Colleges From the TV

Offshoring

As the Universes are proved malleable by Xeno, the two Timelines begin to bleed into one another and the comic begins to cite itself, much to the chagrin of our protagonist as this scene:


Echoes this one:

From this point, the comic becomes a rehashing of the opening infiltration/exfiltration, differing slightly and modified by the fact that Cass is aware of the trajectory of the first. Indicative once more of Fraction's joyful use of reappropriation, the citation extends to the non-diegetic, fictional T.A.M.I. quotation.

W.A.S.T.E.

Newman Xeno's W.A.S.T.E. (yet another playfull acronym demanded by the genre) is a reference to Thomas Pynchon's post-modern classic The Crying of Lot 49. In the novel, the protagonist Oedipa Maas discovers an ancient conspiracy involving two rival mail delivery companies: Thurn and Taxis and Tristero. In the novel, Oedipa finds the recurrent acronym W.A.S.T.E. (We Await Silent Tristero's Empire) in a series of forays into the subcultures of 1960's California.
Not unlike Casanova, The Crying of Lot 49 is an excellent example of the literary pastiche which Wikipedia (with help from the OED) defines as something:

"cobbled together in imitation of several original works. As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, a pastiche in this sense is "a medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble." This meaning accords with etymology: pastiche is the French version of greco-Roman dish pasticcio, which designated a kind of pie made of many different ingredients."

Also:

"the term [may denote] a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful."

Specifically pertinent to Casanova's cinematic fixation is the site's argument that:

"Pastiche can also be a cinematic device wherein the creator of the film pays homage to another filmmaker's style and use of cinematography, including camera angles, lighting, and mise en scène. A film's writer may also offer a pastiche based on the works of other writers (this is especially evident in historical films and documentaries but can be found in non-fiction drama, comedy and horror films as well)."

Further reading, without leaving your seat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crying_of_Lot_49#Allusions_within_the_book

Newman Xeno

Without too much dexterity, one can draw a bold line between Newman Xeno, Casanova's enemy/employer, and Zeno of Elea. In dealing (however hamhanded) with travel between dimensions, crossover events, Xeno's "paradox backwash" and Zeno's "paradoxes of plurality" both concern themselves with existence in multiple states and the resultant logical fallacies. While Zeno dismisses the possibility of plurality, Xeno meddles with it, having mastered its maniupulation. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has this to say about Zeno's understanding of Plurality:

" This first argument, given in Zeno's words according to Simplicius, attempts to show that there could not be many things, on pain of contradiction. Assume then that there are many things. First, he says that any collection must contain some definite number of things, neither more nor fewer. But if you have a definite number of things, he further concludes, you must have a finite — ‘limited’ — number of them; he implicitly assumes that to have infinitely many things is not to have any particular number of them. Second, imagine any collection of things arranged in space — imagine them lined up in one dimension for definiteness. Between and two of them, he claims, is a third; and in between these three elements another two; and another four between these five; and so on without end. Therefore the limited collection is also ‘unlimited’, which is a contradiction, and hence our original assumption must be false: there are not many things after all. At least, so Zeno's reasoning runs."

More on Zeno: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#ParPlu

Guernica

I'm not sure if Fraction (or artist Gabriel Bá) employs Picasso's Guernica for specific means. Perhaps it is simply a juxtaposition of high art and low art, perhaps it is an interestingly stylized portrayal of violence. Probably not. Odds are, Bá cites Picasso as joyfully as Fraction cites Godard.

Silent Funeral

A year later, in issue 11 of Casanova, Fraction cites Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 Band of Outsiders as the inspiration for a silent casino scene, in which all of the characters' dialog is erased, leaving only blank speech bubbles. The film was no doubt the inspiration for the silent funeral in issue 1. While the trick is interesting in the film, toying with diegetic sound and meta-narritive, it is just as striking, and perhaps more playful in this graphic medium. Just as Godard excelled at twisting cinema's arm and torturing convention, Fraction revels in exploring the limitations of the comic book.

Jackie

Here, Fraction displays something that will characterize the rest of the Casanova series: brief, seemingly throwaway citations that at once propel the plot and pay homage to those he admires. The phrase "break in the continuum" comes from the New Pornographers song "Jackie" from their 2000 album Mass Romantic. The quotation is a definitive plot point, as well as an appreciative nod at A.C. Newman and co.
More importantly, this citation provides us with more transparency than we are typically offered by authors as Fraction admits to being influenced during the writing process. In the back pages of Casanova Issue 1 he thanks The New Pornographers, as he maintains he listened to them extensively while writing the comic. Thus, the typically obfuscated line between writing process and written work becomes more apparent and less rigid.


06_Jackie.mp3 - Hosted on SaveFile.com