British Cartoonist Mike White Passes Away Mike White, a veteran British industry comics artist best known for a run on Roy Of The Rovers in the late '80s and early '90s, his collaboration with young 2000 AD writers, and a general high level of craft including a knack for adapting to the basic art styles of his fellow illustrators, has passed away. Steve Holland's lengthy appreciation of White's career posted here indicates he was likely in his mid-sixties.
White began as an illustrator in the early 1960s with the publisher GM Smith/Micron in their publications aimed at girls. He moved to the Jackaroo Joe in IPC's Valiant publication in 1965 and then took on a number of assignments closely adhering to other artists' chosen styles. He split time in the late '60s and early '70s between Fleetway and DC Thomson, doing mostly stand-alone strips for the latter.
Holland notes that White became a regular at the controversial magazine Action -- a primary and direct antecedent for 2000 AD that ran from 1976 to 1977 -- contributing to the features Hell's Highway, Death Game 1990 and The Running Man. He naturally slipped into a similar role at 2000 AD, including some work on some of the best-remembered early-'80s short features by Alan Moore. This included the Abelard Snazz feature (the episodes "The Return Of The Two-Storey Brain," "The Double-Decker Dome Strikes Back" and "Genius Is Pain"), Future Shocks ("The Regrettable Ruse of Rocket Redglare," "Bad Timing, " "Eureka" and "Look Before You Leap") and Time Twisters ("The Reversible Man" and "Going Native"). Of these works, "The Reversible Man" is probably the best known; while the notion of a man living his life in backwards fashion wasn't exactly a new idea for science fiction readers of the day, the story is cleverly executed and White's pages exude strength and clarity.
White sidled into sports strips in the mid-1980s, initially with a feature in Champ and eventually working his way into a lengthy gig on the prominent feature Roy Of The Rovers. He is cited with giving Roy an aggressive look more in tune with the times and being the artist in charge when Roy Race and the Rovers went through a number of their late-career milestones and major story moments. In the 1990s White began to take on more illustration work; White's most high-profile comics gigs in recent years were for Commando.
Publishing Notes: One Piece, DC DM Sales Spin, Les Librairies
* the latest volume of One Piecelooks to have matched the initial print run of the last, record-setting installment.
* DC Comics major players John Rood and Bob Wayne have done two interviews worth reading if you track direct market sales and/or DC Vs. Marvel as sales entities more generally: ICv2.com; Newsarama. I never believed DC's pre-New 52 spin that they didn't really care about something like market share because of their focus on bottom-line numbers, but the general giddiness over DC sweeping January's Top 10 in the periodicals Direct Market plus John Rood deciding not to engage a question about bottom-line numbers by citing that top 10 sweep pretty much puts a stake in the heart of that canard. Some people have written me saying that these interviews that the pair do are disasters PR-wise, but I think there are some clearly effective things in there: I think describing DC publishing initiatives in terms of being beneficial for their retail partners really works for them, for example.
* this article from the Guardian showed up in my morning searches for a random of a bunch of postcards, and I'm not sure how VAT issues have an impact on that country's comics sellers, but the idea that a string of retailers might be valued for their cultural contributions and that this notion should shape policy is pretty powerfully appealing.
Go, Read: ComicsAlliance On Pizza Island Closure
Laura Hudson over at ComicsAlliance covers the recently-announced closure of the Pizza Island studio space by talking to the members of the studio about their immediate plans. This includes Kate Beaton, who also made recent news for announcing some adjustments in her cartoon-making work schedule. Beaton gets off a funny line about the level of interest in what is essentially just a place where a bunch of cartoonists went to work. There is some of that, for sure: the temptation to type "Pizza Island diaspora" is significant and of course inherently ridiculous. In the end I think the attention comes because it's useful to look at the intersection of a bunch of careers as a way to get a snapshot on the state of the art form. It's a fine approach to that kind of story, and a good piece by Hudson.
Daily Cartoonist: Chicago Tribune Pulls Doonesbury Strip
It hasn't made the news yet -- at least it hasn't made the wire stories searchable by Google -- but Alan Gardner and the readers of his Daily Cartoonist blog caught that a recent Doonesbury was pulled by the Chicago Tribune via an announcement on the GoComics blog. Here's the thing, though: they can't figure out why and I really can't, either. The strip in question contained a scannable code through which a reader could be directed to the DonorsChoose.org site. This might have conceivably triggered something at the Tribune in terms of a broad policy aimed against solicitation or outside coding, although a couple of Gardner's cartoonist readers note that other cartoonists have put codes in their strips before without reprisal. An additional oddity is that this may be the most benign strip that Trudeau's run in a while, as he's been focused on the Republican nominees for President for a bit now.
This post is designed to list events through January 2012, including ongoing exhibits. If you don't see your event above, perhaps check out the future listings here. If it's not listed anywhere,
* not comics: I couldn't watch this Death Of Superman-related video all the way through, but I imagine for comics fans of a certain age and those that like staring at young starlets doing stuff with nerdy guys, this will be a gift.
* Jessica Campbell continues to do all of us monoglot and functional monoglots the favor of translating Guy Delisle's Angouleme 2012 comics.
* that's a fine concept for an anthology. And this was a fine Super Bowl cartoon. Speaking of the Super Bowl, I noticed very little nerd-culture hand-wringing about the supposed inescapability of the sporting event, and a little uptick in the amount of disturbing attention spent salivating over ad teasers. So you win some, you lose some. I'm sure there will be some sort of ad-related comics news to talk about today (an advertisement for a comics-related movie or two; perhaps advertisements featuring comics characters), which I'm sure you can access pretty easily by poking around.
* Frank Santoro reports from the road. It's good to hear that he got 2.5 the number of people he expected to show at a recent outing. Santoro's fun to listen to on comics in any setting. Also fun: watching Colleen Coover make a cover.
* in case you were wondering, the perfect length for a manga serial seems to be thirty. I think the perfect length for a manga serial would be for somebody to publish the remaining volumes of Cromartie High School, that's what I think.
Mike Catron And Preston White Return To Fantagraphics In an interview last summer on the EC repackaging-by-author project announced at the 2011 Comic-Con International, Gary Groth of art-comics mainstay Fantagraphics hinted that the company would be hiring a new editor and a new designer either in Fall of that year or Winter of this one. That's come to pass, with Fantagraphics co-founder Michael Catron returning to the fold along with longtime, off-and-on art director Preston White. Both are now working in the Seattle offices of the publisher. White has been on hand for about three weeks; Catron just concluded his first.
Catron's hire is intriguing on several levels. One is historical. Catron was there at the company's start and well into its establishment and initial publishing years, leaving in 1985. (If you don't think of Fantagraphics as a company of historical interest, consider that they're coming up on having been around for half of the comic book industry's existence.) It's worth noting that someone returning to the endeavor in which he participated for such a long, vital and crucial time is not a thing that happens a lot in comics, particularly as personal relationships frequently deteriorate when professional partnerships move into new chapters. So I think it's a nice story that way. Another thing I find compelling is that what I understand of Catron's skill set seems perfect for the editorial role he's taking on. Catron knows comics history and has a passion for it; Fantagraphics is working with a lot of historically-driven books these day. He's well-connected with the generation of comics people represented by Groth and Thompson generally, which might lead to opportunities to work on books with some of those cartoonists due collection, historical and archival treatment in the next several years. Catron's reputation when I worked there -- long after he had departed -- was that he was meticulous and disciplined, things that are always welcome at a small publishing house. Catron's also worked at comics companies outside of Fantagraphics (primarily Apple Comics; I think his work with Mike Gold counts on this score, and I apologize if that's not the case), and should be self-reliant in terms of being able to handle complicated projects. I think it's a great hire, and I'm thrilled for everyone involved.
Preston White's hire represents a lot of those same elements. His is a personality that obviously works very well in the Fantagraphics context, and he was there during a lot of the early years and even a great number of the later ones. White worked at the company well before, during and after my late 1990s stint in Seattle. White left the company after his last term to live with his father in Virginia (my recollection is that White and Groth were originally acquainted as Northern Virginia comics fans when White was young enough to be driven to Groth's place by one of his parents), and suffered the 1-2 punch of losing both parents in a short amount of time. As an art director without Internet experience, White then experienced the vagaries of the recession marketplace, for instance finding employment at a San Diego publication that folded six months after he was hired. White's return to Fantagraphics represents a fresh start and a return to the company to which he contributed art direction work on hundreds of publications over the years.
Mostly, though, I find it encouraging that Fantagraphics had a need and ended up being able to fill it with familiar faces.
