Snake Agent
 | |
| Author | Stefano Tamburini |
|---|---|
| Language | Italian |
| Publisher | Coniglio (14€) |
| City | Rome |
| Date | 2005 |
| Pages | 48 |
| Format | 26.5 cm x 21.5 cm |
| Fabrication | Offset |
| ISBN | 978-8-8888337-8-1 |
| E-book | PDF (37 mb) |
Snake Agent is a re-edition from Coniglio Press of Stefano Tamburini's series. Originally published in the magazine Frigidaire from 1980 to 1984, Snake Agent is a détournement from Mel Graff's Secret Agent X-9 comics strip from the 1940s. It explores the uses of Xerox technologies, and more precisely the newly introduced portable model Xerox 3107 in regards to comics making. Beyond mere duplication, Tamburini is little concerned by Xerox's claims of quality and excellence of reproduction. He is more interested in the machine's portability and ease of manipulation; he uses the photocopier as an expressive tool, and by moving the pages on the machine's flatbed, he stretches, distorts and disfigures Graff's characters. His use of the 3107 prefigures a generation of comics artists exploring the materiality of reproduction technologies and foregrounds the contextual opacity of one of comics craft's most inglorious processes; Tamburini's work, despite its obstructive materiality, makes xeroxing the object of the systematic and sustained attention that it deserves.
