Tag Archives: comics

Bonus art: Gigi reads

It was with considerable pleasure that I recently received a sketch connected with John Villalino‘s ongoing Pretty Vacant comics series, a premium for my having recently backed the project on Kickstarter. It’s series protagonist Gigi Gutierrez. She seems to spend most of her time trying to outrun or outwit a cabal of evildoers who are determined to turn her into some sort of a manikin, but I thought it might be nice if she were given an opportunity to relax for a change with a volume of some the greatest poetry written in Italian.

gigi-leopardi

Click for full size; used here by the kind permission of the creators. For you Romance language buffs out there, the originals of the lines Gigi is reading are “Ma tu per certo,/Giovinetta immortal, conosci il tutto…” which are from Giacomo Leopardi’s Canto XXIII: Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia.. If you’re curious about the whole, you can find the original Italian text here, a recitation by Arnoldo Foà here, and a free English translation by A.S. Kline here.

Tumblr favorite #1086: Captain Science #5

Original post here.

Sourced to comicbookplus.com. Original text:

Captain Science #5: The Shark Pirates of Pisces

Seeing what I must presume is Captain Science’s boy sidekick so prominently featured on this cover, my recollection cannot help but drift back to a snippet of dialog from Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A bunch of old comics hands is sitting in a diner in mid-century Manhattan, discussing a certain editor and his predilections.

Bob Powell leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I always thought he seemed a little bit–you know…”

“I have to agree with that,” said Gold. “He’s got that thing with the sidekicks. It’s like an obsession with him. Have you noticed that? He takes over a character, first thing he does, no matter what, he gives the guy a little pal. After he came back to the business, he was at Gold Star, doing the Phantom Stallion. All of a sudden the Stallion’s hanging around with this kid, what was his name? Buck something.”

“Buck Naked.”

“Buckskin. The kid gunslingher. Then he goes to Olympic, and what, now the Lumberjack has Timber Lad. The Rectifier gets Little Mack the Boy Enforcer.”

“The Rectifier, that already sounds a little bit–“

“Then he comes to Pharaoh, and all of a sudden its the Argonaut and Jason. The Lone Wolf and Cubby. Christ, he even gave a sidekick to the Lone Wolf.”