of the movies, my Complete Coen Bros. Comedy Countdown was a massive hit with 100% of all readers, including superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis, who took the time to write:
this list is insane :)
All right, perhaps some fellow cinephiles had a few quibbles with my rankings, but the vast majority of you seemed to appreciate my highly logical and wholly consistent orderings. You’re welcome.
Oh, and internet sleuths, your help is needed! Loyal member of The Tower Henning wrote in to say:
Okay, I can finally ask a Coen-specific question that’s been bugging me for years: Does anyone else remember their audio play, I believe for Sirius satellite radio?
My wife and me went to see it performed (and recorded) 20 years ago in Brooklyn and it was incredible! Two one-act-plays, one by the Coens, one by Charlie Kaufman; if I remember correctly they were called “Sawbones” and “Hope Leaves the Theater”; with vocal performances on stage by absolute A-list-actors.
I have never seen anything like it since and have been trying to find a recording of it anywhere but it seems like it doesn’t exist at all. I never got a reply from Sirius when I mailed them, but I feel I’m going crazy; seems like something like this would be somewhere on the internet?
Indeed, every recording of the Coens’ “Sawbones” (which apparently featured actors Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Marcia Gay Harden, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Slattery and Brooke Smith) seems to have vanished from the ol’ world wide web.
If you have any leads, please let us know in the comments, or you can drop a line to our faithful intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe, who can be reached at: explodinggiraffesubstack at gmail dot com
For now, it’s time to give away a few exclusive items from the Saga Threadless Shop, where this glorious Fiona Staples design will be available on shirts and prints for just a few more weeks:
Genesis randomly selected three winners from our chat about comedies that have stood the test of time, starting with this comment from reader Joris:
It might not be the most obvious choice, but I can just think about 21 Jump Street (the 2012 movie) and start laughing. Jonah Hill is always funny and just good, and he is very ably assisted by Channing Tatum. Add a little Ice-T to that mix and some excellent jokes and somehow it just became my favorite comedy. 22 Jump Street was also pretty good.
To be honest, Lord and Miller’s movie are always excellent: The Lego Movie was so much better than anyone ever expected, and the Spider-verse movies won them an Oscar!
I also have to give a shout out to Bob Roberts for being an awesome and scarily predictive movie. I’d be laughing a lot more watching that movie if it didn’t have such ominous predictive power. Talk about aging well…
Meanwhile, Molly named:
The Princess Bride! Probably my favourite movie of all time because it manages to blend all my favourite genres seamlessly; comedy, action/adventure, fantasy, romance and satire. Rob Reiner doesn’t miss and it still holds up over 30 years later.
Finally, Rick G. admitted:
It used to be Dumb & Dumber, always found it hilarious on re-watch. Then the last time, after quite a few years... awful, didn’t enjoy it at all. I don’t know if times have moved on or if my brain has, but it no longer works for me. So I’ll go back another ten years for This Is Spinal Tap - still genius. Like an old friend every time I watch it.
Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful selections!
While we’re on the subject of high quality laffs, time is running out to download my unproduced (for now??) screenplay to the supernatural comedy Roundtable, as I’m going to start removing some of my earliest posts from online as we prepare to bring Spectators in for a landing later this year:
That script (and tons of other bonus content) is still available for you generous paid subscribers in The Tower, thanks again for helping to make all of this possible.
I’ll probably have at least one more edition of Come Up and See My Etchings for you before Exploding Giraffe draws to a close in December, but for today, rather than crassly showing off more pieces I’ve “obtained,” I thought I’d share some incredible artwork I’m not lucky enough to own, but instead enjoyed as society intended, at various galleries and museums.
Which reminds me, has anyone out there had the chance to visit Paris’ Centre Pompidou? That museum is currently hosting a show called Comics on Every Floor, an unbelievable collection of original comic book art displayed “in conversation” with some of the museum’s fine art masterpieces.
I’m dying to visit before the exhibit closes in early November, though work will probably prevent me from making the trip. If you’re able to attend, please let us know what you thought.
Anyway, as discussed in our past exploration of aphantasia, I can’t see a goddamn thing in the empty void that is my visual imagination, so in my free time, I love looking at the kind of pretty pictures most of you can apparently see in your mind’s eye whenever the hell you’d like.
Here are several of the coolest, most inspiring creations I happened to enjoy during this year’s random excursions across North America.
BKV’s 2024 GALLERY & MUSEUM MINI-TOUR
First up, from a visit to The Baltimore Museum of Art, my crummy old phone can’t capture the full power of Mood Ring, a gigantic, semi-iridescent portrait from contemporary painter Sasha Gordon, who’s definitely worth a follow on Instagram.
I was only in New York briefly this year, but I always make time to stop by The Society of Illustrators, which had an awesome exhibit featuring the artistic collaborators of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, including painter Robert K. Abbett, who created this majestic cover for Thuvia, Maid of Mars:
Next, I swung by the Guggenheim to take in a breathtaking exhibit—which I implore you to see before it closes later this month—from text-based visual artist (and Ohio native!) Jenny Holzer.
Later that same whirlwind day, I stopped by the Whitney, where I finally saw in person The Rose by Jay DeFeo, a 1,500-pound painting/sculpture she created over years and years using multiple layers of oil paint, a wild process that I’d just read film director Richard Linklater discussing with admiration in this fascinating interview:
A few weeks later, while in Toronto, I stopped by The Art Gallery of Ontario, where I encountered the work of a fantastic Canadian painter named Florence Carlyle, who apparently achieved great success in the 1800s despite limited opportunities for women at the time/always.
Check out the body language in her masterpiece The Tiff:
Finally, back home in Los Angeles, I’m so glad I got to see Kirbyvision, a (sorry, recently closed) tribute to Jack Kirby at Corey Helford Gallery.
It’s always rewarding to inspect Kirby’s original art up close, but my favorite part of this exhibit was actually these oversized prints from some of the King’s old 3D comics, which you could experience with glasses provided by the gallery:
At this scale, the effect made me gasp!
Like that Jay DeFeo work, these Kirby pieces reminded me more of sculpture. So much surprising depth, in every sense of the word.
How about you, chum?
What’s the last gallery/museum you visited? Alternately, the last sporting event you attended in person?
Take your pick in the comments, and Genesis will randomly select a couple of you to receive the last of my signed copies of Saga #68.
Everyone else, have a beautiful week, and Niko and I will see you back here next Monday evening for more free Spectators.
Peace,
BKV
IS this the sound performance you were seeking?
https://www.beingcharliekaufman.com/index.php/theater-of-the-new-ear
The last museum I visited was our local one here in town, because my middle school aged daughter had a piece displayed as part of an exhibit. It was so cool and exciting seeing it on the wall and the look on her face was priceless I was such a proud father at that moment.