3:AM Magazine

3:AM’s Matthew Wascovich has got a new book of poems and lyrics (with artwork by D. Banhart) out on Hab Discontent Books. It’s called Devoid of Declaration and you can order it here.

This is what poet TL Kryss thinks of it:

“I don’t know how Matthew Wascovich wrote these. I don’t even want to know. It’s enough just to be taken up in the beams of dark light which come from them. Sometimes I make the mistake of suspecting narative elements, and give up to discover a real narrative independent of anything that might be going on on the surface. You must know how uncommon this. Some of Vallejo comes to mind. I can’t think of anyone else. But comparison cheapens the breadth of the response. And I just meant to say thanks, without laying a burden or, by the same token, seeming completely unaffected. Face to face, I would probably slam the breast with a fist and stumble backwards.”

[DEATH FAST]

death fast do you want out, dragon?
have you put a dime toward the future?
black spoons and yellow liquids
rammed into one television
don’t be so decided, don¹t be so decided
please read all the warnings
we are looking at country vinyl, looking
looking into your body, you know absolutely
lovingly, we will jeopardize our faith

we will undercut each other
we will do what is paranoid
do what you are told, play a role in the storage
play a role in dependency
play a role

you can’t forget it, now
you can’t forget it, now
you can’t forget it, now
you can’t forget it, now

can’t find the time
you can’t search and press
rule and clash, compare it, all day bombs
the messages are looking from the tombs
the messages, a oneness of light
the messages, one note for your eye
the messages, there’s a reason we are low

not strolling anymore,
i am not strolling anymore
bitterness to this exception, let it go
bitterness, we’ll meet again
provocateur, zeppelin harmony,
a belt closed, the closer closed
ghost taunts for womanhood
ghost taunts for womanhood
fluxing the leather, i’m not jealous of your cameras
i want to lick the skin to be some sort of hero

+++

[ALLAY THE BARRAGE/DIVARICATE]

the humans were decimated
but the animals restored
evolve or improve the atrophy
the walkers contemplate running
the sun relates to worldliness

there’s a canal in each heart as we become heavy
we impoverish the light
the fat assed desire many wondrous things,
wondering about destination
we will meet underneath the tides

i can only see dirt
i’ll tell you once, something said many times
just release your initiatives
as clearly as you can
for that is all i ever asked of you

jaggery on the queen truss
sudoriferous proudly tints,
a motto for the parked
show, show, show, show a loft
show your sore knee
i didn’t wander alone
i didn’t wander alone
i did not want, alone
i did not want, alone
i did not want to be alone

a pinky as long as pointer
anxious in the wires above homes
a crow for lava avoids the highway
that which we spread, he spreads

i didn’t wander alone
i didn’t wander alone
i did not want, alone
i did not want, alone

the fat assed desire many wondrous things
the fat assed desire many wondrous things
and those fat assed desire many wondrous things

+++

[TIGHT SLOPE FIGHTER]

guide her post, recovery is sinker
pour it rain, pour it rain
the city is empty
each side wants more, depravity
a midwest nose bleed
inventions to the question
grafton is a dead bird
a medal’s worn
an adult at the dumpster
the truth first, the truth first, truth first

visible sign, normal fish lice,
farmed, hurt, feeling
crashed and alit,
hastings rock beach
england is to one as one is to you,
a singular needle that she sees double with

we are a climate of falling things
a course, broken clearance
it’s dismissed with heavy stickers and sex music
program toward an ending
tide rewards looking at the arteries,
listening and slipping away
a tight slope fighter, stifling

+++

[I AM WRIST]

push back teeth,
hanging of dangling lights
women with their cobwebs
pusher, i am wrist
payments take care, take care
graphics blink and cross
sip a little bit of water
sit at the table chained to the fence,
this is your starkweather
valley view thru a clean window
security of one night failed,
lifetime action,
white hardship is hard believe

nerve gnarl forfeiture,
i am recognised by court
public standard chin in sand
taped to this plastic heat
anti-holiday, winning facility
tow zone is a bridge,
a slow worker’s truck
no brake lights, we don’t speak
i am anxious for that image
out of checks, what are you concentrating on?
detours or projects?
red open door at east 40th street
i was in the outhwaite home estates
i saw road construction ahead
central avenue, drive is gravel,
new developments,
poverty history,
fire, trendy, yelling, violence and jobs,
libra, it’s our institutions

i am out of checks,
out of checks,
out of checks,
never checked out
i am out of checks,
i haven’t checked out

David L Ulin asks, is Harvey Pekar the Joyce Carol Oates of comics? “While I’d be the last to begrudge him his moment, I can’t help thinking that he’s begun to dilute the brand. His most recent book, Macedonia (Villard: 170 pp., $17.95 paper)–a collaboration with Heather Roberson and artist Ed Piskor–reads like work for hire, the story of someone else (Roberson) filtered through Pekar’s sensibility, and similar problems plagued his last effort, Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, which also traced a life other than the author’s own. It’s too bad, for Pekar is comics’ great autobiographical chronicler, who more than anyone proved that mundane daily experience (going to work, buying a loaf of bread at a bakery) can be the stuff of transcendent art. Yet if the saga of his life continues to be compelling, the sheer glut of recent work makes me wish he would slow down.” [via Ed Champion] + The Daily Cross Hatch talk to Pekar: “I was interested in politics and whenever I got a chance, I used to write critical articles and tons of letters to editors, when I was younger. I can document my interest in politics, which goes back to way before I was even doing comics—in the 60s. I acknowledged Joe Sacco in the book, and I realized right off that people were thinking that I picked up stuff from Joe. I think Joe is really terrific—he’s really outstanding. I have a great deal of admiration for his work, not only in the obvious things, but in the fact that he taught himself to draw so well. He was a journalism major in college—he didn’t have an art background. He just worked on it, and came up with something really good.” + Sarah Boxer on George Herriman and Krazy Kat: The ceaseless flux drove readers crazy during Herriman’s lifetime. If it hadn’t been for the ardent support of the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, the strip might never have survived. Hearst gave Herriman a raise – apparently against his will. And a happy band of readers followed Krazy religiously, including Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, HL Mencken, ee cummings, Walt Disney, TS Eliot, Frank Capra, Willem de Kooning, Jack Kerouac and Charles Schulz. The critic Gilbert Seldes, an early fan, called Herriman a “great ironist” who belonged with Chaplin, Cervantes and Dickens. + Broken Frontier preview the new Jason, I Killed Adolf Hitler. + Richard Burton reviews two Jason’s, The Left Bank Gang and The Living and the Dead. + Mundo Fantasma talk to Lone Racer creator [reviewed here on 3:AM] Nicolas Mahler: “I would say Krazy Kat, just for the influence it has on me, even though I don’t read it that much nowadays.”

