Os Paraísos Artificiais (Les Paradis Artificiels)

About Artificial Paradises by Baudelaire:

Les paradis artificiels (Artificial Paradises) is a book by French poet Charles Baudelaire, first published in 1860, about the state of being under the influence of opium and hashish. Baudelaire describes the effects of the drugs and discusses the way in which they could theoretically aid mankind in reaching an "ideal" world. The text was softly influenced by Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria de Profundis.

Extract Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paradis_artificiels

More: http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Paradis_artificiels

About Baudelaire:

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (French: [ʃaʁl bodlɛʁ]; April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé among many others. He is credited with coining the term "modernity" (modernité) to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.^[1]

Baudelaire the poet

Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness. This obsessive idea is above all a child of giant cities, of the intersecting of their myriad relations.

—Dedication of Le Spleen de Paris

Baudelaire is one of the major innovators in French literature. His poetry is influenced by the French romantic poets of the earlier 19th century, although its attention to the formal features of verse connect it more closely to the work of the contemporary "Parnassians". As for theme and tone, in his works we see the rejection of the belief in the supremacy of nature and the fundamental goodness of man as typically espoused by the romantics and expressed by them in rhetorical, effusive and public voice in favor of a new urban sensibility, an awareness of individual moral complexity, an interest in vice (linked with decadence) and refined sensual and aesthetical pleasures, and the use of urban subject matter, such as the city, the crowd, individual passers-by, all expressed in highly ordered verse, sometimes through a cynical and ironic voice. Formally, the use of sound to create atmosphere, and of "symbols", (images which take on an expanded function within the poem), betray a move towards considering the poem as a self-referential object, an idea further developed by the Symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé, who acknowledge Baudelaire as a pioneer in this regard.
Beyond his innovations in versification and the theories of symbolism and "correspondences", an awareness of which is essential to any appreciation of the literary value of his work, aspects of his work which regularly receive (or have received) much critical discussion include the role of women, the theological direction of his work and his alleged advocacy of "satanism", his experience of drug-induced states of mind, the figure of the dandy, his stance regarding democracy and its implications for the individual, his response to the spiritual uncertainties of the time, his criticisms of the bourgeois, and his advocacy of modern music and painting (e.g., Wagner, Delacroix).

Influence

Baudelaire's influence on the direction of modern French (and English) language literature was considerable. The most significant French writers to come after him were generous with tributes; four years after his death, Arthur Rimbaud praised him in a letter as 'the king of poets, a true God'.^[39] In 1895, Stéphane Mallarmé published a sonnet in Baudelaire's memory, 'Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire'. Marcel Proust, in an essay published in 1922, stated that along with Alfred de Vigny, Baudelaire was 'the greatest poet of the nineteenth century'.^[40]
In the English-speaking world, Edmund Wilson credited Baudelaire as providing an initial impetus for the Symbolist movement, by virtue of his translations of Poe.^[41] In 1930, T. S. Eliot, while asserting that Baudelaire had not yet received a "just appreciation" even in France, claimed that the poet had "great genius" and asserted that his "technical mastery which can hardly be overpraised... has made his verse an inexhaustible study for later poets, not only in his own language".^[42] Eliot also alluded to Baudelaire's poetry directly in his own poetry. For example, he quoted the last line of Baudelaire's 'Au Lecteur' in the last line of Section I of 'The Waste Land.'
At the same time that Eliot was affirming Baudelaire's importance from a broadly conservative and explicitly Christian viewpoint,^[43] left-wing critics such as Wilson and Walter Benjamin were able to do so from a dramatically different perspective. Benjamin translated Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens into German and published a major essay on translation^[44] as the foreword.
In the late 1930s, Benjamin used Baudelaire as a starting point and focus for his monumental attempt at a materialist assessment of 19th century culture, Das Passagenwerk.^[45] For Benjamin, Baudelaire's importance lay in his anatomies of the crowd, of the city and of modernity.^[46] François Porche published a poetry collection called Charles Baudelaire in memory of Baudelaire.
In 1982, avant-garde performance artist and vocalist Diamanda Galás recorded an adaptation of his poem The Litanies of Satan (Les Litanies de Satan).
The Baudelaires, protagonists of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, were named after him.^{[citation needed]}
Currently, Vanderbilt University has "assembled one of the world’s most comprehensive research collections on...Baudelaire."^[47]

Extracts Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire

As Flores do Mal (Les Fleurs du Mal)

About The Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire:

Les Fleurs du mal (English: The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 (see 1857 in poetry), it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The subject matter of these poems deals with themes relating to decadence and eroticism.

Overview

The initial publication of the book was arranged in six thematically segregated sections:

• Spleen et Idéal (Spleen and Ideal)
• Tableaux parisiens (Parisian Scenes)
• Le Vin (Wine)
• Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil)
• Révolte (Revolt)
• La Mort (Death)

The foreword to the volume, identifying Satan with the pseudonymous alchemist Hermes Trismegistus and calling boredom the worst of miseries, neatly sets the general tone of what is to follow:
Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.

If rape and poison, dagger and burning,

Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs

On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,

It's because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!

The preface concludes with the following malediction:
C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
—Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!

It's Ennui! — his eye brimming with spontaneous tear

He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah.

You know him, reader, this delicate monster,

Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother!

Literary significance and criticism

The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs (trans. "an insult to public decency"). As a consequence of this prosecution, Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949. These poems were "Lesbos", "Femmes damnés (À la pâle clarté)" (or "Women Doomed (In the pale glimmer...)"), "Le Léthé" (or "Lethe"), "À celle qui est trop gaie" (or "To Her Who Is Too Gay"), "Les Bijoux" (or "The Jewels"), and " Les "Métamorphoses du Vampire" (or "The Vampire's Metamorphoses"). These were later published in Brussels in a small volume entitled Les Épaves (Jetsam).
On the other hand, upon reading "The Swan" or "Le Cygne" from Les Fleurs du mal, Victor Hugo announced that Baudelaire had created "un nouveau frisson" (a new shudder, a new thrill) in literature.
In the wake of the prosecution a second edition was issued in 1861 which added 32 new poems, removed the six suppressed poems and added a new section entitled Tableaux Parisiens.
A posthumous third edition with a preface by Théophile Gautier and including 14 previously unpublished poems was issued in 1868.

Adaptations

In 1969, American electronic music composer Ruth White released an album called, "Flowers of Evil." It contains some quotes from Baudelaire's "Flowers of Evil."
In 1986, the Australian rock band Dead Can Dance released an album called "Spleen and Ideal", which used quotes from "Flowers of Evil" in the lyrics.
In 1987, the Swiss rock band Celtic Frost released an album called Into the Pandemonium. It contains a song called, "Tristesses de la Lune," which borrows significantly from the poems in Baudelaire's "Flowers of Evil."
In 1990, the Japanese rock band Buck-Tick released an album called "Aku no Hana," which translates to "Flowers of Evil" or "Evil Flowers."
In 1995, the singer from the Canadian rock band The Viletones, Steven Leckie, named his controversial avante-garde art gallery and clothing line (which was sold in the art gallery) in Toronto, "Fleurs du Mal."
In 2003, the Finnish rock band HIM released the album Love Metal, which contains a song (and the corresponding music video) called "The Funeral of Hearts." The chorus of Funeral of Hearts says, "Love's the funeral of hearts and a plea for mercy when angels cry blood on flowers of evil in bloom."
In 2005, Israeli singer Maor Cohen released an album whose Hebrew title translates to "Flowers of Evil." It is a compilation of songs from the book, as translated to Hebrew by the Israeli poet Dori Manor. The music was composed by Cohen himself.
In 2007, German rock band Sopor Aeternus released an album called "Les Fleurs du Mal," which is also the title of a song on the album.
In 2006, Lee Hyeon-sook released a manga called "The flowers of evil".
In 2008, English opera and Broadway singer Sarah Brightman released an album called Symphony, which contains a song called "Fleurs du Mal."
In 2010, the Finnish rock band HIM released the album Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice, Chapters 1-13, which contains a song called "Love, the Hardest Way." There is a line in the chorus that says, "Baudelaire in braille: Baby, love the hard way." The dark and romantic story by Baudelaire that HIM is referring to is most likely "Flowers of Evil" because the song also says, "Pretty, like a flower on a tomb." HIM also released an album that contains an acoustic version of all the tracks from Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice, Chapters 1-13, which is called Baudelaire in Braille.
In, 2011, The Arcade Fire released a song called "Speaking in Tongues," which includes the line "hypocrite reader, my double, my brother."
In 2012, American rock singer Marilyn Manson's released his 8th studio album, Born Villain, which he states was inspired by "Flowers of Evil". He has also made a watercolor painting called "Les Fleurs du Mal." The painting contains two red flowers with dead faces on a dry panorama.
In September 2012, the Swedish band Therion announced it's new album, named "Les Fleurs du Mal".

Extracts Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal

More Info: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6099 - http://fleursdumal.org/

2 Filmes de Jim Jarmusch

About Permanent Vacation:

Permanent Vacation is a 1980 film directed, written and produced by Jim Jarmusch. It was the director's first release, and was shot on 16 mm film shortly after he dropped out of film school. This film is often credited as the birth of the director's original style and character schemes. The film won the Josef von Sternberg Award at the 1980 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival.

Plot

The main character, played by Chris Parker, wanders around a dingy New York atmosphere and is confronted by a number of intriguing characters as he ponders the questions of life, and searches for a better place.

Cast

• Richard Boes – War vet
• Ruth Bolton – Mother
• Sara Driver – Nurse
• María Duval – Latin girl
• Frankie Faison – Man in lobby
• Jane Fire – Nurse
• Suzanne Fletcher – Girl in car
• Leila Gastil – Leila
• Chris Hameon – French traveller
• John Lurie – Sax player
• Eric Mitchell – Car fence
• Chris Parker – Allie
• Lisa Rosen – Popcorn girl
• Felice Rosser – Woman by mailbox
• Evelyn Smith – Patient
• Charlie Spademan – Patient

Production

This film was also the first that musician, and friend of Jarmusch, John Lurie acted in and composed music for.
Jarmusch is also credited as helping with the music.

Availability

The film was released by the Criterion Collection as a special feature on the DVD for Jarmusch's Stranger than Paradise on September 4, 2007.^[1]


Extracts Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Vacation_(film)

About Stranger Than Paradise:

Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American absurdist/deadpan comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress Eszter Balint. The film features a minimalist plot in which the main character, Willie, has a cousin from Hungary, Eva, stay with him for ten days before going to Cleveland. Willie and his friend Eddie eventually go to Cleveland to visit Eva.
The film has an unusual style, as it was shot in black-and-white and features only non-professional actors. It is also notable for its historical importance, particularly its influence on independent cinema. The low-budget aesthetics of the film set an example for later independent directors.

Plot

The film is a three-act story about self-identified "hipster" Willie (John Lurie), who lives in New York City, and his interactions with the two other main characters, Eva (Eszter Balint) and Eddie (Richard Edson).
In the first act, Willie's cousin Eva comes from Hungary to stay with him for ten days because Aunt Lotte, whom she will be staying with, will be in the hospital. Willie at first makes it clear that he does not want her there, but soon begins to enjoy her company. This becomes especially true when Eva steals food items from a grocery store and gets a TV dinner for Willie. He ends up buying her a dress, which she later discards. After ten days, Eva leaves, and Willie is clearly upset to see her go. Eddie, who had met Eva previously, sees her right before she goes.
The second act opens with a long take showing Willie and Eddie winning a large amount of money by cheating at a game of poker. Willie decides, because of all the money they now have, to leave the city. They decide to go to Cleveland to see Eva. However, when they get there they are just as bored as they were in New York. For example, they end up tagging along with Eva and a friend, Billy, to the movies. They eventually decide to go back to New York.
The final act begins with Willie and Eddie, on their way back to New York, deciding to go to Florida. They turn around and "rescue" Eva. The three of them get to Florida and get a room at a hotel. They end up losing all of their money on dog races. At this point, they decide to go back and bet on horse races. Willie refuses to let Eva come along, so she goes out on the beach for a walk. She ends up being mistaken by a drug dealer, and is given a large sum of money. She goes back to the hotel, leaves some of the money for Willie and Eddie, and writes them a note explaining that she is going to the airport, and then goes there. When she arrives, she discovers that the only flight to Europe left that day is to Budapest, which is where she originally came from. She decides to wait until the following day, and goes back to the hotel. Willie and Eddie end up winning all of their money back at the horse races. But when they get back, Eva is gone, and Willie reads her note and they go to the airport to stop her from leaving. When they get there, Willie is forced to buy a ticket to get on the plane to find Eva. However, he gets on right before the plane takes off, and ends up going on the flight to Budapest. The second to last shot shows Eddie outside watching the plane leave, and he realizes what has happened. The final shot shows Eva back at the hotel, returning to an empty room.

