Some time back, Adam McGovern sent me his responses to TS5Q. And his bio. And a link to a photo. And some additional links to new projects.
And a couple of very kind “what happened to that interview” queries. Now, I somehow allowed these to all build up, forming a thick wedge of “gosh, I gotta deal with that” e-mails right in the center of my inbox.
Folks, today is the day that I finally free myself of this weighty guilt and allow you to learn about one interesting cat, who was e-introduced to me by Chris King with a note something along the lines of “he produces alternative comics and is into poetry translations.” Bingo-bango! That’s the exactly the kind of person I need to be bugging. In this installment, I’m going to provide TS5Q first, then will supply you with generous doses of personally-curated updates and intro’s from our willing, able and extremely patient subject.
One. Which of the seven deadliest sins make for the best art?
Greed and Envy have only given us home shopping channels, and Wrath-ful protest songs date pretty pitifully. The Sloths just sit around playing videogames that *other* people created. Lust is never out of business, but as Alan Moore points out, 90 percent of everything most people ever watch, read or download is porn but not even any of them would call it art. Pride seems the best candidate — the presumption to contribute to the perfection of thought’s canon and nature’s panorama pushes us forward, lifts us up and keeps asses in the seats. Then again I’d be loath to part with one piece in my collection of fast-food mascot kitsch, perhaps the purest and clearest expression of the American character. So I guess I’m gonna have to go with Gluttony.
Two. For what are you going to need a little more evidence?
The theory that humans evolved here naturally rather than being seeded by alien vacationers as per the incontrovertible clues at Nazca and Angkor Wat. Why would any *native* species wanna treat the planet this way?
Three. For personal creativity (or productivity), are you better served by contentment or restlessness?
It’s most comfortable to create in a spatial, rather than chronal, field — the “extra beat” of active relaxation they talk about for athletes is a matter of mentally opening space, not stretching time. Contentment and restlessness are concepts along the line of time. I wouldn’t know athletics if I tripped over my shoelaces into them but I step into the, ahem, “zone” to view things from an urgent yet stable elevation. At that plateau is the art-mine.
Four. Likeliest occurrence within your lifetime: true peace, total war, or the arrival of spacemen/spacewomen?
From now on, all war is local, with homemade, personal-portion deathrays and dirty nukes. So no total war. And if true peace came we couldn’t ID it in a lineup so even if it happens it doesn’t count. And we’ve established above that spacemen and women littered their DNA and started a careless forest-fire here a long time ago. All I can say for sure is that eventually a fed-up, strong-willed rightwing Republican president will ram through socialized medicine; a booming industry will spring up for catered and haute-costumed divorce receptions; and LeBron James will be traded to Moscow.
Five. Select/discuss any one of the following options.
Five-a: You lost it as a child and you want it back.
Five-b: You are concerned about your food and its origins.
Five-c: These are your generation’s greatest successes.
Five-d: For you, this is the book, play, recording, painting, poem, scripture or (item X) that made all the difference.
Five-e: Do you have a question for me? (What is it?)
I was a very cynical child and I really don’t know how I’m gonna get through the 21st century without it. I’m concerned that all those leaching, unregulated plastics are gonna give me poison rather than exotic superpowers. Bubble-wrap, velcro, ziplock bags: these are what separate us from your lower animals, buddy. The course of my consciousness was changed by Jim Steranko writing that, amidst Timely/Marvel Comics’ stable of grotesqueries in WWII, “here, super-straight Captain America was the freak,” and David Bowie remarking, to a question about his penchant for bizarre characters except for Major Tom, that “I think he was the weirdest of them all, he just didn’t know it.” And finally, what do you see in me?
Kitsch as manifest destiny:
http://poodcomics.blogspot.com/2010/07/fantastic-fourth.html
Rotten-tomato sociology:
http://blog.comiccritique.com/?p=338
The story I’m sticking to:
http://www.blogger.com/profile/15102047049776079769
The only thing better than not being talked about:
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/97913959_McGovern_s__Cloverleaf__coming_soon_to_comic_book_shops.html?c=y&page=1
Just when you thought it was advisable to ever leave the comic store, the first four issues of the much-delayed six comics I’m co-translating for Italy’s GG Studio started showing up this week! Two as we speak, two more next Wednesday! This mostly-rave review of all four is the way a brutha wants to be taken by surprise:
http://comicattack.net/2010/08/ggstudiospotligh/
The official bio: Adam McGovern interviews Pulitzer winners for comic-book zines; blogs about politics, theatre, and other imaginary pursuits; runs an image garage for corporations, musicians, social service agencies, literary figures and self-help philosophers; and writes and translates poems, comics and computergames from a Victorian cottage in a former charismatic tent-revival settlement in New Jersey. He can be found skulking at http://poodcomics.blogspot.com/ and http://blog.comiccritique.com/. He is survived by his girlfriend Lynn and tolerated by their cat Pete.








