Showing posts with label PenFaulkner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PenFaulkner. Show all posts

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom panel report

Literature professors Marc Singer (Howard U) and Michael Wenthe (American U) and I did a short panel at Busboys and Poets on 14th St at the request of PENFaulkner. Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware were in the audience and hopefully got some of the buffet supper. My friend, and potential breakout cartoonist for Cul de Sac, Richard Thompson accompanied me and didn't look too glazed over when the talk went academic at times.

I recorded 99% of the panel  - I missed my first question as moderator "Why have comics in the classroom, and how do you do it" was roughly the question. Marc Singer begins replying and the beginning of his reply is cut off too.

After the event, I was able to talk briefly with Lynda Barry who has some very interesting working methods. For her 100 Demons book, which I recommend, she has words written on cards that she pulls at random out of a bag. She then takes the word she's selected and writes other words that it reminds her of. When she has an idea for the strip, she starts writing and drawing it. As she said, 'The first draft is the only draft.' She also talked to Michael and I about her novel Cruddy, saying that she had been trying to write it for nine years on a computer. When she switched to writing with her brush and ink, it was done in under a year, so she feels that for cartoonists the link between moving your hand and thinking is wired into one's brain. Also for Cruddy, the illustrations are finger-painted, using ink, I think.

Lynda was absolutely great to talk to and very encouraging to anyone (including Chris Ware as he related the next night) who approached her. Alison and Chris are fun to talk to as well, and I'd like to spend more time talking comics with Dan Raeburn who's done three booklets and one big book on them. He moderated the talk by the cartoonists on the following night and I'll post on that separately.

Lynda's strips are now being posted on the Drawn & Quarterly blog.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Nov 8 - PEN/Faulkner "Comics and Graphic novels in the classroom"

A pre-Nov 9th Graphic Novels PEN/Faulkner event will be held at Busboys and Poets Cafe, 1390 V St, NW, WDC featuring professors Marc Singer (Howard), Michael Wenthe (American) and me (not a professor) on "Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom." The dinner costs $22.50 and one can rsvp to 202-898-9063 or tpoole@penfaulkner.org. I think that Barry, Bechdel and Ware will be at this event as well as speaking the next day.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Nov 9: PenFaulkner on comics

Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware - Nov. 9, 2007
PenFaulkner Reading series

Tickets are $15.00.

Graphic Novels
Lynda Barry, Chris Ware
Daniel Raeburn, Moderator
Friday, November 9, 8 p.m.

Held at the Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center

Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist whose comic strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” celebrates its 30th year in print in 2007. She is the author of The Good Times are Killing Me, which she adapted into a long-running off-Broadway play. The New York Times called her second novel, Cruddy, “a work of terrible beauty.” She received the 2003 William Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album and an American Library Association Alex Award for her book One! Hundred! Demons! She lives and works in southern Wisconsin.
Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For has become a countercultural institution since it began in 1983. The strip is syndicated in dozens of newspapers, translated into several languages and collected in a series of award-winning books. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as “one of the greatest hits of the twentieth century.” And Comics Journal says, “Bechdel's art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies.”
Chris Ware

Chris Ware is the writer and cartoonist of the periodical The ACME Novelty Library. His other works include Jimmy Corrigan — the Smartest Kid on Earth, recipient of an American Book Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and L’Alph Art; The ACME Novelty Datebook Volumes 1 and 2; and Quimby the Mouse. His work has appeared in many national and international art exhibits, including the Whitney Biennial exhibit in 2002. He was recently awarded the Hoi Fellowship by the newly-formed United States Artists. A regular contributor to The New Yorker, Ware is currently at work on two longform graphic novels, Rusty Brown and Building Stories.


Daniel Raeburn is the author of the book Chris Ware. His essays have appeared in The Baffler, Tin House, and The New Yorker. His book about comic books, The Imp of the Perverse, is forthcoming. He teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago.