P.S. Magazine ended as printed comic in 2017, ends as digital comic book in 2019

by Mike Rhode

While looking for information on military educational comic books, I went to a couple of websites for the P.S. Magazine, the Will Eisner-created longtime Army preventive maintenance publication.

The Army said that they ended publication of the print version in 2017:

"A World War II publication, Army Motors, which used a few cartoon characters to discuss maintenance problems, became the model for a new publication. In June 1951, the first issue of PS Magazine was published using the cartoon format. The Army technical bulletin transitioned to an all-digital format in June 2017, publishing its 775th edition -- the last to run in print."

The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) says that the electronic issue version will end this month with #804:

" Effective 1 Nov 2019, PS will cease publication of its monthly, illustrated magazine and move to a fully-online information resource. To read PS Magazine after 1 Nov 2019, visit www.psmagazine.army.mil. A quarterly compilation of articles appearing on its website will be made available on DVIDS."

Currently issues from 1999-2019 can be downloaded at the magazine's site at https://www.logsa.army.mil/#/psmag

Historical issues from 1951-2018 can be downloaded here.

Will Eisner Week exhibit at the Library of Congress

Last week, the departments of Serials (ie comic books) and Prints & Photographs (ie original art and posters) put on small exhibit for a couple of hours in recognition of Will Eisner's 100th birthday. In addition to Spirit comic books, there was original art by Eisner, as well as other comics and comic book pages.



 

  



More pictures are on Flickr.

Guess the artist, courtesy of Matt Dembicki

From Matt Dembicki: Saw this at a Famous Dave's BBQ restaurant in Oakton, Va.

Oooh, nice. Me want.

Google's Will Eisner tribute

Google's homepage logo today is a tribute to the great cartoonist, Will Eisner, on what would be his 94th birthday. Eisner was a guest at SPX and spoke at the Library of Congress at least once.

Thanks to Jeff R for the tip.

Dec 6: Eisner film at AFI in Silver Spring

Dec 6th 12pm AFI Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

thanks to Liz for the tip

Dec 6: Will Eisner Film

WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST
Sunday, December 6, 12:15 pm
AFI Silver Theatre

Will Eisner started working in comics in the1930s, just as they were moving from reprints of newspaper strips to tabloids featuring original material, and Eisner had some of the most original creations of all.  He combined elements of art, literature and film that eventually led to a successful career in what he called "sequential art," the forerunner of today's graphic novels.  Starting in 1939, his gritty crime fighter series The Spirit incorporated "film noir" as well as elements of the Jewish experience and the fight against anti-semitism. Featuring interviews with Michael Chabon, Art Spiegelman, Jules Feiffer and others, this visually imaginative documentary captures Eisner's groundbreaking genius. USA, 2007, video, documentary, 96 minutes, Director: Andrew D. Cooke

SPECIAL GUEST Andrew Cooke, Director

For tickets and information about other WJFF films please visit WJFF.org

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Dec 6: Eisner film at AFI in Silver Spring

Dec 6th 12pm AFI Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

thanks to Liz for the tip

The Spirit of Eisner, and Miller, and Neil Young's Vertigo

Frank Miller is interviewed for his adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit comic into a movie at "Artist-Director Seeks the Spirit of ‘The Spirit’," By ANDY WEBSTER, New York Times July 20, 2008. The Times also put audio files up on challenging scenes and movies from comics.

An article on Neil Young reveals that the rock musician's work is being adapted into both an opera and a comic book from DC's Vertigo imprint. In "Morphing Neil Young for the Stage and Page," By TOM SELLAR, New York Times July 20, 2008, Sellar wrote:

...Vertigo, the art-house arm of DC Comics, is turning Mr. Young’s material into a graphic novel. Karen Berger, the imprint’s executive editor, said the idea came from Mr. Young... Ms. Berger assigned the project to the artist Cliff Chiang, and the writer Joshua Dysart. “Josh established this wonderful, modern Southern Gothic approach to the tone of his writing,” Ms. Berger said. “He looked at a lot of Neil’s lyrics and tried to find ways to utilize them where it worked.” And, she added, Mr. Dysart was sympathetic to the work’s underlying vision of social redemption.

Like the Undermain stage collaborators, Vertigo’s team is digging deep into mythologies that Mr. Young has created about the fictitious town. So “Greendale” the graphic novel will feature concepts and characters beyond those introduced in the original recording. The 160-page volume will likely be released in fall 2009.

Feiffer interview at Cosmos Club coming to IJOCA

I just finished transcribing Alan Fern's interview of Jules Feiffer at the Cosmos Club in Washington last year, on the occasion of the McGovern award. It will appear in the Fall 2008 issue of the International Journal of Comic Art. Subscribe now!

Here's a sample, with Feiffer talking about bringing his portfolio to show to Will Eisner and being told his art was no good:

...But I had long ago established a habit of responding to unpleasant truths by not hearing them, or changing the subject, and I sure as hell was not going to walk out of this meeting with Will Eisner, my hero, with my tail between my legs, being told I had no talent. This was not the way this was going to end, so I started improvising and the only thing I could think of talking about was him and his work. Now here was a guy who had revolutionized comic book art and he had three highly crafted professionals in the other room who didn’t give a damn about his work. Who thought he was kind of out of date, and didn’t know anything about his career, and then he met me and I had a whole dossier. I knew everything he ever had done. I could talk about it not just as a little boy, but as a knowledgeable fan. He had no choice but to hire me as a groupie.

[audience laughs]

Eisner's PS Magazine scanned and online at VCU Library

Virginia Commonwealth University of Richmond has scanned and posted 162 issues of PS Magazine, Will Eisner's military training comic book.

Bob Andelman will be interviewing the librarian in charge of the project Cindy Jackson, as well as the author of the upcoming book, Will Eisner & PS Magazine, Paul Fitzgerald, on FRIDAY, APRIL 18 at 1 p.m. The URL is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mrmedia/2008/04/18/Cindy-Jackson-and-Paul-Fitzgerald-WILL-EISNER-PS-MAGAZINE-VCU-librarian-and-author-Mr-Media and you can participate in a simultaneous web chat or call in and ask the experts your own questions at (646) 595-3135.

VCU's library is also the home of Tom Inge's comic book collection.

OT: DC needs one last Spirit section

From Bob Andelman's Mr. Media list (which is very interesting - Bob interviews cartoonists and other media people weekly). And I've bought all of The Spirit Archives - DC's done a great job with them and the material is first rate as one would expect from Will Eisner.

I don't know if you're a collector of the original printed SPIRIT newspaper sections, but on the chance that you might be, I wanted to ask if you could help with a search I'm conducting for a scan of one specific Spirit Section. I'm currently working on the 24th volume of THE SPIRIT ARCHIVES, which will complete the collection of the published Spirit Sections (it contains all of the sections published in 1952), and for the 8/31/52 episode, "The Last Man on the Planet Moon," I don't have a copy of the original printed section that I can use to reconstruct the color for the book. I have copies of every other section's original color, but on this one all my regular sources have come up empty -- Bill Blackbeard, Denis Kitchen, Diamond and OSU are all missing this one section, and Heritage Auctions and eBay have also came up dry. So I'm writing to see if you might have a copy of this original printed section in your collection which you'd be willing to make color xeroxes or color scans (even a relatively low-resolution scan of 150 dpi is good enough to get the color info from) of the four pages for me to use, and, if not, if you know of any other collectors who might have the section whose contact info you could pass on to me. Please let me know.

Thanks,
Scott Nybakken
Scott.Nybakken@dccomics.com