From: [arthur v k] at [xs4all.nl] (| a | c | w |)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 23:38:56 +0100
Subject: Re: More ?s history/influence + Robert's concerns

- -Poster: [arthur v k] at [xs4all.nl] (| a | c | w |)

James Drew:
::Gustave Dore's "Twelve Labours of Hercules" from the mid/late 1800's is one
::of the best eaxmple of proto-comics around, I'm told.  

_The Labours of Hercules_ (1847) is OK, but kids' stuff (Dore' did it when 
he was he was 15). No, his _Histoire de la Sainte Russie_ is da shit! He 
made this incredible 200-page GN at the ripe age of 22, when "La douce 
France" was involved in the Crimean war. Dore' was asked by the authorities 
to collect in one volume all "idees recues" and prejudices regarding 
Russia, so that French readers would be comforted with the idea that by 
fighting these Slavic barbarians they were saving European civilization. 
This politically, historically and hilariously incorrect vision of Russia
kicks off with (fake) quotes from Horatius "O rus, quando te aspiciam!",
Rabelais and Confucius (in Chinese!), followed by a completely black panel,
subtitled "The beginning of the history of Russia is lost in the darkness
of Antiquity" (the next panel is a deliberately vague drawing, "Ce n'est
que vers le IVe siecle qu'elle commence a se dessiner" [couldn't think of
an English equivalent]). Ending in 1854, when another Napoleon must revenge 
the defeat of his great predecessor, this story is riddled with graphic 
inventions that flabbergasted and delighted this (modern) reader; e.g. a 
pseudo-scientific text about the slavic race is "attacked" by black ink
flowing out of an upturned inkwell--the letters that are not covered by
the ink flee to the first sentences of the page, where it's still safe!;
the next page has 5 *empty* panels--that particular century was so 
uneventful, Dore' explains, "I feared, dear reader, that by heaping too
many boring pictures upon you, I'd make you dislike my work from the
start"; the 1542-1580 part of Ivan the Terrible's reign is told in *one*
panel: a big blot of red ink. And aside from the odd calligrammatic drawing 
_HdlSR_ has some amazing proto-surrealist images. 

_Histoire pittoresque, dramatique et caricaturale de la Russie, d'apres les
chroniqueurs et historiens Nestor, Nikan, Sylvestre, Karamsin, Segur, etc.,
commentee et illustree de 500 magnifiques gravures_ is the result of an 
uninhibited young giant having a great time crossing the boundaries of a 
baby medium. Put it in all your canons and hit as many readers as you can, 
they deserve more than just "some 80s British invasion stuff". :) The 
francophone ammunition is supplied by Editions de L'Unicorne; ISBN 
2-05-100881-7.

Proost,
Arthur.