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Remember when we used to sometimes post reviews and little essays on here. Well, we’re sort of too busy pulling together Comics Comics 3, our biggest and best issue yet and features a collaborative cover by Sammy Harkham and Guy Davis, as well as Kim Deitch on the meaning of life and a list by Renee French. Tim is slowly (?) losing his mind while finishing his essay on Steve Gerber and I’m having paranoid thoughts while finishing my “What Went Wrong With the Masters of American Comics Exhibition” diatribe. It’ll be out in June, debut at MoCCA, and blow your minds.

In the meantime, I’m please to write that last Wednesday’s event at the fabulous Issue Project Room was amazing. Amy Lockhart’s films wowed the crowd and then Matthew Thurber’s Ambergris blew the doors off the place. While Thurber and compatriot Rebecca Bird warbled and whistled I unrolled a spectacular scroll drawn by the Thurber himself. Those of you who haven’t bought the first issue of his 1-800 MICE should run out and get it now.

After Ambergris came Gary Panter and Devin Flynn. Now, Gary hadn’t played in public in a few decades, but as some of you may know, has released a couple of records and a handful of seven inches. Fun fact: Ian McClagen of The Faces played in Gary’s first record, Pray for Smurph (1983). It’s a stone cold classic of skronk psych-country music. Devin Flynn is half of Pixeltan and an accomplished animator whose work can be seen on big and small screens. Together, well, they laid it down, man. While Devin thumped and keyed and bass-ed Gary let loose on the guitar with some serious Texas-style chops and a dry, high plains yelp. When he sings “I fought the Lord” I kinda think he might’ve, inbetween painting, drawing, and duding. One audience member called the performance “masculine”, and I think it kinda was. Well, when his big books comes out maybe we’ll send him on tour with his gee-tar.

Anyhow, it was a fine night, and we hope to do it again real soon!

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From Dan’s press release:

It’s the rock-n-art event of the year! Or at least the month!

Yes, PictureBox, together with Issue Project Room, presents an evening of book/art related entertainment.

Musical sets by:

–Gary Panter and Devin Flynn
This is Gary’s first live show since before you were born. You know Cream? It’ll be like that.

–Matthew Thurber/Ambergris
Thurber put together a rock combo for this one. You know Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd? It’ll be like that.

And films by Amy Lockhart! Do you know goodness? It will be so.

All happening at 8 pm, April 18th.

Issue Project Room
400 Carroll Street
between Bond and Nevins
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Telephone: 718-330-0313

$10

Come rock with us. (Oh and posters by Gary will be for sale, as well as other goodies!)

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A few months ago I was asked by Adam Baumgold to curate a show of female cartoonists at his gallery. The show is set for a September 6th opening. I’m normally averse to comics shows and particularly to gender-specific shows of anything, but, given the lack of recognition given to all of the below artists, it seemed like it might be a good idea. There’s been a lot of hoopla about the lack of women in the Masters of American Comics exhibition opening in New York in September, most of which I think is misguided. There aren’t any because, for most of the century comics were created almost exclusively by men. There’s no way around that. But, by opening my little show at the same time as the Masters show, hopefully audiences can see that, yes, female cartoonists do indeed exist. In fact, I’d argue that between them Lauren Weinstein, Carol Tyler, Megan Kelso and Renee French probably released the best comics of the year so far. My choices are highly subjective–I simply based it on who I feel is doing the most visually inventive work at the moment, with a bit of an anchor in the history as well. There are tons of artists excluded, but, well, that’s my job. Anyhow, what follows below is the press release for the show and a few images as well.

Telling Tales: Contemporary Women Cartoonists
Curated by Dan Nadel

Genvieve Castree
Roz Chast
Jessica Ciocci
Julie Doucet
Debbie Drechsler
Anke Feuchtenberger
Renee French
Phoebe Gloeckner
Megan Kelso
Aline Kominsky-Crumb
Amy Lockhart
Diane Noomin
Jenni Rope
Dori Seda
Anna Sommer
Carol Tyler
Lauren Weinstein

Adam Baumgold Gallery is pleased to present Telling Tales: Contemporary Women Cartoonists. Telling Tales is a subjective look at the last four decades of comics drawn by women.

Long a boys club, comics have, since the rise of the late 1960s underground, opened up to women as a medium like any other. Unfortunately, most current historical surveys are notable not only for the absence of women artists but also the absence of women as protagonists or even subjects in the medium itself. And while a gender-based exhibition might marginalize women even further, Telling Tales seems necessary as a slight corrective to the usual historical narrative.

The seventeen artists included here were chosen for their unique points of view and their idiosyncratic approaches to cartooning. All are free from the usual stylizations of comics, making stories that rely as much on line and mark as narrative and dialogue. Each artist has made an indelible mark on the medium, including Aline Kominsky Crumb, who helped revolutionize comics drawing with her scratchy line and brutal abstractions; Debbie Dreschler brings an unthinkably dense patterning to the medium; while Renee French’s lush pencils convey meaning in each stroke. Younger artists, such as Lauren Weinstein and Amy Lockhart, have appropriated old genres, such as confessional and superhero comics, and used them for their own purposes. The larger story of these artists is swiftly evolving and Telling Tales will be just the first chapter of this long artistic narrative.

Amy Lockhart:

Megan Kelso:

Debbie Dreschler:

Anna Sommer: