| Censorship, the Comic Book, and "Seduction of the Innocent" at 70: A Roundtable Discussion | ||
| Date & Time | Jun 6, 2024 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) | |
| Webinar ID | 161 745 5860 | |
| Passcode | 831293 | |
| Description | In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham published "Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today's Youth," a book that cemented his role as America's most prominent critic of comic books. At the time, comic books were near the peak of their popularity, with titles like Batman, Superman, and Captain Marvel selling as many as 1.5 million copies per month. The content of those comics was also entirely unregulated. Writing amid a moral panic that Wertham himself helped create, "Seduction of the Innocent" almost immediately helped spur the formation of the Comics Code Authority, which dramatically reshaped the nation's comic book industry. Join staff of the Manuscript and Serial & Government Publications divisions for a roundtable discussion with three comic studies scholars who will make brief presentations on current research, and discuss Wertham's anti-comics legacy and its afterlives in more recent clashes over representations of race and sexuality in comics and graphic novels. Panelists will include: • Margaret Galvan, Assistant Professor of visual rhetoric, Department of English, University of Florida • Carol Tilley, Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Qiana J. Whitted, Professor of English and African American Studies, University of South Carolina The panel will be moderated by Josh Levy of the Library's Manuscript Division and Megan Halsband of the Serial and Government Publications Division, who will briefly highlight the Fredric Wertham Papers and the Library's vast collections of comic books and zines. Join us to reflect on race, gender and representation, visual culture and archives, and Wertham's anti-comics crusade seven decades on. | |
Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts
Thursday, June 06, 2024
Starting in 30 minutes: Censorship, the Comic Book, and "Seduction of the Innocent" at 70: A Roundtable Discussion
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Frederick's Cumber on celebrities writing comic books
He thinks they should stop.
Save me from these celebrity comics
By Cliff Cumber
Frederick News-Post May 13, 2024
Friday, March 08, 2024
Awesome con started today - here are the comic book creators attending
Monday, January 01, 2024
Comic Arts Deaths in 2023 (final)
This will be updated as notices continue to come in. The list is an annual feature of the Comics Research Bibliography. Updates are marked with * - list finalized as of Jan 18, 2024.
Deaths in 2023 (with thanks to Bruce Guthrie’s Wikipedia mining, *Jamie Lang’s Cartoon Brew list, *John Freeman’s Down the Tubes list, *Wikipedia’s 2023 in Comics page, *DD Degg’s Daily Cartoonist list, *Didier Pasamonik’s ActuaBD list, and *Animation Magazine’s list) included editorial cartoonist Jim Adcock, Harmony Gold animation distributor Frank Agrama, Swedish animator Per Åhlin, Orang Utan Comics founding member Azim Akberali, Japanese manga artist Ryuzan Aki, *Dutch cartoonist Henk Alleman, Italian cartoonist Carlo Ambrosini, *animator Craig Armstrong, DC Comics librarian Allan Asherman, Belgian comic book artist Jo-El Azara (aka Joseph Loeckx), Spanish cartoonist Toni Batllori, Dave Comics (Brighton England) manager Stephen Bamford, Canadian animator Ted Bastien, Jack Bender, Golden Age comic collector Jon S. Berk, *animator Susan Bielenberg, tv animation syndicator Edward Bleier, Russian animator Natalya Bogomolova, *BC Boyer, *Disney animator David Braden, *animator Ernesto Brieno, Hero Initiative coordinator Kevin Brogan (of Covid), French comics writer Jean-Yves Brouard, Chris Browne, *animation checker and painter Susan Burke, *British comic artist John Burns, British experimental animator Paul Bush, political cartoonist Clay Butler, *French comic writer Thierry Cailleteau, Italian cartoonist Renato Calligaro, *French cartoonist Louis Cance, Doonesbury inker Don Carlton, Brazil’s Paulo Caruso, French BD artist Jean-Claude Cassini, Italian comic book artist Massimo Cavezzali, “Yarns of the Yellowstone” cartoonist Bill Chapman, *storyboard artist John “Rich” Chidlaw, *Duck Soup Produckions co-founder Roger Chouinard, TV’s first Lois Lane Phyllis Coates, *French cartoonist Thierry Courtin, animator and Disneyland designer Rolly Crump, India’s Amul girl’s creator Sylvester daCunha, *animator Sukhdev Dail, *Scottish comic writer Jim Dallas, *Dutch cartoonist Wim de Bie, Bob de Groot, Toonz Animation Studios cofounder Bill Dennis, Elizabeth Woodward’s “Column for Teens” header cartoonist Ellen Derby (nee Keefe), *Belgian editor-in-chief of Journal Titnin Henri Desclez (aka Hapic),*British animator Alan Dewhurst, alternative cartoonist Michael Dougan, Canadian voice actor Ross Douglas, semi-pro panel cartoonist John Dusko, *Swedish comic artist Lennart Elworth, *British animator Ian Emes, Spanish cartoonist Enrich (aka Enric de Manuel González), *animator Don Ernst, comic book artist Steve Erwin, Brian Ewing, New Yorker cover artist Ian Falconer, *French exhibition curator and member of the Quai des Bulles festival Alain Faure, Wally (Trog) Fawkes, Yugoslavian Bosnian gag cartoonist Hasan Fazlic, Charles A. Filius, comic book inker John Floyd, *Australian animation legend Cam Ford, *animation storyboard artist Gerry Fournier, British graphic novel writer Christopher Fowler, Disney animator Randy Fullmer, *Hungary’s Attila Futaki, Argentine comics artist Ernesto García Seijas, Raleigh Comic Book Expo organizer Russ Garwood, American cartoonist Paul Giambarba, 2000AD's Ian Gibson, Joe Giella, MCU visual effects producer Diana Giorgiutti, Earthworld Comics store owner JC Glindmyer, Uruguayan cartoonist Tabaré Gómez Laborde, Pluggers contributor Gregory Grabiak, Dan Green, The Ph.D. Culture Cartoon Book author Gary Grobman, Dærick Gröss Sr., Sam Gross, comic store owner / Marvel employee / Geppi consultant Gary Guzzo, King of the Hill voice actor Johnny Hardwick, *British underground comix publisher Lee Harris, disgraced Australian cartoonist Rolf Harris, John Hart Studio gag writer-colorist-letterer Perri Hart, *animation technical director Vahe Haytaian, comic strip and comic book cartoonist Frank Hill, comic book historian Roger Hill, Egyptian cartoonist Ibrahim Hunaiter, British political cartoonist Tony Husband, Spanish cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez Talavera, Japanese voice actor Shōzō Iizuka, David Illsley, *anime director Satoshi Iwataki, Luke Cage TV writer Nathan Louis Jackson, John Jakes, *animation writer Gregory Joackim, Creators Syndicate comics department manager Pete Kaminski, *Doc Savage comic book cover artist Roger Kastel, *British comics agent Pat Kelleher, Japanese animator Takahiro Kimura, *animation color designer William “Bike” Kinzle, *animator Tony Klück, Edward Koren, Disney and animation historian Jim Korkis, illustrator Sandy Kossin, stop-motion animator Pete Kozachik, artist and graphic designer Frank Kozik, *Tatsunoko Productions anime studio co-founder Ippei Kuri, Japanese voice actor Yasumichi Kushida, *Belgian comic artist Lagas, *Softimage founder Daniel Langlois, *animation storyboard and layout artist Lin Larsen, *Space Ace publisher and comics writer John Lawrence, "postmodern cartoon art expressionist" David “LEBO” Le Batard, gag cartoonist Bill Lee, ‘Mulan’ singer and Chinese voice actor Coco Lee, South Korean cartoonist Lee Woo-young, editorial cartoonist Jay Leeson, *French cartoonist Pierre Le Goff, French cartoonist Paul Leuquet, *animation technical director Nick Levenduski, Emily & Toby cartoonist Virginia Lindemann, original Wednesday Addams actress Lisa Loring, French BD author Malo Louarn, *animator Gerald “Jerry” Loveland, *animation production manager Anne Luiting, *British cartoonist and animator Ric Machin, *animation layout artist and character Istvan Majoros, syndicate comics editor Sharon Malheiro, *animator Walter P. Martishius, collector Harry Matetsky, British comic book company Beyond The Bunker founder and colorist Ivanna Matilla, anime producer Shunpei Maruyama, Leiji Matsumoto, Disney animator Burny Mattinson, Bruce McCall, Ian McGinty, *Disney animation historian Russell Merritt, Amanda Panda and Harvey Pekar artist Jack Millie, comic book artist Lee Moder, Harvard Lampoon cartoonist Bob Moncrieff, Italian comic artist Giuseppe Montanari, NCS administrator Latisha Moore, Pluggers writer Tom Moore, *animator Ken Mundie, *Coco’s Mexican voice actor Ana Ofelia Murguía, Hisaya Nakajo (aka Peco Fujiya and Ryou Fumizuki), Russian animator Vyacheslav Nazaruk, Indian cartoonist Ajit Ninan, Norwegian cartoonist Dina Norlund, Crash Bandicoot videogame voice actor Brendan O'Brien, collector and scholar Richard D. Olson, Italian comic book artist Graziano Origa, Ukrainian writer for TCJ Evheny Osievsk, Dutch cartoonist Richard Pakker, voice actor Jansen Panettiere, *Argentine comic artist Carlos Pedrazzini (aka Salomon Grundig), Scott Pellegrini, Sri Lankan cartoonist Camillus Perera, French cartoonist Jean-Louis Pesch, Australian cartoonist Bruce Petty, Italian comic artist Luigi Piccatto, Canadian political cartoonist Peter “Pic” Pickersgill, *animation writer Duane Earl Poole, underground cartoonist Joshua Quagmire (aka Richard Glen Lester II), *animator Dick Rauh, Paul Ramboux aka “Sidney”, MCU stuntman Taraja Ramsess, animation writer Michael Reaves, *animation voice actor Lance Reddick, *French-Canadian Hubert Reeves, *voice actor Paul Reubens aka Pee-wee Herman, *animation background designer Jeffrey Riche, *cel painter Filonella “Nellie” Rodriguez Bell, *animator Jessie Romero, Portfolio Entertainment’s co-founding partner and CEO Joy Rosen, Mexican artist José Luis Ruiz Pérez, Pittsburgh comic book shop owner Ron Russitano, animator William Ruzicka, *animator Lucinda Sanderson, 'Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto' manga creator Nami Sano, St. Louis Post-Dispatch cartoonist Al Schweitzer, Japanese voice actor Mitsuo Senda, *French comics artist Patrice Serrin, Belgian animator Raoul Servais, Gerry Shamray, Robotman creator Peter Shelley, Kentucky comic store owner Rickey Sheppard, *Brazilian comic book colorist PC Siqueira, comic book writer Steve Skeates, Dutch comic store owner Han Slotema, colorist Jasen Smith, Fox Television Animation storyboard cleanup artist Jeff Scott Smith, Harley Quinn inspiration and voice actor (and Tiny Toon Adventures writer) Arleen Sorkin, American voice actor Peter Spellos, art dealer Allen Spiegel, Italian cartoonist Sergio Staino, *animator Allen Stovall, *Strahle’s Baliwick comic panel cartoonist Jim Strahle, former college editorial cartoonist Robert Stringer, Indian cartoonist Sukumar, African-American animator Leo D. Sullivan, Beano “Bash Street Kids” artist David Sutherland, Canadian animation supporter Hélène Tanguay, Italian artist Saverio Tenuta, Buichi Terasawa, *Italian writer Antonio Tettamanti, Toei President Osamu Tezuka, direct market pioneer Mel Thompson, British comic strip cartoonist Bill Tidy, St. Petersburg Times editorial cartoonist Joe Tonelli, Japanese manga artist Yoshiko Tsuchida, French BD writer Eddy Vaccaro, comics historian and art dealer Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr., *Dutch cartoonist Rupert van der Linden, *Netherlands-based Academy Award-winning animation producer Cilia van Dijk, *French publisher of Marvel Claude Vistel, ‘Lois & Clark’ writer and producer Jeff Vlaming, Mike Voiles of Mike's Amazing World of Comics website, Egyptian cartoonist Ragai Wanis, voice actor Jimmy Weldon, *Dutch cartoonist Harr Wiegman, MECCAcon founder Maia Crown Williams, Doug Wright Awards patron Phyllis Wright Thomas, Studio Ghibli art director Nizo Yamamoto, editorial cartoonist John “Yardley” Yardley-Jones, *Swedish cartoonist Leif Zetterling.
Friday, December 29, 2023
Meet a Local Comic Book Artist: A Chat with Sean Damien Hill
by Mike Rhode
On September 16, 2023, comic book artist Sean Damien Hill was signing his new X-Men collection at Fantom Comics. He chatted with a small crowd for about an hour, discussing the business of comics, his influences, and how he worked. I thoroughly enjoyed it and bought the Bishop comic, as well as the DC Blood Syndicate collection that he had work in. Hill said he works a full time job, is a father, and does his comic work late in the evening. He also talked about being influenced by bodybuilders when it came to drawing superheroes. I appreciate him taking the time to answer our usual questions.
What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
I think I can describe it as super hero and fantasy illustration. At least those are my biggest influences in my work.
How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?
I’ve gone back forth on digital and traditional, depending on the project I’m doing. But right now I’m experimenting with doing digital thumbnails, printing it on Bristol board and going traditional from there.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
I was born and raised in Washington DC. Petworth is actually my old neighborhood. 
Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
Nowadays I live in Alexandria Virginia. I’ve been there for about 8 years now. I like it here though it is a bit quieter lol.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
Well I had a mentor I met in elementary school, his name is Kofi Tyus and he is an artist that taught classes around the city back then. He also did a lot of cartooning for independent publications around the city at the time, along with doing them for his own greeting card business. He was teaching a comics and cartooning class when my school art teacher introduced me to him because she knew I was hugely into comics. He helped us make our own comic that he actually printed and would help us sell them to our friends, families or neighbors.
Who are your influences?
That is an pretty big list but from very young I used to read through my mom's books and two of my favorite were Stephen King's The Stand with art from Bernie Wrightson and Milton’s Paradise Lost with all the amazing artwork from Gustave Dore. My grandfather and mom were into comics and they introduced me to a lot of books at the time. Artist like Will Eisner and Jim Lee stick out, though I’m sure not many link those two names together as an influence too often. Right now artists like Mshindo Kuumba, Ivan Reis, a dozen others really have a big influence on me. 
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? Or rather, how are you hoping your career will develop?
Looking back I think I would have made my own book first before doing any freelance stuff, and tell my own stories. Freelancing can be fun, as it does allow you to add your voice to an already-made world and [you can enjoy] seeing how it looks with you playing around in that world. But making my own thing has always been on my mind. One of these days I gotta do it.
What work are you best-known for?
I think for right now it might be for Bishop War College for Marvel Comics.
What work are you most proud of?
It’s between three books that I still feel pretty proud of: The Hated with David Walker; Dark History of Okemus with TJ Sterling and Isnana the Were-spider: Drums of the Ogunm with Greg Elyse.
Those are all Indy titles though. 
What would you like to do or work on in the future?
I hope to continue to do a lot more black-centric characters in the indies and continue to work for Marvel and DC. I’d love to do some X-men stuff again and for DC I’d love a shot at a Bat family character. Hopefully I get myself together and do my own thing too.
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
I don’t want to say I never have a block, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just me being too hard on myself about what I should produce. I firmly believe in every artist there’s 100 bad drawings and you gotta get through them to get the good ones. So I kinda just take it easy on myself, go ahead and work through all my trash ideas and play with them until I get something that works. 
What do you think will be the future of your field?
It’s gonna be interesting for sure, right now I’m seeing a small influx of Indy creators being picked by Marvel and DC more and more. And a lot of more established creators going into business for themselves. This tends to happen in comics a lot but it looks like we’re having another small wave happening now. I think crowd funding for Indy comics will continue to scale up; it’s starting to look like the best business model Indy comics has ever had. In the past the success of an Indy publisher would be to push themselves until they can mimic the business and distribution model of established publishers, but it’s got its own way now to build and sell to an audience and overall I think that’s great for comics.
What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con, or others? Any comments about attending them?
So I am absolutely terrible at attending cons. But I have been sneaking into Blerdcon over in Alexandria in recent years to sign books with creators I’ve worked with there like TJ over at Rae comics and Isnana the Were-spider with Greg Elyse. I haven’t been to Awesome con in awhile and I’d love to see Baltimore Comic Con again.
What comic books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?
I’m usually buying a lot more Indy stuff lately, I think the most recent think I got was a book called Crescent City Monsters from Dreamfury Comics. I’m also looking to get the collected edition of Fall of X too pretty soon. Sadly I don’t get as much time to read as much as I used too. 
What's your favorite thing about DC?
I think DC has the benefits of a small town, but in a metropolitan city. I’ve had friends I’ve known here since I was a kid and I would still run into them sometimes now, even though we’ve both moved in different places of the city probably several times over. There’s a strong sense of community here if you willing to invest in it. Plus we have THE best looking city flag in the nation.
Least favorite?
The Metro, it tough when you slogan is “getting back to good” it’s like your openly advertising your bad.
What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?
For me it’s either the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument, I’ve always love the monument. My wife and I had our engagement photos there.
How about a favorite local restaurant?
I think everyone in DC should experience Ben’s Chilli Bowl at least once, even if you're visiting but I don’t have an absolutely favorite place though.
Do you have a website or blog?
Yes, my website is www.seandamienhill.com [ed note: some original art from Bishop is for sale on his site]
Monday, July 18, 2022
ComicsDC on the road - Tall Man of Knoxville, TN
I was visiting in Knoxville and stopped into a Tall Man Toys & Comics, a local shop near the Museum of Art. Putting the toys before comics in their name is accurate, as you can see from these photos, but they had a decent selection of new comics, with a buy 3, get 1 free discount, and the same graphic novel discount too, as well as good-sized back issue collection. The staff was quite nice, even when I left without buying anything, after I asked if they had anything produced locally (no). This is close to the University of Tennessee and the Worlds Fair Park, so I guess those two groups provide their customer base.
The Knoxville Museum of Art had an exhibit by woman artists with a superhero link as seen below. The museum is definitely a local one with no Western old masters, but there was a good glass exhibit, an excellent show by woman artist's and another good one of local artists and their history.
Monday, May 23, 2022
"Who Is This Gallant Girl of Greatness?” A Chat with Brian Biggs about "My Hero"
Recently Brian Biggs came down to DC to look at original art at the Library of Congress and talk to the librarians about preserving his own work. After that, he and I met for lunch on a Library patio, to talk about My Hero, his new book about a child superhero. We were joined by Prints & Photographs librarian Sara Duke and my daughter Claire Rhode, a former children’s book seller, who were invited to ask questions as well.
The book’s secret origin
Brian Biggs: Well, haha, you just did. But Publisher’s Weekly
published a capsule description and review.
MR: Ok, then how did you come up with the idea for it?
BB: The idea for the book was hatched over lunch way back in 2007, believe it or not. I was talking with my friend Tamson, who was an editor for Hyperion and other children’s publishers about the characters I like to write. Both of us had young kids at the time, around seven and five, and I seemed to be wanting to tell stories about kids that age. These little kids who have these rich internal lives separate from the larger world and an absolute belief in themselves that anything is possible. As parents, we don’t really share that belief, because it’s our job to keep them safe. So this little kid, named Jeff at the time, wants to do something and it might be just helping the old lady across the street. But we as parents are like, “Oh wait, look both ways… don't do that thing.“ Or, or in my kid's case, it was walking down the dirt road at their grandma's house to fetch the mail. It's an old house set back in the woods and the mailbox is down this dirt road just a quarter mile away. There's nothing really that can happen to them, but of course, as parents, we can think of 5,000 things that can happen to them. And so, for my kids, their thoughts were, “We're going to go get the mail for mom and dad” or whatever, but we're like, “Don't get hurt, don’t get kidnapped, don’t fall down.” So, this started as an idea, it was just a sketch, a one-inch tall sketch of a book called Jeff Hero. The sketch was a little boy sitting on a hilltop with his bicycle lying next to him and his cape flapping in the wind and his hands on his hips. And it says, in the same lettering that I use here in My Hero, it says “Jeff Hero” coming down from the top in sort of in a Schoolhouse Rock sort of way. Sometimes you do something like that and you think, “Huh, I don’t know what this story is about or what it means, but that's going to be a book someday.”
Years later, actually just as I began work on this actual book, I found a paragraph in the same sketchbook where the kid, Jeff, has found two rocks, and he's talking to someone about these two rocks. At the end of the paragraph, we realize that the someone he's talking to is a bird. So, apparently, there was a talking bird in this story. And I didn't know anything about it. Where did this come from? It was kind of fun to read, but I don't know what it is.
I was on a bike ride about three years ago, where I do a lot of thinking, and I realized that Jeff isn’t Jeff. Jeff is actually a little girl, and Mom's not Mom, Mom is Dad. And that shift made everything fall into place at that point, because for me, this made the story about my own kid, who was going through his own transition. So now the person who I believed to be my daughter is my son. It was that it was during that period where he was announcing his transition, and I realized I'm not giving him his own space to be this person he is. As an adult, I was forcing something else, maybe… I don't know what. I'm still not always comfortable with the whole idea, but you have to back out of the way of a young adult at some point, right? And so, the same way Dad has to back out of the way of Abigail in the book and let Abigail be the hero she truly is, and save him from Purple Octopus. Purple Octopus is all of our fears that manifest however they want to manifest.
There are enough clues in the book so that a kid could convince a parent that Abigail really is Awesome Girl, and this is all a true story; but of course, a parent sees it as merely a metaphor. “Oh, you're still just pretending, and I didn't really get caught by the purple octopus,” but are little clues.
BB: The book begins with a cat in a tree over seven spreads, so I drew this tree seven times. But I must have actually drawn that tree about 40 times, as sketches, as practice, just different ways, different methods, different media, different ways of doing it. This is like performance art in a sense where, when I start drawing these leaves, it’s in real-time with different colored inks set out with water and the way they bleed is important, and I can’t stop in the middle. I would turn off my phone <laugh> and I needed an hour… I'm going to draw a tree and I can't get up. So those are the days I couldn't take the dog to the studio, cuz if he starts giving me a hassle when I'm in the middle of the tree, it would never work. It was strange and new for me.
BB: It's colored ink. The ink is a lot more vivid than watercolor and the Liquitex Acrylic inks are super bright, so I would fill up a little one of those trays, with the little compartments with different colors, and some in the same compartment because I knew I was going to mix 'em anyway, and I could swirl 'em and get certain mixes. Timing when things were going to be dry and when they weren't… this color all bleeds together, but then with the pencil there, I make that leaf finished, in a way that you can’t with watercolor.
MR: So after it's dry, you go back in and differentiate some of the leaves?
MR: It’s a very multimedia approach.
BB: And I had to really be careful around the edges of this orange cat that’s stuck up in the tree.
MR: You said you had normally had not done a process like this?
BB: Well yes, my comics in the 90s. But it’s different so let’s skip my comics for a minute and start with children's books. Starting in 2002, either the work was black and white ink drawings, or if it was color, it was all in Photoshop. Everything ran through Photoshop. So the way I did most of the books that I illustrated was that I would draw it in black and white ink, and then scan it into Photoshop, the inked lines would get color, or else I would add color the way you'd color in a coloring book. Everything Goes is done that way. Those ink drawings exist as black and white drawings, which might be interesting to the Library of Congress, because I always like seeing color work where it's not color, like, “Oh, that's black and white in real life.” And then all that color work in Everything Goes, and all the textures, are all completely digital. Same with Tinyville Town, and all of the books I illustrated. In fact, some of the Frank Einstein books were even drawn completely on the computer, just because of deadlines.
MR: Right. I remember being disappointed about that.
MR: You had done coloring prior to children’s books though?
BB: Yes, but more of a mechanical screen print, layered style. Using separations. That was the way I'd done color, like the posters from the comics days, and even a lot of illustrations that I did for commercial work, and Tinyville Town was colored this way. Tinyville Town only used seven actual colors. The purple and the yellow overlaid made a brown. When you look at the layers in Photoshop, it looks like screen print layers. There will be a purple layer and a yellow layer and a transparent overlay effect called multiply. It's like you're looking through film. So for ground, I might use a rough Photoshop brush and do the purple, and then a rough yellow on the layer beneath it. The two together create this textured brown, but you can still see the purple and the yellow in between some of the spaces, which for me is really fun, but there's not an eight-year-old in the world that cares. So all it does
MR: You did the lettering on the artwork?
BB: In most cases, but of the small text lettering was done separately.
MR: The stuff that looks like more like typography, even though you hand lettered it?
BB: Yeah. The lettering was about a quarter inch tall, so my eyes didn't completely break out of my head, I shrunk it down for the book.
MR: Is the city based on a real city?
BB: No, it's just a city. It's a kind of like Power Puff Girls always had Townsville, the Incredibles have Metroville It’s this generic town I just try to draw with a fake-looking toy Empire State Building. Using different colors and playing around with drawing the buildings, but it's not based on any city, just big old buildings.
MR: I asked, because you have been in Philadelphia for 20 years, a long time to be in one place when you wandered the world when you were younger.
