Technological, non-artistic creativity (“Sterile progress”) is still a path forward! And in doing so, it creates new mediums and new tools for the creative mind and hand.
You realize of course, that this means you must now destroy Cat & Girl? I want to see sporadic updates and rude behavior at conventions, delayed orders and periodic site failures, culminating in an incomprehensible climax in which scenes of Girl leaving Cat behind to pursue a copywriting career in northern California are interspersed with black and white stills from the film Rocky and snippets of text from young children’s literature. At the end, there will only be the beatnik at a bar, staring at a bucket of paint.
And then, when the comic is completely defunct, you can turn around and create it anew! Dorothy Gambrel has rebooted Cat & Girl, all the blogs will say, and your new server will get crashed by all the referrals. In the new, “Ultimate Cat And Girl”, Dog will be anthropomorphic, Grrl will be a hacker and self-declared software pirate, and Smart Decision Dolphin will trick people into doing things that anyone would agree seemed like perfectly good ideas at the time. The less said about Boi, the better.
doesn’t sound like taoism to me. taoism is a verb of not-doing, it’s sitting, it’s not “doing nothing.”
taoist’s create. the reason girl is (as often) wrong is that creation is not typically ex-nihilo, it is creation built on creation (although the major media corporations would not like anyone to think so.) the past is relevant, the future is relevant (it’s often the basis of good decision making, but less so in taoism,) and to build on both you create the relevant of the present. girl has quantified a verb, thinking she quantified nouns. or if you like the short version: “she’s just wrong.”
The self-devaluation in panel two is unparalleled.
Again, I notice that Girl essentially suffers from grander-scheme-depression. I would not proclaim that she is essentially “wrong” though. “Stasis” is, for many people, a way of life, as their “flow” not necessarily entails much change to the status quo, be it progressive, be it reactionary, let alone in terms of creativity. Yet they lead happy, enjoyable lifetimes as this — going with the flow — is what works for them.
Regardless, this approach oftentimes does not work for the artist’s mind that is so romantically entangled with suffering (I think I am paraphrasing Gregory Corso). Once the artists quits suffering, he is essentially dead. Yet if this deadness is faced in the domain of the living, it creates a condition that is, to this kind of mind, worse than death. See the latent discomfort in the last six panels, bubbling, just waiting to burst out, restricted in order to adhere to a fruitless self-imposed agenda.
By opting for stasis, Girl creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of her own irrelevance.
Yes, you could’ve just copied and pasted the last six panels, maybe tweaked each one here and there, and it would’ve been fine. The fact that you chose to draw them all manually, over and over again, despite the fact that very few would notice, is awesome.
How does making more art ‘dilute’ it? People look at art one bit at a time, not in one large mass. I guess fatigue could build up if you seek out art for the sake of it instead of just going for what you like, but having more art than any single person will ever be able to see has been the way it is for, what, a hundred years, probably even longer?
Double W, with regard to diluted art it’s like this:
1. Raymond Chandler wrote crime novels and knew something about the actual underworld.
2. Raymond Chandler was fond of screwing with his editors by slipping obscure and profane slang into his stories.
3. In the Maltese Falcon, he refers to a young man with a gun as a Gunsel.
4. Every hack writer since has referred to gunmen as gunsels.
5. Gunsel is yiddish for “gander,” and is slang for a young male homosexual kept around by an older man for immoral purposes.
6. Among pieces of art created by people who only learned of the subject of their art from other pieces art, this is less of an exception than you’d think.
I think Cat And Girl are the bestist . Though Candorville comes close, sometimes…. The irreverence, the introspection, the… all terrific… This coming from someone who has never done a creative thing in my 57 years on the planet.
I try not to worry too much about “the big picture” i dont give a crap about “The Louve” or the sistine chapel. never seen it and probably never will and im ok with my cultural stasis. they could probably destroy it and il wake up and go to work. again. day after day after day. and then die. with my social security number as my legacy. and im fine with that.
Stasis isn’t an option – even dead things take part in creation and destruction. You have no choice but to become something else. But if you embrace that process, your options are so much more interesting. And, with the possible exception of kimchi sculpture, they smell better.
@Kid Eponym –
That’s a really good explanation. But if I only know that the gunsel is supposed to be the gunman, the story can still be enjoyed if it’s any good. It just means that the story isn’t as realistic as it could be. If the author is more concerned with creating the tension associated with the genre, it’s not a big issue.