Cast

• John Lurie as Willie
• Eszter Balint as Eva
• Richard Edson as Eddie
• Cecillia Stark as Aunt Lotte
• Danny Rosen as Billy
• Rammellzee as Man With Money
• Tom DiCillo as Airline Agent
• Richard Boes as Factory Worker
• Rockets Redglare, Harvey Perr and Brian J. Burchill as Poker Players
• Sara Driver as Girl With Hat
• Paul Sloane as Motel Owner

Background and production

Writer and director Jim Jarmusch had initially shot his first feature, Permanent Vacation (1980) as his final thesis while at New York University's film school, and spent the following four years making Stranger than Paradise. At NYU, he had studied under iconic 20th century director Nicholas Ray, who had brought him along as his personal assistant for the production of Lightning over Water, a portrait of Ray that was being filmed by Wim Wenders.^[1] It was Wenders who granted Jarmusch the leftover film stock from his subsequent film Der Stand der Dinge (1982) that would enable the young director to shoot the 30-minute short subject film that would become Stranger Than Paradise. This short was released as a standalone film in 1982,^[1] and shown as "Stranger Than Paradise" at the 1983 International Film Festival Rotterdam. When it was later expanded into a three-act feature, that name was appropriated for the feature itself, and the initial segment was renamed "The New World".

Release and reception

The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d'Or award for debut films. It also won the Golden Leopard and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – Special Mention at the 1984 Locarno International Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1985 and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of 1985.^[2]
The film made $2,436,000,^[3] significantly more than its budget of around $100,000.^[4]

Critics

Film critic Pauline Kael gave the film a generally positive review.

The first section is set in the bare Lower East Side apartment of Willie, who is forced to take in Eva, his 16-year-old cousin from Budapest, for ten days. The joke here is the basic joke of the whole movie. It's in what Willie doesn't do: he doesn't offer her food or drink, or ask her any questions about life in Hungary or her trip; he doesn't offer to show her the city, or even supply her with sheets for her bed. Then Eddie comes in, even further down on the lumpen scale. Willie bets on the horses; Eddie bets on dog races. Eva, who never gets to see more of New York than the drab, anonymous looking area where Willie lives, goes off to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lotte and work at a hot-dog stand. And when Willie and Eddie go to see her, all they see is an icy wasteland - slums and desolation - and Eddie says 'You know it's funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.' The film has something of the same bombed-out listlessness as Paul Morrissey's 1970 Trash – it's Trash without sex or transvestism. The images are so emptied out that Jarmusch makes you notice every tiny, grungy detail. And those black-outs have something of the effect of Samuel Beckett's pauses: they make us look more intently, as Beckett makes us listen more intently.^[5]

The film was voted the Best Picture of 1984 by the National Society of Film Critics.^[6]

Home media

Stranger Than Paradise has been released on DVD by The Criterion Collection.^[7] The DVD contains a second disc which includes Jarmusch's first film, Permanent Vacation (1980). Both films were restored for the DVD release using high-definition digital transfers overseen and sanctioned by the director. Supplementary footage on the second disc includes Kino ’84: Jim Jarmusch, a series of interviews with the cast and crew from both films by a German television program, as well as Some Days in January (1984), a behind-the-scenes Super-8 film by the director's brother. An accompanying booklet features Jarmusch's 1984 essay "Some Notes on Stranger Than Paradise" as well as critical commentary by Geoff Andrew and J. Hoberman on Stranger Than Paradise and by Luc Sante on Permanent Vacation.^[7]

Legacy

Stranger Than Paradise broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking,^[8] and became a landmark work in modern independent film.^[7] According to allmovie, it is "one of the most influential movies of the 1980s", and cast "a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come.^[9] It is cited for giving "an early example of the low-budget independent wave that would dominate the cinematic marketplace a decade later."^[10] The success of the film accorded Jarmusch a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema, as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising auteur exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan.^[11][12] In a 2005 profile of the director for The New York Times, critic Lynn Hirschberg declared the film to have "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form".^[13]
In 2002, Stranger Than Paradise was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was included in Jonathan Rosenbaum's Alternate 100, which was a response to the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies list.^[14] In 2003, Entertainment Weekly ranked the film #26 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".^[15] Empire Magazine put the film at 14 on its list of the 50 greatest independent films of all time.^[16]

Soundtrack

The film features an original soundtrack written by John Lurie, who also stars in the film. The music is performed by The Paradise Quartet, consisting of Jill B. Jaffe (viola), Mary L. Rowell (violin), Kay Stern (violin), and Eugene Moye (cello). The recording engineer for the sessions was Ollie Cotton. The original song "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins features prominently in the soundtrack.


Extracts Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_Than_Paradise

( http://www.fortissimo.nl/default.aspx )

( http://www.prisvideo.pt/ )

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch )

Kafka Desiste! (e outras histórias...)

About Peter Kuper:

Peter Kuper (born September 22, 1958) is an American alternative cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his autobiographical, political, and social observations.

Early life

Peter Kuper was born in Summit, New Jersey, and moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was six years old, where he graduated from Cleveland Heights High School in 1976.^[1] He attended Kent State University in 1976-1977, then moved to New York City in 1977, where he studied at Art Students League and the Pratt Institute^[2] (along with his childhood friend and World War 3 Illustrated co-founder Seth Tobocman). In 1970 Kuper and Tobocman published their first fanzine, "Phanzine" and in 1971 published "G.A.S Lite" the official magazine of the Cleveland Graphic Arts Society. In 1972 Kuper traded R. Crumb some old jazz records for the right to publish some artwork from one of Crumb's sketchbooks in a comic titled Melotoons that lasted for two issues. For a short period he acted as studio assistant for cartoonist Howard Chaykin.^[3]
Kuper has traveled extensively through Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, much of which he documented in his 1992 book, ComicsTrips: A Journal of Travels Through Africa and Southeast Asia. He lived in Israel in 1969-70. Though permanently based in New York City, Kuper and his wife and daughter resided in the Mexican state of Oaxaca 2006-2008, where he documented an ongoing teachers' strike and other aspects of Mexico in his book Diario de Oaxaca.^[4][5]

Comics

Besides his contributions to the political anthology World War 3 Illustrated, which he co-founded^[6] in 1979 with Seth Tobocman, Kuper is currently best known for taking over Spy vs. Spy for Mad magazine; it had passed through various hands after its creator Antonio Prohías retired, but Kuper's version has appeared without interruption since 1997.^[6]
Kuper has produced numerous graphic novels which have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Greek, including award-winning adaptations of Franz Kafka's Give It Up! and the Metamorphosis.
Kuper's Eye of the Beholder was the first comic strip to ever regularly appear in the New York Times and his autobiography Stop Forgetting to Remember covers the birth of his daughter, 9/11, and other vicissitudes in his life from 1995-2005. His most recent book Diario De Oaxaca is a sketchbook journal of his time in living in Mexico (2006–2008).

Illustration

As an illustrator Kuper has produced covers for Time, Newsweek, Businessweek and The Progressive. He has done hundreds of illustrations for newspapers including The New York Times. Kuper has been co-art director of the political illustration group INX ^[7] since 1988.

Bibliography

Comics work includes:

• 2010—Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, Illustrated Spanish edition of Alice in Wonderland (Sexto Piso)
• 2009—Diario De Oaxaca : A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico (PM Press/Sexto Piso)
• 2007 — Stop Forgetting To Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz,^[8] hardcover (Crown)
• 2006 — Theo and The Blue Note, children’s book (Viking)
• 2004 — The Jungle, (hardcover reissue) adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel (NBM)
• 2004 — Sticks and Stones, a novel in pictures (Three Rivers Press)
• 2003 — The Metamorphosis, and adaptation of Franz Kafka's short story (Crown)
• 2001 — Speechless, a retrospective collection, hardcover (Top Shelf Productions)
• 2000 — Mind’s Eye, a collection of syndicated strips, hardcover, (NBM)
• 2000 — Topsy Turvy, a collection of political comic strips, trade paperback (Eye Press)
• 1997 — The System, (collected as a single book) softbound, (DC/Vertigo)
• 1996 — Eye of the Beholder, a collection of syndicated strips, softbound (NBM)
• 1995 — World War 3: Confrontational Comics, co-editor of anthology (4 Walls,8 Windows)
• 1995 — Give It Up!, comics adaptation of Franz Kafka short stories, hardbound, (NBM)
• 1995 — Stripped, An Unauthorized Autobiography, softbound (Fantagraphics)
• 1993-1994 — Wild Life, comics by the author, comic format, two issues (Fantagraphics)
• 1992 — ComicsTrips: A Journal of Travels Through Africa and Southeast Asia, travel-related comics by the author (Tundra and then re-issued by NBM)
• 1991-1993 — Bleeding Heart, comics by the author, comic format, five issues (Fantagraphics)
• 1991 — The Jungle, comics adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel (First, Classics Illustrated)
• 1989 — World War 3 Illustrated, co-editor of anthology (Fantagraphics)
• 1988 — Life and Death, collection of author’s comics, magazine format (Fantagraphics)
• 1987 — New York, New York, collection of author’s comics, soft-bound (Fantagraphics)
• 1984 — The Last Cat Book, illustrating an essay by Robert E.Howard, soft-bound (Dodd Mead)

Other publications

• Le Sketch #04 (2007, Le Sketch) - mini-comic with sketches

Awards

Kuper won a journalism award from The Society of Newspaper Designers in 2001. His wordless picture story Sticks and Stones was awarded the 2004 gold medal and his comic "This Is Not A Comic" won a silver medal in 2009 both from the Society of Illustrators. He won another gold medal in the sequential arts category from the Society of Illustrators in 2010.


Extracts Above & Below Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kuper

( http://maisbd.mundofantasma.com/titulos.php )

( http://www.bertrand.pt/ficha/kafka--desiste-?id=119417 )

Kafka Para Principiantes

Info On Franz Kafka:

Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [fʁants ˈkafka]; 3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was an influential German-language author of novels and short stories. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov,^[2] regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century. The term "Kafkaesque" has become part of the English language.
Kafka was born to middle class, German-speaking, Jewish parents, in Prague, Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The house in which he was born, on the Old Town Square next to Prague's Church of St Nicholas, now contains a permanent exhibition devoted to the author.
Most of Kafka's writing, including the large body of his unfinished work, was published posthumously.^[3]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

Info On Robert Crumb:

Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943)—known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.^[1]
Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb's entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the "Keep on Truckin'" comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters Devil Girl, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural.
He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb

More: http://pt.livra.com/item/kafka-para-principiantes/8825205

Metamorfose - Livros do Brasil (Edições Especiais Ilustradas)

Info On The Book:

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes termed The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect-like creature.

Plot summary

Part I

One day Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Confused, he looks around his room which appears normal. He decides to fall asleep again and forget what happened in the hope that everything will revert to normal. He tries to roll over to his right but discovers that he cannot due to his new body - he is stuck on his hard, convex back. He feels an itch on his stomach and tries to touch the area with his leg. He retracts immediately as the area was highly sensitive.
He reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesmen is and how he would quit his job if his family were not dependent on his income. He looks at the wall clock and realizes that he has overslept and missed his train for work. Gregor's mother knocks on the door and he answers her. She is concerned for Gregor because he is late for work, which is unorthodox for Gregor. Gregor answers his mother and realizes that his voice has changed, but his answer is short so his mother does not notice the voice change. His sister, Grete, to whom he was very close then whispers through the door and begs him to open the door. All his family members think that he is ill and ask him to open the door. He tries to get out of bed but he is incapable of moving his body. While trying to move, he finds that his office manager has showed up to check up on him. He finally rocks his body to the floor and calls out that he will open the door shortly.
Feeling offended by Gregor's delayed response in opening the door, the manager warns him of the consequences of missing work. He adds that his recent performance has been unsatisfactory. Gregor disagrees and tells him that he will open the door shortly. Nobody on the other side of the door could understand a single word he uttered (Gregor was unaware of the fact that his voice has also transformed) and conclude that he is seriously ill. Finally, Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth. He apologizes to the office manager for the delay. Horrified by the sight of Gregor's appearance, the manager bolts out of the apartment. Gregor tries to catch up with him but his father drives him back into the bedroom with a cane and a rolled newspaper. Gregor injures himself squeezing back through the doorway, and his father slams the door shut. Gregor, exhausted, falls asleep.

