Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* so apparently they're still having Everybody Draw Muhammed Day, and apparently Pakistan is still taking draconian measures as to its Internet infrastructure in order to thwart the dissemination of the results. I think it's sort of unfortunate that people are still doing this, because its founder, the cartoonist Molly Norris, bailed out on it as soon as it struck a nerve and ended up going into hiding for threats of reprisal. Norris has her name still attached in various feature articles even though she has about as much to do with whatever happened Sunday as Bill Murray had with Meatballs 4. As far as the event itself, the whole thing seems silly to me, although I guess it's intriguing to see a country take a run at denying cornerstone-level Internet service for a temporary period of time. They did something similar with Facebook and twitter in 2010. I don't remember an event or any hullabaloo last year.
* in another stunning development, the use of Danish Muhammed cartoons in a political protest in Germany has people mad enough to suggest that there will be reprisals.
Your 2012 Glyph Awards Winners
The Glyph Comics Awards announced its winners for the 2012 iteration of its program, featuring "comics made by, for, and about people of color." Winners for this year's awards were for the year 2011. The awards is held each year in conjunction with the the East Coast Black Age Of Comics Convention held in Philadelphia.
The awards were founded in 2005 by Rich Watson. Watson announced at the time of the nominations that he was set to retire after this year's awards program.
* a pair of sharp-eyed CR readers wrote in noting an Amazon.com listing for a big book featuring Mort Drucker's MAD work. I don't see any reason why we can't start appreciating Drucker's work right now. I wonder sometimes if it would be totally terrifying to write for Drucker or if you'd be fully confident that your work would get over no matter what you did because the drawings would be so apt and perfect. The way he draws James Caan's eyebrow in the above image is worth some folks' entire careers.
* whoa, stealth Joe Sacco book! It's likely an indictment of this column, but I wasn't aware of that one until blindly stumbling across it searching for another book. That's great news, right?
* I just received a package of comics from Hic and Hoc, which I'm guessing means that their publication will be news to some of you nice folk out there.
* the cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks provides an update on her comic The Adventures Of Superhero Girl.
* aren't we about due for a period of massive re-appreciation for World War III Illustrated? There's apparently a new issue out this summer, all about censorship. World War 3 isn't being censored, but I'm not sure I ever process it the way I would a most magazines with its pedigree and persistence, and I'm not certain why.
* here's a plea for more Wonder Woman comics that little girls can read. Why anyone has to ask for this instead of this being an automatic publishing priority for DC is beyond me, and I generally hate-hate-hate second-guessing corporations that make billions of dollars.
* speaking of which, here's a preview of a rare attempt at a female character in mainstream comics having her own title.
* DC is going to sell the living crap out of these slipcased Sandman editions. You discount that down a bit to reflect on-line bookseller prices, and you realize that for a lot of those comics fans it's not just that Sandman still holds a place in their hearts it's also that noting else has come close to satisfying that same reading urge... yeah, I wish I could buy stock in product offerings like that.
* I will add my voice to the chorus of those that enjoyed this cover. The idea of alternate covers is a tricky one for comics. On the one hand, using them to boost series by cajoling stores into ordering them for collector/completists is a weird direction in which to shove the market's cash reserves, even if you directly benefit. On the other hand, I like the idea of tweaking a title in a way that a slightly different audience might be pushed into picking something up. I know I'd be more likely to pick up this book with that cover.
* Love And Capes is set to return. I don't know if I've ever seen it, but the series is a favorite with a lot of longtime comics readers.
* I'm getting press for the imminent Magdy El Shafee book, Metro. I believe the cover image has been out for a while, but this is the first time I can recall seeing it. I guess some people might end up complaining that El Shafee's personal story is more compelling than the comic, but I would imagine very few stories are as interesting as that of El Shafee after the year Egypt had.
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,
* go, bookmark: the writer James Hudnall has launched a comics-related podcast, featuring talks with comics creators like Val Mayerik (sketch pictured) and Peter Bagge.
* McSweeney's had a contest going that featured an insulting pay rate, even by the debased nature of those things as it exists today; it's now withdrawn.
* speaking of writers-about-comics, I believe RC Harvey turns 75 this year. He's writing about some of the classics with renewed vigor and passion at TCJ, as in this article about VT Hamlin. VT Hamlin drew like he was cutting foam out of air.
* this article on editorial cartoonist Joel Pett angering Kentucky basketball fans crossed my browser the day it was written, but I hadn't linked to it because it struck me as intensely silly and sad. I'm still enough of a midwesterner to know how sports and basketball and even pop culture can grow to matter in people's lives so that they comment on such things as if they're real issues. On the other hand, I have enough coast-time in to see these things as huge extravagances in a time of national decline.
* I've said it before, but I love these rambling Brandon Graham blog posts that feel like they came straight out of some Internet bubbled preserving the way thing were done 10-11 years ago.
Missed It: The Deep: Here Be Dragons Wins Aurealis GN Award
I don't have much if any notion of comics in Australia besides some small press activity, the occasional enthusiastic North American attending some convention in that country, that big conference that Robert Crumb skipped and a few cartoonists of great import that make their home in that wonderful part of the world at least part of the year. That's my way of saying I'm happy to run Gestalt Publishing's press release-style news of winning the graphic novel category in a science fiction awards program some days ago. They won for this book, which was also nominated in the Illustrated Kids Book category. The publisher had two other finalists; a book of theirs won the award last year as well. Congratulations.
