Illustrated Review: The Butcher's Wife-Li Ang

(originally intended for a zine but the list of contributors was full)

The Butcher’s Wife-Li Ang

This short sharp novel has been reclaimed as a classic piece of feminist literature but its scope goes well beyond showing up the abuses of patriarchy. Based loosely on an actual newspaper report that the author had read, it imagines the truth behind the general assumption that the only thing that would drive a woman to murder he husband in rural Taiwan would be adultery on her part.

However Li Ang is careful not to cast the abusive husband as a complete two dimensional monster and instead examines the root causes of a society that would not only allow something like this to go on unchecked but would also consequently would put all the blame on the woman. Li Ang’s husband even has some, allbiet fleeting, sympathetic moments-whether recounting tales of hardship in his youth, or feeling momentary remorse for the surge of violent energy he all too often does not recognise. Although of course these are not presented as excuses but it does give an interesting insight into a way of life that cripples the vast majority.

The Butcher’s Wife is a tale of the dangers of superstition, and the desperate lenghts to which poverty will drive a person. The fact that the female protagonist’s feelings towards her husband are not always of horror is quite telling(*1). She has been through hard times and is at least grateful for the food being married to a pig-butcher brings, and even the much less frantic lifestyle and home life, and it is because of this that she quickly flicks from fear and upset to feeling self-satisfied and almost carefree.

A brilliantly layered story that paints a pretty vivid picture of rural life and mixes in some surreal and nightmarish horror in the vein of oriental ghost stories. Each of the stories settings are brought to life in all their stark duty, and the smells and tastes richly weave through to your senses. Finally the addition of the gossiping, judgmental, interfering and disingenuous Auntie Ah-Wang is an essential piece of the jigsaw, which shows that there is more than one guilty party in this tale. An essential read!

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(*1) It is only the violence of his sexual demands that she fears at first

Blog of the week: Paralellograma

This weeks blog of the week has nothing to do with comics, book covers, animation, or graphic design, but don't be disheartened, its still a very good blog! Parrellograma (the blog name being taken from an excellent album by folk singer Linda Perhacs, which happens to be the blogger's favourite) is a fairly neat representation of the interests and talents of one Emma Mould, and if you are into the cult and unusual, or wish to broaden your intellectual palette, this is certainly the place to go. With film and book reviews, snippets of gender and post-colonial theory with one foot firmly in the world of reality and popular(ish) culture, and examples of Emma's excellent creative writing (both published and unpublished) Parrellograma is certainly a 'variety is the spice of life' kind of blog.
I would also highly recommend reading any music related article she has written, as she does so with a love and a knowledge for the subject that far outstrips any hack NME journalist. She tackles bootlegging, confessional singer-songwriters, and writes a really interesting article on the disease that is record collecting that manages to reference Walter Benjamin along the way.

Review: National Lampoon presents: Claire Bretecher

Looking on Amazon it seems pretty hard to find any English language collections of French cartoonist Claire Bretecher's work but by looking at her entries on Wikipedia and Lambiek Comiclopedia it is clear that she is pretty revered in her country, and indeed amongst most comics aficionados. But at the time she started getting recognised (70's) she was sadly one of the few women making it big in the European comics scene. She got her big break doing some illustration work for Rene Goscinny and in 1972 she founded the comics magazine L'Echo des savanes with Gotlib and Mandryka.
So having heard her name floating around I picked up a second hand copy of a collection of her cartoons put out by the American humour magazine National Lampoon. Despite the fact that the large majority of her strips focus on gender issues and feature mainly female protagonists, they are portrayed fairly neutrally, as Bretecher herself explains in the books introduction:

'Women in comic strips are usually portrayed either as shrews or movie stars. But in real life, women, like men, are neither of these extremes, so I portray women and men alike, except that the women have two little round things on their chest'

This comes as a refreshing antidote to the reinforcement of female stereotypes in comics of that period especially the newspaper strip Cathy by Cathy Guisewite which has been parodied to death over the years.


Stylistically and thematically Bretecher reminds me slightly of Jules Feiffer in her dealings with the pretensions of the intellectual and bohemian elite. Whether mocking parents new found obsession with Freud, lampooning film critics, or poking holes in the commitment of the anti-consumerist crowd Bretecher's humour is as relevant now as it was back then. The sign of a true feminist in my eyes is someone who champions equality not superiority and I can safely say Bretecher follows this blueprint to the tee, not being afraid to make a mockery of the feminists as well as shooting down the chauvinists with her razor sharp wit. Most of the strips carry a subtle slightly absurdist message reminding us never to take ourselves too seriously, but from some of the strips its easy to see where her sympathies lie (a strip about abortion managing to make a poignant joke about women's choice in the matter). Overall this is a nice introduction to Bretecher's work and I for one would like to see more of it made available, especially her colour work and her teenage character Agrippine.

Comica Festival 2010: Trina Robbins and Roger Sabin

Copied directly from the Comica site incase you miss it are two forthcoming events that have got me very excited indeed:


Comica & Laydeez Do Comics Present: Trina Robbins

For the first time, Comica Festival and Laydeez Do Comics are thrilled to be teaming up to invite to London the important comic artist and writer, from the seminal underground comix of the Seventies to such icons as Wonder Woman, Barbie, Powerpuff Girls and her own GoGirl!, lecturer, curator and America’s foremost comics ‘herstorian’, Trina Robbins. She is coming over to present a paper at the academic conference Motherhoods, Markets, and Consumption at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford on Monday 13 September and has kindly agreed to visit London for this special extra event on Tuesday 21 September.

Ms. Robbins will present a lively and provocative illustrated lecture entitled: HERE ARE THE GREAT WOMEN COMIC ARTISTS, in which she introduces a whole slew of brilliant and talented women cartoonists from the early 20th century who are not included in histories and major exhibits by men, and explains why. Among others, she will be speaking about Nell Brinkley, the proto-feminist whose sumptuous portrayals of women inspired Mae West’s screen persona, as collected in the acclaimed deluxe edition from Fantagraphics, The Brinkley Girls. Her earlier biography of Brinkley was reviewed by Comica Festival director Paul Gravett here. She has also just written the introduction to Fantagraphics’ first edition of Moto Hagio’s historic shojo or girls’ manga entitled A Drunken Dream & Other Stories.

Doors open at 6.30pm and Trina Robbins will be speaking from 7pm. Following this, there will be an informal discussion and Q&A session and conclude by 9.30pm after a book signing and refreshments. The evening will be held at the regular venue for Laydeez Do Comics, The Rag Factory , 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ. For directions: Nearest Tube: Aldgate East. Follow the exit which directs you to the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Turn LEFT out of the tube into Whitechapel High Street. Take the first left into Osborne Street and carry straight on into Brick Lane. Take the fourth turning on the right into Heneage Street and The Rag Factory is a little way up, on the right.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear and meet a pre-eminent figure in contemporary American comic books, graphic novels and comics studies. To help cover costs, there will be a modest charge of £5 for a ticket, which you can pay on the door on the night. As we expect a lot of interest and places are limited, you can reserve your tickets by emailing Nicola Streeten at: info@laydeezdocomics.com. Sarah Lightman and Nicola Streeten from Laydeez Do Comics and Paul Gravett from Comica Festival look forward to welcoming you on Tuesday 21 September for a truly memorable evening.

Comica 2010 Festival opens with Free Exhibition, Symposium & Comiket

Here’s the first news about this year’s exciting edition of Comica, the London International Comics Festival, back for its 7th annual season. A major new element will be a three-month exhibition curated by Comica director Paul Gravett entitled ‘That’s Novel : Graphic Novels Now’ which will celebrate current innovations in the comics medium in Britain and internationally, both on and off the page. This evolving show will be held at The London Print Studio Gallery and tap into their amazing printing facilities, from etching and lithography to silkscreening and the latest digital methods, to offer invited artists the chance to work on special new works and in media they may never have tried before. Admission to the exhibition will be free and a variety of talks, panels, workshops, masterclasses and more will also be taking place at the Gallery.

To kick off Comica 2010, the festival is collaborating with The School of Arts at Birkbeck, University of London, in association with the British journals Studies in Comics, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and European Comic Art, to hold a one-day Comica Symposium on Friday 5 November in a 180-seater conference room shown below. Entitled ‘Transitions’, this will promote multi-disciplinary research of comics and graphic novels, manga, bande dessinée, webcomics and other forms of sequential art.

Rather than being restricted by a specific theme, the aim of the symposium is to highlight research from postgraduate research students and early career lecturers bringing together different perspectives and methodologies, whether cultural, historical, or formal, thereby mapping new trends and providing a space for dialogue and further collaboration to emerge. Dr Roger Sabin, Reader in Popular Culture at Central St. Martins and author of Adult Comics and Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels, will introduce the event and respond to the panel papers. Following the papers and response, there will be a roundtable discussion from artists/scholars who will reflect on the links between the two practices. Work will be on display throughout the event. Organised with Tony Venezia, the day will conclude with a wine reception. Details of how to register and participate will follow soon. And best of all, the whole event is free!

And Sunday 7 November brings the next Comica Comiket Independent Comics Fair, teaming up with the popular, long-running National Collectors Marketplace at the Royal National Hotel, Russell Square, and taking over the (Warren) Ellis Room from 12-5pm. A limited number of exhibitor tables will be available at affordable prices and there will be several special events and surprise guests throughout the afternoon. The public are admitted free. Booking arrangements for tables will be announced shortly, along with much more of the Comica 2010 Festival programme. Meanwhile, put these dates in your diary now and tell all your friends!

Considering this is just a taste of things to come, we can except an even better Comica Festival this year! Also if you haven't done so already, you should check out the Hypercomics exhibit running until the 26th of September at the Pumphouse Gallery in London's Battersea Park. Featuring boundary pushing work from the likes of Dave McKean, Adam Dant, and Warren Pleece, you check out the exhibitions mini site here for more info.