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
Evan Dorkin made an interesting comment about how when the Love and Rockets Sketchbook came out in the late ‘80s it was a minor bombshell. And it was. He also goes on to talk about major releases by some big name cartoonists which were basically noticed in passing by folks within comics. He said that he feels as if Wilson and The Book of Genesis garnered more mainstream press than discussion within comics circles. Let’s go to the videotape! (more…)
