Secret Sketches?
It's been a long, long time since I answered my mail here.
So let's get to it!
I took this picture for you today while walking in Boston's historic North End neighborhood. This mosaic greets visitors to the local branch of the public library. It looks like Proffy's dream from Beanworld.
Dear Larry,
I am eagerly awaiting the next book!
Best,
Brad Friedman
I love knowing that this mosaic exists.
Brad, you're so right to think about Proffy' dream when looking at this.
Whoever made it was thinking along very similar, but ultimately a bit different, lines as the creation of the 23 Realities in Proffy's dream: A Gift Comes!-page 317).
Thanks so much for taking the time to snap the pic and send it along.
Larry,
I wanted to upgrade my TALES OF THE BEANWORLD books from paperback to hardcover until I saw that they were reduced in page size. What was the reasoning on doing this?
Todd Tamanend Clark
Excellent question, Todd...
Quite a few of the photographic film negatives from the old comics were lost. This was not a huge deal because I never sold my original pages and was in possession of every page of the Tales of the Beanworld.
The original negs were often kind of shoddy anyway. Many were shot as favors or at discounted prices and didn't always accurately reflect the drawings on the pages. Fine lines often closed up or got fuzzy or disappeared altogether.
So we went back to the source material and scanned it all digitally. The production department at Dark Horse A really talented digital artist at Dark Horse, Matt Dryer did an astounding job capturing the fidelity and crispness of the original artwork . Thanks to the iron will of Diana Schutz and the DH production department the hardcover books totally look exactly like the scans--and the scans look like the drawings.
We also knew, as long as we were starting from scratch anyway, that a size change was something to seriously contemplate. I admit, I was cautious about reducing the page size but I also knew that a slightly smaller 6" x 9" final product was a format that had wider commercial acceptance and once I saw just how inconsequential the reductions actually were--I never looked back. You can see for yourself in the picture (below) I just snapped of a random page in both formats.
I don't think anything is lost in the transition--but I'll leave it up to other Beanworld fans to give their opinions.
No can do, folks, no can do.
Hi Larry,
Hi Larry,
This is a long shot, writing to you, since you probably get thousands of fan emails and I'll probably not get a reply, but:
Isn't Beanworld about our circulatory system?
I don't want to bother you with details of why I think so (including the shapes chosen for the 4 realities and the bacterial/viral infection of the poppers etc), I'm just surprised that no one seems to have mentioned this anywhere on the Web.
Thank you for Beanworld and for your time.
Dominic Wan
Singapore
To the best of my sometimes leaky memory, Dominic, no one has quite made this observation before. It's a fascinating new interpretation of Beanworld.
As I always say, whatever resonance a Beanworld reader feels emanating while reading the book is true. If you think it, if you feel it: it's there.
It's a pact, a covenant between you and the Beanworld.
I'm just the guy who delivered the pages.
If you are local to San Francisco or Portland OR next week....I'll be appearing at:
This was my first time as a Guest of Honor at Comic-Con and I have to say--everything I ever heard about the GoH experience is true. They take superb care of you every step of the way. Cory and I send along our great thanks to all the members of the Con Committee and the army of volunteers who make Comic-Con work with amazing efficiency on the ground. Particular thanks to my GRT: Tiff Hudson who made sure I showed up at all my obligations in plenty of time.
Scott McCloud immediately turned it into a FLEECE Beanworld Action figure merchandise display and I had the little fella working for on the table the rest of the show.
I'm a New York Times certified geezer!
I got a terrific write-up in by Peter Larson in The Orange County Register: Now our neighbors can see what Cory's husband actually does all day.
Some really nice words about the indescribable Beanworld experience from kli.
"It is the kind of book where you generally recommend it to someone by shoving it into their hands so it can be experienced directly."
I had a good time on all of my panels--as far as I know the only one that has turned up as a public documentation is “Graphic Novels: The Personal Touch” that featured Gabrielle Bell, Howard Cruse, Vanessa Davis, Jillian Tamaki, Carol Tyler and me--moderated by Shaenon Garrity. I'm rather quiet in that one--I was far more interested in what my fellow panelists had to say that hearing myself speak but I did mange to get in some pithy observations here and there particularly about the quality of printing reproduction these days.
The "Indy Writers Unite" panel was an odd collection of mostly writer/artists and it's reported on here.
In a lot of ways, the most remarkable panel I did was "The Funny Stuff: Humor in Comics and Graphic Novels." I more or less dropped out of it in the middle as I had front row seats to one of the most bizarre and surreal panels I've ever had the honor of sitting on in my quarter century of panel participation. As far as I know, it wasn't written up anywhere in depth. All I can say is: it was a classic example of funny-weird not funny-ha ha. However, I did get a chance to make one of my favorite points that I consider Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q to be the greatest satirical gesture of the entire 20th century.
Image comics/Shadowline Fractured Fables hardcover was launched at Comic-Con. My contribution isn't Beanworld but it's very Larry Marder just the same.
I did two Sketch-a-Thon stints at the Cartoon Art Museum table. One was with Scott Shaw! I think I laughed more in that hour than any other hour the entire run of the show. Lot's of cartooning fun
Well, that's as much time as I can steal for a blog post today.
More stuff as I remember it.
And my next post will be about this.
