CR Week In Review

The top comics-related news stories from February 18 to February 24, 2012:

1. Rich Burlew's Kickstarter campaign ended up raising more than $1M, signaling any number of things: the connection that Burlew has with his readers and that many webcomics cartoonists have with their readers more generally; the option of bypassing all middle-men for major publishing projects, particularly for a field that prints for a limited number of counted-upon fans; the idea that you really have to work at Kickstarter campaign with clever and worthwhile premiums to make it go. There are many others.

2. A motion for acquittal and a new trial by convicted former retailer and convention organizer Michael George was denied.

3. The Sean Gordon Murphy Wolverine ABCs story underlines the fact that creators working with copyrighted characters are doing so only because -- and only when -- the copyright owners allow it. Recent battles over broad creators rights issues more generally have artists considering different approaches to such things as what to draw at convention, and, maybe, how much time and energy to pour into comics according to how much it's able to return.

Winner Of The Week
I'm tempted to say Jim Woodring for his second nomination in the LA Times Book Prize graphic novels category, because I like Jim Woodring a lot and those last two books of his are pretty great. The NCS Outstanding Cartoonist finalists were named this week, too. But really, you have to go with Rich Burlew here, right?

Loser Of The Week
Michael George

Quote Of The Week
"Well, I think that cartoons have a lot more power than they're given credit for. I have a personal definition of cartooning, which is, simply, "imaginative drawing." Anything you're drawing that is not in front of you but is a mental construct that you want to express in a drawing is, to me, a cartoon. To my way of thinking, the concept drawings that Rembrandt did, the drawings he made that he used to model his artists, to work out the compositions of his paintings: those are cartoons. They're drawn with cartoon shorthand vocabulary. Look at his sketch for the return of the prodigal son. The expression on the angry younger brother's face -- it's a classic cartoon expression. The head is down; the eyebrow is just one curved line over the eyes. It communicates in a very shorthand way. It's beautiful, expressive, and, in a peculiar way, it's more powerful than the kind of stilted, formalized expression in the final painting. Or look at the engravings of Blake, or The Scream, by Munch, or the faces of Christ's tormentors in that Bosch painting of Jesus carrying the cross. Those are cartoons, in my book." -- Jim Woodring.

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today's cover is from the thriving, small-press independent comics scene of the 1980s and 1990s

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