Today, I closed out my account at Big Planet Comics in Bethesda, which I have
had since 1986. That's 38 years, and one of the longest relationships I've had. I started it when my girlfriend at the time pointed out
this store opening close to her house. Frank Miller's Batman The Dark Knight Returns reignited my interest when it was waning due to college and I wanted to buy them as they come out - this was before trade collections. I was the original subscriber #45. I stayed with the store through 4 locations and god knows how many comics.
Thursday, August 08, 2024
Today I said, "It's not you, it's me" to Big Planet Comics Bethesda
Wednesday, February 01, 2023
Mike Violante, RIP
Mike was the person who got me started on Marvel. When he married my cousin Emma around 1970, I was 5 years old. A few years later than that (I would guess I was about 8), he gave me a stack of his comics. This was before speculator booms and they were only 10-15 years old at that point anyway, but it was still a generous gift. There were a lot of DC Silver Age science fiction and early Marvels. I grew hooked on Carmine Infantino's Adam Strange with its sleek futuristic lines, Space Cabbie, and the Challengers of the Unknown. Meanwhile Marvel's interlinked universe was a tantalizing mystery, as I read single issues of the Avengers and Spider-Man, including the ones that introduced Kang (Avengers 8) and the Green Goblin (Amazing Spider-Man 14; I have those numbers memorized). I still read Curt Swan, Elliot S! Maggin and Cary Bates' clever stories in DC's superhero line, as they tried to deal with a Superman who could move planets, or a Flash who could run faster than light. But when I started earning a bit of paper-delivering money, I bought Marvel and got thoroughly invested in their soap opera super heroics. Fortunately, my parent's ecumenical tastes carried me along, and even though superheroes have palled for me to this day, I read all types of comics. I have gotten to know a wide range of creators too, something the 8-year-old me would never have imagined.
Mike also gave me his Science Fiction Book Club collection after introducing me to fantasy books by giving me a copy of the Richard Corben-covered Llana of Gathol and John Carter Warlord of Mars combined edition. After a long physical and mental decline, Mike passed away last week in Arizona, thousands of miles and a lifetime away from growing up in northern New Jersey. As far as I know he never returned to comic books, although I think he still read science fiction at times. My last email from him was in January 2017, but it's safe to say that without Mike Violante, I would not be the person that I am today and I remain very grateful to him. I read those comics to death, and they have no value at all now to anyone but me, but boy, do they mean a lot to me. Thanks for everything, Mike.
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Quick Reviews returns: Dirty Pictures, Fantastic Four, Mickey Mouse, Space Boy, McCay, Aimee de Jongh, and Orner's Smahtguy
...at least that's what I think I used to headline short review columns.
I caught covid for the first time this past week, probably at work where other people did, and I had just been transferred to the home office from a satellite one where I was one of two people showing up daily. I'm fine, that's fine, the disease is endemic now, and we've got vaccines to make sure most of us don't suffer badly from it, just like I haven't.
But it did mean that I ended up with some free time - at least 5 days in which I had to skip the events I had this weekend, which included a poker game, 2 comic book signings at Fantom Comics, a Pixar Inside Out exhibit preview at the Children's Museum, and a story-telling party. Instead I've been reading some of the graphic novels that came my way.
Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits,Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix by Brian Doherty, Abrams, 2022 - This isn't a graphic novel. Instead it's a dense history with no pictures which is why I haven't finished reading it yet. Reason magazine editor Doherty's produced a readable, comprehensive history of who knew who, who was sleeping with who, and who was drawing with who, why, and when. This is not for the uninitiated, as it has no images and assumes a familiarity with the field that's a step beyond basic. As such, I'm enjoying it and learning from it, but at times it reads like a Who's Who of underground comix - that's not a bad thing, especially as the cartoonists themselves either died young or are dying now (Diane Noomin within the past month). It does mean that it can be a bit of a struggle to keep people straight, or honestly to pick it up again after putting it down. I've been trying to read a chapter at a time, no more or less, which works for me, but I'm not a major fan of the undergrounds in spite of being dedicated to comics history. If you're similarly dedicated, you should buy this.
Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross, Abrams, 2022 - I got a pdf of this from the publisher (who's been very kind about sending me material), and then was gifted a copy by my buddies at Big Planet Comics so it was clear the universe was telling me to read it. I also love the classic FF. Ross' hyper-realistic paintings have set a standard in superhero depiction for a couple of decades now, but he hasn't done a comic book in years. This time, he did it all including the writing, but not as a painted book. The story leaps off a plot point from FF #51, a Kirby-Lee story in which (here's the Kirby part) a minor character succeeds in copying the Thing's body exactly, fooling Mr. Fantastic into taking him into the Negative Zone, and then sacrificing himself to save Reed Richards. At 64 pages, this is exactly a story that could have been an FF annual in the 1960s. Ross's art is competent, being redolent of Kirby without descending into pastiche (Ross draws a photo-collage rather than making one as Kirby was doing at the time), and is steeped in FF history with respect. (Except for an unnecessary gag about Reed and Sue having sex, and Sue running out naked when the Baxter Building is breached by the negative zone, but hey, it's not 1968 anymore). The plot makes no more or less sense than Lee's ever did, and the hyperbole is cut back for modern audiences. I enjoyed this just fine, but it's a loving salute to a long-gone era. Although Ross does explain Captain Marvel / Rick Jones' nega bands which swapped their bodies in and out of the negative zone in the 1970s for longtime fans. As the first original comic book published by Abrams via licensing from Marvel, I'm sure it was a smart choice due to Ross's fans, but I don't think it'll bring any readers over to the FF.*
Mickey Mouse: Zombie Coffee by Regis Loisel, Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2022 - For years, Fantagraphics has been publishing the adult Disney material that has appeared in the European market. Greg Bennett of Big Planet Comics Bethesda makes a point of keeping me up on it. Loisel first made his mark with a bawdy retelling of Peter Pan - now many years later, he's doing licensed work. This story replicates the feel of Floyd Gottfredson's adventurous Mickey with simulated comic strips set during the Depression. Mouseton is seeing a real-estate speculator trying to buy up a bunch of lower middle class homes to build a golf course, and Mickey, Minnie, Horace, and Clarabelle are in the front of the resistance while Goofy, Pluto, and Donald make minor appearances. The two main villains are the traditional lawyer Sylvester and Pegleg Pete, often seen in the early comic strips. Like the previous book, the story doesn't make a lot of sense and you just need to go along and enjoy the madcap corny and violent story for what it is. The mind-control agents, such as the zombie coffee and 25-cent hamburgers, are typical of the days of the comics in which someone would build a 5-story robot to knock over a convenience store for $25. Loisel did a good job in capturing the feel of the 1930s strip, and I recommend this to those who like the early adventurous goofball Mickey.
Stephen McCranie's Space Boy Volume 13 by Stephen McCranie, Dark Horse, 2022 - I've been enjoying these manga-influenced webcomics collections since the middle of the pandemic when someone at Fantom Comics recommended them to me. It's an American reworking of Astro Boy for the most part, but as will happen with longer-running strips, it's become something of its own too, although this issue returns to a Pinocchio-plot point that can't really be avoided without the book becoming a horror novel. One definitely can't start with this issue, which opens in the middle of a murder investigation and leads to more injuries via exploding roboot, but his art is very assured by this point and I'm enjoying the unfolding of the story in chunks, rather than reading it on the web.
McCay by Thierry Smolderen and Jean-Philippe Bramanti, London: Titan Books, 2018 - somebody recommended this recently and while I don't remember who it was, I respected them enough to pick up a copy. A French work, written by a distinguished historian and comics writer, this is an alternate biography of the ground-breaking cartoonist Winsor McCay, and proposes that he can turn himself into a fourth-dimension (not time) where a version of Slumberland can be built from his dreams. Silas, McCay's pen-name for some strips, is a real person with the same ability, who's an anarcho-Communist determined to kill people he thinks deserve it. The story makes no sense at all, just like McCay's own works, but is lovely - Bramanti wisely doesn't try to emulate McCay and uses a much sparer, yet still lush style. It's a fun read and homage to a master cartoonist.
Blossoms in Autumn, words by Zidrou and art by Aimée de Jongh, translated by Matt Madden - a slice of life story about two older (I wrote elderly until I realized the man is only 2 years older than I am) people - a laid-off furniture mover and a cheese store owner who meet each other, and fall in love. It's not a major work, but a perfectly good read and a pleasant couple to spend an hour with.
