I am almost always hard at work, part-time with long breaks, on a new collection of JIMBO cartoon drawings. For now that means writing and drawing the ten new eight page stories, or chapters, that will make up the next eighty page JIMBO book. Hopefully, it will be a fancy book and comic and art collectors will crave it and want to take it home with them. I hope they do.
But that is still years away. It takes more than a month for me to draw a page or to think one up, even though I burn the midnight oil. Yet, only a moment from here, you can find conversations frozen in cyberspace where crowds of unappreciative people, mostly dudes of indeterminate age or description beyond ‘erudite’, are crowded into some virtual moist pipette complaining about how badly I draw. If only they knew how hard it is for me to draw this crummily and not like Alex Raymond, which comes more naturally to me, they would show a little more love and mercy.
So, in the meanwhile, occasionally, when I finish eight pages, I make spiffy little mini-comics on colorful cardstock and send them to a few friends and sell them for too much money on the site to discourage people from ordering them, because I can’t make enough money folding and stapling mini-comics to live in New York. And sometimes I don’t bother to put them in my site shop and just give some to my friend Dan Nadel to sell on the PICTUREBOX site, which just happened. You can see a picture of the dandy new mini-comic at:
the inability to comprehend the value of real art while one is hopelessly lost in our present celebrity-dependent american cultural trappings is not surprising. but, have you ever noticed the annoying similarity of how when large swaths of comic fandom attempt to critique the craft they profess to worship, and it comes off sounding as vain and non-inclusive as a believer of christian mythology pretending to be an accurate judge of what the ethical or moral standing should be of our society?
weakness and impatience betray the accuracy of historical data. mired in the slavish devotion to the horribly closed systems of the books collecting the myths they worship, the limited scope of their thoughts quite effectively stalls culture and inhibits profound knowledge. these obscure and pointless hack ramblings that try to smite Panter down -exist without reason within the vast internet void. who needs these “opinion-makers” that lack the imagination of someone who significantly understands the rigor of mastering the advanced control that Panter deftly wields? or even of the various inter-disciplinary crafts as well that are essential to actually creating the surprise of a comic work… that doesn’t suck.
the cognition devoid of imagination cooks a meal failing in nutrition. surrounded by followers of a soft-cell subculture that rewards success before ideas. who are in league with a mental process that lacks the fundamental grasp of how to imagine. who struggle to value what art is beyond whether you can recognize whether the comic you’re looking at represents anything far deeper than the visual level alone reveals. it’s worth repeating… they are hindered by their scant ability to imagine. line weights, form, and design are not their forté. their self-conceit imprisons them within the cave of their closed-system, misinterpreting only the shadows cast upon the cold stone walls. never peering beyond the veil. unable to scale up the quantum realm. Panter’s work confuses these half-committed connoisseurs because the halting “logic” of their system can’t explain why where his art goes even matters. I defend Gary because comic fandom can often be stupid & wrong. we are fucking lucky he evens bothers to still make comics after all the bile you web idiots dump on him. if you can’t get what Panter does, that is OK –but PLEASE, –for once, just shut the fuk up d-bag.
Comment by chr cammett — July 17, 2010 @ 4:46 pm
The Imagists, Visionaries, Symbolists, Outsiders and Lowbrow will survive all of these trends, because they are in the world but not of this world!
Cheers,
Comment by Dain Q Gore — July 19, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
Last night I actually dreamt I was wandering around in a Gary Panter museum! it was ace, there were loads of free stuff, comics, sleeping bags, rubber toys and little satchels that had rubbery coverings like those rubber monsters you can put on your finger. I spent half the time trying to stuff all my free goodies into one of those satchels, guess I was too greedy…
Yay! more Jimbo! shame I have to buy it online and not get it free from a G.P. museum, but still, NEW JIMBO!
Comment by Zeke Clough — July 22, 2010 @ 1:17 am
I can’t wait to get ahold of one.
Comment by Yam — July 27, 2010 @ 12:54 am
Thanks boatloads for Jimbo, a cellular nuclei desert island in an ocean of pregurgitated awful and impending spectral doom..Shades of the Hairy Who with a punk narrative..Rendered by secret police sstarship to torture chambers deep below the Circles, one’s Mind Nervosa finds a severed solace, like my neighbor who survived Auschwitz as a child by weaving elaborate fantasias in the soulcrushing hellworld..LONG LIVE JIMBO!!!
Comment by Raphael Shannon — July 29, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
A new Panter mini? Whoa! I saw the news on comicsreporter.com and I MUST HAVE ONE! Weep sob, must have it! So where do I send my money, damn it?
Comment by Eric Knisley — August 4, 2010 @ 6:31 pm
Hi Eric. Picturebox.com
Comment by Gary Panter — August 5, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
“Yet, only a moment from here, you can find conversations frozen in cyberspace where crowds of unappreciative people, mostly dudes of indeterminate age or description beyond ‘erudite’, are crowded into some virtual moist pipette complaining about how badly I draw.”
Funny, since your style is so often imitated in both fine and commercial art. What the fuck? Take it as a sign you’re doing something RIGHT.
For the record though, I think it’d be a scream if you did an entire book a la Alex Raymond.
Comment by Tyrannosaurus Rex — August 6, 2010 @ 7:21 pm
Life is short, keep cranking out YOUR vision and shake off the dolts. I’ll write you soonish.
– ATTS
Comment by Andrew — August 18, 2010 @ 3:39 pm
I get a lot of support. I don’t really worry much about the detractors–a little surprised that they bother.
Comment by Gary Panter — August 18, 2010 @ 4:34 pm