Buzzed Books #47: Thomas Vinciguerra’s Cast of Characters

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Buzzed Books, Literary Magazines

Tags

Cast of Characters, the new yorker, Thomas Vinciguerra

Buzzed Books #47 by Adelia Johnson

Thomas Vinciguerra’s Cast of Characters

Thomas Vinciguerra’s Cast of Characters by is a biography of the early days of The New Yorker. Though sometimes hard to follow due to the large quantity of “characters” mentioned, I found myself wanting to pick up my pen and start a journal of my own—and I never wanted to be a journalist. The New Yorker’s journey to success was an uncertain journey of trial, error, and willpower, a true hero’s journey.

Within each chapter, there were chronological jumps that were hard to keep track of , but the overall timeline worked, from the start of The New Yorker to E. B. White’s departure from the magazine on October 1st, 1985 with the final note that

the cartoonist Brian Duffy of the Des Moines Register seized on the Garth Williams illustration of Charlotte’s Web that depicted Charlotte having spun out the words SOME PIG. Duffy rendered a mournful Wilbur poised beneath the silken epigraph SOME WRITER.

The book does a final jump to 2007 when Vinciguerra visited the ex-wife of Tony Gibbs, the son of The New Yorker’s editor/essayist/critic Wolcott Gibbs.

The book explores the relationships at the office, including all of the shenanigans they would pull like playing poker with the different-colored routing slips as chips. There were a central group of people that the stories revolved around: the editor-in-chief Howard Ross; and writers and editors E. B. White, James Thurber and Wolcott Gibbs. Other recurring figures included Katherine White, Lois Long, St. Clair McKelway, Alexander Woollcott, John O’Hara, and Ralph Ingersoll.

Cast of Characters starts out on Fire Island with Gibbs reading a copy of his manuscript, quoting on page 2 “[Being on Fire Island] was a state of wonderful irresponsibility, a time in which you belonged to nobody but yourself, on which there were no immediate claims from the world.” Most of chapter 8, “A Silly Occupation for a Grown Man,” was dedicated to his becoming of a renowned theater critic. However, Vinciguerra was also keen on the personal lives of Ross, White, and Thurber, making sure to discuss their marriages and views of women.

Vinciguerra mimics The New Yorker’s style with passages like this one on page 177: “Thurber was so tickled by this doggerel that he adorned it with a caricature of himself waving at four stern-faced men labeled ‘Gibbs, Maloney, O’hara etc.’ with the impish greeting ‘Hi, Fellas!’” This made the reading more entertaining as well as it giving the reader a taste of how the magazine sounds without ever having to pick up a copy — but I doubt a reader would not want to after reading this. The reader also gets a taste of Timestyle during the chapter discussing the feud between The New Yorker and Time, adding a new flavor.

This book is not only a good inspiration to writers; I found myself being inspired as an editor, as well. In a quote by William Maxwell about Gibbs teaching him how to edit, Maxwell noted, “In time I came to feel that real editing means changing as little as possible.” Gibbs had thrown Maxwell headfirst into editing, offering only constructive criticism after the edits had been made, and even the criticisms were slim. But they got their point across.

Cast of Characters is a good introduction to those new to The New Yorker, and a good history of the magazine for those already well acquainted with it.

I was inspired not only to start something, but to be diligent, to be better. The New Yorker was made out of relentless fingers to keys, sleepless nights, and years of experience. I should be able to create something that’s at least good.

_______

adelia-johnson

Adelia Johnson (Episode 226) is a graduate of Full Sail University.

Save

Gutter Space #1: Why Focus on Comics-That-Aren’t-Superhero-Comics?

07 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Comic Books, Gutter Space, manga

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bandes dessinés, comic books, Douglas Wolk, gag strips, graphic narrative, gutter space, horace, independent comics, indie comics, Justin R. Hall, leslie salas, propaganda, Reading Comics, rene magritte, Scott McCloud, Sequential art, Simonides of Ceos, the new yorker, The Treachery of Images, Tijuana Bibles, Understanding Comics, visual literacy, webcomics

Gutter Space #1 by Leslie Salas

Why Focus on Comics-That-Aren’t-Superhero-Comics?

Comics as a medium has a richer and more involved history than many people recognize or remember. Comics analyst Douglas Wolk explains in Reading Comics “the argument about the between relationship between painting and poetry, the generic classical terms for image-making and word-assembling, has been going on for a long time. The earliest people to try and figure it out concluded that painting and poetry were basically different forms of the same thing.”

Simonides of Ceos’ formulation poema pictura loquens, picture poema silens aptly illustrates the point that “poetry is a verbal picture; painting is a silent poetry.” (Horace later reduced this to ut pictura poesis, “as is painting, so is poetry.”) This is mostly true in the broad sense that both are ways of representing perception: comics functions as a successful marriage of the visual and lingual.

The medium of comics also goes by many names such as graphic narrative and visual storytelling. In light of this muddled nomenclature, let me clarify that by saying “comics,” which seems to be the most common term, I specifically refer to “sequential art,” as defined by cartoonist Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”

Comics started their ascension into literature around World War II in the form of propaganda ads: some sort of illustration with a caption below it. Think of the captioned cartoons in The New Yorker or René Magritte’s famous painting, The Treachery of Images, with the painting of a pipe and the caption, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”—“This is not a pipe.”

From there, the art form evolved into gag strips, like those you would see in the newspaper. The strips took a pornographic turn with Tijuana Bibles to help soldiers overseas needing entertainment (or as psy-ops propaganda leaflets to convince reduce soldier’s morale),

and even mainstream comics still had a political agenda (see the cover for Captain America #1, where Captain America is punching Hitler in the face).

The political content of American comics caused them to be cut off from Europe and Asia (Axis vs. Allied Powers). As a result, two other comic traditions, Japanese manga and Franco-Belgian bandes dessinés, evolved independently. It is only now, several decades after the end of WWII, that all three styles of comics flourish worldwide.

Comics critic Justin R. Hall notes that “comics meets [people’s] sensibilities on a cognitive level.” We live in a visually saturated world, so many people of all ages are naturally drawn to the combination of words and pictures. Reading comics, however, requires a different type of literacy that incorporates not only words, but visuals such as movement between panels, line of sight, and gutter closure.

By reviewing independent comics and webcomics that aren’t superhero comics, my goal is to draw attention to some of the interesting and effective techniques used by cartoonists all over the world. This can help develop visual literacy, identify various narrative structures, provide a dynamic view of cultures, and prompt interdisciplinary study. Plus—it’s interesting and fun!

And if you’re sad that I’m excluding superhero comics, check out Sean Ironman’s column, Heroes Never Rust. He’s got you covered.

___________

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.