Introductions, by Stanford Carpenter – My EthnoSurreal Life | @MDWorld

 

Welcome to “My EthnoSurreal Life” where animated objects and things are more human – and even more humane – than many people encountered in everyday life. Yes. As titles go, it doesn’t lend itself to be easily spoken or understood. But that can be rectified. Besides, what else should one expect from a comic by an African-American Cultural Anthropologist who looks at comic as a surrealist form of communication? Yes. I have an actual PhD in Cultural Anthropology with a specialization in identity and media studies. I’ve been embedded among or otherwise engaged with comic creators, creative communities, editorial writers, drug addicts, journalists, maroons, police, and prison inmates. And lest I forget, I have advanced training and work experience as a mapmaker and site illustrator for archaeological digs. But all that really makes me is a well-trained primate blessed with opportunities to spend extended periods of time (years actually) reading books about culture, discussing ideas about culture with other well trained primates, learning to speak and write about culture in various tongues (I mean jargon), and then venturing out to spend time both as an observer and participant among the cultures and people I’ve read, discussed, spoken, and written about. Did I mention that the first track on Michelle N’dgeocello’s “Cookie The Anthropological Monkey” sends chills down my spine and gets my creative and intellectual juices flowing?

All stories for another time ….

So why choose the term EthnoSurreal instead of Surreal? The term “ethno” refers to culture. It also forms the beginning of the words “ethnographic” and “ethnography,” two words used to describe ways that Cultural Anthropologists depict or represent cultures in various media forms. And while there is an historical record of Cultural Anthropologists interacting with and being influenced by surrealism and surrealists, surrealism is very much built around psychoanalytic notions and theories. Therein lies the rub. Bottom-line, I’m much more of culture guy than a brain guy. I am much more interested applying cultural lenses, notions interpretations, and theories to images and stories because, simply put, people don’t all think alike. People bring their culturally specific personal experiences to the task of interpreting whatever they encounter. And, more often than not, people convey there interpretations through various media and forms of storytelling.

More stories for other times ….

Or, better put, maybe my choice of the EthnoSurreal goes back to reading books on surrealism in the sweltering heat of the Northern tip of the Amazon Jungle near the Southern border of Suriname; my realization that cartoonists (using thought and word balloons) share much in common with surrealists who tried to render the experience of the conscious and the unconscious co-present; observing groups of people from vastly different backgrounds with very different culturally specific interpretations of the same stories told round the fire while drinking 180 proof rum; and conversations with John Jennings over the past couple of years.

Even more stories for more other times ….

I keep referring to stories for another time. Well, maybe I will, as Joe Illidge once demanded of me, “GET TO THE MONKEY!!!!” Maybe I won’t. Not out of disrespect or in an effort to tease, but out of acknowledgement that stories never really end and that, ideally, communication should be ongoing. Maybe. Such an appropriate word for what is to come. This comic is not inching toward a grand cohesive narrative. It is about fragments, pieces, half-baked-ideas, and vignettes that, once woven together and filtered through experience, may tell a story … but most importantly, will convey the importance of the story. And that is where my first installment will begin. So welcome to “My EthnoSurreal Life” filled with aliens; animals; animated action figures and masks; disembodied flaming hands; hybrid creatures, and multicolored harts, puffs of smoke, and stars.

All stories for other times ….

Welcome.

Stanford W. Carpenter, PhD