October 31, 2014
Go, Look: Super-Early Gil Kane Art
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If I Were In Madison, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Nantes, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Charlotte, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Las Vegas, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Winnipeg, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Lucca, I’d Go To This
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Happy 50th Birthday, Whit Spurgeon!
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Happy 42nd Birthday, Zander Cannon!
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Happy 47th Birthday, Rich Koslowski!
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Happy 72nd Birthday, Michael Fleisher!
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Go, Read: Emily Carroll’s When The Darkness Presses
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Go, Download: David Lasky’s All Monster Comics
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OTBP: A Limited Print Of Dan Clowes As Drawn By Drew Friedman
also: holy crap that's amazing-looking
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Help! I Have A Question Or Two About Movie Adaptations And Particularly The Ones From Four-Color
I have a question or two about movie adaptations into comics, primarily if there's a source for credits for Dell/Western comics generally, and if someone knows how artists and writers back then worked (stills? scripts? guesswork?). If you can answer those questions,
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Go, Look: Scott Longo
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The Casual Certainties Of Late October: Wal-Mart’s Christmas Trees, PW’s Best Books Of The Year
Publishers Weekly has its best-of book lists out, I guess in an attempt to fool those who thought there was slightly more than 1/6 of the year left.
Their choices in comics are:
*
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
*
The Wrenchies, Farel Dalrymple (First Second)
*
How to Be Happy, Eleanor Davis (Fantagraphics)
*
The Love Bunglers, Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
*
Beautiful Darkness, Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet (Drawn & Quarterly)
That's a fine list. Given past winning slates I wouldn't have been surprised if Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki's
This One Summer, Richard Thompson's
Complete Cul De Sac, Mimi Pond's
Over Easy, Jules Feiffer's
Kill My Mother or John Porcellino's
Hospital Suite were on this year's list, but what is on there makes sense. That Dalrymple book might surprise some people, but that book is something else.
I think there are likely still some excellent books to come. I just got the new Olivier Schrauwen, and that look stupendous. There's still at least one if not two David B. books coming out. I appreciate the
PW list's small size, and I appreciate the fact that even though there are only five choices two of their picks were from Fantagraphics -- there has to be pressure to include as many publishers as possible.
Update: Heidi MacDonald informs me that
Emily Carroll's Through The Woods and
the aforementioned The One Summer made a fairly extensive-looking Young Adult list.
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Go, Look: Reed Black
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Missed It: Somehow I Forgot To Run The BCA Shortlist, Including Posy Simmonds To The HOF
For some demented reason I forgot to post the announced short list for the British Comic Awards, which were announced a full two weeks ago. They do this according to a submissions process organized by the British Comic Awards Committee, and this move from a longlist to a shortlist.
The big news for right this very moment is that the great
Posy Simmonds will join
Raymond Briggs and
Leo Baxendale in the hall of fame. That is one solid Hall. Simmonds is probably best known for her two books, at-first serialized and then collected:
Gemma Bovery (1999) and
Tamara Drewe (2007). Her distinguished career includes the reputation-making comics informally known by her first name while bearing in one form or another several others.
*****
Best Comic
*
Dangeritis: A Fistful of Danger -- Robert M Ball and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell (Great Beast)
*
In The Frame -- Tom Humberstone (New Statesman)
*
Raygun Roads -- Owen Michael Johnson, Indio!, Mike Stock and Andy Bloor (Self published)
*
Tall Tales & Outrageous Adventures #1: The Snow Queen & Other Stories -- Isabel Greenberg (Great Beast)
*
The Wicked + The Divine #1 -- Kieron Gillen, Jaime McKelvie, Matt Wilson and Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)
*****
Best Book
*
The Absence -- Martin Stiff (Titan Books)
*
Celeste -- I.N.J. Culbard (Self Made Hero)
*
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth -- Isabel Greenberg (Jonathan Cape)
*
Lighter Than My Shadow -- Katie Green (Jonathan Cape)
*
Sally Heathcote: Suffragette -- Mary Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot (Jonathan Cape)
*****
Young People's Comic Award
*
Bad Machinery Volume Two: The Case of The Good Boy -- John Allison (Oni Press)
*
BOO! -- Paul Harrison-Davies, Andrew Waugh; Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Jonathan Edwards, James Howard, Gary Northfield and Jamie Smart (Self published)
*
Corpse Talk: Season 1 -- Adam Murphy (David Fickling Books)
*
Hilda and the Black Hound -- Luke Pearson (Flying Eye Books)
*
The Beginner's Guide to Being Outside -- Gill Hatcher (Avery Hill Publishing)
*****
Emerging Talent
*
Alison Sampson (
Genesis, "Shadows" (
In The Dark) -- artist)
*
Briony May Smith (
Tam Lin,
The Courting of Fair Spring and Red-Nosed Frost,
The Mermaid)
*
Rachael Smith (
House Party,
One Good Thing,
Flimsy, "Vicky Park" (
Leicester Mercury), "The Amazing Seymore" (
Moose Kid Comics))
*
Becca Tobin (
Eye Contact, "Peppermint Butler's Peppermint Bark" (
Adventure Time #30), numerous short comics)
*
Corban Wilkin ("History of Energy" (
Dreams of a Low Carbon Future) -- artist,
Breaker's End, "If Not Now Then When" (
Offlife #6))
*****
Hall of Fame
*
Posy Simmonds
*****
These titles will now go to a Judging Panel, consisting of Jonathan Entwistle, Jessica Hynes, Danny John-Jules, Jonathan Ross and Suzy Varty -- if they end up meeting in a room, I would love to be in that room. That group will decide the winners save for the Young People's Comic Award, which is chosen by young people from school across the UK.
The awards ceremony is scheduled for 6 PM, November 15 at the Royal Armouries Bury Theatre in Leeds. It is part of the Thought Bubble Festival.
Congratulations to all nominees and to
Posy Simmonds.
*****
*****
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Not Comics: Fred Banbery Mini-Gallery
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Brian Hibbs On Inappropriate Covers On All-Age Friendly Comics
The retailer Brian Hibbs has a short essay up
here on DC putting a violent-looking cover on a comic book whose interiors suggest it could be an all-ages or simply a broadly-appealing sales item. I've had some exposure to this from little kids of my friends. I couldn't tell you how frequently this kind of thing might put someone off just in general, but I know two young comic-book obsessives that want
no part of angry or violent superhero stories despite loving those characters. One of them had her father black out some Joker-related advertisements in a to-kids marketed comic book. So I suspect this is a real thing.
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OTBP: Ink Brick #2
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October 30, 2014
Collective Memory: The Locust Moon Comics Festival 2014
this article has now been archived
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Go, Look: Armagideon Time’s 2014 Halloween Countdown
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Assembled, Zipped, Transferred And Downloaded: News From Digital
By Tom Spurgeon
* this is genuinely fascinating to me: Kelly Sue DeConnick
asks for life updates from Warren Ellis Forum members. That was an influential hub of early -- or earlier, depending on how you personally measure these things -- comics-related, Internet-based activism and socializing. That place was super-helpful to me -- I mostly lurked -- in trying to understand a group of people with very different interests than the hardcore alt-comics community in which I found myself, but that were smart and passionated about how they saw things.
*
this also caught my attention in a big way: a
ComicsAlliance story profiling a Caleb Goellner-edited digital comics anthology featuring talent like Ulises Farinas, Ming Doyle and Meredith Gran. That one debuts in January, and will be free when it does so.
*
here's Medium's Halloween mixtape.
* I spent about 15 minutes looking at
the best-sellers list on comiXology, and... well, I've got nothing. Any attempts on my part to
explain digital consumption habits runs into two to three major obstacles and like 50 minor ones. I know plenty of people that buy comics through that service and download comics more generally, but I'm not sure I know anyone that does a lot of new-comics purchasing in a manner that would resemble the chart in an even same-ballpark sense. It's an interesting list, though;
Saga's hit status all by itself, across multiple formats, suggests a lot of potentially intriguing things about the nature of the current market. If I just look at the titles as a group without knowing anything about who buys this way the one that stands out for me as a surprise is
Southern Bastards #5.
* finally, Gary Tyrell
caught a report from Dean Trippe as to why aspects of his crowd-funded
Something Terrible book project has been delayed. We wish Trippe the best in getting back to it.
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If I Were In Nantes, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Winnipeg, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Lucca, I’d Go To This
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Go, Look: The Vampire
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I might do this as a stand-alone post later on today, because of the Halloween theme, but in case I don't you should still enjoy
this Leslie Stein comic.
* Kevin Melrose on the story behind "
Nobody Loves The Hulk."
* it's good to see several people
rally to the support of James Hudnall, who has asked the friends and fans he's made during a lengthy career as a writer for a modest amount of money to get over just a lousy-sounding health setback. I hope you'll consider giving, and I hope for better times for Mr. Hudnall.
*
Bob Temuka opines on censorship.
* Kris talks to
Dale Lazarov. Dan Berry talks to a favorite of this site,
Darryl Cunningham. Lary Wallace talks to
Ed Piskor.
* this isn't exactly comics, but the art involved would definitely feel at home in just about any good alt-anthology:
Brian Biggs walks us through his process in making a promotional card.
*
Jerry Smith opines on his least-favorite comic book writers.
* Oliver Sava and Tim O'Neil on
a bunch of different stuff. Rob Clough on
Moonhead And The Music Machine. Todd Klein on
Green Lantern #35. Sean Gaffney on
Alice In The Country Of Diamonds: Bet On My Heart. Johanna Draper Carlson on
The Secret History Of Wonder Woman. Kelly Thompson on
In Real Life. J. Caleb Mozzocco on
a bunch of different comics, and then
a bunch more. Michael Buntag on
Doctors. Richard Bruton on
Red Baron. Richard Clements on
Tales From The Deep. David Holmes on
Terms Of Service.
* finally,
I thought that was Mat Brinkman. That's lovely.
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Happy 43rd Birthday, Ludovic Debeurme!
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Happy 36th Birthday, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey!
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Happy 48th Birthday, Jeff Lester!
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Happy 77th Birthday, Yoshiharu Tsuge!
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Go, Look: Dylan McKeever
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Swann Foundation Names Its 2014-2015 Winners
The Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon has announced its fellowships for 2014-2015. The winners are:
* Andrew Benjamin Bricker, postdoctoral fellow (English), McGill University. Swann Foundation description: "He will expand on part of his dissertation 'Producing and Litigating Satire, 1670-1792,' as he investigates a shift in satire in the second half of the 18th century, when changes in British libel laws made printed political and personal satire legally precarious. Bricker contends that, at mid-century, satire began to migrate from print to visual media, especially caricature and visual satire, and plans to study the wealth of examples held at the Library of Congress. These visual works were executed by key British satirical artists who offered personalized, nasty and popular critiques of their often well-known human targets."
* Paul Hirsch, instructor (History), University of California, Santa Barbara. Swann Foundation description: "Building on his dissertation 'Pulp Empire: Comic Books, Cartoons, and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1941-1955,' he will examine the dissemination of and impact made by millions of American comic books and cartoon booklets from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s. Hirsch contends that these popular publications, whether uncensored commercial ones or government-sanctioned, worked to define, for a global audience, what it meant to be American -- presenting American policymakers with both an opportunity and a challenge. The American government, he contends, met this challenge through a combination of repression and co-optation."
* Maureen Warren, doctoral candidate (Art History), Northwestern University. Swann Foundation description: "[Warren] analyzes works of art about domestic political disputes in the Northern Netherlands during the 17th century in her dissertation 'Politics, Punishment, and Prestige: Images of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the States Party in the Dutch Republic, 1618-1672.' The artists creating such work used caricature and satire to mock politicians and religious leaders in Dutch and German news prints and illustrated broadsides. These include the Hauslab Album, a rare collection of prints that depicts European armed conflicts from 1566-1711. Study of the Hauslab imagery and Dutch prints in the Library's collections will contribute to Warren's goal of contextualizing later examples of Dutch political art."
As the Swann Foundation is administered by the Library Of Congress, the recipients will conduct research there at the appropriate divisions. The Foundation was established in 1967, and was followed by the donation by Erwin Swann's estate of a century-spanning collection of original drawings of satiric art. It is one of my favorite things that exists.
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Go, Look: Sarah Ferrick
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By Request Extra: RISE Anthology Headed Into Final Days
For some reason I totally missed
this crowd-funder for an anthology featuring anti-bullying comics. Bullying is an issue that has a lot of resonance for a number of creative folk, so I imagine there will be some good work in there. It looks like there's an outreach element here that also distinguishes the project. I hope you'll check it out. They're really close.
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Go, Look: A Tony Millionaire Studio Visit
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Wally Wood Estate Suing Tatjana Wood For Return Of Art
Late yesterday evening this site received an e-mail with a PDF attachment indicating that Wallace Wood Properties, LLC has sued Tatjana Wood for the return of several piece of comics art in her possession. Wallace Wood Properties LLC is the Florida-based LLC set up by J. David Spurlock in late 2011 to manage rights and properties related to the late cartoonist. In early 2012, they received an assignment from the executor of Wood's estate -- John H. Robinson -- for "all of their interest in the work, property, copyrights, trademark rights and royalties attributed to or due to the said Wallace Wood."
Tatjana Wood was married to Wally Wood in 1950; they were divorced at some point in the 1960s. She later became a well-regarded colorist, winning a pair of 1970s industry awards for her work.
Wood died on Halloween Night, 1981, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A major contributed to the EC Comics heyday, the rise of
MAD, the revived Marvel superhero comics of the 1960s and the early days of independent comics, Wood's reputation as a sublime image maker and tragic personal case has only grown in legend since his passing. Wood was married twice after Tatjana Wood. His will -- included in the court documents sent -- provided his first wife with "All bank accounts, whether savings, checking, Certificates of Deposit, or otherwise." Everything else went to the estate under Robinson's management.
In dispute is art that was apparently returned to Tatjana Wood at an address it appears that Marvel had on file for the artist when it returned some art in 2005. This actually wasn't clear at first to Spurlock, who takes some time in an earlier letter trying to settle the matter to encompass material that might have been sent as early as the 1960s and 1970s, and in a later letter states that he has no interest in the material gifted by Wood to his first wife when he was alive. You can trace Spurlock's side of his pursuit an amenable-to-both-sides outcome in the PDF, including a cash offer for the art or an agreement for a bigger cash offer upon sale of some of the artwork. The material in the PDF depicts Tatjana's Wood response as summarily dismissive. Granted, there's almost always another side to these things.
It's always sad when there's a dispute of this nature over someone that's now gone. It's also worth noting that unlike many artists, Wally Wood did provide some clue as to his desires through the legal documentation included -- not all artists do. Barring a settlement, it's up to the court to see this adjudicated from this point on; one hopes for the best outcome according to the legal principles involved.
Oh, and here's this:
WWPLawsuitAttachment.pdf
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Go, Look: Naomi Butterfield
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October 29, 2014
OTBP: Trepanation
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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events
By Tom Spurgeon
* Jeff Smith, Nate Beeler and Caitlin McGurk are among those comics-folk
featured in the programming at the Wizard event in Columbus this weekend.
* just about everyone I know is fixated on
Comic Arts Brooklyn. Remember that
some eventbrite-style free tickets to the Sunday events programming will go on sale today. That's a strong slate and should be a fun day.
* there are major shows in
Portugal and
Italy right now, both with traditions of English-language creator participation -- Italy in particular.
* finally,
check out this con space in Malta.
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If I Were In Nantes, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Sydney, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Chicago, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Columbus, I’d Go To This
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If I Were Near Palatine, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Lucca, I’d Go To This
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Go, Look: The World Of Peter Parker
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Joe Gordon on
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec. Rob Staeger on
The Undertaking Of Lily Chen. Various
The Quietus writers on
various comics they like. Marc Singer on
The Just. Ray Olson on
Doctors.
* it's not comics, but
the slate of movies announced by Marvel earlier this week has implications for comics. One can expect the Inhumans, Captain Marvel, Black Panther and Doctor Strange properties to have slightly higher profiles in Marvel's comics in the years ahead. There's always the chance that having a firm slate will cause the books side of Marvel to act in a rational fashion as far as having works featuring those characters available for sale, but that's never a certainty. The staggering number of these movies suggests a broad PR opportunity for those kinds of comics in general, as basically the shapers of a big chunk of pop culture and a way to read tomorrow's movies today. A lot of money might change the way Marvel approaches issues with a financial component involved, the same way that some folks think that had the
Avengers movie made half as much money Marvel would have been twice as reluctant to settle with the Kirby family. I imagine you might see the non-Marvel, non-DC companies orient themselves to opportunities in TV even more fully, which might change what comics get published at such places. We're firmly in the realm of conjecture at that point, though.
*
here's a nice-looking Jillian Tamaki illustration.
* superior link-blogger Kevin Melrose
drives our attention to kitty-related superhero imagery presented by Marvel to celebrate National Cat Day.
*
Conrad Groth, MAD intern.
*
don't look now, but there's apparently big money in comic book art.
* Jonah Weiland talks to
Tony Millionaire.
* not comics: the artist that made the well-received
Wire character poster a while back
now has a similarly-conceived Breaking Bad poster to offer you.
* Sean Kleefeld
wonders after the selling of prints both generally and as a preferred alternative -- for some -- to buying comics.
* finally,
it's always great to see new photos of Marie Severin.
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Happy 47th Birthday, Joe Dog!
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Happy 34th Birthday, Chrissie Harper!
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Happy 63rd Birthday, P. Craig Russell!
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Go, Read: Terms Of Service
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Go, Look: Alexis Deacon
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By Request Extra: James Hudnall Is Losing A Foot
Heidi MacDonald
caught that
James Hudnall is losing a foot due to the effects of diabetes, an outcome that catches him even less prepared than anyone could be for something like that because of a recent move.
I hope that you'll consider a small donation. Hudnall is a longtime writer of comics perhaps best known for his work on
ESPers.
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Go, Look: From The Mo Willems Sketchbook
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Festivals Extra: CAB Doing Some Advance Ticket Work For The Panel Programming Part Of Their Event
Received the following note from Comic Arts Brooklyn founder and organizer Gabe Fowler a couple of days ago; my apologies for not processing it sooner.
Anticipating overflow crowds, Comic Arts Brooklyn will release a limited quantity of free advance tickets for programming events this Thursday October 30th through Eventbrite. CAB programming includes seven discussions on Sunday November 9th, with speakers such as Raymond Pettibon, Jillian Tamaki, and Charles Burns. Complete info here.
Tickets are limited to one per person per event, and guarantee a seat for the ticketed panel. Ticketed patrons must arrive 15 minutes before entry and will enter first, followed by unticketed standing room guests. In order to allow maximum opportunity for guests to attend panels, all audience members will have to clear the room at the conclusion of every panel.
Press may request a press pass to attend all the talks.
As noted
here, it's a strong slate and I encourage anyone still in the city on Sunday to attend this part of the show to take advantage.
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Go, Look: Charmaine Vee
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By Request Extra: The Cartoonist David Lasky Could Use A Hand; He’s Firing Up The Art Offerings
The talented and super-nice David Lasky
had a few professional gigs fall through, so he's alerted friends and fans that he'll be moving more artwork than usual
through his Etsy presence. Lasky has a mix of prints and original art up. The Lasky material that I have looks great.
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Go, Look: Frank Quitely Bite Club Cover Art
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October 28, 2014
OTBP: Crater Lake
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This Isn’t A Library: New And Notable Releases Into Comics’ Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.
*****
JUL141688 NEIL GAIMAN HANSEL & GRETEL GRAPHIC DLX HC $29.95
JUL141687 NEIL GAIMAN HANSEL & GRETEL GRAPHIC HC $16.95
This is the high-profile item of the week, a rare comic from Lorenzo Mattotti working with the esteemed writer and not-exactly-prolific-comics-maker-himself Neil Gaiman, both of whom are name above the title kind of guys. Together that's a potent match-up. This is both a standard Toon-format size offering and a bigger one, the better to show of Mattotti's lovely art.
AUG148241 TUKI SAVE THE HUMANS #1 2ND PTG $3.99
AUG141235 TUKI SAVE THE HUMANS #2 $3.99
SEP140968 TRUE STORIES #1 (MR) $5.99
AUG140935 RACHEL RISING #29 $3.99
AUG141192 ADVENTURE TIME #33 $3.99
AUG140675 SAGA #24 (MR) $2.99
AUG140676 SEX #17 (MR) $2.99
AUG140371 VERTIGO QUARTERLY #1 YELLOW (MR) $7.99
This is an odd week in comic-book format comics, so I'd likely look around. Jeff Smith has the second issue of
Tuki Save The Humans ready to go, and a reprint of the first. I imagine that this is the way a large number of his fans are experiencing the work for the first time despite its presence on-line. I like that model, though, and certainly seeing it onscreen hasn't diminished my desire to own a comic book version. Fellow Ohioan Derf Backderf has the first issue of his series with Alternative out this week, diving into his considerable back catalog.
Rachel Rising is the latest series from Jeff Smith's direct peer and good friend Terry Moore, and it's not one that I've been in a comics shop to ever see, so long have I been out in the desert. At some point I'll start picking up those
Adventure Time comics to give them a whirl.
Saga is a major release within its category -- I'm guessing top 3 -- and a major release generally. I think this is the last one for a few months and wraps up the current storyline. I enjoy Joe Casey's
Sex for the 1980s-style setting and world-building, although the sex stuff does continue to distinguish it from other, similar efforts in a way that makes those other comics look kind of odd. Finally, I only liked one of the stories in that
Vertigo Quarterly effort, but that's a worthwhile project and I was happy to see so many names with whom I'm completely unaware.
NOV130335 BASIL WOLVERTON WEIRD WORLDS ARTIST ED HC PI
My personal list of artists I want to see showcased in the IDW's Artist's Edition format includes everyone -- every last single goddamn artist. If there's a Werner Roth AE, I will consider not buying medication for a few weeks in order to afford it. Certainly Basil Wolverton is on lists a lot more picky than mine, and I look forward to seeing it. I think there's work from a number of time periods. The printed work is frequently so gorgeous, I have a definite interest to seeing how much he corrected on the page at various time. I bet he was one of those guys that got to a point where it's almost straight out of the pen. But who knows? Well, we all can, starting tomorrow.
SEP140984 COMPLETE CALVIN & HOBBES SLIPCASED HC NEW PTG $175.00
It's Christmas season, don't you know: why wouldn't there be room for one of the great comics-related holiday gifts ever. I'm not sure there's anything new about this new printing, but I sure like my old one -- which was a gift.
JUL141235 PALESTINE TP (MR) $24.99
JUN141216 SET TO SEA GN $14.99
Two paperback re-releases from Fantagraphics. You know
Palestine, although this puts it back out there in an affordable format for, again, giving as a gift. The
Set To Sea book is a mournful tale from the very talented early-webcomics innovator and all around fine cartoonist Drew Weing.
SEP141430 DISNEY ROSA DUCK LIBRARY HC VOL 02 RETURN TO PLAIN AWFUL $29.99
SEP141431 DISNEY ROSA DUCK LIBRARY HC BOX SET VOL 01 & 02 $49.99
SEP141436 WALT DISNEY DONALD DUCK HC BOX SET ANDES & UNICORN $49.99
Bunch of Disney ducks and
Peanuts material out this week from Fantagraphics, all of which I think are lovely. Both series. The same way that some kids wanted to see what we have now with all those Marvel movies, little kid me wanted to read duck comics and Charlie Brown. Then new one with the ducks is the second volume in the Don Rosa series. I thought those were really snappy-looking, and I've always enjoyed Rosa's work. I can't even imagine the narrow landing strip that is creating good work in reference to to other work -- wait, I read comics, of course I can imagine it. Anyway, it's a rare, rare accomplishment what Rosa did with these great Carl Barks characters and comics.
AUG141477 SOCK MONKEY INTO DEEP WOODS HC $16.99
I feel like I should take a nap. Do you mind if I take a nap? How are you? I rarely ask. It's really lengthy this week, isn't it? It's what comics is like now. Anyway, this isn't a comic but it'swhat I'm reading right now in anticipation of that Belliveau book from earlier. It's really good. I thought that giant
Sock Monkey collection was criminally under-discussed when it came out. Those are lovely, lovely comics. The characters work in this form, too.
AUG141922 DOONESBURY MELS STORY SURVIVING MILITARY SEXUAL ASSAULT TP $9.99
As I recall, Garry Trudeau has done a number of works about the effects of military living on the men and women that serve. I don't think I've seen one yet, and I'd kill to be in a comics shop to check one out. I think the military material has been a real strength of later-period
Doonesbury, and he obviously comes to the stories with a great deal of compassion.
SEP141229 ONE YEAR IN AMERICA GN (MR) $17.00
This is a straight-up memoir of the year-in-the-life variety, encompassing the end of a school, a marriage and a divorce. It's on my bed table, so I haven't read it yet that I can remember sitting here, staring at the open doorway down the hall, but the author has worked with Conundrum before.
Web site here.
