experimental comics

As the creators of Fourth Way Comics we have contributed to each comic that we offer. We work in several parallel disciplines; electronic music, texts, graphics and video and allow each of them to affect the others in unpredictable ways.
We allow for musical ideas to transform our writing, and take elements of form that we discover in the writing and apply those to video. In this way, instead of the different disciplines serving as distractions or contradictions, they augment the others and prevent any approach from getting stale.
Inspired by the ideas of John Cage, we frequently work with randomness and isomorphism. We are driven by the impulse to blend visual, audio and textual elements in search of a truly subversive experience. We push ourselves to be process driven, often creating rules and adhering to them without attempting to further control the final outcome. By working in this way, we push ourselves creatively and focus exclusively on the process of creation.
We approach our texts and comics specifically as forms of music that also have a layer of meaning attached to them. Many times the meaning springs forth freely from the work with pure textual form. In this way, instead of expressing something that is already established intellectually, the writing becomes a process of constant discovery.

JC Bio
JC Mendizabal is an experienced composer and transmedia artist influenced by the works of John Cage, Philip Glass and John Zorn. A graduate of San Francisco State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition and Electronic Music, his early accomplishments include composing Canto Para Ser Perseguido for the Symphonic Orchestra of El Salvador and creating the music for a multimedia piece based on the massacre of El Mozote for the University of Santa Clara in 1994.
After founding Black Note Music (an online label for experimental boundary-defying music) in 1995 he has released nearly one hundred albums, both solo and collaborations under various aliases (Kyron, Radio Free Clear Light, Projective Module & Via Sinistrae.)
An active participant in the artistic communities of San Francisco, JC has created a variety of musical installations since 2008 for the Mission Arts and Performance Project. He directed an interactive musical installation for the event Ilusion! at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in 2008 and in 2013 he composed and performed new works for the Mourning and Scars exhibit curated by Roxana Levia at the SomArts Cultural Center in San Francisco and for the Pacific Electronic Exhibit at Root Division.
At Craig Baldwin’s Other Cinema he improvised an alternative electronic score to Kenneth Anger's "The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,” and brought life to "The Spheres Of Creation" in an interactive performance for the Radiance Society in Oakland, Ca. He has taken the stage at Symbiosis Music Festival, the Lab, and Kaleidoscope Free Speech Zone, offering an exciting and fresh approach to electronic composition which blurs the roles of audience and performer.
JC has composed music for numerous short films including: “La Americanita” and “The Good Egg” by Erin Ploss-Campoamor, “Music Boxes” by Mabel Valdiviezo (Haiku Films,) and "Dance with Destiny" by Bruce Weaver.
His own short videos featuring his original compositions have appeared in several international film festivals including "Inner City Bondage" at the SF Short Film Fest in 2009, and "Bacchanal" at Festival Miden in Kalamata Greece in 2010.

On Collaboration
Our comics, our works of art
are invitations to collaboration.
We collaborate on them
and expect you, the reader,
to collaborate with us.
If the meaning
were already fixed and set
before you get the book
in your hands,
then this set meaning
is a dead meaning.
You can then only receive
a dead meaning.
Meaning can only be alive
in the precise moment
of its creation.
We invite you
to create meaning with us.
We have done half,
or more than half
of the job,
you do the rest.
Through collaboration
we wish to break away
from dead, fixed meaning
and continuously
create new meaning
WITH YOU
The creation happens
only
at the precise moment of creation
at the precise moment of reception,
and the receiver
is an integral element
in the creation itself.

www.blacknotemusic.com
#fourthwaycomics