Comics stuff in Saturday's Post (and Times)

There's a few interesting bits in the paper today - in St. Mary's County, MD, a cartoon reprinted from 2002 and described as "by St. Mary's Today staff artist William Woodward Jr., depicts three black men driving away from a strip of stores they have just robbed. One man is wearing a ski mask and holding a shotgun, while the driver -- whose hair is in cornrows -- remarks that the area is "so close to D.C." The characters have exaggerated wide noses and full lips. Off to the side, a small slug asks another, "What happened to law and order?" His friend responds, "Ask the liberals."" has generated controversy this time around. See "Tabloid Newspaper's Cartoon Incites Allegations of Racism" by Megan Greenwell, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, March 10, 2007; Page B05.

A longtime reader of the strips corrects a mis-characterization of Daisy Mae from Li'l Abner:

Saturday, March 10, 2007; Page A17
Anna Was No Daisy Mae

I nearly spilled my coffee while reading Ruth Marcus's Feb. 28 column, "The Princess and the Playmate," asserting that Anna Nicole Smith was comparable to "L'il Abner's" Daisy Mae and thus an embodiment of America's "white trash." For shame. As "L'il Abner" readers recall, Daisy Mae was not only beautiful and scantily clad, but she was also virtuous, honest and smart enough to fend off the advances of the likes of Big Barnsmell, Earthquake McGoon and other unsavory suitors for her hand.

Her true and only love was L'il Abner, an all-American boy, whom eventually she wed.

-- Phil True

For the record, according to Allan Holtz's The Stripper's Guide index, "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp hasn't appeared since Capp's death in 1977, although there was an abortive reprint run from 1988-1989. A good example of a strip not surviving its creator, although by the end, I'm not sure how many readers Capp had for his bitter rightwing vitriol.

And of course, Richard's Poor Almanack appears in the Style section - today's panel is one of the constellation ones. And Elwood Smith has a good cartoon about noisy neighbors on the front of the real estate section.

In today's Times, "Ghost Rider just burning to prevent Armageddon" by Joseph Szadkowski, Washington Times March 10, 2007, reviews the videogames for 300 and the Ghost Rider movies. 300 comes out better than GR.

Catching up, in yesterday's paper "'300': A Losing Battle in More Ways Than 1" by Stephen Hunter, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, March 9, 2007; C01 slapped the movie around with phrases like, "So the movie isn't set in history or in time but in some dank, feverish swamp of the imagination that betrays its comic book origins (it's based on the graphic novel by "Sin City's" Frank Miller)." The Times appears to have run a wire service review, " '300': Spartans at their Alamo, Washington Times March 9, 2007.

Thompson's Small finger puppet finally online!

Print it, make it and wear it to the Smithsonian over the weekend! When they stop you at the x-ray machine, wave it in the guards' faces and ask them about endangered birds!

March 10: Frank Cho signing

Frank Cho will be appearing March 10th at 1 pm to sign his Mighty Avengers #1 at Cards, Comics & Collectibles, 1000A Chartley Drive, Reisterstown, MD 21136, 410-526-7410.

Post weighs in on Captain America's putative death

"O Captain! Our Captain! Hero's Day Is Done; Killing Off a Patriotic Icon, Marvel Comics Turns the Page On a Fading American Era" by Neely Tucker, Washington Post Staff Writer,
Thursday, March 8, 2007; Page C01 is our local take on the story that's on the wires.

My take is been there, done that. Bucky's back after being dead for 40 years, Superman didn't even last a year, Aunt May's been dead several times, and don't even start counting villains like Dr. Doom.

And Cap's been dead before, and better drawn by Jim Steranko, as you can see in the accompanying illustration. (And that's Rick Jones in Bucky's costume, not Bucky).

PR: DC Anime Club To Host Video Gaming Days UPDATED WITH NEW DATES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(March 6,2007)

CONTACT: Chris Wanamaker, (202) 262 2083 president@dcanimeclub.org

DC Anime Club To Host Video Gaming Days


The DC Anime Club, an non profit organization whose purpose is to educate the Washington, DC community about East Asian culture through the art form known as Anime (Japanese animation) will host Video Game Days in Room A5 and Room A9 of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, N.W. on the following dates:

March 24 Room A5
Video Game Day


May 26 Room A9
Video Game Day

July 7 Room A9
Video Game Day


August 18 Room A9
Video Game Day

DC Anime Club will be adding more dates for Video Game Days for the rest of the year. Attendees of the DC Anime Club Video Game Days are encouraged to bring their own games and Game Systems. DC Anime Club will be providing several Television sets as well as an LCD Projector and Screen for the Video Game Days.

This program is free and open to the public. For more information please visit the DC Anime Club website at http://dcanimeclub.org.

About DC Anime Club:
DCAC was established in 2003 to introduce and educate people in the Washington, DC area about East Asian culture, through viewing and discussion of Japanese animation (also known as anime) and Japanese comics (manga). DCAC is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization, contributions to DC Anime Club are tax deductible to the extent allowable under the law.

The club also works to provide a positive, alternative activity to the youth in the area by exposing them to foreign culture, encouraging artistic expression and creativity, and providing opportunities for participation in community activities and leadership.

In addition to our weekly meetings, the club holds an Annual Art Show, an Annual Costume fundraising event, and visits local schools to do presentations on anime. The club also works with the Smithsonian Freer Gallery and DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival on their anime screenings, and has helped locally promote performances for Japanese bands such as Puffy Ami Yumi and Pine am.

DC Anime Club was founded by Chris Wanamaker (President), Jules Chang (Vice President) and Craig Vaughn (Sgt in Arms) on Saturday June 5, 2003. We have a strong membership that continues to grow -- most of which are teenagers.

# # #

--
Christopher Wanamaker
DC Anime Club President
http://www.dcanimeclub.org
202 262 2083

Politics and Prose to carry manga

Their newsletter sent out earlier today announces:

Politics and Prose has officially ventured into the manga market. Manga, originally derived from the name given to a book of artist’s drawings in Edo period Japan, has become the name for entire genre of incredibly popular graphic serials from around the globe. We are beginning to stock a number of series that we love including Loveless, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Kami Kaze, 12 Days, To Terra, and Samurai Champloo. Don’t see your favorite on the shelf? Please let us know—we are continuing to add new series all the time.

This seems a bit late to me as everybody's carrying manga now, and in fact, I've noticed the amount carried dwindling in B. Daltons, and have been told that Big Planet is purposefully carrying much less.

Wish You Were There #2 - IS Art: The Art of Insight Studios

From the International Journal of Comic Art 3-2, we present another WISH YOU WERE THERE, starring Frank Cho, Mark Wheatly, Marc Hempel and a defunct comic store. Is Insight Studios still functioning I wonder?

IS Art: The Art of Insight Studios. Washington, DC: Illumination Arts Gallery of Georgetown / Beyond Comics II, May 12--June 30, 2001.

IS Art displayed original art of Insight Studios, founded in 1978 by Mark Wheatley, and artistically now consisting of him, Marc Hempel and Frank Cho. The exhibit is based on the book of the same title (by Allan Gross, Baltimore: Insight Studios Group, 2001. ISBN 1-89317-11-X; $29.95) which includes a history of Insight; the title of both is undoubtedly a play on words reflecting the general perception of comic art as a lowbrow form. There was a checklist for the show, but no explanatory exhibit text except for captions; presumably the book was intended to fulfill the viewer's possible desire for further information. Due to his syndicated comic strip, Liberty Meadows, and his penchant for drawing beautiful women, Cho is undoubtedly the main attraction of the Studio. In this show, held in an unused upper floor of a comic book store, very few of Cho's strips were displayed. However, instead he was mostly represented by his fanzine work on E.R. Burroughs' Tarzan and Mars series. Hempel included many of his early 1980s paintings of women, cover paintings from his 1990 DC Comics series Breathtaker, and cartoons from his self-published comic book Tug & Buster. His current work, of increasingly-stylized caricatures in ink and watercolor, harkened back to art of the 1920s and 1930s. The twenty-year span of Hempel's career exhibited here provided an interesting view of his artistic evolution. Wheatley has frequently worked on material derived from pulps and magazine illustration. His gouaches for IS's publication of Talbot Mundy's Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd, clearly having evolved from his comic book work, displayed a strong sense of color and composition. The exhibit, although obviously not done by art gallery professionals (artwork not used in the show was still leaning in piles under a window), was an enjoyable look at a trio of local creators.

Undercover Brother: John Ridley

"Undercover Brother: John Ridley" is an interview by Scott Rosenberg in the online version of March 4th Express. Like the Molly Crabapple story of last week, it wasn't in the physical paper which just had a small pic of Ridley. Ridley's wrote a comic series for DC's Wildstorm imprint, The American Way, which is being collected now.

Wish You Were There #1 - Comics exhibit reviews 2000-2001

The following are reviews for DC exhibits from 2000-2001. They were originally published in the International Journal of Comic Art 3:1.

Blondie Gets Married! Comic Strip Drawings by Chic Young. Harry Katz and Sara Duke. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, June 22-September 16, 2000.

Herblock's History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium. Harry Katz, Sara Duke, and Lucia Rather. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, October 17, 2000--February 17, 2001.

Al Hirschfeld, Beyond Broadway. David Leopold. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, November 9, 2000--March 31, 2001.

At the turn of the millennium, Harry Katz and Sara Duke continued to make the Library of Congress one of the premier spaces for the display of comic art. These three exhibits examined different aspects of comic art: comic strips, political cartoons, and caricature.