AUG141748 GARDEN OF WORDS GN (MR) $12.95
JUN140080 BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL TP VOL 30 VIGILANCE (MR) $19.99
The best manga I saw on the list this week, or at leat the manga that interests me.
Blade Of The Immortal I read like a teenager, for the fights and the Hiroaki Samura art rather than the political and cultural ruminations. But I read the heck out of it.
Garden Of Words is one of those manga works that seems a companion to an anime film rather than the instigating factor for one, but I take a look at just about anything Vertical decides to publish.
AUG140572 THOUGHT BUBBLE ANTHOLOGY 2014 #4 $3.99
I like this anthology the best of any publishing-type effort that any festival or convention does right now. This is a week-long event that runs mid-November; the book features guests and the winning participants of a competition. It's not a revelation the way that the SPX anthologies were 12-15 years ago, but these have been fun.
AUG141473 COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 22 1993-1994 $29.99
SEP141435 PEANUTS EVERY SUNDAY HC VOL 02 1956-1960 $49.99
AUG141474 COMPLETE PEANUTS HC BOX SET 1991-1994 $59.99
SEP141438 COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 01 1950-1952 (NEW PTG) $29.99
SEP141439 COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 02 1953-1954 (NEW PTG) $29.99
SEP141434 COMPLETE PEANUTS TP BOX SET 1950-1954 $39.99
SEP141433 COMPLETE PEANUTS TP VOL 02 1953-1954 $22.99
Yeah, here's the
Peanuts list. The new books I've put up top: the latest hardcover of the dailies, moving into the mid-1990s and close enough to the end it feels real now, introduction by Jake Tapper. I hope you're buying them all; I know I'll keep mine for as long as I have comics. The strip was good throughout, by the way. The first color volume came out without little fanfare, but I loved it, and look forward to this one. Sundays weren't a particular strength of the feature, not so you'd say so (you'd be more likely to do it with Crane, Kelly or Watterson), I think mostly because of how accommodating he was in terms of doing work for multiple formats, but a lot of them are awfully, awfully good.
SEP141608 BEST OF ENEMIES HIST OF US MIDDLE EAST RELATIONS HC VOL 02 1 $24.95
Between Mattotti, Schulz, Barks, Millionaire, Smith and this latest from David B., it is a heck of a good week for comics art. There is a lot of amazing history covered in this one, which I think takes us from the early 1960s through the embassy bombing in Beirut. That means all the conflicts of the '60s and '70s are played out in these pages.
AUG141429 SHOWA HISTORY OF JAPAN TP VOL 03 1944-1953 (MR) $24.95
When D+Q announced they'd be doing this historical narratives, the periods I thought would be most interesting would be the end of World War II and the aftermath stretching into the 1950s. Looks like I get both in the same volume.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics,
can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store,
check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back,
try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I failed to list your comic, that's because I hate you.
*****
*****
*****
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If I Were In Nantes, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
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Go, Look: Brave And The Bold Mini-Gallery
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* it's very rare to get to read something from Bill Kartalopoulos on comics, so it's nice to see
a longer piece at Huffington Post of all places. I assume that's part of the publicity campaign for the Best American Comics series in the same way that big newspapers will take a guest editorial from the writer of a book on the subject of their expertise.
* Sean Rogers on
Fatherland. Daniel Elkin and Jason Sacks on
Number #2. Brian Cronin on
Batgirl. James Kaplan on
Mind MGMT.
*
my Mom has a new favorite cartoonist. Still haven't told her the show is canceled.
* go, read:
the BBC profiles new-era Belgian comics.
* not comics: Robert Boyd
pulls apart one area of conflict pursued by a rights group interested in artists being paid fairly.
* not comics: I imagine
most of these classic convention cosplay photos have been seen by anyone interested -- it's not even my thing, and I've probably run across half. As always, the flat-out nudity is what separates the scene as depicted a gallery like this one from what we see more modern photo sets. It used to be that older cosplay photos seemed to include more not-comics characters, but I don't think that's as true anymore.
*
Michael Cavna remembers Ben Bradlee.
* Rob Kirby talks to
Cara Bean.
* I've been enjoying
the occasional Mike Sterling post about the ramp-up to opening his own store. I can't imagine how weird that would be, even for a longtime veteran of managing others' stores like Sterling.
* there's a lot in
this essay by someone that writes as Film Crit Hulk worth reflection, although it might help to be invested on some level in the recent toxic discussions and asinine behavior in the world of gaming.
* finally,
nobody tell the advertisers.
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Happy 60th Birthday, Paul Di Filippo!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 46th Birthday, Barry Deutsch!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 61st Birthday, Batton Lash!
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Happy 76th Birthday, Ralph Bakshi!
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Go, Look: Luca Schenardi
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Go, Read: My Favorite Headline In Thirteen Days
Here.
What's great about this is the logical conclusion that at least a few people have enough of a refined aesthetic regarding
Mark Trail comics that what seems a slight deviation in its decades-old approach -- one or two strips depicting home and family life between nature-filled adventures -- engendered complaints followed by a cartoonist response. That's a precious thing that we're too easy to dismiss, particularly when a sporting experience or a work of art or cultural expression has its impact felt outside of the mainstream of how media is consumed now and what is valued as a result. That doesn't mean that newspaper comic strips in general are thriving or the demographics are promising or the future is rosy, but it does mean that for someone out there a way of doing art that seems lost even to many of us that used to depend on reading comics this way, that thing still has power and importance.
I'm convinced that one place where comics breaks in a good way with other media is that a lot of folks that have made their lives there insist on carrying at least a bit of the past into every modern decision. That has a downside, of course, but there's a positive there as well. If part of our collective mythos as comics readers includes the parent that tosses one's comics away, maybe the lesson learned is to take a few minutes to sort out what still might have value, no matter what things seem like on a first glance.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Tony Fitzpatrick Remembers Lou Reed
via Robert Boyd, I think
posted 12:20 am PST |
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It’s Always Worth The Time To Remember Marie Duval
A short piece at The Guardian tied into a university research project reminds us of the cartooning skill and great humor to be found in the work of Isabelle Emilie De Tessier, who worked in a variety of Victorian publications as
Marie Duval. It's not the biggest article, but you can find more in David Kunzle's article
here or
just through random google searches like this one. The article points to a nice two-page spread with very modern-looking panel structure
here.
One reason why Duval is for her contributions to the recurring
Ally Sloper character and feature -- one of comics' first. Sloper -- who looks a deflated WC Fields -- was a huge hit and may be the original source for all the slacker roustabouts of the 20th Century, a character archetype I love whether it's Jughead, Andy Capp, Chaplin's Tramp or Buddy Bradley. It's important to think of Duval specifically in terms of her work with Sloper and more generally within the rich tradition of Victorian pen-and-ink comedy because newer historical appraisal has begun to favor her being a victim of that uniquely vomitous and frequently occuring storyline of having much of what she did attributed to her husband,
Charles Ross. That's never right, and feels like an outright tragedy here, doubly so because Ross' contribution seems a clear and important one as well.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Wolverine Mini-Series Color Guide Pages
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By Request Extra: Deb Aoki On That Tezuka-Related Kickstarter
I wrote last week about
Alex Hoffman's critical analysis of Digital Manga Publishing's Osamu Tezuka-related crowd-funder; I missed
Deb Aoki's articulate summary of that analysis and through it the crowd-funder more generally.
Checking in, it doesn't look like that particular crowd-funder has garnered a lot of momentum in its first week. Aoki points out there have been some concrete changes in the rewards structure that speak directly to one of the complaints, the lack of physical comics product at lower incentive levels. It doesn't seem like that move has triggered a surge in participation.
Looking over the whole thing one more time, I remain semi-baffled by how this particular crowd-funder is structured and justified. I'm glad I'm not alone. I hope that people stay away from easy comparisons to crowd-funders from publishers like Last Gasp and Fantagraphics. Both of those companies have
decades of displayed performance. In Fantagraphics' case, there's also a pretty easy to grasp unique role they have in the marketplace: if they don't do certain things, they don't get done. Mostly, though, it seems like the differences in how the various crowd-funders have been presented -- trigger reason, number of books involved, reward level compared to incentive offered, number of employees supported, implications for the future -- need to be processed as actual differences with corresponding value rather than as value-less strategies that either work or don't. In comics we're really quick to let the end justify the means. I would hope that some of these criticisms would be made even if the Tezuka crowd-funder was going gangbusters.
I also wonder if this doesn't get back to an older issue, a perceived need for some sort of direct-to-consumer mechanism that works along similar lines
without some sort of charitable ethos or moral force or kindness or personal plea or even just the flattery of being on a certain kind of team having to be employed, either explicitly or implicitly. On a certain level it feels like we're using the same collections plate while being presented with a thousand different colored envelopes on the back of the pew in front of us. I'm all for stricter consideration of the details becoming a thing, and would more than welcome a sustained curiosity about how and when and from whom capital finds its way into an creative work's lifespan.
Update: Heidi MacDonald
unearthed a Tezuka-related, crowd-funded project that crashed and burned the old-fashioned way: massive incompetence by inexperienced publishers trusted by those giving them money and then failing to come through. The thought that you could raise $52k to publish a single book and then not even get close to having it get out there is kind of amazing to me -- if you have enough on the ball to secure a license, it seems like you would have enough on the ball to know what shipping costs. At the same time, I think this kind of thing is almost a necessary corrective to the over-application of the moral force of crowdfunding argument.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Phantom Reporter
a world organized by the administration of beatings
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October 27, 2014
Go, Look: A Chris Ware New Yorker Covers Mini-Gallery
via 18 billion people
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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked: Publishing News
By Tom Spurgeon
* Bart Beaty says
the publication of this Nick Sousanis academic work in comics form -- a book version of his dissertation -- is a potential big deal for comics. I believe everything Dr. Beaty tells me. We'll see it next Spring.
* I'm coming to this about 1000 years late in Internet time, but there's a nice look at the cover for the first issue of the next
Casanova cycle
here. I liked the last cycle a lot, and have high hopes for the series moving forward.
*
here's a gushing article about Archie's moves over the last few in terms of diversifying their
extremely well-established house style. The suggestion in that article that pertains to this column is that we'll see more of these kinds of series from Archie in the future, and I suspect that's true.
* the CAB debuts are coming fast and furious now.
Here's one from Michael DeForge.
Here's the second issue of an anthology from Domino Books edited by founder/owner Austin English.
* Oliver Sava
makes a case for not cancelling
She-Hulk. This reminds me of when comic strip syndicates used to really welcome a new feature being dropped at a certain point in at least one paper so they can see if there's any pushback from local readers. It's not the same thing, but a quick look at the low issue numbers of every single Marvel title indicates that one month's cancellation is the next month's triumphant return. Sometimes literally so.
*
here's an interesting, passionately argued piece from Janelle Asselin on how superhero publishers are failing kids by not making kid-friendly versions of their characters a greater priority. I'd love it if the kids that wanted to were able to read the vast majority of superhero comics
and comics designed specifically for their age groups. I don't see what's gained by this not being the case. Then again, I'm not sure that the way these media companies are run that the publishing part of what they do is
ever thought out in terms of audience development.
* First Second is
laying down the advance-advance publicity on their English-language version of the Casterman-published
Lastman series, to be called
Last Man here. I think that work is very entertaining, so I'm all for it having a chance of hitting with North American comics-reading audiences. Longtime readers of this site know that I've always been a little baffled by the lack of a significant push for
Last Man co-creator Bastien Vivès' more alternative-type comics work from an English-language publisher, although there have been isolated releases with I believe more to come.
* finally,
Fantagraphics released the cover image for their forthcoming LB Cole book from Jacob Covey and Bill Schelly.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Drop-Outs
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* continuing his impressive run of comics-related interviews at his literary podcast
Virtual Memories, Gil Roth talks to one of the five funniest cartoonists in the world:
Sam Gross.
* Richard Bruton on
Some Comics. Todd Klein on
Aquaman And The Others #6,
Justice League #34 and
GI Zombie: Future's End #1. Sean Gaffney on
Manga Dogs Vol. 1 and
Magical Girl Apocalypse Vol. 1. Sean T. Collins on
Gast. Paul O'Brien on
Death Of Wolverine.
* go, look:
Halloween costume ideas from Tom Humberstone.
*
this Jillian Tamaki cartoon deserves to be seen every Halloween season until the end of time.
*
Freddie Moore covers comics that deal with sickness.
* Robin McConnell and Brandon Graham talk to
Michael DeForge, Patrick Kyle and Simon Hanselmann. Zoey talks to
Kazu Kibuishi. Jason Sacks profiles
S. Clay Wilson.
* not comics:
love that shirtless Todd McFarlane card.
* finally,
it's always fun to look at art jams.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 50th Birthday, Henrik Rehr!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 42nd Birthday, Joel Meadows!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 69th Birthday, Gary Hallgren!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 89th Birthday, Leonard Starr!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 62nd Birthday, Jim Valentino!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Festivals Extra: ICAF Releases 2014 Poster
Here. Poster by Hanneriina Moisseinen.
That is quite the line-up. I hope that some of you will get to join me at this year's version of what is the comics festival Mycroft to SPX's Sherlock. I'm very excited for Bart Beaty's keynote, and to see Justin Green.
posted 4:00 am PST |
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OTBP: She Wants To Tell Me
posted 3:30 am PST |
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By Request Extra: Robot 6 On Seth Kushner
There's nothing new here, but
Robot 6 has a post up reminding of the situation facing Seth Kushner and his family, which is always a good time
to ask everyone to consider sending along a few bucks in service to the family's financial situation.
posted 3:00 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Epic Of Gilgamesh Part One
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Roz Chast Wins One Of Three First Annual Kirkus Prizes
It was announced late last week that cartoonist Roz Chast has won one of the three prizes given out by the Kirkus Review as part of a new program. The Kirkus Prize comes with $50,000 in a cash award. Chast's
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? won the non-fiction award. The other winners were works by Lily King (fiction) and Kate Samworth (young readers). The announcement were made in advance of last weekend's Texas Book Festival.
Chast's memoir is now easily in place to serve as one of the handful of works seen as comics' book of the year, and is also strong candidate for that honor in more traditional prose publishing circles.
As always,
CR endorses all awards that come with giant, cash prizes.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Listen: Lisa Hanawalt, Michael Kupperman Discussed By Me, Tim and Kumar On Deconstructing Comics
one of these cartoonists is nice
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Go, Listen: NPR Interview With Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring is one of the great cartoonists. For the last half-decade he's been on this fantastic run up there with any cartoonist's sustained periods of creativity ever. I thought
Fran was the best new comic of 2013 and although I haven't given it any thought yet, it's impossible imagine that the re-release of his autobiographical
Jim work somehow won't be one of the three best collections.
Woodring is also one of the great conversationalists comics has ever seen, and likely its most underappreciated. It takes me a while to find a mindset where I can listen to or read Woodring's words with the attention they deserve, but don't let my fussiness keep you from
devouring the whole thing as soon as you can bear it.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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OTBP: Ebbits #3
via
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Not Comics: Chris Suellentrop On GamerGate, Etc.
There's a pretty blunt and not-flattering to comics comparison between the world of gaming and the world of comic books in
Chris Suellentrop's NYT piece on the cesspool of criminal-level dysfunction, anger and idiocy that's bubbled to the surface in the world of gaming over the last several weeks. That might make it worth reading for some of you folks, even if it's just to raise an eyebrow at that appraisal.
I think the essay's primary value is its measured confessional as to why the wider context of backwards-thinking ownership at the heart of that nonsense must seem crushingly disheartening for those invested in gaming as an art form. Comics doesn't seem to have that same futurist self-conception, or at least it's more moderately expressed as reformist rather than utopian (almost everything in comics has a little 1938 in it). Still, it's easy to sympathize. I have to imagine that if you see the flowering of your art form as socially transformative, the mobilization of an army of fevered, emotionally-stunted dimwits has to feel debilitating. It's also interesting to me how much the way profit must be
maximally pursued colors how these issues play out in both forms.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Read: Alex Pappademas Analysis Of Doctor Strange
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 26, 2014
Go, Look: Secret Identity
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Comics By Request: People, Places In Need Of Funding
By Tom Spurgeon
* Shaenon Garrity's
latest Skin Horse crowd-funder is rounding into its second half in strong fashion. I'll run something similar next week. Garrity does that comic with Jeffrey Wells, of course, I just think of the kickstarter as primarly organized by Garrity. I could be wrong.
*
I received PR on this crowd-funder for a third volume in a series called Dusk. I do admit to a fascination to creators and projects the return to crowd-funding as a series continues, which I'm guessing is what's happening here. They're reasonably close to their goal this time out, and should make it in the next five days.
* one patreon campaign we discussed in past installments here is
the one operated by Melissa Mendes.
* it's sort of interesting how many of
these indiegogo campaigns in the comics category are so poorly funded so as to barely even exist and/or are joke/stunt campaigns.
* finally,
DMP's latest Tezuka crowd-funder has reached the five percent mark.
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Columbus, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Where Monsters Dwell
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Sean Gaffney on
Witchcraft Works Vol. 1. Seth Abramson on
Hawkeye. Jen Sorensen on
The Conscience Of A Cartoonist. It's always a good day when Richard Pachter reviews
a bunch of comics for the Miami Herald. Rob Kirby on
The Hospital Suite. Matthew Garcia on
Street Angel.
* I thought
this was a strange place from which to make a strident declaration of that kind. It clearly wasn't welcoming to everyone.
* for some reason I totally missed
this Colleen Doran post about her studio space. I like looking at studio spaces, and that's one of the nicer ones I've seen recently.
* Paul Di Filippo wrote in to remind me of
this Atlantic article from Steven Heller on the use of the word ballon symbol as an icon for bridging cultures at the Palestinian Museum.
*
here's one writer's short, idiosyncratic list of graphic novels for which comics laureate Dave Gibbons might agitate.
* Melanie Meadors talks to
Jen Wang.
* I assume from the tone expressed
here that a printer taking a pass on the focused-on-the-sex-tips compilation from
Sex Criminals is a minor bump in the road rather than a major hassle. It's still sort of silly, of course. This used to be a greater concern through the 1990s -- a different era generally, and one where there weren't a lot of printers skilled at, or interested in, working with comics. Very frequently it was just someone on the line making an objection to what they were seeing passing in front of their eyes.
* difficult to imagine you'll see a post this week much more entertaining than
this process piece from Blexbolex.
* finally, that nice person Diana Tamblyn sent along
this fun link to a studio visit with Aislin.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 66th Birthday, Bernie Wrightson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 37th Birthday, Paul Hornschemeier!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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October 25, 2014
Alexis Deacon Is Awarded The Observer/Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize 2014 For The River
You can read the announcement and see the short story
here for Alexis Deacon being awarded this year's
Observer/Cape Comic Graphic Short Story Prize. The runners-up were
After Life by Beth Dawson and
Countess Markievicz by Fionnuala Doran.
All of the stories are four pages.
Interviews with each participant can be found through those links.
First prize is £1000, publication in
The Observer New Review and on the web site for
The Guardian. Runners-up receive £250 and publication on the web site for
The Guardian.
Congratulations to the winners, runners-up and all participants.
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Trophy
posted 7:00 pm PST |
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If I Were Near London, Ontario, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Vermont, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In London, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Cleveland, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 45th Birthday, Mike Cavallaro!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 83rd Birthday, Larry Lieber!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 65th Birthday, Glynis Wein!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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FFF Results Post #399—Spoilerama
On Friday,
CR readers were asked, "Describe In Five Sentences Of Ten Words Or Less Five Moments From Comics That Genuinely Surprised You." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1. Stinky commits suicide.
2. ERG-1 drained right out of his suit.
3. The rising sun turns out to be Alfred E. Neuman.
4. The claws aren't part of his costume.
5. Boom.
*****
Sean Kleefeld
1. "I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
2. Galactus falls!
3. Reed Richards' brain is erased by a Negative Zone alien.
4. Herobear tells Tyler who his grandfather is.
5. Planetary #27 finally came out... three years later.
*****
Art Baxter
1. Manhog serves his tormentor as the main course.
2. Spider-Man grows four extra arms by accident.
3. Mina Murray's neck scarf falls away revealing massive scarring.
4. Sock Monkey cuts his face down the middle with scissors.
5. Maggie and Ray exchange gazes over four decades.
*****
Richard Pachter
1 Byrne's Captain Canuck-ish guy blowed up real good.
2 Ha, they're gonna make another Superman.
3 After all that, they really did kill Damian -- for now.
4 Thomas Wayne is alive and is Batman?!
5 That snap was her neck breaking.
*****
Stergios Botzakis
1. The guy they ran over was the attempted robber.
2. Tara is a mole.
3. Aunt Petunia is relatively young.
4. Captain Boomerang uses Slipknot to test a theory.
5. The three narratives are actually one story.
*****
Bonny
1. Omega: shot, killed, cancelled all at once, leaving no conclusion.
2. Peter Parker learns by telegram that Aunt May is dead.
3. Bran Mak Muffin loses all faith, falls on his sword.
4. It turns out, apparently, that women are emotion-based voids.
5. Jimmy Corrigan considers jumping, meets friendly woman at work instead.
*****
Philippe Leblanc
1. Lina stays with her father in The Reverie;
2. Mitchell Hundred stopped United Flight 175;
3. Jon sneezed his way to adulthood at his friends' funeral;
4. I really thought Olrik would be there somehow, he's not;
5. So... this frog holds Mjolnir? oh, it's not a frog?;
*****
Mike Pfefferkorn
1. He never was really Alec Holland.
2. Gladstone's Terrible Secret.
3. Tex Thompson is dead.
4. "Burn."
5. Good-bye, Jean.
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Hero from Bismoll devours the Miracle Machine and goes Insane
2. Winter Moran utters her first word
3. " ... she lost the baby a little over thirty minutes ago"
4. "I'm alive!!! Left -- to live out my life -- wondering -- "
5. "We had fun, didn't we Chuck?"
*****
Buzz Dixon
1. Clams got legs!
2. The cutie is a killer.
3. She would have had a better chance hitting the water.
4. Of course the most interesting characters aren't real.
5. It was all down hill after the dog died.
*****
Oliver Ristau
1. She died before she even hit the ground.
2. He's no angel and it's not judgment day either.
3. Hitler's hooded hate-mongering.
4. Innocent persecuted hero turns out to be death camp leader.
5. Cute looking people live inside a dead girl's body.
*****
Tim Hayes
1. Scorpio shoots himself
2. Silver St. Cloud recognizes Batman
3, Adele Blanc-Sec stabbed to death
4. Mr Hyde rapes the Invisible Man
5. Dad's Army turn up in an Image comic
*****
Matt Silvie
1. Doofus offended he's cuckolded by sleazy professor, "Gandalf the Grey."
2. The drunk in the Groucho Marx disguise was Uncle Gabby.
3. Clay Loudermilk ends up without any arms or legs.
4. Trosper forgets about the monster, resumes playing with the ball.
5. Libertarian zine gets Rorschach's diary, probably foiling Ozymandias' hairbrained scheme.
*****
Scott Dunbier
* Manhunter dies
* Green Arrow kills someone
* Flower Dies
* Swamp Thing finds out the truth and loses it
* Dedicated to the memory of Wally Wood
*****
J.E. Cole
1: I am the fourth man
2: Mom?
3: My City's burnt to ash and you're begging me for mercy? Request denied.
4: Why won't the blood wash off?
5: I love you Nancy Callahan.
*****
Ryan Sands
* Fone Bone chops off Kingdok's arm
* The Great Khan is our old friend Herbert
* Her mother's attic is full of dismembered dead dogs.
* His entire adamantium skeleton got ripped out.
* Adolf Kamil's father is executed
*****
i decided not to publish a few that didn't follow the directions. i do so not to punish but so that I don't have people "internet lawyering" up on a future post about contributor a, b, or c being allowed to do something in an escalating series of "riffs" on the exercise. i really do appreciate all of the submissions and know that sometimes you just miss a qualifying sentence or two. sorry!
*****
*****
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The Comics Reporter Video Parade
He Kind Of Hates Batman
Warren Craghead Speaks
A Lynda Barry Interview I've Likely Already Run Five Times
1990 MTV Feature On Katsuhiro Otomo
A Discussion With Jack Teagle And Donya Todd
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CR Week In Review
The top comics-related news stories from October 18 to October 24, 2014:
1. Musa Kart
acquitted in Turkey of slander and criticism of the then prime minister and now president of Turkey, Recep Erdoğan.
2.
There was a comics show in the West Bank last weekend.
3. Gary Groth
receives the "Genius In Literature" award from
The Stranger, a local honor for a man and a company not always recognized as a regional treasure.
Winner Of The Week
I'll go with Gary Groth here instead of Musa Kart, even though Kart was facing nine years in jail and Gary probably had much the same week he would have had he not won. Still, I like that Groth got his first of what I hope are many lifetime awards as he moves into his sixties (and several decades past his sixties), and I'm particularly glad to see him recognized within Seattle arts culture.
Losers Of The Week
I'd like to go with the gaming gators instead of Recep Erdoğan, but seriously, what kind of chowderhead running a country aims that country's legal system against someone who creates art critical of their actions? That's just not of this century.
Quote Of The Week
"What's the world
coming to, when you're tacitly encouraged
not to simply stomp about wherever you like, heedless of the humanity of others? What
kind of
world are we
creating?" --
a David Malki character in a very funny Wondermark
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October 24, 2014
Go, Look: High-Quality CGC Scans Of Action Comics #1
Explained
here. There's good Joe Shuster, Bernard Baily and Fred Guardineer in that issue. A lot of racist visuals, too, so if that's not something you wish to encounter you might stick with the Superman story. I love the kiss in that story.
via an army of people, but as suggested above I read it here
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If I Were In Columbus, I’d Go To This
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If I Were Near Windsor, I’d Go To This
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If I Were Near London, Ontario, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Vermont, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Greenville, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In London, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Toronto, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Philadelphia, I’d Go To This
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Happy 47th Birthday, Taiyo Matsumoto!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 54th Birthday, June Brigman!
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By Request Extra: Joseph Remnant Would Like You To Buy His Seth Kushner Portrait To Benefit Kushner
Remnant is selling the art here.
The change in Kushner's condition/situation is described here.
The general GoFundMe page for Kushner and his family is here. As I recall, he can also be donated to via paypal at seth@sethkusher.com.
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Go, Look: Bird In A Cage
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Go, Read: Series Of Posts Exploring DMP’s Latest Tezuka Kickstarter
There's a really interesting series of posts from
Alex Hoffman at Sequential State about a Osamu Tezuka-related crowd-funder for a bunch of Osamu Tezuka-related books. It's grown into one of those mini-debates. There's a bunch of stuff to read/see. You should probably start with
the Kickstarter itself, move into the three-part Hoffman essay (
1,
2,
3), go to
a video that DMP's Hikaru Sasahara made about some of the issues raised in general, and
end with Hoffman's response to that video and some follow-up thoughts. I would imagine like most discussions of this type it's quickly scuttered into another half-dozen places, with more to come, but those seemed like the essentials.
What fascinates me about this discussion is that it really puts the pressure on DMP to articulate a great deal more of their reasoning than is usually required by a crowd-funder, but also does so against this backdrop where these arguments almost aren't important except as a dampening agent on enthusiasm needed to see a crowd-funder to completion. We're still at the stage where a successful crowd-funder is defined solely by the financial commitment it engenders, even more than if it actually comes through on what's promised. Hoffman brings in the idea of what a crowd-funder should cover, which I think is fair because there is a social-good style argument made for these things but it's usually really broadly portrayed, and sometimes with the idea of something simply being crowd-funded as its own moral force. Another fascinating element is that Hoffman uses the idea of this crowd-funder as one in a potential series of such crowd-funders to question the idea of making an ongoing strategy out of raising money for publishing this way.
I hope there are more discussions like this. I think when you're an established company asking for money like this it puts a lot of pressure on you to justify what you're doing and how you're doing it. Sometimes that's easier for a company like this to do, because they can point to years of completing projects and employing people or however the request is phrased. And sometimes it's more difficult, like this one. I'm terribly interested to see how it plays out. I'm worried that it won't be.
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Go, Look: Marjane Satrapi Paintings
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Collective Memory: LICAF 2014
this article has been archived
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: More Jon J Muth Black And White Images
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Assembled, Zipped, Transferred And Downloaded: News From Digital
By Tom Spurgeon
* Anya Davidson
reports that her
Band For Life has been dropped by
Vice due to a low viewership. I hope someone out there with a little bit of cash will pick it up, or if not, that she'll be able to make a go of it as a self-published effort.
* it looks like Mark Waid's Thrillbent effort
has significantly improved its reader experience. I like following the development of Thrillbent because I feel like they have to kind of work through stuff that most companies have decided going in just by nature of their involvement.
*
looks like Bad Machinery is on next-to-full hiatus until the new year.
* finally, Alan Gardner
caught that Rina Piccolo has made the transition to doing her work digitally.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Secret History Of John Constantine
I thought this was well done. I'm glad to see the Jamie Delano-era receiving a big chunk of the spotlight, given that the character was more popular in a more self-actualized, confident depiction later on in the series.
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October 23, 2014
OTBP: Zombre #3
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Go, Read: The Guardian On Various Caricaturists Supporting Musa Kart With Vicious Drawings Of Recep
It's pretty self-explanatory. Before
being acquitted yesterday, Turkish cartoonist Musa Kart was facing up to nine years in prison on charges brought against him by that country's president, Recep Erdoğan. This was due to a cartoon that Kart did about a significant corruption scandal that gripped the country in late 2013. The fact that that only conceivable, rational objection anyone could have against the cartoon is that the idea expressed was not to the politician's liking is something that has not been lost on critics of the contemptible practice of sitting government officials pursuing criminal and civic action against artists. It's fun to see the artists unload on Erdoğan like this, and him not able to fight back in a potentially skewed arena. I imagine it was also an encouragement to Kart.
cartoon from Norway's Morten Morland
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portugal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were Near London, Ontario, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In London, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Jingle Jangle Comics #39
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
*
today is the last day to apply for a place as an exhibitor at next May's TCAF.
* Todd Klein on
Hellboy In Hell Vol. 1. Gareth Branwyn on
Megahex. Dominic Umile on
The Wrenchies and Copra. Maria Russo on
Hansel & Gretel. Tiffany White on
Baby Bjornstrand. Chris Sims on
Arkham Manor #1. Frank Santoro on
Playground.
* hard to imagine you'll read a better article on comics this week than the latest Ryan Holmberg, on
Matsumoto Masahiko.
* not comics: Rob Tornoe
takes a survey of how various newspaper industry entities deal with trolls in their comments sections. He takes a survey-style approach, anyway; I don't think an actual survey was involved. It's helped me to think of this kind of thing soley in terms of it being a people problem rather than a result of technology or culture. Jackasses are more passionate about being jackasses than smart people are passionate about having on-line conversations. There are pockets of exception of course, but I think that's where we are now.
* Michael Cavna talks to
Scott McCloud. Tony Ortega talks to
Matt Bors. Frederik Hautain talks to
Michael Cho.
* not comics: this new
Archie shows
sounds like that Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips
Criminal arc where they riffed on the structure and flourishes of those comics. Those two were able to tap into something with that work that gave it an emotional charge that it's hard to imagine being present in a network TV show, but we'll see.
* finally,
that's a cool-looking poster Ron Regé Jr. did for next year's SAW workshop.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 31st Birthday, Austin English!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 61st Birthday, Mindy Newell!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Perils Of The Lady Gamer, Part Two
posted 4:00 am PST |
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Pearson, Cannon Among Comics-Makers Nominated For BD/Manga Category Of A “Young Readers” Book Prize
This year's loaded BD/manga category of the awards given out in conjunction with the Le Salon du livre et de la presse jeunesse in Montreuil included a
t least two names familiar to English-language audiences: Luke Pearson, nominated for the Casterman edition of
Hilda et le Chien noir; and Kevin Cannon, given the nod for the Ca et La edition of his latest Army Shanks epic,
Cratère XV.
The full list of nominees is as follows:
*
Amazigh, Itinéraire d'hommes libres, Mohamed Arejdal, Cédric Liano, Steinkis
*
August Moon, Diana Thung, traduit de l'anglais (Australie) par Louise Lavabre, Sarbacane
*
Baby boom, Yuichi Yokoyama, traduit du japonais par Céline Bruel, Matière
*
Cratère XV, Kevin Cannon, traduit de l'anglais (Etats-Unis) par Fanny Soubiran, Ca et La
*
Dans ma Maison de papier, Philippe Dorin, Pierre Duba, 6 Pieds Sous Terre
*
Entre Ciel et terre, Vol. 1, Golo Zhao, traduit du chinois, Cambourakis
*
Hilda et le Chien noir, Luke Pearson, traduit de l'anglais (Royaume-Uni) par Basile Béguerie, Casterman
*
Max Winson, Vol. 1, La Tyrannie, Jérémie Moreau, Delcourt
*
Moby Dick livre premier, Chabouté, d'après Herman Melville, Vents d'Ouest
*
Pelote dans la fumée, Vol. 1, L'Eté / L'Automne, Miroslav Sekulic-Struja, traduit du croate par Aleksandar Grujicic, Actes Sud BD
*
Sugar, ma vie de chat, Serge Baeken, Dargaud
Congratulations to those nominated. The winners in all six categories will be named November 18.
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Go, Look: Marlene Krause
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Musa Kart Acquitted In Case Brought By Recep Erdoğan
The cartoonist
Musa Kart, for years at the daily newspaper
Cumhuriyet was acquitted earlier today of charges brought against him by current Turkish President
Recep Erdoğan.
The case was heard in Istanbul's 2nd Criminal Court Of First Instance. The charges, involving insult through publication and slander, asked for a jail sentence just short of ten years. They were at one point earlier than this dropped by a prosecutor's office before that decision was appealed by lawyers representing Erdoğan.
I've seen stories that indicate the cartoon in question -- about a graft investigation that came to light in late 2013 -- appeared in early 2014, but also one or two things that say it appeared closer to the event, in 2013. Either way, Erdoğan would have been prime minister when the cartoons appeared. The charges were filed in February, which may be part of the confusion.
Kart spoke up in court to note that he was facing charges after all of the corruption charges that instigated the cartoon had been dropped, something that struck him and I imagine a significant chunk of people paying attention around the world as absurd. The concept of sitting politicians filing civil and driving criminal charges against satirists is an unfortunate world trend going back more than a decade; Musa Kart faced significant charges in 2006 and in 2008.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: A Beautiful Powerhouse Pepper Story
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Missed It: Jenny Robb Wins Ink Bottle Award From AAEC
I haven't seen anything official out of
Satire Fest the weekend before last --
what comes up on a Twitter looks like fun -- and I thought I might considering that it's also the Association Of American Editorial Cartoonist meeting for the Fall. If anyone knows of a summary piece, please let me know and I'll run something in a paragraph I'll insert right below this one.
One thing that completely escaped my attention despite being solidly within my link-search wheelhouse is
that Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Curator Jenny Robb received their Ink Bottle Award. I believe it went to Bob Harvey last year, and that it's their "contributions to the art form" type award. Anything Robb wins is well-deserved. That's such a valuable form of cartoon expression that anything that can be done in its support is a valuable service.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Joe Edwards Draws Wilbur
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Festivals Extra: Potential TCAF Exhibitors Have Until Tomorrow To Apply For 2015 Show Next May
Please read the notes. The Toronto Comic Arts Festival has become one of North American comics' most significant weekends year in and year out, and next year should be no exception. It's astonishing we're already thinking about May in permanent-marker terms, but that's the way these shows are these days.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: Unintentionally Horrifying Golden Age Kids Comic
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 22, 2014
Go, Bookmark: Envoy
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events
By Tom Spurgeon
* the
Locust Moon Festival is the big one right now, with many of those exhibitors and many others anticipating
CAB while others look forward to
that classic, lovely event in Lucca. We're definitely in the early evening of the convention calendar year, and it's so freaking exhausting now I can't blame anyone who's tired even just hearing about all the events.
* CAKE
is accepting exhibitor applications now through December 15. I hope to attend the 2015 edition of that show, which has been announced for early June. Alt-comics could use a strong Chicago show
and a strong early-June show. I'll be interested to see what the show looks like as it expands; I know some folks find it to be perfect right now.
*
exhibitor applications are available for RIPExpo 2015, to be held the last weekend in March.
*
love some of the comics made in the course of this event report.
* as this post rolls out, people are starting to get back exhibitor yay/nays on
Emerald City, which is in late March this year.
*
Short Run has a t-shirt. I would like that t-shirt.
* finally,
here's a nice regional-media preview of this year's aforementioned Locust Moon Festival.
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If I Were In Columbus, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In LA, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were Near Madison, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Ghost
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* J. Caleb Mozzocco on
a bunch of recent comic books. Dan Brown (not that one) on
The Wrenchies. Brad Hawley on
In Real Life. Rob McMonigal on
Kingdom/Order Part One. Sonia Harris on
Alex + Ada. JP Fallavollita on
Ronin.
* there's a long feature here about
a series of Marvel Universe trading cards and the impact they had on a number of professionals and industry folk. That is one weird element to comics culture; you can never tell what's going to hit with people.
* the Kindle Editors talk to
Jen Wang and Cory Doctorow. Paul Gravett profiles
Junko Mizuno. Michael Cavna talks to
Vivek Tiwary. Martin Dupuis talks to
Chris Wright.
*
congratulations to Mike Sterling on his last job and best of luck with his new one.
* I missed
the 60th anniversary of Hi And Lois. Congratulations to all involved; that's a hell of an achievement. That is a full contractual lifetime run of a strip + five bonus years four times.
Hi & Lois was a solid strip in its day, sort of halfway between
Blondie and
Family Circus tonally with a more believable suburban setting. It's hard to imagine my reading it now with much anticipation or joy, but I'm sure it's still someone's favorite comic.
*
that seems to me a perfectly sensible thing for Brandon Graham to draw.
*
that's a fine choice from the writer-about-comics Chris Sims for best comic of the 21st Century.
* not comics: this isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I loved
this post from Robert Boyd about his Houston neighborhood.
* finally, I join so many people in being happy that Barry Matthews
returned home from the hospital safe and sound.
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Happy 26th Birthday, Sam Alden!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 51st Birthday, Eric Shanower!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 40th Birthday, John Pham!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 46th Birthday, Gary Erskine!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 44th Birthday, Blake Bell!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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October 21, 2014
Go, Look: A Michael DeForge On-Line Comics List
I don't think I ever ran a link to this.
posted 6:05 pm PST |
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Festivals Extra: CAB Announces Its Gallery-Opening Slate
Comic Arts Brooklyn released its line-up of gallery openings via a press release disseminated October 19 for publication today. While that show has always had gallery openings of some sort in close proximity, this is the first time I can recall their making a specific announcement about them this far ahead of time. As previously discussed here and on countless other web site, CAB has spun off its well-regarded programming track into its own day.
* Julie Doucet Collages, 11-6, 7-9 PM, Desert Island (540 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211)
CAB description: "In a rare U.S. appearance, Julie Doucet will travel from Canada to attend an exhibit of her recent collages. Doucet's edgy comics work has had a tremendous impact on younger cartoonists. These days she has been making prints and collages, most of which have not been seen in the States. This exhibit is a rare opportunity for Doucet's fans to see what she has been up to."
*****
* Al Jaffee, 11-7, 7-9 PM, Scott Eder Gallery (18 Bridge St 2-I, Brooklyn, NY 11201)
CAB description: "Nonagenarian Al Jaffee created the MAD Magazine Fold-In back in 1964 and he has never stopped making them. Generations of readers who have been amused and amazed by this continually inventive feature will be equally impressed by his mind-blowing original art. These highly detailed gouache paintings are painstakingly rendered with a density that the printed page cannot replicate. If you think you know Jaffee's work, get ready: this show will be a revelation."
This show was organized by CAB founder and organizer Gabe Fowler, so that's something it has going for it as well.
*****
* Wizard Skull "Re-Animator", 11-9, 7-11 PM, Cotton Candy Machine (235 South 1st Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211)
CAB description: "Animation cels from your favorite childhood cartoons are no longer safe! The artist known as Wizard Skull got his hands on original animation cels used to create television cartoons such as The Smurfs, Garfield, He-Man, Alvin and the Chipmunks, etc., and alters the cels by inserting new characters and bringing the old cels to life with new meaning. Wizard Skull is an artist living in Brooklyn NY. You may have come across his work on one of the hundreds of skateboards he has designed for companies all over the world, or seen his Sexy Ronald drawing wheat pasted all over Brooklyn."
*****
* Kutikuti at Wayfarers Gallery, 11-9, 6-9 PM, Wayfarers Gallery (1109 DeKalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11221)
CAB description: "Kutikuti are a group of artists from Finland who are travelling here for the expressly for the festival. The Wayfarers Gallery is opening its doors and standing back for a completely unpredictable installation. This group of studio-mates who make art, publish comics, and teach, are predictably unpredictable. This installation will be a once in a lifetime happening. As they Kutikuti like to say, 'Dig it!'"
*****
All openings are free. All featured artists are expected to attend.
The festival proper is November 8-9.
*****
Updated: As
CR went to press on this piece, Gabe Fowler sent along a longer description of Julie Doucet in terms of her appearance at the show and participation in the gallery portion of the event.
In a rare public appearance, comic artist Julie Doucet presents a never-before-seen collection of her collage art at Desert Island in Brooklyn. Consisting of cutouts from materials such as vintage women's magazines and pin-up centerfolds, Doucet's art often combines the domestic and the erotic to create an irreverently feminist voice. Other works document imagined cities, combining scraps of roadmaps with original pen-and-ink drawings. Her collages are often made on the backs of magazine pages and other printed matter, and CAB attendees are invited to pick up and examine her two-sided works.
Concerned with the relationship between word and image, Doucet says of her work, "what i write is often about love, women's problems today... I am not purposely writing about these subjects but that's what's coming out... from the beginning my work was always about words and/in pictures. It was true with comics, true with my collage work, and even animation film work."
In the late 1980s, Julie Doucet made a name for herself with the underground 'zine Dirty Plotte, originally self-published and followed by 12 issues published by Drawn & Quarterly. She has since shifted from comics to collage, though her collages still hearken back to her cartoonist roots. Doucet is based in Montreal, Quebec.
The artist will be in attendance at the Opening Night Reception at Desert Island on Thursday, November 6 at 7 pm. She will also be available for a signing at the Drawn & Quarterly table on Saturday November 8th, time to be announced.
I'm looking forward to the show.
*****
*****
posted 6:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Guns Of Bull Carson
posted 5:55 pm PST |
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Musa Kart Facing More Legal Trouble In Turkey For The Act Of Making An Uncomplimentary Caricature
All positive thoughts to Musa Kart,
facing criminal prosecution for a caricature he made of world political powerhouse
Recep Erdogan earlier this year. I think the linked-to article lays out the timeline of events in this immediate case very well. The offending cartoon was published on February 1 in
Cumhuriyet, and can be seen above. It references a significant, well-known corruption case.
This is part of a couple of extremely uncomfortable practices in several countries: the criminal prosecution of caricature, and cases being brought by either sitting politicans or politicians just out of office in a way that casts some doubt on the fairness of those hearings. My memor is that Kart faced major prosecutions in 2006 and 2008, but I think by the 2006 event he was already a beloved figure for those to whom freedom of the press is an important, big deal. What's missing is that time period's political context for that kind of protest, where it was once thought that Turkey's desire to join the European Economic Union would force them to more closely adhere to member country values regarding free speech. I don't think that's a concern the way it used to be.
The trial apparently starts tomorrow. Kart points out I think correctly the absurdity that none of the politicians involved in the circumstance that led to the cartoon are being prosecuted, but he is.
posted 5:50 pm PST |
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OTBP: Frontier #6
posted 5:45 pm PST |
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Love Is… Slapped Down For An Incredibly Dumb Outing
This tale of a dicey-sounding Love Is... outing on October 14 is one of those problematic stories because a) I totally missed it, b) I didn't see anything past this one story which when you have something that could be a joke article is worrisome, c) it looks like it was scrubbed thoroughly from both the syndicate and the devoted-site offerings that support the feature so I can't get few-days-later approbation. But taking it at its face value, no, you really can't have a message like that coming out of a comic strip character's mouth without some people getting upset.
The angle this stories shares with some others about recent cartoon work -- and actually a lot of what goes into making newspapers these days, period -- is the thought that really no one is taking a solid second look at nearly any material out there before it gets published. Remember that a framework for the entire collapse of newspapers is that they simply aren't as profitable as they used to be -- as opposed to not making any money at all. One way some newspaper business became so profitable in the first place or were able to maintain their profits during a slower decline period 1979 to 2009 or so is that these kind of screening mechanisms were gutted: either outsourced or eliminated entirely. We should expect stories like this one.
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Go, Look: Critical Mass Of Cool
posted 5:35 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Moon Man
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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This Isn’t A Library: New And Notable Releases Into Comics’ Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.
*****
AUG141647 MOTHERLESS OVEN GN $19.95
This is kind of odd week for me at the comics shop, unless I'm reading the lists incorrectly -- a real possibility. Usually I could cheat from Jog but I have to get today's up a couple of days earlier for scheduling reasons.
Motherless Oven is a Rob Davis book from SelfMadeHero and the advance art looked quite stunning. Davis is probably best known for his efforts in putting together the
Nelson anthology, whose unofficial subtitle was "Holy crap, there are a lot of British alt-cartoonists right now."
SEP141384 MOOMIN DLX ANNIVERSARY ED HC $69.95
MAY140919 ALIAS OMNIBUS HC NEW PTG $99.99
AUG141763 PRINCESS MONONOKE FIRST STORY HC $34.99
JUN140284 RONIN DELUXE EDITION HC $29.99
Definitely a lot of gift-type books are going to be on these lists from now until the first week of December -- maybe we'll see them for longer than that, as some late-arrivals seep into early 2015. There's a lot of value here, though -- they don't tend to make books suitable for deluxe treatment out of terrible domics. The
Moomin you likely know if you're reading this site. The
Alias is one of Marvel's giant hardcover collections of lots of color comics, this time for a series that was really popular during their last significant down cycle as a sophisticated treatment of that kind of material. The Princess Mononoke book looks like a first-draft style work for what would become one of the big Miyazaki animated hits, and should be full of attractive art. Some people will tell you that
Ronin is Frank Miller's best work. I'm not one of those people -- my opinion corresponds to Kim Thompson's negative
TCJ review back in the day -- but teenaged me had a lot of fun reading the book and I'd find a place for it in my library.
JUN140016 BPRD PLAGUE OF FROGS TP VOL 01 $19.99
APR140291 ANNOTATED SANDMAN HC VOL 03 (MR) $49.99
Two new volumes from well-established series: you can likely tell from the information presented in each of those two lines above whether or not you'll be making that purchase.
AUG140289 CATWOMAN #35 $2.99
AUG140436 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS LEGENDS OF BALDURS GATE #1 $3.99
AUG140437 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS LEGENDS OF BALDURS GATE #1 SUBSCRIPTION $3.99
AUG140657 LAZARUS #12 (MR) $3.50
AUG148326 OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #1 5TH PTG (MR) $2.99
JUL140577 STARLIGHT #6 CVR A CASSADAY (MR) $4.99
JUL140578 STARLIGHT #6 CVR B CHIANG (MR) $4.99
AUG140567 WALKING DEAD #133 (MR) $2.99
AUG140769 THANOS A GOD UP THERE LISTENING #3 $3.99
Kind of an odd week for serial comic book format comics, including a lot that I'm just sort interested in looking at rather than buying. The
Catwoman looks like a direction change for that character, which is a quietly effective for that publisher. I'm not sure why there has never been a sustained run of gaming comics that work, so anything related to any of those licenses, even a videogame one, kind of interests me. The
Lazarus is a solid performer for Image Comics, a handsome science fiction adventure based on the extrapolation of current political trends that seems perfectly suited for one-day cable television series adaptation. Multiple printings on Image books like
Outcast there is one way to tell surging peformers apart from the rest of the line, or at least it would seem to knowing what we know about the basic set-up that company has. I thought that
Starlight series felt like the first 20 minutes of a movie rather than an entire movie as is usually case with series like that. The art was sure pretty, even though working in the Alex Raymond/Hal Foster arena is a tough task.
Walking Dead should explode into violence any issues now. The Thanos I'd look at because it sounds like Judy Blume movie.
JUL141446 ORDINARY HC $19.99
This is a take on superhero concepts with art by D'Israeli that I remember having recommended to me once upon a time, but I never went and looked at it. I'd rectify this were I in a store today.
AUG141766 SUNNY HC VOL 04 $22.99
AUG141765 MONSTER TP VOL 02 PERFECT ED URASAWA $19.99
AUG141776 VAGABOND GN VOL 36 (MR) $9.95
One thing that's good for a potentially slower than usual week in the kind of alt-comics and genre material that I tend to buy at shops is that it forces me to spend some time catching up with manga. I like that
Sunny series and Taiyo Matsumoto generally; I'm a full book behind.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics,
can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store,
check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back,
try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I failed to list your comic, that's because I hate you.
*****
*****
*****
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If I Were In Brussels, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Vera Valiant Sundays
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Rob Clough has some thoughts on
Root Hog Or Die.
* not comics: I think
this is Paul Krugman revisiting recent Amazon criticisms, but I can't tell since I spent all 10 of my free articles on crossword puzzles.
*
I enjoyed consuming this unexpected slice of underground comix history.
* not comics:
this article on Pulp Fiction not being any good reminded me of
Gary Groth's long-ago article on Pulp Fiction not being any good. To be clear that's Gary's good article on Quentin Tarantino, whose movies do not impress him. I have a hard time processing Tarantino as a substantive writer/director, but
Pulp Fiction was certainly an interesting moment for non-mainstream junk culture. The thing most like it for me was watching the first Wolverine scenes in the first X-Men movie and thinking, "Okay, all of this stuff is going to be mainstream pop culture now."