BB: Right? For my first 22 years, I lived in 6 cities. In my thirties, I was in San Francisco mostly, and then moved to Philadelphia in 1999 from San Francisco, and I've been there ever since.
MR: When you were a cartoonist, you were in Paris?
BB: Yeah. I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas until I was 11 - born and raised in Little Rock, and then we moved to the Houston area from age 11 to 17. I went to a town called Denton for one years of college at North Texas State University, went to New York City to Parsons for sophomore year of college, Paris for junior year, back to New York for senior year, then back to Paris for a year to work. That's when I drew Frederick and Eloise. I’d discovered Tardi and the great French cartoonists, and again, had found myself unemployed with nothing to do. I had 5,000 bucks in the bank, drew this book, spent the money, and went back home to the Dallas / Fort Worth area. I was there for two years and in ‘93 moved to San Francisco where I met my kids' mom. We eloped in Vegas, then moved to Philadelphia because she was from Trenton, NJ and we wanted to be near family. 22 years later, I've seen the Phillies win the World Series, I've seen the Eagles win the Super Bowl, and I finally accept I live there. I'm still a Razorbacks fan. I still follow Texas politics, which is a sad state of affairs. But when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I'm out in the street crying and hugging strangers. “Okay, I live in Philly now. Wow. I accept it.” My kids were in my living room that night, my wife, and my ex-wife and my kid's stepfather... We had 25 people in our living room and from that part of my life and there's so much emotion about a stupid football game, but it's the first time the Eagles have ever won. And that city loves its sports. We were out on the streets three days later for the parade in the mud. It was 25 degrees and it was an amazing experience. And you just embrace what it is. I mean, I'm not from Philly, but I'm from Philly. However, in my neighborhood I'll always be a yuppy because I've “only” been there 22 years. I lived in one house 11 years and moved a few blocks away for now another 11 years. But for the lady down the street who has lived there her whole life, as far as she's concerned, I'm just an interloper. That's one of the reasons I love Philly -- the crazy racist neighbor next door. <laughs>
MR: This children's book just dropped May 3rd. Let's go back to the artwork on here. The dad definitely looks like Clark Kent on the cover.
BB: It's been mentioned. Yes. It was not intent of mine, but it may be subconscious. When I read a review on Book List, it said Dad has a Clark Kent-resemblance and I thought, “Oh, yeah, he does.” I love it when someone points something out to me that is not obvious, but it was obvious to them.
MR: You didn't do that on purpose, but you did do something special about the book cover?
BB: Yes, there are two covers. If you remove the paper dust cover off of the hardback cover, you see the superhero comic book-type cover underneath, and that was definitely planned. Later in the book, there was a scene where Dad, who is not Clark Kent, yanks his his shirt off to reveal the superhero “A” underneath. That is the Clark Kent moment. The covers go from the dad-daughter relationship where he’s carrying her, to one where the daughter is in charge and she's the main character.
MR: Is the “A” for Awesome for everybody in the family and not just Abigail, if Dad has it on his shirt?
BB: It’s only for Abigail. Dad has it on his shirt too because he is revealing that he does, he really does truly believe in her.
But it’s funny, because her name has been many things. It was Theo for a long time and she had a “T” emblem and I think it was changed because we couldn't think of a modifying adjective. Before that it was Samantha. She was Sam. The problem with the “S is the legal team at Penguin came to us and said, “Excuse me, but there's a famous trademarked “S” on a shirt in red and yellow that we can't really challenge, so we need to change the name.” And I saw that coming a mile away, but just thought I'd push it. Luckily, I hadn't started on the artwork yet. We had changed “T” to “S” as Super Sam is easy and obviously suitable. “T” -- was it Thunder Theo? What's that? Terrific Theo doesn't work. So I asked some little girl I know, maybe my niece, “What would your superhero name be if you had one?” And she said, “Awesome Girl.” I realized it doesn't have to be Super Sam, or Awesome Anna. It's Awesome Girl. And that works really well.
“A” became Abigail and Awesome Girl, and Awesome Girl -- there's something unsophisticated about it. It's like a little kid. “Oh, Awesome Girl!” That works really well for me. The dad happens to have a shirt too that says “A” on it, but that's part of the question. Is this real? Is it not real? Why would dad have that shirt? It's because he believes in her, and he rips his white shirt off, and there it is. There's proof of his believing in her. There's another double entendre. What does that mean to believe in your kid? Is he really believing his kid or is he believing in his kid? It's not a book that I could have written before I had my own children.
Her towel becomes a cape, Dad's folding her pajamas and her towel so when she has this moment where the cat accidentally kicks the plastic octopus out the window, and then suddenly says, “Look there!” (which, by the way, is the same lettering as the very beginning). It's very easy to say, “this is all in her sitting in the bathtub, with her angry imagination of having this fantasy of her dad getting kidnapped.” Originally, when it was “Jeff Hero,” Mom was kidnapped by a robot, and the whole story was what does Jeff have to do to save his mom from a robot? When I spun back around to her, a robot is so boring in this case, but having it be a purple octopus that started out as a bathtub toy became kind of this harmless polarity. How do you make an octopus both friendly and menacing at the same time?
MR: The villain Octopus still has a smile, but it's got lowered slanted eyebrows and the cat now wears a mask.
BB: The eyebrows are everything, and he's also really big.
Claire Rhode: That’s like Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb. They own a platypus, but he's always sneaking behind their back to fight his nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. It just seems like your original idea for Harry is similar, because the kids stumble into Dr. Doofenshmirtz and end up battling him. But there’s always the platypus in the background as the secret agent.
BB: I don’t know the cartoon, but I liked the idea, like I was saying originally, of Harry being the puppet master behind everything. I couldn't dive in deep enough though. If this was a bigger book, then I could dive into him.
CR: You didn't have several seasons like a tv show.
BB: In fact, that's an interesting point with this book that I've wondered about a lot. This book was the unnamed second book of a two-book deal. They bought The Space Walk and another picture book, and to Penguin's credit, they never asked me what the other picture book was going to be. It was just, “Okay, we're done with The Space Walk,” and right before COVID, Kate, my editor at Dial, says, “What are you working on next?” I showed her some sketches that had the lettering and little boy saying, “Who is that? How is she so awesome?” And Kate was always saying “We’ve got to get that little boy in there.” I responded, “He's not in there, but the lettering is there. So that works.” This really never had to be pitched as a book, and I don't know if it could have been. I don't know if I could have explained at the time, because I would've had to finish it more. Luckily it really was allowed to kind of grow out of whatever into something else, and I always appreciated that.
MR: Let me ask two process questions. One's about layout and one's about your sketchbooks. So do you thumbnail the book? Do you write the script? Or do you do one page at a time and get surprised?
BB: <Laugh> It's all three actually. At some point I start thinking of what are signposts in this story. In this case you had the tree; I knew there was going to be a tree section. For a while, it was going to be ten spreads and it got cut down to seven, thank goodness. Then I knew there was going to be the bathtub scene. I remember the revelation of thinking, “Oh my gosh, some of it's told in comics -- this whole fantasy scene in comics.” Both this book and Spacewalk follow a pattern that Where The Wild Things Are established, which is a kid whose angry at parents and then going into a fantasy world. For The Space Walk, it's “I want to go out and take a walk,” and the parents/ground control say, “You have to clean your room.” He's frustrated, but he's an astronaut, and it's ground control talking. And then he is allowed out on his walk and he meets the monster of Where The Wild Things Are
So this is much closer to that, where she's in the bathtub with her arms folded. In fact, originally, she was in bed and Dad says goodnight to her, but my editor -- and this is where editors are worth her weight and gold -- said, “Dream sequences, meh, it's been done a million times.” In fact, Where The Wild Things Are is technically a dream sequence. She asked, “Is there another place you could have the girl, at the time Samantha, be to have this anger?” I responded, “Yeah, the bathtub, that totally works.” Because Dad leaves her and says, “All right, dry yourself off and come on, I’m making dinner. She's like “Grrrr.” She's angry, so she has this whole fantasy in the bathtub. Instead of the land of the monsters where Max goes, hers is this world with her and her cat saving the day. In fact, this is an homage to Sendak. When at the end, Max walks back into find the soup in his bedroom. I drew her, and it is exactly the same drawing. It's just it's Abigail instead of Max and so far, no one's caught that. I doubt anybody ever will, but I like it and I'm happy it's there. The resolution at the end, where Max gets soup and she gets spaghetti, I love that sort of thing.
So there were sign posts, establishing the rhythm of this happens and that happens and then this other thing happens. Then what I do is I'll go in and focus on just the first part and write it completely out without any editing. And then the second part: what happens the bathtub scene?
And then at some point I will write the whole story as just text -- the dialogue, the action as if the story's being told. My editor needs that to basically to run it through copy editing. They've got their whole channels that they send it through at Dial. In in my case, it's always sort of unspoken that this may or may not be the final. Things are going to get changed and I don't write books that way. I don't write books in text. Actually, it's an interesting thing, because as an illustrator, when I get a manuscript by another author, there's almost never stage setting the way I write mine. Like there will never be a “Abigail poking your head up when around the door” -- it would just be “time to eat” and then I figure out what that is. If an author starts writing that kind of stuff, I don't want to deal with it. I I'll ignore it. I'll cut it out with the Word file and throw it away because want to stage it myself.
MR: Although that is sometimes a traditional way of people working on comic books, like Alan Moore famously sketching every little thing in for his artist. Whereas the Marvel method is more like “Here's five words, go draw something, figure it out.”
MR: We're both in our fifties and when reading comic books in our youth, the words just reinforced what was drawn.
BB: The only narrative part of this book is, where she's in the bathtub and I don't need to say, “Little hero Abigail thought to herself,” because clearly that's what she's doing. “As he went to make dinner,” that sets up later on, so that's important. I'm not saying he's folding her clothes., I have a good editor for this stuff, because she was saved me from myself where I would've said something like “Abigail was standing on the toilet in the bathroom as her father ran a bath.” Delete it. It's already there, you know?. I've never worked off of a strip comic script before. I'm doing a Little Golden Book right now where they actually send a script on a page with what is going to be on each page. You know, green garbage truck here and over here, you see a neighborhood full of people of different colors.
MR: It's more of an illustration job, and less of a creative job in some ways.
The second example was a book series called Brownie and Pearl about a kitten and a little girl. The opening line is “Brownie and Pearl are stepping out.” I knew from the rest of the script that they were going to a birthday party, so what is this opening illustration going to be? There is so much in that line. What does that mean for a little kid and her kitty to be “stepping out?” It’s fancy, right? They're wearing fancy clothes. The cat has a flower in her hair, and they're they got balloons and what’s a three-year-old look like when she steps out? She's got a little boa around her neck going to this birthday party. That was a lot of fun, because that's such a line that I would've never written. But Cynthia Rylant wrote it and she's such a master storyteller that she didn't give more information than that at all. It could be set in the country. It could be set in the city, but I'm thinking “A little girl in a city neighborhood going to a birthday party,” you know? Finding words that evoke something either make the illustrator do something or help my own illustrations along. I'm a much stronger illustrator than writer; writing is always a challenge for me. But for a book like this, it's always fun to explore what are things the words can do that pictures can't or vice versa. I think I found the balance in this one.
BB: So the first two options are both yes. The third option that you didn't mention is I sometimes will go through a sketchbook upon finishing it or even after doing the page and scan certain pages and drop 'em into the books folder on my laptop, which has about 50 folders. I'll title things that maybe I'll work on later. There's one called ‘Bernard Barnard,’ which was in fact Marc Weidenbaum’s title idea. How many years ago? 25. That idea's been sitting in that folder for 25 years over probably 15 different computers and two kids. Will it ever get written? I don't know. I don't know, but boy, I've got some ideas. I created a new folder this morning called “frog, stinkbug, and fish” because that's the manuscript I just wrote.
BB: That idea also came from a sketchbook from 2012 where I had just a list of names like lucky dog, cool cat, stink bug. Those to me evoke a little book about a cool cat or a lucky dog or a, a dirty dog or things like that. One was called bird songs and I just knew that list is absurd, but I think I got on Facebook and asked for more and people gave me names. So in this particular case that has been in the back of my head for years. I never forgot about the bird, lucky dog and all that, but it's a matter of kind of thinking “what is it?” Someday, I'm out on a bike ride or going for a run or just taking a shower and might go, “Oh!” This happened on Friday. I sat down and just started writing. You put a stink bug on a leaf, eating piece of fruit and a frog on the spot. What happens? So that's kind of where that idea comes from although the plan wasn't there. I keep scans of sketchbooks. I keep sketchbooks that are all dated. I use those little Moleskines. I've got about 20 of them all on a shelf going back about 16 years.
Sara Duke: What percentage of your sketchbooks are drawings and what percentage are text?
BB: ha ha. This is somebody who's
obviously seen sketchbooks, because they're mostly grocery lists, or things I
need to do today. It's probably 60% writing, 40% drawing, but the drawing is
only 10% decent. A lot of times it's just a quick knockoff where I don't even
know what I was doing, but every now and then there'll be a moment of
inspiration. I'll get six or seven pages from these little tiny sketchbooks.
MR: Can you tie it into climate change? Do you have a hook for your next book?
BB: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And COVID as well. In fact, I didn't know what the story looked like in my head until COVID and I started seeing playgrounds with police tape around them. People are wearing masks in stores. Remember in May of 2020, it was so weird to see people wear masks? And I was thinking, what do five-year-olds think of this? And now they're the ones most used to it of anybody.
SD: They don't remember before time.
BB: Yeah, they don't remember before that. So I’m just loving pencil drawings again, which goes back to the first things you draw with are pencils, and then you learn all these fancy tools. I’m going back to these pencils, but I have this. I carry this fancy thing around with me [showing a large rolled pencil case]; there's one of everything in here and I've got another one of colored pencils at the house. I've become a pencil nerd. I started with Blackwings about two or three years ago. I was at a gift shop in Frenchtown, New Jersey and found these Blackwing pencils and then Musgrave made in Tennessee right after that. And then these guys, this is a big lead hole [showing a big soft pencil lead] Look at that thing. I mean, I love it. It's so much fun to sketch with. That's where these drawings all begin -- real loose with this, and then I'll go in with the sharpen pencils and touch it all up. Yeah, those little sketchbooks are almost all text in some cases.
SD: I've seen sketchbooks and they're most always text. And I always wonder… I always walk around with a pencil. I'm a nub person.
BB: My notes app has become more text now. That's where a lot of my lists go -- in my notes app on my phone.
SD: I always wonder, because sketchbooks tend to be as much, if not more, text than pictures. Do artists still think in text first? Or do you think in pictures first?
MR: You said you had a stock of Frederick and Eloise. Are you willing to sell it to people who read this far in the interview?
One time somebody came to a
Barnes and Noble, where I was doing a book signing and her son was getting one
of the Tinyville Town books signed. And she had a stack of Frederick
and Eloise and Dear Julia too, the Top Shelf and the Fantagraphics
book. She says, “I couldn't believe you're the same Brian Biggs.” I replied, “I
can't really believe it either.” Sometimes I wonder if I am, because those two
books are from different lives. It's a different life. Those stories come from
such different places, it's a strange thing sometimes.
MR: Any other questions? All right, it seems fitting to wrap it up on “It's a strange thing sometimes.”
Here's more cats, trees, and alien climate invasions...
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