The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

For those that follow these things both Alison Bechdel and David Heatley have 2 pagers in the latest issue of UK literary mag Granta. Issue 104 has just shipped and has a theme of ‘Fathers’. Bechdel produces a kind of little epilogue to ‘Fun Home’ in a summation of her relationship with her father – capped by a moment of epiphany perhaps not so overtly present in the book. Her dad’s Mick Jagger shot does seem like that of a rock star (or a portrait of Vaughn Bode). Strangely her taking the shot revealed here jars with the actual shot – perhaps pointing out how memory can be very different from reality.

The Heatley piece is written rather than drawn – and comes with photos of the wooden dad toy he made to sell at comic conventions. I didn’t like it in writing or sentiment – it is what it is. As a bonus for those of a graphic bent there is an excellent set of photos from Kevin Cummins – important to me as I grew up, as a photographer on NME and other mags – which capture the bruised innocence of a bunch of wrestlers in a cross between Arbus’s love of the freakish and Mapplethorpe’s body worship.