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“But the power of the fragment was in the face. It was set in a triumphant smile, a smile that would have been smug if it had not been so full of the purest metaphysical good humour. The eyes were faintly oriental, long, […] also smiling […] Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is.”
-John Fowles, The Magus
Dave Morice, looking eccentric even by 1970s fashion standards
The idea of adapting classic works of poetry into comics originated with the American writer, artist and educator Dave Morice. Beginning in 1978, he produced a great number of such adaptations, which were collected in his 1980 anthology Poetry Comics: A Cartooniverse of Poems (Simon & Schuster, 1980), and in several subsequent books. Partly in response to the growing popularity of poetry comics in the last couple of years, Morice has recently returned to the art form he invented with brand new issues of his Poetry Comics magazine, now published online on his website, Dave Morice’s Poetry Comics: http://www.poetrycomicsonline.com/Poetry_Comics_Story.php
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The Colomber is a short story by the Italian writer Dino Buzzati. It tells the story of Stefano Roi, a sea captain’s son who is pursued since childhood by a fearsome sea monster known as the colomber. To ensure his safety, his parents send him to study in a big city located far inland. Eventually, of course, the “lure of the abyss” proves too strong, and Stefano returns to the sea to confront his fate. This drawing illustrates the following passage, translated into English by Lawrence Venturi:
“So the idea of that hostile creature waiting for him day and night became a secret obsession for Stefano. And even in the distant city it cropped up to wake him with worry in the middle of the night. He was safe, of course; hundreds of kilometers separated him from the colomber. And yet he knew that beyond the mountains, beyond the forests and the plains, the shark was waiting for him. He might have moved even to the most remote continent, and still the colomber would have appeared in the mirror of the nearest sea, with the inexorable obstinacy of a fatal instrument. ” -Dino Buzzati, The Colomber
Church bells from the high clouds swinging sunlight
Through the branches swaying stair rails
Gleaming star-crossed parents passing
Red and gold brick streaming
Past the corners of my eyes.
Facades crumbling cement beavers
Flying through the phone lines swooping
Foliage flinging fire beams on the
Signposts cross-street depanneur fruit
Sun-blanched beer ads rusty latches
Lingerie stores pigeons flapping
Personal mobility carts roll by
Exhaust green grass cigarette butts
Between the asphalt patches.
And now I’m by the river rushes
Near the ducks and park above me
Plastic playground seagulls
Circling strollers strolling
Children who will say:
“Verdun you know was very different
In my day.”
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats”, “Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe”, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats”, “Émile Nelligan dans l’abîme du rêve”, “La Chanson de Jean Berger”, “Le bateau ivre d’Arthur Rimbaud.” $3 each plus shipping (free handling!), or $2o for the whole shebang. To place your order, simply send me a message at info@jpeterscomics.com.
In honour of the Hallowe’en festivities, here are the two pages of sheer pagan depravity that were originally published in the Spring 2012 issue of Code-barres magazine.
Here is my translation of a famous French folksong/lullaby from the seventeenth century, followed by the original French version (note that in the song each line is repeated twice). The best part of the original lyrics is the surprising last stanza, in which sleep, love and death seem to be subtly conflated. As an aside regarding my accompanying illustration, there appears to be some extreme sexual dimorphism going on between the couple’s feet.
On The Palace Steps
On the palace steps
There’s a would-be bride,
Whom so many love
That she can’t decide.
In the end she chose
A poor cobbler, who
Laid out his claim
As he fit her shoe:
“By your leave, fair maid,
We could share a bed,”
“With a big square frame,
And a linen spread.” Continue reading
I came across this beautiful and moving English Renaissance morality play, entitled “Francesca’s Folly”, which happens to have been written only a couple of years ago, in Canada, by Tara Kathleen Murphy:
http://www.chestnuthallmusic.com/camerata/Michaelmas/downloads/FrancescasFolly-Libretto.pdf
This led me to reflect on the contemporary use of classic artistic forms and content. Now, to my (admittedly inexpert) eyes there is very little to suggest that this verse drama was not in fact written in the English Renaissance. And if it had been, I feel its quite likely that the opening and closing stanzas in particular (delivered by God, no less!) would be considered amongst the high points of the genre. “From heavy wight to weightless light of heaven’s day.” If this line had been written in the sixteenth century, you can’t tell me scholars wouldn’t be citing it as an instance of the literary genius of the era. Continue reading
Oh dinosaurs, where are they now the days
When we lingered together on the terrace of the morning?
I was too young then, alas, to hear your warning
That all that on this Earth draws breath is lost in the past’s haze.
As little real to me as gnomes or faeries,
You stared out, beady-eyed, from the pages of child’s books;
Yet consciousness, however dim, was in those looks
You turned at moonlights, and the long clouds evening carries.
Amidst a world indifferent and rapacious,
You countless hatched, and fought, and suffered all those ages,
So that a child, one day, could flip, in a few pages,
Through your Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.
But yet, even the simplest of children’s books contains
Such truth about you you could never understand;
In sixty million years, perhaps, some other creature’s hand
Will thumb the primer that our own strange lives explains.
julian peters comics 