Gary Groth told CR that it hadn't been planned that way. "The simultaneous return of Mike Catron and Preston White to Fantagraphics was pure coincidence," he said. "They were both engaged in shady, scrofulous, semi-criminal activities and were looking to get out while the getting was good and were therefore casting around for a stable, legitimate, high-paying position in a respectable profession. This was clearly beyond their grasp, so they broached the subject with me. It just so happened that we've expanded our line sufficiently so that we could use one additional person in our editorial and art departments. In short, they were at the right place at the right time, or the wrong place in the wrong time, depending on how you look at it."
Groth noted the personal connection in each case. "I met both of them when I was publishing a comics fanzine in my teens. Mike co-founded Fantagraphics with me in 1976 when we began publishing The Comics Journal (nee The Nostalgia Journal) and even before that we embarked on a string of entrepreneurial endeavors together and just generally palled around."
Groth was also enthusiastic about what each man brings to the company. "Mike truly loves comics, knows the history, and has sharp editorial skills, which means I'll be handing off a lot of text editing to him. Mike is far better organized than I am -- which isn't saying much -- so we'll be expecting him to help refine our internal structure and streamline the book-making process from conception to printing. Preston has seamlessly re-entered the art department, expanding upon the skills he's developed over the last 30 years to the higher level of production that we've developed over the last decade or so." He added one more advantage. "There wasn't much of a learning curve for either Mike or Preston, they just dove in and have been working continually since they got here."
"It's not unlike living in a combined remake of Cocoon and His Girl Friday," Groth concluded. "We can all stand around the water cooler and talk fondly of the glory days when we weren't ancient." As Catron put it in his Newsmaker interview this morning at CR -- "... all of a sudden, the original four of us are together again, like the fabled Musketeers."
CR Newsmaker Interview: Mike Catron Michael Catron was nice enough to answer a few of my questions about his return to Fantagraphics after several years' absence. I've encountered Catron off and on for years, mostly at conventions where I've seen him taping various panels, something I ask about below. I'm greatly appreciative of his time -- he sounds busy! -- and hope that some of you out there can help with the L.B. Cole request he makes in our final exchange. I hope to have a similar talk with Preston White for a feature in early April. -- Tom Spurgeon
TOM SPURGEON: Can you talk about what led to your decision to come on board again with Fantagraphics? When did you guys start talking about your return?
MIKE CATRON: Fantagraphics has lots of projects in the pipeline and needed additional hands in different areas -- editorial, marketing, etc. Those are some of the areas I'd worked in before at Fantagraphics, at WaRP Graphics, and at my own company, Apple Comics. But, even so, I had to go through a hiring process, just like anywhere else. Nothing very unusual or exciting there. Of course, being a founder of the company helped. I think.
SPURGEON: What had you been doing immediately previously in a professional sense? Is there anything from your non-comics work that you think will come to bear on what you're doing at the company?
CATRON: Immediately prior to working for Fantagraphics, I was working as a computer software instructor. Aside from keeping me up-to-date on the latest software tools from Adobe and Microsoft, there's not a whole lot of direct benefit to Fantagraphics from that. I had previously worked in the printing industry in pre-press and as a production manager and some of the skills and procedures I developed there might come in very handy for Fantagraphics.
SPURGEON: Can you talk about what your duties are going to be? I understand that you're editing, but I don't know how many books, or if there's a specific kind of book on which you'll be focusing or anything like that.
CATRON: In my first few days here, I've done a lot of copyediting of text that will appear in various books currently in production, including the next Carl Barks volume. I'm working closely with Gary Groth on a long list of things Fantagraphics wants me to do. I will be shortly taking over the editorial responsibilities for a handful of books, but I'm also doing all kinds of bits and pieces for anything that's on the schedule. At the moment, it all seems to be reprint or historical material. I'm not currently working with any cartoonists on developing new material. That may or may not change.
SPURGEON: You worked in a different era for Fantagraphics and for comics publishing in general. How would you describe your knowledge of what's being done right now? How closely have you paid attention to what the company you co-founded has been doing in recent years? Do you expect there to be a learning curve at all in terms of anything on which you might have to catch up -- a kind of comics, or a process for making them, maybe?
CATRON: For what I'm doing right now, no. My knowledge of comics history is more useful to the company right now than knowing what the latest bells and whistles in Photoshop are. (In fact, I probably won't go near Photoshop.) But there's always a learning curve to everything. As far as the process for making comics goes, we are even now documenting that current process at Fantagraphics and looking for ways to streamline it. I always paid attention to what Fantagraphics was doing. How could I not? It's my baby that has grown up and gone off and done great things in the world without my help. I'm very proud of that, to the extent that I helped get the ball rolling in the crucial early days.
But do you know what's almost surreal about all this? By an amazing coincidence and completely unrelated to my return, Fantagraphics has also just re-hired Preston White, who was one of the company's very first hires shortly after we moved to Connecticut. So all of a sudden, the original four of us are together again, like the fabled Musketeers. (Everyone does know there were four, right?) The stars, after all these years, finally aligned once more. Call it the new Age of Aquarius for Fantagraphics.
But seriously, it's really great to be back with these guys -- and all the other very capable and talented professionals in the Fantagraphics offices, most of whom I'm just getting to know.
SPURGEON: What do you think your strengths are as an editor?
CATRON: Are you trying to make me go through the job interview process again? [Spurgeon laughs] Well, for one thing, I know the industry and its history. I know a lot of artists, writers, and other comics folk, including fans and collectors who might be helpful with one project or another. I understand the whole publishing process from start to finish, having done it for most of life. Also, I can diagram a sentence. At least simple ones.
Also, Gary Groth and Kim Thompson and Eric Reynolds are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings I've ever known in my life.
SPURGEON: Forgive me for not knowing this 100 percent for sure, but you're in Seattle, right? Was there any trepidation about making that move? What do you think of Seattle?
CATRON: Yes, I'm now in Seattle. And yes, there was quite a bit of trepidation on that score. But I ultimately decided comics is where I need to work. It just feels right to me and I missed it terribly when I was doing other things. I like Seattle so far. It does seem to rain a lot. But, strangely, I like rain.
SPURGEON: I and others have seen you in recent years making tapes of some of the panels at conventions, I believe particularly those focused on older cartoonists. What led you to do that? Do you have plans for that material? Are there one or two panels or even moments that you've caught with which you're particularly happy?
CATRON: What led me to start videotaping panels at comics conventions was that I didn't see anyone else doing it. Here were all these important figures from the history of comics answering all sorts of questions and providing a wealth of detail about our comics heritage and it was all just being written on the wind. I started taping as a way of preserving as much as I could of that for myself and future generations. As for plans for that material, I have nothing currently in the works. Ultimately, I would like to find a useful way to share it. There are lots of moments that I'm very glad I caught on tape, including some quite emotional ones. Lots of funny stuff, too. Someday.
SPURGEON: What's the first major project on your plate?
CATRON: I've just been assigned to a book on L.B. Cole. We're trying to gather as much L.B. Cole art as we can for a deluxe volume showcasing his best work. If anyone reading this can help us track down great L.B. Cole art treasures -- comics or otherwise -- please contact me via email at
FFF Results Post #281 -- Industry News
On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Your Five Favorite Comics Industry News Stories Of The Last 30 Years." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1. The People Vs. Mike Diana
2. DC Signs A Secret Deal With Diamond
3. Disney Buys Marvel
4. Jack Kirby Wants His Art Back
5. Michael George Found Guilty
*****
Joe Vince
1. The formation of Image Comics
2. Marvel's bankruptcy
3. Distributor wars
4. Manga boom of the early '00s
5. Neil Gaiman sues Todd McFarlane
1) Top Shelf comics "saved by comics community" emergency sell after the collapse of LPC.
2) Valarie D'Orazio (now Gallaher) "Goodbye to Comics".
3) "Rallsballs". Ted Rall vs. Danny Hellman.
4) Dave Sim's internet message board tour in promotion of glamourpuss.
5) The Bill Mantlo story.
1. Closure of Buenaventura Press
2. Sale of 33,000 pages of original art from IPC archives to a private dealer.
3. Diamond increasing pre-order minimums
4. Bill Blackbeard's passing and the delay in anyone noticing
5. The current golden age of reprints
5. Stan Lee Media (full disclosure: I was involved in this)
4. Collapse of the collectible market
3. Wizard implosion
2. Penis taunting at Archie Comics!
1. Sailor Moon premieres on US TV; millions of American girls ask "How long has this been going on?" & discover manga
*****
John Vest
1. Kitchen Sink's pact with Tundra
2. Friendly Frank's Michael Correa arrested
3. Steve Gerber's lawsuit against Marvel settled out of court
4. Jim Shooter dismissed at Marvel
5. Comics Code Authority defunct
1. The Comic Art Show (1983)
2. Comic Iconoclasm (1988)
3. High & Low (1990)
4. Masters of American Comics (2005)
5. Lyonel Feininger at the Edge of the World (2011)
* Newsarama reveals that the Siegel heirs are trying to claim the copyright to Superman.
* Fantagraphics announces The Complete Peanuts.
* The story of Alan Moore/Bill Sienkiewicz/Al Columbia's Big Numbers (which summarizes, in a way, the whole story of Tundra).
* The end of the Michael Fleisher vs. The Comics Journal & Harlan Ellison trial, transcripts published by TCJ.
* Alan Moore is announced as the writer of Image's Spawn #8, to be followed by a series called 1963 in which he is reunited with Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette.
*****
Mark Coale
1. Heroes World Closes
2. WB Animation / Creation of Dini/Timm 'Verse
3. Creation of Absolute format
4. Newspaper Strip Archive Collections
5. Saga of Miracleman/Marvelman
1. Marvel Comics' acquisition of Heroes World Distribution.
2. The Eclipse flood.
3. The creation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
4. The collapse of the original New York City comic book convention in 1996, which gave birth to Big Apple Comic Con.
5. The formation of Image Comics.
1. DC Comics to release a direct market exclusive maxi-series Camelot 3000 by Mike Barr and Brian Bolland.
2. Eclipse to bring Marvelman to the US as Miracleman in a 75-cent color comic book.
3. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund formed in the wake of the Friendly Frank's Comics case.
4. Movie rights cleared, Spider-Man movie coming in 2002.
5. Frank Miller to do Batman deluxe comic book The Dark Knight Returns.
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Fan Favorite Marvel Creators Bolt, Form Image Comics
2. Dave Sim Self-distributes High Society, Riling Retailers & Distributors
3. Sony, Marvel, & Stan Lee Sue Each Other Over Profits & Ownership of Spider-Man Properties
4. Eastman & Laird Self-publish TMNT, Get Filthy Rich On Their Own Terms, Subsidize Tundra Publishing & Xeric Grants
5. Comics Code Authority Withers Away
1. TokyoPop publishes Authentic Manga
2. A.C.T.O.R. (now HERO Initiative) forms
3. Siegel Heirs get 50 Percent of Superman copyright back
4. Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman self publish Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
5. 7 artists break from Marvel to form Image Comics.
CR Week In Review The top comics-related news stories from January 28 to February 3, 2012:
1. Three men were convicted in Oslo for their roles in a plot against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. Two were convicted under Norway's new terrorism laws; one was convicted for assisting those two men in their procurement of explosives. Jyllands-Posten published the Danish Muhammed cartoons more than a half-decade ago now.
2. Recent moves against cartoonists in India come to a head with Mumbai police serving a warrant on charges against a young cartoonist based on the flimsy ideas that 1) the state should never be criticized; 2) criticizing the actions of those operating within the government is somehow akin to sedition.
Winner Of The Week
Seems weird to go anywhere but Angouleme this week, but come on: David Choe.
Loser Of The Week
Comics, generally, for this piece of grossness. It's like being at a dinner party that ends super-ugly; it just feels a little more rotten to be in the room.
Quote Of The Week
"Chances are, Facebook started out as a minuscule part of Choe's investment portfolio." -- Deborah L. Jacobs at Forbes, showing off her rigorous knowledge of the meticulous investment portfolio strategies of artists and cartoonists. (via Joe Gross)
*****
today's cover is from the thriving, small-press independent comics scene of the 1980s and 1990s
Mike White, a veteran British industry comics artist best known for a run on Roy Of The Rovers in the late '80s and early '90s, his collaboration with young 2000 AD writers, and a general high level of craft including a knack for adapting to the basic art styles of his fellow illustrators, 
* Tucker Stone on 
Gary Groth told CR that it hadn't been planned that way. "The simultaneous return of Mike Catron and Preston White to Fantagraphics was pure coincidence," he said. "They were both engaged in shady, scrofulous, semi-criminal activities and were looking to get out while the getting was good and were therefore casting around for a stable, legitimate, high-paying position in a respectable profession. This was clearly beyond their grasp, so they broached the subject with me. It just so happened that we've expanded our line sufficiently so that we could use one additional person in our editorial and art departments. In short, they were at the right place at the right time, or the wrong place in the wrong time, depending on how you look at it."
Michael Catron was nice enough to answer a few of my questions about his return to Fantagraphics after several years' absence. I've encountered Catron off and on for years, mostly at conventions where I've seen him taping various panels, something I ask about below. I'm greatly appreciative of his time -- he sounds busy! -- and hope that some of you out there can help with the 
The top comics-related news stories from January 28 to February 3, 2012:
