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Comment
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Laura
Registered User
(7/31/01 1:18:11 pm)
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Charles Vess's Ballads and Sagas
I've been keeping my eye out for this, and happily have a couple of opportunities in the works. Unfortunately, I'm a bit confused. Scrolling down on the following page:
www.greenmanpress.com/merch/books.html
shows 2 versions of the text. It first appeared in 4 separate issues, and then later was bound together into one volume. From the text on that webpage, I can't tell whether or not ALL of the material from the original comics is included in the trade paperback, or just the major selections. Since several of you here were contributors to this series, I hoped one of you might know for sure.
Help!
Laura
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Midori
Unregistered User
(7/31/01 3:25:02 pm)
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tutti
Laura,
All of the first four issues were bound together into one trade paperback. There's now even a cool two volume hard cover version in French!
M
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Gail
Unregistered User
(8/1/01 5:27:29 am)
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another ballad
AS I mentioned in a previous post, Charles Vess has illustrated the ballad "Alison Gross" in the new release "The Forbidden Book: Journeys into the Mystic." It is in the same style as the "Tam Lin" ballad in Ballads and Saga rather than traditional comic book art format. Gail
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(8/1/01 11:14:32 pm)
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Selchie
Charles has had for three or four years now (before his wife's car accident at least) my comic book version of The Great Selchie of Sule Skerry, set in a fishing village in the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland a century ago. He keeps promising to illustrate it. . .
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(8/1/01 11:47:43 pm)
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Charles Vess
Jane, I saw Charles and Karen in France last month, and Karen seems to be walking a bit better. She's such a brave and determined woman. Your selchie story sounds great; I look forward to seeing it whenever it finally comes out. I've owed Charles a ballad text for years now -- I was doing King Orfeo, but the story just didn't go anywhere. I may try again with another ballad -- when I have the *time* -- but maybe I'm just not cut out for comics. Whereas you seem to be able to write anything you set your hand to, which constantly amazes me.
Book plug alert: At the moment, Charles is doing the cover and some interior decorations for The Greenman, the book of Young Adult stories & poems based on green man and forest myths that Ellen Datlow and I have just edited for Viking. Midori and Carolyn Dunn have stories in it, along with Tanith Lee, Pat McKillip, Emma Bull, Delia Sherman, Charles de Lint, Jeffrey Ford, lots of others, and terrific poems from Jane and from Neil Gaiman. I sound like a commercial, don't I? Sorry, I'm just enthusiastic. All the writers involved contributed wonderful material. <g>
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DonnaQ
Registered User
(8/2/01 12:24:10 am)
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Plug Away, Please
The Greenman sounds GREAT! What a fine list of authors. It's always nice to get a taste of good things to come, so don't feel the need to apologize. Enthusiasm shared is enthusiasm doubled. Or something like that...
Let us know when the book is ready to hit the shelves!
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Gail
Unregistered User
(8/7/01 8:10:24 pm)
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I agree
Terri, this one sounds like a must have. Please let us know the details as soon as you have them. Gail
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Sharlit
Registered User
(8/14/01 10:33:11 am)
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Missing from the collection...
Hey guys,
The onyl thing missing from the collected volume of _Ballads and Sagas_ was the Saga (a norse-sort of thing who's name escapes me). It was being told a little bit at a time through the comics and wasn't finished; nor did it make the final volume, it seems.
Lovely, though.
etc,
charlotte
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 7:29:23 am)
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More ballads...
As to new material:
As noted above I've completed a 15 page telling of ALISON GROSS. I added a beginning and an end to the existing ballad as I've always felt that the listener was plopped down into the middle of an on going story and I wanted more. Just why would this presumably handsome youth run off to the love bower of "the ugliest witch in the north country"? And at it's end, with the arrival of the Elf Queen to save the day: what happens to the witch? Our "hero" cannot have been too happy to have spent so many years "twinning about the tree".
I've penciled roughly 8 pages (out of ten) of Jane's wonderful SELCHIE tale. The unfinished pages reside on a shelf by my drawing board. I pull them down and work on them whenever I get the chance. Right now I keep pausing for breath at a large panel wherein I need to draw a full military wedding from the 1800's and keep chickening out. I want to thank Jane for her patience with me, I know it's been a long haul but it's looking VERY nice (just ask Midori).
In my files I have scripts by Emma Bull (THE BLACK FOX), Lee Smith (THE THREE LOVERS or LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ELEANOR) and Elizabeth Willey (FAUSE FOODRAGE) with promises of tales from Terri W. and Ellen Kushner and several others.
I'm very excited that I've just made an agreement with a publisher (Top Shelf, a smallish independent publisher with very good connections into the book store market) to publish the definitive hardcover collection which would contain the 90 odd pages of completed material as well as 60 to 70 pages of new stories. This is tentatively scheduled to go to press in a year to a year and a half.
All that being said, I'd love to hear any comments that any of you would like to make on the existing ballads and please let me know as to what type of textual support material you would like to see in this new collection.
I think I'm going back to lurking now...
Charles
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 7:34:05 am)
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the real first part of my post...
Opps, this was the first part of my post and it was cut off.
Hello one and all.
Well, I just stepped onto the board site this morning, following much encouragement from Midori and was just planning to lurk about, read posts and simply enjoy myself (I really don't feel qualified to talk about this material as I react to it and work from it in an almost purely intuitive way) but here I am posting...
The Ballads collection (which has now been published in English, Italian, and French with possible German and Spanish editions in the planning stage) contains ONLY the ballad material from the four individual issues that Green Man Press published in THE BOOK OF BALLADS AND SAGAS. The saga material (SKADE) will be published by itself in a separate edition when I've completed the entire 48 page epic.
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Heidi
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 8:53:32 am)
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Welcome
Welcome, Charles.
We do hope you'll stay around the board. The upcoming work sounds wonderful. I can't wait to see it myself.
Heidi
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Midori
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 8:58:18 am)
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Welcome!!!
Hey Charles,
How fabulous to have you on the board!! I was so delighted to see your name on here this afternoon! And yes, to everyone else, I was so privileged this last weekend to spend sometime with Charles at the Virginia Highland Arts Festival and visited the Greenman offices and Charles' studio. Do you remember those old posts where Jane and Terri talked about inspiring it is to walk into an artists studio?? Total creative heaven! (And I saw the fabulous drawings for Jane's selchie piece...Jane, you will love it!) If you haven't looked at the Greenman Web site, I highly recommend it...it will give you a little taste of the studio.
Charles, knowing your interests, if you haven't already, I would take a glance at the archived posts, especially two threads, one on favorite artists and illustrators, and the other music inspiration.
It's great to have you here! And it affords me an opportunity to publically thank you for inviting me to Virginia to be in the festival, and for driving me all over those gorgeous roller coaster back roads through the hills. I really had an awesome time. I know it's a menace, but I have to say the kudzu forests have stuck in my mind as really beautiful!
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 9:56:24 pm)
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Patience
Just call me Patient Griselda.
I was supposed to have met with Charles at Boskone and then my husband had an eye op and I had to cancel.
But boy! am I jealous that Midori has seen the pencil sketches.
Happy to have you on board, boyo!
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(8/15/01 11:07:32 pm)
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Re: Patience
Welcome. Charles! I hope you'll continue to post...it's so good to see your name here!
(It's not *all* academic talk about folklore, sometimes it's chat about favorite books and artists and such.)
I'm glad you guys had a good Festival!
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Gail
Unregistered User
(8/16/01 6:29:43 am)
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welcome Charles
What a delicious surprise to have you join this board. I have been recommending that every library I know purchase Ballads and Sagas for several reasons -- one, because it is not only beautiful but timely, but secondly, because these stories resonate so well. I am glad to hear that there are more coming.
Gail (who is just coming off a high from a fantastically successful folk festival)
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Laura
Registered User
(8/16/01 12:33:33 pm)
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thrilled ...
Adding my little voice to the chorus, welcome Charles! I must say, when I started this thread I certainly never expected to have its subject weigh in on the discussion. :-) That has to be one of the nicest aspects of this board: such a friendly, welcoming community of artists (in many senses) who are willing to talk over anyone's work, including their own -- plus the ever-present excitement that the very next post may contain a new friend or the answer to a long-held question or even just something delightful to look forward to.
Laura
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tlchang
Registered User
(8/17/01 10:22:42 pm)
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belated reply to Terri's book plug
Another vote for letting us know more details about your Greenman book as it comes along! The Greenman has fascinated me the last year or so (I am doing a series of illustrations on 'greenpeople' - the Greenman himself, Herne the Hunter/forest spirit, and a number of "Tree Spirits" that correspond to the Celtic Tree alphabet - at the moment). I quite liked your article and corresponding illustrations on the Greenman on your Endicott site, and of course, have enjoyed Charles Vess's Greenman site as well!
Can't wait to read more on it!
Hurrah for leafy folk!
Tara
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(8/18/01 7:46:14 am)
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Greenmaen...
Tara,
Don't know if you've checked it out yet, but I have a "green man" image on my website intitled "The Corn King". It's on the opening poetry page of greenman.com. This was an image that I woke up with one morning, beckoning, full blown from out of my sleep state (I wish that all art was that easy). The leaves are from all the trees/bushes that my wife and I have planted in our yard and the landscape is directly across the street from the house. I want to do the full cycle of seasons when I get the chance. I'm thinking that the cover to to Terri and Ellen's anthology just may be the summer green man.
Charles
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tlchang37
Unregistered User
(8/19/01 8:24:11 pm)
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The Corn King
Charles,
Yes, I've seen him - he's great! (And I love it when the pictures come 'pre-viewed' like that! Straight from the sub-conscious or dreams or whatever!). He is somewhat reminiscent of Carl Larsson's work to me (I love his stuff!).
I am also very excited that you are illustrating some things by Charles de Lint - who is also one of my favorite authors. Sounds like a very fun combination.
Looking forward to any more of your greenmen/people.
:-)
Tara
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