Part II

Gregor wakes and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. Initially excited, he quickly discovers that he has no taste for milk, once one of his favorite foods. He settles himself under a couch. The next morning, his sister comes in, sees that he has not touched the milk, and replaces it with rotting food scraps, which Gregor happily eats. This begins a routine in which his sister feeds him and cleans up while he hides under the couch, afraid that his appearance will frighten her. Gregor spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that Gregor can’t provide for them. Gregor also learns that his mother wants to visit him, but his sister and father will not let her.
Gregor grows more comfortable with his changed body. He begins climbing the walls and ceiling for amusement. Discovering Gregor’s new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He tries to save a picture on the wall of a woman wearing a fur hat, fur scarf, and a fur muff. Gregor’s mother sees him hanging on the wall and passes out. Grete calls out to Gregor—the first time anyone has spoken directly to him since his transformation. Gregor runs out of the room and into the kitchen. . The father throws apples at Gregor, and one sinks into his back and remains lodged there. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured.

Part III

One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor’s door open while the boarders lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor creeps out of his bedroom to listen. The boarders, who initially seemed interested in Grete, grow bored with her performance, but Gregor is transfixed by it. One of the boarders spots Gregor and they become alarmed. Gregor’s father tries to shove the boarders back into their rooms, but the three men protest and announce that they will move out immediately without paying rent because of the disgusting conditions in the apartment.
Grete tells her parents that they must get rid of Gregor or they will all be ruined. Her father agrees, wishing Gregor could understand them and would leave of his own accord. Gregor does in fact understand and slowly moves back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, Gregor dies.
Upon discovering that Gregor is dead, the family feels a great sense of relief. The father kicks out the boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor’s body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. Months of spare living as a result of Gregor’s condition have left them with substantial savings. They decide to move to a better apartment. Grete appears to have her strength and beauty back, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.

Characters

Gregor Samsa

Gregor is the main character of the story. He works as a traveling salesman in order to provide money for his sister and parents. He wakes up one morning as a large insect-like creature. After the metamorphosis, Gregor is unable to work. This prompts his family to begin working once again.
The name "Gregor Samsa" appears to derive partly from literary works Kafka had read. The hero of The Story of Young Renate Fuchs, by German-Jewish novelist Jakob Wassermann (1873–1934), is a certain Gregor Samsa. The Viennese author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose sexual imagination gave rise to the idea of masochism, is also an influence. Sacher-Masoch (note the letters Sa-Mas) wrote Venus in Furs (1870), a novel whose hero assumes the name Gregor at one point. A "Venus in furs" literally recurs in The Metamorphosis in the picture that Gregor Samsa has hung on his bedroom wall.^[1] The name Samsa is similar to Kafka in its play of vowels and consonants: "Five letters in each word. The S in the word Samsa has the same position as the K in the word Kafka. The A "is in the second and fifth positions in both words."^[2]
Gregor Samsa appears to be based upon Kafka himself. As when Kafka suffered from insomnia he feared he was repulsive and a burden to his family, during this time his sister was his caretaker.^[3]

Grete Samsa

Grete is Gregor's younger sister, who becomes his caretaker after his metamorphosis. Initially Grete and Gregor have a close relationship but this quickly fades. While Grete initially volunteers to feed him and clean his room, she grows more and more impatient with the burden and begins to leave his room in disarray out of spite. She plays the violin and dreams of going to the conservatory, a dream Gregor had intended to make happen. Gregor planned on making the announcement on Christmas Day. To help provide an income for the family after Gregor's transformation, she starts working as a salesgirl.

Mr. Samsa

Mr. Samsa is Gregor's father. After the metamorphosis, he is forced to return to work in order to support the family financially. His attitude towards his son is harsh; he regards the transformed Gregor with disgust and possibly even fear. Mr. Samsa may have been based on Kafka's father, who treated Kafka harshly.

Mrs. Samsa

Mrs. Samsa is Grete and Gregor's mother. She is initially shocked at Gregor's transformation, however she wants to enter his room. This proves too much for her, thus giving rise to a conflict between her maternal impulse and sympathy and her fear and revulsion of Gregor's new form.


Above Extracts & Below Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis