April 30, 2006
Shuster Awards Results For Year Two
The second annual fan-driven awards focusing on Canadian comics
were handed out on Saturday evening in Toronto, in conjunction with the
Paradise Comicon.
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist: Pia Guerra
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer: J. Torres
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist: Bryan Lee O'Malley
The Harry Kremer Award (Best Retailer): Strange Adventures (Halifax)
Best Non-Canadian Creator: Brian K. Vaughan
Hall of Fame: Jon St. Ables,
Owen McCarron,
Win Mortimer,
Dave Sim
Dave Sim sang when inducted. Another prominent comics blogger on hand for the weekend was
Christopher Butcher.
posted 11:45 pm PST |
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OTBP: Trondheim Book on Comics
Here's a book that might be of interest to the formalists and educators out there, whether or not they can read French, or some enterprising small publisher in North America -- it looks like mega-popular cartoonist Lewis Trondheim has authored a book on comics with the cartoonist Sergio Garcia:
Bande Dessinee: Apprendre et Comprendre. If you go
to this catalog site and call up pages (on the left), it looks like it takes the form of a dialogue and may be an entertaining comic aside from whatever information or insight it imparts.
posted 11:15 pm PST |
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Bookscan’s Graphic Novel Numbers
Nothing too weird about the Bookscan numbers for graphic novels,
analysis of which is generally about which manga series' latest volume is at what place in the top ten. It's worth noting that DC received a significant bump for
V For Vendetta, a figure through which one must finally conclude -- if you haven't already with the Dark Horse movies of Springs just past -- that movies for comics properties with a you-can-pick-it-up-and-hold-it-over-your-head source (as opposed to 57 Superman trades, say) have a definite, measurable impact on sales familiar to bookstore sellers.
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Final Countdown to FCBD
The direct market retail promotion
Free Comic Book Day goes off this Saturday; this is a deal where comic book shops are able to buy for a greatly reduced price comic books expressly made for the purpose of free distribution on that day. That way anyone who walks in off the street for a free comic book can have one. It's mutated a bit out of that idea -- for instance, I'm pretty sure most shops would be hard pressed to deny their hardcore collector customers a shot at all the FCBD comics -- but the idea remains sound. Most comic book shops try to turn the day into a wider event with special guest stars and local cartoonists signing, that kind of thing. For instance,
Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles is going to host the popular comics writer Brian K. Vaughan; one store in Texas helps turn a parking lot into a mini-convention,
CAPE!.
I'll try to post major events at some point this week, but if I don't, keep your eyes peeled on appropriate threads on the various news sites and industry-wide reaching message boards like those at
Comicon.com,
TCJ and
The Engine. DC concludes their 2006 Gigantic Feature-Generating Mini-Series and Marvel starts theirs this Wednesday, so it should be a pretty busy week at the funnybook store.
Don't forget
Online Comics Day/Webcomics Awareness Day on the day preceding Free Comic Book Day.
May 5 is also Cartoonists Day or National Cartoonists Day, depending on which calendar site you read.
posted 10:15 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Happy May Day
Max Cannon Interviewed
New Image Anthology Details
Tim Menees Says Goodbye to Pittsburgh
Ed Brubaker Extends Exclusive With Marvel
We Have Met The Enemy And He Gives Us Gas
CR Sunday Magazine
An Interview With Grady Klein
The second interview in our series with
First Second creators on the occasion of their first season's launch is with Grady Klein, creator of
The Lost Colony Book 1: The Snodgrass Conspiracy.
Please enjoy.
Go, Read: Anders Nilsen Essay
Whoa
From the museum's description: "
Wunderground celebrates the legendary art, artists and musicians rooted in Providence's Olneyville neighborhood froororm 1995 to the present. Conceived by a group of eight artists from the city's underground -- Mat Brinkman, Brian Chippendale, Jim Drain, Leif Goldberg, Jugil Hong, Xander Marro, Erin Rosenthal, and Pippi Zornoza --
Wunderground represents the first collective museum exhibition of works by those who brought the famous but now demolished Fort Thunder to life."
Superhero Covers I Like, Episode Nine
Herb Trimpe's cover work for Marvel varied wildly, even by the rough standards established by second-generation Marvel artist covers. The above is in my opinion one of his good ones, although quite a bit different than the bulk of his effective cover work, which tended to favor imaginatively staged but abstract scenes of the lead character, or the lead in sudden motion. In contrast this cover is boldly split in half, each half leaping out at the reader with non-comic book variations on black (dark gray) and white (ivory), the lettering and the title are in a way both pushed back into the art in a way that evokes the "event" status of the story, and the eye travels nicely up the back of the sabretooth tiger Zabu to an almost publicity-photo type scene between the Hulk and his guest-star. The visual slide ends with Ka-Zar, which gives him a lot of power on the cover. Note, too, how the Hulk kind of plays up against the Hulk title and Ka-Zar lines up against the lettering below him, so you subliminally understand which character is which. The barbarian-type theme flatters the quirks of Trimpe's penciling more than a scene of futurisitc technology might. Overall, this presents the reader with a question -- what's the Hulk going to be like in this crazy place? -- that doesn't offer up an easy answer like the typical hero-in-danger cover might.
J. Chris Campbell Talks Funnybooks
Initial Thought of the Day (Not Comics)
Here's how to bet the Triple Crown races if you don't play on studying beforehand.
Kentucky Derby -- Go for value by picking horses that go off in the 15 to 1, 40 to 1 range.
Preakness -- Bet the Kentucky Derby winner if they fall below 5 to 1. If there is one, pick a local horse to Show.
Belmont -- Bet a horse that won on a similar track.
posted 5:31 am PST |
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This Week’s Five For Friday
Responses to this week's Five For Friday, "Name Five of Your Favorite Fight Scenes,"
are up now.
posted 5:20 am PST |
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April 28, 2006
CR Week In Review
The week's most important comics-related news stories, April 22 to April 28, 2006.
1. Pakistani officials
move forward in their attempts to litigate against international agencies that facilitated the depiction of the prophet Muhammed.
2.
Movement in the Paul Gravett Manga book fiasco.
3. Israel Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest winners
announced.
Winner of the Week
Jim Borgman,
appreciated and in his prime.
Losers of the Week
Apparently, comic strips.
Quote of the Week
"But I don't think DC ever said or intended that the One Year Later titles were designed as a tool to bring in new readers who were unfamiliar with comics and/or our core characters." -- Bob Wayne to
Newsarama
Mickey Mouse has the right idea
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Vacationing in Pakistan Off The Table
If I'm reading
the wire stories correctly, it's probably a bad idea if you're a media person to visit Pakistan for a while unless you're
absolutely clear that you or your employers haven't been indicted or won't be indicted on this "depiction of Muhammed" business. Pakistan seems to be the only country where traction was gained affording prosecutors the leeway to instigate legal action against any and all such agencies that carried such imagery, including if they're outside of Pakistan but able in some fashion to have caused the depictions to be seen in Pakistan. In fact, some of the proponents of the indictments are saying they're going to ask international authorities to bring the offenders to Pakistan like it or lump it, which I can't imagine happening but is terrifying just for the possibility that anyone would consider this a just thing.
posted 2:43 am PST |
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Banned Manga Book Filed as “YA”?
CR reader Ray Cornwall proves himself far more clever than I am by looking at the listings for the library that removed Paul Gravett's
Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics from the shelves and asking the following:
Many of the reports claimed that the book was shelved in the Adult section, where it belongs, as opposed to the children's or young adult's section. However, the library catalog shows a call number for the book of YA 741.5952 GRA- indicating that the book was actually shelved as a Young Adult book. This means that, despite a Library Journal review that indicates the book contained explicit sex acts and violent gore, the library shelved the book in the teen section anyway.
Had the library paid any attention to the book, they would have properly shelved this book in the Adult section. I find it curious that they're shifting blame from themselves and onto the book, when the real problem is their cataloging procedures.
You can click through the hazy screenshot above for the entry and access to the
Library Journal piece (if it's expired, search "Gravett").
I'm not sure how much we can tell about exactly which factors came into play and how exactly the book was filed or picked up without having been there, and the fact that the supervisor involved seems to have retreated to a Torquemada-like "this book is no good for anyone no matter what their age" stance has the unique side effect of protecting the library from
some of the adult/child filing issues. Still, this could raise some interesting and crucial questions when it comes to the initial incident and the rhetoric that followed.
UPDATE: Not so fast; better reason
unpacked here.
posted 2:29 am PST |
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Seadogs Wins Bluebonnet Award
Lisa Wheeler and Mark Siegel's
Seadogs has won the Texas Bluebonnet Award sponsored by the Texas Library Association. The award has been around since 1979, and involves kids voting on the books in an event coordinated by the awards committee. The comics-format
Seadogswon nearly 17,000 votes and beat out more traditional picture-book and Young Adult Fiction contenders. Artist Mark Siegel wrote a few comics bloggers this morning to say "This is a first. I think S&S [Simon & Schuster] was completely taken aback. And other mainstream children's publishers are sitting up and taking notice. I do think this is really significant for the changing mainstream marketplace's attitude towards comics -- especially for the younger set."
Mark Siegel may be more familiar to comics fans as the driving editorial force behind the new
First Second line of graphic novels, making their debut pretty much this very second. All in all, a pretty good week for Mr. Siegel.
posted 2:05 am PST |
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Fred Burton, 1963-2006
Fred Burton, an art student who became a bartender but kept his hand in and eventually moved to art full-time, providing the visuals for
Coleman Wallace and
Fort Boyard,
died April 21 after a protracted illness. He also worked as a colorist on
Toute une Vie. From what little I'm able to read about Burton on-line, it seems that he was charismatic and well-liked, and that his Brussels studio
Stripcheese attracted a number of younger artists enthusiastic about the form. He was 42 years old. You can find a Lambiek.net entry
here.
posted 1:51 am PST |
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Go, Read: Jog on Seven Soldiers
Jog at Jog the Blog
has arranged all of his reviews of the
Seven Soldiers interrelated mini-series from Grant Morrison and various artists at DC Comics, for one's potential sit-in-the-office-on-Friday-and-pretend-to-work reading pleasure. Morrison's work is probably the meatiest of any superhero work right now, and Jog seems full engaged with this latest, extended effort. To make this a little more announcement-oriented,
The Comics Journal's Dirk Deppey posts at TCJ.com that Jog
has taken over his magazine's "Cape Fear" column.
posted 1:24 am PST |
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April 27, 2006
The Silver Lining: Criminal Hernias
I feel for this guy who had
all his comic books stolen, but I always think it's at least a little bit funny to imagine some thieves lugging off this heavy of an item and they'll likely only get back pennies per pound.
posted 11:15 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Michelle Tea on Kapow!
Here's a short profile of Juliette Torrez' Kapow! books, which unless they've changed from the last time I've seen them are little books of poetry illustrated by alt-cartoonists.
posted 10:45 pm PST |
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Goodbye, Comic Book Heaven Blog!
posted 10:30 pm PST |
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Alison Bechdel Thinks Subscriptions
Alison Bechdel of
Dykes to Watch Out For seems to be mulling over a subscription model for her strip. Although I've read a lot of criticism of sub-only models as largely not working -- despite some examples to the contrary -- this seems to be a question of a premium offering rather than a wholesale switch away from what's being provided now. In addition, Bechdel has a really devoted audience gained over an extensive publishing history, an audience that might be more willing than usual to spend $25 a year in support of the artist.
posted 10:20 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Comic Books Are Important
Globe and Mail Profiles Pekar
Continental Signs David Illsley
Coffee House For Female Otaku
The Other Side Of J.N. "Ding" Darling
Review of Blankets: No Pedestals, Please
MSNBC.com Explores Religion in Funnybooks
The Showgirl, The Comic Strip And The Physicists
Wanda Sykes' Reaction: Bad News for Strip Boost?
NY Daily News on Marvel's "Civil War" Thingamaroo
Not Comics: Long-Ass Piece on Marvel Making Movies
“At Least One Thing In Common”
This wire article on the difficulty that some women have finding an entry point into the world of graphic novels should be everywhere between now and next Tuesday or Wednesday. I like it's practical concerns and sensible voice.
posted 4:55 am PST |
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Go, Look: Gabi Beltran
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Go, Read: Bob Wayne at Newsarama
The comics news site
Newsarama has a well-done, lengthy interview with Bob Wayne on the DC adjustment of its titles' storylines called "One Year Later" because of an across-the-line storyline jump coming off their cosmic slam-bang series of the past couple of years. Some of what's said is in response
to the sentiment of this piece by retailer Brian Hibbs. Hibbs seems to see the fact that so many titles falling under this promotion going back to print is a sign that DC punted getting its books out there where people could sample them during this big change. The general response to Hibbs' assertion, if I'm getting it right, is that comics retailers under-ordered the various series and that the increased demand broke out of historical patterns that DC uses to make sure extra copies are available.
Because DC's people won't talk in numbers, a lot of what you're getting is specific examples and percentages and very strong assertions, none of which I think are particularly useful in making an informed decision about what happened.
Newsarama does a nice job in pointing out that the overall line effect seemed relatively modest, which although the point isn't pressed really mitigates against the idea that this was an out-of-control, huge event outstripping DC's ability to take a reasonable risk. I would also imagine the consumer doesn't care at what point the pipeline is broken; they just want to read comic books and only understand that a book is either there for them to buy or isn't. If it really was retailer aphasia when it came to reading their customer base, DC should be interested in fixing that, too. That's one thing about the modern comics distribution system -- it's pretty clear who the effective agents of change are, because they're all up in front of the big catalog.
So while I really don't recommend these non-number argument pieces, I'd say this article proves extremely useful in tracking DC's attitude towards their line recalibration, including the very strong assertion made by Wayne and Dan Didio that this was not meant to bring in new readers. If that's true, then this might be one of those points they really miss a PR guru because that "jumping-on-point" message was certainly out there.
posted 2:17 am PST |
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Jim Borgman Hits 30-Year Mark
The Queen City institution celebrates 30 years with, in part,
the "Borgman Challenge."
posted 2:06 am PST |
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LA Times on Comic Strips’ Plight
The writer Alex Chun
has a piece in the LA Times about the big, cultural-shift issues facing the newspaper comic strip, from the perspective of some of the most successful comics artist. Berke Breathed even drew something just to illustrate the article. As comic book people know, it's always difficult to make those downshifts from wider to more narrow cultural relevancy, and a lot of needless harm that can be done by accident in trying to negotiate that tricky journey, especially when you know you've lost none of your artistic potency.
posted 1:46 am PST |
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Quick hits
Free Comic Book Day Profiled
Art Student Celebrates Fake Strip
Borgman and Scott Team Profiled
7 Young Artists Influenced By Manga
Gotlib To Headline Summer At CBBD
I Didn't Know They're To Be "Mcomics"
Cartoons 101... More Like Cartoons 100
Missed It: Time Europe Profiles Neil Gaiman
April 26, 2006
News at CR: Red Route, RIP
Red Route Distribution ceased operations earlier this year, several client publishers say.
posted 8:53 am PST |
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The Unlikely Departure of Paul Combs
As Editor & Publisher points out:
1. He's leaving of his own free will rather than being fired.
2. The
Tampa Tribune will immediately move to replace him.
Combs is heading back to Ohio; Dayton, maybe?
posted 5:53 am PST |
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Wired Editorial: Embrace Digital Now
Multiple people have e-mailed me
this editorial from Wired about the glacial pace at which Marvel and DC are going about implementing a system that involves people being able to download lots and lots of comics. Kudos to Mark McClusky for his very funny opening (that was the first place I drove as well, although one's options are limited in a small town at two in the afternoon), and his common-sense throwaway assertion near the conclusion that aggressive digital distribution might best serve an overall corporate profit policy aimed at licensing revenue.
As for the rest, while there's certainly a case to be made that some sort of policy should be further along by now at the majors, I think the issue has some layers. In fact, it kind of reminds me of a similar suite of decisions facing the comic strip syndicates as to how to approach on-line distribution, a still-ongoing concern. Most mainstream comic books distribute through a store system that counts on back-issues sales, and many books are sold as repositories of plot-line revelations rather than a specific entertainment experience -- I know the numbers are against me, but when I had a brother downloading chunks of DC's line for free I lost all desire to pick up the books in paper form. Besides, if they can get someone to upload these things for free, and don't perceive a profit out there for pay-per-downloads this would cost them, I'm not sure why they don't just let people do that and reap the benefits of greater licensing awareness.
In the end, I don't think these are insurmountable problems by any stretch, but I can understand taking a big longer to make sure.
posted 2:23 am PST |
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Go, Look: CBG Market Share Chart
Comics Buyer's Guide has on their CBGXtra.com site uploaded a market share chart going back to 1997. The line I found most interesting on an intial glance was the Image one; my perception of Image is as a much healthier company than a few years ago, but this chart at least doesn't support that without some 'splaining.
posted 1:59 am PST |
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Three Recent Covers I Like
Drew Weing and Eleanor Davis do a comic
together,
Bugbear #1.
All of the
Ed re-run covers have been gorgeous. This is the next one, I suppose, stolen from
Chris Butcher's site.
Patrick McDonnell's brand-new childrens' book,
Art.
posted 1:40 am PST |
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Naoki Urasawa: “Disappear For A While”
Jog the Blog provides
the most concise write-up, best links and most pertinent context when it comes to developments in a publishing story about Naoki Urasawa deciding to end (suspend?) the serial
20th Century Boys.
posted 1:06 am PST |
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April 25, 2006
Quick hits
Go Vote For The Eagle Awards
Nananan's Manga Profiled at PWCW
Virgin Comics Reveals Initial Line-Up
Disney Talks Jellaby, Abazad at PWCW
Public Health Comic Is Against Self-Harm
New Book of Comics #1 Goes Up For Auction
Comics Registry: Al Hirschfeld
Al Hirschfeld has been added to CR's ongoing bibliography project, The Comics Registry.
posted 12:26 pm PST |
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Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest Winners
Via
Dirk Deppey via
Colby Cash comes
published word of winners in Amitai Sandy's Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest. The winner was Aron Katz; the above is from Ariel Mitnik. You owe it to yourself to follow the "published word" link and look at Katz's entry in the gallery. It falls squarely into "Holy Shit" territory.
posted 3:13 am PST |
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Manga Book Removal Story Continues
The removal from California library shelves of Paul Gravett's heavily illustrated textbook on Manga (
Manga -- Sixty Years of Japanese Comics)
has reached that expected second stage, where people and organizations criticize the fact the book was taken out of the library and accuse the supervisor who did so of censorship. The good news is that this case was made in very strong fashion by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the response to those points by First District Supervisor Bill Postmus reads as stridently conservative, dismissive and unreasonable. The bad news is that the reporting is still bad enough to call the book a comic book, which has a negative connotation for many when you talk about books worth saving, and that at least this reported objection came from a national organization rather than from other library patrons.
The NCAC's resource page on the matter is
here. Paul Gravett is tracking the story
here.
posted 2:52 am PST |
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Go, Read: Profile of Will Dyson
This article celebrates the 90th anniversary of the "official war artist" designation received by Australia's
Will Dyson, right up there with Jack Kirby walking into Stan Lee's office when it comes to events that precede a period of sustained, excellent comics and cartooning output. As you can see from the "1940" note in the above cartoon, Dyson was tuned in to the point that he was casually, and reasonably accurately, predicting the Second World War.
posted 2:39 am PST |
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Sarah Boxer Writes on Masters Exhibit
There's a lot of interesting material
in this Artforum piece about seeing the Masters of American Comics exhibit -- soon to open in Milwaukee as the first stop since its opening run -- as a response to issues raised in criticism of 1991's "High and Low" show. As much as the idea of comics as art has a history, this is one of those epochal moments, and Sarah Boxer digs at the issues involved in a fun, engaged manner.
I imagine without having done my rounds yet that most people will concentrate on the article's second major series of points, about the lack of women in the show and the portrayal of women within the show. I didn't find this as convincing or interesting -- arguments that turn on the assertive phrase "No wonder... " tend to be more eye-rolling than eye-opening from my perspective. The observations themselves are solid, just not the conclusions. In the end, whatever criticism you apply to the Masters show becomes largely untenable when you take it to the necessary step of "And that is why Artist X should be in there instead of Artist Y." To have changed anything about the Masters show without being able to make that formulation, the curators would have been as guilty of the same indictment made eloquently against "High and Low" -- that the comics picked were selected in order to embrace a more flattering idea of art instead of celebrating excellence where and as it's found, even if it's on the walls of the boys' clubhouse.
posted 2:10 am PST |
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OPC Awards to Luckovich, Bennett
The venerable Overseas Press Club Awards for this year
have gone to the editorial cartoonists Mike Luckovich (
Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and Clay Bennett (
Christian Science Monitor), two stalwarts of the field. I'm not sure of the exact reason why these two men are winning an award for a program I believe supports outstanding foreign coverage, if there are specific cartoons in question, but both men obviously draw cartoons about international affairs in the course of their work. The article says the Overseas Press Club Awards have been around since 1940, when they were no doubt created to serve a plot point in a John Marquand novel.
this Bennett cartoon probably isn't a great example of the cartoonist's coverage of foreign affairs, but it's a fine cartoon
posted 1:59 am PST |
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Del Rey Manga’s Personnel Moves
Dallas Middaugh is promoted to Associate Publisher and moves to NYC to take the job; Mutsumi Miyazaki becomes Director of Licensing and Acquisitions after holding Acquisitions position at Tokyopop.
posted 1:50 am PST |
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News From Pittsburgh Comic Con
It totally escaped my attention, but the 2006 convention season continued over the weekend with a show in Pittsburgh -- America's prime location for Michael Keaton bar sightings, lingering Willie Stargell worship and Iron City beer. The news site
Newsarama offers up a
floor buzz article and
a follow-up story about one of Marvel's titles. A local newspaper had
an extensive preview.
Blog and web site reports include:
FanBoyWonder,
Tales of the Corpse,
Phiredrops,
Lunchbreak Comics,
Blog-Abilly, and
heartofiron.
posted 1:26 am PST |
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April 24, 2006
Quick hits
Buy A Cupcake From Carol Tyler
Comic Strip Creates Wine Sensation
Charity Comics Giveaway Site Launches
Local Webcartoonist Profile: Dean Trippe
Not Comics:
Hooked On Comix 1 and
2 on DVD
Angel Boligan Wins WPC Award
The Cuban cartoonist Angel Boligan won
the big World Press Cartooning award worth approximately $28,000 last Thursday evening in the Portuguese town of Sintra. The cartoonist won for a May '05 cartoon called "The Deceit" (above) that ran in the Mexican newspaper
El Universal. Boligan's cartoon beat out over 400 other entries. A full list of winners, which break down after the grand prix winner into caricature and editorial cartoon categories, can be found
here. More Boligan can be found at
Daryl Cagle's site.
posted 1:36 am PST |
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Doonesbury at 35: Appreciation
The funny thing
about this article is that
Doonesbury really didn't usher a new age; in many ways it is as odd a presence on the funny pages as it was 35 years ago, but the rising culture of political discussion and snark gives it a less startling political context now. I think
Doonesbury has reached that stage where appreciations like this will come more and more frequently.
posted 1:28 am PST |
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Not Comics: Zwigoff Revisits Crumb
posted 1:17 am PST |
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Diamond-Alliance Announce Summits
Dimaond Comic Distributors and Alliance Game Distributors
have announced this year's Retailer Summits for September 11-12 in Baltimore, and October 14-15 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Baltimore Comic-Con feeds into the former; while Small Press Expo is the same weekend as the latter. I think I'm noting this just because I like the fact that an important industry event is held in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
posted 1:00 am PST |
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April 23, 2006
Dick Rockwell, 1920-2006
Dick Rockwell, the longtime art assistant to Milton Caniff on
Steve Canyon and a prolific artist of genre titles in the late 1940s and early 1950s for publishers Gleason, Hillman, Marvel/Timely and Dell. The partnership with Caniff involved Rockwell doing everything except the main figure drawing, which for most great strips would be a career but on a feature as lovely as
Canyon was a distinguished one. As one might hazard a guess from the name, he was the nephew of the painter Norman Rockwell. Rockwell later did a few comics in the Direct Market age, and worked as an illustrator, editorial cartoonist, and courtroom sketch artist. The writer and comics historian Mark Evanier, who worked with Rockwell on one of the modern
Blackhawk iterations, wrote a very respectful piece
on the late artist here. Dick Rockwell was 85 years old.
Trust me: that cover is worth a click-through.
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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Some Comics People Get Film Deals
Here's a very long article e-mailed to me several times on how comics writers and comics companies might get film and licensing deals and how this is a good thing because that means they may get a lot of money and for some it's the fulfillment of their particular dream. Those are notions I can get behind; I'm happy for people who fulfill their dreams and I like to see artists (not companies so much) make money.
On the other hand, this article takes a lot of graphs to get to the conclusion of roughly "getting a film and licensing deal is like hitting the lottery but it can happen," the really rough assertion by the structure of the article that modern movie deals have contributed to the current landscape of, say, comics page rates needed to be explored in much greater detail, and while there are a few incidental details of interest the analysis doesn't get much deeper than "rights are very important" (an actual quote). It's also ironic in an article about "comic book creators drawing better deals" they mention the
Men in Black deal, in which the artist involved "drew"
nothing in the way of a deal.
posted 10:45 pm PST |
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Missed It: Prix Bedeis Causa
As reported at
Sequential, the awards
were given out Thursday at the
Festival de la bande dessinee francophone de Quebec
Prix Real-Filion: Jacques Lamontagne,
Druides, Editions Soleil.
Le prix Coup de Coeur: Jean-Louis Tripp,
Paroles d'anges, Glenat.
Prix Maurice Petitdidier (best foreign album): Juanjo Guarnido & Juan Diaz Canales,
Blacksad.
Prix Albert-Chartier: publisher La Pasteque.
Grand Prize of the Town of Quebec: Leif Tande,
Morlac.
posted 10:30 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Comics Article 101
Jeff Lemire Xeric Book Now On Sale
Don't Forget the Free Publication Day
A Young Cartoonist Struggles in Africa
Comics Art Book Covers:
1,
2,
3 to 20
Stan Lee Takes Pass on East Coast Trip
Thompson, Reinhold Work With Students
Entertainment Weekly on Jimbo's Inferno
Profile of Patrick McDonnell (Crockett Daniel?)
April 22, 2006
CR Sunday Magazine
A Mark Siegel Interview, Part One
A series of interviews with First Second creators during the initial weeks of the graphic novel line's six-book debut season
begins with the line's driving force, Editorial Director Mark Siegel.
A Short List of Really Good Comics That Have Come Out This Year
Just in case you thought last year was an aberration, the flood continues. Drawing solely on what I can see from my desk:
1.
Ganges, Kevin Huizenga
2.
Luba: Book of Ofelia, Gilbert Hernandez
3.
The Fate of The Artist, Eddie Campbell
4.
Sunny Spells, Jean-Jacques Sempe
5.
Everything is Complicated, Jean-Jacques Sempe
6.
Nothing is Simple, Jean-Jacques Sempe
7.
Mixed Messages, Jean-Jacques Sempe
8.
Ghost of Hoppers, Jaime Hernandez
9.
Billy Hazelnuts, Tony Millionaire
10.
Japan As Viewed By 17 Creators, Various
11.
Buddha Volume 8, Osamu Tezuka
12.
Crickets #1, Sammy Harkham
13.
Or Else #4, Kevin Huizenga
14.
Frankenstein #2, Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke
15.
Tales Designed to Thrizzle #2, Michael Kupperman
16.
Bugbear #1, Drew Weing and Eleanor Davis
17.
Maybe Later, Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian
18.
Showcase: Superman Family, Various
Granted I have one of the better offices to facilitate this kind of an experiment, and Phaidon printed four Sempe books at the same time. Still, that's a nice bunch of comics. And it's not even summer yet.
Happy 64th Birthday, Edmond Baudoin!
Excellence in Blogging
There's a ton of stuff on
Pyrrhic Victories I've never even seen, let alone to which I've linked. Also happy second anniversary to
Madinkbeard.
Go, Read: Jaime Hernandez in NYT
This should be interesting, as Jaime is one of the most confident and skilled storytellers working in the medium, but in a way that isn't as obviously technically impressive to some as Chris Ware might be. If for some reason you hate the
Times, the way things are in the comics corner of the Internet these days makes me imagine there are other places to find this page on-line in its entirety.
You can also
probably still find Chris Ware's inaugural run on the
Times feature. A complete Chris Ware story is such a rarity, it's interesting that there has been little talk of this latest effort.
Go, Watch: Alison Bechdel Videoblogging
I haven't watched it yet, but I'm told it's process-oriented.
Superhero Covers I Like Episode #243
I like the yellow background. That's a color of yellow you only seem to see on 1950s comic books. I also enjoy the sense of motion you get with Marvel Boy crashing through the thugs, the motion from left to right mirrored by the logo. I like the way Sol Brodsky (that's what comics.org says)
stages the thugs being knocked around, in a way that gives you a sense that Marvel Boy is a bit stronger than a normal dude but not overwhelmingly so. I like the way the spaceship, the action and the people down below are drawn at three different depths. In fact, the spaceship is great all by itself because with the lead's costume it adds a note of weirdness in what could otherwise be a pretty standard scene from an adventure comic like
Captain Easy. The thing I enjoy most is how the boat and people and wave and caption box serve as a visual walls for the foreground scene on the lower-left half of the cover. Those elements change the eye's direction and provide a subliminal sense of impact, as if that last thug were about to be stuffed in a corner.
Go, Read: Jeff Smith Interviewed By CulturePulp
Jeff Smith drew his answers for the interview you'll find by clicking through the above image. This PR image isn't one of the drawn answers, but it made me laugh so I had to include it here.
Initial Thought of the Day
I've been on the comics Internet for roughly one third of my life.
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April 21, 2006
CR Week In Review
The week's most important comics-related news stories, April 15 to April 21, 2006.
1. Mike Luckovich
wins Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. It is his second.
2. Friends of Lulu officials
release details on empowerment fund.
3. Marvel
announces licensing figure of $5 billion, which is why when you and I suggest they change their ways they poop diamonds on us from high in the sky, pants-less and happy in their solid gold hangliders.
Winner of the Week
Mr. Luckovich.
Losers of the Week
I'm pretty sure someone lost now that Marvel and DC
are turning corporate icon placement tricks on the side, one guesses to build robot slaves to guard the rest of their money, but I can't figure out who it is. Maybe a Coca-Cola would refresh my memory.
Quote of the Week
"Anyway, since this is probably the closest thing I'll ever make to a "public statement," I should add that I'm also pleased to associate myself with Drawn and Quarterly's fine catalog and publishing acumen, and that Fantagraphics and I remain quite convivial and amenable, and that this is all meaningless." --
Chris Ware on moving his ACME Novelty Library.
Hot Stuff has the right idea.
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Go, Read: Tobocman in New Orleans
The Villager profiles
World War III Illustrated's Seth Tobocman and his recent experiences in New Orleans. It's interesting to note that in much the same way Tobocman said he experienced 9/11 in the context of the 1970s outrage against United States citizens that helped form the magazine, he see parallels between what's going on in New Orleans and the political turmoil he described in
War In The Neighborhood. Having visited New Orleans briefly last month, I would imagine there's a Great Pyramids amount of work to be done in terms of political advocacy; if nothing else, spending time in the Crescent City these days is like visiting a friend you heard was mostly better after a car wreck and trying not to tear up when you see how shaky they are on a cane.
The cartoonist Josh Neufeld has also spent time in the region, and wrote about it eloquently in his
Katrina Came Calling.
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ICv2.com on Countdown to FCBD
The comics business and news analysis site ICv2.com
has a short wrap-up of resources available to retailers as the
Free Comic Book Day promotion approaches. This includes one having to do with driving people to a related
page on Myspace.com. Free Comic Book Day is a voluntary Direct Market program where companies make a book available at low cost for retailers to have on hand to give out to customers -- ostensibly new ones attracted to the notion of "free" -- and let them see the retail establishment, maybe put it on their radar, perhaps meet a signing cartoonist or two on-hand.
A list of comics that will be available can be found in several places including
here. The retailer Mike Sterling
recently noted some ambiguity among his peers regarding the promotion, and some basic approaches to the event.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Eleanor Davis
via Mr. McCloud
posted 12:00 am PST |
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April 20, 2006
The Fugitive Cartoonist
It's barely related to comics, but a reasonably fascinating story anyway.
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Scottish Press Award to Frank Boyle
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Lee Dawson Leaves Dark Horse
Dark Horse Publicist Lee Dawson is leaving that company to take a similar position in another field, a letter Dawson sent out through press release channels says. Dawson had held his present position for seven years; April 26 will be his last day. Jeremy Atkins will assume the position upon Dawson's departure. Dawson was always very nice to me, and I wish him great success.
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Quick hits
Tokyopop Mobile Manga Preview
Too Much Coffee Man: The Opera
Not Comics: The Original Crossover
Spain's Mystery Cartoonist Revealed
Philly Paper Profiles Comics Memoirs
Portland Mercury Reviews New Pekar
Profile of Maitena Making Wire Rounds
Not Comics: Voice on Totally True Story
Widely-Circulated Raina Telgemeier Profile
100 Years of Newspaper Comics in El Paso
Japan Hates Korea: The Manga, The Sequel
Virgin Comics/Virgin Animation Names CMO
Lexington, Kentucky Loves the Graphic Novel
Comic Book Customers Have Saved This Store!
19th FBDQ Starts Without Blain
I'm sticking with linking to convention news instead of making jokes about people altering imagery, as I can probably link to convention news without following a bad lead and making false statements in my desire to be funny. Sorry,
Wall Street Journal!
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Luckovich’s Pulitzer: Anti-Bush Mirror?
Jon Friedman is almost onto something here
with his analysis of how the recent Pulitzers -- including Mike Luckovich's editorial cartoon win -- reflected sentiment against the sitting President of the United States. I'd say what an award-winner in any category including editorial cartoons gains by tying into some zeitgeist isn't voter sympathy by political fellow travelers at the time of voting but an impression during the year caused by an extra boost of publicity when the writer or cartoonist creates a cultural moment embodying said political mood. That's my hunch, anyway. I barely know about comics, let alone the wider news media, so you should probably take that with a grain of salt.
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Zurich By Mike Turns Ten Years Old
Mike van Audenhove's name recently came up on this site as the artist behind a popular exhibit at the recent Fumetto show in Lucerne/Luzern, Switzerland. I didn't know he was U.S.-born, among other revelations
in this bouncy, old-school feature article.
posted 1:03 am PST |
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Gunshots at Mercury Studio
This isn't comics and probably isn't funny, but Steve Lieber of the Portland, Oregon workspace turns it into a fairly good Garrison Keillor story.
posted 12:43 am PST |
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April 19, 2006
Well, Who Knew This Would Offend?
You know it's been a heck of a year when a link
to an article about an Opus Dei-published magazine running a cartoon of, um, Muhammed in Hell is just sitting there in your hard drive as you blow past it twice.
posted 11:30 pm PST |
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Foster Gathering Art For Calendar
William H. Foster will be looking at art work for the proposed 2007 Black Comic and Cartoon Art Calendar on May 20 at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. Artwork needs to be in full color, 10 1/2'' by 8 1/2'', landscape format. Art on a disc needs to be in jpeg form.
For more information please email whfoster@snet.net.
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Quick hits
More Superheroes Turn to Crime
Uslan to Speak at IU Commencement
Time for Another Kubert School Profile
South Florida Club Recognizes Jim Morin
It Sure Is Fun Saying "Winona, Minnesota"
High School Cartoon Controversy in Dallas
Series Matches Cartoons, Signatories
I hadn't noticed this yet:
a series of essays on the Danish Cartoons Controversy where each signatory of
Manifesto: Together Facing the New Totalitarianism is matched with one of the original 12 cartoons in a combination profile/issues brief. Philippe Val of
Charlie Hebdo seems like a good place to start, and the article is linked up pretty heavily at the end.
If you want something on the Danish Cartoons mess from the traditional comics realm, here's
a thought experiment brought to you by Peter David and the people that post to his web site.
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Editorial Cartoon Award Madness
You know, in most fields a big award like the Pulitzer creates an empty space for several days on either side where no awards are given out or they'll likely be underreported. This is apparently not a fear held by editorial cartoonists, who if the listings at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists web site are to be believed, have enjoyed a full week before you even talk Pulitzer Prize. Here's your editorial cartoonist award news, in bulleted fashion.
* College student
William C. Warren from Wake Forest (work above)
has won this year's AAEC/John Locher Award. He beat out several runners-up, in order: Nate Robinson of the University of Washington, Sam Ayres of Yale University and Dan Abramson of Northwestern.
* Pulitzer Prize winner Mike Luckovich has also
won this year's editorial cartooning Sigma Delta Chi award given out by the Society of Professional Journalists.
* The United Nations Correspondents Association Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award went to
a cartoon by Gerald Mayerhofer of Austria's
Die Presse.
* The 2006 Comics Reporter Award for Really Long Award Name went to The United Nations Correspondents Association Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award, although it doesn't have much room to talk.
*
Editor and Publisher profiles Luckovich's Pulitzer win, pointing out he was informed early, which in some cases might ruin that spontaneous newsroom celebration imagery, although it sounds like the cartoonist sat around and worried instead of partying pre-formal announcement.
* The
Detroit Free Press acknowledges its finalist, Mike Thompson.
* In the most-emailed-to-this-site article of the day, Tom Tomorrow
writes an open letter to the Pulitzer board bemoaning the lack of penetration by alternative cartoonists into the awards mix. Tomorrow has a point, but oddly, I think the most telling sign of the category's conservatism isn't the lack of a Ted Rall win but the fact that Garry Trudeau missed out on a second Pulitzer a couple of years back. Like most awards, to an outside observer the Pulitzer for cartooning seems to have a political component (acknowledging certain well-regarded cartoonists when a career feels like it has blossomed) and a public component (acknowledging a cartoonist that made a dramatic impression over the year). I don't know any alt-comics people that have had a year where what they've done would strongly fulfill either criterion. On the other hand, past winner Trudeau made a tremendous public impact a couple of years back for his Iraq cartoons, and I'm not sure he even made the finalists. So I wouldn't be surprised if what we're seeing is a sense of pride in traditional cartooning that may have taken hold of the voting, maybe starting with Stephen Breen in 1998. Luckily, as Tomorrow points out, no one's been undeserving.
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The Beat: Ware on FSG Move
Great get for Heidi MacDonald: Chris Ware on his move from a partnership with Norton through Fantagraphics to a partnership with FSG through Drawn and Quarterly, the specific reason why, what he looks forward to it, and why Eric Reynolds is great.
Go look.
posted 1:21 am PST |
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WSJ: Product Placement in Comics
Wall Street Journal has a feature-y article up on product placement in comics, the equivalent to when the movies have the characters drink Coke or use a certain kind of cell phone or whatever. I'm sure there are Silver Age antecedents to this practices, as well as making toy lines into comics as has been done a few times. The kind of product placement where a character uses a certain car or has a corporate emblem on their t-shirt was also solicited by I think Chaos Comics right near the end of their first run publishing lots of books. On a certain level, this kind of thing might add to the realism of such comics, where instead of eating Big Mikes at McDonnell's they can all pound down Big Macs at McDonald's or whatever. On many other levels, putting certain cars into the background or whatever feels sort of gross.
posted 12:59 am PST |
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April 18, 2006
Go, Buy: Billy Mavreas’ Bunny Prints
It's my understanding that the artist Billy Mavreas's Monastariki store, an antiques/kitsch establishment located in Montreal, has recently suffered a minor amount of unforseen financial difficulty. If you are a fan of the artist or his store, I imagine this would be a good time to consider buying one of Mavreas' fine-looking bunny prints. You can go to an order-type page by clicking on the picture above.
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Quick hits
Missed It: Prix Bedelys
Missed It: Women Of Comics Site
Missed It: NYC24.org on Mini-Comics
Missed It: Lewis Trondheim Has a Blog
Missed It: Molotiu Translating Groensteen
FOL: Empowerment Fund Details
The Friends of Lulu have released initial details on their empowerment fund.
posted 2:17 am PST |
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9/11 Report GN Enjoys Early Feature
It's interesting to see
a feature-type article months in advance of publication for Hill and Wang's 9/11 report adaptation graphic novel,
The 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation. This could be seen in a variety of ways: simply good advance publicity, prepping the market for a specific kind of book on a still-troubling subject, and working the general press attention on 9/11 issues that will focus as the film
United 93 makes its debut, providing stories on the film with a potential second subject.
posted 2:02 am PST |
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Korea: Korean Comics Are Great
I don't know if
this article's particularly trustworthy given the almost-visible strain at the corners of some of its claims, but the article notes things like a yaoi-lite genre, the useful reminder that some Korean publishers are working out of a potential webcomics base and that some of the English-language translations are apparently provided by a governmental cultural agency. The last seems like a prescription for hilarity.
posted 1:33 am PST |
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Mike Luckovich’s Victory Lap
One of the great mini-genres in American newspaper writing is the day-after Pulitzer prize article, where papers write about their colleagues and co-workers receiving a lifetime-noteworthy honor usually while sitting in an office or cubicle at work. Mike Luckovich, this year's winner in editorial cartooning, has had the usual array of good notices and wire articles:
an NPR interview, the
wire article, and the
hometown newsaper article. Click on the image above and you'll get a PDF of the multiple Pulitzer winner's most famous cartoon in recent memory, and the reason many of us thought he was the frontrunner.
posted 1:26 am PST |
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Not Comics: Marvel, Licensing Giant
The major difference between Marvel right now and Marvel's previous periods as a secure, dominant American comic book company with interest from Hollywood is that Marvel has been able to leverage its character library and film success into numerous, specific, advantageous-to-Marvel licensing deals.
These numbers would be astonishing at 1/5 the size.
posted 1:08 am PST |
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Quick hits
Manga Returns to Biloxi
Pat Quinn Shares the Love
Portland State Reviews: Ego and Hubris
Fans Watch Doonesbury Character's College Process
Retro Subject, Future Format: Thomas Floyd Interviewed
April 17, 2006
2006 Pulitzer to Mike Luckovich
Mike Luckovich has won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in the editorial cartooning category. Luckovich works for the
Atlanta-Journal Constitution. As I recall, there is an official selection of entries for the Pulitzer which I don't think have been released yet, but here is
a Favorites of 2005 feature that
AJC ran. I think Luckovich was the clear favorite going in.
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Infinite Crisis Has Specific Effect
ICv2.com has their comics sales number and analysis of the Direct Market (comic book shops and related related retailers) up, a suite of stories which we always recommend here.
News Story
Analysis
Top 300 Comic Books
Top 100 Trade Paperbacks
ICv2.com's take seems to be: great sales on DC's fussy cosmic mini-series
Infinite Crisis and on stores stocking
V For Vendetta trades to meet demand from the recent motion picture; overall sales growth for the month and quarter driven by an increase in periodical sales. That last would be a change from recent trends where graphic novel sales have provided the vast majority of Direct Market growth. At the same time, it's hard not to think as an outside observer that periodical sales have been helped greatly by the appearance of a summer-style blockbuster in the post-holiday slow months -- kind of like George Lucas launching one of those
Star Wars sequels in February. Then again, last March is when the
Countdown stuff began.
Here, as usual, is my own Largely Useless Chart, or "How Many Comic Books Sold At Least This Much in This Month" -- this is the kind of fun you can have with ICv2.com's numbers if you have a lot of time on your hands.
Year -- 150K, 100K, 90K, 80K, 70K, 60K, 50K, 25K, 10K, 5K
2006 -- 1, 5, 6, 7, 19, 29, 38, 97, 183, 239
2005 -- 2, 7, 9, 20, 25, 27, 32, 83, 168, 217
2004 -- 0, 6, 9, 13, 14, 20, 29, 89, 173, 221
2003 -- 0, 4, 6, 8, 8, 13, 23, 80, 172, 209
2002 -- 0, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 67, 149, 186
While proving nothing, it's fun to noodle. Mostly slow trends in growth up and own the chart, with a big shift down from last year in comics selling at the 80k to comics selling at the 70k level, for some weird reason. But probably not the pulling off the bottom effect that some people -- including me! -- have proposed, nor the destruction of the middle class (comics selling 50K-80K).
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April 16, 2006
Go, Look: Jan Feindt
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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Site Update: Comic Event Calendar
I figured out a way to put together
an events calendar that while still not any sort of real substitute for the work done at places like
Egon Labs allows me to process your date-specific press releases and e-mail entreaties in a way that's just not slapping everything on the blog just because someone asked.
Please send me your links and jpegs, and I hope you find it of use.
posted 10:30 pm PST |
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Go, Bid: Seth’s X-Men Auction Piece
You can learn about the Ebay auction featuring the above piece
by going to the Doug Wright Awards page. As soon as someone sends me the URL to the auction itself, I'll delete this sentence and you'll be able to go right there by clicking on the above picture.
posted 10:15 pm PST |
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Send Bob Burden a Get Well Card
posted 10:10 pm PST |
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Quick hits
The Last Great Indy Comic?
Killoffer: Stamp Artist (
PDF)
E&P: Cagle Laments Easy Labels
Go, Read: Ground-Level View of BD Economics
Japan Makes Progress in Audience for Mobile Manga
April 15, 2006
CR Sunday Magazine
An Interview With Renee French
If I Were In New York, I Would Go To This
Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, Bob Fingerman and Evan Dorkin reading tonight.
Go, Look: Milt Gross Cartoon Tour of NYC
thanks to everyone who suggested that via e-mail
Collective Memory: Alternative Press Expo (APE) 2006
A list of links from the first major small-press show of the season. Don't be ashamed to bypass the written reports for the photo-driven links; it's where I would go first, too. And please
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
New Easter Sunday Tradition: Did Johnny Hart Greatly Offend Anyone?
Greatly? Looks like no. Maybe Nipsey Russell fans.
Not Comics: Inconceivable
I agree with Mark Evanier
on this one. Also, are my brother and I the only ones who ever noticed that Dr. Emil Gargunza from the
Warrior Marvelman (Miracleman) re-launch looked
exactly like Penn State Head Football Coach Joe Paterno?
My Favorite Superhero Covers, Episode 1,023
The things I enjoy include: Iron Man's (all-too-frequent) haplessness, the dated situation, the fact this could be any Marvel superhero, the way the cover is staged, the fact that all the "students" look like 38-year-old extras from
Mannix, and the worst corner-icon in comics history, "Iron Spaz."
If you go to the
Grand Comic Book Database gallery for Iron Man, it soon becomes clear that unless you're fond of "melty," the character has had a
really rough time with covers. Even stuff that almost always makes for an effective superhero cover -- extreme close-ups, graphic elements placed directly into the picture, iconic figures looming in the background -- don't seem to work with Iron Man. I have no idea why that is.
Go, Look: Excellence in Blogging
Here's a focused blog from Edward Liu on
comics-related birthdays and anniversaries, which makes me largely irrelevant so don't go there or I'll cry. Chris Mautner
previews the Hill & Wang graphic novels at his videogame and comics blog.
Dork #11, Due In August
I think this cover is going to look really nice. I'm blowing it up so it's totally out of focus, and Evan Dorkin may hate me now as a result, but you get the idea, I hope. Pretty colors, funny figures. He'll never admit it, but his work can be very nice to look at. Put this one on your radar.
Initial Thought of the Day
You know what's surprisingly good? Gary Groth's interview with Whoopi Goldberg that serves as an introduction to
The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960. She even name drops Jules Feiffer.
Go, Make: J. Chris Campbell's Eggbot
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ACME Novelty Library to D&Q?
People have been telling me this was going to happen, but I guess the new Farrar, Straus & Giroux
indicates strongly this is a done deal. The next issue of Chris Ware's awards-juggernaut
ACME Novelty Library (#17) seems to be going through Drawn and Quarterly. The previous issue was self-published by Ware but otherwise went through Fantagraphics' various organisms -- I received a review copy mailed by Fantagraphics, for instance. The first 15 issues were published by Fantagraphics.
I have no idea why this wouldn't be formally announced before the catalog came out, but maybe there's more than meets the eye or maybe no one wants to make a big deal of it. I'll try to scrape together a more complete story on Monday.
Duelling disclosure: D&Q is an advertiser here; I'm doing a book through Fantagraphics this year.
posted 3:16 am PST |
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CR Week In Review
The week's most important comics-related news stories, April 8 to April 14, 2006.
1. Manga book
removed from San Bernardino country library shelves.
2. Friends of Lulu officials
announce intentions to start empowerment fund.
3. Editorial cartoonist and Army reservist
called to active duty.
Winner of the Week
Students at the Center for Cartoon Studies still beaming from
an extended visit by Seth, Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti.
Losers of the Week
Adult patrons of the libraries banning Paul Gravett's manga book as unsuitable for the library, period.
Quote of the Week
"In what Marvel Comics calls 'the most politically charged comic series ever,' superheroes must reveal their secret identities and register with the government or resist and be hunted."
USA Today, April 13. Up yours,
Palestine!
Captain Easy has the right idea.
posted 1:37 am PST |
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This Week’s Five For Friday
Final results have been tallied for this week's "Five For Friday":
"Name five artists you didn't appreciate when younger that you appreciate now."
posted 1:33 am PST |
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April 14, 2006
Conversational Euro-Comics
Bart Beaty on What SPX Can Learn From Fumetto.
posted 7:22 am PST |
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News at CR: Paper Rodeo Ends
The comics tabloid Paper Rodeo ended its run with last summer's #19; special issues are still possible.
posted 6:51 am PST |
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Manga Book Banned From Library
Paul Gravett's
Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics was directed to be removed from library shelves all across San Bernardino county after a parent complained about potential adult imagery in the volume. Multiple goofy elements abound, like the newspaper twice ignorantly reporting this to be a comic book (although they're quick to claim credit for the removal), the parent seemingly not looking at the book herself, the district supervisor making grand and sweeping claims about who the library is for and what's appropriate there, and the library in this day and age filing books that might have adult imagery -- I don't even know that it does, to be honest -- with stuff aimed at kids.
In general, I'm not all that worried about this kind of story because 1) what goes in a library
is fair game for community discussion, and 2) the general trend is for smart filing and holding comics in high value. So my reaction to an article like this is more "that sucks; I hope they get with the times" than "manga and comics will never be understood" or "manga and comics are in trouble." On the other hand, it's obvious that another way to interpret this is that one is as a first shot in a crapload of specific attention to half-assed, dumb-as-a-rock, vaguely xenophobic cultural indictments with mid-term congressional elections looming.
Ideally in this case someone smart and adult will at least lodge a counter-protest; I'm sure a lot of us can think of our own parents when we were 16-years-old wanting us to have access to the best books written about a subject in which we were interested despite a dirty picture or two. Mine would have.
posted 3:51 am PST |
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Steadman’s Lamb Billboard Blocked
A billboard deploring the practice of sheep mulesing featuring a drawing of a crucified lamb by the great Ralph Steadman is not going up in Australia,
news wires are reporting this morning. I can't quite find the art in question, although there's a lot of video out there of sheep being abused.
posted 2:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Bechdel Draws CCS Visitors
The cartoonist Alison Bechdel dropped in on a panel at the Center for Cartoon Studies featuring Seth, Ivan Brunetti and Chris Ware. She forgot her camera and had to draw who was on hand. The results are amusing and worth a peek, and not blown up for somebody's stupid blog and thus much sharper-looking.
posted 2:05 am PST |
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Missed It: CBG Posts Sales Numbers
John Jackson Miller wrote me two days ago to point out that
Comics Buyer's Guide has posted their sales numbers charts reaching back to the late 1990s, but I woke up yesterday morning and immediately forgot this e-mail exchanged happened and failed to post this information here. Hopefully, this one-day late start won't set anyone back in their research. Seriously, I go to Miller when I have a sales chart question, so I'm happy to see some resource room given to raw numbers.
posted 2:00 am PST |
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April 13, 2006
Quick hits
Local Comic Fan Profile: Josh Meyer
Totally Missed It: Gem Award Winners
Not Comics: Bone Game Gets Full Release
Orange County Register: Most Popular Strips
Latest Printers a Positive For Comics Supplements
William Coffin, Buddy Blue Pass Away
Two deaths related to comics and of interest to comics fans have been reported in the last 24 hours. First, the former Yale Chaplain and prominent peace activist William Sloane Coffin
passed away at age 81. Coffin was the partial inspiration for Garry Trudeau's long-running character
Reverend Scot Sloan (pictured). The cartoonist Mary Fleener has written
a touching tribute on the Comics Journal message board to the San Diego-area musician Buddy Blue. Blue was a fixture at Comic-Con International, a booster of original-generation undergrounds and their spiritual heirs, and wrote about comics for various Southern California publications. He was 48.
posted 2:55 am PST |
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Go, Read: Stan Sakai in Granada
The talented cartoonist Stan Sakai's travel diary for the XI Salon del Comic de Granada festival in Spain
has popped up in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
posted 2:19 am PST |
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Speculatron 3000: A Barnaby Movie
I'm not very interested in movies related to comic book properties, so
these rumors of a movie being made from the old Crockett Johnson strip
Barnaby fail to make a significant impression. Don't get me wrong:
Barnaby's an eminently filmable property, whether it's Bert Lahr and Ronnie Howard playing the central roles or Paul Giamatti and some super-runty 13-year-old from a Fox sitcom. What's interesting to me is that a film in the works might help explain why there hasn't yet been a big
Barnaby book during this current run on signature comic strip properties, and could be a sign we'll see one if such a movie comes out or perhaps even if the property becomes significantly stalled at some stage of development. I would say those who own all the beautiful, existing
Barnaby books would be among those to welcome such a book, a measure of comics readers' general interest in the strip.
posted 1:49 am PST |
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ME Unearths Workplace Sign Cartoonist
Here's a fun distraction over at Mark Evanier's site. Evanier asks for help identifying the cartoonist behind the once-and-perhaps-still ubiquitous
"You want it when?" workplace poster, and receives
an array of smart answers, one of which he endorses as most likely.
posted 1:37 am PST |
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Fumetto Prize to Michelangelo Setola?
I'm not sure I'm reading this correctly, as I'm basically playing "Greek and Latin Derivatives Hunch-Taking for Fun and Profit," but I think it indicates that
Michelangelo Setola won some sort of prize at the recent Fumetto festival.
If I'm completely wrong, it's still worth a few minutes of time to look at
Michelangelo Setola's work and put it on your radar.
posted 1:25 am PST |
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April 12, 2006
I Wish Ivan Brunetti Came to My School
posted 10:00 pm PST |
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Quick hits
The Original Kirby Eyes
Profile of Cartoonist Karl Stevens
Political Cartoon Symposium Report
Milt Gross Reviewed in Seattle Weekly
LA Times Profiles That Dan Piraro Show
Biff Bam Pow -- Porno at the Library Article
Feel Free to Make Fun; We Like the Publicity
Anarchists Include DC in Protest Plans
I hate to ask but shouldn't it be really difficult to get anarchists
organized into a formal protest?
posted 1:18 am PST |
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Go, Read: Tokyo Comics Blog
posted 1:08 am PST |
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“They Needed Me, So I’m Going”
Editor & Publisher has a longer piece on Wisconsin editorial cartoonist and Army reservist Vaughn Larson, who has been called up to active service in Iraq starting April 19.
posted 12:56 am PST |
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Vittorio Giardino Series Due In Italy
I'm not sure if
a new series re-publishing Vittorio Giardino's books in Italy is big news or the kind of thing that happens once every couple of months, but if it lets me run an attractive, blown-up panel of the artist's, I'm happy to play along.
posted 12:50 am PST |
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Go, Read: Penultimate Panel Watch
The grandaddy of us all,
Neilalien, sent in word of this comics-related blog I hadn't yet seen, and I like it --
a blog devoted to the use and abuse of the "penultimate silent panel," or what I would call "the
Doonesbury beat."
He explains his reason for being here.
posted 12:44 am PST |
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Not Comics: Man Overstays at Cafe
I'm beginning to think that "Manga Cafe Shenanigans" is another one of those writing-about-comics genres, right up there with "Bif Bam Pow" and the "Local Cartoonist Profile." Anyway,
this guy spent over a month at a manga cafe, in a cheap rental room, running up a huge tab and, one guesses, reading a lot of manga. It's not like the North American 24-hour-comic-shop or the comic-shops-plus-food-on-credit operating models needed any more arguing against, but there you have it.
Although I stayed home rather than moved into a cafe and the comics were Keith Pollard-era
Fantastic Four and
Turok, Son of Stone rather than manga volumes, I have to admit I spent my first entire month at 30 years old in roughly the same state as this guy.
posted 12:40 am PST |
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Quick hits
Maitena Profiled
Hip, Hot, Smart and Yuck
Fred Hembeck Does 25 For Tuesday
King Features Launches The Pajama Diaries
Face in the Crowd Student Likes Comic Books
Not Comics: Arthur Szyk's Anti-Hitler Hagadah
Tony Millionaire Has Been There For Jared Paul Stern
April 11, 2006
Friends of Lulu: Empowerment Fund
The Friends of Lulu comics advocacy group
looks to be starting an empowerment fund, which although sketched in so roughly in this article might as well be in crayon, seems to be designed towards helping female members of the various comics industries with legal costs in cases of sexual harassment or discriminatory abuse -- an education role for the fund is also asserted. This would be a step up in terms of seriousness for both the group and the problem, given the longstanding accusation that Friends of Lulu's primary function is to defray convention costs for Friends of Lulu members, and the queasy reaction that many have to combatting sexual discrimination through furious on-line outings of wretched behavior. The article linked to describes in long form an incident that will be receiving the new fund's attention.
Update: I've been informed via e-mail that discrimination cases will
not be eligible for funding as the fund is currently conceived. The above has been changed to correct my error.
posted 2:29 am PST |
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Coley’s John Blackburn Passes Away
I don't have any information other than this press release re-run by Heidi MacDonald yesterday, but it seems that Eros Comics mainstay John Blackburn died earlier this month from a sudden illness. Blackburn was the author of the various "Coley" series, and used what looked to me like a late-underground bigfoot style for figure drawing combined with elements of more traditional comics illustration in his books. My reading of Blackburn's work is really limited, but unlike a lot of comics from Eros and other porn comics publishers where there seemed to be some amount of distance between the author and the work, which often expressed itself through disdainful humor, there always seemed an element of honesty in Blackburn's books, as realized in their straightforward explorations of psychological elements behind the physical connections he depicted. Blackburn may have lived in Los Angeles; I think he attended at least one convention in San Diego. If I'm thinking of the right person, he seemed quiet and shy, and not at all the age where one might be expected to succumb to sudden illness.
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Prickly City No Sub for Mallard?
Here's an interesting article from comics in the newspapers strategy standpoint, as much as those exist in syndicated feature land:
Houston Chronicle readers complain about the dropping of the conservative
Mallard Fillmore even though it was replaced by the conservative
Prickly City. This could mean a lot of things, or a little bit of a number of things: that people really like
Mallard Fillmore even theough conventional wisdom always said that people liked it just because it was the only stridently conservative strip out there, the comics fans really like their old favorites and hate trying new stuff, that
Prickly City just isn't hitting with its target audience. It could also be none of those things. Maybe people in Houston complain a lot?
posted 1:43 am PST |
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New Ignatz Books Announced
posted 1:40 am PST |
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Comics Registry: John Held, Jr.
John Held, Jr. has joined the Comics Registry here at CR.
posted 1:34 am PST |
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Editorial Cartoonist Called Up to Iraq
Turns out that Plymouth, Wisconsin editorial cartoonist Vaughn R. Larson is also a platoon sergeant in the National Guard, where he's served for 17 years. The Desert Storm veteran now gets to unpack his away-from-the-desk skill set in the current situation in Iraq,
the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists notes. The article also says that Larson drew cartoons during the last conflict and may draw more if he has the time on this time over there.
posted 1:15 am PST |
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Quick hits
DHC Announces CCI Contest
Paper's History: McCay to Borgman
Lalo Alcaraz Hits Five-Year Syndication Mar
Exhibit A Press Announces Book Award Noms
Peters to Be Joined by Conservative in Dayton
Not Comics: ACT-I-VATE Wave 2 Launch Party Pics
On-Line Pundits Question Ojingogo Eisner Nomination
April 10, 2006
A Late Freeze Wins Isotope Minis Prize
At least that's what my e-mail says. I think the full name is the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics.
posted 3:18 am PST |
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Conversational Euro-Comics
Bart Beaty checks in with a report from Fumetto.
posted 3:02 am PST |
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Paper Rodeo #19: Last Issue?
Rumors are flying that last summer's issue #19 of
Paper Rodeo may be the groundbreaking publication's last, news basically stemming
from this thread at the Comics Journal message board in which a potential contributor was told this to be the case. I'll try to confirm, but confirming with the artists involved can sometimes be pretty arbitrary. If the tabloid newspaper-style publication from various Fort Thunder alumni, those inspired, inspirations and fellow travelers has ceased to exist, that will bring to a close the way many readers were accessing this type of comic since many of the artists involved first broke into comics consciousness with an attack wave of mindbending, beautiful mini-comics in the 1990s. Personally, I thought some of the more ambitious stories in
Paper Rodeo, particularly Mat Brinkman's, may have represented the best works of this type yet seen.
Something to keep in mind: as someone pointed out to me this morning, all of these artists are tremendously active, and it's not like one outlet fading from favor is likely to mark an interruption in their output, even if the vehicle or medium changes. For instance, Dan Nadel's publishing efforts seems devoted in part to making some of this type of work available in very high-end, beautiful books.
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Hussein Case May Lead to Reform
There's still a huge buzz about the Irfan Hussein crackling up and down the international newswires, including reports that
the family wants to appeal the acquittal of several men in a carjacking ring accused of killing the cartoonist in 1999. This article should give you an idea of how the case
is being used to ask for reform in the Indian justice system. It looks like a key to the current outcome was
a witness turned.
posted 1:45 am PST |
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Go, Look: Dalrymple Comic Strip
There's a lot of great stuff to be found on Farel Dalrymple's livejournal, but a couple of
Comics Reporter readers were particularly impressed with a limited animation cartoon you can find by click the image at the right. Well, at least they liked it enough to send an e-mail.
You may have to scroll down a bit -- in fact, I know you do. The comic in question is at the bottom of the post.
posted 1:30 am PST |
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Go, Read: World Cartoonists Talk
Here's a nice, short interview featuring Philippe Dupuy, Lat and King Ban-Hui, after a live drawing exhibition at, I guess, the National Art Gallery in Malaysia.
posted 1:12 am PST |
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Fumetto Comes to Close in Lucerne
While alternative and artcomics regulars descended upon the Bay Area for this past weekend's
Alternative Press Expo (APE), I'm reminded that a lot of European comics folk just finished a week in Lucerne, Switzerland at
Fumetto. I think Bart Beaty went, so maybe we'll get a report. I always joke that if I got to go to one con on somebody else's dime, I'd hope for it to be this one because the festival-favorite lakeside town looks so gorgeous in pictures.
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Shahid Mahmood Still Seeking Answers
Shahid Mahmood
is still looking for the reason he's been banned from flying Air Canada, and is now taking his case before a tribunal with something called the Security Intelligence Review Committee. Mahmood was a well-publicized victim of restrictive anti-terrorist policies, and it's believed he may have been restricted because of the political content of his cartoons, or because of some form of racial profiling, or a combination of the two. The Mahmood case is one of those things you'd think would have worked itself out by now, so it's slightly depressing to hear that's not the case.
posted 12:28 am PST |
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April 9, 2006
Question on Bill Everett Memorial
This is from a latter issue of the 1968-starting
Sub-Mariner series (Everett died in early '73). This kind of thing isn't uncommon now, but does anyone know if this was the first time a comics creator was memorialized in the pages of a comic book with characters he or she created?
posted 11:30 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Khosla on Mitsuya Adachi
Stolen from
Alan Doane: occasional writer-about-comics Abhay Khosla
discusses the art of Mitsuya Adachi, which spirals into a wider discussion of artists featuring more participants.
posted 10:45 pm PST |
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Love Manga Comes to an End
According
to this post, it looks like the manga-related blog
Love Manga has come to an end. David Taylor site was dedicated to manga, and was on this reporter's shortlist of sites checked every day and thus probably the biggest recipient of CR's "Missed It" designation. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
posted 10:15 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Let the Swell of Support Begin!
NYT Profile of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Not Comics: Piraro Continues Charity Tour
Giants Decorate Swank Room With Schulz Strips
CR Sunday Magazine
Missed It: Those Kirby Eyes
Why Comic Strips and Their Creators Seem to Not Get Their Fair Share of Press Coverage When Compared to Less Popular Properties and Practioners of the Funnybook Arts and Less Prominent Icons and Citizens of the Pop Culture World
It's come up.
1. They do, it's just a different kind of coverage. Comic books are sold to a passionate sub-culture, comic strips are sold to a general audience. Comic strip people get way more general press devoted to them. Comic books have targeted news, which is a particular strength of the Internet.
2. The syndicates are almost entirely geared to selling to newspaper editors rather than to audiences. Therefore, most of the news about comic strips you see is in publications geared towards newspaper professionals.
3. Comic strip teams at the syndicates are probably the leanest companies/divisions per comics reader of all the different companies getting comics out there, and there's simply not enough manpower to pursue new publicity routes as they've opened up in the last 10 years just to pursue a new minor celebrity paradigm common to comic books.
4. Comic books are re-staffed, re-launched tweaked and special-editioned. Comic strips go years and years and years without change. "T.K. Ryan to Continue Doing Tumbleweeds" isn't much of a story.
5. A significant chunk -- but certainly not all so don't believe that if you hear it -- of North American newspaper editors run the gamut from indifferent to outright hostile when it comes to their comics pages, an impediment to pr-driven coverage because the crucial features-buying audience would rather hear less, not more.
6. Most self-starting comics-focused media people tend to see their view of comics as the one worth pursuing, even if they pretend that they're covering the medium. I, for instance, am really bad with editorial cartoonists. Some see related media featuring properties and creators as a more vital area of coverage than some areas of comics. So you tend to get people working out of very specific formulations.
7. The devoted comics press got its start in the 1970s, when for a variety of reasons, some of them near-insane but many of them sensible at the time, it was decided that the future of comics could be found within the North American comic book industry. Not in the undergrounds. Not in the New Yorker. Not in the newspaper. This choice colors a lot of things about the way comics are covered in North America.
8. Laziness and disinterest.
In the end, I think it's primarily the different audiences/different strategies thing. And I think this does frequently reflect the wider readership that a comic strip person may have over a comic book one. Aaron McGruder takes a sabbatical = international wire reports, Al Columbia stops publishing = occasional threads on the
Comics Journal messageboard. I mean, would anyone have cared to mention in an article if Frank Miller had appeared in a parody-response-video to a SNL skit? No, but I've seen a few people mention Jim Davis being in one.
Go, Read: Heath Robinson Comics
Go, Read: Midstream APE Report
This post from James Lucas Jones of Oni is probably as good of a halfway-through report on a convention as you're likely to read anytime soon. If I were on the West Coast I would be at this show, and I'd say that even if APE wasn't an advertiser.
Go, Download: Dash Shaw's Risk Board
Chicago Defender's Line-Up
Russ Maheras writes in with a brief report as to what features are included in the Defender's all-African American comics lineup.
The "Our Comics" page lineup in the Chicago Defender for April 5 was as follows:
Ebony Laughs by Bill Murray; an unnamed gag panel by Charlos Gary; Weepals by Gwen Moore; Herb and Jamal by Stephen Bentley; and a lucky numbers filler "strip" called Sonny Boy Says.
There are also two other comics-related items in the issue:
A gag-panel cartoon called (Th)ink by Keith Knight, and an editorial page cartoon by Tim Jackson.
That's basically it.
Thanks, Russ.
Go, Read: 3-Foot Sleuth
Initial Thought of the Day
Is there a bigger "Yikes!" moment in comics history than when Captain Easy takes it in the back from a metal hook at the beginning of
Wash Tubbs' whaling sequence? It's not only that Easy goes down like a punk from the follow-up blackjack to the head after weeks and weeks of being an unbeatable ass-kicker, it's the thought of a nasty hook landing between your shoulder blades, and the black ink stain with which Crane illustrates the damage.
posted 2:20 am PST |
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April 8, 2006
CR Week In Review
The week's most important comics-related news stories, April 1 to April 7, 2006.
1. Word arrives that
the Siegel family had their points upheld in a case against DC Comics over their rights to Superboy, calling into question such things as profits that may be due from the
Smallville TV series.
2. Bizarre twist in the Gordon Lee case where Floyd County prosecutors
dismiss the charges but then refile with new ones.
3. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan gets back into the lawsuit versus cartoonists game,
appealing a decision that went against him.
Winner of the Week
Well, the Siegel family. Duh.
Loser of the Week
Marvel, whose "King!" "He's writing?" "King!" "He's scripting?" "King!"
Dark Tower early publicity strategy is bound to have left some people feeling crappy about the project
as its actual parameters are revealed.
Quote of the Week
"I mean there were times where entire scenes were dependent on little things like how Tigra felt about Yellow Jacket." -- Writer Mark Millar on Marvel's forthcoming
Civil War series, with a sentence that beat any tiny, leftover desire from when I was 12 years old to be a superhero comic writer right out of my head.
The Eisner noms came out this week, too. If Cromartie High School wins an Eisner, I still won't be able to afford the toys, but we might get to see Chris Oarr give a speech.
posted 1:35 am PST |
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This Week’s Five For Friday
This week's "Five For Friday" entry, "Name Five Characters Where the Character Design is the Thing You Like Best About Them," as suggested by Mr. Evan Dorkin,
has now been posted. Thanks to everyone who sent a list in!
posted 1:31 am PST |
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April 7, 2006
Zapiro Named Journalist of the Year
The cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, better known by the name "Zapiro,"
has won the Mondi South Africa Journalist of the Year award. Although the pick isn't without some controversy, it's worth noting because 1) it's another achievement for Shapiro to put in his growing, increasingly internationally significant portfolio, and 2) it's always worthwhile to mark those moments when a cartoonist is recognized for the power and impact of their work instead of appraised in comparison to other cartoonists. As you can probably guess from the above, Shapiro's cartoons have a classic western editorial cartoon look to them, although the issues are relentlessly derived from South African politics and culture instead of broader international concerns.
posted 2:15 am PST |
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Marvel: Chris Claremont Resting in NYC
Marvel has issued a press release about the writer Chris Claremont resting back in the States after suffering from exhaustion overseas. One imagines the release is intended to squash any rumors that might come up as various, previously-announced comic book projects proceed without the 55-year-old. Claremont is most signficantly the writer who directed the X-Men books during the period from the late '70s until the early '90s when the mutant superheroes moved from mainstream comics also-rans to a top, in some aspects nearly dominant, superhero comics property.
posted 2:03 am PST |
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ANN Surveys Publishers on Biblos
Anime News Network
phones a group of prominent North American manga houses and asks them about any impact that the bankruptcy of the publisher Biblos might have on their own lines and the business in general. It's a fine first-reaction article, worth scanning at the very least. In an earlier piece, ANN characterizes Biblos as "one of the largest Japanese publishers of Boys-Love/Yaoi manga." The bankruptcy was announced Wednesday. Probably the most interesting thing in the reactions is that no one seems to think there will be an effect on the licenses, at least not right away, or at least not so much it's worth talking about in public.
posted 1:55 am PST |
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Go, Read: Newspaper Strip Features
Two long features on newspaper comic strips have popped up in the past few days, both worth reading. The first is a feature from a Columbus, Ohio newspaper
about the difficulty papers have in editing strips. This is indeed a curious because unless something's changed in the last few years, most cartoonists are expected to provide clean material once they learn the ropes over the first 12-24 months, an initial period during which their strips are more closely monitored.
The second feature looks like
a wire story about cartoonists taking breaks, which is great in the number of people they have chiming in -- you have to love Scott Adams noting how long he kept his day job after
Dilbert started. I think they miss the point about what makes daily newspaper production difficult, though. It's not just coming up with a joke every day, even though doing that and drawing six dailies and a sunday can be a 50, 60, 70 hour week for some cartoonists. A huge contributing factor is that cartoonists learn to meet this daily deadline while having to worry about their early sales levels. Until you get hundreds of clients, any extra time you might create for yourself that if the job were secure could go into doing an extra strip a week and building a backlog to burn off so you could take a break, for a lot of cartoonists I've met any such time gained that way is pretty much consumed by second-guessing the material you just got done, tweaking it, worrying over it so that you can become more popular, so that you can survive. It's not a hard job, but it's a tough, tough market, and unless you're lucky to hit immediately that tough market makes it a harder job.
posted 1:38 am PST |
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Look Who’s Covering Paris Review
That would be
Yoshihiro Tatsumi. I generally try to avoid playing press release bitch here, especially with a paid advertiser, if for no other reason than because people give you the squinteye. However, the latest Drawn and Quarterly e-mail is constructed in a way I found sort of interesting. If nothing else, this should at least give you an idea of how smaller companies can string together a number of events and news of goings-on to support one of their major artists, which can stand in contrast to the kind of "we've got a comic coming out and it's really awesome and people are excited about it we swear" Mad-Lib style, fill in any title, generic chest-beating you get from some industry players.
Anyway, D&Q notes
a release date for the second volume in their series of his works, the publication of untranslated work from that volume in the
Paris Review in question,
Koji Suzuki will do the second volume's introduction, Tatsumi did the
Rashomon cover
in that line of "Graphic Classics" from Penguin, and the cartoonist will be appearing at
Comic-Con International this summer. Separately none of that may knock anyone over, but put all together it 1) gives you multiple entry points and 2) helps cast the next Tatsumi book as significant and worth noting, which one imagines is key as a series moves past the hook of a first volume.
posted 1:16 am PST |
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Go, Read: Chris Ware Interview
posted 1:10 am PST |
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Mark Evanier on Superboy and Siegels
Comics historian and writer Mark Evanier has written a few concises posts about the heirs to Jerry Siegel having their claim to Superboy being upheld, and the potential that they may be due monies from the
Smallville TV show. Start
here, then read
here and then go
here. It's interesting reading because Mark writes with a lot of clarity and certainly has big-time comics-history chops, and as you'll see he still has to be careful how he characterizes certain elements of the historical development of the case. It's that weird.
It's easy to be confused. I get confused. It's hard to suss out what's going on. For instance, I read a few bloggers yesterday wondering out loud how Superboy could
possibly be seen as a derivative work of Superman because, you know, it's "Superman's adventures as a boy." But that's not what's at question -- past legal proceedings all stemming, it seems, from a late-'40s effort by the creators to regain Superman fairly establish the two as different creations, in a way that's now been upheld. The reason the question is on the table is because one can imagine there will be claims of
Smallville as a derivative work concerning Superman and Clark Kent and not really about Superboy, not because Superboy himself is in play. And so on. As I suggested yesterday, if I know DC, I bet they've done as much as they can behind the scenes to make sure this doesn't happen with a lot of properties.
posted 12:51 am PST |
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Quick hits
Cory Thomas' Launch Number
Local Retailer Profile: Jim Elmore
Go, See: 'Zine Show in Salt Lake City
Not Comics: Hotel San Diego to Close
Olivia Plender Makes Beck's Futures Show
Colin Earl Celebrates 50 Years of Cartooning
David Lee Roth Does Disservice to Comics Medium
April 6, 2006
Superboy Punches Through Time
Various news outlets (with
Variety perhaps first) are reporting that last March the federal judge in the case between the heirs of Jerry Siegel on one side and Warner Brothers and DC Comics on the other has ended in a summary judgment favoring Siegel's heirs (his wife and daughter). This means that the family reclaimed the rights through revoking their assignment to those companies as of November 2004. Warner Brothers will appeal. The story has already moved through some of the usual suspects, and hit newspapers closer to the International Dateline than the U.S. is:
Comic Book Resources
ICv2.com
Malaysia Star
Newsarama
TCJ.com
ToonZone
That should go up to three figures by lunchtime. A story like this is newswire crack.
Because of the ruling, the Siegels may be due a portion of the profits generated not just by DC Comics' uses of the characters but from the television show
Smallville. That has yet to be decided.
A lot of this case has blurred distinctions between legal minutiae and fan trivia. One stance taken by Warner Brothers has been that
Smallville didn't really feature Superboy but a young, uncostumed Clark Kent -- a character they own through his appearance in the Superman comics, over which they have full control. Another assertion that Superboy was a derivative work from Superman appears to stand in contradiction to an earlier transfer of the character to the company in which DC fully participated. That
Newsarama piece linked to above even has a couple I'd never heard of before -- the point that Superboy as such doesn't exist in the older Superman comics, which weakens the derivative work claim, and an assertion that a Superboy villain in the recent DC cosmic maxi-series was some sort of Nerdiavellian dismantling of the character in case the case went against DC.
I don't know about you, but I like the idea of companies making their characters do horrible things before they're gone. It's like pro wrestling where guys leaving a specific promotion are made to lose to people that are staying behind. I also adore the notion that someone's parody comic is going to call their younger version of the superhero "Younger Version of Heroman" instead of "Heroboy."
I have no prediction for the outcome of the appeal, but I'm reminded of a piece of recurring comics gossip that's been around for a while now, that DC used the Siegel heirs' case as the impetus to go to all of its major characters' creators and shore up any legal discrepancies once and for all, with new money going out in many cases. If true, that seems really smart. If false, I bet someone out there wishes it were true.
Looks like Superman talked to Warner Brothers' legal before showing up on this cover
posted 1:43 am PST |
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Isotope Comics’ Download Offerings
The Bay Area retailer Isotope is offering up a bunch of free downloads of forthcoming indy books, which, when combined with similar attention to forthcoming books in past weeks seems like it could be a regular feature. Preview downloads are a regular feature of mainstream comic sites like
Newsarama, as well.
Graeme McMillan muses on the recent
free download of an entire work offered up as a free download by AiT/Planet Lar recently with a bit more curiosity than I can muster on the subject. Downloads for indy comics should work differently than the standard preview or previous issue strategies employed on behalf of more mainstream works because there's a greater -- maybe only incrementally, but still -- risk mainstream comics run of cutting into any sales of people who follow their comics of a soap-opera, "what happens next" impulse, rather than for the enjoyment of the work itself. In the cluttered workshelf, going after a fanbase that seems to want objects more than it does plot point spoilers and character updates, I imagine we'll see continued creative uses of the download.
posted 1:30 am PST |
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Not Comics: One Cartoonist’s Secrets
This is a highly amusing story hitting the international wires that only tangentially touches on comics and art: the heirs of
Henry cartoonist Don Trachte discover the truth behind a Norman Rockwell painting of their father's that had been part of a touchy divorce negotiation once upon a time. I like the idea that someone drawing
Henry could keep mum about something for the rest of his life. Who better?
posted 1:15 am PST |
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Go, Listen: Johnny Ryan Interview
Retrocrush speaks to the standard-bearer for offensive humor comics, Mr. Johnny Ryan. It's an earlier podcast, so you have to scroll down, although it would be unspeakably great if Johnny had been one of the stars of the
Breakin' movies.
posted 1:03 am PST |
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Go, Look: Saint-Ogan Scout Cards
brought to my attention by Dylan Williams
posted 12:57 am PST |
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Peter David on Marvel’s Dark Tower
Marvel's announced
that the writer Peter David will take on scripting duties for the much-hyped Dark Tower project. The comic book, a prequel to Stephen King's popular fantasy series, is to be drawn by Jae Lee and is currently scheduled to begin in February 2007. The announcement of David's involvement indicates a pair of stories. The first and obvious one is that many anticipated King writing a Marvel book when the project was first announced, and although it became clear that would not be the case, I would imagine that perception will continue to follow the project as it sees fruition. The second story is that you can see this high profile assignment as another step in Peter David's steady -- but I think noticeable -- comics career resurgence, which includes projects at IDW and an exclusive with Marvel. David's reaction
can be found here.
posted 12:43 am PST |
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April 5, 2006
More on 2006 Eisner Nominations
I'm not sure why I promised commentary today, because I don't really have much to say about any of the major comics awards anymore. They are what they are. One thing I noticed this year is that the
Eisners and the
Harveys seem to have a ton of awards as compared to the lean and mean Angouleme prizes, but I'm not sure I can get worked up about the difference. Mostly I had the same feelings yesterday I have every time one of these comes up, that I wish prose works related to comics weren't recognized by such events and that the
Ignatzes should emphasize its function as a festival award rather than an alt-Eisners. A new feeling is that there seems to be an overwhelming number of books so a lot of stuff gets left out unless it makes some sort of distinct impression. Although I have yet to see it it, I can't imagine perennial nominee
Jim Ottaviani's 2005 book was any worse than his usually-nominated works from years past. But you blink these days and books are gone! I'm sad that more people aren't as overwhelmed by
Carol Tyler's Late Bloomer as I think they should be. But mostly... eh.
You can read various people chatting about the noms at places like
The Engine and
The Comics Journal's message board. Here's blog stuff from
Forbidden Planet,
Kevin Melrose,
MangaBlog and
Variety.
Newsarama's readership usually has an interesting point of view.
On a personal note, I'm happy a book I worked on called
The Comics Journal Library Volume 5: Classic Comics Illustrators received a nomination in a tough category. I thought that book turned out really well, and I'm happy if this reminds people it's out there. I feel sort of embarrassed in that my name is after the title in the nomination even though I had little to do with what's good about the book. Gary Groth's work with the major interview subjects
Frank Frazetta and
Burne Hogarth was outstanding; he's really the book's author. And art director Greg Sadowski did such a beautiful job illustrating the book with works from the various cartooning masters it functions not just as an interview book but as an
extremely affordable art book of this type; he's really the book's driving force. Greg's work on the Russ Heath section in particular is as good as anyone's out there (Kidd, Ware, Seth, etc.) when it comes to making you look at an artist in a new way. Check it out if you're in a store where it's being carried.
posted 11:52 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Cartoonist Hit by Bus
PhD Comics Releases Hit Figures
Local Cartoonist Profile: Don Olsen
Current Client Count on Prickly City
Singularly Successful Sonic Celebrates 15th
Cartoon Art Museum Hosts "No Straight Lines"
Heritage Gets Hands on Copy of Daring Mystery
Go, See: Kent Worcester Interview Ruben Bolling
Not Comics: Incredible Hulk Rollercoaster Diagnoses Cancer; Puny Banner Coaster No Help At All
2006 Eisner Award Nominations
Here's the list. My first impressions, briefly...
Nominee "Winners": Chris Ware, Warren Ellis, Frank Espinoza
Welcome Back: The Comics Journal
Nominee in Which I'm Strangely Personally Invested for No Real Reason: Cromartie High School
I Would Have Lost Money: R. Kikuo Johnson, Carol Tyler, and, holy crap, The Plot
More tomorrow.
Best Short Story
* "Blood Son," by Richard Matheson, adapted by Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood, in Doomed #1 (IDW)
* "Monster Slayers," by Khang Le, in Flight, vol. 2 (Image)
* "Nameless," by Eric Powell, in The Goon #14 (Dark Horse)
* "Operation" (story #5), by Zak Sally, in The Recidivist #3 (La Mano)
* "Teenage Sidekick," by Paul Pope, in Solo #3 (DC)
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
* The Bakers, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
* Ex Machina #11: "Fortune Favors" by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
* The Innocents, by Gipi (Fantagraphics/Coconino Press)
* Promethea #32: "Wrap Party" by Alan Moore and J. H. Williams III (ABC)
* Solo #5, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)
Best Serialized Story
* Desolation Jones #1-5: "Made in England," by Warren Ellis and J. H. Williams III (WildStorm/DC)
* Fables #36-38, 40-41: "Return to the Homelands," by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha (Vertigo/DC)
* Ex Machina #12-14: "Fact v. Fiction," by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
* Y: The Last Man #37-39: "Paper Dolls," by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Goran Sudzuka, and Jose Marzan Jr. (Vertigo/DC)
Best Continuing Series
* Age of Bronze, by Eric Shanower (Image)
* Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (Marvel)
* Ex Machina, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
* Fell, by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith (Image)
* Rocketo, by Frank Espinosa (Speakeasy)
* True Story, Swear to God, by Tom Beland (Clib's Boy Comics)
Best Limited Series
* Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
* Ocean, by Warren Ellis, Chris Sprouse, and Karl Story (WildStorm/DC)
* Seven Soldiers, by Grant Morrison and various artists (DC)
* Smoke, by Alex de Campi and Igor Kordey (IDW)
Best New Series
* All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
* Desolation Jones, by Warren Ellis and J. H. Williams III (WildStorm/DC)
* Fell, by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith (Image)
* Rocketo, by Frank Espinosa (Speakeasy)
* Young Avengers, by Alan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, and John Dell (Marvel)
Best Publication for a Younger Audience
* Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance Press)
* The Clouds Above, by Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics)
* Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius, by Chris Eliopoulous and Mark Sumerak (Marvel)
* Owly: Flying Lessons, by Andy Runton (Top Shelf)
* Spiral-Bound, by Aaron Renier (Top Shelf)
Best Anthology
* The Dark Horse Book of the Dead, edited by Scott Allie (Dark Horse Books)
* Flight, vol. 2, edited by Kazu Kibuishi (Image)
* Mome. edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
* Solo, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC)
* 24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2005, edited by Nat Gertler (About Comics)
Best Digital Comic
* Copper, by Kazu www.boltcity.com/copper
* Jellaby, by Kean Soo, www.secretfriendsociety.com/archive.php?cat=2
* ojingogo, by matt forsythe www.comingupforair.net/comics/ojingogo.html
* PVP, by Scott Kurtz, www.pvponline.com/
Best Reality-Based Work
* Embroideries, by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
* Epileptic, by David B. (Pantheon)
* Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
* Pyongyang, by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
* True Story, Swear to God (Clib's Boy Comics), True Story, Swear to God: This One Goes to Eleven (AiT/Planet Lar), by Tom Beland
Best Graphic Album--New
* Acme Novelty Library #16, by Chris Ware (ACME Novelty)
* The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
* Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, by Alan Moore and Gene Ha (ABC)
* Tricked, by Alex Robinson (Top Shelf)
* Wimbledon Green, by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Graphic Album--Reprint
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Black Hole, by Charles Burns (Pantheon)
* Feast of the Seven Fishes, by Robert Tinnell, Ed Piskor, and Alex Saviuk (Allegheny Image Factory)
* Ice Haven, by Dan Clowes (Pantheon)
* War's End, by Joe Sacco (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Archival Collection/Project--Comic Strips
* The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
* The Complete Peanuts, 1955-1956, 1957-1958, by Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics)
* Krazy and Ignatz: The Komplete Kat Komics. by George Herriman (Fantagraphics)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, by Winsor McCay (Sunday Press Books)
* Walt and Skeezix, by Frank King (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Archival Collection/Project--Comic Books
* Absolute Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)
* Buddha, vols. 5-8, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* The Contract with God Trilogy, by Will Eisner (Norton)
* DC Comics Rarities Archives, vol. 1 (DC)
* Fantastic Four Omnibus, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Marvel)
Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
* Cromartie High School, by Eiji Nonaka (ADV)
* Dungeon: The Early Years, vol. 1, by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Christophe Blaine (NBM)
* Ordinary Victories, by Manu Larcenet (NBM)
* The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
* Six Hundred Seventy-Six Apparitions of Killoffer, by Killoffer (Typocrat)
Best Writer
* Warren Ellis, Fell (Image); Down (Top Cow/Image); Desolation Jones, Ocean, Planetary (WildStorm/DC)
* Alan Heinberg, Young Avengers (Marvel)
* Alan Moore, Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)
* Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers, All Star Superman (DC)
* Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC); Y: The Last Man (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)
Best Writer/Artist
* Geof Darrow, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)
* Guy Delisle, Pyongyang (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Eric Shanower, Age of Bronze (Image)
* Adrian Tomine, Optic Nerve #10 (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)
Best Writer/Artist--Humor
* Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The Bakers (Kyle Baker Publishing)
* Paige Braddock, Jane's World (Girl Twirl)
* Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Oni)
* Eric Powell, The Goon (Dark Horse)
* Seth, Wimbledon Green (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Penciller/Inker
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)
* Gene Ha, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)
* J. G. Jones, Wanted (Top Cow/Image)
* Frank Quitely, All Star Superman (DC)
* J. H. Williams III, Promethea, Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC)
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Paul Guinan, Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate (IDW)
* Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)
* Ben Templesmith, Fell (Image)
* Kent Williams, The Fountain (Vertigo/DC)
Best Cover Artist
* Frank Espinosa, Rocketo (Speakeasy)
* Tony Harris, Ex Machina (Wildstorm/DC)
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)
* Jock, The Losers (Vertigo/DC)
* Eric Powell, The Goon; Universal Monsters: Cavalcade of Horror (Dark Horse)
Best Coloring
* Jeromy Cox, Teen Titans (DC); Otherworld (Vertigo/DC)
* Steven Griffen, Hawaiian Dick: The Last Resort (Image)
* Steve Hamaker, Bone: The Great Cow Race (Scholastic Graphix)
* Jose Villarrubia, Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)
Best Lettering
* Chris Eliopolis, Ultimate Iron Man, Astonishing X-Men, Ultimates 2, House of M, Franklin Richards (Marvel); Fell (Image)
* Todd Klein, Wonder Woman, Justice, Seven Soldiers #0 (DC); Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC); Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Tomorrow Stories * Special (ABC); Fables (Vertigo); 1602: New World (Marvel)
* Best Lettering: Richard Starkings, Conan, Revelations (Dark Horse); Godland (Image); Gunpowder Girl and the Outlaw Squaw, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)
Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition
* Dawn Brown (Ravenous, Little Red Hot)
* Aaron Renier (Spiral-Bound)
* Zak Sally (Recidivist)
* Ursula Vernon (Digger)
Best Comics-Related Periodical
* Comic Art, edited by M. Todd Hignite (Comic Art)
* Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)
* The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth and Dirk Deppey (Fantagraphics)
* Draw!, edited by Michael Manley (TwoMorrows)
* Following Cerebus, edited by Craig Miller and John Thorne (Aardvark-Vanaheim/Win-Mill Productions)
Best Comics-Related Book
* The Comics Journal Library: Classic Comic Illustrators, edited by Tom Spurgeon (Fantagraphics)
* Eisner/Miller, interviews conducted by Charles Brownstein (Dark Horse Books)
* Foul Play: The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s EC Comics, by Grant Geissman (Harper Design)
* Masters of American Comics, edited by John Carlin, Paul Karasik, and Brian Walker (Hammer Museum/MOCA Los Angeles/Yale University Press)
* RGK: Art of Roy G. Krenkel, edited by J. David Spurlock and Barry Klugerman (Vanguard)
Best Publication Design
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday Press Books)
* Promethea #32, designed by J. H. Williams III and Todd Klein (ABC)
* Walt and Skeezix, designed by Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Wimbledon Green, designed by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)
Hall of Fame
Judges' Choices: Floyd Gottfredson, William Moulton Marston
Voters will choose four from among:
* Matt Baker
* Vaughn Bode
* Wayne Boring
* Reed Crandall
* Creig Flessel
* Ramona Fradon
* Harold Gray
* Graham Ingels
* Robert Kanigher
* Russ Manning
* Mort Meskin
* Marty Nodell
* Gilbert Shelton
* Jim Steranko
posted 6:51 am PST |
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Defender: All African-American Line-Up
The
Chicago Defender, one of the remaining giants of newspapers specializing in serving its city's black community, has moved from a comics line-up of classic strip
to a page featuring nothing but works by African-American creators. I was unable to find a list of the comics or the comics themselves
on the web site, so I have no idea how many of these are functioning within mainstream syndication channels as well, but it's a nice thing that there are enough strips for the
Defender to go in that direction no matter how they break down.
posted 2:11 am PST |
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Go, Read: David Lasky Interview
posted 2:02 am PST |
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Alt-Publishers Firm Up APE Plans
The Alternative Press Expo is an advertiser here, but word of who is doing what and when at the first of the big three alternative-type shows of the year is kind of scattered hither and yon around the Internet. Here's a start:
*
APE Aftermath at Isotope
*
APE$#!T art show on Friday night
*
APE's "Other Events" Round-Up (broken down by day)
*
Buenaventura Press
*
Fantagraphics (on-hand talent, Mome afterparty)
*
Laughing Squid
*
Lark Pien
*
Matt Hollis
*
Shane White
Slave Labor
*
TCJ.com thread including Sparkplug, Renee French, Allied Ink (whoa), AdHouse, Global Hobo among others
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Although I thought my having done the above in link form would engender more of the same, I'm afraid due to the rush of press releases I must restrict this to link-only notices. I could have done one or two, but not eight. Sorry! Everybody's on-line now, right? Send me a link to your APE plans.
As far as books, I'm sure most publishers will have one or two new things. Two I've heard about I would definitely seek out if I were there are Renee French's long-awaited
The Ticking from Top Shelf and a new book by Mats!? called
Asiaddict that Sparkplug and Ben Catmull have co-published. (I'm about due for my once- or twice-yearly mainstream comics shopping spree, so I'd probably buy some of those, too.)
posted 2:01 am PST |
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ACT-I-VATE Comics Project Adds Four
Rami Efal, Dean Trippe, Dave Wallin and Chip Zdarsky join Nick Bertozzi, Nikki Cook, Michel Fiffe, Dan Goldman, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld and Leland Purvis.
posted 1:50 am PST |
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April 4, 2006
Peter Arno Was Cooler Than You
Fourth graph. The experience is one thing, but to have people talking about it eight decades later is another.
posted 10:30 pm PST |
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Comic Foundry Launches Magazine
art from a feature on R. Kikuo Johnson and Paolo Rivera
posted 10:00 pm PST |
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Dupuis Situation: Spirou in Trouble?
This article is written in such a way I have hard time separating the wheat from the chaff, but I
think what it adds to the ongoing struggles at Dupuis under the accused-of-being-chafing ownership of Media-Participations is recognition that a period of instability and reform might call into question the future of
Spirou, the absolute institution of a comics magazine that probably isn't that profitable anymore. Because of
Spirou's cultural status, it seems like it may also be the poster child when it comes to questions of company autonomy, issues that look to have a Belgium vs. France element. Anyway, I thought it was sort of interesting given how the rhetoric develops around one of these battles. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong about my reading of this French-language piece, which is always likely.
posted 9:45 pm PST |
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Send Best Wishes to Alex Toth
posted 9:40 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Kid Meets Comic Book Artist
Students Do Cartoons, Avoid Writing
Not Comics: Mike Carey Writes a Novel
Spider-Man Saved the Comic Book Shop?
Not Comics: Bob Fingerman Writes a Novel
Gordon Lee Case Back to Square One
In a generally insulting-sounding and bizarre turn of events during yesterday's calendar call in Floyd County Court, the case against Gordon Lee was dropped only for a new case to be entered according to new facts in evidence. Lee had originally been charged with multiple counts including felonies from an incident during Halloween 2004 when as part of a civic promotion in Rome targeting minors, Georgia Lee accidentally gave out a copy of
Alternative Comics #2, a free giveaway that featured non-sexualized male nudity. The
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund took Lee's case in early 2005 and through a series of smart motions and attention to the law by the team of Alan Begner and Paul Cadle had hacked the case down to two misdemeanors, with every expectation going in to defeat those charges during a trial by jury to be held this week.
However, with barely a half day of even hinted-at warning, the prosecutors dumped its remaining indictments and are refiling with two other misdemeanor charges. The facts in question alleged to have changed is that instead of giving the comic to one minor, the prosecutors assert it was given to one minor and his younger brother. By refiling charges, the entire process restarts, and it will be a while before a trial expected to go this week gets to this point again if things unfold in similar fashion. Deputy Clerk Brenda Perry at Floyd County Superior Court told
CR yesterday that Lee's case could get back on the calendar as early as May, but the statement from the Fund seems to indicate they expect a longer wait.
You really should the CBLDF press release in its entirety, if nothing else than for the unstated feelings that seem to saturate the document, pulsing at each paragraph's edges. I think it strikes the right tone. Having charges dismissed is not only vindication, it exposes potential prosecutorial shortcomings (facts assumed in evidence changing 18 months later right before trial?) in a way that one imagines could change the way the case unfolds from here, and it suggests all sorts of ugly political impulses that may serve the CBLDF's greater cause to have exposed.
Having a new round of charges, though, puts more psychological strain on Gordon Lee, who probably thought this would all be done soon, and more financial pressure on the CBLDF, already $50,000 into this case. One of the more interesting sidebar staries has been that since the original incident involves a retailer's mistake has been a harder-than-usual sell in some corners of the comics community who seem to see the Fund as a merit award rather than as a resource to fight crappy laws. Ironically, as Charles Brownstein points out, the more money spent makes the CBLDF that much more obviously vital, as the financial pressure would certainly have been much harder for a single retailer to take had Lee been on his own. If not impossible.
posted 2:54 am PST |
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Not Comics: 500 DVDs Seized at Con
This isn't comics, but is it really that hard for convention organizers to screen its DVD sellers so that
seizures based on violations of federal copyright law don't have to take place during the show itself (assuming that's what happened)? Can the convention community make this part of SOP? I know people are busy, but I'm thinking these aren't exactly Sherlock Holmes-level investigations that lead to such busts, and could be managed by a savvy organizer acting in his or her own self-interest Cons have enough of a garage sale atmosphere that a dollop of selling weed out of the back of a Volvo station wagon atmosphere has to be pretty undesirable for vendors not doing anything wrong.
posted 2:16 am PST |
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ICv2.com Go! Comi Goes Reprints
The comics business and news analysis site ICv2.com has a short report on the specialty manga publisher Go! Comi going back to print on three of its four debut titles, with an overall line number (50,000) and an analysis of what this means for the general category in which the publisher works (shoujo). I'm always dubious of sellout announcements without a straightforward "we sold x copies after initial orders of y and are printing z more" (especially when the preorder-driven Direct Market is a significant player) but I think there's enough to glean from the analysis provided in this piece to make it worthwhile.
posted 1:37 am PST |
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OTBP: Boris Artzybasheff’s As I See
"KEN STEACY PUBLISHING is very excited to announce the recreation of Boris Artzybasheff's 1954 anthology AS I SEE! This collection of fantastical imagery from the undisputed master of anthropomorphism is available at last after having been out of print for over half a century. His hilarious but pointed observations on the effects of technology on the human condition resonate to this day, and a write-up in the May issue of WIRED magazine underscores Artzybasheff's cultural relevance and popularity. Please click on RECREATIONS in the sidebar of our website to order your copy, available only through KSP -- thanx!"
This is good news if this is a straight-up reprint, although "recreation" is a term that may suggest otherwise. I really can't tell. I've written Steacy an e-mail to see if he can clarify.
posted 1:31 am PST |
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Hussein Murder Prosecutors: No Appeal
In today's development surrounding the acquittal of multiple defendants in the murder of Irfan Hussein, a group of carjackers that represented the pursuit of a scenario for the cartoonist's 1999 death favored by police over one related to Hussein's work family members and observers felt strongly about, it looks like the prosecutors
aren't looking to appeal the decision. Hussein's former magazine employer
Outlook has pledged support to renewed efforts to find and prosecute the artist's killer or killers.
posted 1:30 am PST |
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Quick hits
Vancouver Has Funnybook Fever
The Other JHU Reviews ACME #16
Cartoon to Hopefully Fund Care Center
Readers Assume Anti-Boondocks Conspiracy
London Writer Sees Comics as Funhouse Mirror
Not Comics: Ruling To Come in Dick Tracy Film Case
April 3, 2006
Local Newspaper Report: Indictment Dropped, Postponement Already in Gordon Lee Case?
This article makes no sense to me at all. I'm out of my office today and phoneless as a result, but let me see what Newsarama has --
yeah, it seems vague to them, too. If you need to know right away you might monitor their site closely, I'm sure Matt Brady's on it and will probably be the first to talk to Charles Brownstein. If I can get to a phone I'll make a call to the court and see what's happening from their vantage point.
posted 8:13 am PST |
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CBLDF: Gordon Lee Trial Begins Today
Word from an in-transit Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Charles Brownstein received yesterday by various comics press luminaries
announced that retailer Gordon Lee would appear in court in Rome, Georgia this morning to begin his trial. Lee faces two remaining misdemeanor counts of "Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material." Lee originally faced multiple charges including two felonies for an incident whereby a copy of
Alternative Comics #2, featuring an excerpt from Nick Bertozzi's upcoming
The Salon that included non-sexualized male nudity, accidentally made its way into the hands of a minor during a 2004 Halloween-related giveaway in conjunction with a civic promotion at Lee's store.
The case was brought to the attention of the CBLDF through writer Peter David in early 2005. Both felony counts and two misdemeanor counts were dismissed in December. In January the Judge agreed with the dismissal of the charges and further reduced remaining charges from three to two.
The Fund has thus far spent $40,000 on Lee's defense, which, in part I would guess because it involved retailer error, has suffered from a mixed reaction in certain corners of the comics community. Thus the case has not only been an important one for the legal issues involved but for how Brownstein has skillfully negotiated and rallied support on the matter.
posted 1:44 am PST |
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Kenya’s Gado Faces Threat of Lawsuit
The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House in Toronto and the Cartoonists Rights Network (which may be the same thing, I can't tell)
are reporting that the prominent and internationally published Kenyan (by way of Tanzania) cartoonist
Godfrey Mwampembwa, known as "Gado," received a letter in March from lawyers representing that country's Minister of Justice of Constitutional Affairs, Martha Karua.
The cartoon in question features someone of Karua's likeness making a statement at a press conference that Karua claims never happened. Karua is reported to have filed 16 lawsuits against the media two years ago in similar cases.
A copy of CRN's letter to the minister's lawyers asserting Gado's rights under Kenyan law and U.N. edict is included at the article through the link. Several cartoonists in Africa and Europe have in the last few years been severely hampered in their work by political figures seeking redress through a country's court system.
posted 12:51 am PST |
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April 2, 2006
Non-Prophet International Round-Up
A few items in various preliminary stages definitely worth keeping an eye on: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is filing
an appeal of the Penguen decision that went against him; Erdogan has been extremely aggressive about using the courts against cartoonists who portray him in unflattering fashion... a new comics controversy between Indonesia and Australia
seems to be having at least a slight impact on that corner of international relations... the magazine that employed the cartoonist Irfan Hussein
will appeal an Indian court's decision to acquit multiple suspects.
posted 11:45 pm PST |
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Over the Hedge Book Plans
I have little to no interest in movie adaptations of comics properties, but I have been curious as to what Andrews McMeel would pursue as a print strategy with an
Over the Hedge film coming out as 1) Andrews McMeel doesn't usually have this decision to make, and 2) comic strip collections are generally attuned to people who are already fans of the newspaper serialization or are at least familiar with the rhythms and expectations of such collections, as opposed to the one-stop shopping represented by, say, the
V For Vendetta trade, and 3) In about 200 newspapers and without the press that follows something like the 350-client
Boondocks,
Over the Hedge stands to gain from the movie version more than other strips might.
Anyway,
Editor & Publisher reports that the prominent comic strip book publisher is putting out a fourth book and new printings of the three previous volumes that featured the strip.
posted 11:30 pm PST |
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De Guzman: Moore Assertion “Bullshit”
Although thanking the writer for the attention paid her comics line, Slave Labor Editor in Chief Jennifer de Guzman has sent a strongly-worded letter to
Punk Planet characterizing as "bullshit"
the conclusion to an editorial by Anne Elizabeth Moore where Moore, ironically herself working under contract to mainstream book publisher Houghton-Mifflin, asserted in vague, odd fashion that Slave Labor's deal with Disney could have dire selling out-style consequences:
But will this comprise the entirety of the SLG partnership with Disney? Or might we one day see a fun-for-the-whole-family Johnny the Homicidal Maniac animated musical? For now, Vado remains steadfast. "Us licensing our stuff to Disney is not part of the equation," he says.
But equations change -- especially when dealing with corporations as powerful (and deep-pocketed) as Disney. It may just be a matter of time before the rough edges of indie comics are smoothed into the clean lines and furry bodies that wave their way down Main Street USA.
De Guzman's response and discussion of Moore's piece
can be found here.
Among other things, de Guzman points out the contractual impossibility of the creator-controlled
Johnny property being made into a Disney musical simply because of Dan Vado's dealings, even if the publisher with two decades of admirable track record in indy comics were to do a career about-face and lean that way, a "Comics 101" point that suggests either deep ignorance or willful obfuscation in service of a strained point on Moore's part.
Also, even though I'm a weekly reader of de Guzman's journal so I bet I would have picked up on this,
Chris Arrant had it first and e-mailed it to me, so you should click through and read his take on it -- he has a nice comment on Disney/SLG compatibility -- or at least just click through and then backspace so I feel less guilty.
posted 11:15 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Felt Club
When I worked at an art gallery 15 years ago, the openings that had some sort of crafts-for-purchase element always generated a lot of business. Booths featuring pins, purses and prints usually kill at San Diego Con, too. It therefore sort of makes sense for something like this to spring up at a place like Meltdown Comics. If nothing else, there's some Jordan Crane art to look at, and at least one of the artists, Saelee Oh, has been profiled here before.
posted 10:00 pm PST |
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Quick hits
Pastor Joins Cartoon Line-Up
The Kids They Love the Manga
Comics' Forgotten War Rages On
It's Official: Dick Locher Writes Dick Tracy
RC Harvey as a Window Into Comics Criticism
April 1, 2006
CR Sunday Magazine
Lowest Heroism Threshold Ever
I haven't looked into it yet to know if the facts are true in the manner they've been presented to me, but
I was personally taken aback by the basic idea being floated that the magazine
Free Inquiry, intentionally or not, could set itself up to be seen as a free speech hero by giving its bookseller clients a heads-up on its intentions to print a few of the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoons and then excoriating the part of the system that blinked (Borders). While if what seems to be true turns out to be true I'm on the side of the publisher and will deplore Borders for making a summary decision the same way I'm furious at the Associated Press for refusing to carry the images so that its newspaper clients could make the chocie to run them or not, it seems sort of well,
wrong to me on some level that one's actions in simply pursuing one's job as a journalist, disseminating information in a way that informs one's readership, could ever be seen as anything more than meeting an expectation we should have for all editorial outfits on all stories, even indelicate ones.
Given the general reluctance of the world press to deal with the imagery, to deal with the news when it becomes news even if one does so creatively and with a heavy heart, it's hard to blame someone for noting their own contrarian stance above and beyond the usual myth-of-publication navel-gazing.
Here's a list of print sources publishing the cartoons. It's from the Wikipedia entry on the cartoon controversy, which casts some doubt on the reliability of its details. It seems to be a decent general snapshot. No matter how you slice it, it's a pretty pathetic list. My head is filled with too much about 1970s Marvel inkers and too little about philosophical fundaments to know whether free speech is properly termed a basic
human right or not, but the exercise of unfettered speech within a journalistic enterprise is certainly one of the more admirable and important expressions of a pluralistic society. The collective, general failure of the Western press to see this case first and foremost in terms of its primary responsibilities to educate and inform, regrettably conflating that mission with various secondary even laudatory notions of being an amicable citizen of the world, a supportive member of one's local community, a profit center for shareholders and stock plan participants -- that should make none of us feel good, even about ourselves.
Go, Bid: Abortion Rights Cartoon
Received this note from the cartoonist Stephanie McMillan:
Last week my Minimum Security cartoon featuring the phone numbers of anti-abortion South Dakota senator Bill Napoli went viral. It was posted on boingboing.com and countless blogs, linked in Salon.com and even written about in a New Zealand newspaper.
Since it's been receiving this attention, I decided to use it to raise money to help keep abortion safe and legal in South Dakota. To that end, I'm auctioning off the original cartoon on ebay. So far bids have reached more than $1,500, and there are 4 days left.
To see it, search on ebay for "Napoli Cartoon," or here's a link.
I will donate 100% of the winning bid, after I receive it, to two places, half of the amount going to each:
1) Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, which operates the only clinic in the entire state of South Dakota that performs abortions, and
2) Sacred Choices, a women's reproductive health clinic planned by Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The clinic will be built on tribal land in South Dakota, and thus will not be subject to US laws.
Both organizations have been informed, and copies of their letters of acceptance are posted in the auction.
The auction ends at 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday, April 5.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Long Box
A Sentence That Will Make Sense to About 23 Readers
I finally sent off all the packages I promised to various people last Christmas morning, so if you're one of those people, that's what that box is.
For No Particular Reason, Here's a Weird X-Men Cover
I don't know how much this is common fanboy knowledge the way it was back in my spinner rack days, but there was a point between the excellent Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run and the era-defining Claremont/Cockrum-and-then-Byrne run where the
X-Men comic book consisted of nothing but re-runs. As I recall, about half of the time the old cover was used and half of the time a new cover was used, such as during the period represented here where Marvel's covers featured large frames instead of using the entire cover for the image. Doing
X-Men covers when the book was in perpetual repeats couldn't have been a glamor gig, which is why I'm surprised to see this Gil Kane effort. It's really odd-looking, too, and and kind of striking.
Ironically,
the original was probably much-maligned artist Werner Roth's best cover for the book.
Go, Read: Burn
Go, Read: First Second Preview
CR pal Chris Mautner looks at First Second's initial offerings in
two parts.
Go, Look: Ralph Bakshi's Phone Doodles
Initial Thought of the Day
If the last two weeks
are any indication, we're not going to hear a whole lot from Scott McCloud when he goes on next year's tour, are we?
posted 8:30 pm PST |
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CR Week In Review
The week's most important comics-related news stories, March 25 to March 31, 2006.
1. A major deal and a sort-of major deal. Tokyopop
secures a co-publishing and distribution alliance with HarperCollins. Marvel and Panini re-up and
expand their European and South American representation deal.
2. More than 2/3 of newspapers carrying
Boondocks decide not to carry a re-run package during the strip's six-month hiatus. Some papers even take this opportunity to drop the strip outright and re-do their comics pages.
3. Ralph Steadman to
receive the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award at this year Ruebens dinner. Competition for the cartoonist of the year honor wide open. No comic book division nominees this year.
Winner of the Week
Mike Luckovich, a
rare editorial cartoonist nominee in the Cartoonist of the Year category at the Reubens.
Losers of the Week
Old-fashioned comics fans dismayed that Milo Manara
doing the art for an X-Men book will lead young, impressionable X-Men readers to the depravities of Manara's back-catalog.
Quote of the Week
"Life is always better with a happy writer. I don't think unhappy writers are ever good for you." --
DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz
Art from Ralph Steadman
posted 12:23 am PST |
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This Week’s Five For Friday
Results from this week's "Five For Friday," "Name Five Convention Experiences That Don't Involve Meeting an Artist," a topic suggested by Evan Dorkin, have
now been posted. I kind of liked this one, lots of funny anecdotes.
Again, if I didn't post yours, it's not intentional.
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posted 12:12 am PST |
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