Read Comments (12)

PictureBox & Desert Island Present:

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival

Saturday December 5th 2009: 11 AM – 7 PM
Our Lady of Consolation Church
184 Metropolitan Ave.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Free admission

Download the festival program here for a map and schedule.

UPDATE 12/1/09: I’m pleased to announce that Mat Brinkman will be at the PictureBox booth signing books on Saturday.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival consists of 3 components in 3 nearby locations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

–Over 50 exhibitors selling their zines, comics, books, prints and posters in a bustling market-style environment at Our Lady of Consolation Church, 184 Metropolitan Ave.
–Panel discussions and lectures by prominent artists, as well as an exhibition of vintage comic book artwork at Secret Project Robot, 128 River St.
–An evening of musical performances at DBA, 49 S. 2nd St.

In the cozy basement of Our Lady of Consolation Church (184 Metropolitan), exhibitors will display and sell their unique wares. Exhibitors include leading graphic book publisher Drawn & Quarterly of Montreal; famed French screenprint publisher Le Dernier Cri; artist’s book publisher Nieves of Zurich, Switzerland; Italian art book publisher Corraini; master printer David Sandlin; and tons of individual artists and publishers from Brooklyn.

Featured guests include the renowned artists Gabrielle Bell, R. O. Blechman, Pakito Bolino, Charles Burns, Anya Davidson, Kim Deitch, C.F., Carlos Gonzales, Ben Katchor, Michael Kupperman, Mark Newgarden, Gary Panter, Ron Rege Jr., Peter Saul, Dash Shaw, R. Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, Adrian Tomine, and Lauren Weinstein, among others.

PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE:
Secret Project Robot
128 River St. and Metropolitan

1:00 GARY PANTER & PETER SAUL
Two generations of painters, Gary Panter and Peter Saul, will discuss their shared history, image-making, narrative, and the joys and dilemmas of making difficult work. Moderated by Dan Nadel.

2:00 PANELS AND FRAMES: COMICS AND ANIMATION
Comics and animation operate very differently, yet retain deep historical and stylistic connections. R. O. Blechman, Kim Deitch, and Dash Shaw will discuss the relationship between the two forms with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos.

3:00 BEN KATCHOR
Ben Katchor has chronicled the pleasures of urban decay and other metropolitan phenomena in comics including Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer and The Jew of New York. Katchor will read performatively from his comics and discuss his work in this rare spotlight presentation.

4:00 FLATLANDS: COMICS ON THE PICTURE PLANE
Do comics need a third dimension? Lisa Hanawalt, Mark Newgarden, Ron Regé, Jr., and David Sandlin will consider the tension between comics’ illusionistic worlds and their status as images on a picture plane. Moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos.

5:00 LIVE COMICS DRAWING
In a one-of-a-kind comics drawing session, Frank Santoro will present Gabrielle Bell and R. Sikoryak with a rough page layout based on his principles of composition and design. These two artists will translate Santoro’s layout into two unique pages of comics, live, before your very eyes.

Also: An exhibition of 1950s original comic book art curated by Dan Nadel

PERFORMANCES
Death by Audio
49 S. 2nd Street

Finally, at the end of the day visitors can troop over to Death by Audio at 49 S. 2nd Street, for an evening of musical performances by cartoonists, organized by Paper Route, and including performances by Kites, Ambergris, Sam Gas Can, Boogie Boarder, Nick Gazin, Graffiti Monsters, Dubbknowdubb.

Read Comments (7)

George Wunder

In a vague attempt to try to write about comics more frequently, I’m going to start a series of posts wherein I detail my daily trips through the library, the storage bin, other people’s libraries, and, of course, the internet.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday messing around with George Wunder. First I read his obituary and then I read his wife’s. Then I read his sister’s. And man, it was like watching the whole family escape me one by one! Down they went, click by click. I took some notes and thought about contacting his nephews or grandnephews. I ought to. Then I discovered a cache of original art at Syracuse, but apparently no papers. I can’t find an interview with him (though my index to Cartoonist Profiles is in storage — there’s probably something in there) and am intrigued by the dearth of info. He had no children. Where are all the letters and such? Where are the diary entries that explain his inky grotesques? He had a way of depicting giant craniums that verges on abstraction. Wonderful, odd stuff. But who was he? Caniff we know, right down to his shoes. But Wunder? I dunno. Wood assisted him at one point, I know that. And he apparently was in the military sometime. But what else? Ah well.

Then I got distracted and went down a rabbit hole looking for more on Jesse Marsh. Ordered a copy of a fanzine with a supposedly long Russ Manning article about him. Marsh died unmarried, but he did have siblings — seven according to some reports. In all my research for Art in Time, I wasn’t able to turn up anyone still living who knew him first hand, though I imagine someone from Western must still be around, and the thought tweaks me a couple times a week. Marsh remains a mystery to me. There might be some info in the hands of E.R. Burroughs collectors, which is the rabbit hole I dove down yesterday, mired in ERB fan sites trying to find some new little morsel that might have recently appeared. Has someone from his family contacted Dark Horse, I wonder? What became of his paintings? Of his legendary reference library? Some of these West Coast guys passed before fandom really kicked in (though according to Alex Toth, Marsh most likely would’ve rebuffed any queries anyway) and so we’re left with lots of questions. Manning seemed to have known him well, but he’s not talking either.

My last stop of the day was a lengthy digression into my favorite comics web site, Comic Art Fans, on which I combed through the Jack Kirby holdings hoping to find material for the 1940s and 50s Kirby exhibition I’m curating for the 2010 Fumetto Festival. For sheer volume of incredible visuals, it’s the best site going.

On the not-comics-but-related front, went to see a buncha exhibitions yesterday, including the Mike Kelley show at Gagosian and the Robert Williams show at Tony Shafrazi. Best of all were the Hockney show at Pace and the Sister Corrita show at Zach Feuer, but man, seeing the Williams and Kelley shows in the space of a few hours was awfully fun. Couldn’t be more different artists, but both are insightful painters of male angst/worry/paranoia/obsession. Check ’em out.

Mike Kelley

And that, dear friends, was my “research” for the weekend.

p.s.: Our offer still stands: Comics Comics wants a good, serious article about The Studio, 30 years on. We want to know about shag carpeting and questionable wall hangings? We want to know where the work came from and where it went. We want to know the economics of it, and the relationship between it, comics, fantasy, and illustration. Contact us!

Barry Windsor-Smith

Read Comments (3)

Well, here we go. Mark your calendars to come to Brooklyn and meet tons of artists, including much of the Comics Comics crew (me, Frank, probably Tim, Dash). Now you can tell us that we’re snobs/hipsters/idiots/intellectuals/low-brows in person! Official text below. Watch the web site for panel schedules, updates, and other goodies.

New York has long been the hub of contemporary graphics and comics publishing, and Brooklyn the borough of choice for many of the city’s best cartoonists and graphic artists. Bringing together an international cast of cartoonists, illustrators, designers, and printmakers, The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival , founded by local bookstore Desert Island and local publisher PictureBox, is the first festival to serve this vibrant community.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival will consist of 4 components:

– Over 50 exhibitors selling their zines, comics, books, prints and posters in a bustling market-style environment
– Signings, panel discussions and lectures by prominent artists
– Exhibition of vintage comic book artwork
– An evening of musical performances

In the cozy basement of Our Lady of Consolation Church, exhibitors will display and sell their unique wares. Exhibitors include leading graphic book publisher Drawn & Quarterly of Montreal; famed French screenprint publisher Le Dernier Cri; artist’s book publisher Nieves of Zurich, Switzerland; Italian art book publisher Corraini; master printer David Sandlin; and tons of individual artists and publishers from Brooklyn.

Featured guests include the renowned artists Gabrielle Bell, R. O. Blechman, Charles Burns, C.F., Kim Deitch, Ben Katchor, Michael Kupperman, Mark Newgarden, Gary Panter, Ron Rege Jr., Peter Saul, Dash Shaw, R. Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, and Lauren Weinstein, among others.

The commerce portion of the Festival is partnered with an active panel and lecture program nearby at Secret Project Robot gallery, down the street at 210 Kent Ave. This mini-symposium will run from 1 to 6 pm and is being overseen by noted comics critic Bill Kartalopolous. Also at Secret Project Robot will be an intimate exhibition of original comic book pages from 1950s romance, western and science fiction comic books, curated by PictureBox’s Dan Nadel.

Finally, at the end of the day visitors can troop over to Death by Audio at 49 S. 2nd Street, for an evening of musical performances by cartoonists, organized by Paper Route, and including performances by Boogie Boarder, Ambergris, Scary Mansion, Nick Gazin, and many others.

Read Comments (3)

Edward Penfield, 1906. Kelly Collection.

Very quick one in this case.

1) I really enjoyed this post at David Apatoff’s blog, Illustration Art. It’s an excellent explanation of what to look for in a Leonard Starr drawing. Even if the work itself is not to your liking, the flair for craft shines through. My friend Norman prefers early Neal Adams strip work, as well as Alex Kotzky. I don’t have an opinion on the matter, but I bet a lot of other people do, and that’s why I love comics

2) T. Hodler turned me on to John Crowley’s writing. Recently Crowley wrote about the lovely sub-genre of comics created within fictions. The discussion begins with his Oct. 16 post. [And continues Oct. 20.] Love Crowley’s header art, too.

N.C. Wyeth, 1917. Kelly Collection.

3) About 6 weeks ago, under the auspices of old pal and fearless comics collector/historian Warren Bernard, I visited the Kelly Collection of American Illustration in Virginia. I’ve seen some amazing collections and this really knocked me out. It’s a private museum of the great period of pre-WWII American illustration, 1890-1935, with deep holdings in Leyendecker, Harvey Dunn, N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, among others. These paintings and drawing hold up remarkably well. I was particularly struck by the expressive hatchwork of Leyendecker and the nearly-sculptural attention to paint of Cornwell. Harvey Dunn was a revelation of me, as the paintings seemed more vibrant and energetic than anything in print. It’s all contained in a gorgeous museum setting, complete with extensive information and archives. I particularly liked the focus of it — no pulps, no pop — a tight look at one spectacular period of image-making. It’s not even the period of illustration that most resonates with me — but I can’t imagine this collection, so beautifully curated and hung, not being an affecting experience for anyone, no matter their aesthetic proclivities. In its dedication to an oft-neglected artform, the collection is a national treasure. For now, I believe it is open by appointment to scholars only. If you fall under this category, make the pilgrimage.

Read Comment (1)

This is an advertisement from your trusty sponsor, PictureBox:

PictureBox currently has a bunch of new products ready to ship that should be of interest to any reader of Comics Comics. In fact, readers of Comics Comics are known the world over for their sophisticated taste. First up, Takashi Nemoto, of Monster Men infamy, is representing with 2 new prints and one poster. This is the first time we’ve offered any artwork from Nemoto, and maybe the first time it’s been available in North America. So hop to it!

We have School, a wonderful new zine about the female experience in contemporary Japanese culture, including two excellent, revealing articles on shojo manga creators Fumiko Okada and Yumiko Oshima, and a blazing new tabloid collection of record covers and posters by comics and graphics heavyweight Saeki Toshio.

And don’t even get me started on Ken (“Snoopee” and Deerhoof) Kagami’s brilliant, subtle zine, Celebrities’ Penises. It’s a masterpiece of drawing and humor in full compliance with the Golden Mean, The Golden Lasso, The Golden Triangle and The Golden Shower.

We also have the excellent Cosmic Collisions by Anya Davidson, the brand new 1-800 MICE by Matthew Thurber, and signed copies of Archer Prewitt’s latest book.

Also, note that we’re now carrying zines and projects from the British collective Famicon. We like these funny British people, and are pleased they’re allowing their publications to reach the colonies. Last but not least, a hot new publication from Michael Williams detailing his views on Copenhagen.

So, indulge your fancies and enjoy a fine, refreshing PictureBox item.

End of Advertisement.

Read Comments (23)

I’ve futzed around with this piece after initially publishing it, retaining the ideas but rearranging and clarifying a bit, I hope. Anyhow, I normally try (though not that hard) to avoid writing about press, but I must note a few things about David Hajdu’s review of Crumb’s Genesis in the NY Times Book Review. Look, I’m not cynical enough to dismiss the Times, as many do, as stodgy or useless, etc. Instead, I’m somehow naive enough to still believe in it as an institution that has tremendous resources and can produce great work. Nevertheless, I also realize that (and sort of understand, from a logistical point of view) irresponsible or ill-informed writers like Hajdu slip by when writing about a somewhat specialized topic. After all, this stuff matters most to those of us who take it as a primary subject. But in the spirit of trying to improve the discourse around comics, Hajdu should be addressed. Especially because again and again Hajdu pops up with some ill-formed opinion or straight up error (and we at Comics Comics, like groundhogs, pop up and object like the big fucking nerds we are). So, onto the review. In a somewhat positive, though oddly condescending piece, Hajdu commits a number of blunders. We’ll start with this doozy:

“The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!” brags a banner on the cover. This is scarcely the first time the Bible has been adapted to comics pages, of course. In the first decade of the comic-book business, the man who claimed to have invented the medium, M. C. Gaines, founded a whole company on a line of ‘Picture Stories From the Bible.’ (When he died suddenly, his young son, William M. Gaines, inherited the company, and in a 20th-century case study in the enduring vagaries of primogeniture, the son discontinued the Bible strips and started publishing lurid, spicy crime and horror comics.)

Given that Hajdu wrote a book (The Ten Cent Plague) involving those exact “lurid” comics, he should also know that Crumb’s “brag” on the cover is a knowing nod to his medium. As with the works inside, Crumb’s cover text and design is a consciously mid-century comics stance. That is, like Crumb’s childhood comics, the cover is garish and loud, and interior pages rely on established cultural/visual types and straightforward storytelling in the Stanley/Barks vein. It’s a brilliant, thoroughly subversive choice that works both on a literal and meta level, commenting on the history and form of comics-the-medium. And further, as Hajdu well knows, Bill Gaines sought to produce, yes, sensationalist comics, but he also instituted the most rigorous set of standards yet (and in the case of crime and horror comics, maybe ever) imposed on comic books. He aimed for literary quality as he understood it. Hardly just the “lurid, spicy” comics of Hajdu’s description, though he was obviously trying to make a cocktail party smarty pants comment about fathers and sons, blah blah). And yes, the Bible has been in truncated comics form many many times. But as Hajdu also knows, that is hardly Crumb’s point. His task was a word-for-word adaptation.

And then there is this classic:

At points, Crumb withholds exactly the kind of graphic details he built a career on revealing: In an image of circumcision, he shows us two splatters of blood, rather than the actual penis being cut. Onan practices coitus interruptus turned away from us. This book, I believe, is the first thing by Crumb ever published without a single image of flying sperm or a sharp blade approaching male genitalia.

Besides the sheer idiocy of saying Crumb “built a career” (whatever that means in an underground context) on anything besides drawing exactly what he needed to draw, the facts are simply wrong. Crumb has been making “clean” comics right alongside his “dirty” stuff for over 30 years now: American Splendor; the blues biographies; the P.K. Dick biography; the Kafka book; right up to his recent masterful memoir of his brother Charles. This kinda knowledge is not the area of specialists — it’s the stuff of Amazon.com and Wikipedia. Crumb doesn’t need me to defend him (oy vey) but his efforts deserve better than this utterly wrong characterization. It is all the stranger since Hajdu has, in fact, interviewed Crumb himself and would have to be willfully and then persistently ignorant not to know better.

But wait, there’s more:

For all its narrative potency and raw beauty, Crumb’s “Book of Genesis” is missing something that just does not interest its illustrator: a sense of the sacred. What Genesis demonstrates in dramatic terms are beliefs in an orderly universe and the godlike nature of man. Crumb, a fearless anarchist and proud cynic, clearly believes in other things, and to hold those beliefs — they are kinds of beliefs, too — is his prerogative.

This seems an especially disingenuous statement. First, Hajdu’s interpretation of Genesis is strictly that of a believer — I can’t see how, as an irreligious reader, you come away with that interpretation. I mean, there are two conflicting accounts of creation. Not exactly orderly. Also, Crumb is not, as far as I know, an anarchist, but he is, by his own account, spiritual. Which is to say, Crumb seems to be exploring the sacred. Maybe not Hajdu’s sacred, but sacred nonetheless. A quick scan of Crumb’s statements (From Vanity Fair, just one Google search away: “I would call myself a Gnostic. Which means, I’m interested in pursuing and understanding the spiritual nature of things. A Gnostic is somebody seeking knowledge of that aspect of reality”) on the matter will give you that much.

Anyhow, one wonders why an author would persist in writing about a subject he clearly disdains and isn’t interested in actually learning about, but I guess that’s between Hajdu and his own idea of the sacred. Next post I’ll be happy, I promise.

[UPDATE: I realize it seems odd/rash to pick on this one piece of writing out of the avalanche of material devoted to Crumb’s Genesis, but it strikes me so wrong headed that it just needed to be addressed. If nothing else, given the talk of mature comics criticism, etc., it seems important to me to address writing that, whatever else I might say about it, aims for seriousness, and is generated by someone who claims a certain authority in the field.]

Post Comment

Brian Chippendale is writing really fucking good criticism. It might be a new paradigm. Connecting images and genres and being damned funny, at that. Oh, also, there is a new Lightning Bolt record out. It also rules. Hi Brian! Hi!

Read Comments (5)

My hero.

Oh, this a good one. NBM, as part of its Forever Nuts series of reprints (by the way, I like how NBM has carved out a niche doing books like this that are not obvious but have immense scholarly value — the early Bringing Up Father being another wonderful project) recently released Happy Hooligan, which collects a bunch of Opper’s comic strip from 1902-1913. This is stupid art at its best.
Opper was 42 when invented Happy, and unlike a lot of his comic strip peers, an accomplished illustrator. But he seemed taken with grungy new medium and designed a comic strip that is literally knock-kneed and hobbled — a real roustabout — to fit into the century. Nothing so graceful as Nemo for Opper. Nope, it is rough drawing and tumbling antics all the way. Opper seems to have intuited that a handful of wonky lines could add up to a character and that character business and action was the best thing going for mass appeal. But coming to it mature, the man knew how to delineate form, no matter how simply: Each figure is distinctly distressed.

As a storyteller Opper’s gaze never wavers. It’s always that head-on, unmoving view of the action. Poor, good-hearted Happy Hooligan — he gets jobs, tries to help people, attempts transactions, but all for naught. Or at least, all for just our entertainment. He stumbles, falls, and breaks, but never badly. Like a stilted ragdoll, HH always comes back.

The book itself is good. I’m grateful to have a color collection of these strips, even if I’m not always clear on why these particular strips were chosen for publication. The supplementary essays do add up to a solid portrait of the man and where the strip fits in comics history, and include a truly bizarre 1934 photo of Opper and Alex Raymond; the older man was lauding this new young star. Two more different approaches to comics could hardly be found.

The best part is just how entertaining these strips are. They feel contemporary in that Opper went for both nonsense and physical (and often both simultaneously!) gags. In their static staging and reliance on full figured action, some of these strips remind me of Gary Panter’s recent work. Plus, HH is just such an odd looking character with his round head and soup can hat. I mean, just look at some of the non-Opper merch this strip inspired. It couldn’t be any more bad/good if King Terry himself designed it.

Needless to say, I’m starting a HH fanclub. Who’s with me?

Read Comment (1)

I’m going to try to sneak out some quick little thoughts on some recent books and ideas knocking around my brain.

I want to begin with Talking Lines: The Graphic Stories of R.O. Blechman. A longtime favorite of mine, Blechman is a master of the shaky line school of cartooning, his mark as unmistakable as, say, Herriman’s. Coming into his own in the 1950s, Blechman absorbed the lessons of linear cartoonists like Steinberg and just kept refining and refining so that each mark actually means something. You won’t find anything extraneous in a Blechman drawing. When combined with a judicious use of spot colors, his delicate images pop to life, becoming communicative graphics on a page. As a cartoonist, he’s unusual these days: he’s a yarn-spinner and a moralist. These tales are subtle examinations of a theme or subject. This, as well as use of the page, rather than the panel, as a storytelling device, seem to bring him in line with 19th century cartoonists like Caran d’Ache. But his urbane concern with current events, social mores, and city life make him resolutely modern. Blechman resolutely looks outward and at the world around him: No moody ruminating or action adventure here. More clear eyed commentary on life. I think of him like I might think of the writer Joseph Epstein: a bemused observer whose wit always surprises.

And Blechman, of course, has had one of the great modern careers (the kind it’s sorta impossible to have anymore) in graphic communication, covering animation, illustration, design, and comics. His other essential book, The Juggler of Our Lady is, as Seth notes in his introduction, one of those inbetween tomes that seems to be a proto-graphic novel.

So, go out and get this fine book. It, like D&Q’s other recent essential archive project, Melvin Monster, is one of those volumes that knocks my vision of the medium slightly askew and reminds why I’m bothering in the first place.

Read Comments (3)

Comics Comics Correspondent Paul Karasik wrote in to note that he has discovered a startling relationship between one Biblical family, one group of knuckleheads, and a certain cartoonist. Watch this space for more revelations.