Carlo McCormick

Raymond Pettibon (born 1957) has created a vocabulary of characters that reappear consistently across his oeuvre. The most poetic and revealing of these may be the surfer, the solitary longboarder challenging a massive wave. This revised and expanded edition of Raymond Pettibon: Surfers 1985-2015, the first printing of which sold out almost immediately upon publication in 2014, features 20 additional works, as well as new color separations and jacket design. Nearly all the works depict an ocean roiling with chaotic swells, accompanied by non sequiturs, quotations and bits of poetry in the artist's handwriting. Organized chronologically, the publication traces the surfer series, from early small-scale monochrome India ink drawings to numerous examples from the 1990s when the artist introduced color, culminating with his recent large-scale works, some of which were executed directly on a wall. Rounding out the publication is a meditation by the writer Carlo McCormick.… (mer)

Unlike some of the other reviewers (on Amazon), I found the sobriety of the subjects (and by and large, they are VERY deadpan) a nice contrast to the elaborateness of the costumes. I'm not involved in the cosplay scene, so I can't comment (as some have done) to whether the costumes were "good" and "accurate" or not. One reviewer in particular sounds like they have a bad case of sour grapes not to have been included. A photographer will take probably thousands of photos for a book like this, and they can't use them all.

I enjoyed the photos, but I think Dorfman concentrated too strongly on Japanese-oriented costumers - those who are specifically tied to anime, manga and games in that style. I know there's plenty of WoW and Star Wars/Trek cosplayers, and tons of Steampunk fans, yet there were none represented. Generic "schoolgirls" and a catgirl, but not one Tauren, Stormtrooper, or zeppelin pilot. OK, maybe none of those photos were good enough for inclusion, I'm willing to cut her a little slack there. However...

Carlo McCormick's 5-page introduction is snarky, condescending and at times, nasty - though I'm sure in his infinite superiority over those pictured, he doesn't see it that way. "[T]his has got to be the nerdiest collection of hopeless geeks ever assembled," he says, and then backpedals a little with "they're also way cool." Whenever he offers some compliment, there's a slap next to it. He's an ART CRITIC, and knows nothing about cosplay, yet he comments as though these are all just silly and confused kids, experimenting with fashion. If you buy the book, I sincerely suggest you look only at the photos, because reading his intro will sour the experience for you. Perhaps you could use those five long pages of pedantic condescension as a place to paste in photos of YOUR costumed personae.

Recommendation: Get it used.… (mer)