Go, Stare: The Extended Weekend In Super-Interesting Events
* the Hillary Chute-organized gathering of comics titans that was the Comics: Philosophy and Practice event at the University of Chicago (alma mater of Jessica Abel and Ivan Brunetti) dominated a lot of folks' Internet check-ins over the weekend. I'm going to assume that any archiving of the live-streaming footage will eventually be discoverable from this site. For now, you can read some of the tweets sifting their way to the surface about the show or just stare at this photo like I have for the last 20 minutes. The great thing about the twitter coverage of this show is that the audience was stuffed with comics smarties and the presentation format kind of encouraged people pulling stuff out and tweeting about it.
Rifai was born in Ramallah and educated in graphic arts and design in London, where he received multiple degrees. He also learned directly from noted 20th Century calligraphist Yousuf Al Najjar, and occasionally took more education through grants provided by the Jordanian ministry of education. Like Al Najjar, Rifai began his career as a calligraphist -- someone who constructed headlines and other text needs for a newspaper -- at a publication called Ad Dustour. He would become widely known for that role and continued to perform that function throughout his career. His career took off in the 1970s, both in newspapers in Jordan and throughout the region. This included the Al Bayan newspaper in Dubai.
Rifai was considered a significant pro-Palestinian cartoonist, primarily for his depiction of everyday people in the Arab world including those buffeted by political and military forces in that region of the world.
He would eventually become president of the Jordanian Cartoonists Association, a teacher at the Jordan Language Academy, a widely-disseminated editorial cartoonist on the Internet relative to his peers and a winner of the Trophy Of Arab Pioneers. He also won a prize called the Hisham Ali Hafiz in 1996, that time for his work in caricature.
The article linked-to above also announced that a street was named in the capital for the late cartoonist. A site devoted to Mr. Rifai is here; he also apparently maintained a presence on a few of the more active social networks, entry points accessible through that web site.
needless to say; I'm not sure of the message of the cartoon included here and it is used to indicate the late Mr. Rifai's style and approach
A Note From Zunar: Decision On Civil Case This Week
The Malaysian cartoonist Zunar issued a press notice yesterday to remind that a decision will be rendered in two days on his civil suit against police political authorities in his country regarding his unlawful detention a couple of years ago due to the content of his book Cartoon-O-Phobia. The cartoonist was held for two days, was investigated under the Sedition Act, and if my memory serves was picked up right before some crucial publicity-style events designed to drive sales of that volume. One of the key concerns in the suit is that Zunar was arrested before the books were publicly available, which combined with the fact that no one has come close to rioting or anything like that due to Zunar's cartoons, puts some stress on officials' claims that there was some sort of imminent danger that called for the cartoonist's detention.
Due to Malaysian law, the court could also decide that Zunar has to pay the government about 8000 Euros for bringing the case in the first place. This also to my mind doesn't really get at a key of the Zunar matter, which is the chilling effect the government's actions have had on the artist's ability to print and distribute his comics in his home country just generally, due to potential partners and commercial allies being frightened away. Even so, there are preferred outcomes here, obviously. So all eyes on Kuala Lumpur.
Your 2012 Stan Lee Awards Winner A trio of you forwarded a link to this con report emanating from that Mark Millar-curated comics show in London over the weekend -- which surface checking indicates was very successful in terms of selling out its space and driving people with money to the creators in attendance -- and its results for something called the Stan Lee Awards. It appears from contextual clues within that piece they have been done at least more than once, although I'm hard-pressed to figure out how they stand out in any way other than being this show's awards and getting Lee's name on them. In fact, they're probably primarily interesting for their lack of organization other than tossing in characters and projects and TV shows and the like into the same pile -- a certain approach to comics where all of these things are chunks of carrot in the same pop-culture stew and thinking about them as all being equal things isn't odd.
Writer Scott Snyder, an emerging if not already-there A-list mainstream comics talent and a key cog in DC extending its New 52 success past the initial "gimme gimme gimme" stage, was the night's big winner. Winners in bold. That's I believe a 2011 Sara Pichelli cover at left. At least I hope so.
BEST WRITER * Scott Snyder
* Mark Millar
* Grant Morrison
* Mark Waid
BEST ARTIST
* J H Williams III
* Greg Capullo
* Jock * Sara Pichelli
BEST SERIES
* Daredevil
* Uncanny X-Force * Detective Comics
* Locke & Key
BEST SUPERHERO OR SCIFI MOVIE
* Captain America: The First Avenger
* Rise of the Planet of the Apes
* Thor * X-Men: First Class
BEST TRADE
* Who Is Jake Ellis?
* Walter Simonson's The Mighty Thor: Artist's Edition
* Fables Vol 15: Rose Red * The Walking Dead Vol 14: No Way Out
BEST LIMITED SERIES OR STORY ARC
* Criminal: Last of the Innocent
* Flashpoint
* Superior * The Dark Angel Saga
BEST COMIC HERO * Batman
* Spider-Man
* Daredevil
* Wonder Woman
BEST NEWCOMER
* Justin Jordan
* Nate Simpson * Sara Pichelli
* Tradd Moore
BEST PUBLISHER
* Image
* Marvel * DC
* IDW
BEST TV SHOW
* Breaking Bad * Game of Thrones
* The Walking Dead
* Doctor Who
BEST GAME OR TOY * Batman Arkham City
* L.A. Noire
* Portal 2
* The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
MAN OR WOMAN OF THE YEAR
* Jane Goldman
* Jim Lee
* Robert Kirkman * Scott Snyder
STORY OF THE YEAR
* 
Commentary and reaction around the Internet to the passing of the comics illustrator Ernie Chan (1940-2012).
* go, bookmark: the writer James Hudnall 
A trio of you forwarded a link to 