The Return of the Honey Buzzard, by Aimée de Jongh, translated by Michele Hutchison - this one was a bit more confusing because there's some magic realism going on in this and it takes a while to clue into it. On the other hand, it's been made into a movie, so perhaps I was just slow to pick up on the plot. Simon is about to lose his inherited bookstore, and won't go along with any of his wife's suggestions to sell and save what they can, when he witnesses the second suicide of someone around him. In his confusion, he meets a Lolita-like young woman (girl? her age is hard to tell) who needs assistance with school projects, we see the true story behind the first suicide, and begin to wonder if he'll make it to the end of the book. Oh, and the honey buzzard's return is a nature metaphor, not something you need to be watching out for in the corner of your eye.
Days of Sand by Aimée de Jongh, 2022 - her current book, researched here in DC, is off all things for a Dutch cartoonist to do, a story of the 1930s American dustbowl environmental disaster in Oklahoma, told through the lens (hah!) of a Farm Security Administration photographer from New York City. As she noted at the Library of Congress, this story is generally completely unknown in Europe, and largely forgotten here in America except by Steinbeck and Springsteen fans. de Jongh uses real government photos to lead into each chapter, and it's a moving account of a photographer 'going native' as it used to be phrased and becoming more sympathetic to the subjects of his camera than to his employers. The art is fantastic. The story is fine. The main character... a bit under-developed with daddy issues. Still, I'd recommend picking this up.
Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank by Eric Orner, 2022 - I really liked this book. I didn't particularly expect to because it's a partial biography of a gay former-Congressman (by one of his former staffers) and I don't usually read political biographies, although I've been interested in gay cartoonists since moving to DC in 1983 and discovering that such a thing existed at all in the pages of the Washington Blade (back in print but no comics) and the Lambda Rising bookstore (long-closed but a new gay bookstore just opened this year). I was sheltered in 1970s New Jersey, sometimes for the good, and others not [full disclosure: I'm not gay, but didn't meet out people until I arrived at GWU]. Anyway, Orner was signing his book this summer at Solid State Books on H Street, I went, along with many of his former Hill colleagues, and was very impressed by the book. It took me a while to sit down and read it ... it's still a political biography... but it's well-worth reading to see how America has changed from those 1970s and how people like Barney Frank shepherded that change, sometimes by not leading from the front. I recommend this - enough that I interviewed the cartoonist a shamefully long time ago.
That's it for today - let me know if you want to see my trying to get my writing chops back with more.
Still to come - an hour and a half long interview with Eric Orner that's taking me a ridiculously long time to edit. In my defense, I've been moving an archive for work all summer and it wears one out. This photo is part of the post-move, pre-rebuilding state of it last week, pre-covid. Sigh.*9/26 - Rodrigo Baeza sent me a note about this comics' history with permission to reprint it -
Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Catching up with graphic artist Marty Baumann
We're checking in with Arlington's Marty Baumann again on the publication of Toybox Time Machine, his new book from IDW, . We've featured his work in passing a couple of times in the past, and it's been six years since I interviewed him for the Washington City Paper (which sadly is currently for sale in case anyone reading this can afford to buy a newspaper). He's answered my usual questions again, but in new ways, as well as discussing his recent work so I'm running the whole interview here. Honestly, both Marty and I forgot about that interview (an occupational hazard when you know people personally and socially. I've seen him at the Baltimore Comic Con in September and at a flea market last weekend when he bought some Kirby and Kubert comic books). I highly recommend his new book; Marty is one of the cleverest illustrators I know -- as this interview shows.
Marty has provided the following biographic information:
Marty has worked as an artist at Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios as an illustrator, graphic artist and production designer on such films as “Toy Story 3,” “Big Hero 6,” “Zootopia,” “Cars 2,” “Planes,” “Wreck-It Ralph 2” and many others. He also helped develop theme park installations, toy packaging and Pixar corporate branding.
Marty has rendered illustrations and developed characters for toy manufacturers, magazines and newspapers, illustrated children’s books, created logos, info-graphics, broadcast promotions and presentation art for Hasbro, Universal Studios, National Geographic, Scholastic Books, Nickelodeon and many others.
Recent projects include his role as concept artist for the new “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and the visual development of Sir Paul McCartney’s feature film, “High in the Clouds.”
Marty's dog Summer |
Marty has been a rhythm and blues singer/guitarist for more than 40 years. He’s shared the stage with Hound Dog Taylor’s Houserockers, Danny Gatton, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Jr. Walker and the All Stars, Fenton Robinson, John Hammond, Johnny Winter and others. Marty’s sold-out CD “Let’s Buzz Awhile” features 13 original blues tunes.
He encourages everyone to adopt at least one dog.
What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
As far as personal projects: My influences are primarily of mid-century vintage; the logos, designs, signage and draftsmanship, often combining limited color palettes, stylized figures and crazy type treatments. They communicate fun and excitement in a way we don't see today. I tried hard to emulate that aesthetic in my book, "Toybox Time Machine."
As far as film work goes: Logos, title card design, billboards and signage, magazine covers, posters and general production design and just about anything you see in the background or applied to the body of a character.
How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?
I do some pencil roughs, scan them and use primarily Illustrator and a bit of Photoshop. If I'm doing a commission or a personal piece for someone I might print what I've done digitally and finish it with touches of ink.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
I was born in Maryland the same year "Invasion of the Saucer Men" hit theaters. Is that specific enough?
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
Jack Kirby comics. He's one of my heroes. It might not show in my style but I started drawing because of him. I've had no formal training.
Who are your influences?
The first books I actually recall buying were Joe Kubert's Sgt. Rock comics. Starting in grade school it was Kirby. Then a friend said, "If you like Kirby, get a load of Steranko -- and I got a load. Then I discovered Ditko, Toth, Meskin. As time went on I became aware of the great magazine, paperback and movie poster illustrators -- James Bingham, Robert McGinnis, James Bama. And then the groundbreaking design work of the UPA cartoons and the logo and title designs of Saul Bass and Paul Julian. Not to mention the great children's book artists, a particular favorite being the great Mel Crawford -- who also worked in comics and fine art.
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
Nearly everything! I tell aspiring artists to look at my career path and do the opposite. I wish I'd taken art classes, studied life drawing, studied painting, tried oils, charcoal, etc. I fell under the sway of rhythm and blues and began playing in clubs as a teenager. I was trying to focus on two creative areas. Maybe I should have focused on just one -- but I couldn't! In the end I think they complimented one another.
What work are you best-known for?
I didn't know that I was KNOWN! So I'd have to say my Disney/Pixar work.
What work are you most proud of?
I'll cite this example: I did a TON of work on "Zootopia." My wife and I saw it in a theater packed with kids and they LOVED it. I was kinda proud that I helped in some small way to make those kids happy.
How did you come up with the idea of Toybox Time Machine?
Well, after having one children's book idea after another rejected, I decided to draw whatever the heck I wanted. I love old toys. I have a small collection of old favorites. And I think my real artistic strengths are design, typography and color. I tried to channel the artistic influences mentioned previously and I never had more fun working on a project.
What's the process of conceptualizing and then drawing a toy that never existed?
My wife and I go to lots of estate sales. I buy the stuff nobody else wants: stacks of old magazines, postcards, travel literature. I snap pictures of anything with nifty retro packaging. It seems that in the 1940s and 50s every advertiser employed an illustrator in lieu of using a photo. With inspiration like this the ideas flow.
How did IDW come to publish this?
At the risk of sounding like a name-dropper, Jim Steranko has been something of a mentor since I was a teenager. (When he critiques your work, you KNOW you've been critiqued, and HOW!) He mentioned to IDW that they might want to look at my work, and, as Bogart would say, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
What's your favorite non-existent toy?
That's the one question I'm going to side-step -- because I just don't know! The sci-fi and monster related toys would be near the top of the list. And I love cowboys!
How did you end up working for Pixar?
I had always loved what Pixar was doing. That retro sensibility seemed to be present in everything they turned out. Quite by accident I discovered that they were looking for a Graphic Artist and I sent them some stuff. They called me a couple weeks later, flew me out there, apparently liked me, and within a few weeks, we were living in San Francisco! I know that makes it sound easy, but let me be clear, I paid my dues for years working for newspapers, magazines, ad agencies, toy companies...
How has the experience been?
It's been great -- and also tough. Every artist working there was better than me! So I really had to up my game.
What have you worked on for them?
"Big Hero 6," "Zootopia," "Toy Story 3," "Cars 2," so many shorts that I can't remember them all -- "Hawaiian Vacation," "Small Fry," "Partysaurus Rex". I also worked on installation pieces for Disney resorts and contributed to the development of Cars Land at Disneyland.
What would you like to do or work on in the future?
Well, I worked on the visual development of a film with Paul McCartney. It would be cool to work with Ringo one day!
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
Writer's block? Let me see. I, um, er -- sorry…gimme a minute...I just can't think of anything to write at the moment…
When did you start collecting comics?
Maybe 1961 or 1962, when I first discovered Sgt. Rock and the Kirby monster books. I wouldn't call it "collecting" in the modern sense of the word, i.e. as if a comic book were a precious object to be preserved for posterity to accrue in value. I traded them, rolled them up and stuck 'em in my back pocket to read again later, and sat down with pencil and paper and tried to copy them. I read my favorite ones until the covers came off. Isn't that how they were meant to be used? Then -- a familiar story -- my mom threw a ton of them away.
What do you focus on? Who are your favorite comic book artists?
I guess my big four are Kirby, Kubert, Toth and Steranko. But there are so many -- the great Jack Davis, Ditko, Mort Meskin, Fred Kida, Wally Wood, and the incredibly underrated and versatile Bob Fujitani. The "Hangman" stories he did for MLJ in the mid-1940s are some of my favorites. I love the books Hillman put out in the 40s, ("Air Fighters," "Clue") and the stuff ME (Magazine Enterprises) published in the late 40s and early 50s ("Jet," "The Avenger"). I've often been asked what, in my opinion, are the best comics of all time. Without hesitation I say choose any issue of Fantastic Four from numbers 30-90. Any one of them is better than anything produced since.
How large is your collection?
It's quite modest. I'm no big-time collector. I buy comics I think I can learn from. I have dealers who save their coverless, moldy, brittle, flaking old books for me because they know I love the obscurities, learning the forgotten history of comics and discovering great cartoonists who have been unjustly overlooked. Mike Roy is a favorite, and Tony DiPrieta, and John Cassone, and Mike Suchorsky, etc. etc.
What do you think will be the future of your field?
Do you mean animation or comics-related material? In either case I don't know. What used to be marginal pop-culture interests are big, BIG business now and it's all too complicated for me to understand.
How was your Baltimore Comic Con experience this year? How often have you attended it?
I always have a great time at Baltimore. I was at the very first one! I believe I've been a guest at all of them except for those that I missed when I lived in the Bay Area.
Do you have a website or blog?
www.martybaumann.com
What's your favorite thing about DC?
That I don't have to commute there.
Least favorite?
The times I DO have had to commute there.
What monument or museum do you like?
Without a doubt Arlington Cemetery. Not only do we have relatives buried there, but it's brimming with history and trivia. For instance: My wife's uncle is buried just a few tombstones away from Lee Marvin -- who is buried right next to Joe Louis! Dashiell Hammett is resting there, and cartoonist Bill Mauldin.
How about a favorite local restaurant?
Caribbean Grill in Arlington, hands down.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
An SPX Interview with French Cartoonist Alex Alice
Alex Alice at Takoma Public Library, photo by Bruce Guthrie |
by Mike Rhode
I was walking around at SPX when ace photographer Bruce Guthrie introduced me to a French cartoonist he had met previously at the Takoma Park Library. I wasn’t familiar with Alex Alice’s work, but I was quickly impressed by his new book and asked if we could do an interview.
The important thing for me is as I’m writing it, I believe it. I am not a scientist, and I’m perfectly aware that aether doesn’t exist. I believe in my story as I’m writing it, and it’s easy for me; to be perfectly honest, the vision of Venus that people had at the time … we could see from the telescope that it was covered in clouds, which is true; we could see it was closer to the sun so it must have been very hot ,which is true; so they thought, it’s hot, it’s cloudy, there must be a lot of water so there must be huge jungles down there. Because they thought that planets had appeared in the order of their distance from the sun, they thought Venus was younger than earth so life must not have reached the same development and be stuck in an earlier era. So they genuinely thought Venus was a jungle world filled with dinosaurs, and this sounds like a pulpy sci-fi world of Edgar Rice Burroughs, but it is the actual science hypothesis of the time. This is fascinating to me, and very poetic. I find this hypothesis easier to envision, and too imagine, and frankly easier to believe in than the actual reality of Venus which is a hell world with incredible pressure and acid rains [laughs].
I found it was quite easy to believe in this world as I was writing it. To help me believe in it, I had a model made of the main machine that will allow the characters to travel to the stars. I even had an aether suits made life-sized of leather and wood. I had to talk with model makers and costume makers, and having their input of how they would do it and what would work. This world is 100% believable for me and I’m comfortable writing this story.