Dino Battaglia - Comic Artist Discovery

     The greatest tragedy of sequential art in America is the comic code authority that was enacted in 1954. This was government censorship at its worst, to assign an artistic medium to the children demography based on lies and to dictate material that shunned free speech. In comparison, Europe was exploring the art form in content that America would not and thus severely restricted European artists and comic content from reaching American audiences. One artist in particular that I recently discovered was Dino Battaglia.

     Dino Battaglia was an Italian artist and a friend of Hugo Pratt, who is known in America as the creator of Corto Maltese. But unlike Hugo, Dino was more interested in adapted novels and non fiction material for most of his career. His brush strokes were expressive, leading to natural form and depth that illustrated the world in a cohesive form but also in a minimalist sense that still left enough for the reader to embellish the details for themselves.

      It was a tragedy that Dino Battaglia's life was cut short at the age of 60 in 1983, but I feel the greatest harm of his legacy is that comics are still considered a medium of fictional stories and thus a good portion of his work, some consider his greatest work, of adapting classic novels and biographies are not substantially recognized or available in America, even though he was the winner of Best Foreign Artist award at the Angoulême Festival in 1975.

Shanghai'd in the heart of globalization.

     I made the jump again. I took my necessary possessions that I could fit in a suitcase and transplanted myself  on the other side of the world. Whether it what was out of boredom or opportunity as the culminating factor, the result is still the same: I'm an English teacher once again.

     I told myself that this time would be different, and it has been. I made strict prerequisites for the job search:
1. No kids. Teaching children was a great experience to shape no doubt in my mind that I never want children. Even working with these creatures of irrationality destroyed my own sense of fulfillment as the education system is completely broken and does not cater to children's natural strength but is constructed into drilling them into submission of the outdated industrialization economic model.
2. Large City. In my first year in teaching Korea I made the mistake of teaching in a country side city where my social and personal options were severely limited. Weekends came with tremendous pressure for meeting women, friends, and other cultural and travel experiences as I was stuck in the middle of no where for 5 days a week. I was quite stern with choosing Shanghai for my destination. Why move to New York if you can't live in New York City?

 

     In my urgency to arrive I found myself stuck in the hottest summer in Shanghai's history. The heat cooked the film of filth on the urban landscape giving a sick aroma of mold and garbage at every corner. It felt that there was no escape from the violation my nostril endured, but to embrace it as a memory of the middle kingdom. My initial impression was that Shanghai was a weird hybrid of Bangkok and Seoul, with a silent agony of endurance with the cultural collective to prosper. 

     There are two distinct economies in China: the family business, and the government business. The government in China is completely corrupt; a mob run enterprise of nepotism and cronyism from the children of the founding members of the communist party. The oligarchs reward themselves with luxuries while propping as many hurdles to systematically oppress it's population into economic servitude since China's entire economic success was providing massive cheap manual labor to the world. 

      With such a wall in place by the government of seclusion with indifference to it's own population, Chinese families attempt to create their own small shop businesses in hopes of creating a filial legacy which is rooted deeply in their Confucius tradition. It's family's distrust and skepticism of opportunities available to the underprivileged that education is not available and their children start working at an early age to support the family shop. Proper schooling is reserved for those with the available funds, there is no true public schooling and parents have to show residency in the city which prevents the opportunity for Chinese national migrant workers to register their children into receiving an adequate education. The lack of government subsidized education and numerous corrupt public works projects is self perpetuating the divide of wealth, that's why the streets of shanghai are littered with luxury cars for the rich and modified bicycles for the poor; this is the greatest scam of the communist government against it's own people in my own opinion.

    The lack of economic stability and opportunity for the general population has led to a culture of wealth hoarding from the top down and the consequences of self expression. It is a culture that works itself to a haggard state, whose main habitual purpose is to save money for the family or to start one. If only the privileged have the ability to express themselves or pursue interests in leisure then the culture will stagnant and fresh ideas for problem solving will be suppressed in favor of established thought, even if those established ideas are causing problems to begin with.