C. F., MERE, PictureBox Inc., 2013.
In 2012 C.F. began to produce a series of more than a dozen mini-comics, which he distributed via Twitter. Each mini-comic offered a take on, and expansion upon, a classic comic strip genre-from crime and sci-fi to punk and sex-all of them infused throughout by C.F.'s absurdist humor and loose improvisatory drawing. Those comics, along with unpublished art and photos, are collected here. Introduction by Nicole Rudick.
There’s a distinct symbiosis in CF’s zines of both genre aesthetics found in euro-comix of the 70s & 80s along with a messiness that’s present in art brut & a casual culture of creation without perfection–this combination amounts to something very interesting. While there are, ostensibly, ‘narratives’ hidden throughout the volume, they refuse to develop in an articulated, followable fashion. Rather, CF insists upon simply presenting elements of a narrative, frames that seem like they’re out of order or missing important transitions, in order to present a structured chaos. Each zine seems to grow out of the former without any connecting thread.
The volume is organized not chronological, but rather in a fashion that gives a flow to the disjunctive zines. Printed monochromatically on beautiful pale paper, the volume has a great object-hood to it, a book art object even. A design object to be admired. But, luckily, for those who actually like to read books instead of just admiring their design, the content is at times hilarious, at times confusing, and always fascinating.
Nicole Rudick’s introduction to the volume paints a picture that leads to Benjamin’s ideas of the technological reproducability of art. It’s true, in a sense, that the zines the volume holds can and (arguably) should be reproduced over and over again, the machinic-entropy pushing further and further into the Rorschach like blur of toner onto a page, but ultimately there’s a heart to CF’s work that absolves any instability due to an often considered ‘out-moded’ form of technology, the photocopier.
While there’s not as much of an objective coherency in the volume as there was in the stand-alone zine, CITY-HUNTER, much of what I noted of CITY-HUNTER can be applied to the zines found within. The character of Main Dice, introduced in CITY-HUNTER, pops up again and again in various genre permutations, often pitted against a figured named Ven, sometimes to be killed, other times to be changed, but always to be dynamic. In addition to the brief (a-)narrative comic fragments, the volume is also filled with drawings, studies, sketches, all offered in CF’s simultaneously shaky & controlled hand.
A true joy to read and experience, to dip in and out of at will, CF’s MERE offers insight into the working praxis of one of the most interesting comic artists making work today. - Impossible Mike
CR Sunday Interview: Christopher Forgues (C.F.)
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_interview_christopher_forgues_cf/
C.F., Powr Mastrs vol. 1, PictureBox Inc., 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPgNwufd0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFfBK7CPNWc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9KYOju5Chs
Powr Mastrs is an intense fantasy story in which C.F. narrates the story of a tribe of mystical beings whose power relations are constantly in flux. As power shifts, so do physical and psychological identities. In this first volume, we are introduced to the central characters and begin to understand the complex geography in which they wander.
According to The Comics Reporter, "If a reader were to pick up on any one cartoonist working at a furious and considered and accomplished pace right below the radar of most comics fans, C.F. might be the best choice." This first book by C.F. (also known in the East Coast underground music scene as Kites) is perhaps the most anticipated graphic novel debut of the year. Coming out of the fabled Providence, Rhode Island, art and noise scene, Powr Mastrs is an intense fantasy story projected to run to 10 volumes. In it, C.F. narrates the story of a tribe of mystical warriors whose power relations are constantly in flux. As power shifts, so do physical and psychological identities. In this first volume, we are introduced to the central characters and the complex geographies in which they wander. Overflowing with graphic ideas, from the intricately designed costumes each character wears to C.F.'s exacting architectural detail, Powr Mastrs is rendered in a distinctive pencil line that has already attracted much attention in sources like the groundbreaking comics anthology, Kramers Ergot.
The first of a projected ten-volume series by Chris Forgues, who signs his comics work as C.F., sets the scene for what, if completed, will be an epic experimental comic series unlike any seen before in the U.S. Though it bears no remote stylistic resemblance to Japanese manga, the book puts one in mind of such works, both because of its long-form multivolume approach featuring a large cast of characters and its way of making the reader feel slightly lost in an unfamiliar form and culture. It reads like the dream of someone who spent all night copying art out of the Dungeons and Dragons manuals while watching Yellow Submarine over and over. Multiple story threads are introduced, including one about Subra Ptareo, a naïve young man who wanders fantastical landscapes on a vague quest to purge himself of some imaginary or real poison. Other characters include Lady Minirex, who has an extended sex scene with a giant jellyfish, and Mosfet Warlock, who harnesses vaporized chrysanthemums to turn corpses into living metal. Drawn in graphite pencil without color or shading, the deliberately unpolished artwork has a raw appeal, particularly in the author's penchant for fantastic environments where geometrical patterns integrate with organic nature tableaux. - Publishers Weekly
Naive in the best possible way, C.F.’s Powr Mastrs captivated me over a year ago when I bought this volume based only on word of mouth. I hadn’t seen a single panel and from the elaborate logo and no-nonsense pricing and credits below, I thought maybe I was in for a stern sword-and-sorcery epic. And yes, it’s a fantasy, but with soft edges instead of gleaming swords and chains, shy smiles instead of grimaces.
That’s not to say it’s a spoof or deconstruction, but C.F. is taking his time getting around to the heroic journey, and that’s fine with me (that’s assuming there definitely in one, as I’ve yet to read the second and third volumes). Right now, he’s setting up the world of “Known New China” and its colorful cast of witches, warlocks, warriors, organic robots and shadowy ids.
So many characters are either in the process of transforming, already changed, or able to shift between different presentations of their selves that it all works as a delightfully fresh metaphor for the transition between adolescence and adulthood, especially offhand way C.F. digresses from anything that smacks of forward narrative momentum into the sweetly childish scenes of the Sub-Men, who look and act like they came out of Yellow Submarine. These are actually important scenes in the sense that they help build up a believable world with its own barter system, though most of the diverse creatures get along well enough that one wonders from where the conflict will emerge.
It’s fun trying to get in the author’s head a bit, wondering why he stops at this or that point to add overtly sexual elements to an otherwise innocent work starring a boy in a furry costume not a million miles away from Where the Wild Things Are. The rigid lines, while showy and a way for C.F. to directly reach his audience and remind them he’s there making the work for them, also seem to be a way to make sense of the confusing world of adulthood that’s peopled with deceitful, two-faced practitioners of magic and strange science. It’s an astonishing piece of art that leaves an impression of innocent talent to be protected even after several pages of human female/male jellyfish tentacle sex that would be purely gratuitous in most hands. And the other gift is that every time one looks at the book again, it’s hard to fight the impulse to draw. Invigorating, rewarding work.—Christopher Allen
Words cannot describe my appreciation for the underground comic artist C.F. I've become an out-of-control collector of any & all of his works, be them prints or comics... His epic fantasies have featured in (and on the cover of) KRAMER'S ERGOT, while he has published several titles with PICTUREBOX INC, including the beautifully crafted POWR MASTRS Vol. 1 & 2.
POWR MASTRS chronicles a world of science-fiction and fantasy, driven by wildly sexual & violent adventures, and a quest for power. Some characters within 'Known New China', include Mosfet the Warlock, a form-defying creator who's temperament could induce life or death, and Tetradyne Cola, a systematic dreamer with a cola habit. Amongst a world of other darkly strange and wonderful characters, they interact with a humerously mundane dialogue. Genders are blurred, psychology and physicality is tested, and POWR MASTRS is my favourite thing in the whole world! - beigebeigebeige.blogspot.com/
C.F., Powr Mastrs vol. 2, PictureBox Inc., 2008.
In this second volume, C.F.'s epic fantasy picks up steam: Buell Kazee sneaks down into the cellar of the plex knowe crypt and conjures trouble; Tetradyne Cola takes a nap and dreams of Monica Glass and the lemon sparklers of star studio; members of the Marker clan compare notes on their magical crimes and the witches of Lace Temblor conspire over transmutation night.
The second installment in a planned six-novel cycle from Providence, R.I.–based artist Chris Forgues (aka C.F., who records music as Kites and self-publishes the comic Low Tide) comes with a map and illustrative list of all major characters; readers will need the help. There are great beasts and disturbed individuals (with names like Buell Kazee and Mosfet Warlock), all navigating narratives of madness and violence in a woozily concocted world that centers around something called the Plex Knowe Crypt. C.F.'s style is that of the vaguely disturbed outsider artist, replete with spurting fluids and grievous bodily harm, shot through with the occasional blast of Yellow Submarine–era psychedelia. The stories don't make much impact on their own but appear to be tiny glimpses of an epic fantasy brewing in the artist's mind. Unfortunately, until the entire work is unveiled, Powr Mastrs will most intrigue readers who crave new frontiers in graphic novel expression. - Publishers Weekly
In Powr Mastrs Vol. 2 (PictureBox), the Rhode Island cartoonist known as C.F. upends superhero orthodoxy in a style nearly the polar opposite of F. C. Ware's rigorous lines and curves. (C.F.'s scratchy, free-associative stories set in "Known New China" do, however, owe a whole heap of debt to Gary Panter's Dal-Tokyo multiverse.) No fanboy shame whatsoever accrues as characters of ambiguous sexuality undertake mysterious missions in Powr Mastr's main setting, Oxbow Woods and environs. - Richard Gehr
"Powr Mastrs" Volume 2 is certainly not for everyone. If you don't like a certain degree of aesthetic primitivism in your comic book panels, or if you don't like dreamlike narrative development that implies more than explains, then you will probably turn away from "Powr Mastrs" in disgust. Of course, the explicit sexuality and male nudity may be more than enough to repel a certain percentage of potential readers, but I suspect than anyone capable of getting offended at those images probably won't be able to get past the first few "crudely-drawn" pages anyway.
This is a PictureBox comic, after all -- home of Gary Panter art books and former Fort Thunder artists galore. So it doesn't look anything like your average issue of "Ms. Marvel" or "Nightwing." It looks, on first glance, like an amateurish attempt at some kind of Tolkeinesque fantasy world, with tarantula men and elves, blue princesses and submarines. "Powr Mastrs" openly rejects traditional comic book page layouts and storytelling techniques, striving for something more primal and confrontational. I don't think this is an ugly comic -- in fact, I think it's beautiful in its own way -- but it challenges the accepted notion of comic book beauty on every single page.
"Powr Mastrs" is the work of Paper Rad artist C.F. (aka Chris Forgues), and in this second of a planned six volumes, C.F. further develops the oddball fantasy world which he begat over a year ago in the first volume. Volume 2 is difficult to summarize, and a plot summary would do little to evoke the subtle discord inherent in every sequence, but let me take a stab at it anyway: Mosfet Warlock, scientist/wizard-type, has created a bunch of deviant humanoids who he keeps in a "comfortable prison" called Plex Knowe Crypt. The strange inhabitants of the "Crypt," like Cool George Herc (he of the severely mis-proportioned body), have initiated a plan to breed a "super warrior" who will overthrow Mosfet Warlock. Then there's a subplot involving Steven (who wears what looks to be the clothing of Ronald McDonald) bashing things with his "lariat." And a fight between Tetradyne Cola and a tarantula man known as Darman Orry. And really, there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on too, all seemingly linked together in ways we don't yet understand.
So how can this comic, which sounds ridiculous and looks amateurish, be any good?
Because even though it seems to embrace the trappings of the fantasy genre, it pushes it in new directions. For every D&D cliché, C.F. provides a new twist, an unsettling one. Not unsettling because of some gruesome horror, but because the narrative follows a rhythm to which we are unaccustomed. It feels like an alien version of a familiar story, and that kind of approach can be thrilling.
Plus, it operates on the level of poetry. To paraphrase T. S. Eliot, "Powr Mastrs" suggests rather than states. The plot details made explicit are undermined by the relentlessly sincere absurdity of the entire comic. Narrative bits tell the reader what's going on, but the images are so odd, the characterizations so unusual, that the parts that normally would make sense don't make the conventional kind of sense that we're used to.
I'm not saying that "Powr Mastrs" Volume 2 is good just because it's different. I'm saying it's good because C.F. has smashed the preconceptions about what an "art comic" should be and what a fantasy comic should be, and he's done it in a way that makes for exciting reading. It might take a couple of reads through the 104 pages of story to fall into its rhythms, but once you immerse yourself in C.F.'s wonderfully odd world, you will see the beauty beneath its apparently ugly façade. - Tim Callahan
In the third volume in C.F.'s Dune-like science fiction/fantasy epic, Powr Mastrs is overflowing with graphic ideas from the intricately designed costumes each character wears to the exactingly drawn architectural details, all rendered in C.F.'s distinctive pencil line.
Powr Mastrs Vol. 3--brainchild of C.F., who emerged from the fabled Providence, Rhode Island, art and noise scene and who also performs under the monikers Kites and Daily Life--is one of the most anticipated graphic novels of the year. This latest installment continues C.F.'s Dune-like science fiction/fantasy epic featuring a misguided scientist and the race of beings he has created, who inhabit a surreal world called New China. The narrative follows the ever-shifting power relations of these mystical warriors who transform their physical and psychological identities each time the tide of power turns. Powr Mastrs Vol. 2 hit over a dozen "top-ten graphic novels of 2008" lists, both volumes 1 and 2 have been described by Vice Magazine as "dark doors into the stunningly fantastic," and The Village Voice has noted that "the homemade arcane dominates in C.F.'s sexy danger world." This third installment is no exception: it overflows with graphic innovation, from the intricately designed costumes each character wears to the exactingly drawn architectural detail, all rendered in C.F.'s distinctive pencil line. In this volume, C.F. firmly takes the reins both as a visual and comics artist, making a book as essential to the practice of drawing as to the graphic novel.
Comics art places such a massive emphasis on "style" that sometimes it can get hard to talk about the stuff at all without using that word. Even at the most basic level, you can undercut the panels by putting them in the big boxes of "cartoon style" or "realistic style" and letting that suffice. "Style", as it's all too often laid out in comics discussions, has the opposite effect of actual artistic stylisms: it robs the work of individuality, assigning it to a junkheap of other artists whose drawings hit the eye in only the most tangentially similar of ways.
Which is why CF's art is so interesting. It seems to fall neither here nor there, not traditionally realist, but with none of the usual cartoon drawing inflections either. It's at no great pains to do anything but depict the actuality of its subject: no crosshatching or shading to "real things up", no iconographic shortcuts. There is only the picture in the panel, looking not as it looks in real life or as it's typically set down in comic books. CF's drawings look like drawings, the captured forms of real or imagined things. And yet nothing of reality's visual noise or imagination's evasiveness makes it into the images. Everything is natural, sprung from a single source, uninterrupted by story or influence or the workings of the mind. About the natural, CF says "I'm trying to appeal to this part of nature which has a terrifying quality. But it's kind of beautiful at the same time." There is no mechanical element or over-construction to the pictures. All that's there is the lines and the blanks, the whites and the blacks, pure and unadulterated. "I always liked seeing raw pencils in comics," he explains. "I would always wish that was the comic. Cause it's magic..."
And it really is. It's easy to see an alchemy on CF's pages, where the homogenizing element of craft and the authorial voice imposed by cartooned stylizations are both stripped away. One primitive tool, the pencil, puts everything down, and then it is done. If there is any authorial voice to CF's linework, it comes from not from the artist but the tool he uses. Seething inside each sleek, perfect line is the humanity inherent in the pencil itself, roughness and expression screaming from the grit and constant irregularity of the graphite trails. No line or black space runs completely uninterrupted: look close and you can see scratches and scuffles, a million individual variations which cannot be counted one by one as a part of the artist's intention. If CF is behind these blips of imperfection, it's as their conceptualizer, the mind that accedes to them -- not the actual hand making them. The lines' forms and symmetries are straight, balanced, perfect. The tool itself, the way it goes down onto the paper, is what brings the chaos. Pencil does not slide across the page like ink, it does not throw perfect, silent blacks and move on. It's dust. It lingers, tiny particles that actually move with every breath of air that hits them. It has an energy of its own. To CF, "energy has nothing to do with people or ideas. It's like an invincibility formation." And there is something beyond the human in the drawing. It simply exists first, a pure visual, and only imparts story or character second.
Where the human mind behind the art comes in is with the composition. "Composition is the most important thing," the artist says. "It dictates everything. Composition's so weird... those power structures... that's why one corporation succeeds and one fails, composition. And if you don't have it you will perish. That's why they're constantly trying to destroy artists and discredit artists, because it's so powerful." There's no evasion to CF's compositions, whether the layouts of the total pages or the pictures in the boxes. They present themselves. The subject exists as the center of each image, and everything proceeds from there, the logic of the drawings trumping the overly familiar style rules of most comics art. The panels are naked, totally open with what they show us, addressing their subject matter in the simplest and most direct way possible. If a similarity with other artists' work creeps into CF's drawings, it's here: Jack Kirby chased the same unadulterated purity, and Moebius found a similar Zen simplicity of presentation. The look of the work itself has less to do with either titan of comics art than that of many others (to my eye its delicate forms and gravity-defying dreamlike quality is closest to Winsor McCay) -- but the connection exists, and on a deep level. It all draws from the same sources of "raw forms becoming more differentiated tissue. They're a form of energy and they've always been with us."
But the things that go into the drawings -- those subjects -- are important too, and CF pulls from a seemingly endless font of visual ideas that occupy the same raw, vital space as the substance of the lines themselves do. The forms and objects are never completely divorced from reality, but they aren't the solid certainties that most comics art deals in exclusively. CF draws people and environments that, like ours, are alive, constantly growing, expanding and withering, forever locked into a process of transformation, changing into something we've never seen before. Even his machines shift shapes between the panels. His abstract designs mirror the contours and motions of light and darkness through the air, or the shapes that dance behind our eyes when we close them. It's all real, it all exists, it's just rarely made it onto the page before. CF draws in thrall to the world, mixing its rarer, stranger elements into new things inside the panels. In his surrender to his tools, his exhibition of free imagination, his willingness to let his art be dictated by outside forces, he paradoxically becomes one of the medium's most individual artists. Other things speak through him. "I feel like I'm always trying to stop drawing and stop making anything," he says. "I'd like to quit. I don't think anybody can be good at anything until they decide to quit." deathtotheuniverse.blogspot.com/
I've written about "Powr Mastrs" at CBR before. I reviewed volume 2, back in December of 2008, and that book subsequently cracked my Top 10 list of that year. I described it as "bizarre Tolkeinesque fantasy scenarios mixed with oodles of absurdity and artistic primitivism." That's a fair description, but it leaves a lot out. It's what you'd see on the surface, if you were to crack open the book and read a sequence or two. But that description makes it sound like a PictureBox version of "Skullkickers," and that's not what it is at all. While recent-internet-hype-machine-darling "Skullkickers" takes the gaming archetypes and blends them into a grinning, winking, violent romp, C. F. builds worlds.
The allure of "Powr Mastrs," and I will say that I found Volume 3 a bit weaker that the previous two volumes, mostly because of the digressions from the already-digressive central plot, comes from its familiar strangeness. It has an iconic power, it evokes connections to basic story archetypes – the storyteller, the questing hero, the mystic, the prisoner, the group with the mysterious agenda – and yet its narrative is paced at a tempo that keeps it slightly out of sync with what we've been conditioned to expect as consumers of story.
It's not just a rejection of the comics-as-storyboard-for-the-inevitable-movie approach that has become, understandably, popular, but it's a rejection of the traditional interaction between characters in narrative space. The grammar of comics isn't upended – if anything, the panel-to-panel continuity is the easiest, most comfortable part of the reading experience of "Powr Mastrs" – but the action and interactions are often puzzling. And that shocking sense of uncertainty and even anxiety – what do these characters want, exactly, and why are they doing what they're doing – creates a distinct sense of wonder.
I don't mean that as a joke, in the sense that we wonder what the heck is going on, although that is partially true, but in the sense that the world of New China, mapped out by C. F. obliquely in the opening pages of the volume, is a bizarre and unfamiliar place, even though it feels familiar because of the archetypal characters and cleanly-designed pages. For me, it resonates because it recalls the very thing that drew me to comics as a young reader, that sense that within a given issue you can only see a corner of a much larger fictional world, and all of the character interactions are strange because the years (or decades) of history only hinted at.
C. F. replicates that experience by evoking more than he identifiably describes. It helps that he's established a large cast of diverse characters and they are all drawn distinctly, almost to the point where they look like they each inhabit a different fictional universe (and maybe they do, and their interaction is cross-genre blending that helps to give a sense of scope to what is a dream-like fantasy world of the future).
I won't try to summarize the plot of "Powr Mastrs" for those of you who haven't yet read it. The plot may matter by the time the series concludes (at volume 6? Or 10?), but it doesn't yet. As I've tried to advocate so often in my writing for CBR, it's not the what that matters, but the how. And the how of "Powr Mastrs" Volume 3 is strangeness and uncomfortable beauty. It's stories within stories, narrative derailments that recall thematic concerns, if not plot-driven ones. It's declarations of art: "If you want to leave your mark," says Ajax Lacewing, as he lightly punches another character, "why bother with devices? Just reach out and do it!" It's reflections on humanity: "I feel how difficult and painful it will be to change myself," says Subra Ptareo, as he immerses himself in a transformative black tarp, which draws upon his memories and hides him from the world outside.
It's all of that and, yes, it might be a bit less compelling than the previous volumes, but it's one that I will certainly reread again soon. Like the other books in the series, it has a haunting quality, not because there's anything horrific or frightening in its pages, not traditionally so, but because it hints and teases and then pulls away. It has an unsettling emptiness at its edges, and a powerful, iconic core.- Tim Callahan
Thanks to the wonders of the Amazon Wish List I managed to score a mother load of great comics over the holidays, POWR MASTRS 3 was the first one I wanted to read. Christopher Forgues, otherwise known as the enigmatic CF
in comics circles first launched POWR MASTRS in 2007 as a now (almost)
annual series of graphic novellas. Each volume is a little over 100
pages and features a day glow flexi-bound cover with foil stamped
graphics. The cover design is consistent from volume to volume with only
the color scheme and volume number changing on the front cover, and a
selection of interior artwork featured on the back (also foil stamped.)
The sleek exterior design serves as contrast to CF's trademark raw
interiors which feature experiments with xerography, white-out and
erasure marks, and craftily though seemingly semi-rendered pencil line.
Although it was the first thing in the stack I read it somewhat left me
scratching my head. This volume was different, more narratively abstract
and decompressed then my memories of the first two. I didn't know quite
what to make of it so I decided to reread the first two volumes for
narrative and structural context.
For
those of you not familiar with the series I'll try to provide a quick
rundown. POWR MASTRS takes place in a world called New China. For the
most part New China is a place out of time with elements of sword &
sorcery fantasy alongside those of techno-science fiction. There are
overtones of conceptual art mysticism throughout and the general social
architecture of New China is completely mysterious and seemingly
chaotic. Fetishistic sexuality is a major theme throughout all the
volumes, something that CF blends seamlessly with magic and mystery of
POWR MASTRS. The characters within are more like forces of nature or
emotional avatars, gods almost, wandering through New China on their own
schedules possessed of their own devices. The first character you meet
is Subra Ptareo, a young masked adventurer who finds himself seemingly
lost on a quest he only vaguely understands. The masked nature of this
character creates the perfect subjective vessel for the reader to place
his or herself into, so it's a useful character to encounter first. POWR
MASTRS 1 launches a lot of narrative ships, at least five give or take.
These threads interact slightly but not much narrative progress is made
despite the relative high density of the first issue. In POWR MASTRS 2
CF begins a process of decompression that may have left some of the more
traditionally minded readers unsatisfied. There isn't much progress in
narrative either and it leads one to wonder if CF ever intends for there
to be. A few new characters are introduced in volume 2, including
Steven, an agent of chaos who first appears in KRAMER ERGOT 6.
On an visual note we are also introduced to full-color sequences that
feature CF's beautiful watercolors, a welcome addition to the otherwise
clean, stark line.
Volume
3 opens with the introduction of Bashton Riyder, a racer charged with
the task of cross-polinating the flora of New China. Vegetation and
natural wonder is another visual theme that can be found in all three
volumes, New China being presented as a wild, Eden-like realm
underscoring the inherent sexuality of the work. The Bashton Riyder
sequence immediately reminded me of a famous sequence from Moebius'
ARZAK where a lone character races across a desert landscape to begin
the story. It's a nice way to re-enter the world, like being shot into
orbit. Moebius, and now CF, are masters of fantasy and ask us dive in
head first with no promise of safe waters. I could write a whole essay
on the parallels between these two artists but I'll leave that for
another time.
The
story abruptly shifts from blistering speed to total stasis as we
return to the character Jim Bored. Jim Bored is a man who lives in a
hole in the floor. He's introduced in volume 1 and used throughout as a
humorous framing device with only witty word balloons escaping from his
personal void. The sequence begins with an almost abstract exploration
of the pure space of Jim Bored lair. The architectural sequences are
almost reminiscent of the experimental strips of Blaise Larmee,
an artist that is often compared with CF. Each volume of POWR MASTRS
opens with a vague warning shot from the author and in this volume the
words "I SEE YOU PEOPLE TRY TO BITE MY WORK - DISSAPOINTING - FOLLOW
YOUR OWN STAR!" is inscribe on the TOC page, surely a reference to the
controversial blog post Larmee wrote about CF's influence recently, which CF directly addresses as well in his interview for TAFFY HIPS #8.
It's an interesting subtext throughout the volume with CF raising the
spectre of the polemic surrounding his work, even more so considering
how formalistically adventurous POWR MASTRS 3 is compared to the
previous volumes.
CF
seemingly takes us on a guided journey through his own stylistic
spectrum in the sequences titled "Rhino's Antique Gravity Gun" and "The
Seal Breaker's Ice Box!", both presented as "Jim Bored's Fantasy
Classics". In these sequences CF uses Jim Bored to recount his
reminiscences of entertainment which are presented as full-color
episodes featuring the stripped-down naive style of CF's early work such
as his KRAMER ERGOT 4
strip. It's a jarring contrast both visually and narratively compared
with the fully evolved figure drawing of the main sequences in which CF
almost resembles Steve Rude in economy and natural comics simplicity.
The "Jim Bored's Fantasy Classics" sequences aren't the only time he
goes completely off the reservation, at one point during a scene
featuring Subra Ptareo in a self-confined sweat hut the sequence goes
fully abstract in a selection that would fit neatly between the covers
of Andrei Molotiu's ABSTRACT COMICS.
There
is a third aside later in the volume, this time told from the
perspective of Pico, the spritely collector of curiosities who always
directly addresses the reader. This time she introduces us to a
mechanism that you load with cassettes to experience entertainment,
although it's not certain whether or not it's interactive like a
Nintendo or passive like a VCR. Either way we are demoed a sequenced
titled "Hang Airborg 11" which is highly action packed. It's the first
time where the genre subtext of POWR MASTRS comes nakedly to the
forefront in a semi-parody of action-adventure comics. The sequence ends
with the gruesome disembowelment of Kang the Conquerer's long lost
cousin. Oh yeah, let's not forget about the full color bondage and
spanking scene in the middle of this volume which hit's all the NSFW
high notes. As with volume 2, volume 3 continues the process of
narrative decompression which at this point becomes comfortable to the
reader. You stop asking yourself where we are going and just sit back
and enjoy (although always with a twinge of nausea and arousal in your
guts.) If you are to believe the clues in Sammy Harkham edited Simpsons Tree House of Horrors issue there will be at least 2 more volumes of POWR MASTRS and the next one will be yellow. I can't wait to see it.
C.F., Powr Mastrs Vol. 4, PictureBox, 2013.
Providence artist and musician C.F.'s ongoing saga Powr Mastrs has been described as an unsettling hybrid of Jack Kirby and Henry Darger. This fourth installment continues his exploration of the lives and activities of the denizens of the ever-shifting mystical realm of New China. Featuring characters not seen since volume one, a central part of this new volume is an extended erotic sequence that combines a corset-bound atmosphere of Victoriana with a discomforting science-fiction dystopia, all executed in C.F.'s delicate lines and immaculate compositions that combine the harsh geometries of Donald Judd with the lush figuration of John Currin. The Powr Mastrs series has been praised by Vice Magazine as "dark doors into the stunningly fantastic," and The Village Voice has noted that "the homemade arcane dominates in C.F.'s sexy danger world."
C.F., Sediment, PictureBox Inc.
A chronicle of C.F.'s other-worldly imagery. This thick paperback, printed on thick water-color paper, as french folds (that is, printed on only one side of each sheet), is divided into a few sections: Pencil drawings of narrative moments that seem to parallel his Powr Mastrs graphic novel series and painted character portraits, revealing ideas about figuration and fashion.
C.F., Core of Caligula, PictureBox Inc.
Core of Caligula is C.F.'s ongoing series of "daily life" comics. Funny, a little scary, and all together compelling, they follow an unnamed man as he tries to figure out who or what he is. Marked by the usual gorgeous drawing and design.
C.F., Blond Atchen & The Bumble Boys page 7, PictureBox Inc.
An original page for Blond Atchen & The Bumble Boys: Including Weapons – "In The Second's Lair" from The Ganzfeld 4 and The Best American Comics. 2003-2004.
C.F., Blond Atchen & The Bumble Boys page 5, PictureBox Inc.
An original page for Blond Atchen & The Bumble Boys: Including Weapons – "In The Second's Lair" from The Ganzfeld 4 and The Best American Comics. 2003-2004.
C.F., City Hunter, PictureBox Inc.
An expanded version of C.F.'s zine. It's a mix of drawings, comics, photos and prose. Or, as Frank Santoro said in naming it one of 2010's best: "Lots of backgrounds with “Main Dice” the main character swinging down the street. Lots of “straight talk” from the editor of the Fantasy Empire Magazine company. It’s like CF made his own b&w action comic and worried more about how the indicia and logo would look than the story – so it’s kind of perfect."
C.F., Untitled (Girl), PictureBox Inc.
A beautifully printed lithograph from C.F. on heavy, woven paper. This piece showcases his sense of line, color and form in perfect detail. When this came off the press even the printer was amazed by its clarity and depth of tone.
C.F., Lone Disguiser (one page comic), PictureBox Inc., 2010.
C.F., Lowest Common Denominator, PictureBox Inc.
Drawings made uniquely for this format comprise explorations into new forms and erotica. Brilliant, advanced work.
CF is a Providence-based artist and musician. He has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Providence, Athens, Tokyo and Switzerland. His books include Powr Mastrs volumes 1 through 3, as well as Core of Caligula and City Hunter. His work is marked by a precise, electric line and unique visions of parallel modes of being. He performs as Mark Lord, Daily Life, and, every so often, Kites.
He widely considered one of the most important graphic novels of the 21st century.
http://www.theheavymental.com/articles/c-f/
“You Have To Make A Space” by Matt Seneca
Beto versus CF – Layout Workbook 12
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