When Orson Wells was a Transformer, why the original Transformers is better than the new one. + Transformers twiddles its big, fat, stupid robotic thumbs for the better part of two hours before jabbing them into your eye socket and finger-fucking your brain in the last 20 minutes. Yes! It’s torture enough waiting for the iPhone and the second coming of Jesus without wondering when, exactly, this saga of dueling giant robots is going to get to the hardcore action havoc. Nathan Lee for the Village Voice. + Ping Mag talk to Alex Kubalsky, designer of the Transformers toys: As we are trying to do more characteristic characters that don’t just go beating people up, we want to create unique individualistic characters that have expressive transformations! For example, if the character is a villain, it would be good if he revealed his face like opening an evil cloak. If he is a hero he would come out punching. + Courtesy of Goldenfiddle, the original Transformers instruction booklets. + The five most controversial moments in comic book history [via LHB] + Taking offence seems to be turning in to a full-time occupation in Iran. Just days after being gravely offended by the awarding of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie (an author who, ironically, was honoured by the Iranian literary establishment for his novel, Shame) the mullahs of Tehran have got themselves in a tizzy over the French-produced film version of Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis. Padraig Reidy in Comment is free. + Iggy Pop has signed on to voice Satrapi’s uncle in Persepolis [via Cross Hatch Dispatch] + Tintin’s Congo controversy. + Agatha Christie, the graphic novels. + Wizard interview Nick Bertozzi. + Grant Thomas looks at Paul Hornschemeier’s use of speech bubbles [via Journalista] + ICA Comica Festival, launch a graphic novel competition. + Comics Reporter review R. Crumb’s Gotta Have ‘Em. + And the CR on Tom Gauld. + If you like 300, are you gay? [via Pete Ashton]

The Simpsons as manga [via No Sword] + Ping Mag interview impact manga author Jun Hanyunyuu: “I wasn’t a big manga fan at the time, so I didn’t really read the popular comic magazines like Shonen Jump that everybody else was reading. When I actually started writing manga myself, I realised that I had to do something unique in order to stand out. So instead of imitating ordinary manga, I started doing the layouts as if I was transferring the camera work I wanted to do onto paper, and it ended up like that.” + An interview [in French] with Fumihiko Yamada on les mangas japonais [via No Sword] + A report on Japan Expo which took place in France last weekend. + Jog review Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song. + Precocious Curmudgeon on Tezuka, God (of manga) complex [via Manga Blog] + Comic Mix review Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito: Ode to Kirihito doesn’t fall into any regular comics genres in the US – not that we have very many of them, these days – and it seems to have been somewhat sui generis even in Japan. (Tezuka trained as a doctor, much like that other unique writer J.G. Ballard, and his training clearly influenced and informed this story.) It’s one part existential crisis, one part medical detective story, and several parts character-based drama. Whatever it is, it’s a fascinating combination, and an amazing example of what comics unfettered from restrictive genres can be. It will be a relative minority taste in the world of American comic shops, but it may find a larger audience among older manga readers and fans of modern or transgressive fiction. + Shaenon K Garrity reviews Tezuka’s Black Jack. + Bookslut consider two manga Shakespeare titles: “Shakespeare’s plays work as pretty good manga; and if the books lead readers to attend performances of the plays and form their own opinions on better and worse interpretations, so much the better.”

Johnny Deluxe of 100 Punks fame is curating a new exhibition, entitled “Rip It Up: Reading and the Punk Rock Revolution”, at Reading Museum. It runs from 21 July until 7 October and includes 100 previously-unseen pictures and some rare Sex Pistols memorabilia:

“You’re just a satellite of London!” snarled Johnny Rotten in 1977, and indeed Punk Rock hit the archetypal satellite town of Reading with full force in 1976. The town soon had a lively thriving punk scene within its belly. Most of the major Punk bands played early gigs at Reading’s Bones club, for some their first outing outside of the capital, galvanising the youth of the town. Pubs, clubs and haunts were quickly established, such as the Star, Target, Caribbean Club, Venus and Quicksilver records. Local bands and fanzines sprang up overnight, and for one year the Reading rock festival seemed worth going to. Initially a misunderstood youth movement, Punk Rock has become a national treasure, and its influence can be seen today in virtually all walks of life. As Reading has always been a perpetual building site, most of these places are now lost and forgotten. Rip it up! Tells the story of Reading punk Rock, through the eyes and mouths of those that were there, using photos, memorabilia, art, memories and media coverage from the time. Come back with us to time where it felt as though you could truly run wild and when the world did indeed turn Day-Glo and anyone could do anything.”