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Last Sunday at TCAF (aka the best comics festival in North America) I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with Jeet Heer, Seth and Evan Dorkin on the ins and outs of editing/designing/publishing/consuming comics history. It begins with Evan lamenting the lack of proper old radio fandom. Note: I forgot to ask one crucial question: Complete editions vs. “Best of” editions. Not to late to chime in, gents. Anyhow, audio is below. Enjoy.

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Well, a little bit of news and some bragging.

First of all, please join me and Chip Kidd at The Strand (NYC) on Wednesday, May 12 at 7 pm for a lively discussion, slide show and signing for Art in Time.

And, I’ve received some very nice reviews from Entertainment Weekly (A-!), The Onion A.V. Club, and The Jewish Daily Forward, and have managed not to embarrass myself too badly in an interview with Publishers Weekly.

Ok, now go about your business. But don’t forget to come to The Strand!

UPDATE 5/15/10: New interview at Robot 6, where I really gab “deep nerd” with Chris Mautner, and book excerpts at the LA Times.

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Dash and I will be rolling into Toronto’s TCAF this weekend, May 8 and 9, with a full slate of programming and, natch, a full assortment of PictureBox books covering two tables. I’ll also be signing and selling Art in Time for all you history buffs out there. Come by the booth, go see Dash at his signings, and come see us both jabber on about comics.

Spotlight: Dan Nadel’s Art in Time
Saturday, May 8th, 10:30 – 11:15am, Learning Center 1

Publisher and comics historian Dan Nadel will discuss and show images from his new book, Art in Time, while addressing how comics history gets constructed and how the theme of adventure in comics has expanded and contracted over the years. Artists discussed will include H.G. Peter, Willy Mendes, Sharon Rudahl, Jack Kirby, Bill Everett.

-Spotlight: Paul Pope and Dash Shaw
Saturday May 8th, 12:00-1:00pm, The Pilot

TCAF Featured Guests Paul Pope and Dash Shaw are two of the most exciting creators in comics, mixing their influences and innovations to create groundbreaking work. Now Inkstuds Radio/Podcast host Robin McConnell will moderate a conversation between these two creators about the role that influences play in creating comics, ranging from traditional comics to film and music and from classical to contemporary works. This also includes a discussion of education, some key points in creating your own vision in comics, and an examination of how to make influences work and finding out where they lead you.

-Indie Comics Japan: Manga Outside the Mainstream
Saturday, May 8th, 1:45 – 2:45pm, Learning Center 1

Comics from Japan are called “manga”, and the very word inspires a very particular idea of style and presentation in the minds of many readers. But manga is just the Japanese word for comics, and the styles, presentations, and ideas contained within that medium are as interesting and diverse as the sorts of comics being produced in Europe or North America. Join publisher Dan Nadel of PictureBox Inc., translator/production coordinator Ryan Sands, Fanfare/Ponent-Mon and manga.about.com representative Deb Aoki, translator Jocelyene Allen, and moderator Christopher Butcher to discuss the many treasures manga has to offer North American readers!
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In the 1972  fanzine Sense of Wonder #12, Russ Manning published an enigmatic “see if you can guess” essay on Jesse Marsh. Without naming the artist, Manning takes the reader through the progression of the mystery artist’s style, beginning with Four Color Comics and ending with Johnny Mack Brown. Manning situates Marsh’s style from first-hand knowledge of Marsh’s influences, but goes further by describing the difference between an artist like Gould and an artist like Foster: design versus composition. It’s a quick theoretical detour, but one Manning would come back to later in interviews about his own work. Over halfway through the piece he declares Johnny Mack Brown #2 (featured in its entirety in Art in Time and chosen—I swear—before I even read this article!) a masterpiece, and then explains why in as close an analysis of artistic style as I’ve read from that period. Manning gets inside the work like a fellow artist but with the enthusiasm of a fan. And Russ Manning was, in fact, a fan. He began as an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine artist and, via Tarzan, made the acquaintance of Jesse Marsh, who got the younger artist his first job at Dell. Eventually, of course, Manning would succeed his mentor on Tarzan. By the end of the piece, Manning, with rhetorical flourish, reveals his subject to be Jesse Marsh. Anyhow, these two men, so different in style, were closely linked as artists and friends. It’s a study in contrast and lineage, and also a somewhat opaque subject, since both men were very private and possessed full lives outside of comics. Maybe this independent streak, something common to the handful of comic books masters on the west coast, was recognized and respected by the two friends. In any case, here is some fine evidence of an unusual artistic friendship.

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Click on this glowing word and make the images on your computer screen magically rearrange themselves into a Newsarama interview with Dan. It regards his amazing new book, Art in Time, and in it, he says things like this:

[Bill] Everett, to me, is the great heir to Alex Raymond on Flash Gordon, or someone like Virgil Finlay. His work has a wonderful sense of passion to it. He was a true auteur – he wrote, drew, lettered, did everything.

And this:

[“Crystal Night”] was introduced to me by my friend Matthew Thurber, who’s an artist. I kind of fell in love with it as a feminist take on Philip K. Dick, and I love the drawing as well. There’s a kind of unsung drawing style that artists like Justin Green and Sharon Rudahl and Frank Stack have that’s kind of figure-based and open.

Hmm, sounds interesting…

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I’m fascinated by the on-going process whereby old commercial comics are being reclaimed by revisionist critics. I’m thinking here particularly of Dan’s writings on Wally Wood and Hal Foster, not to mention the Art Out of Time/Art In Time books. I’m wondering if every journeyman artist can so easily be recuperated.

Al Williamson presents an interesting test case. On the pro side, one could argue that Williamson was to Alex Raymond what Alex Toth was to Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles. Toth took the Sickles/Caniff style and whittled it down to a powerful blunt instrument.  Just so, Williamson absorbed Raymond’s already elegant line-work and refined it to the nth degree.
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Jeet kindly forwarded me two letters from Pat Boyette to Roy Crane, which he came across while researching his texts for Fantagraphics’ upcoming Crane books. It sounds like these essays will do for Crane what our man Heer has already done for Frank King: completely open up a new way of thinking about his life and work. I can’t wait. Anyhow, as part of my continued and shameless shilling for Art in Time, here are the two letters. Love the humor here and Boyette’s unabashed fandom. Don’t forget to come see Frank and I at MoCCA this weekend in NYC. The password is: “Charlton.”

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I’m told by my Mom that today is Art in Time day! I’m sure she’s correct! This day in history you can stroll down to your comic book store (or somewhere!) and buy it. To celebrate here are some tour dates. More info to come. Bonus image by John Thompson below!

Come see me this weekend at the MoCCA Fest on April 10, at 1 pm at the Abrams booth.

And then:

May 1: Lucerne, Switzerland: Fumetto
May 8 & 9: Toronto, Canada: TCAF
May 12: NYC: The Strand (with Chip Kidd)
May 21: Brooklyn: Desert Island (with Richard Gehr)
May 30: LA: Cinefamily (with John Thompson, Sharon Rudahl, Barbara “Willy” Mendes, Jaime Hernandez, Lawrence “Real Deal” Hubbard, Johnny Ryan, Sammy Harkham.)
June 26: D.C.: Politics & Prose

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This year Frank and I will be at MoCCA in full force (NYC, April 10-11, Booth A19-20A).

I will have all things PictureBox, including the debut of our Charles Willeford book, as well as Thurber’s new 1-800 MICE 4. There will also be the usual extra special items from everyone from Neal Adams to Anya Davidson. Yes, you read that correctly. Ask nicely and I’ll show you the original pages for Real Deal that will be for sale for the first time. Frank will have a fantastic selection of back issues for sale. Calling in from “the basement”, Santoro had this to say:

I now have a “Master’s Box”: Kirby, Mazzucchelli, Steranko, Brown (Chester), Barks, McCarthy, and, uh, Ditko! Plus other, lesser known masters like Ogden Whitney and Pete Morisi. You need Slash Maraud? I got yer Slash Maraud! You needa da Cold Heat? I gotchooda Cold Heat! A new comic book costs at least 3 bux these days. I will have whole boxes of great stuff for 3 bux and under. Plus a “quarter box” – meaning each comic is only 25 cents! That’s right, True Believers, you thought it couldn’t happen in NYC but it’s happening. Finally some good, cheap comics for sale in the Big Apple!

I’ll be debuting my own Art in Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures 1940-1980 at the Abrams booth at 1 pm on Saturday with a signing by yours truly.

Avant men Frank and Dash will be on a panel on Saturday at 12:45, moderated by Bill K. They’ll be discussing color and line and form. Go get your learn on.

Peter Blegvad will be at the PictureBox booth on Sunday, 4/11, from 1 pm to 3 pm signing books. Don’t miss this rare opportunity.

That’s it! See you soon!

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As Art in Time gets closer to the big reveal I thought I’d begin to post some extra images I have by or of the cartoonists included. Here’s a rare photo of Jesse Marsh (with pipe) out for a day of sketching with animator Tom Oreb sometime in the late 1940s.

On another note, I stopped by Thirty Days NY, the space/shop that David Kramer and Sammy Harkham are curating in Tribeca (sponsored by Absolut Vodka and TBWA/Chiat/Day) opening April 8. It’s going to be a knock out.