4CP FTW (2)
By:
April 5, 2011
[Second in a series of 10 posts from John Hilgart’s mesmerizing comic-book details site, 4CP (Four Color Process). We’re thrilled to share Hilgart’s hi-lo way of seeing with our readers.]
This is a Raymond Chandler sentence, formalist and vernacular, with the culminating metaphor provided by the out of register printing.
Out of register printing makes an appearance in Chandler’s “Farewell My Lovely.”
“They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to an imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o’-shanter which wasn’t any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, is somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.”
perfection, she sighed.