So the problem could be the poor writers. We need a means of testing the theory that 90% of everything being crap, to see if the percentage has changed at all.
Every now and then I have this little dialogue in my head. It goes something like this:
“There’s too much creative work in the world already, and nothing I do ever goes anywhere. I should give up my creative ambitions.”
“So what should I do with all the spare time I have now that I’m not trying to create anything any more?”
“Well… I guess I could try writing that book I’ve had in my head for a while.”
The point is I could never give up the desire to create any more than I could give up the desire to breathe. No matter how tough it gets, how pointless it seems, how unnecessary I feel.
I’m with NS on this one. Stasis takes just as much effort as that creation/destruction malarkey, if not more so, and it’s not the kind of thing you can do by accident. And even staying the same for half an hour doesn’t mean you’re totally static – at the start you’re a person who’s decided to stay the same; at the end you’re a person who’s spent half an hour studiously doing nothing. Stasis ain’t even an option.
The purpose of making art is to communicate. If you write something that you feel just restates things that are better said in other great works of literature, but it reaches a new audience, then there’s a success right there.
May 28, 2009
And so that’s the idea behind taoism
May 28, 2009
I love all the subtle differences in the last six panels!
May 28, 2009
Technological, non-artistic creativity (“Sterile progress”) is still a path forward! And in doing so, it creates new mediums and new tools for the creative mind and hand.
Never lose hope, Girl!
May 28, 2009
This is why the vast majority “creatives” used to work on catalogs. You must throw out Fall ’89 before you can create Winter ’89-’90.
May 28, 2009
Curate!
Eye twitch.
May 28, 2009
This is why Punk Rock tried to kill Prog Rock.
They failed.
May 28, 2009
You realize of course, that this means you must now destroy Cat & Girl? I want to see sporadic updates and rude behavior at conventions, delayed orders and periodic site failures, culminating in an incomprehensible climax in which scenes of Girl leaving Cat behind to pursue a copywriting career in northern California are interspersed with black and white stills from the film Rocky and snippets of text from young children’s literature. At the end, there will only be the beatnik at a bar, staring at a bucket of paint.
And then, when the comic is completely defunct, you can turn around and create it anew! Dorothy Gambrel has rebooted Cat & Girl, all the blogs will say, and your new server will get crashed by all the referrals. In the new, “Ultimate Cat And Girl”, Dog will be anthropomorphic, Grrl will be a hacker and self-declared software pirate, and Smart Decision Dolphin will trick people into doing things that anyone would agree seemed like perfectly good ideas at the time. The less said about Boi, the better.
Thus the circle of life begins anew.
May 28, 2009
now I’m even more depressed than I was before…
May 28, 2009
doesn’t sound like taoism to me. taoism is a verb of not-doing, it’s sitting, it’s not “doing nothing.”
taoist’s create. the reason girl is (as often) wrong is that creation is not typically ex-nihilo, it is creation built on creation (although the major media corporations would not like anyone to think so.) the past is relevant, the future is relevant (it’s often the basis of good decision making, but less so in taoism,) and to build on both you create the relevant of the present. girl has quantified a verb, thinking she quantified nouns. or if you like the short version: “she’s just wrong.”
May 28, 2009
Entwicklungsfremdheit
ist die Tiefe des Weisen yo
May 28, 2009
I think tubejay’s right.
May 28, 2009
The self-devaluation in panel two is unparalleled.
Again, I notice that Girl essentially suffers from grander-scheme-depression. I would not proclaim that she is essentially “wrong” though. “Stasis” is, for many people, a way of life, as their “flow” not necessarily entails much change to the status quo, be it progressive, be it reactionary, let alone in terms of creativity. Yet they lead happy, enjoyable lifetimes as this — going with the flow — is what works for them.
Regardless, this approach oftentimes does not work for the artist’s mind that is so romantically entangled with suffering (I think I am paraphrasing Gregory Corso). Once the artists quits suffering, he is essentially dead. Yet if this deadness is faced in the domain of the living, it creates a condition that is, to this kind of mind, worse than death. See the latent discomfort in the last six panels, bubbling, just waiting to burst out, restricted in order to adhere to a fruitless self-imposed agenda.
By opting for stasis, Girl creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of her own irrelevance.
May 28, 2009
Yes, you could’ve just copied and pasted the last six panels, maybe tweaked each one here and there, and it would’ve been fine. The fact that you chose to draw them all manually, over and over again, despite the fact that very few would notice, is awesome.
May 28, 2009
mad props to joe livingston’s observation.
May 28, 2009
is that like suspended animation?
because i could dig that
May 29, 2009
So said Cornelius Castoriadis. Girl is an ‘autonomist’!
May 29, 2009
How does making more art ‘dilute’ it? People look at art one bit at a time, not in one large mass. I guess fatigue could build up if you seek out art for the sake of it instead of just going for what you like, but having more art than any single person will ever be able to see has been the way it is for, what, a hundred years, probably even longer?
May 29, 2009
Fantastic comic :) the last two days have been my favourites in over a year of checking in every day!
May 29, 2009
Double W, with regard to diluted art it’s like this:
1. Raymond Chandler wrote crime novels and knew something about the actual underworld.
2. Raymond Chandler was fond of screwing with his editors by slipping obscure and profane slang into his stories.
3. In the Maltese Falcon, he refers to a young man with a gun as a Gunsel.
4. Every hack writer since has referred to gunmen as gunsels.
5. Gunsel is yiddish for “gander,” and is slang for a young male homosexual kept around by an older man for immoral purposes.
6. Among pieces of art created by people who only learned of the subject of their art from other pieces art, this is less of an exception than you’d think.
May 29, 2009
I think Cat And Girl are the bestist . Though Candorville comes close, sometimes…. The irreverence, the introspection, the… all terrific… This coming from someone who has never done a creative thing in my 57 years on the planet.
May 30, 2009
In a million years who is gona care?
May 30, 2009
I try not to worry too much about “the big picture” i dont give a crap about “The Louve” or the sistine chapel. never seen it and probably never will and im ok with my cultural stasis. they could probably destroy it and il wake up and go to work. again. day after day after day. and then die. with my social security number as my legacy. and im fine with that.
May 30, 2009
@Kid Eponym: Excellent example, except that The Maltese Falcon was written by Dashiel Hammett, not Raymond Chandler.
May 31, 2009
Is this your way of cancelling the comic?
May 31, 2009
This was so awesome! Thanks so much for creating it! Honestly, it made my day.
May 31, 2009
Stasis isn’t an option – even dead things take part in creation and destruction. You have no choice but to become something else. But if you embrace that process, your options are so much more interesting. And, with the possible exception of kimchi sculpture, they smell better.
May 31, 2009
@Kid Eponym –
That’s a really good explanation. But if I only know that the gunsel is supposed to be the gunman, the story can still be enjoyed if it’s any good. It just means that the story isn’t as realistic as it could be. If the author is more concerned with creating the tension associated with the genre, it’s not a big issue.
So the problem could be the poor writers. We need a means of testing the theory that 90% of everything being crap, to see if the percentage has changed at all.
June 1, 2009
Every now and then I have this little dialogue in my head. It goes something like this:
“There’s too much creative work in the world already, and nothing I do ever goes anywhere. I should give up my creative ambitions.”
“So what should I do with all the spare time I have now that I’m not trying to create anything any more?”
“Well… I guess I could try writing that book I’ve had in my head for a while.”
The point is I could never give up the desire to create any more than I could give up the desire to breathe. No matter how tough it gets, how pointless it seems, how unnecessary I feel.
June 24, 2009
Your comic is awesomes!!!
This one in particular is particularly goooooooOODD!!
=-)
June 30, 2009
I’m with NS on this one. Stasis takes just as much effort as that creation/destruction malarkey, if not more so, and it’s not the kind of thing you can do by accident. And even staying the same for half an hour doesn’t mean you’re totally static – at the start you’re a person who’s decided to stay the same; at the end you’re a person who’s spent half an hour studiously doing nothing. Stasis ain’t even an option.
July 21, 2009
Panel 4 ftw. The timing, the hammer instantly there as Cat hisses ‘Yessss’… pure gold.
July 21, 2009
sry, panel 5. i suck.
August 28, 2009
I think Cat had a BDD moment in panel 5!
October 16, 2009
I agree with David T. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the cold shadow of death. You could hurt yourself thinking about this comic too hard.
December 18, 2009
Dreaming Pixel, I still think about that question almost daily.
January 7, 2010
The purpose of making art is to communicate. If you write something that you feel just restates things that are better said in other great works of literature, but it reaches a new audience, then there’s a success right there.
October 4, 2013
Destruction vs Creation.
Eight weeks of boot camp negates Eight years of engineering schooling.