This article about the comic art of Nicole Claveloux is
respectful, and it displays many of her fine pages to beautiful advantage. The
artwork itself is quite remarkable, and I must say that I have been unaware of
her for all of this time. Articles like this provide a wonderful service, not
only to professionals in the field that is being examined, but also to running
dogs like me who follow the camp at a distance, hoping to pick up a few scraps.
Michael Dooley is a very good writer of pieces like
this, and for me he is the real story here. I sat next to Michael in the seventh grade at a Catholic
grammar school in Queens, a working-class borough of New York City. I liked to
draw, and I enjoyed comics very much, but Michael was already a very
accomplished cartoonist and his interest in comics had already taken an
academic turn. We were both doodlers, and during that school year we worked together
on a few projects in an innocent kind of folie au deux. The best was a very
small format, eight-page “Daily News of Rome,” which was modeled on the New
York Daily News (a photo-heavy tabloid newspaper). The art was almost all
Michael’s, and it was lovely. I managed to save a couple of examples over the
decades and I gave them to Michael a few years ago. It was a touching scene.
Two dreamy malcontents from parochial education, reunited over their escape
from the discipline of the nuns. Poignant!
Michael went on to build a formidable career in and
around the art world, finally fulfilling his promise as an academic. We grew up
in a town where just not getting killed by the traffic was a big achievement,
and the boys devoted a lot of creative energy to avoiding beatings on the
streets, at home, and at school. I’ve become aware of a few success stories
over the years, however, and I’m very glad that Michael is one of them. Good
for you, Mr. Dooley! Good for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment