Happy ten years! Can it really be that long since the Fifth Anniversary Clip Show Spectacular? As a devoted fan since 2001, I’ve waited way too long to say thank you.
Just the existence of Henry Darger makes my head spin. The facts of him. The art? It’s stunning but so’s a left to the jaw. Like a nasty drug that gives you nothing but flashbacks. Unfortunately, there has to be a healthy mind behind a piece of art for it to connect with healthy minds.
I spent my last year of higher edumacation studying Darger’s life and work. Concluded at the end of it that he was just another guy permanently traumatized in childhood by turn-of-the-century institutions. Also concluded that his landlord and landlord’s wife were exploitive as hell.
This is not as popular or exciting a theory as “homg he was a kiddie diddler”, I know. COLLEGE, WHY HAVE YOU CHEATED ME
Equating Darger with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Diane Arbus, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Mark Rothko and Vincent Van Gogh as a basis for argument pretty much starts at Fail.
[...] and Girl, the benevolent Philosopher-Queen of webcomics, is ten years old. Actually, it’s a bit more than ten years old, but Dorothy Gambrell is a modest sort, and [...]
I’d never heard of Henry Darger, but with all these weird comments about him I want to look into his work and see if it is at all worth reading. But, I can’t seem to find any of the textual components, just scattered illustrations and tons of “reviews” and “notes” about his work.
How did everyone else find any of his work to evaluate one way or the other? It seems lots of people in this thread have read some of it or something, but I can’t find anything online or at my local libraries.
I love you Dorothy Gamble. We all do. For God’s sake, keep on living the dream and making references I don’t understand. You are a ray of ho[e in a bleak and unfealing world. :)
g, Dorothy; neither Henry Darger nor Lewis Carroll were actually pedophiles. Both had a rather unusual fascination with little girls, but neither ever exhibited any pedophilic behavior, let alone any sexual interest of any kind in any humans, from what I’ve read.
At the same time, it’s a perfectly unreasonable leap of illogic to turn that into “pedophilia” in Cat’s mind, so I’ve no quibble with the line.
Before the month is out, let me add my congratulations on ten years of consistent and excellent work.
I described Bad Decision Dinosaur to a colleague I met at Origins Game Fair who had never heard of the strip. From the mere description of the Napoleon episode alone, she tweeted “BAD DECISION DINOSAUR IS FULL OF WIN!”
Which looked at the right way is an excellent sign. Keep up the amazing work, Dorothy, you are a benefit to humankind.
There are only the people who stick around long enough – the people who are good from the minute they start doing something get stuck somewhere in the middle and neither you nor I know who they are.
I highly disagree. There a people who are just plain good. Charles Dickens, Miguel Cervantes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Lord Byron, Soren Kierkegaard, et cetera. Those are just authors, but they’re the only artists I know about really, other than bands, but–well, I almost don’t consider them artists. There are people who just start out damned good and just keep being good. Charles Dickens wrote his best stuff on the fly. He also wrote his worst stuff that way, but whatever. I think the rest of us are just jealous of people like that.
g is right. It was little girls with penises. I recently watched a documentary on him titled “In the Realms of the Unreal”. I haven’t really researched him much before that so it’s hard to really say what his “thing” was.
I’ll admit the first time i saw his work, “Woah, Pedo!” pretty much summed up my reaction. The more you learn about him, the more it starts to seem that that’s not the case at all. He was certainly fascinated by children, though he reportedly almost never spoke to or interacted with them. I know absolutely f-all about psychology but i felt that he wasn’t really concerned with “children” the beings as much as “Children” the idea.
His writing centered around children (particularly girls) who were as strong, smart and capable as any adult and who were invariably struggling against oppression, enslavement or outright slaughter at the hands of adults.
Random Art Student hinted at actual abuse suffered by Darger as a child. To say he came from hella circumstances would be an understatement. By all accounts, he lived very much in his own head. His life, daily routine, work, seemed all to be for the point of his fantasy: mundane resource gathering to allow him to continue trying to save his childhood self, to continue to build the childhood he never lived.
The symbolism seems to support this. The ‘bad’ adults wear mortar boards or “professor hats” as he calls them. Obvious garb given Darger’s past with turn of the century Catholic schools, institutes for “feeble minded children” and educational authority figures in general. His equating of nudity to more celebratory, uninhibited moments might speak to his own shame shich was a tool often used keep people in check (again, think turn on the century religious institution).
As for his idea of the female form? Maybe he was genuinely ignorant and simply filling in the blanks with what he knew. There was never any mention of him taking a partner or showing interest in other people even non-sexually.
Sorry to put all this on a message board for a (brilliant) comic.
Phil had it right. We love You, our very own ray of ho[e. Thanks for showing the sort of dedication i can barely fathom. It’s earned you the dedication of the rest of us.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:01 am
Congratulations on ten years!
I just bumped a three year old desktop background for today’s strip.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:19 am
HA! The ultimate truth about Henry Darger.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 am
Happy ten years! Can it really be that long since the Fifth Anniversary Clip Show Spectacular? As a devoted fan since 2001, I’ve waited way too long to say thank you.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 am
OUCH! too close to life!
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:42 am
Just the existence of Henry Darger makes my head spin. The facts of him. The art? It’s stunning but so’s a left to the jaw. Like a nasty drug that gives you nothing but flashbacks. Unfortunately, there has to be a healthy mind behind a piece of art for it to connect with healthy minds.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 am
Oh, and Happy Anniversary. I’ve enjoyed every picture and every word. That I understood.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 am
wait wait wait is this about a webcomic or tenure?
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 am
I love your comic! Thanks for still being around!
If you had quit years ago, I probably would never have discovered it just recently.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:51 am
congrats!
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Nice.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:59 am
The Road Less Traveled
I quit 10 years ago and a day hasn’t gone by when I didn’t regret it.
Best wishes for your next 10!
– MrJM
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
I spent my last year of higher edumacation studying Darger’s life and work. Concluded at the end of it that he was just another guy permanently traumatized in childhood by turn-of-the-century institutions. Also concluded that his landlord and landlord’s wife were exploitive as hell.
This is not as popular or exciting a theory as “homg he was a kiddie diddler”, I know. COLLEGE, WHY HAVE YOU CHEATED ME
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
the flaming lips joke is priceless… now people are looking at me for laughing at work….
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
@Ross Hershberger: “Unfortunately, there has to be a healthy mind behind a piece of art for it to connect with healthy minds.”
I couldn’t agree less! F. Scott Fitzgerald? Diane Arbus? Elvis Presley? Kurt Cobain? Mark Rothko? Vincent Van Gogh?
If you don’t like Darger’s work, dislike it on its own merits, not because you’re making a judgment about his character.
More to the point, thanks Dorothy for Cat and Girl. Je love!
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Congrats. Can’t believe i’ve been reading since – oh god, must be 2001 or 2002.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
If Henry Darger had quit, Dave Sim would not have come in second.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
TEN MORE YEARS!
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
[...] and Girl are ten years old. This anniversary makes them merely a month older than some blue website that didn’t notice [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
[...] and Girl are ten years old. This anniversary makes them merely a month older than some blue website that didn’t notice [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
What what? Wow. That’s good comics!
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Surely this comic’s point isn’t self-referential. I’ve been reading for six years and I don’t think I could do without it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Thank you for 10 years worth of comics.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:42 am
You realise that if you stopped making Cat and Girl, the average quality of webcomics would dip below the point where they’re of any value whatsoever?
June 24th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear Cat and Girl.
Happy birthday to you.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Congratulations.
Eleven more years to go before this comic can legally purchase alcohol. Keep on trucking!
June 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Equating Darger with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Diane Arbus, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Mark Rothko and Vincent Van Gogh as a basis for argument pretty much starts at Fail.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
[...] and Girl, the benevolent Philosopher-Queen of webcomics, is ten years old. Actually, it’s a bit more than ten years old, but Dorothy Gambrell is a modest sort, and [...]
June 24th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Great work on 10 years! Hope to be congratulating you in another 10. C&G is one of the guaranteed bright spots in my day.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I’d never heard of Henry Darger, but with all these weird comments about him I want to look into his work and see if it is at all worth reading. But, I can’t seem to find any of the textual components, just scattered illustrations and tons of “reviews” and “notes” about his work.
How did everyone else find any of his work to evaluate one way or the other? It seems lots of people in this thread have read some of it or something, but I can’t find anything online or at my local libraries.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Thank you so much Dorothy. You’re teh awesome, but you sure are no hero. Cat&Girl forever.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I love you Dorothy Gamble. We all do. For God’s sake, keep on living the dream and making references I don’t understand. You are a ray of ho[e in a bleak and unfealing world. :)
June 24th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Hope, I should say. Damn gin
June 25th, 2009 at 12:43 am
wait, Henry Darger a pedophile? has anyone posited this besides you? I’d never heard this before, it doesn’t seem to be part of his bio…
June 25th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Well, he constructed an entire mythology out of little girls in underpants. I guess he could plead the Lewis Carroll amendment.
I do envy his body of work. And there is no pun there.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:54 am
g, Dorothy; neither Henry Darger nor Lewis Carroll were actually pedophiles. Both had a rather unusual fascination with little girls, but neither ever exhibited any pedophilic behavior, let alone any sexual interest of any kind in any humans, from what I’ve read.
At the same time, it’s a perfectly unreasonable leap of illogic to turn that into “pedophilia” in Cat’s mind, so I’ve no quibble with the line.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
It’s easier to fit in a word balloon too.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Congrats on the 10 years! Cat and Girl will surely survive another decade. =]
June 29th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Before the month is out, let me add my congratulations on ten years of consistent and excellent work.
I described Bad Decision Dinosaur to a colleague I met at Origins Game Fair who had never heard of the strip. From the mere description of the Napoleon episode alone, she tweeted “BAD DECISION DINOSAUR IS FULL OF WIN!”
Which looked at the right way is an excellent sign. Keep up the amazing work, Dorothy, you are a benefit to humankind.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:18 am
i’m glad you went with crazy <3
September 21st, 2009 at 12:36 am
Actually, Dorothy, it wasn’t little girls in underpants — it was little girls with penises.
September 29th, 2009 at 12:31 am
There are only the people who stick around long enough – the people who are good from the minute they start doing something get stuck somewhere in the middle and neither you nor I know who they are.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:26 am
I highly disagree. There a people who are just plain good. Charles Dickens, Miguel Cervantes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Lord Byron, Soren Kierkegaard, et cetera. Those are just authors, but they’re the only artists I know about really, other than bands, but–well, I almost don’t consider them artists. There are people who just start out damned good and just keep being good. Charles Dickens wrote his best stuff on the fly. He also wrote his worst stuff that way, but whatever. I think the rest of us are just jealous of people like that.
February 11th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
g is right. It was little girls with penises. I recently watched a documentary on him titled “In the Realms of the Unreal”. I haven’t really researched him much before that so it’s hard to really say what his “thing” was.
I’ll admit the first time i saw his work, “Woah, Pedo!” pretty much summed up my reaction. The more you learn about him, the more it starts to seem that that’s not the case at all. He was certainly fascinated by children, though he reportedly almost never spoke to or interacted with them. I know absolutely f-all about psychology but i felt that he wasn’t really concerned with “children” the beings as much as “Children” the idea.
His writing centered around children (particularly girls) who were as strong, smart and capable as any adult and who were invariably struggling against oppression, enslavement or outright slaughter at the hands of adults.
Random Art Student hinted at actual abuse suffered by Darger as a child. To say he came from hella circumstances would be an understatement. By all accounts, he lived very much in his own head. His life, daily routine, work, seemed all to be for the point of his fantasy: mundane resource gathering to allow him to continue trying to save his childhood self, to continue to build the childhood he never lived.
The symbolism seems to support this. The ‘bad’ adults wear mortar boards or “professor hats” as he calls them. Obvious garb given Darger’s past with turn of the century Catholic schools, institutes for “feeble minded children” and educational authority figures in general. His equating of nudity to more celebratory, uninhibited moments might speak to his own shame shich was a tool often used keep people in check (again, think turn on the century religious institution).
As for his idea of the female form? Maybe he was genuinely ignorant and simply filling in the blanks with what he knew. There was never any mention of him taking a partner or showing interest in other people even non-sexually.
Sorry to put all this on a message board for a (brilliant) comic.
Phil had it right. We love You, our very own ray of ho[e. Thanks for showing the sort of dedication i can barely fathom. It’s earned you the dedication of the rest of us.