Narrative Corpse: A Chain-Story by 69 Artists!

by Robert Sikoryak (Editor), Art Spiegelman (Editor)

An amazing five-year project in which 69 comix artists collaborated to creat a single story.

Genres: Comics, Art, Fiction

19 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Robert Sikoryak (born 1964) is an American artist whose work is usually signed R. Sikoryak. He specializes in making comic adaptations of literature classics, producing a mashup of high culture and low culture. Under the series title Masterpiece Comics, these include Crime and Punishment rendered in Bob Kane–era Batman style, becoming Dostoyevsky Comics, starring Raskol; and Waiting for Godot mixed with Beavis and Butt-Head, becoming Waiting to Go.

Reviews

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Narrative Corpse is a gimmick comic strip curated by Art Spiegelman and Robert Sikoryak. The premise is simple - each cartoonist gets three panels to illustrate their strip, and the only context they have is the previous artist's three panels. A five year exercise that culminated in 69 total cartoonists (pretty much all from the alternate or underground comix space) contributing their panels. Spiegelman's explanation in the introduction reveals that the sequence wasn't quite linearly chained together, and that some editing went into bringing about some sense of narrative flow. There really isn't one, this is a story that is entirely uneven. As an artbook collecting the work of comic greats, this is pretty good. It would be an exercise in itself to just list all the great contributors here, so I won't do it since it's something easily looked up. I have to say that the one that impressed me the most was Mort Walker, who actually delivers the most cohesive three panel gag of the bunch. Other artists who impressed with artwork alone were Drew Friedman, Jim Woodring and Thomas Ott.

This is more or less nonsense, but it's pretty to look at and a fun concept that works reasonably well. The book design and format are all excellent too.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember doing something like this in middle school, with writing, not drawing. I think we did it in literature class but also my friends and I would do it in free time like homeroom or study hall for fun. I don't know all the creators who participated in this but those I do were interesting to see how their section was in their style, in the same way that there was always that one friend of mine whose section of the story involved an alien abduction. In this case, though, the predictability of the artists was comforting and fitting. The overall story is, as you would expect, uneven, but observing the product of the exercise was pretty fun.

[Cody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ambitious and experimental humongous collaboration with 2-3 generations of amazing cartoonists. Mort Walker appears, surprisingly, and even more surprisingly has the best 3 panels in the book.

Worth reading at a library or borrowing from a friend, but not worth the cover price let alone collector prices.

[Mpho3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2