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Your Pshaw! for the day is brought to you by Comics Comics 4, which features yet more of the above gag series.

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Now buy it! New Comics Comics for sale here!

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Oh boy, Comics Comics 4 will debut at Comic-Con! This one’s got Shaky Kane, Dan Zettwoch, Woody Gelman, Brian Chippendale, Sammy Harkham, Joe McCulloch, Mike Reddy, PShaw!, Eamon Espey, Benjamin Marra, Berserk, and much much more (well, just a little more). Come by and grab one and argue about Alex Ross with us! PictureBox — booth 1630.

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Astute readers of Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter will be “wowed” to find out that RC Harvey has “discovered” that Samuel Beckett and Ernie Bushmiller once corresponded, according to Editor & Publisher. Harvey writes:

“Another of Nancy’s most famous fans was Samuel Beckett, author of the supremely existential and endlessly impenetrable play “Waiting for Godot.” Beckett initiated a correspondence with Bushmiller that lasted for several months in late 1952 and early 1953. The exchange between the two, published in 1999 in Hermenaut No. 15 with an introduction by A.S. Hamrah, is a majestic example of two people talking past each other, neither understanding quite what the other is about but each assuming he understands perfectly. The existentialist Beckett assumed from what he saw in Nancy that he could write gags for Bushmiller, that his existential comedy would be in perfect sinc with the strip. But Bushmiller simply couldn’t comprehend what Beckett’s gags were; he saw no humor in them.”

Hey, wow Harv! Maybe comics really aren’t just for kids! That 1999 Hermenaut article was a pretty well known (and beautifully executed) joke. The drawings are by R. Sikoryak. Good to see E&P putting its reporting skills to use. This reminds me of the time Print magazine published their exciting discovery of “Telegraphic Art”, as seen in The Ganzfeld 1. I was working like 3 desks away at the time, and the crack fact checking team there never bothered to ask if it was real. Tom rightly wonders if it’s “too good to be true”. It certainly is.

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The Comics Comics and PictureBox advance team has arrived in Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con. Frank and I are lounging in our hotel room, high above the convention center. So far it looks like a fun show and damn fine for back issues. Why, there’s an entire Fangoria section at one table! Anyhow, Tim will be joining us tomorrow and then we have some fun panels:

Friday, 3 pm:

CAGE MATCH: Comics Comics Vs Comics Comics! | Room 208
A live critique session with the editors of Comics Comics. Timothy Hodler, Dan Nadel and Frank Santoro will conduct a no-holds-barred argument about a comic book or graphic novel of their choice. Audience participation is encouraged. Chairs might be thrown.
Topics:
John Byrne’s FX
Kirby’s OMAC
The new issue of Mome
Kick-Ass 1-3

Saturday, 12:30 pm:

THE NEW ART COMICS
From critical favorite hits like MAGGOTS and POWR MASTRS, to prominence in influential anthologies like KRAMER’S ERGOT, “art” or “abstract” or “out” comics are pushing the boundaries of the avant garde in comics. Join Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter as he sits down with Picturebox publisher Dan Nadel, KRAMER’S ERGOT editor Sammy Harkham and publisher Alvin Buenaventura for a frank discussion of this leading edge of art in comics!

Sunday, 1 pm:

CRAFT IN COMICS: Jaime Hernandez, Jim Rugg, and Frank Santoro in Conversation | 213A
Less a conversation on materials and techniques and more a conversation on ideas and beliefs, this panel will focus on tradition and innovation in composition and drawing for comics. From Jaime’s insistence on not using photographs as reference in his comics to Jim’s clarity of composition and Frank’s careful color choices, there are countless tenets of craft that are largely underappreciated by readers. This panel will investigate these ideas and attempt to illuminate and outline them in a lively conversation led by Frank Santoro.

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The PictureBox site is mysteriously sick right now, so here goes:

PictureBox will be at the MoCCA comics festival this weekend at NYC’s Puck Building (At the corner of Lafayette and Houston).

We will debut the following books and zines:

-Goddess of War by Lauren Weinstein
-Cold Heat Special by Jim Rugg and Frank Santoro
-Core of Caligula by CF
-We Lost the War but Won the Battle by Michel Gondry
-Crazy Town by Paul Gondry
-Bicycle Fluids (not) by Matthew Thurber
-Faded Igloo by Jim Drain
-The Museum of Love and Mystery by Jim Woodring (a Presspop edition)
-Cold Heat Special by Ryan Cecil Smith

Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry, Gary Panter, Frank Santoro, Lauren Weinstein, CF and Matthew Thurber will all be in attendance.

The schedule is:

Saturday:

11-12: Frank Santoro and Lauren Weinstein
12-2: Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry and Lauren Weinstein
2-3: CF, Frank Santoro, Gary Panter
3-4: Gary Panter, CF, and Lauren Weinstein
3:45-4:55: Frank Santoro Lecture @ MoCCA!
4-5: CF, Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry
5-6: CF and Dan Nadel in Conversation @ MoCCA!
5-6: Lauren Weinstein, Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry

Sunday:

11-12: Frank Santoro & Lauren Weinstein
12-2: Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry, Lauren Weinstein
2-3: Frank Santoro, Matthew Thurber, Lauren Weinstein
3-5: Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry, Matthew Thurber

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Tonight I’m moderating a panel with Kim Deitch, Evan Dorkin and Lauren Weinstein. Three generations of inspired lunacy. Come on out! Here’s the info:

The AIGA NY Presents:

Draw

Bamboozled beauties, hunky heroes and eccentric side-kicks populate the quirky universe of graphic novels and comic books. Dazzling drawings elevate plot points while witty repartee illuminates characters. Dan Nadel from Grammy Award-winning PictureBox, Inc. will explore this marriage of image to word with three artists that wield pen and pencil with equal dexterity. Kim Deitch introduces brilliant beings like Waldo the Cat into the comix cannon; Evan Dorkin chronicles dairy products gone bad in “Milk & Cheese”; Lauren R. Weinstein charts teenage angst in her semi-autobiographical “Girl Stories.” Come join this trio for a talk on crafting prose and drawn protagonists.

Speakers
Dan Nadel is the publisher/editor/art director of PictureBox, Inc., a Grammy Award-winning New York-based packaging and publishing company. Its most recent releases include Gary Panter. He is the author of Art Out of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries 1900–1969. PictureBox has recently opened a retail space in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, featuring an international assortment of books, records, prints, editions and sundries.

Kim Deitch has a reserved place at the first table of underground cartoonists. The son of UPA and Terrytoons animator Gene Deitch, Kim was born in 1944 and grew up around the animation business. He began doing comic strips for the East Village Other in 1967, introducing two of his more famous characters, Waldo the Cat and Uncle Ed, the India Rubber Man. In 1969 he succeeded Vaughn Bodé as editor of Gothic Blimp Works, the Other’s underground comics tabloid. During this period he married fellow cartoonist Trina Robbins and had a daughter, Casey. “The Mishkin Saga” was named one of the Top 30 best English-language comics of the 20th Century by The Comics Journal, and the first issue of The Stuff of Dreams received the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue in 2003. Deitch remains a true cartoonists’ cartoonist, adored by his peers as much as anyone in the history of the medium.

Evan Dorkin is the creator of MILK AND CHEESE, DORK, and HECTIC PLANET, all published by SLG/Amaze Ink. He’s also put in time at Marvel (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Comic, Agent X, The Thing: Night Falls On Yancy Street), Dark Horse (Hellboy: Weird Tales, The Dark Horse Book Of Hauntings, The Mask) and DC (Superman and Batman: World’s Funnest, Bizarro), among other comics publishers. His work has appeared in such publications as Esquire, Spin, The Onion, Mad, Disney Adventures, Penthouse Hot Talk and Nickelodeon magazine and he recently provided the cover art and interior illustrations for Larry Doyle’s novel, I Love You, Beth Cooper, published by Harper Collins. He’s written for Space Ghost Coast To Coast, Superman, Batman Beyond and The Shin-Chan animated series. He was the creator of the Welcome To Eltingville animated pilot, which aired on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block of programming, and was based on his Eltingville Club strips from Dork. It was a terrific bomb. His second pilot for the Swim, Tyrone’s Inferno, was shelved last year before it could reach bomb status. He is currently working as a writer and designer for the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba!, contributing to Mad and Nickelodeon magazine, writing material for the Bart Simpson comic from Bongo, and developing a series for Dark Horse comics along with collaborator Jill Thompson.

Lauren R. Weinstein is a cartoonist. Her most recent book, Girl Stories, was published by Henry Holt and was rated one of Booklist’s top 10 great graphic novels for teens. Her work has been featured in Yale University Press’s Anthlogy of Graphic Fiction and Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Comics of 2007. Currently, Lauren teaches drawing and cartooning to children and adults at the 92nd Street Y, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts. In 2003, she was the recipient of the Xeric Grant, allowing her to self-publish her first book, Inside Vineyland. In 2004, she received the Ignatz award for “Promising New Talent.” Her comics and illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, McSweeney’s, LA Weekly, The Chicago Reader, Kramer’s Ergot, and Seattle’s The Stranger. Currently she is working on the sequel to Girl Stories, tentatively entitled Calamity. Her sci-fi fantasy comic entitled The Goddess of War is coming out in May, 2008 from PictureBox.

TIME AND PLACE

Wednesday 4 June 2008 6:30–8:00PM
Galapagos
70 North 6th Street
between Kent and Wythe
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
718 782-5188
galapagosartspace.com

6:30–7:00PM Registration
7:00–8:00PM Presentation

$20 AIGA member
$10 AIGA student member
$30 general public

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