It's my first week of school!

First, on a completely unrelated note, I was flipping channels and came across the last five minutes or so of "America's New Top Model". I feel a little embarrassed even typing that...however, the girl that ended up being booted off the show - Anna - is my new hero. Heroine. You know. She got booted because she declined to participate in a nude photo session; her words on the subject at the time of the shoot was something like, "This is for my husband, not for the whole world to see - I save this for my husband." When she stood before the panel of judges and was asked about why she refused, she basically said that it would be wrong for her to pose nude; one of the judges snottily said, "Oh - this is a religion thing." Anna said, "It's not religion, I just want to be Christ-like." Of course, the panel seemed fairly confused about this - one of them even said that he didn't think Anna knew the entire reason why she refused to do the shoot (not the sharpest tool in the shed, this one). I guess integrity or morals are things they don't often encounter in professional modeling. But despite complaint, mockery, and the knowledge that she would assuredly be booted off the show for it, Anna stuck to her guns. As a result, she got booted off the show, while the girl who shows up two hours late for a shoot and complains that it's everybody's fault except her own is kept. Anna rocks.

Normally I'd feel a little embarrassed that I went on for so long about a reality show - especially one about professional modeling - but it's nice to see people sacrificing earthly gain to stand up in Christ's name (kinda like on that episode of MTV's "Fear" when the girl decided to leave because they wanted her to use a Ouija board...well, you kinda had to be there).

Okay, back to school.

I’ve been pretty excited about my classes; I can’t wait to start working on projects, to begin soaking up some instruction, working around other artists, taking some constructive criticism, and experiencing some growth. Basically. Each day that my classes end, I find myself wanting to go to my next class, but unable to, since my next class is the following morning. I’ve taken to hanging around the school library after class, because it’s a library filled with books on art and history, Cds of all styles of music...and comics. I look forward to how long it’s going to take me to get through even a fraction of that material...

Monday -

Intro to Art History: Ancient to Medieval. This class is in a big theater with stadium seating; we looked at slides of two different images: one an illumination from a medieval French book, depicting God as an architect measuring Creation; and an Indian statue of Buddha. We talked about the differences between the two, not only discussing form (illustration versus sculpture), but also a bunch of other artsy terms like naturalism, realism, depth, and so on. The teacher handed out questionnaires asking us about our interests, what we hoped to get out of the class, and a space where we could write a brief essay about one of two more images she showed us. I really enjoyed the art history classes I took at San Bernardino Valley Community College, so I’m looking forward to this one. The book is a hefty $75.00.

Illustration One. I had a difficult time finding the classroom for this one. I’m still getting my bearings at MCAD, but fortunately, there are only a couple of buildings so there isn’t really any chance of getting lost. The classroom was in the back of the painters’ private studio area, which is essentially a bunch of cubicles with really high walls and jam-packed with each individual painter’s stuff. That said, the classroom is nice enough...a little drafty, though. Anyway, we were told to go to the library (yay!) and choose examples of the work of two illustrators that we liked. I chose Alphonse Mucha, the inventor of the Art Nouveau style, and N.C. Wyeth, student of Howard Pyle, visibly an influence on Angus McBride, and illustrator of many classic adventure stories.

Tuesday -

Writing for the Arts. Our teacher for this one had us take turns introducing ourselves in this way: each of us would give our name, our favorite color, the weirdest thing we've ever eaten (not necessarily the grossest), and our astrological sign. When it came to be my turn, I told them that people seemed to think it was weird that I liked to eat Goldfish crackers mixed with chocolate chips, and that I was a Taurus, but didn't subscribe to astrology. She joked that "Tauruses usually don't." After everyone else in the class went, she took her turn. Red was her favorite color today, ludafisk was the weirdest thing she'd eaten (fish soaked in lye until it's transparent - ew), and I don't remember her astrological sign because she launched into a long description of her sign, thus alerting me to the fact that she wasn't just a casual newspaper astrologist, she was into Astrology - the "Sun rising in the House of Taurus with the Moon ascending" kind of Astrology.

In fact, I ran into a lot of occultism today. I went to the library after class and read graphic novels for about three hours. Of the four I pulled down, three of them had fairly strong occultic elements - and when I say that, I don't just mean "it had a wizard in it," I mean it was specific, Real World occultic belief system details, about Kabbala, I Ching, and so on. I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if there are far more comic book people influenced by occultism than I previously understood. I read a huge interview with one of my favorite comic writers, Alan Moore, in one of the comic book magazines on the library periodicals wall, and while I suspected that he was familiar with a lot of occultic imagery, I didn't know that he was such a devoted adherent to it all. "Trying to reach a circle in the Kabbala," robe-wearing and serpent-wand-carrying all out occultist fellow, he.

