DAL TOKYO

by Gary Panter

Gary Panter began imagining Dal Tokyo, a future Mars that is terraformed by Texan and Japanese workers, as far back as 1972, appropriating a friend’s idea about “cultural and temporal collision” (The “Dal” is short for Dallas).


Why Texan and Japanese? Panter says, “Because they are trapped in Texas, Texans are self-mythologizing. Because I was trapped in Texas at the time, I needed to believe that the broken tractor out back was a car of the future. Japanese, I’ll say, because of the exotic far-awayness of Japan from Texas, and because of the Japanese monster movies and woodblock prints that reached out to me in Texas. Japanese monster movies are part of the fabric of Texas.”


In 1983, Panter finally got a chance to fully explore this world, and share it with an audience, when the L.A. Reader published the first 63 strips. A few years later, the Japanese reggae magazine Riddim picked up the strip, and Panter continued the saga of Dal Tokyo in monthly installments for over a decade.


But none of these conceptual descriptions will prepare the reader for the confounding visual and verbal richness of Dal Tokyo, as Panter’s famous “ratty line” collides and colludes with near-Joycean wordplay, veering from more or less intelligible jokes to dizzying non-sequiturs to surreal eruptions that can engulf the entire panel in scribbles. One doesn't read Dal Tokyo; one is absorbed into it and spit out the other side.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics Manga, Art, Surreal, Comic Strips

212 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Gary Panter is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer, and part-time musician, widely regarded as a leading figure in the post-underground, new wave comics movement. His work, described by The Comics Journal as defining him the "Greatest Living Cartoonist," has influenced alternative comics and visual culture for decades. Panter grew up in Texas, studying at East Texas State University under Jack Unruh and Lee Baxter Davis. In the 1970s, he became a key participant in the Los Angeles punk scene, producing gritty, expressive art for the fanzine Slash and numerous record covers. This period saw the creation of Jimbo, Panter’s punk everyman, who combines influences from Jack Kirby, Picasso, and underground comics, appearing in Raw, Slash, and Panter’s own graphic novels, including Jimbo in Purgatory and Jimbo’s Inferno. These works blend classical literature, particularly Dante’s Divine Comedy, with punk sensibilities, and Jimbo’s Inferno won an American Book Award. Panter’s influence extended to television as the set designer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where his densely layered, chaotic designs earned him two Daytime Emmy Awards. He also created online comics like Pink Donkey and published retrospectives such as the two-volume Gary Panter. He contributed album cover art for Frank Zappa and Yo La Tengo, bridging the worlds of comics, music, and fine art. His style is expressionistic and fast, balancing painting, commercial art, illustration, cartoons, and alternative comix. Exhibitions of his work include the Phoenix Art Museum, Dunn and Brown Contemporary Gallery, and the "Masters of American Comics" show at New York’s Jewish Museum. In 2012, Panter received the Klein Award from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, recognizing his enduring contributions to the field.

Reviews

[Vogisland · Rating 5 out of 5]

landscape & architecture, science fiction & noir, experimental poetry, monster trucks, insect livestock, robots, old-timey cartoons, prophecy, madness. There is just way too much to say about this book. I only wish Panter had done 3 - 400 more Dal Tokyo strips.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amalgamation of sci-fi car club disasters, Japanese monster-noir, cowpokey non sequiturs and Dadaist comics. Beautiful layout, but like a bowl of tentacle soup: unforgettable yet not particularly satisfying.

[Erik Wirfs-Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful nonsense, kind of like Lynch's Inland Empire in that it has all the best and worst traits of a visionary author, and starts out semi coherent before becoming a stream of images and words without to anchor you in a traditional sense.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this was done by anybody else you'd call it crap. Chaotic nonsense. Somewhere between what's illustrated on a bathroom wall, a 4th grader's math folder, and all the art you might learn in art school. Quotes come from nowhere. The secret language of droids and antmen.

The difference here is that this is way accounted for and way planned out. What may seem like total pretentious garbage is the utter disconnect you should feel in this radically different future place.

Even the book is unwieldy. Scribbled. Piles of psyche, technical manual, and Someteenth century classical poetics.

This is totally amazing but I'm not sure who I'd recommend this to.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Panter's sort of sketch, faux-juvenile sci fi comics creation published in the LA Reader in the eighties. A kind of temporal and cultural fusion of Dallas and Tokyo and fantasy/sci-fi. Hard to get into for me, but conceptually pretty interesting mash up of cultures he (I am told) started imagining in the seventies. I may not know enough about the conception or purpose to be thoroughly awed by it, so I may read more about it.

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The strips in this book span decades: they start out very roughly drawn and it is cool to see the style refined into Panter's often more bubbly look, but I was startled when suddenly mid-book there were images of the Twin Towers and a 9/11 message.
Note: This book is unwieldy! (short and wide to fit the original strip's three-panel format)

[P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read this but couldn't find a comfortable way to do it. Book designers, I'm all for books with interesting formats, just please make them also easy to hold. This is the 2nd book this month that has been too big to read without feeling annoyed.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Comics Journal's review of the work is well written. http://www.tcj.com/reviews/dal-tokyo/

[Kara · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very cool concept, Panter - let me know when you can tell a story without naked women gratuitously draped all over the place.

[Squeasel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this guy has this vision in his head that's epic in scope yet incredibly detailed. And I feel like I'd have to be schizophrenic, or maybe grow up next door to him as his childhood friend, in order to have any fucking idea what's actually going on in this book. Honestly I'm not even sure if reading the panels left-to-right or right-to-left is correct. Most make about as little sense to me either way. Maybe my brain isn't plastic enough anymore, I dunno.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I looked at all the images. The text I mostly skimmed. I'm very interested in the juxtaposition of obvious technical skill with what looks like the scribblings and chicken scratches of an amateur.

[Brian Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great podcast about Dal Tokyo:
https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/47702

[Ioan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dal Tokyo can sometimes be a hard bet. Pretty much like all other Panter stuff, I should say. This book would've been worth one bonus star for being so beautifully edited - great paper, great cover, and great size. Fantagraphics deserve a prize just for bringing this to light.

But now, moving on to the content... it's as far as it can be from notions of virtuosity, convention, coherence. Panter makes use of two main techniques here: panels are either agglomerations of thin and distorted lines, massive scratches of black and deep black surfaces - sometimes bringing to mind Picasso woodcuts sans the control over the chaos, or graffiti - either cartoony, relatively clean yet minimal cuties and landscapes. Sure, there are intermediary forms feasting on the picturesque, or evolving into plain abstract expressionism. After writing this description, is it really worth taking note of? I wouldn't say so... Upon seeing this behemoth, my li'l sister whined that it's bulls**t and even she could draw better. But the rational enlightening answer came from my mother: "then why haven't you drawn this kind of stuff to this moment?". And it's the sincerest reaction that could buffer the angriness of folks talking about sell-out art with no substance.

Since there is a big something in Panter's work that touches me on the inside when looking at many panels. It reminds me of the fun early RHCP album covers. It reminds me of drawings I used to make in childhood years, without much self-consciousness. And Dal Tokyo is the perfect visual companion to Butthole Surfers' debut album, free jazz, almost any cool music, actually. You don't buy into this book for its hipness. You don't mind it for its distinctive discarding of linearity or its hyperactive or eerily contemplative style devoid of pretense. You just have to pull yourself out a little in order to let yourself reached by its rays, and just relax. To me, there are times when this seems to be the most relaxing comic lecture I could get my hands on.

[Daniel Lawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring, there's a small batch of what reads like illustrated free verse poetry, but mostly this is a nonsensical (and poorly drawn) mess, pass.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indescribable, incomprehensible, wonderful.

[Alex]

You know what, I'm really not sure how to even rate this one. I love me some Gary Panter, but I don't think I'm through figuring out how I feel about Dal Tokyo.