Friday, December 27, 2013

Arty Farty Friday ~ Chris Ware

American illustrator, comic book artist and cartoonist, Chris Ware has a birthday coming up tomorrow,
28 December. I like his spare, crisp style and subtle colours. I like the spirit of this illustration and I found in it an echo of his natal Saturn-Uranus opposition - tradition versus modernity. When I looked at his date of birth, having set up a 12 noon natal chart for him, his Saturn-Uranus opposition stood out: Saturn at 5 Aries and Uranus at 29 Virgo, not in opposite signs, but well within orb - or limit - of what is mathematically accepted in astrology as an opposition. Mr Ware's sparse style reflects Sun/Mercury in restrictive, structured Capricorn - and his mode of operation also includes the old and the new. Wikipedia tells us:
"Although his precise, geometrical layouts may appear to some to be computer-generated, in fact Ware works almost exclusively with "old-fashioned" drawing tools such as paper and pencil, rulers and T-squares. He does, however, sometimes use photocopies and transparencies, and employs a computer to color his strips."



A few samples of Chris Ware's work shown below. Much of his work needs a bigger image than I can provide here, in order to do it justice. Type his name into Google Image's search box though, and see many more examples - you'll always be able to recognise his work instantly afterwards!





 Enlarged version of part of this is below



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4 comments:

mike said...

He's also known for his writing! I became aware of Chris Ware some time ago through boingboing.net. Here's a boingboing search that is full of interviews and articles about Chris Ware:
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-2170174688585464%3Ad58nno-rqp8&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=chris+ware&siteurl=#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=chris%20ware&gsc.page=1

One of the boingboing articles is about his Fortune 500 design:
"It's not surprising that the editors of Fortune rejected cartoonist Chris Ware's fantastic cover for the May 2010 issue. It contains too much truth for comfort."

And from IndiePulp (linked to above):
"[Ware] showed a cover he did for Fortune magazine which was supposed to be on the Fortune 500 issue. He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. Treasuring being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos. The cover, needless to say, was rejected."


His astrology is interesting, too, as you indicated, Twilight. He has Virgo-Capricorn interplay, which I would attribute to his fine attention to linear, geometric detail. Likewise, he has planetary dispositors to his Mars-Saturn in mutual reception: bold, innovative, truthful style.

Twilight said...

mike ~ Thanks- yes I saw that he had written and illustrated at least one graphic novel. I liked the Fortune Cover.

Thanks for the link to BoingBoing - I watched an interview with Ware there just now (dated 25 May 2012).
Had to chuckle at his penchant for criticising his own work (very Virgo-related). He's serious in a very kindly way, not boring though.

He reminded me, in speech pattern and demeanour of an old workfriend of mine, also a talented artist, equally meticulous and honest (and another "Chris" as it happens)- but his Sun was in Aries (1 April) which I couldn't ever fathom.

mike (again) said...

He did the 1-6-2014 cover:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/12/cover-story-all-together-now.html

and he writes a good story about it and last year's cover.

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ Thanks for the heads-up. Very nice story and lovely covers. Good guy, I'd bet on it!