January 5, 2005
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Death and the Spirit
A meditation for Twelfth Night
on “the whirligig of time“Today’s New York Times obituaries feature two notable graphic artists:- Frank
Kelly Freas, who created, among other works, 400 portraits of saints
for the Franciscans and the covers of Mad Magazine from 1958 through
1962. “I found it difficult to shift my artistic gears from the sublime
to the ridiculous and back again,” he said of his departure from Mad. - Will
Eisner, “an innovative comic-book artist who created the Spirit, a hero
without superpowers, and the first modern graphic novel.”
Yesterday’s entry
provided an approach to The Dark Lady, Kali, that was, in Freas’s apt
word, “ridiculous.” The illustration below, “Mate,” is an attempt
to balance yesterday’s entry with an approach that is, if not sublime,
at least more serious. It is based on a similar illustration from
Jan. 31, 2003,
with actress Judy Davis playing The Dark Lady. Today it seems
appropriate to replace Davis with another actress (anonymous here,
though some may recognize her). I once knew her (unlike Davis)
personally. One of my fondest memories of high school is reading
Mad Magazine with her in the school lunch room. Our lives
diverged after high school, but I could happily have spent my life in
her company.Mate– S. H. Cullinane, Twelfth Night, 2005
A diamond and its dual “whirl” figure—
or a “jewel-box and its mate”For details, see the five Log24 entries
ending on Feb. 1, 2003, and the
perceptive remarks of Ryan Benedetti
on Sam Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy.As for Eisner and “The Spirit,”
which has been called
“the quintessential noir detective series,”
those preferring non-graphic stories
may picture Spade or his creator,
Dashiell Hammett, in the title role.Then, of course, there are Eisner’s later
story, “A Contract With God,”
John 4:24, and 1916 4/24. - Frank
