Lazarus
Last year I drew a large pastel based on Rembrandt’s 1832 etching The Raising of Lazarus. Rembrandt’s Jesus’ seems a bit well-fed; but there’s a lot of drama as everyone is awestruck at the miracle. Lazarus looks feeble; he was dead for four days, so the state of his cognition is highly questionable, at best....
The Triumph of Death
In 1990, the first Gulf War was in full swing, much like today’s indiscriminate bloodbaths and dear friends like David Wojnarowicz were dying of AIDS. So for my second solo show at the venerable Grace Borgenicht Gallery on 57th Street (kitty corner from Trump Tower), I chose to make a large pastel revisioning of Brueghel’s...
Wojnarowicz’s Apostasy
“Ants are the only insects to keep pets, use tools, make war and capture slaves.” — David Wojnarowicz A Fire in My Belly, a film with a depiction of fire ants swarming over a crucifix, was removed from the Hide/Seek exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian through the intercession of the president...
Bang Go the Caresses
Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Contempt inventively deviates from cinematic convention and probes gender relations while it explores miscommunication between people. The storyline is loosely adapted from a 1954 novel by Alberto Moravia, Il Disprezzo [A Ghost at Noon) and depicts the production of a film-within-a film, a cinematic version of Homer’s classic Odyssey. Multileveled ambiguities...
Naked Raygun comic/etched vinyl
In 2023 I designed the image to be etched onto a vinyl record by beloved Chicago punk band Naked Raygun, then did a 16 page color comic book to accompany the record in collaboration with punk cartoonist Josh Bayer. This was promoted and sold via a successful Kickstarter campaign; and we had a great release...
Boom For Real
Whoever would not understand me would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger. Aimé Césaire I never knew Jean-Michel Basquiat, although we were of the same time and place and had friends in common, but I recognized his abilities the moment I saw his work. I can still recall how his painting resonated...
Tonči Zonjić: The Total Approach
I first noticed Croatian cartoonist Tonči Zonjić only recently, when his work appeared in the Image comic Zero, which is written by Ales Kot and drawn by a different artist every issue. Among quite an interesting and eclectic group of artists, Zonjić’s cover and interior art for Zero #9 stand out as informed and moving...
Antonioni and Buñuel: The Ground of Being
Thematic connections and similarities can be seen between scenes in films by the Spaniard Luis Buñuel and multiple works by the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni. Two of the 20th century’s greatest directors, Buñuel and Antonioni competed for recognition and took turns winning the same awards on alternative years at film festivals. For example, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse competed...
Where I’m (Coming) From
Video made after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre of January 7 2015 in Paris, France. Click on the link and turn on the sound: Where I’m (Coming) From
James Romberger Comics
James Romberger comics checklist w: writing a: art c: color Umbra #4 “Lazarus” 9p wa (b&w version) Portugal: Umbra, 2023 Naked Raygun: Broken Things etched 7″ record/ 16p wa & color w/ Josh Bayer Xylophone Media, 2022 Post York (revised, expanded) cover, 100p wa/ “Higher Ground” research essay w/Unbuilt Labs) Berger Books/Dark Horse, 2021 For...
Exes and Ohs
Jaime Hernandez uses the temporal flexibility of the comics medium to work like memory: moments that are far separated in time recontextualize when put in proximity to each other. He shows that the ways people treat each other resonate unpredictably through their lives. In the world he has built on paper and in ours, passion...
Kirby: Approaching the Threshold
The status of American comics pioneer and creative fount Jack Kirby slipped badly in the space of a few short years in the early 1970s. His highly successful resume at Marvel had led DC to promote his defection to them as their greatest triumph, but their support quickly waned. There was some resentment directed at...
Cursing the Darkness: The Last Horrors of Alex Toth
Fear and suspense can be effectively created by the inference of the unknown. What is shown can be less harrowing than what is implied and then forms in the imagination of the reader. The late cartoonist Alexander Toth disliked drawing explicit horror and violence in the style of E.C., what he called “gore-gulping grind and...
