Jumpin' Jucika!
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. An awkward incident, inventively solved.
Blogging has gotten spottier and spottier, as I try to get other projects the attention they need. That’s important, but so is a running practice of writing. I miss the immediacy and substantive informality of what used to be the blogosphere, now replaced largely by Twitter. If I enjoy that platform for what it is—when best, archly funny idiomatic writing, trés pithy—I decry its weaponization. Good old blogging was more about persuasion than point-scoring. So perhaps I can prioritize it a bit more. I’ll try.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Boss in a foul mood as you walk in late? Pretend you’ve been here all morning!
Today’s effort is tied to the graduate drawing seminar I am teaching in the new MFA in illustration and visual culture program at the Sam Fox School at Washington University. For the second semester of the first year I had conceived an academic course with the title Literatures of Drawing, which I was eager to teach, but our observations and student feedback from the first semester suggested that the students needed a) more studio opportunities, and b) a way to advance their work without the demands of complicated problem-solving, as for an editorial project or extended narrative. The more I thought about it, I became excited about swapping out the first concept for a course that would integrate reading and discussion with modest studio projects devoted to drawing practice. Problems of manifestation, for lack of better word.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Party runs too long? Flirt with your clueless guest, to get him booted
Recently I came across an obscure but wonderful comic strip titled Jucika, published in Hungary from 1957 to 1970. Pál Pusztai drew the strip, which focused on the exploits of its title character, an enterprising young woman with comedic gifts, a curvy profile, and a rotating set of jobs which set her up for social-sexual hijinx of various sorts. She is comely, enterprising, dogged, witty, and decent. She lives in a world of variously grumpy, clueless, kind, oafish, and endlessly manipulatable men.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Boyfriend makes a move on the maid? Dismiss the lout, not the help!
Her problems are posed and resolved in a relentless three-frame format, always wordlessly. She is late for work; her apartment is cold; the sun comes out when she goes skiing, causing the snow to melts; while giving a tour, her clients are distracted by attractive women passersby; she catches her mesh bag on the button of a coat worn by an unhappy man; she is tired and her guests won’t leave; on an on, ad infinitum.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. It’s cold in here! Let’s go the tropics…
I find the strip captivating due to the purity of its problem and restrictive means. No words, in and out, a three panel gag. The character drawing has a designed quality to it, like a lot of midcentury cartooning, but also a kind of Balkan exoticism.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Lose a stocking, gain an urn. (And vice versa!)
Pusztai’s strip came to light via the Internet last year, and has blown up into a cult of sorts. There is a Twitter feed @JucikaDaily and an imgur gallery by CatnipHip. A TV Tropes entry offers this publishing context, among other information: “Originally circulated in the social magazine Érdekes Újság, it moved to the country's sole officially sanctioned satirical newspaper Ludas Matyi in 1959, where it became an iconic part of Socialist era pop culture.”
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Here we go full-on pin up to solve a rather flimsy plot problem. My favorite aspect of this strip is the photo-collage. Welcome to Budapest!
Okay, so now the assignment part: IVC Grads, your next problem is an action sequence. Not a full story, but a vignette or incident which involves characters (plural required) doing something active and clear. Your prompts are as follows:
Pratfall
Faux Pas
Narrow Escape
Foodfight
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. From snow bunny to sunbathing surf-boarder
Choose two, and make a solution for each. Does not have to be multi-panel; could be a single image, a pair, or a three panel story a la Jucika. We will focus on the drawing and staging. Is it clear? Is it well-fashioned? Some will find this easy, others will struggle. That’s okay; we will learn in either case. Part of the opportunity in the course is to identify problems that resonate, and those that don’t.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Out of style? There’s a fix for that! (Nice break in the frame between 1 and 2 to compress time.)
Have a blast. Pin Up on February 10.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Okay, one more. It’s cold today! This seems fitting.