* finally,
Sarah McIntyre talks terminology.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 62nd Birthday, Jim Wheelock!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 61st Birthday, Steven Grant!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Ben Passmore
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Look: Kurt Ankeny
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Image Comics Announces Details On Criminal Trades Availability; Releases To Include 48-Page One-Shot
The publisher Image Comics formally
announced earlier today that they'll be re-presenting trades collecting the Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips series
Criminal for the book market. Brubaker and Phillips did the series and its initial trade run during a generally fruitful period for the creative team at Marvel. The plans include a one-shot periodical-style publication (left) that will boast a variant cover (right). This will start in January.
The new trade dress (middle) had already been sneaked, and I think the news generally out there, but I believe this is the first time that all of the pertinent information has been in one place. I thought those books underperformed a bit at Marvel, and it should be enjoyable to see the creative benefit from the Image deal for these works.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Gigolo
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Read: Robert Loss Reviews Root Hog Or Die
Robert Loss
reviews the John Porcellino documentary Root Hog Or Die over at TCJ, and I think gets at how that film is affecting with a greater impact than the sum total of the skill evident in its making. I don't really have any commentary here, I just sort of like that movie and admire Porcellino and would like to see the movie and others like it do well.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Monsters
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 20, 2014
Go, Bookmark: New Cochlea & Eustachia Serial Starts
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked: Publishing News
By Tom Spurgeon
* we're getting the CAB debut announcements now,
such as the above new thing from the cartoonist Katie Skelly.
* I'm not sure what's going on
here, but if it's new Andrea Bruno, count me in. In fact, if it's old Andrea Bruno, count me in.
* the mainstream stuff I encountered this week is mostly big-picture hints at series and line expansions.
There's something old-fashioned and sweet about looking at solicitations and trying to suss out big changes in serial comics narratives. Marvel
is apparently expanding their "Season One" line to encompass more retold and expanded origins as befits their retellings of various Marvel characters' stories on their TV shows and in their movies. Steve Morris
unpacks a bunch of event-series announcements one right on top of another. That's too bad if that's what they're doing, at least from my perspective as a reader: I think a lot of their books feel overstuffed and labored right now.
* the writer
Mark Millar is teasing a new project -- it might be announced by now, I can never quite get the hang of the way folks do announcements right now. At any rate, Millar is very good at kneading the PR until it takes the shape he wants it to shape.
* it looks like
we're going to get a giant Vincent Mahé book late next summer/early next fall. That could be something. We're also going to get
a massive Hector Oesterhald/Solano Lopez collaboration. I didn't even know that one was on the radar.
* finally, Drew Ford at Dover Books sent along the below cover image for their re-release of JM DeMatteis' and Paul Johnson's
Mercy, which is a one-time Vertigo book being reprinted.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Columbus, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: More Giant-Size Marvel Comics Covers
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the CBLDF has a nice piece up on
Zunar winning a major legal victory in Malaysia. He fought long and hard for that one.
* David Brothers
reprints the Todd McFarlane essay at the back of the Spawn #1. That's an interesting historical document for a bunch of reasons, and I think it's possible to have a number of different takes on it.
* Alex Dueben talks to
Ed Piskor.
*
I enjoyed this goblin librarian drawn by Thomas Wellmann.
*
here's a very high-profile piece -- at least in terms of people linking to it -- on superhero fight scenes. I like focused interviews like this, and if fight scenes are to superhero comics what song are to musicals, we should probably pay a lot more attention to that bit of comics choreography.
* Sean Rogers on
Fatherland. Victoria Camblin on
Gnosis. Sonia Harris
takes a lengthy look at a second presentation for
Street Angel; we don't get a lot of that kind of review. Jason Heller on
a bunch of different comics.
*
this is a very encouraging news story about women that work in the comics industry banding together. I think that's
so helpful to do that, for any group that has a shared set of interests, and I hope that we'll see a lot more of both this one and like groups in the years ahead.
* finally, Art Adams draws
Star Wars.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 59th Birthday, Geof Darrow!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 45th Birthday, Steve MacIsaac!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 33rd Birthday, Kiel Phegley!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 58th Birthday, Paul Levitz!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Aimee Fleck
posted 12:30 am PST |
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NESAD Starts Scholarship Fund For Former Teacher Bhob Stewart
The New England School Of Art & Design (NESAD) has announced a scholarship fund for contributions to be made in the name of the late comics-maker, educator and writer about comics Bhob Stewart. Stewart taught at the institution from 1970-1984.
It looks like
1. you go here
2. go to "annual fund"
3. select "NESAD FUND"
4. note "Bhob Stewart" in the "other" field
or you can send a check to Suffolk University with Bhob's name in the memo field and send it to
Laurie Cormier
Suffolk University
Office Of Advancement
8 Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108
The fund will directly benefit students. I hope you'll consider a small donation, particularly if you're a person who writes about comics or is involved in the industry at that way. Something Stewart did likely made your life easier or more possible.
Stewart died in February. Due to the nature of his personal life and professional career, there are still memorials and gatherings being held in his name.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: A Selection Of George Scarbo Sunday Strips
posted 12:20 am PST |
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There Was A Comics Show In The West Bank Last Weekend
It was discussed in advance
here. I'd heard about this from the Guy Delisle involvement end, but hadn't really wrapped my mind around what was planned. If you ever need evidence that comics shows are ascendant, point to
this Facebook page, or to the photos
here.
Ethan Heitner was nice enough to write in and remind me.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Frankenstein #32
posted 12:10 am PST |
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FFF Results Post #398—Go Eagles
On Friday,
CR readers were asked to "Name Five Comics-Makers You Like That Went To The Same Cartooning School Or Took The Same Cartooning Course; Please Also Name The Course Or School." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1. Eric Shanower
2. Steve Lieber
3. Amanda Conner
4. Steve Bissette
5. Tim Truman
The Joe Kubert School
*****
Randall Kirby
1. Les McClaine
2. Ryan Hill
3. Jon Siruno
4. Robyn Chapman
5. William O Tyler
Savannah College of Art and Design
*****
Matt Emery
1. Alex Hallat
2. Steve Bissette
3. Ed Piskor
4. Matt Hollingsworth
5. Rick Veitch
The Joe Kubert School
*****
Jog
* Rumiko Takahashi (
Ranma 1/2,
InuYasha)
* Kazuya Kudo (writer,
Mai the Psychic Girl,
Pineapple Army)
* Tetsuo Hara (artist,
Fist of the North Star)
* Naoki Yamamoto (
Dance till Tomorrow)
* Kengo Kaji (writer,
Lycanthrope Leo)
All attended Kazuo Koike's Gekiga Sonjuku program. Takahashi & Kudo were among the first graduating class, along with
Old Boy writer Garon Tsuchiya and
Vampire Hunter D creator Hideyuki Kikuchi, while Hara & Yamamoto were in the third, with
Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii -- I'd have liked to hear the small talk between them.
*****
Dan Morris
1. Walt Simonson
2. David Mazzuccelli
3. Mat Brinkman
4. Brian Ralph
5. Erica Henderson
RISD
*****
Chris Arrant
1. Archie Goodwin
2. Peter Bagge
3. Joe Quesada
4. Wally Wood
5. Steve Ditko
Manhattan's School of Visual Arts
*****
Eric Yockey
1. Gahan Wilson
2. Will Eisner
3. Jack Davis
4. Al Feldstein
5. Johnny Craig
Art Students League of New York
*****
Eric Yockey
1. Harvey Kurtzman
2. Will Elder
3. Al Feldstein
4. John Severin
5. Al Jaffee
High School of Music and Art (New York)
*****
Marc Arsenault
1. Ellen Forney
2. Megan Kelso
3. Dean Haspiel
4. Gabrielle Gamboa
5. Lark Pien
Atlantic Center for the Arts 147th Artists-in-Residence session, October 8-28, 2012
*****
Adrian Kinnaird
1. Martin Emond
2. Ant Sang
3. Kelvin Soh
4. Paul Rogers
5. Simon Rattray
AIT: Auckland Institute of Technology (now Auckland University of Technology)
*****
Oliver Ristau
1.
Nic Klein
2.
Michael Meier
3.
Aisha Franz
4.
Markus Farber
5.
Alexander Draude
KLASSE ILLUSTRATION / COMIC AN DER KUNSTHOCHSCHULE KASSEL / PROF. HENDRIK DORGATHEN (
LINK)
*****
Des Devlin
* Al Jaffee ‘40
* Will Elder ‘40
* John Severin ‘40
* Harvey Kurtzman ‘41
* Edward Sorel ‘47
NYC’s High School of Music and Art
(scan of photo of Jaffee and Elder in the school cafeteria, 1939, provided by submitter)
*****
Chris Duffy
1. Nate Neal
2. Eleanor Davis
3. Drew Weing
4. Joey Weiser
5. Becky Dreistadt
Savannah College of Art and Design
*****
John Vest
1. Jack Kirby
2. Bill Griffith
3. B Kliban
4. B Krigstein
5. Jules Feiffer
Pratt Institute
*****
*****
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: J. Wellington Wimpy From Popeye: The First Fifty Years
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 19, 2014
Comics By Request: People, Places In Need Of Funding
By Tom Spurgeon
*
count Leela Corman among those cartoonists that have launched Patreons. Also, Melissa Mendes
has launched one, here.
* Dan Vado
updated his gofundme campaign a couple of days ago to remind us that it's still ongoing and any/all support is still appreciated.
* the stuff on Kickstarter that seems interesting all comes from semi-familiar names or better:
Ted Sikora,
Dave Sim,
Shaenon Garrity,
Steve Ditko/Robin Snyder. A pair of not-quite-yet-funded projects that caught my attention were
this one about a forthcoming food crisis, and
this one about fighting bullying.
* finally, it's been a while since we checked in on the ongoing gofundme
in support of the writer and photographer Seth Kushner. It has hovered around the same amount since the last time he was in the news, with a benefit and a return home. I don't know exactly what his situation is right this minute, but I have to imagine that any funds in support of the family could be put to good use.
posted 11:55 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Three More Comics From Boulet
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Steve McNiven Images Mini-Gallery
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I haven't been paying a bunch of attention to
Inktober, the latest "let's all draw something" stunt in which many artists are participiating on-line, but I have enjoyed some of the little drawings I've seen as a result, like
this Colossus by Mike Dawson.
* not comics: Iggy Pop apparently
doesn't make enough money from music on which to live, and he blames in part the ability to access his work for free against his wishes that it be free. A good friend of mine insists it's a lot easier to conceive of what's going on here if you eliminate the idea of free from the discussion and realize that consumers now feel that in several ways that count they're already paying you with the time they spend consuming your work.
* Lauren Davis on
In Real Life.
*
ComicsAlliance has one of those funny Chris Haley comics up, this time on the Death Of Wolverine. At least I think Haley has done more than one of those comics.
* Chris Butcher
posts a report on his trip to the Lakes Festival in 2013 just in advance of the 2014 version, now completed. The physical infrastructure of it looks amazing.
* not comics:
Abhay Khosla reviews Birdman.
* finally,
the hidden language of comic book writers.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 38th Birthday, John Allison!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 58th Birthday, Jim Engel!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 43rd Birthday, Mike Baehr!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 34th Birthday, Ryan North!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 35th Birthday, Matthew Loux!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 52nd Birthday, Len Kaminsky!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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October 18, 2014
Congratulations To Gary Groth On Winning The 2014 Stranger Genius Award In Literature
I saw this on some private Facebook postings, but
here's the tweet from someone that was at last night's ceremony.
Here's Paul Constant's profile of Groth when Groth was nominated for the prize, given out in yearly fashion by the major alt-weekly to people working in that region in various forms of expression.
This seems important to me for a couple of reasons. One is that I think this is the first career-spanning award Groth has been a part of, and if there's justice he should be a part of a bunch over the next several years. The world of adult, literate expression in comics owes much of crucial significance to that 14-year-old lining up the column spacing on his fanzines in his bedroom, night after night, and the man that teenager became. The other is that Fantagraphics has had a curious relationship to Seattle over its quarter-century there, and it's always nice to see that city recognize the cultural impact that this long-standing business has had both there in town and throughout the world.
I've long suspected Gary Groth was a genius in part because I'm 3-269 in two decades of arguments with him. So this makes me feel better. Seriously, though, thousands of lives would be different without his unique achievements, including my own. Congratulations to him on this nice honor.
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If I Were In San Diego, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Belgium, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In England, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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The Comics Reporter Video Parade
Jim Woodring Speaking In Seattle
The Reubens
Ali Farzat Interviewed About Being Attacked
Marjane Satrapi Profiled On Sundance TV
Cartoonists Live In Herne Bay
Her NYCC 2014 Experience
posted 8:00 am PST |
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CR Week In Review
The top comics-related news stories from October 11 to October 17, 2014:
1. Roz Chast's
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? makes the National Book Awards shortlist for non-fiction, the first comics work to do so.
2. NYCC concludes its 2014 with
a strong claim for the most-attended show in North America, so much so it's weird that it still gets qualified as a claim. As far as I know, it's the most-attended show now.
3.
Last Gasp concludes a successful book-season fundraiser.
Winner Of The Week
Chast
Losers Of The Week
Not sure, but there's probably a number attached to them
here.
Quote Of The Week
"So why do we hate this book? Every time I hear about how important the Fantastic Four are, it’s always lip service in articles about how the team will be destroyed or the book is getting canned. The two major arcs I can think of off the top of my have all revolved around death: Jonathan Hickman brought the book into the spotlight by killing off Johnny Storm, and Matt Fraction upped the ante and threatened the whole team with cosmic radiation poisoning. Robinson is now systematically destroying the family unit, along with its credibility. Fantastic Four #5 was difficult to read, as Reed and Sue were taken to court, losing their home and their children due to endangerment. We all know being a superhero is dangerous, but to take matters into the “real world†and penalize Marvel’s First Family for being fantastic is just sad. Maybe preparing to cancel the book is a small mercy." --
Carla Hoffman
posted 2:00 am PST |
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October 17, 2014
If I Were In Chicago, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Chicago, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Diego, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Belgium, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In England, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 45th Birthday, Sam Henderson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: This Water Will Be White
posted 12:40 am PST |
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Not Comics: Bizarre, Perhaps Fictional Ukrainian Cartooning Story Involves Lurid Photos, Martial Law
It's here, and the reason it's "not comics" is that it involves a cartoon rather than comics.
It actually sounds like a not-real story to me, which is a possibility raised. That might actually be more terrifying in the long-term than if the story as written is true right down to the ugly parts. It used to be the comics depended on scholars like John Lent to tells us about cartoonists in far-away countries, with the hope they wouldn't make something up. Now people making stuff up seems to be a part of the news.
posted 12:35 am PST |
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Go, Look: Tiina Lehikoinen
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Read: Call For Papers On “The Comics World”
I am not up on academic jargon to the point I had to go look at what a "CFP" was: call for papers.
In this case, it's apparently a call for chapters to a book about comics as a series of social spaces, which seems a fun idea and worth exploring in an academic sense. I hope you'll consider participating if this is the kind of thing you do.
The other thing that hits me is the use of my decade-plus acquaintance Dr. Bart Beaty in the introduction as a major figure in the world of figuring things like this out, which of course he is.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Torture Castle Intro
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Not Comics But Still Sort Of Comics: A Ton Of DC Superhero Movies Get Announced
I didn't have a ton to say about the news itself that
Warner Bros has announced a bunch of films related to DC Comics-owned superhero characters. Not my area. I'm sure some will be good, some will be bad, and I'll enjoy watching them starting about ten years from now on various Saturday afternoons via whatever the equivalent of free cable TV exists by then.
A few comics-related things have come to mind since.
The first is that when I looked for articles that put the DC superhero movie announcements in the context of all of the Warner Bros announcements, the DC superheroes seemed to come in third interest-wise behind JK Rowling and Lego. I didn't look a ton, mind you, just a few articles, but I think it's interesting to note it's an announcement wider than DC.
The second is that I don't think as many people question a Wonder Woman movie anymore, which is a victory for a lot of the geeks that kept advocating for one and kept slapping down all the stupid arguments against one. That character is a potential gold mine, but even if it isn't, it won't be the character's gender that is the reason a movie fails. I think that change in attitude could be beneficial in terms of seeing certain kinds of publishing projects to fruition.
Finally, DC Comics does a fine job of matching up single volumes or just a few volumes for the Warner Bros movies that feature their characters. In part because of that one to one (or nearly so) relationship, they move a lot of copies of those books. So this slate of movies does have that likely direct publishing impact. I have no idea what book that could be for the Cyborg character.
Someone at the comics-oriented news site
Newsarama I think
here pointed out that it was worth noting this announcement was made to investors directly rather than at NYCC. I don't know how that works, but that does seem kind of interesting. I'm also curious as to how
this chart become the primary graphic from that PR event -- that just seems like leading with paint color samples, a shame given all the snappy art out there with these characters, or that could be created.
One last thought I had is that I hope that they reinvigorate some version of significant payment for the creators involved, if what's been rumored is true about that avenue for payouts being diminished over the last few years. There's so much money there.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: A Selection Of Bob Powell War Comics
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Read: Fantagraphics Selling Gary Arlington’s Warrens
Here. I think I knew this already, but it's worth mentioning again. I'm all for the idea of comics having pedigrees according to who had them previously, and I would love for this to become a thing on a more regular basis. I don't have a compelling argument for this, it would just amuse me. Also, there are some really great comics in the described stash and you should get on that.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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OTBP: Tiny Pencil IV
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 16, 2014
Collective Memory: NYCC 2014
posted 11:55 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Scribblings
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Assembled, Zipped, Transferred And Downloaded: News From Digital
By Tom Spurgeon
* Vice.com is going to run
the Leslie Stein diary comics, for what I hope is eventual print publication somewhere. I like those comics very much.
* this new Winsor McCay fellow
whose work is being published at GoComics.com is promising.
* Gary Tyrrell catches us up with
KC Green and Kris Straub. The Green stuff is interesting because you rarely got a mostly-web perspective on publishing in print, and because the coverage fits Tyrrell's conception of the webcomics community as a community to be followed into whatever projects they want to do.
* finally, I forgot to say so closer to the actual end date, but
congratulations to Ben Towle on finishing Oyster War.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Prize #6
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Diego, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In England, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Alan Davis Black And White Images Mini-Gallery
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Canadians! Apply for
the cartoonist-in-residence program at the University of Windsor. I rant this yesterday, but I thought it as worth mentioning again this morning.
* Todd Klein on
Richard Stark's Parker: Slayground. James Kaplan on
And Then Emily Was Gone Vols. 1-3. Matthew Brady on
Fables Vol. 20. Stephanie Zuppo on
The Expeditioners Vols. 1-2.
* congratulations to Zak Sally on
the completion of Recidivist 4. I love when Sally talks or writes about his passion for making things.
* Paul Gravett profiles
Richard Graham.
*
there's a bunch of Dustin Harbin stuff over at Medium.com. Hard not to like Dustin Harbin.
* if all that news about Ebola has you down,
this comic might help you forget all about it.
*
this is a fine John Porcellino quote about the artistic choices he makes and how people continue to react to them.
* I'll likely do a "go, look" on this next week, but in case I don't you should go look at
the Sugar & Spike Halloween series that Bully is doing.
* finally, Colleen Doran
posts her prom photo.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 56th Birthday, Bill Holbrook!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 40th Birthday, David Heatley!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Ross Jackson
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Apply: Canadian Cartoonist Desired For Paid Cartoonist-In-Residency Program
Here. That looks like a great, great deal for someone out there and I encourage everyone to apply if for only the experience of applying for something like that.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Growing
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Festivals Extra: CAKE 2015 Announces For June 6-7
The
Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, better known by its shortened name CAKE,
has announced for the 2015 year through one of these weird e-mais as site page things. They'll be throwing their event on June 6-7. My guess is that general weekend in early June is the date where they hope to settle in for the long-term, or whatever that phrase means in the comics world these days. It was one of the last few shows of note left to announce for the first half of 2015.
CAKE is a well-liked, growing show; I know some out-of-town folks who have been taken by how well it shows off that specific cartooning scene. I hope to make it there myself this year.
They promise the applications process will start October 21, the same day they announce the winner of the Cupcake Award.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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OTBP: Forest Beekeeper And The Treasure Of Pushcha
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 15, 2014
Go, Look: Cycle-Toons
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events
By Tom Spurgeon
*
I wrote a bit here about what I see surfacing as narratives post-NYCC. That's loaded with my own biases in terms of the kind of things I find interesting, of course. Kicking off with Bill Watterson's Angouleme presidency, 2015 will be one fascinating convention year, that's for sure.
*
you have only one more day to get your exhibitor application into TCAF. The announcement for these was noteworthy in that the festival suggested it would make pertinence and timeliness to the moment a factor in offering up table space: in other words, if you don't have a book out and you don't have something that says in the moment, they may ask you to take the occasional year off.
*
it's the Lakes Festival this weekend. A lot of people are interested in that show as a kind of community-supported event model.
* the
San Diego Comic Fest is also this weekend. I'm interested in that one because I think my Mom may be moving to San Diego and that would provided a vehicle around which to arrange visiting her. Hey, it can't all be about festival strategies. Neal Adams is guest of honor, which is nice, and their ambitious schedule is
here. I saw the names Mary Fleener and John Holmstrom on there.
* finally, the writer James Vance tells me he'll be participating in programming
at the Tulsa Comic Con, which is what Wizardworld Tulsa is called. I enjoyed very much the one Vance panel I saw.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Sloppy Pockets
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Early John Buscema Comic Book Work
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Kelly Thompson on
Sabrina #1. Ryan Ingram on
The Wrenchies. Paul Gravett on
a bunch of different comics. Jasper at
The Book Plank on
In Real Life. John Wenzel on
Best American Comics 2014.
*
I don't know if I remembered to link to this brief Zainab Akhtar comment on Brandon Graham that contains some really nice pin-up type images.
* not comics: Sean Kleefeld
writes on the rise of costuming. The surge in cosplay at conventions is a remarkable thing. I know I took friends of mine to shows in the late 1990s and they were
so disappointed by the lack of people in costumes. One Chicago show to which I took my younger brother didn't have a single person in costume.
* some nice person at comiXology talks to
Jonathan Baylis. Alex Abad-Santos profiles
Kelly Sue DeConnick. Alex Dueben talks to
John Porcellino.
* finally,
this made me laugh.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 88th Birthday, Joe Sinnott!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 56th Birthday, Mark Badger!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 51st Birthday, Larry Young!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 70th Birthday, Bob Hall!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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OTBP: Cheap East
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Roz Chast Makes National Book Awards Shortlist
Congratulations to cartoonist Roz Chast on her
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? making the non-fiction National Book Award finalists list, the first such comics work to do so.
Here's one of many wire articles and features sharing in that sentiment and reporting that news. I hope this moves her into the first rank of contemporary, popular cartoonists.
Here's Gil Roth's fine interview with Chast.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Erin
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Festivals Extra: A Few, Brief Notes On NYCC 2014
Three things jump out at me about the coverage of NYCC. The first is
the attendance figure and its accompanying claim to be bigger than Comic-Con International in San Diego. The second is the number of articles I'm seeing about the diversity and inclusiveness of the show, a bunch of which I also saw on
this nicely presented round-up by Heidi MacDonald. The third is
ReedPOP doing a show in Paris in 2015.
Initial opinions:
Congratulations to those involved on making a successful New York show. With the near total absence of the kind of publishing I find most valuable, it's not a show for me, but the reason there wasn't a big show in New York for years and years and years is because it represented a variety of obstacles. Those have been surmounted.
That said, I don't really care about the attendance figures and whether or not they beat San Diego's or whatever as a measuring contest kind of thing. I don't care about the Salt Lake City claims that way, either. Obviously demand to attend both shows -- and a few others -- is
tremendous, and you're going to have constraints in terms of where shows are, convention center capacity and ability of the town's greater infrastructure cropping up at these high numbers that are issues distinct from demand and appeal.
I do think this makes San Diego's branding mission tricky right now, and for the next few years, because they could always fall back on the biggest claim as a badge of distinction. That's a branding element with clarity: it's a number. Most of the other choices, like "best" or "grandest," have subjective elements. The attendance for comics panels and the ability of those publishers to get roughly the same effect PR-wise as San Diego, that would probably be a more important measurement. In the same way that a lot of publishers -- mostly small, mostly alternative -- have stopped going to San Diego because they can get their needs met more directly elsewhere, Comic-Con International now has reasons to worry on that front with a whole different group of comics-related businesses.
Lance Fensterman and ReedPOP have also done a seemingly excellent job of reading and responding to the culture's current desire for ways to negotiate issues of inclusiveness and belonging. I would never accuse anyone of not being on board or not being serious about an issue because they have a different set of strategies than I do, and sometimes inside me dies every time that rhetoric comes to the surface in comics. However, these are issues of great importance and great urgency and to settle into a defensive posture seems to me a really dangerous thing. There's an opportunity here, and it's time for everyone to do everything they can, whatever that is. It's no longer satisfactory for anyone to explain that they're doing enough.
The Paris show is interesting to me, too, and not just the idea of a big American-type show in Paris, which is something that strikes me as a very good idea from a business standpoint. That's going to be a hit, and what it may do for NYCC is allow it to better present itself as the model for shows in a way that the spiritual connection between all of these new shows and San Diego simply doesn't facilitate. I wish it did. I think all of these show are capitalizing on SDCC, flat-out and directly in a way they're not building on previous models or on cons more generally. When George Clooney says he's spending his honeymoon at comic con he's referencing a wider social entity and reality that did not start in NYCC, let alone is encompassed by it. But success begets success and the winners write history, and Paris may allow ReedPOP to move themselves up several chapters. They'd be closer to the front of the book already if C2E2 were a bigger hit. They'll get there much sooner if the NY Super Week events find greater traction in the years ahead.
Interesting times.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Batman-Related Mike Mignola Images Mini-Gallery
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Read: Kevin Melrose Catches Up With Stan Lee Media
The superior link-blogger
Kevin Melrose walks us through the latest in Quixotic (and/or a word that rhymes with "Quixotic") efforts by the legal ghosts of Internet Economy Phase One company Stan Lee Media to lay claim to some partial ownership of the Marvel characters co-created by the writer, no longer affiliated in any way with the outfit.
The logic behind this is legendary: basically that Lee blanket-signed over rights to SLM when the company started, and that this includes the Marvel characters due to the construction of a later settlement between Marvel and Lee which SLM argues acknowledged Lee's rights in those characters in order to have something for which to pay him. It is the all-time logic-of-the-dorm-hallway-at-3-AM argument in entertainment history.
At this point, Stan Lee Media exists slowly as a way for its current owners to kind of get access at those Marvel characters, or at least a settlement for them if they ever find a legal pathway that's kinder than the one they've been on, which has basically involved judges dropping rocks on their heads.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: The Pen Cap
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 14, 2014
Go, Look: Can You Hear Me?
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This Isn’t A Library: New And Notable Releases Into Comics’ Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.
*****
JUL141216 BUMF GN VOL 01 I BUGGERED THE KAISER (MR) $14.99
On most weeks I'd stick this post's final entry up top, but I thought such an odd and compelling comic that I wanted to lead with it instead. This is a bunch of politically-driven straight-up humor comics from Joe Sacco -- who, once upon a time, long before the more strictly journalism comics he started doing, was thought of as a maker and editor of post-underground funny comics. I thought they really funny, and mean, and angrily over the top, almost furious. They're also playful, and may provide a way to get into Sacco's headspace similar to the publication of
New Love from Gilbert Hernandez some 20 years ago. If nothing else, it's the only time I'll probably ever laugh out loud at a two-page spread of sickening infantry ground war.
AUG141499 IN REAL LIFE GN $17.99
This book has a little bit of everything as far as something to promote: an established writer, a talented artist, a representation of the most important reality in gaming one may have right now (recognizing the enormous, matter-of-fact presence of women gamers) and one of the most interesting feature article material of the last seven years in any field (the way people in non-privileged parts of the world negotiate those same spaces). I'm interested to the see the resulting comics; I haven't read or seen a thing that isn't this cover.
JUN140274 BATMAN 66 HC VOL 02 $19.99
JUN140264 BATMAN HC VOL 05 ZERO YEAR DARK CITY (N52) $24.99
DC still does a fine job managing its Batman property, with the super-solid Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo flagship title work and the revival of the TV show version in comics form. I'm pretty sure that a lot of fans with money collect these DC hardcovers the way 10-year-old me used to buy 25-cent comic books, and it's a format that works that way in terms of the reading experience.
JUN140460 SKIPPY HC VOL 03 COMPLETE DAILIES 1931-1933 $49.99
JUL141222 WALT DISNEY UNCLE SCROOGE HC VOL 02 SEVEN CITIES GOLD $29.99
It is an enduring testimony to where comics publishing finds itself at this moment in time that two books with comics in them good enough to be the best of the year -- and would have been slam-dunk fashion as recently as 15 years ago -- can be released without any particular special fanfare. You really want to own them, too, in a "let's maybe reconfigure my life so I can afford books like that on a regular basis" way.
AUG140095 BPRD HELL ON EARTH #124 $3.50
AUG140055 DARK HORSE PRESENTS 2014 #3 $4.99
AUG140642 DEADLY CLASS #8 (MR) $3.50
AUG140685 SUPREME BLUE ROSE #4 (MR) $2.99
AUG140687 TREES #6 (MR) $2.99
JUN140603 DEATH OF WOLVERINE #4 $4.99
AUG140748 DEATH OF WOLVERINE LOGAN LEGACY #1 $3.99
AUG141187 LUMBERJANES #7 $3.99
Not a ton of the bigger series with serial comic book issues out theis week. I'd go explore a bit. The Mignola-verse might be the only comic I end up with from this list because my brother and I collect those, but there's plenty to see. They're already three issues into the new
DHP, which I think is s title that exists solely to make me blink at how many issues are out. You get the writers Rick Remender and Warren Ellis working with talented artistic collaborators like Jason Howard, Lee Loughridge, Tulu Lotay and Wes Craig -- I like the Ellis books just fine, particularly
Trees, and I know the
Deadly Class book has devoted fans. They're killing Wolverine this week, and then turning right around and celebrating him. Not exactly Josh Charles on
The Good Wife here. I'm interested in picking up more
Lumberjanes soon because I think the development of such titles is almost always more interesting than its first few issues.
JUN140515 SATELLITE SAM TP VOL 02 SATELLITE SAM & KINESCOPE SNUFF (MR) $14.99
Speaking of developing titles, I like this second run of
Satellite Sam comics more than the first few, but that's usually my experience with comics written by Matt Fraction. Howard Chaykin has been consistent throughout -- that's my experience with him.
JUL140785 BIG NATE CROWD GOES WILD TP $9.99
These are the best-selling books that no one in comics really discusses, including me.
MAY141593 BLACK DRAGON HC $19.99
MAY141595 COMPLETE JOHNNY NEMO HC $22.99
The rich archiving of comics from my youth continues. I'm all for the second life afforded this material in such collections. I think both of these could have fans today that weren't familiar with either work before now.
AUG141500 OLYMPIANS BOXED SET $59.99
Christmas gift alert.
AUG141879 ANDREW LOOMIS ID LOVE TO DRAW HC $39.95
I'm not sure how much pull Andrew Loomis has as an artist of the kind that cartoonists and comics-makers of the moment might be interested, but I like the idea of walking into a store and walking out with this as I'm a budding Steve Rude.
JUN140047 USAGI YOJIMBO SAGA LTD ED HC VOL 01 $79.99
JUN140046 USAGI YOJIMBO SAGA TP VOL 01 $24.99
There is no person in comics that engenders more positive feeling than Stan Sakai, and this looks like a lofty-aspiration reprinting of some of his primetime comics material. I like losing myself in that work.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics,
can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store,
check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back,
try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I failed to list your comic, that's because I hate you.
*****
*****
*****
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Popular Comics #59
posted 5:24 pm PST |
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Missed It: Marquis Book Printing Acquires Lebonfon Assets
I've had
this link in my bookmarks for a while. I'm not sure where I got it -- probably someone on Facebook, that's where most of the amnesia-inducing bookmarks come from -- and I'm not sure I know
exactly what it means. What I suspect is that this may indicate that some comics digital archives from traditional publishers now defunct may have a new home, or at least this is the first place you look, as Lebonfon was once the biggest printer for comics still being printed in North America. With the premium on large catalogs of material, access to archives from which to do reprints seems to me an important, although getting such material back into print even with those archives can be massively difficult.
posted 5:23 pm PST |
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If I Were In Los Angeles, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Wild Ones
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I don't like to link to clearly copyright material, but I don't think I'd ever seen
this Joe Kubert tribute comic before.
* Zainab Akhtar on
Walrus. Ant Sang recommends
five comics. Paul Gravett on
a variety of comics.
* missed
this Zainab Akhtar article about the extremely talented James Jean making art out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a company in turn making toys from that art.
* I also missed
that Marian Seldes died. She was one of the great American stage actors of the 20th Century and Gilbert Seldes' daughter. I may be the only one to even notice, though.
* nearly missed this one as well, but I had fun reading Lucy Knisley's
lengthy response to a reader upset about an almost abstract portrayal of dirty-magazine material that found its way into one of her books.
* the writer Kurt Busiek
engages with the issue of how to write "believable women" -- both the question itself and what may be in play that it gets asked. It's thoughtful and smart. I don't ever wonder that people ask that question in a critical sense. My hunch is that people have all sorts of discomfort writing people with whom they're unfamiliar, and that women comes up first because a lot of younger men are isolated from women and more narratives demand you have characters of more than one gender than of a certain social position or even ethnicity.
*
Fabio Moon draws a classic X-Men cover.
* Paul Constant talks to
Art Spiegelman. Spiegelman is an all-time interviewee. The Wrestling Professor talks to
Box Brown.
*
here's Katy Waldman with a much linked-to piece on how comics portrays mental illness.
* finally,
Cerebus The Bavarian.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 42nd Birthday, Cat Garza!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Listen: Gil Roth Interviews John Porcellino
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Read: Guardian Piece On Cartooning In Egypt
This piece in The Guardian about the difficulties of cartooning in Egypt in the current political climate repeats some of the information we've already heard on the issue of opposing points of view not being particularly desirable right now. I thought this article did a better job than most at presenting the social pressures involved. It's one thing to push back against an outside force or even an enforcer, but negotiating daily life where there's an element in culture that sees opposing views as something broken rather than something expected, that has to be extremely tricky to negotiate.
The satirical magazine TokTok is a fine thing to follow via social media, as you may be convinced by the article.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Here’s Howie
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Bundled Extra: Conundrum Press Declares They Are Set With What They Have For Spring 2015
The well-regarded Canadian small publisher Conundrum Press
has set in stone their Spring 2015 season after individually announcing each book over the last several weeks. All of the books will debut at TCAF, which is an interesting thing in and of itself -- it seems logical, and at the same time I'm not sure I know a precedent. You can read full descriptions through that initial link.
The books are:
*
Towerkind, Kat Verhoeven, softcover, 9781894994910, 164 pages, $15
*****
*
The Disappearance of Charlie Butters, Zach Worton, softcover, 9781894994927, 128 pages, $15
*****
*
Don’t Get Eaten by Anything: A Collection of The Dailies, Dakota McFadzean, hardcover, 9781894994903, 368 pages, $25
*****
*
The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy Volume One: Drippy's Mama, Julian Lawrence, softcover, 9781894994941, 64 pages, $12
*****
*
Moose, Max de Radiguès, softcover, 9781894994934, 160 pages, $17
*****
*****
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Darwyn Cooke Covers For The Murder Of King Tut
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked: Publishing News
By Tom Spurgeon
* we're starting to get a sense of what books are going to debut at
CAB. One such book is the previously-announced Jim Rugg volume
Notebook Drawings 2012-2014, in which the above art appears.
* I completely missed this one, and it's more than a week in the rearview mirror now. Apparently Dover Books
announced through Calvin Reid and PW their plans for an ambitious line of graphic novel reprints. They're focusing on out-of-print work that matches up with their prose catalog, and will start with the wonderful Sam Glanzman autobiographical work
A Sailor's Story. That was by far the most curious -- and I think best -- of the early line of Marvel "graphic novels" album-format comics. Those two books will become one at Dover. Another high-profile acquisition of interest is a fully-completed
Puma Blues. Drew Ford is spearheading that effort.
*
here's a note about forthcoming comics from Ben Acker and Ben Blacker.
* Mark Evanier
presents the next Groo series that will be done with Dark Horse. Anything Sergio Aragones makes is worth our attention and time.
* Calvin Reid has
a nice article up at PW about a solid publishing news story coming out of NYCC: that Vertical is going to cluster its comics work into a Vertical Comics line, in part to distinguish that work from the prose they publish but also it seems to be a bit more ambitious in terms of overall output. Reid points out that the digital rights are kind of all over the place with some of these works. I enjoy the Vertical manga offerings in terms of the curatorial service it provides; I'm not going to be interested in everything they do, but there's a higher percentage there than with a lot of companies that focus on this material.
* beyond that one, it's been difficult for me to track what publishing news from NYCC was exclusive/new to that show, but certainly the big publishers participate in that event as a focus to get their latest news out there. Let me power through a bunch here. The one that jumped out at me the most was the IDW announcement they'll be doing a bunch of work with Marvel -- the strip featuring Marvel's Spider-Man
will be released in that format, that same article notes IDW employing its super-hit micro fun pack packaging to some Marvel work, while
an ambitious series of Artist's Edition format books based on characters and key creators will also see the light of day. IDW also had a pair of property-type announcements:
Millennium and
the Dirk Gently character. DC
announced a digital comic series based on the iteration of
Wonder Woman that appeared on TV in the 1970s. Marvel announced a pair of wars --
Secret and
Civil -- as line-connecting events. Initial reaction seems to have split down the lines of how well-received the original versions of those storylines were received by hardcore fans. Making their Gwen Stacy version of Spider-Man
an ongoing and putting
the writer G. Willow Wilson on an X-Men book were pair of other Marvel announcements that generated some on-line buzz. Oni
will be doing a Zac Gorman-written
Rick And Morty comic. I read a tweet or two that pointed out
this Satoshi Kon book discussed at the show was a repeat of mid-summer news; this is very true. Dark Horse
announced the writer Brian Wood would be working on a video game adaptation they're doing. I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff.
*
congratulations to the very talented Oliver East on the completion of his next published work.
* French-language readers
will apparently get 320 pages of new Cyril Pedrosa about a year from now.
* finally, I'm pretty sure at least
some of the stuff up at his site is from a forthcoming major work by Brecht Evens. If it's not,
let me pretend it is. His work is so striking.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: Kazue Kato On Tumblr
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 13, 2014
Ronald Searle In Housewife Magazine
posted 11:50 pm PST |
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Missed It: CAB Announces Programming For 2014 Festival
CAB programming director
Paul Karasik sent out a release yesterday about the Comic Arts Brooklyn programming for this year. This is the first time that well-liked show (I'm conflating it with its spiritual predecessor BCGF in order to make this observation) has split its programming away from the main, traditionally commerce-driven show and into its own day and venue.
The programs start at 11 AM on November 9 at
the Wythe Hotel. It looks like another winnning line-up from Karasik, who also did last year's well-received same-day effort. Highlights include an Art Spiegelman/Roz Chast conversation, an interview with the largely reclusive Richard McGuire on his new book edition of
Here, and a Q&A with Raymond Pettibon.
You can read the full line-up
here.
The convention announced with its release that they'll be emptying the hall between each presentation, which I guess means if you want to do a specific hour of programming you can line up just for that event.
I'm really interested to see how this goes. There are only a few ways to organize a show that haven't been tried to death, and splitting your programming in the hope that many of the cartoonists that are exhibiting can thus attend is certainly one of the less-explored options. Also, one-days shows becoming two-day shows is a trend to follow for the next 12-24 months.
posted 11:45 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Beautiful Erwin L. Hess Scans
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Festivals Extra: Austin Festival Kickstarter In Final Hours
I haven't seen a whole lot out there about a crowd-funder
being attempted to launch a comics and literary festival in Austin in June, as described here. I enjoy Austin, and I think it could handle multiple comics shows. I'm also sort of fascinated by Texas comics history more generally.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Even More Cartoonist Photos
here, here, here and here
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Early Leonard Starr
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Maggie Thompson
writes about comics careers, both creative and supportive. I think the entry level job or gigs are fairly easy to come by; it's developing that into something that has a chance of sustaining you where the difficulties arise.
* I don't really remember where this link to
a Tommi Musturi page came from, but it's always fun looking at something like that.
*
the people in the future doing the history of comics right now will benefit by all of the photographic evidence.
* Patrick A. Reed profiles
Ramona Fradon. Frederik Hautain talks to
A. David Lewis.
*
what several comics people are pround of or happy with.
*
Frank Santoro in Denmark.
*
belated congratulations to Adrian and Sarah.
* Greg Hunter on
Twelve Gems. Jason Wilkins on
Pirouette #1. Jeremy Sigler on
Doctors. Paul Tumey on
The Mutts Diaries. Hazel Cills on
Mis(h)adra. Tom Murphy on
Bastard #1 and Nu #1. Sean T. Collins on
Sex Fantasy. George Elkind on
The Bad-ventures Of Bobo Backslack.
* finally, I totally missed that Peter Bagge's
Woman Rebel was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award, given out last Friday. The book was in the biography/memoir category and lost to a work by awards program favorite David Laskin.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 70th Birthday, Cam Kennedy!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 36th Birthday, Vanessa Davis!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Elisabeth Belliveau
posted 12:30 am PST |
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By Request Extra: Last Gasp Kickstarter In Its Last Days
I wanted to drive some extra attention to
Last Gasp's crowd-funding campaign on behalf of a full season of books. Last Gasp has been around since 1970, and can be argued is the most important of all the underground publishing entities for its extended relevance past the flowering of that era and into the more complicated 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. They've published a small army of worthy creators, including but not limited to Robert Crumb, Richard Corben, Camille Rose Garcia, Justin Green, Suehiro Maruo, Junko Mizuno, Spain, Mark Ryden, Dori Seda and S. Clay Wilson. Anyone they haven't published, they've likely distributed, and you can make the argument that just by serving comics in that way they're an all-time major player.
I think when established publishers look to crowd-funding it's perfectly fair to examine their history in terms of the quality of what's in print and their ability to consistently make good on their publishing mission. I think Last Gasp more than passes that test, and that if crowd-funding has an activist element for you you're likely to see greater return from what you give to Last Gasp than to picking and choosing individual projects.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Projets
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Go, Read: Carla Hoffman On The Fantastic Four
The writer Carla Hoffman
has a piece up here on the latest plans to cancel/change/reconfigure/whatever the
Fantastic Four comic book, which after NYCC looks like a big-event cancellation and limbo, at least for a little while. Hoffman analyzes the rhetoric around such moves, describes the recent incarnations of that property, engages with the rumor that this is some sort of spiteful act to not publicize the not-Marvel-Studios movie version and recalls the fondly-remember Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo run from several years back now.
That Marvel's had some difficulty selling the
Fantastic Four comic books shouldn't be news. Stunt issues aside, it's been that way for a while. This happens to Marvel every now and then: for a long time it was Thor that was kind of a sales stinker to the point he was basically dropped from the line and perhaps most famously the X-Men were made to make costume-less guest appearances in comics for a few years until the "all-new, all-different" era began. While the writers I've encountered on this subject seem to be citing a fondly remembered Jonathan Hickman-written run as proof that the title has had trouble gaining traction in recent years in a sustained fashion -- with that theory then confirmed by a pair of Matt Fraction-written efforts that also failed to ignite the title for an extended period of time -- my hunch is that the title's eyebrow-raising performance streak stretches back to the Mark Millar/Bryan Hitch run that (at least roughly) preceded Hickman's. But heck, take them all together. That's a lot of A-list superhero talent for only periodic flashes of returned interest.
All of those writers and their artistic collaborators seemed to get certain things old fans might think of as "right" about those characters, such as the emphasis on Mr. Fantastic as a prime Marvel Universe alpha dog: the smartest man in the world in an indestructible body. Many of the adventures are grand and cosmic, which is something that comic does well. Dr. Doom remains a primetime primary super-villain, both monster and mad scientist, who ratchets up the stakes by walking in the room. In fact, I'm not sure I really have a theory as to why none of these runs have hit hard with fans. If I had to guess, I'd maybe go with a level of exhaustion for that title in its positive formulation, while a negative formulation doesn't begin with enough people caring about the title and its characters in order to find dismay at the status quo being tossed out the window. There seems a disconnect in that people evince a Hank Pym level of concern when Mr. Fantastic or The Thing fool around at being bad guys rather than a Captain America or Iron Man or even Cyclops level of concern. It's hard for me to judge, though: as a reader, I feel like everything is diminishing returns after Jack Kirby left the title. Leaving that set of issues aside, I'm not sure we have a lot of models in pop culture for managing an ongoing creative effort for 50-plus years without some downtime becoming necessary. I might put them away for a while, too, until a better model comes along, or the current one fits better into the overall creative landscape.
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Go, Look: Batman Year One Front Pages
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Unraveling Objections To A Venezuelan Political Cartoon
I found fascinating
this article by a Tihomir Gligorevic about a recent cartoon controversy in Venezuela. A cartoonist named Roberto Weil made a cartoon that could be seen as commentary on the recent death of a political figure particularly popular with younger voters. That's a fascinating question in and of itself: how much should a cartoonist or other editorial opinion-giver respect the loss felt by friends and family in any story involving someone passing away. You also have a significant amount of who quit when drama.
Where the story gets bonus points is for the intricacy of some other familiar issues brought to bear. For one, the cartoonist claims this is not so even as various supporting entities carry on as if that's slightly not believable, which is a rhetorical structure and tension that North American audiences should find familiar. For another, the immediate context of recent steps taken against the cartoonist Rayma Suprani changes how this story is going to be perceived. The idea that there's a line to be crossed is a really attractive one for critics, because it makes them sound tolerant and puts the onus on the cartoonist to show how their work -- even if they protest the assumed narrative for its creation -- somehow doesn't violate this asserted, vague set of principles.
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Go, Look: Michael Cavna Talks To Richard Linklater, Part Two
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October 12, 2014
Go, Look: Aatmaja Pandya
posted 11:50 pm PST |
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This FiveThirtyEight Article Is Likely To Be Much Discussed
Here. It's distressing, although I'm not sure it's surprising to anyone that pays half a minute of basic attention to these things. If there's a significant amount of denial that these proportional relationships exist -- I honestly don't know, and that would be an almost laughable stance to take -- this punches that line of thinking in the kidneys.
And yes, one aggravating thing about an article like this is that it conflates Marvel and DC with all of comic books. I don't know a lot about statistical analysis, but using a pair of companies to make statements that include a few dozen publishers would seem to me fraught with peril, the same way that using Division One basketball and football program statistics to make claims for all of NCAA athletic programs might be. On the other hand, that doesn't make the findings unimportant or less depressing, given the huge weight those industry players have.
It's an interesting read, and I hope that we continue to get these kinds of articles and others critical of industry and company practices from a variety of standpoints. I think that's healthy.
posted 11:45 pm PST |
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Go, Bookmark: Chris Schweizer Is Drawing Monsters This Month
no exact link; sorry!
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Comics By Request: People, Places In Need Of Funding
By Tom Spurgeon
* there's a new Nix Comics kickstarter going
here. "You've spent money on worse things" is a proud motto we should all adopt.
*
here's a nice write-up of Eleanor Davis' 17-hour drawing effort Friday to raise money for a friend. I hope you'll consider donating.
*
Ted Sikora's projects has reaches its goal with significant time remaining. I have to imagine
this Steve Ditko-related project has met its goal by the time this rolls out. I'm sure Shaenon Garrity
Shaenon Garrity will find interesting thing to do with the supplementary goals on her project.
*
Richard Bruton moves the FPI Blog's recommendation-for-funding column into the world of Patreon.
* finally, I don't think I remember seeing
Darwyn Cooke's contribution to fundraising on behalf of Stan and Sharon Sakai.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Giant-Size Marvel Covers Gallery
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Sinister Suitcase
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I totally missed that the Mississippi Center For Justice
is giving away thousands of copies of March Vol. 1.
* Sean Gaffney on
Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro Vol. 4. Rob Clough on
Island Of Memory. Sean T. Collins on
Honey #1. Henry Chamberlain on
The Best American Comics 2014. J. Caleb Mozzocco on
a bunch of different comics. Joe Gordon on
Roche Limit #1 and
Supercrash. Alex Hoffman on
Pink.
*
these two-panel movie adaptations over at Jason's site are fun.
*
monster in a bubble car.
* I always enjoy how seriously hardcore Jim Henson fans treat
Rowlf The Dog, by virtue of his being the first breakout character that Henson had. I always liked how he was portrayed as kind of calm and never flustered as a result of that status. At least I projected onto the character that this was the reason.
* Jed Oelbaum talks to
Art Spiegelman. Someone at
GraphicNovelReporter talks to
Bill Kartalopoulos. Anne Ishii talks to
Jillian Tamaki.
* not comics:
I would love to read an expanded article about animation attempts on cartoon strips post-1950.
* finally,
TCJ ran
a transcript of the Sex, Humor And The Grotesque panel from SPX. I was in the audience for that one and it was quite good.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 40th Birthday, Jason Thompson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 51st Birthday, Tom Devlin!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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October 11, 2014
Our Continued Best Wishes To The Writer John Ostrander
posted 9:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Dell Comic Book Tarzan Maps
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If I Were In San Jose, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In New York City, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Vancouver, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Hyderabad, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Seattle, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 49th Birthday, Dan Abnett!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 67th Birthday, Pat Brady!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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FFF Results Post #397—Second Chances
On Friday,
CR readers were asked to "Name Five Cartoonists Whose Print Work You Have Reconsidered After Seeing It On-Line." This is how they responded.
Tom Spurgeon
1. Mort Meskin
2. Guido Crepax
3. Harry Lucey
4. Alex Nino
5. Edwina Dumm
*****
Philippe Leblanc
I went through this process a few years ago when I got back into actively reading comics after University. Those were artist I read in my early days of comics reading, mostly european books, that I had completely ignored over time. Here are my answer and what made me reconsider their work.
1-
Derib, reconsidered after seeing Buddy Longway Original art
2-
Roger Leloup, reconsidered after seeing the
Yoko Tsuno website
3-
Nick Cardy, reconsidered after seeing artwork on
Ungoliantschilde
4-
Edgar P. Jacobs, reconsidered after seeing his bio on
Lambiek
5-
Gzregorz Rosinski, reconsidered after seeing his bio on
Lambiek
*****
Booksteve
1- Jerry Grandenetti
2- Manny Stallman
3- Tony Tallarico
4- Jack Sparling
5- Fred Guardineer
*****
Zainab Akhtar
1) Olivier Schrauwen
2) Simone Lia
3) Richard Thompson
4) Sammy Harkam
5) Kyle Baker
*****
J. E. Cole
1: Spain Rodriguez
2: Milo Manara
3: Faith Erin Hicks
4: Travel Foreman
5: Colleen Doran
*****
Buzz Dixon
1. Gus Arriola
2. Dan DeCarlo
3. Syd Hoff
4. VIP (Virgil Partch)
5. Spain
*****
Marty Yohn
1. Brooke McEldowney
2. Alex Toth
3. Hal Foster
4. The Hernandez Brothers
5. John Severin
*****
Jeff Ling
1- Gabrielle Bell
2- Julia Wertz
3- Alec Longstreth
4- Emily Carroll
5- Jon Adams
*****
Mark Mayerson
1. Henry Syverson
2. Owen Fitzgerald
3. Jimmy Thompson
4. Howard Post (his imitation Walt Kelly work)
5. Pierre Alary
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Hal Foster
2. Roy Crane
3. Steve Ditko's current work
4. Al Feldstein
5. Jack Kamen
*****
Jean-Paul Jennequin
1. Herbert E. Crowley
2. Jimmy Thompson
3. Jack Kent
4. Boulet
5. Dick Briefer
*****
Oliver Ristau
1.
Don Heck
2.
Ernie Chan
3.
Rob Liefeld
4.
Tim Gaedke
5.
Warren Craghead III
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Dick Briefer
2. Frederick Opper
3. Harold Knerr
4. Jimmy Johnson
5. John Cullen Murphy
*****
*****
posted 4:00 pm PST |
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The Comics Reporter Video Parade
Comics-Related Apology #1
Comics-Related Apology #2
Video In Response To Lynda Barry's Syllabus
Zunar Speaks To Students
Photo Array From APE 2014
An Enthusiastic Young Man Reviews His Thursday At NYCC
posted 8:00 am PST |
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CR Week In Review
The top comics-related news stories from October 4 to October 10, 2014:
1.
Zunar wins in a Malaysian court: ban lifted against two books the subject of aggressive legal action in 2010; copies confiscated by authorities ordered returned.
2. The Supreme Court Of The United States
declines to review ruling in the case by the family of Joe Shuster concerning termination of copyright on Superman.
3. Comic-Con International
announces return of the Alternative Press Expo to its founder, Dan Vado.
Winner Of The Week
I originally had this down as
Calvin Gimpelevich, because I wanted to remind myself that his win of the Prism Queer Press Grant was awarded and I think that's a great prize, but really it's Zunar.
Losers Of The Week
The Shuster Family.
Quote Of The Week
"Thor having both arms in
AXIS #1 isn't a mistake." --
Tom Brevoort
posted 2:00 am PST |
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October 10, 2014
Go, Look: Eggwater
posted 9:00 pm PST |
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If I Were In Hyderabad, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In NYC, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Seattle, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Seattle, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In New York City, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 62nd Birthday, Jim Woodring!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Blast-Off #1
posted 5:30 am PST |
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Go, Look: Complete Best American Comics 2014 Notables List
posted 12:30 am PST |
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By Request Extra: Eleanor Davis Drawing In Pen And Ink At Affordable Prices For Friend’s Campaign
Jen Vaughn at the Fantagraphics blog
has done a thorough job of explaining a fundraiser today by Eleanor Davis on behalf of her friend Kyle Coldwell. You can but one of the drawing for two good causes: the charitable cause, and the cause of owning Eleanor Davis art. You can also just go watch her draw. I'm always happy to write about a cartoonist applying their skills on behalf of a charitable effort as opposed to being the recipient of one, and in a perfect world these stories would break down on a one to one basis.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Scans Of Frank Teran Comic Book Art
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Assembled, Zipped, Transferred And Downloaded: News From Digital
By Tom Spurgeon
* Gary Tyrrell always does the best job of doing these specific-interest profiles of comics shows, in this case
the webcomics presence at NYCC.
* looks like Katie Skelly may have revived
What I Wore Today.
*
here's an international syndication deal story for a comic by Maria Scrivan where the on-line syndication of the strip seems to be a major factor in how that work became of interest to the European folks investing in the work. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before, not with strip work, but it makes sense.
* I'm told that Lucy Knisley
has a new web site. I haven't had a chance to look, but I've always thought hers a tasteful on-line presence.
* finally, Alan Gardner
caught that Ed Stein is planning a webcomic.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Shonen Jump Covers Mini-Gallery At ComicsAlliance
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Collective Memory: APE 2014
this article has been archived
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: Various Hong Kong Political Cartoonists On The Current Protests In Hong Kong
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 9, 2014
Collective Memory: MICE 2014
this article has been archived
posted 11:55 pm PST |
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Go, Look: New Street Angel Serial Debuts At Boing Boing
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Robert Boyd On Mike Dawson’s Career Development Essay
There's
a fine, short post here from longtime alt-comics industry veteran Robert Boyd, now a writer more generally about the arts, particularly in Houston. Boyd does this thing about halfway through where he names a bunch of roughly same-age peers and points out that every single one of them has either quit comics or significantly reduced the amount of time they devote to comics.
It's really tough in a way to see a list of talented people like that, where it seems totally natural they'd drift away from making this kind of art, particularly in that comics isn't a field that requires the permission of others in order to participate -- the artists have decided to move along. This could just be the natural order or things asserting itself, but it might be nice if we had greater discussion about the potentially limited time we have talented comics-makers.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Santa Barbara, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Argentina, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portland, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Hyderabad, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In New York City, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Mike Ploog Kull Splash Pages
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Ryan K. Lindsay writes about
comics structure.
* Todd Klein on
Aquaman #34. Brigid Alverson on
The Musical Monsters Of Turkey Hollow. Domingos Isabelinho on
Comics, A Global History: 1968 To Present. Hillary Brown on
Doctors.
*
Kevin Cannon draws the nine distinct states within Missouri.
* here
are multiple reviews for the Comics At Columbia: Past, Present, Future exhibit, linked to its opening and accompanying well-attended reception. Congratulations to Karen Green.
*
I am so ready for the Ed Piskor era.
*
this Christophe Blain comic that showed up in my bookmarks might make more sense now than it did then, primarily because more North American comics fans have seen more Guy Peellaert now.
* not comics:
here's another well-traveled article on cultural issues that can be argued to find their way into comics, this time on the limits of unbridled enthusiasm as a moral force, particularly in a world of severe inequality.
* Michael Cavna talks to
Scott McCloud. Leonard Lopate talks
Al Jaffee and Drew Friedman.
*
exemplary product placement there.
* finally, a few people have written in suggesting that I drive some attention
to this comic. I'd run that in its own panel, but I can't quite firgure out how to run a component piece of a moving image.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 56th Birthday, Paul Nagy!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 55th Birthday, Jaime Hernandez!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Benji Nate
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Court Orders Ban Of Zunar’s Two Books Lifted
There are a number of wire stories up about a Malaysian court lifting a ban against two Zunar book and ordering the return of any seized copies to the cartoonist.
Here's one such story.
The decision came down in Putrajaya, which is the administrative center of that country -- it's just south of Kuala Lampur. The three-man bench of Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof, Datuk Varghese Goerge Varughese and Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat returned a unanimous decision. The written judgment contained harsh words for the home minister's actions in 2010 including seizure of the work, saving particular derision for the idea that they were a threat to the public order. The decision also apparently contained a halfway decent primer on the role of an editorial cartoonist and why it's important that they be given a platform from which to speak their mind, even if the result through softer eyes might be seen as antagonistic or rude.
This seems an extremely positive outcome, and must be even more so concerning it's been such a long legal journey for Zunar since the 2010 incident. His insistence on seeing things through is wholly commendable, and I'm happy for this result.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Cymatic Theremapy
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Look: Massimo Carnevale Conan Covers Gallery
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 8, 2014
Go, Look: Even More Cartoonist Photos
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events
By Tom Spurgeon
*
it's NYCC all the time right now. That is a massive show that serves the mainstream crowd with a signficant element of indy genre comics slipping in there as well. Because they're in New York, you also get a lot of diversity just from people being able to exhibit in their home town. I expect massive attendance numbers. I don't quite get a sense of urgency and extended event status from the satellite events, like I really do feel that the show doesn't start until today, but I imagine many have done well individually. Everyone be safe, have fun, do good business however you may define it.
* the big news of the week festival development-wise is Comic-Con
giving APE back to Dan Vado. Vado is that show's founder. I'm not sure I've seen any lengthy con reports on that one, what I heard back is that a lot of people had a really good time but the comics exhibitors in particular had a memorably tough time selling. Shows are really fragile, particularly if they're not just grinding their way to a presence through the junk-culture and television and movie end of things. I know there's a lot of affection for a West Coast fall show, particularly from folks in that 40-60 age range for whom APE was once Show #2 that you did in a calendar year for North America. I think there's a West Coast regional exhibitor base, too. I'm fascinated to see what happens.
*
Hyderabad is this weekend, as well. I look forward to hearing the stories from the attending North American-based pros.
*
another stand-alone story was that Portland's Linework NW announced for 2015 -- not on SPACE weekend, so I'm hoping to go -- and is expanding to two days. All of these smaller, successful shows seem to be adding days. I know a lot of comics people that are happy about Rose City so maybe Portland is well-served by its cons moving forward.
* the artist Chris Samnee
will take a lengthy break from attending conventions. The only reason I mention that is that the last three years have seem to brought with them a much more rigorous resistance to doing shows -- there was a time not that long ago you would literally do all the shows that were available to you, and now that would do you serious harm.
* finally, this is a fun post by David Brothers about discovering how to "do" shows after shifting from a attendee/journalist way of approaching them to a full-time publishing company employee way of approaching them. I urge everyone that is around comics for more than a few years and needs to do shows to find a similar level. One thing he's doing that works for a lot of people is doing small, intimate meals with 1-3 close friends. The sprawling comics-industry meals he mentions don't always lead to great discussion plus they can be stressful in terms of finding seating. Me, I'm still a journalist. I follow free.
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If I Were Near Stanford, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Argentina, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portland, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In New York City, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Prince Errant
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Michael Cavna
notes that somebody had to catch the Jerry Holbert watermelon toothpaste cartoon for the change to have been made and thus noticeable: it was Reed Jackson, and kudos to him for having the baseline cultural awareness that the potential offense was obvious to him.
* Henry Chamberlain on
Gotham Academy #1. Rob Clough on
The System and
a pair of activist comics. Todd Klein on
The Graveyard Book Vol. 1. Sean Gaffney on
I Am Alice: Body Swap In Wonderland Vol. 1. Paul O'Brien on
Uncanny Avengers Vol. 5. Kelly Thompson on
The Walking Dead #132. J. Caleb Mozzocco on
the Godhead storyline in a bunch of Green Lantern-related comics. Patrick Hess on
some of the Valiant comics. Man, I know
nothing about those comics. Alex Hoffman (I think) on
Cat Dad: King Of The Goblins.
*
this may be the most George Perez of the early George Perez pages I've seen.
*
damages caused by Calvin. Hobbes is imaginary.
*
this is a pretty good joke.
* I liked
this rearrangement of "important" narrative moments in the history of Marvel Comics arranged in chronological order. The story of a fictional universe is not how I engage with comics, even superhero comics, but I'm open to the idea that the interconnected narratives post-1960 are a significant contribution to modern pop culture.
* Paddy Johnston talks to
Ken Parille. Richard Bruton on
Megahex.
* finally,
it looks like Gabrielle Bell is offering up another round of diary pages.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 39th Birthday, Jeremy Haun!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 71st Birthday, Mike Peters!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 53rd Birthday, Matt Wagner!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 76th Birthday, Russell Myers!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 65th Birthday, Jim Starlin!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 43rd Birthday, Simon Gane!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 59th Birthday, Michael Netzer!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 54th Birthday, Bob Andelman!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Lauren Monger
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Missed It: Calvin Gimpelevich Wins Prism Queer Press Grant
I was told via a pair of e-mails that the cartoonist Calvin Gimpelevich was named the recipient of this year's Prism Queer Press Grant for the comic
Wolfmen. It's confirmed
here. Apparently, this announcement was made at the end of the Queer Press Panel at last weekend's Alternative Press Expo. That's a significant award and one that involves a cash award to the winner. You can read a list of past winners including comics-makers
Rob Kirby and
Steve MacIsaac.
In addition to a cash outlay, winner receive the suport of the Prism Press organization and its members. I believe the award is aimed at newer talents, or those just starting out; there is an application and a review process -- it looks like the cash element of the award is funded via direct donation.
The cartoonist's site is
here. He discusses the win
here.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Alexander Rothman
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Go, Read: Multiversity Comics On DC Comics’ Most Recent Stunt Month’s Performance At Surveyed Retail
There's an article
here and a show-your-work accompanying piece
here from David Harper at
Multiversity Comics about the most recent event/stunt from DC Comics, a month where all of the stories in all of the titles plugged into a "the future is doomed unless a time traveller saves it" storyline that they have going on right now, signified by a changing cover image. It's one of those articles that it's tough to see as
rock-solid proof as to how the month did. The only comprehensive information to which impartial sources have access is on sales into that market, and so information on how books do once they're on shelves has to be gathered shop to shop and from a kind of anecdotal feel. I'm sure someone at DC could rebut.
I wouldn't be
surprised if that one didn't do very well. The fancy cover versions are no longer a novelty in and of themselves, having been done last year. The content didn't help. I read about 12-15 of those comics, and the bulk of them were not-good to awful, page after page of uninspired storytelling that was editorially loose in a way that would have driven me nuts when I was a kid. I thought even the most accomplished of them dreary, and the lack of urgency across the board was startling given how much the current market depends on fans believing that this comic or that comic is the important one to buy. All of the DC Comics stabs at events over the last 15 months have been weird in that they depend on the drama of upturning a status quo that's only been barely established in their linewide reboot. They're riffing on the memory of a stable, sunny line that ran decades, while the outcome presented here seems perfectly in line with the "world" as presented over the last couple of years. These really did seem like random comics from five years in the future; they seemed like random comics that could have come out eight months ago.
Why you should read those articles if you haven't -- and if this realm of comics interests you -- is for the startling idea that fairly weaves its way in and out of the initial piece that one of the reasons the 2013 event of a similar nature did better than this one is because DC basically shorted the market due to the printing demands involved. This created artificial demand for the comics that resulted. Again, it's hard to ascribe veracity to a theory like that without someone impartial getting all of the numbers, including some from sources that aren't even in a position to report them. It also relies on some hard-to-nail-down reporting about past ordering habits. Still, it seems a workable theory. That comics has an ingrained, unhealthy aspect to it is something that comes up time and again, and I think it should always have our attention when something broken works in part because it's broken, if only for the worry that someone may take one of those fissures, dig their thumbnails in, and pop the sucker like an egg. A comics market isn't healthy until it rewards doing healthy things, and I'm not sure the post-2011 Direct Market is quite there yet.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Sara Goetter
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Look: A Pair Of Tim Sale Black And White Galleries
1,
2
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 7, 2014
This Isn’t A Library: New And Notable Releases Into Comics’ Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.
*****
AUG141526 BEST AMERICAN COMICS HC 2014 (MR) $25.00
I agree with Paul Constant at
The Stranger: I think this may be the best in this series, partly because the other editions seemed solid but didn't make a stand-alone impression. Picking the best of the year's is a mug's game to begin with, so this year's editor Scott McCloud and new series editor Bill Kartalopoulos present what they've selected as a walk-through of what McCloud finds important and interesting in a kind of snapshot of the times fashion. McCloud has broad enough interests that every comics reader will likely find a favorite it's hard to believe is appearing in a volume like this and a new cartoonist or team of comics-makers to assay.
JUN141452 JOHNNY BOO HC VOL 06 ZOOMS TO THE MOON $9.95
I'm not totally up to date on what James Kochalka is up to right now, and I would have guessed this series was at about volume four or five. That said, I like that there's enough space in the making of comics for kids over the last 10-15 years that people can build up these little libraries of work there. Kids will often demand more work from the same author, so it's just good business, and in Kochalka's case there's something about his approach that is particularly suited to this kind of open, eager storytelling.
JUN140012 BLACKSAD AMARILLO HC $17.99
I'll confess that I've only read one volume in this series as translated for North American audiences. I'm told I picked the absolute worst one. While the art is impressive and some of the visual moments are stop and stare gorgeous, I find the narrative fairly plain and not flattered in any specific way by the anthropomorphic approach. I'll happily try again; sure was good-looking.
JUN140076 CRIME DOES NOT PAY ARCHIVES HC VOL 08 $49.99
This is an extremely valuable and below the radar reprint series, of a comic that was as big and important and muscular on the stands as any of its peers. It's new territory for me, for sure.
AUG140285 BATGIRL #35 $2.99
JUN140572 SEX CRIMINALS #8 (MR) $3.50
AUG140093 ABE SAPIEN #17 $3.50
JUN140345 WINTERWORLD #3 $3.99
AUG140523 WYTCHES #1 (MR) $2.99
There isn't a ton in serial comics this time out, at least not to my specific tastes -- I'm sure I'm missing one or two from the list. The
Batgirl is the much-ballyhooed soft-reboot featuring the character redesign that people enjoyed so much upon announcement. I'm happy for books like that to be well done because of the importance that a lot of people, particularly kids, place in those characters.
Sex Criminals is fun right now as creators Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky settle into the series with the confidence they'll have the time to try a lot of different things and an audience that will follow them there. It's a fun read, because I don't have an historical antecedent in mind in terms of predicting where it will go storywise, which is significantly rare in comics. The
Abe Sapien is this week's Mignola-verse title and the
Winterworld is probably IDW's best-looking serial comic.
Wytches #1 is interesting because of co-creator Scott Snyder's career arc; it's always interesting when a creator with displayed success at one of the mainstream comics companies works elsewhere and the results they have there. And I mean that without any sort of
JUN140444 WONDER WOMAN COMP NEWSPAPER DAILIES HC VOL 01 $49.99
Totally not familiar with this work and would certainly give it a look on the shelves despite that impressive price point.
AUG140588 MINIMUM WAGE TP VOL 01 FOCUS ON THE STRANGE (MR) $14.99
This is Bob Fingerman's
Minimum Wage comeback series from Image collected, and one hopes the first volume means that Fingerman is doing well enough with the title to attempt more of them. I certainly enjoy that milieu the most of all of those in which Fingerman has worked over the years.
MAY140930 HAWKEYE TP VOL 03 LA WOMAN $15.99
Marvel's trade program is kind of wacky, and they've additionally given some scheduling leeway to this series that I couldn't tell you anything about it -- whether it's new or a re-run -- other than knowing I should probably give you a heads up in case this is how you're reading this particular work.
JUL141257 BATTLING BOY RISE OF AURORA WEST GN VOL 01 $9.99
The sister-sequel-series to Paul Pope's
Battling Boy effort at First Second gets its first volume, with the previous all-Pope volume still recent enough to be held in memory.
AUG141612 GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL GN $20.00
I feel horrible that the author of this fun book -- now getting a formal North American release after being out for a long while in the UK -- shares a name with someone in the news right for horrible misdeeds. Ignore even finding out about that, just buy the book. If you go to the comics shop to encounter unfamiliar talents, to get that shock of the new, this is your best bet this week. You'll remember it far after this week's gossip goes away. Read a selection
here.
MAY141172 JIM HENSONS TALE OF SAND BOX SET (MR) $49.99
JUL141325 MISS DONT TOUCH ME OMNIBUS HC (MR) $29.99
Two in the Christmas gift possibility arena; I'm sure there are more -- that
Wonder Woman volume might work here, as would the
Best American Comics volume.
JUL140786 MUTTS DIARIES TP $9.99
This is a non-traditional presentation of strip work from Patrick McDonnell, although when I say that I'm not even sure how many people are on the old dual paperback volume track anymore (Toomey, Pastis, Trudeau sort of and Adams for sure; also Scott/Borgman).
Mutts has always been a super-attractive strip, and nearly every individual volume from the series works on its own merits. It can be your first book or your tenth.
AUG141755 NARUTO GN VOL 67 $9.99
I mention this because there's bound to be some curiosity now that the end of serialization is in sight: a little more than a month away.
JUL141324 BEAUTY HC $27.99
This is a collection of multiple albums in the
Beauté series from Hubert and the husband-and-wife illustration team Kerascoet that astonished people with the art on the unrelated
Beautiful Darkness earlier this year. To get that much attractive art in one place would be worth it if the story were high nonsense, but I liked it on the level of a compelling narrative that took its own rules seriously and as a study in fairytale motivations. I'm still thinking about it almost a week later.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics,
can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store,
check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back,
try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I failed to list your comic, that's because I hate you.
*****
*****
*****
posted 11:55 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Bill Watterson’s Puck Book Essay
posted 11:50 pm PST |
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By Request Extra: Last Gasp Approaches 50 Percent Point With Time Running Out On Their New Crowd-Fun
There's a local TV news video report
here that serves as a reminder that the longtime counter-culture publisher Last Gasp
is in the midst of a single-season crowdfunder, and is just getting near the halfway point with about a week left in the campaign.
That's an important publisher with a long history of displayed, strong publishing choices. They're also a key distribution figure and have been extremely helpful in keeping other publishing efforts alive not their own. The overall comics landscape is richer for their continued presence.
I know that there's a certain amount of skepticism that comes with established publishers seeking crowd-funding. I'm as criticial as anyone, but I don't apply that to foundational publishers like Last Gasp, companies I think have earned a significant level of respect for their track records. In fact, companies like Last Gasp have two advantages when they crowd-fund. The first is they almost always have a better track record than the marketplace for crowd-funding when it comes to finding and making possible good work. The second is that they have fewer problems in fulfilling their obligations once given the money because this isn't something new they're trying; it's something they do and have done for years and years.
Anyway, I hope over the next few days you'll consider picking up an incentive or just tipping the company for their years of service and their contribution to the rich tapestry of comics and alternative publishing.
posted 11:45 pm PST |
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Go, Look: The Private Eye
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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If I Were In NYC, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In NYC, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Argentina, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Weird Suspense #2
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Happy 47th Birthday, Sean Bieri!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 49th Birthday, James Sturm!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 45th Birthday, Tom Hart!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 57th Birthday, Richard Thompson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Festivals Extra: Linework NW Announces For 2015; Adds 2nd Day
Read all about it
here. They're going mid-April, but
not the same weekend as SPACE this time around, which is nice. I look forward to attending if it's possible for me to do so.
posted 6:00 am PST |
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Go, Look: Vida Rose
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Read: An Article On Maximizing One’s Sales Presence At Conventions; An Article On Cons In Flux
Before it got too far in the rearview mirror, I wanted to run a link to
this article about maximizing one's sales presence at comics conventions. It's interesting to get into that mindset even if it's not a subject in which you're interested. I would also imagine there's some good advice if you want to make cons work for you in that way.
Where I always back away from advice articles is by first recognizing there are a number of strategies, and second that there is an even broader way of approaching that doesn't involve making sure you make the maximum amount of money at them. I think we get in a little bit of trouble assuming that people have the same goals, either in selling, or in that next-step-back broader sense where maximizing your commercial opportunities is a choice rather than a universal dictum. It's been that way for a while. I know there are people at all of the shows that try to hardsell me that tell me they're doing well and that this is the only way anyone could do well where I want to run away from them; I know other cartoonist who barely say a word. I also know a lot of cartoonists where con sales isn't a part of their professional lives. It's good to be exposed to multiple viewpoints on something like this.
You should read Chris Butcher's response to the same cultural moment as well. Butcher and I agree that there are a number of people that are at these shows now that are there professionally -- to be seen and to do business -- that don't participate in the general economy represented by the show. He includes social media titans, and I'm not sure I would -- it's an interesting argument, though. He's also upfront about the number of players rushing into this space as there's some profit to be made.
posted 12:25 am PST |
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Not Comics: Molly Crabapple Illustrates Life In Raqqa
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked: Publishing News
By Tom Spurgeon
* Alternative Comics
is releasing a monster-laden mini-comic to be called
All Monster Comics, drawn and plotted by Dave Lasky and inked by a small cast of alt-comic all-stars. It should be out any day now.
* the biggest publishing news of the week might be that
the Naruto serial is set to end. I think that article has the broad strokes right both in terms of the series declining a bit in terms of its narrative potency and corresponding audience favor, and the historical implications as one of three great point series for manga in the 2000s. I like the big chunk of those comics that I read. I thought that the approach to action was refreshing if you read a lot of western comics -- it was clever and and planned-out in a way that drove a number of significant plot-point payoffs, and not a lot of writers of North American comics make that an area of emphasis.
* I'm not even sure I know what the hell
this is, but it's in my bookmarks and I want to see it.
*
this gift book of sex tips derived from the graphics-driven material in Sex Criminals stands a chance of doing very well. The tour all by itself could kill.
* Kazu Kibuishi
has announced his
Amulet series will run nine volumes -- three books of three books.
* the new look for the Image versions of
those Criminal books seems a significant departure from the Marvel versions. Those should do well, I think.
* the cartoonist and convention organizer Francois Vigneault
is doing a special edition of his Titan Vol. 1. When they're removed from the Direct Market system and its delicate balances and non-returnable orders, I am all for multiple versions of the same book.
*
the Dungeon Fun books are back in print.
* Grimalkin Press
has announced a Simon Moreton book for debut at TCAF 2015.
* finally, we're starting to see evidence of various CAB debuts, like
Sindicalismo 89 from Breakdown Press. Inés Estrada is always worth our attention.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Bill Sienkiewicz Art From A Mister X Project
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Not Comics: Nicolas Delort
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 6, 2014
Go, Look: From The 1970 Sgt. Fury Annual
posted 11:50 pm PST |
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By Request Extra: Rich Tommaso Needs Help
The prolific veteran cartoonist Rich Tommaso has put out a public plea asking for people to consider an original art purchase due to his unfortunate financial circumstances.
I own some of Rich's art; it's very attractive, and there's a range of work to choose from here.
I would imagine he could also make use of any direct payment, which can be done through richtommaso@gmail.com at
paypal.
posted 6:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: I Was So Young
via
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Lengthy Article On Reading Experience Changes For Newspapers Divorced From The Production
Here. It meanders terribly in the last 1/3, and uses a lot of old measures to make its points when it's convenient to do so, but the article by Jason Abbruzzese is worth it for the general ideas it puts front and center: that sometimes innovation comes in terms of bolstering an infrastructure to meet a still-developing reading experience, and that the end result of how that experience changes may be more radical than we imagine. I also like the idea of a unit within a company there to play with delivery and interface that isn't caught up in production. There's something counter-intuitive and yet very human about that that makes me think that it could be very useful.
I tend to agree with the general ideas floated, as descriptive if not prescriptive. What this means for comics, I don't know -- I think that there's a lot of things you can do with comics to meet the expectation in any number of projected reading experiences. I remain convinced that the comics syndicates were way more prepared than the newspapers themselves for this fundamental change in consumption; we'll see if that comes into play.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In NYC, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Lady Fairplay
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Paul O'Brien on
Cyclops Vol. 1. Paul Constant on
The Wrenchies and
The Best American Comics 2014. That strikes me as the best one in that series, too. Marc Maron on
Pirates In The Heartland. Marykate Jasper on
The Fade-Out #2. John Kane on
a bunch of different comics. Carla Hoffman on
Captain America #25.
*
congratulations to Mike Peters on 30 years of his syndicated strip Mother Goose & Grimm.
* it isn't exactly comics, and certainly the core of it isn't, but I have to imagine the overall reaction will be super-negative
to what may be one of the dumbest interviews I've read in recent times, and I read a ton of interviews. Good. It deserves a bad reaction. It's sort of comics because of the connection to the upcoming New York con's week of related, ancillary promotions; the interviewee is apparently in charge of a Nickelodeon TV retrospective. While it's dumb because of the aggrieved tone and poorly constructed worldview, some of the specific analysis seems strained, too, and not always reflective of reality -- particularly for someone that did a book.
* Blake Northcott talks to
Scott Snyder. Tim O'Shea talks to
Steve Ekstrom. Richard Gehr profiles
Zachary Kanin.
* not comics: confidence and hyperbole
are dominant modes on the Internet because the Internet is about winning arguments within its context rather than informing a broader one encompassing reality.
*
Kate Leth reflects on one year of doing her Kate Or Die comic at ComicsAlliance.
* finally,
Michael A. Johnson on aspects of Fabrice Neaud's work.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 64th Birthday, Howard Chaykin!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 60th Birthday, Phil Yeh!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 63rd Birthday, Enki Bilal!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Luke Howard
posted 2:30 am PST |
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SCOTUS Won’t Review Shuster Estate’s Superman Decision
Let's go with
the reliable Eriq Gardner's update at Hollywood Reporter that
the Supreme Court has declined to hear the Shuster estate's appeal of the November 2013 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that an agreement made by the sister of the character's co-creator, Jean Peavy, precludes the estate's ability to terminate the granting of copyright.
Chief Justice John Roberts did not participate in the decision to deny review.
The Shuster was also represented by Marc Toberoff, whose representation of the Kirby Family in a copyright case against Marvel recently led to settlement before the Supreme Court
According to Gardner's piece, the angle being taken by the petition was a review of the ability of contracts to end those right, a perhaps less-compelling set of legal issues than the core ideas outlines by supporters of the Kirby Family petition.
I'm sad for this because I think there's the potential for a better outcome for the Shuster Estate than what they've received -- and I do mean what they've actually received, not the horror-show shorthand designed to win lightly-informed Internet arguments. Hopefully, a better outcome in some areas isn't off the table now, and may even be back on. I'm also always sad to see someone perhaps get less than what they could have because of the specific situation of need that drives one side of the bargain -- a need created by the situation being resolved. I will continue to be made uncomfortable by the imbalance of reward represented by the character in his present-day employment as a licensing giant, iconic character and moral avatar.
posted 2:25 am PST |
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Go, Look: Stefano Ricci Mini-Gallery
posted 2:20 am PST |
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So I Guess There’s A Bunch Of Talk About Critics And Criticism And Criticizing In Comics Out There
It looks like a remark or several from the writer Cullen Bunn (
here's one) has led to a still ongoing flurry of opinion-making about the role of criticism within comics, including critic-to-work, pro-to-pro and industry member to industry action/person doing that thing. It's kind of all over the place. I think
this essay from Abhay Khosla and
this one from Shea Hennum will get you oriented if it's a subject that interests you.
I think the whole thing is kind of bizarre. For one, there's very little negative criticism of work, very little negative peer to peer criticism and very little community policing until someone is ostracized for an outsized act. So it's difficult for me to puzzle out the initial impetus for the complaint, and wonder if it's just an abstract idea being trotted out.
One thing that struck as extra-odd was the idea that there's hell to pay in terms of people holding grudges. I haven't found this to be true over the life of what I shudder to call a career in comics. People get grumpy and pissy about stuff, but actually holding a lingering resentment? It doesn't seem to happen because of critical discourse. The publishers of this site once conspired to label Adrian Tomine a moron and a piker;
here's him holding a grudge. I think I've interviewed all of the comics pros that went after me hard during that same era. Two of the comics professionals I like most currently are people with whom I've had massive differences of opinion in the critical realm. Many of the other people of whom I'm most fond in comics are very critical of my own work. I worked for King Features seven months after writing really negative articles about King Features.
This won't be popular to say, but I think if you see criticism as an overture of friendship or even as a way of negotiating status within a specific world -- hell, if you see art that way -- you're more likely to get some of that tossed back your way and care when you do. If you see these things as a job and a duty, both art and responding to art, I think over time that the reactions you get will have greater power in that context than in the other. Some people are going to like you and some people are going to dislike you, but I've benefited over the years from a lot of people realizing that this is what I do and what I owe them is the seriousness with which I take it, not a thumb pointing in one direction or another. Similarly, I want everyone to do as well as possible, even if they've made art or decisions with which I strongly disagree.
It's easy for me to say that, though, because I've been around a while. I'm also pretty naturally positive -- I'm likely the most conventional of all the writers in my peer group, even. The sheer closeness of the comics community now, that someone can "call you out" or whatever they want to call it on-line the second you write something or ask that you not be let into a party you want to be let into, I imagine that can be pretty rough, particularly starting out. I get it. I want to be invited to dinner, too.
posted 2:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Four Pop Idols Originals
posted 2:10 am PST |
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Go, Look: A Selection Of Lee Elias War Comics
posted 2:00 am PST |
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October 5, 2014
Go, Look: Shiny
posted 11:30 pm PST |
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Comics By Request: People, Places In Need Of Funding
By Tom Spurgeon
* the great David Lasky
has started putting up a bunch of new stuff for sale at his Etsy shop. I don't know that it's tied into any specific need by I'm sure Lasky will find uses for any of the money sent his way, just as you would find a place for the art.
*
I always enjoy crowd-funders for elements of comics culture not publications.
* the artist and animator Ralph Bakshi is raising money for is latest project by offering up on eBay a couple of paintings of
Wizards characters:
here and
here.
*
here's a straight-up crowd-funder from Ted Sikora.
* one thing I've noticed is that when the illustrator and cartoonist Eleanor Davis places something with a client,
the original art sometimes ends up at her etsy store immediately upon this happening. So that might be something to keep in mind.
*
Snyder and Ditko are back.
* finally,
David Malki and
Shaenon Garrity show how it's done, old-school webcomics style. Even though both of them have met their goals, whatever they're offering now is probably even more fun.
posted 11:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Oakland, I’d Go To This
posted 11:20 pm PST |
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If I Were Near Princeton, I’d Go To This
posted 11:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: I Have A Soft Spot For Westerns With Dandy Villains
posted 11:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I don't think I've ever seen
this fun Joe Kubert drawing of Will Eisner's Spirit character. Kubert's work always had a specifically attractive quality to it during all phases of his career.
* Bob Temuka on
Bumperhead.
* not comics: some of what's reported on
here, in an article on a minor piece of news engaged with the basic curiosity of a slug, is astonishing. The flip side to people thinking the Internet is the only place things exist is folks who feel like something has been thoroughly reported on if that slightly wider group of 80 or so people with whom they mainly interact on-line has discussed it.
*
Patrick McDonnell celebrates World Animal Day.
* not comics: I agree with the broad strokes of
this piece. I used to get irritated when people would giggle their way through someone else's seriously-intended art, particularly in public. Now I just feel sorry for someone who sees the world that way all the freaking time.
* some unknown person interviews
Michael DeForge. Robert Spuhler talks to
Ed Piskor.
* speaking of Piskor, he has
cool fans.
* finally,
look at the LICAF windows.
posted 11:05 pm PST |
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Happy 41st Birthday, Shannon Smith!
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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Happy 48th Birthday, Dylan Horrocks!
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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Happy 56th Birthday, Mike Carlin!
posted 11:00 pm PST |
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CR Sunday Interview: Renée French
*****
Renée French is one of my favorite people in comics and one of the most consistent, most formidable creators of her generation. French's latest is
Baby Bjornstrand, from Koyama Press, her second book of the year following
Hagelbarger And That Nightmare Goat, a Spring offering from Yam Books.
The following interview was conducted on the Saturday morning of
SPX 2014. It is therefore a bit more casual than past and (hopefully) future conversations I've had and will have with the artist. I hope it brings out a different side of her than you see in some of our longer talks. She's a great friend to a number of younger cartoonists, and I think you can see her baseline curiosity and solicitousness shift to the surface in our talk.
I'm grateful to Renée for the time, particularly in that I'd rather her use every spare moment to make more comics for me to read. I tweaked a bit of what follows for clarity and flow. -- Tom Spurgeon
*****
TOM SPURGEON: I talked to bunch of people about doing this interview, and several of them wondered out loud about the course of your career right now, the fact that you seem to be moving from publisher to publisher while staying very prolific. I wondered if you could talk about why you've gone through this progression of publishers.
RENÉE FRENCH: Did they think that was really strange?
SPURGEON: I don't think strange as much as different. A lot of cartoonists settle in with one publisher, or with a few -- maybe one or two. It seems like you're doing books, one after another, with good, interesting publishers but definitely a different one each time out.
FRENCH: I feel like I've always been searching for... the old "searching for a home" kind of thing. I've always wanted to feel like a part of where I am. When I went to Dark Horse, it was at a time when the weirdos were there because Bob Schreck would bring some weirdos in because he loved their artwork but the upper people didn't like that as much. "Fantagraphics-like" is what they actually said.
Weird things happened. I went to
San Diego one time with
Dark Horse and when we got there my books weren't there. I went all the way out to San Diego and my books weren't there. Jamie Rich and somebody whose name I can't remember -- the rock star guy -- the guy who wears leather vests with nothing underneath it.
SPURGEON: I am immediately interested in this person but I have no idea who that is. [French laughs]
FRENCH: I can't think of who he is!
SPURGEON: This is definitely the most interesting person in comics.
FRENCH: He's shirtless and kind of a rock star. I'll think of it. [Editor's Note:
It was Paul Pope.] He helped me walk around the floor and buy my own comic from
Last Gasp and
First Second to do signings. Dark Horse -- we just weren't that important, the people doing weird stuff. That was the beginning of the feeling that I didn't belong.
[pause]
So are we done?
SPURGEON: Yes, that's all the time we have. [laughter]
FRENCH: "We had five minutes, and I couldn't think of that guy's name."
I think that I
started off feeling I wasn't part of a gang. I saw other people with publishers who seemed to be with their tribe. I never felt like that. At
Oni, I
really didn't feel like that.
SPURGEON: At Fantagraphics you were solidly in that second wave of cartoonists that came along right when the rug was pulled out from under black and white alternative series. Dave Cooper, Jeremy Eaton, Jeff Johnson.
FRENCH: A lot of really good people.
SPURGEON: That second wave -- that second wave was just kind of beat down in terms of doing alt-comics series. Carol Swain, too, I think.
FRENCH: It was kicked in the face, yeah. "We have no money."
SPURGEON: So did those cartoonists feel like a group to which you belonged?
FRENCH: Yeah, but we were a group that was disbarred. It felt like a group and I felt like I was a part of that family. And then we got these like faxes saying that we were done.
SPURGEON: I never knew that was a fax.
FRENCH: Did I not tell you that?
SPURGEON: I never heard that. I was actually there at the time, too, although on a different floor than the fax machine.
FRENCH: I came into work and my friend was like, "Renée, you got a fax; it looks like it's from your other boss or something. From your Fantagraphics boss." What? A fax? He could have called me about whatever. He has my phone number. It's
Gary [Groth]. It was a fax from Gary saying that for financial reasons and because of the way the market is right [they] were stopping all of the floppies; [they] will instead be doing graphic novels. Group F is canceled, and now you're going to have to do graphic novels.
It really felt awful. I was fired from this little gig that I had.
SPURGEON: There was tremendous economic pressure on them at that point. The mid-1990s were horrific for companies like that.
FRENCH: Yes. Definitely.
SPURGEON: I think the only comic that survived from that group was Dame Darcy's, maybe?
FRENCH: I think she was canceled and came back again. I don't think she made it through that bit, but they resurrected her.
SPURGEON: I remember having a conversation with you way back when you were doing The Soap Lady, 2000 or 2001, and you said your approach to publishing was going to be finding the people that made the nicest-looking books.
FRENCH: That's what I had decided.
SPURGEON: I wondered... is that easier now? More people make nice-looking books now.
FRENCH: It
is easier, yeah. At the time, with Top Shelf, I remember looking for a publisher where their books looked like the way I liked things to look. I found their books to be consistently beautiful books. They were making pretty books with a style to them I was really seeing somewhere else. I wanted to be with them because of that. I just sent
Chris [Staros] an e-mail. I was out at that point. I didn't expect him to say yes, but I wrote him saying, "I have an idea for this soap lady thing." And he said, "Yeah, definitely." So then I was with them.
It was very nice. I enjoyed my time with them very much. I still feel like they're my publisher. I love
Brett [Warnock]. He's a great guy. They were always very nice to me. I don't have anything bad to say about Top Shelf. My problem was when I wanted to do something that was a little bit out of the box of what they do. I wanted to do something with maybe photographs and that was all over the piece. Not so regimented. Not so editable. Chris likes to edit. He really does.
SPURGEON: He's a very hands-on editor, particularly in the context of independent comics.
FRENCH: So I went looking for someone I could work with that made beautiful books but that would let me do what I wanted to do. That was Dan Nadel and
PictureBox.
SPURGEON: Bill K. pointed out in conversation yesterday that you're one of those cartoonists with multiple opportunities to apply your skills in a variety of media. You've done children's work. You've done gallery shows.
FRENCH: I'm excited to be doing that more now.
SPURGEON: What keeps you coming back to comics? What is the specific appeal? It's not the financial reward.
FRENCH: Never that. [laughter]
That's interesting. I'm... getting older. I'm looking for a thing that I might do when I'm older that might not include books. Although I love books. I'm putting it out trying to see if books disappear -- which I don't want to happen, and would make me very sad and I don't really think will happen. The kids book thing for me is not really rewarding. It's strange. It seems like it should be. Even if I get letters from kids -- and I do. I get letters saying, "We do this routine every night we found in one of your books and we love it." That's wonderful. But it doesn't feel as good -- for me -- as
The Ticking, as the stories I get from people with whom
The Ticking resonated. It reminded many of their relationship to their father, and for many it was therapeutic.
My fantasy is to be a painter and a drawer that does exhibits. I'm around a lot of those people. In Sydney I'm around way more of those people. In Australia the painting is respected by the real guy, the regular joe. It's weird. The regular joe knows who won the
Archibald Prize. It's like that. You hear people in the coffee shop that are like, "Did you see the finalists for the Archibald Prize?" "Yeah, I know." "Oooh, I didn't like that one by
Margaret Olley very much." [laughter] It's amazing! These are regular people. I'm starting to get hooked into that. I'm friends with some painters and I've started to learn how to do portraiture... and I'm back here doing these little creature drawings which are practice for that stuff. What ends up happening is that I can't do it for very long without telling a story. I feel like I can. I'm like, "Why not?" All these friends of mine, all they do all the time is paint for exhibit. I can't do it.
SPURGEON: Remind me of the Yam Books' title again.
FRENCH: Hagelbarger And That Nightmare Goat.
SPURGEON: I love [Yam Books Publisher] Rina Ayuyang. It must be fun working with her.
FRENCH: Yeah. It is.
SPURGEON: The thing that sticks with me about Hagelbarger
a few months removed is how tight the verbal interplay was. There's an economy to your writing there, couple with a force and urgency to the exchanges. We frequently trace an artist's influence, but do you have idols when it comes to wordcraft? How do you write? Who do you find funny?
FRENCH: I'm a huge
Sam Beckett fan. I don't feel like I emulate him. Also
Sam Shepard. I read all of Sam Shepard's stuff -- I still go back to it. Part of me is a frustrated playwright. I have part of me that wants to write a play. I've had meetings with people about it in LA, with actors.
I talked to
Andre Gregory about it. [laughs] Hours and hours and hours. My Meeting With Andre.
SPURGEON: That's an all-time name drop, Renée. Congratulations. [French laughs] In the midst of talking about writing dialogue just casually mention working some things through with Andre Gregory.
FRENCH: It was My Tea With Andre first and then My Lunch and then My Dinner. [laughter] Andre Gregory -- talking to Andre Gregory, and becoming friends with Andre Gregory, I could see myself becoming part of that tribe. It involves really serious collaboration with people, which is difficult. At the same time, these are people that want to please the person who is responsible for the source material.
I kind of feel my dialogue is like a play, like I'm writing a play.
SPURGEON: It's pared down but in a way that retains its poetry, which is what made me think it distinctive in the first place and certainly fits in a tradition of theatre. How much do you work over the dialogue?
FRENCH: I love the dialogue. It's one of my favorite thing about working on books. Do you think they're too sloppy?
SPURGEON: Actually, quite the opposite. They're lean and mean, bordering on spare. Beckett and Shepard seem like appropriate names to invoke.
FRENCH: They're very, very, well thought out. I don't understand words, but I understand dialogue. It's crafted. If there's too much of one thing, I'll take out something and then to have rebalance... the rhythm has to be right, just like a play. I do not think I've ever had a line of dialogue that doesn't flow in that way, that is abruptly ended. One thing I love I don't know if there's a word for it. Somebody says to Cyril, "What if he doesn't come back?" And Cyril says, "He always does." And Marcel says, "Always ends." That kind of thing... I love that. There's another thing I like to do, which is change the direction of feeling in the middle of a sentence so a word works another way. So finding the skin floating in the water and saying, "Oh, are you..." And pulling it out, "Okay." With a period instead of a question mark. That's a shift in feeling by the time the sentence comes out. That's minutaie, though.
SPURGEON: Every word can be important. You know, Baby Bjornstrand
's similarity to a play goes beyond the way the words might work; it actually seems to be staged on the front part of a proscenium rather than tracked through space like a comic that is film-influenced. There this whole series of vignettes that are staged, right there, in front of you.
FRENCH: That's how I see it, yeah.
SPURGEON: So given you have this recurring staging, how much then do you craft the multiple scenarios that play out there? How much do you have to think this through given that you aren't simply going to change the way we see these things play out in front of us? It seems to me that it would have to be a lot more thought out given that continuity.
FRENCH: It is. I should have brought my notebook. I have a slide I sent to [the writer and her SPX panel moderator]
Marc Sobel that was the most diagrammatically broken down thing. Here it is:
SPURGEON: Oh my God. Okay.
FRENCH: That's a page or two from
Baby Bjornstrand -- one part is just the math of it. Part of this is just figuring out the order, but part of it is some real thinking. Character D shows up in these ways... the idea is that I can see these things at a glance.
SPURGEON: Why make a book using that very specific two-tier structure?
FRENCH: I like it because you can get a wider shot, whereas if you have four on a page, unless your page is really long you end up with portrait-like drawings.
SPURGEON: The other effect that really jumps out is your use of color to designate speakers on the page. Where did that come from?
FRENCH: It came from that I hate word balloons. I feel if there's a word balloon floating around, with a tail, either you have to change your composition to fit it -- which you can do, and some people are good at it -- or you have to ignore this thing floating there. We all know it, so we can ignore it. Since we know it, it's a thing. The place these kids are, it's like Scotland. It's foggy. It's post-apocalyptic. I didn't want them to have any kind of thing like [word balloons]. Also they look alike.
I like not having a category. That's also made it difficult for me to find a place that felt like home, a publisher.
SPURGEON: Do you feel like you have peers, if not a family? Are there comics-makers with whom you feel a creative kinship? Maybe people that aren't comics-makers, just narrative-interested artists... Do you think of yourself as existing in a peer group?
FRENCH: I like Dave Cooper. I like what he's doing now. I understand it. I get it. [laughs] I think
Laura Park... she's not being organized about what she's doing very much. She has a good drawing gig that pays well. So she's doing that. Her other stuff is very autobiographical, going through some shit, she has this new dog... it's so good. I don't do autobio, but she's just like me. She's constantly drawing, constantly making art.
SPURGEON: There's a quality to her drawing that can be astonishing.
FRENCH: Amazing. Totally amazing. Very old-timey but new. I love her. I think...
Scott Teplin. I relate to him very well.
I had four posters at this show in LA; they sold before the show opened. The guy asked me to do a feature show and while I don't know what that means -- I don't know if that's a solo show or if I'm featured with a few other artists -- I've started a body of work for that.
SPURGEON: Do you prefer to come to your comics cold, or do they have a previous life as an idea or as a concept somewhere? I get the amount of work that's involved in the structure and making of the story itself, but I wonder after the concept, the impulse to do a story in the first place.
FRENCH: Did you read
Bjornstrand, the thing I did with
Dan Nadel?
SPURGEON: Sure.
FRENCH: I made this monster. A giant monster, with these little tiny people walking around... like a giant Godzila monster. These guys in the story, the knew him from before. They're like, "That can't be..." [Spurgeon laughs] So my thinking was that I wanted to make a whole book
starting from when he was a baby and meets these kids. I talked to
Annie [Koyama], and she was like, "Why don't we just that the book?" In my head, there was this whole arc where he goes away and returns. He shows up at this giant thing, this monster, and they're like, "Holy shit, that's him!" It's the monster they hung out with. Which is a big deal -- it's come back from their childhood.
SPURGEON: That's a facile platform for metaphor, something literally coming back from your childhood. In general, do you pay attention to that level of meaning at all when you write? Do you see these stories, these characters as vehicles for a second or even deeper meaning, or are you kind of immersed in the story you're telling to the point where the only reality is the one you're depicting?
FRENCH: I don't. If there's metaphor there... I just don't catch myself thinking like that.
SPURGEON: So if someone whines at you, "But Renée! What does it all meeeeaaan...?" You don't have anything for them.
FRENCH: No. After I do something I will later put together that it was about something else. But it's never thought out. It's just not.
SPURGEON: The shifting landscapes in Baby Bjornstrand
... sometimes they seem to tie into what's going on in the foreground, but I can't figure out what you're doing at time with other background designs. Yet I figure it's as carefully planned as everything you do.
FRENCH: It's very heavily planned. Early on I use very spare backgrounds; it's still where they live. I want them to be in a place where there's nothing. There are no distractions. These kids are growing up in a place where they don't have anything, and they're surviving. The world has taken away all of their comfy stuff. Their toys. These are kids that after this war or whatever, are still around. So the landscape in general is meant to be grim. There's a place they
go, where there's water. They head to the water. I really love Scotland. I really like Scotland when the light is going down and there's a haze in the air. There's a feeling that time stopped. You're alone. You're alone. Words don't move very quickly through that stuff. That's the feeling I wanted when Cyril meets him.
SPURGEON: So it sounds like there's a story/narrative demand, and then you work your way through the design to meet those demands. And maybe that part is a bit intuitive, although it has to work. There's an emotional effect there.
FRENCH: It's planned out, but there's a lot of feeling. It's all feeling. I've spent a lot of time in Scotland but also in my head in Scotland. Wanting that feeling. Because I love that feeling.
SPURGEON: Not to get into a specific metaphor, but the broader idea of meeting something that's inexplicable, this let's go see element to the story, does that appeal to you on a personal level? Do you have a childhood memory of any like encounters, on a much less fantastic scale? It's not uncommon in your work to see this kind of encounter.
FRENCH: I grew up where we spent most of the time in the woods. We spent very little time at home.
SPURGEON: The kid versions of people our age were very independent like that. "Mom, I'm off to the woods. Might be home for lunch, but maybe not." [French laughs]
FRENCH: "Be back at 5 o'clock." We spent most of our time out in the woods, hidden out there. There was all sorts of stuff to find. I used to put stuff in jars. I did steal the eyeballs from a frog in class. In sixth grade we dissected frogs, and everyone was expected to take the lens of the eyeballs out. They were to be disposed of -- but they wanted us to see the lens. I went around and collected all of the lens, and put them in a little jar. They were really cool. [laughs] I wanted to find stuff. I wanted to find tons of stuff.
SPURGEON: That's a significant element in a certain kind of writing: the desire to find something that will allow you insight into the reality that you see every day.
FRENCH: I think that's true.
SPURGEON: We're at SPX, and this might take us back around to where we started. We're having this conversation on a Saturday morning before SPX. I always think of you as someone fairly well connected to a bunh of younger cartoonists. You mentioned Laura earlier.
FRENCH: David King. Is he young?
SPURGEON: He is to me. I think of you as one of the late Dylan Wiliams' friends, although he's more of a direct peer.
FRENCH: Yeah.
SPURGEON: How do you orient yourself to these multiple personal relationships, Renée? Is that the point of making art? Is that a happy bonus you get from being near all of these artists? How does knowing so many other artists, how does that have an effect on the way you make art? Or does it? You seem more actively engaged with maintaining these relationships than many artists I know, who are more laidback about those friendships.
FRENCH: Maybe they're more laidback because they're more directly connected.
Zack Soto, guys like that, they're in Portland. They can get together if they want. I live in Silicon Valley. [Spurgeon laughs] I live among people who are very literal thinkers... [laughs] people in the computer world. I know that every so often I need to be around people who don't think like that. You go to dinner with people, they're very nice, but you say what you do and it's like... nothing. That's fine, except it happens
all the time. I would like one or two people in my tribe to be nearer to me. Laura... she's in Chicago! Rina is close by but I don't see her that often because of a bunch of other factors.
When I'm in Sydney I hang out with painters. When I'm in the US, I hang out with the computer guys. Going to something like this, where I know everybody is thinking about making things, and the challenges of making visual things...? I like being near those people.
SPURGEON: We talked earlier this weekend about getting older... do you ever think in terms of imparting your experiences on the people you meet that are younger? Is there anything you wish you could tell all the cartoonists that are in the hotel right now that maybe haven't had some of your experiences yet? What would you have people know about your artistic path that might be helpful to them?
FRENCH: Yeah. [slight pause] Well, I haven't come out of it with any money, even after all of these years. I've heard younger cartoonists talk in terms of making a living at it and I warn them to not even think of it like that. If anyone wanted to contact me about anything, I would be happy to help anyone that needs help or is seeking guidance. I got an e-mail from a younger cartoonist saying they just fired their agent and how is it that I had all of these projects, and what I thought about having an agent. I said I've never had an agent. I don't need some other person connected. Because I don't have an agent, I haven't had any bigger-money things come my way. What I have come towards me is based on what I'm constantly doing.
Chris Ware once said, "Just make it. Constantly do it, and the other stuff will come. Be obsessed with what you're doing."
SPURGEON: I get that prescription, but I do wonder sometimes if we forget about timing; it seems like with anything there's a time and a place where a bunch of people that stick with it are rewarded in some way, but then it seems like some people maybe working just as hard that came before or after do not see that.
FRENCH: The one thing that's new it seems to me is that there are TV shows working the same... area as the comics. Like
Adventure Time. So there's a chance to work on something like that.
I love when someone younger with some chops asks me questions. I obviously know a lot about a lot of different kinds of publishers. [laughter]
*****
*
Baby Bjornstrand, Renée French, Koyama Press, softcover, 9781927668139, 132 pages, 2014, $20.
*
Hagelbarger And That Night Goat, Renée French, Yam Books, softcover, 9780985413828, 109 pages, 2014, $18.
*****
* cover to Baby
Bjornstrand
* photo of French by me, SPX 2012
* comics by Dave Cooper, Jeff (now Jess) Johnson and French from Fantagraphics in the early to mid-1990s
* from
The Soap Lady
* from
Hagelbarger And That Nightmare Goat
* one of her sketchbook diagrams used in the process of making
Baby Bjornstrand
* coloring to denote who is speaking
* work by Laura Park
* from
Bjornstrand, the PictureBox book
* one of the intriguing backgrounds in
Baby Bjornstrand
* image from
Baby Bjornstrand (below)
*****
*****
*****
posted 3:00 am PST |
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October 4, 2014
Lorenzo Bartoli, RIP
posted 10:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Low Tide #6
posted 7:00 pm PST |
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If I Were In Los Angeles, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Bloomington, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were Near Penn, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Seattle, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Diego, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Indianapolis, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Cheltenham, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Vancouver, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Cambridge, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 52nd Birthday, Jeff Nicholson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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FFF Results Post #396—Bigger Than Life
On Friday,
CR readers were asked to "Name Five Oversized Comics That You Like." This is how they responded.
John Vest
1.
The Collected Harold Hedd #1
2. Charles Burns'
Hard-Boiled Defective Stories
3.
Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Red Nails Original Art Archives
4.
Sacred And Profane
5. Marvel Treasury Special:
Captain America's Bicentennial Battles
*****
Rob Salkowitz
1. Read Yourself Raw
2. Barry Windsor-Smith Storyteller
3. The Tabloid Spirit
4. Superman vs Muhammad Ali
5. The Someday Funnies
*****
Charles Brownstein
1) Mother's Heart, Henriette Valium
2) Buzz Buzz, Paul Pope, Jay Stephens, Moebius, various
3) Destroy!, Scott McCloud
4) Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary, McSweeney's original art edition, Justin Green
5) Jimbo's Inferno, Gary Panter
*****
Oliver Ristau
1.
The Bible, DC Limited Collector's Edition C 36
2.
Hansel et Gretel illustré par Lorenzo Mattotti
3.
Wednesday Comics
4.
Sunday Funnies
5.
Comics section in McSweeney's # 33, The San Francisco Panorama
*****
Art Baxter
1. Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book -- 1988 Kitchen Sink Press Edition
2. Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others by Charles M. Schulz
3. Marvel Treasury Special: 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Buzzbomb by Kaz
5. Schizo - Issue 4 by Ivan Brunetti
*****
Alvin Buenaventura
1. Schizo #4 by Ivan Brunetti
2. Eightball #23 by Daniel Clowes
3. Acme Novelty Library (Big Book of Jokes II) #15
4. RAW no.4 edited by Spiegelman and Mouly
5. Jack Survives (RAW edition) by Jerry Moriarty
6. Kin-der-Kids by Lyonel Feininger
*****
Patrick Watson
1. Enormous by Daniel and Cheggour
2. Rubber Blanket #3 by Mazzucchelli
3. DESTROY by Scott McCloud
4. Wednesday Comics
5. The Rocketeer Treasury Edition
*****
Philippe Leblanc
* The Goddess of War, by Lauren Weinstein
* Masterpiece Comics, by R. Sykorak
* Quimby the Mouse, by Chris Wares
* Les Ignorants, by Etienne Davodeau
* Jimbo in Paradise, by Gary Panter
*****
Kenneth Graves
1) Destroy!!
2) Tomorrow Girl (Dresden Codak)
3) Legion of Super Heroes Collector’s Edition (C-55)
4) Whiz Comics #2 (1970’s treasury-sized reprint)
5) Wednesday Comics
*****
James Moore
1. Multiforce
2. Masterplasty
3. THB
4. Ganges
5. Hip-Hop Family Tree
*****
Matt Emery
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey treasury edition -- Sure this'll be on a few lists, this is how I want to experience Kirby, large pages on newsprint!
2. Gary Panter Jimbo's Inferno -- Give me big Panter
3. Wally Wood Artist Edition -- If I ever have children, we'll gather around this like a family bible.
4. Dan Dare Pilot of The Future Terra Nova Trilogy -- Hardcover Hawk Books edition, I treasure all 12 volumes of the almost complete run of the original Dan Dare, but this one with Frank Bellamy reproduced at publication size is a particular favourite.
5. Masterplasy -- James Harvey -- I don't know anything about this, found the last copy at my LCS yesterday and thought damn that looks beautiful. All comics should be in this format.
*****
Tyler Crook
1. 2001: A Space odyssey Marvel Treasury Special
2. Acme Novelty Library #7
3. Acme Novelty Library -- The big red hardcover whose number is only known by a secret cabal at Pantheon books.
4. Tarzan of the Apes Artist edition
5. Daredevil Born Again Artist edition
*****
Andrew Mansell
1. Society is Nix
2. Hawk of the Seas (Kitchen Sink version)
3. Nemo Annual #1 Screwball Comics
4. Eightball # 23 "Death-Ray"
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey Marvel Treasury
*****
James Kochalka
1. Superman Vs. The Flash
2. Destroy!! by Scott McCloud
3. Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali
4. St. Owl's Bay by Simon Hanselmann
5. Narrative Corpse
*****
Steve Replogle
1. Superman: Peace on Earth
2. John Kricfalusi's Spumco Comic Book (by Marvel)
3. Soujourn (Kubert, Veitch, Severin, Aragones...)
4. Wednesday Comics (the newspaper-ish, pre-collected version)
5. Scott McLoud's Destroy!!
*****
Douglas Wolk
1. Destroy!!
2. Kramers Ergot 7
3. Little Nemo: So Many Splendid Sundays
4. Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali
5. Wednesday Comics
*****
Greg McElhatton
1. RASL preview
2. Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
3. Wednesday Comics
4. the current Prince Valiant reprint series from Fantagraphics
5. Sundays with Walt and Skeezix
*****
David Robertson
* Eightball #23 -- Daniel Clowes
* Trashed -- Derf
* 2001: a Space Odyssey -- Jack Kirby
* Comic Book -- John Kricfalusi
* Acme Novelty Library #7 -- Chris Ware
*****
Mike Pfefferkorn
1. Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment (Bryan Talbot)
2. Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (All New Collectors Edition C55, DC)
3. Popeye Vol. 1: I Yam What I Yam (Fantagraphics)
4. Tarzan of the Apes (Burne Hogarth)
5. The Complete EC Library: Weird Fantasy (Russ Cochran)
*****
Danny Ceballos
1. Lynda Barry's Naked Ladies Naked Ladies Naked Ladies
2. Sundays with Walt & Skeezix
3. Jerry Moriarty's Complete Jack Survives
4. Frank Santoro's Blast Furnace Funnies
5. Kramers Ergot 7
*****
RJ Casey
1.) The Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City by Brendan Leach
2.) Schizo #4 by Ivan Brunetti
3.) B+F by Gregory Benton
4.) Fantagraphics' Popeye Collections by E.C. Segar
5.) DC Wednesday Comics
*****
Jones
1. The Celestial Bibendum
2. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
3. Schizo #4
4. Acme Novelty Library #15
5. Acme Novelty Library #2 (this whole list could have been just Ware, really)
*****
John Platt
1. Marvel Treasury Special: Captain America's Bicentennial Battles by Jack Kirby
2. THB Giant Parade by Paul Pope
3. Marvel Treasury Edition # 13: Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag by various
4. The Monsters Color-the-Creature Coloring Book by Bernie Wrightson
5. The Spirit Coloring Book by Will Eisner
*****
Scott Dunbier
1) Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Treasury
2) Marvel Treasury Edition #4
3) Wham-O Giant Comics
4) Destroy
5) Untamed Love Collection
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. "god...," the folded newspaper tabloid section of Building Stories
2. Tom Gauld's Noah's Ark comic in Kramer's Ergot 7
3. Locas one-volume hardcover
4. any issue of Barry Windsor-Smith Storyteller
5. The unfolded dust cover of McSweeney's 13
*****
Michael Dooley
1. The Narrative Corpse: A Chain-Story by 69 Artists!
2. Polly and Her Pals, Complete Sunday Comics: 1913 - 1927
3. Society is Nix: Gleeful Anarchy of the Dawn of the American Comic Strip 1895 - 1915
4. Mad: Artist's Edition HC
5. The Acme Novelty Library: Great Big Book of Jokes Issue Number VII
*****
topic by John Vest; thanks, John
*****
*****
posted 4:00 pm PST |
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The Comics Reporter Video Parade
Tom Neely Shoots And Assembles Random Footage On 2008 APE Floor
Ed Piskor Visits His Childhood Home
Alex Fitch Interviews Bryan Lee O'Malley
Joe Wos Says Goodbye To His ToonSeum Gig
Promoting Cakes In Space
posted 8:00 am PST |
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Comic-Con Announces Transfer Of APE Back To Dan Vado
Starting in 2015, apparently. I know it's been suggested to them that they move on from this particular show and perhaps allow its purchase by one of the interested parties regionally, but transferring back to founder Vado seems like a nice, fitting outcome. Congratulations to Comic-Con on their run with what for years served as the #2 arts-oriented comics show in North America, and congratulations to Dan on retaking the reins -- I look forward to seeing what he does in San Jose in 2015.
thanks, Peggy and Jeff
posted 3:00 am PST |
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CR Week In Review
The top comics-related news stories from September 27 to October 3, 2014:
1.
Boston Herald apologizes for a President Obama security detail editorial cartoon bearing as a bonus gift a watermelon joke; claims it was an innocent mistake and nothing was intended by the use of that word in that way.
2. DC Comics
expresses disappointment at licensing process that leads to their making t-shirts with super-goofy, traditional-role messaging on them.
3. Comic Arts Brooklyn
announces its first round of guests but more importantly a move to a two-day format. I expect most of the shows with 1-3 years behind them that have enjoyed some success to add a second day if not this year then next. But the bulk will add them as soon as possible. When we talk about the growth of comics shows, how the existing ones grow is just as important as how many new ones are added.
Winner Of The Week
Let's give it to Liza Donnelly, a Thurber Prize finalist.
Losers Of The Week
We're all a bit dumber for having experienced that
Boston Herald story.
Quote Of The Week
"I had a lot of trouble in high school, as I mentioned -- boners and 'old ladies in monster trucks' comics. My principal would drag me into the office and say, 'You cannot do this. You cannot just print up booklets of your things and distribute them.' His example was I can't just print up my own newspaper and distribute it. And I was like, 'Well, yeah you can. It's called self-publishing. They're called zines. There are local newspaper and local street presses. What the hell are you talking about?' Then I dropped out after that." --
Simon Hanselmann
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October 3, 2014
OTBP: Julie Doucet’s Books For Le Pentalitaire
posted 9:30 pm PST |
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If I Were In Nashville, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were Near Penn, I’d Go To This
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Houston, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Seattle, I’d Go To This
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If I Were Near Bristol, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Indianapolis, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Las Vegas, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Cambridge, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In San Francisco, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Happy 39th Birthday, Mike Dawson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 62nd Birthday, Tod Smith!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 59th Birthday, Chris Warner!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 65th Birthday, Jim Siergey!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Everyone Please Go To The Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever Show At La Luz De Jesus Tonight
Tonight.
There were some fun comics done under the Henry & Glenn umbrella, it was an old-fashioned underground-style rolling public satire with a significant degree of relevancy,
Tom Neely is a valued member of the alt-comics cartooning community, and
La Luz De Jesus is a longtime champion of the comics arts.
Also, I keep forgetting to mention it because I'm terrible at my job. Please go. Hell, buy something. And if you can't go tonight, step in the place later on.
posted 4:00 am PST |
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Go, Look: Aisha Franz Goes To Boomfest
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 2, 2014
Boston Herald Apologizes For Ludicrous, Idiotic Cartoon
This may be the ultimate "there it is" news story of recent vintage, as I have no idea how to approach it in a serious fashion except to point at it and stare at it and marvel at the dumbassery of its existence.
The newspaper
has apologized for the publication of a cartoon about the recent lapses in presidential personal security that included a reference to watermelon-flavored toothpaste. The cartoonist,
Jerry Holbert, has protested that it was meant in completely innocent fashion.
This kind of thing does happen. I was in a play once with a child actor who improvised a line about red lights in the window without knowing the "red light district" connotation. But you know what? That was a child. The thought that a grown man doesn't know this connotation boggles the mind, and the thought that a newspaper run by people that traffic in information are so bereft of basic cultural knowledge -- we knew of this insult when I was in elementary school, and it's been back in currency as a thing to avoid since Tiger Woods first won the Masters -- that they also had no idea about this further baffles. The only thing more ridiculous is the thought that someone might think they could take a blunt, racist shot without any blowback, so a kind of privileged cultural aphasia is what's left.
It's also important because there's definitely a racist element to the presidential protection story, in that there's a significant level of distrust that President Obama receives the same protection as past, white presidents. I can't imagine that to be true, but I know it's a thought that folks have. This means an editorial or editorial cartoon on this topic should have been screened with
racist connotation in mind.
I would like to see more cringing in horror at the unlikely accident of circumstances than protestations of innocence, but maybe that's just me.
Entertainer and longtime devoted fan of the cartooning arts Whoopi Goldberg
gave the artist the benefit of the doubt.
posted 11:55 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Shawn Eisenach
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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Collective Memory: Marvel/Kirby Family Settlement
this article has been archived
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were In Nashville, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Indianapolis, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Old-School George Perez Art Portfolio
1,
2
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
*
here's a brief look at Ben Katchor's wook as presented in Russia.
* RC Harvey profiles
Edward Gorey. Lauren Davis talks to
Paul Pope.
*
that I failed to get my face onto a Modok figure like Sonia Harris is pretty compelling evidence that I may have done SDCC wrong.
* Dan Brown on
The Hospital Suite. John Seven on
Distance Mover.
* here's a nice report from the CBLDF/Comic-Con sponsored
San Diego talk about censorship in comics featuring Larry Marder and Scott McCloud. As I said before, that interested as the rare time Comic-Con has used its brand to promote something not directly related to one of its show.
* I'm still reading lengthy SPX reports of interest,
like this one at Broken Pencil.
*
SAW has announced Sprin 2015 seminars with Ed Piskor and Aidan Koch.
*
I liked this self-portrait by the cartoonist Hope Larson. It looks like you can poke around there and see that work in progress, although I personally haven't done that yet. I also liked
this Ralph Bakshi-posted development art for the movie Wizards.
* finally, the embedding was disabled on
this Jess Johnson video, so I can't post it in "Video Parade."
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 47th Birthday, Ivan Brunetti!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 47th Birthday, Rob Liefeld!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Look: Scott Travis
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Go, Look: Comedian
posted 12:20 am PST |
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Go, Look: Darwyn Cooke & Bruce Timm
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Go, Look: Open House
posted 12:00 am PST |
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October 1, 2014
Missed It: Me And The Universe
posted 5:30 pm PST |
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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events
By Tom Spurgeon
* there's a much bigger and fancier version of the ICAF 2014 schedule
here. Justin Green! See you there. Between that prominent academic event, what the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has been up to on its own and a few stand-alone events on the campus of CCAD, Columbus is having a powerful comics Fall.
* we're about two weeks out from the close of
exhibitor registration for TCAF. That's a high-demand show, but it's a good one to do.
* this is a busy weekend:
Bristol,
APE,
MICE. APE is the one that's interesting to me because it's the oldest.
* man, there are a lot of shows now.
* one thing I like a lot about APE is that it's still a show where you can find some of the alt-comics gen-1 crowd, like
Jim Blanchard and JR Williams. Please don't buy all of Blanchard's refrigerator magnets; I want to buy some through the mail.
* finally, the big news this week was
CAB announcing its initial grouping of guests and the fact they're splitting off their popular programming track into its own day, at a nearby boutique hotel. I've heard a variety of opinions from people like this. It all comes down to execution. If they can put together great programming, they'll get people there. They won't really lose all that many folks
just by having a second day; I suspect I could count the number of people who day trip into that show on one hand.
posted 5:25 pm PST |
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If I Were Near Brampton, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Montreal, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Portland, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Brooklyn, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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If I Were In Denver, I’d Go To This
posted 5:20 pm PST |
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Go, Look: A Comic On Death Bear Brown
posted 5:10 pm PST |
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Nicole Rudick on
School Spirits. Sarah Horrocks on
Phosphorous.
*
this photo of Hellen Jo is so great.
* congratulations to Jacq Cohen
for passing her five-year anniversary at Fantagraphics yesterday. That's a long time to work at any one company in comics.
*
hooray for business cards.
*
there was apparently a final resolution in the Illinois-based challenge to Persepolis, the graphic memoir by Marjane Satrapi. That reports suggests a more significant political motivation than I've heard before, hewing reasonably closely to a pair of standard right-wing grass-roots talking points (the idea that anything assigned with a Muslim element requires extra scrutiny; the idea that such expressions are favored) as I've encountered them during my own time back home. I think that's deeply unfortunate.
*
here's MariNaomi on writing people of color when you're not a person of color.
*
here's a well-traveled Eric Canete cover-making process post.
* I like the idea of
anything special featuring Dennis The Menace as a sort-of mascot, as I remember fondly the themed comic books that were done a generation ago. I have to admit, National Preparedness Day sounds like too important thing to be a random day, with or without cartoon spokespeople.
* Blake Hennon profiles
Mike Mignola.
* finally,
check out Tony Fitzpatrick's reading table.
posted 5:05 pm PST |
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Happy 75th Birthday, Ron Turner!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 44th Birthday, Jess Johnson!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 63rd Birthday, Bill Schelly!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Happy 54th Birthday, Barbara Kesel!
posted 5:00 pm PST |
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Go, Read: Kayla E. Cartoon Diary At TCJ.com
posted 12:30 am PST |
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Totally Missed That Liza Donnelly Was A Thurber Prize Finalist; Prize Won Last Night By John Kenney
John Kenney
beat out cartoonist and writer Liza Donnelly (for
Women On Men and the writing team of Bruce McCall and David Letterman (for
This Land Was Made For You And Me (But Mostly Me)) for this year's Thurber Prize for American Humor. Kenney won for his debut novel, the well-reviewed
Truth In Advertising.
That is an an incredible honor for which to be nominated, and I wish I had caught it earlier to make a bigger deal out of it on Donnelly's behalf.
Women On Men contained both cartoons and writing; it came out in late 2013 -- the year covered by this year's honor. Donnelly is one of only a handful of female prize nominees over the honor's history, and I believe is the only one whose nominated work contained cartoons, noteworthy because of the award's namesake.
The Thurber Prize brings with it a cash award of $5000. The sponsor of the award is the Thurber House non-profit in Columbus, Ohio; it is of course named after the essayist/humorist/cartoonist James Thurber.
Michael Cavna interviewed Donnelly day-of.
posted 12:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Series Of Superhero/Horror Covers From Kevin Nowlan
posted 12:10 am PST |
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Totally Missed It: Mike Sterling Opening Up His Own Shop
The foundational comics blogger and long-time retail employee Mike Sterling
announced more than two weeks ago that he's opening up his own comics shop, to be called Sterling Silver Comics. He's apparently found a location he enjoys in Ventura County and feels like it's time to do his own thing. I'm happy to hear this, and wish him all the best. I hope to visit if the opportunity presents himself and I hope you'll consider the same.
posted 12:05 am PST |
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Go, Look: Two More Galleries Of Cartoonists
one, two
posted 12:00 am PST |
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