Meet Peepa ‘ and Moopa ‘`
They like to play on the beach
The waves are pipes made from sea foam ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The lifeguard looks like
?{ Alfred Hitchcock with a pipe ~{
Peepa jumps off the end of El Porto pipe pier ‘~~~
—|—|—|—|—‘`~~~ Moopa jumps kilter and akimbo
|’——–~~~ Peepa runs and dives |——–‘~~~
\~~~~~~’~~~’`~~~ They swim back to shore
In the evening when the sun goes down ~~~,~~~
they sleep on the beach and dream of waves
‘` ‘ \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~’~ sleepy wave eyes ~’`~
Peepa walks alone down to the water ‘ \ ~~~
Moopa awakes and cries ‘` Peepa, where are you?
Peepa comes running back to Moopa ‘` ‘ \~~~
The Coming of the Toads 
This is wonderful, Joe. I’ve for quite a while wondered how I might combine image and word, with the feel of hieroglyphs. In my own graphic art style it’s what I’ve been feeling around for. I want to make images which can simultaneously be “read” AND “viewed”. I could tell you, this sense, when I first encountered your blog, is one of the main things which made me return to follow you. I have this book entitled “The Animated Alphabet”, where different artists from different times explore the same hieroglyph sense of letters and words. You as a writer strip this idea down here and utilize it minimalistically. It suggests a kind of contemporary cabbala. Contemplating deeply single letters or individual words, really getting a deep feel and grasp of contour and sound as it’s wedded to its appearance, a hard edge, a curve. You get one looking and experiencing the marks and signs as animations. One aspect of the spirit of this goes back to grammar school when each of us were first learning how to write out letters and words. Making basic marks. The connection to childhood is extremely and vitally important, and you capture it here, in this fairytale which appeals to the universal, the child and the adult. I love this. It’s another thing which makes me grateful to have come across you.
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Well, cool. … And I’ve been thinking about a previous comment you made, where we were discussing verbal and non-verbal (music, drawing) art, where you suggest the art that comes up without words, and I’m thinking this can be found in certain kinds of writing, probably mostly poetry, where the writer has had just that non-verbal experience and attempts to put it into words, or uses words in such a way that they convey the non-verbal (paradoxically) experience. Such a poetics would be almost entirely informed by syllable, sound, rhythm, but mixed with connotation, association, suggestion. Another kind of poetics that mixes the lines of letters with the lines of drawing is concrete poetry, like we find in the Emmett Williams anthology. I have the original, but it’s also just been newly reissued.
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Joe, is this an adventure into the children’s book style with your own illustration?
Peepa and Moopa sound like loveable, friendly characters. Not too sure Alfred Hitchcock can claim to be as nice.
Are you sure that ‘Running an diving’is a good idea?B
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They have to run to make sure they clear the pier pilings. And if they jump at the wrong time, into a swell, they could get swept under the pier and into the pilings…. Yes, that ability to suspend judgment is a characteristic of a child’s point of view, the ability to pretend that many of us lose as we age (were’t we just talking about that sort of thing?). Anyway, it’s also a characteristic of fiction, including adult. And of comics of all kinds, both character and drawing. As for Hitchcock, I was looking to suggest a villain, or at least an antagonist, for Peepa and Moopa, and Alfred as a lifeguard I thought was funny – it’s so impossible in every way to imagine – while taking the comic up a notch from children’s lit to maybe something more general. I’m not sure where the line is for that. But Alfred doesn’t get developed, except for the pipe motif…. Testing the comics waters at this point. Thinking of creating some comics poems and comics essays, underdeveloped areas in the world of comics, apparently.
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It really is amusing and i love the names ‘Peepa and Moopa’.
You have such a crazy-fun way of viewing things, that a character such as Alfred Hitchcock becomes deeply amusing.
I am drawn ( ashamed as I am) to the usual degenerate humour of bodily functions in names used. This is a favourite past-time and one that I hope never leaves me.
I get that the run and jump is necessary, splattered protagonists could swing the noir a little to far.
Although, imagining a squished ‘Moopa’ dripping from semi-submerged rocks, does generate a degree of sneaky pleasure.
John Marsden ( I think it is him) writes in a way to frighten the pants off the youngsters. They love it. Sqealing with delight when something is disgusting or frightening. A comic in this area should be a lot of fun and give some parents a great choice in this world of harmogenised, 1984 children.B
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“Swing the Noir” would make a good title…. The unexpected, the fast forward, is sometimes the comic key. The slow motion the opposite? You see it coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
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neat ideas.
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Hey, when is South returning to prime time?
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I love this poem with its simple and clever illustrations. I wish Peepa would have waited for Moopa. I worried she (she’s a she to me) wouldn’t get back to shore. Maybe she’s the stronger swimmer. But on the beach at night, while they lie sleeping (lay/lie?) Peepa takes the protective position putting himself between the waves and Moopa.
I think the moon must have awoken Peepa, and he went down to the water alone to think about his love for Moopa ‘` ‘ ♥\~~~Ω~~~
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Hey! Happy Monday… Like a puppet show. Anything can become a character in a drama. Here, anthropomorphous punctuation marks. Texting seems to blend this idea, where x’s and o’s take shape, where the punctuation mark is part of the food chain. Cartoons and comics are fascinating in this way, how the slightest, most subtle dash conveys movement, which is narrative. Thx for reading and comment.
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