Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
WATCHMEN WEEK: Amazing theories from anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis
It’s Watchmen Week here at THE WORD – well it is on my desk, anyway. As well as seeing a preview of the film (summary: it’s really good) I also attended a lecture at the ICA on the original graphic novel, by noted anti-folk musician Jeffrey Lewis.
I thought I knew Watchmen inside out. Jeffrey, the voice of 12 Crass Songs and a man who once wrote a song entitled The Only Time I Feel Right Is When I'm Drawing Comic Books, is in a different league. He wrote a well-received senior literary thesis on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ great work, and has lectured before on ‘The Dual Nature Of Apocalypse in Watchmen’. He had astonishingly detailed insights into the complex symbolism of the book, many of which had never occurred to me. Without wanting to bowdlerise or steal them uncredited, a summary of a few of his ideas appears after the jump. They are the tip of the iceberg and if you get a chance to see him talk about Watchmen again, I’d urge you to go.
We should probably also point out that we’ve heard four tracks from the upcoming Jeffrey Lewis And The Junkyard album and they’re pretty fantastic – life-affirming, tuneful, joyous and an all-round antidote to the scourge of serious young men with acoustic guitars. So we’re all square then.
WARNING: The next page is full of spoilers. Don’t click unless you’ve already read Watchmen, because a] they’ll ruin both the book and the film for you, and b] they won’t make sense either. What follows is moderately academic in flavour and for deep geeks only.
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Blimey!
And there was me thinking it was just a bloody good comic book.
Good
I read it ages ago and wondered if it should be made into a film, and, considering the tat that is produced in the name of all things Marvel and DC thought it best left alone.
I'm re-reading it in preparation for Friday. Hurrah!
I think
one of my favourite books has just become even better.
Jeffrey Lewis
He played at the Rough Trade 30th Birthday bash and did musical slideshows on the history of Rough trade, K Records and The Fall; he seems to have some interesting insights with the bonus of being genuinely funny.
PS His comics are great in a Crumb/ Pekar kinda way.
The guy I did
...my A Level final Theatre Studies piece with is in it. His name's Matthew Goode and he's called Ozzy something in it.
He's quite an amusing fellow with none of the usual showbiz arse kissing etiquette
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/film/article2278955.ece
Dave Gibbons
Has a rather nice book out at the moment called 'Watching the Watchmen' with early thumbnail sketches and commentary by the artist exploring the repetition of visual themes and how Gibbons put the art together from Moore's legendarily detailed and sprawling script. It is a fantastic companion to the comic and pulls out some of the more subtle artistic inclusions.
*Fanboy squeal* I have a signed copy!
Intriguing stuff...
... and I'd be monumentally impressed if all of this was intended from the get-go in the writing & drawing.
However, I'm reminded of an old Alfred Hitchcock interview where he was deriding students of his films for locating non-existant symbolism in his work - he was especially amused by those who had perceived a crucifix shape in a fence broken as a car drove through it at the end of (the then just-released) "Family Plot", clearly indicating the Christ-like martyrdom of the driver, whereas it was actually, er... just the way the fence happened to break.
Looking forward to the Watchmen movie though - I've deliberately not read the book for 3 or 4 years since it looked like this film was actually going to be made, but I'll dig it out again next week after I've seen the film...
Oh absolutely.
There's an awful lot of seeing stuff that's not there at play here, but is that so wrong? You'll be telling us not to pore over the cover of Marillion's 'Script For A Jester's Tear' for hidden meanings next.
What!!!!?????
Well that's two hours wasted then.
Thanks for nothing.
And I suppose that the Led Zep 3 album sleeve is just haphazard nonsense as well?
Bastards.
Actually - serious point - the whole of 'Watchmen' is
to a certain extent a giant Rorschach blot onto which you can project anything you like. That's one of the themes: are these patterns real, or just in our heads? Hence the character of Rorschach himself, Ozymandias drinking in distilled meaning from a wall of TVs, and even the "palindromic chapter" where the first panel mirrors the last, the second mirrors the penultimate etc.
Yes, I have read this book too many times.
Off at a slight tangent...
... this very morning on the tube I finished reading Anthony Burgess' "The End Of The World News," three apparently unconnected stories told simultaneously, supposedly inspired by a photograph of President Jimmy Carter watching 3 TVs at once while eating breakfast. It's left up to the reader to decide how these stories fit together, if at all...
(And I nominate Mansun's album cover for "Six" as the most self-consciously symbol-laden ever.)
*Googles*
Oh dear, it's Stanley Kubrick does Harry Potter.
Yes but
according to Paul Draper, the cover to Six is a pisstake.
http://www.ymlp190.com/msg.php?id=anekcixcbjy
It's hardly a massive stretch
to think that Moore would've deliberately put all these running threads relating to particular symbols and archetypes in there, particularly the Wm Blake stuff - it's essentially what he does! *goes back to wall chart mapping out connections between Quballah and pop culture in Promethea*
Songs of Innocence and Experience
Is the subject for my current essay, and I had never considered those links - they are certainly thought-provoking, which is all you can ask for, I suppose.
As well as these thematic links, one could argue that the coloured etchings accompanying Blake's texts act as a visual proto-type for the literary graphic novel, combining relatively rough sketchings with laborious poetics. Here's the one for Tyger, Tyger:
http://www.william-blake.de/werke/tyger.jpg
Nice to hear that A.H. likes the Watchmen movie - I've heard nothing but negative early reports.
two things
Why has the new version of the book got a new bobbins cover on it?
Also how exciting is the film coming out?!
Two answers
1. Marketing, dear chap, marketing. Clearly DC are wishing to increase their dwindling profits. Here's hoping Messers Moore and Gibbons get a nice royalties payday.
2. I confess I'm rather excited myself. My inner fanboy simply won't die.
according to a podcast
DC outperformed Marvel by the best part of $10m this year - largely due to sales of Watchmen.
The New Yorker totally trashed the movie.
" "Watchmen" harbors ambitions of political satire, and, to be fair, it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex…"
I bit harsh maybe.
I was sorely disappointed with that review,
because I admire Anthony Lane so much. He seemed to have gone out of his way to get the wrong end of every available stick.
But I also greatly admire Roger Ebert and he thinks it's such a masterpiece that he wants to see it again.
This is shaping up to be a film that nobody likes except the movie-going public.
Christopher Tookey at the Daily Mail
hated it, which is about as much of a recommendation to go and see it as you can ask for...
Anti-Folk
Best I don't read this as I'll probably take it on at some point.
Regarding your introduction, where dies the term "anti-folk" come from? I've never quite got that as a genre-name.
re: anti-folk/ antifolk
I've used this phrase to describe Jeffrey Lewis' music on here myself in the past. My understanding of it (in the most loose possible way) is that it is stripped-down, lo-fi music which uses humour and irony where (for example) folk would use seriousness of intent. The integration of musical genres such as hip-hop, garage and, yes, folk, attempts to create something outside of 'genre' boundaries while doffing a cap to the tradition of said genres; it's postmodern folk, if you like.
As well as Lewis, I would strongly recommend Moldy Peaches/ Kimya Dawson as a leading artist.
Thanks for the explanation
That clears it up, thanks. I've previously found it a little confusing to get a handle on due to the sometime inclusion of folk elements.
i just nicked this
from Rich 'Lying in the Gutters' Johnston - posted at Popbitch:
'Sorry everyone, this is what I do
The very first scene of "Watchmen" sees the first Nite Owl thwarting an armed robbery. The saved couple are Thomas and Martha Wayne (and their butler Alfred.) Thus Bruce Wayne's parents are not gunned down and he does not become Batman...'
i am geeking in my pants.