The books I read, by the way, were A Contract with God by Will Eisner (no occultism, but lots of sex...yet not "positive light" sex or even "erotic" sex - mainly desperate surrogate love and a degree of perversion, which seemed to be entirely the point in the stories - Eisner presents these things in a kind of matter-of-fact way and lets the reader draw their own conclusions...mine was, "Whole lotta people desperate for love and not getting it, resulting in tragedy"); The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and Company (I should probably not shirk on mentioning the names of the artists, inkers, letterers, and so on, but frankly the art bugged me more often than not, and you can look it up if you want), which I'll talk about in a second; Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt, whose artwork I really liked, and whose content I might like if I had taken more time to really focus on the story (I was getting tired), which was about an adventurer named Captain Corto Maltese in 1920s Shanghai (sounded very well researched, from what I read of the introduction and the story...though the author of the introduction disturbed me with his relativistic views on good and evil); and [I think] Saga of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and Company...which I must admit I only skimmed. I wanted to go back and take time to read it through, as I've been wanting to read more of Moore's work (I loved Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ). It's an earlier work than those two, but "Swamp Thing" is where Moore is really supposed to have started capturing American attention, from what I remember.

Oh, okay, so Sandman . I've been meaning to read more Gaiman, because everybody who doesn't love superhero comics is so enamored with him. I figured either I'd love his work or hate it, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Thus far - and granted, my selection of his writings now covers only this first Sandman book and the novel Good Omens , which was written with Terry Pratchett and was funny but theologically a mess, go figure - I think he's an entertaining storyteller, but I have issues with the overall message of his work. I guess I should be fair - with Sandman, he's working with the DC Comics universe, which, having been composed by various writers over the span of decades, often more influenced by the demands of marketing than dramatic coherency, isn't going to be the most internally-consistent or even morally-consistent cosmology. Nonetheless, I have to question some of the statements his story seems to make.

I'm going to give away some of the story of the first Sandman book, so you understand what I'm thinking about.

The premise of the first book is basically this: a wizard in the early 1900s conducts a magical ritual which captures Morpheus, Lord of Dreams; Morpheus's tools - a handful of artifacts which contain a fraction of his supernatural power - are swiped and parceled off over the decades to various parties - while Morpheus himself is kept prisoner. The imprisonment of Morpheus is shown to have repercussions which reverberate all over the world through the following years. At the risk of giving things away, I'll tell you that much of the book is devoted to Morpheus's hunt for his missing tools. It's in this latter half of the book that I start to have issues.

Essentially, we're presented with these semi-divine beings called The Endless, personifications of aspects of human experience of which Morpheus is one. These folks have godlike powers, but human failings, as we're shown through the story's events. Sure, they've got a different perspective than most people simply due to their immortality and powers, but they're still recognizably human in both appearance and psychological traits. Though generally soft-spoken and dispassionate, Morpheus demonstrates his desire for revenge throughout this story. He seems to couch it in terms of some vague cosmic justice, but when it comes down to it, he seems fairly arbitrary in how he chooses to punish people.

Morpheus reserves his greatest punishment for the guy who imprisoned him and stole his stuff in the first place. Actually, I take that back - the guy who stole the stuff in the first place basically gets away with it. His son, who was kinda-sorta a party to it, gets the bad punishment.

Later on, a particular fellow - a fellow in one Arkham Asylum - gets one of Morpheus's tools and uses it to do horrific things. The reader is shown what this fellow does with a group of people in one location over 24 hours - and it is really horrific - but we're also told that this sort of thing is going on all over the world, and lots and lots of people are dying horribly. It's all really awful, and by the time he's finished with his little group of human guinea pigs (that is, they're dead as dead can be), Morpheus shows up and fights with the guy in the Dreamworld. In the end, the fellow ends up none the worse for wear, back in Arkham Asylum, feeling that he's sorry about what he's done...he thinks. He's not really sure.

Okay, Mister Nutty-Cakes Supervillain kills a whole lot of people in horrible, horrible ways and he doesn't even get a slap on the wrist? I guess it's the ultimate sanity plea. I suppose it could be reasoned that Morpheus's role in the Cosmos isn't to mete justice, but that's precisely what he does to the guy who imprisoned him. Seems to me that it has more to do with being a bit embarrassed and angry over being caught in the first place.

So it feels like we're dealing with Greek gods - the power of a deity, but all the failings of a man. Not terribly inspiring, but then, this is meant to be kind of a horror comic. Sort of. I might not quibble, but it includes a Dante-like Hell and "Lucifer Morningstar" as part of its cosmology, so I'm a bit confused at how it's all supposed to work. Again - DC Universe: may as well have a disclaimer worked into the logo.

I've read that this first book is actually some of Gaiman's weaker work, so I plan to read much more of his material - I can't say it isn't entertaining. What I'm reserving judgement on is whether his other work is more internally logical, or if it's going to be a patchwork of beliefs and legends that he's scoured world mythology and traditions for and pieced together willy-nilly. I'd be more forgiving of it, I think, except that it bugs me when that "mythology" is extended to include Biblical material. At that point, I'm ready to play "Okay, Explain Yourself, Mister Big-Time Writer." So maybe I'm being unfair. To be completely honest, there is a part of me that wants to not like his work only because it's so very very popular. I need to get beyond that.

Welp, classes tomorrow. I can't wait!