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Snow has kept me away from computers and comics and home for a very long time now — I have nothing to say about funnybooks this week. I briefly considered just giving up, and suggesting that we celebrate the new year with an old video, always worth re-watching:

Luckily, Tom Spurgeon has just interviewed a Comics Comics team member, Mr. Jason T. Miles, sparing us all from that indignity.

You can read their conversation here, and I don’t have to fake a post! This is a true Christmas miracle.

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Hello and welcome to CC weekend edition. I’m your host – Frankie The Wop. In an effort to understand what it takes to achieve Tom Spurgeon level of comics bloggerdom – I have moved to New Mexico. Spurge is at 6200 feet above sea level and I think that it’s the air up here that makes looking out beyond the frontier of comics possible. Wait, what? I dunno what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m high as shit and it ain’t from the altitude. The holiday season has begun. I got nuthin’ this week. (more…)

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The new Inkstuds book

As Jog mentioned last week, the Inkstuds book is now in stores. Jog avoided saying too much about it for conflict of interest reasons, and I have even more conflicts than he does. I wrote the introduction to the book, which also includes the transcript on an interview with me, Dan, and Tom Spurgeon.

But Comics Comics has a long and noble tradition of **ahem**Dan Nadel**ahem** shameless self-promotion, so I’ll say a few words. It’s a very handsome book, amply illustrated with examples of the cartoonists work. And to his credit Robin McConnnell has interviewed many cartoonists who have rarely if ever been questioned about their work (notably the great Ted Stearn). Finally and unexpectedly, the interviews read very well in print. Even though I’ve listened to many of the interviews before, I’ve found that when I read them I pick up on nuances that I missed as a listener. So if you’re interested in contemporary comics, I’d suggest picking up the book.

Here’s an excerpt from my intro:

Among the many comics interviewers, the best were Verne Greene, John Benson, Arn Saba, Gary Groth, and Todd Hignite.  In the early 1960s, Greene, who then drew the strip Bringing Up Father, hosted a radio program on WRVR in New York City where he chatted with peers like Chester Gould and Roy Crane, getting them to share in the secrets of their craft. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Benson conducted path-breaking interviews with comic book artists such as Bernie Krigstein and Gil Kane, where they spoke honestly about the commercial limits of the form and their artistic ambitions. In the 1970s, Arn Saba, then a young cartoonist with an enviable gig at CBC radio, interviewed such venerable comic strip masters as Hal Foster, Floyd Gottfriedson, and Milton Caniff, catching them in the twilight of their career…..

I’ll add a regret that I didn’t talk about Tom Spurgeon as one of the great interviewers, since he’s done some really deft quizing of both mainstream comics artists, and a wide range of contemporary art cartoonists and also writers about comics. I know from my own experience, that Tom is a really acute reader whose questions are like x-rays in the way the lay bare the insides of a book. 

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I promise not to link to every nice review about the book, but Tom Spurgeon’s is the first substantive take on the book and he does a better job than I ever could of explaining it and what I hope is its appeal. It’s heartwarming, even for grouchy ol’ me, to have my work, and that of the cartoonists, so well discussed.

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“The real question is this: Are comic books good or are they not good? Now it all depends on what you want. If you want to raise a generation that is half storm-troopers and half cannon-fodder, with a dash of illiteracy, then comic books are good. In fact, they are perfect.”

Via Bill Kartalopolous, an audio file of a pretty terrific old episode of The Author Meets the Critics, featuring a debate with the infamous Dr. Frederic Wertham.

UPDATE: Oh, and gee, I should mention that this is a different episode than the one Tom Spurgeon highlighted the other day, which also featured Wertham, along with Al Capp.

Because of my dereliction of duty, let me point you to an article I only recently discovered was available online, Robert Warshow’s famous essay on Wertham and EC, in which he references the Capp/Wertham episode in question.

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Following up on Dan’s post on the MoCCA Archie show from last week, I wanted to draw your attention to two related links.

First, Tom Spurgeon agrees with Dan, and today does a nice job of clearly presenting the issue. (Incidentally, he also put up a post collecting all of his 2009/10 “Holiday Interviews” with critics, including contributions from four of your favorite Comics Comics bloggers.)

Second, Bob Heer (whose Kirby and Ditko blogs I’ve enjoyed for years, without realizing until today that he is Jeet’s brother!) has written a long post tackling a related ethical issue: whether or not the artists who created so many recently republished classic comics are being paid royalties.

At the risk of being accused of putting my head in the sand, I’d say that’s kind of important. What would Siderman do?

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Finally, the Year We Make Contact. What better way to celebrate than with an all-CC links roundup?

1. Dan takes to the internet to discuss Ron Regé and Joan Reidy’s Boys with Tom Spurgeon.

2nd: The Daily Cross Hatch begins a multi-part interview with the always voluble Frank Santoro.

3. Speaking of Frank, Cold Heat has been appearing on a lot of best of the year lists, including here and here. And Dan’s Art Out of Time made a most important of the decade list.

4. Also, Jeet’s been doing some great posts on gay representation in old newspaper comics on his other blog, which you have probably already read, but if not: here and here.

5. I think Dash might have a book out this week or something?

6. And finally, this isn’t the most interesting video in the world, but it seemed important to post, if only for the light it sheds on the now apparently settled-for-good Mort Drucker controversy. I still don’t understand that quote from the book I mentioned, though…

[via]

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Our own Tim talks In the Shadow of No Towers over at Comics Reporter. It’s a great read.

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Go to the Comics Reporter to learn more.

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Via Steve Bissette, Tom Spurgeon broke the news of Little Lulu artist Irving Tripp’s passing. This was all the more shocking for many of us selfish historian-types because, as Tom noted, we weren’t aware he was still around all these years. So, Jeet had the idea to reprint the one interview known to exist with Tripp, from Another Rainbow’s Little Lulu Vol. 16 (1985).

Anyhow, now CC pal Seth has graciously supplied these scans of that fascinating interview, posted here with permission. Click to enlarge each scan to reading size. Thanks to all, and thanks to Irving Tripp, a master cartoonist.