Blondie, beginning in 1930, has evolved with the comic strip. Early strips were large and had continuity, but by the 1972 strip in the show, the size had shrunk and Young made it a gag strip. The exhibit of 27 strips out of a donation of 150 had minimal labeling and was divided into typical tropes: naps, courtship, wedding, family, mailman, food, work, love, homemaking, and baths. Young used a delicate line in the 1930s, typical of some cartoonists of the era, that is a pleasure to see in the original. His 1931--1933 courtship and marriage strips were wildly popular during the Depression and Young's artwork conveys now a vivid sense of the time. In the 1938 Sunday dream strip, "We'll be back in a few hours," Young was playfully surrealistic while still drawing the pretty girls he was known for. While an exhibit devoted to original art, not commentary or history, needs few labels, an explanation of the blue penciling seen on many strips over the regular graphite pencil would be helpful; the blue was used to indicate where mechanical tones and shading needed to be added by the syndicate. "All quiet on the Bumstead's front!" from 1945 contained clear marginal instructions about the shading, and showed an interesting piece of comic history now that computers handle all such details. A good brochure was distributed at the show with articles by Duke and Young's daughter, and an electronic version of the exhibit can be seen at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/blondie/.

Herbert "Herblock" Block has cartooned through nine decades, won three Pulitzer Prizes, and coined the word "McCarthyism." This exhibit was drawn from 119 cartoons that he gave to the Library. The show was mounted in a grand space on either side of the Jefferson Building's great hall on red, white, and blue panels. It was divided into roughly chronological sections except for overarching ones like "Herblock's Presidents." Herblock's masterly use of pencil, ink and crayon can be seen throughout the show, although correction overlays become more common and his latest work resembled collages. Seeing the evolution of Herblock's style and subjects over 70 years was fascinating. Although the exhibit was excellently done and displayed the breadth of his career, Block's work can be fairly easily seen in other media. He has published many collections of his work, and this exhibit has a short catalogue produced by the Library. One clever idea made this show especially interesting. The Library solicited caricatures of "Herblock by Other Cartoonists" and displayed them at the end of each panel. Fifteen colleagues like Mike Peters, Ann Telnaes, Jules Feiffer, Signe Wilkinson, and Mike Luckovich produced pointed, but obviously respectful, drawings of Block, frequently with his bete noire Richard Nixon. Katz, Duke, and Rather deserve credit for a truly fine exhibit.
The exhibit on Hirschfeld is somewhat problematic because it was designed to be. When faced with a career even longer than Herblock's, guest curator and Hirschfeld archivist David Leopold chose to focus not on Hirschfeld's well-known pen-and-ink entertainment caricatures, but rather on his other artistic pursuits. Exhibiting 24 pieces, many donated to the Library by the artist, Leopold produced a wide-ranging survey of works in all media, especially including some early art. The result was an interesting and ambitious show, but not a complete success since Hirschfeld's best work is his caricatures. Leopold included obscure material like drawings of North Africa from 1926 -- material that was reminiscent of magazine illustration of the time. Other early work like a 1923 gouache advertisement for Woman to Woman magazine recalled Szyk's work in miniatures, and his 1931 lithograph Art and Industry owed much to Daumier. Hirschfeld's color caricatures, usually for magazine covers like "Walter Lippman" for American Mercury in the 1940s, show that he could have continued doing similar work and had a full career. Recently, printing advances have made it possible for him to use color for caricatures and one from the New York Times in 2000 is in the show. The exhibit, accompanied by a well-done brochure, was an interesting example of Hirschfeld's lesser abilities, but not a major view of his career.

Politics in Black and White: Local, State, and National Cartoons and Caricatures. Dan Voss and Ellen Vartanoff. Rockville, MD: Montgomery College VCT Department Gallery, October 10--November 10, 2000.

This small exhibit was aimed at students in the College's graphic arts department. According to Voss, the "idea was to be topical and to bring in a little bit more local connection than you would expect." With eight artists (Joe Azar, Chip Beck, Steve Brodner, Chris Curtis, Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher, Marcia Klioze-Hughes, and Lucinda Levine) and 55 pieces in the exhibit, students and other visitors saw a wide range of comic art. The only label in the exhibit was a short introductory panel with brief biographical information. Azar (a conservative political cartoonist for the Legal Times and the Washington Times), Kal, and Curtis (cartoonist for the Gazette chain of local newspapers) all produce standard "modern" political cartoons; while competent, no cartoon displayed was particularly memorable. Caricaturists were well represented. Levine's work looked like that of unrelated David Levine. Klioze-Hughes' color work caricatured historical figures like George Washington. Beck's pieces were unfortunately reminiscent of the cartoonists working in chalk in shopping malls. Brodner works for national publications like the New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek and his distinctive style was well represented. "We hope to bring [the students] the real thing," Voss stated, and the exhibit succeeded in being an engaging look at the styles and ability of a small range of working professional cartoonists.


Cartoons and Campaigns. Arlington, VA: The Newseum, October 7--November 12, 2000.

Pens and Needles: The Editorial Cartoons of Joel Pett. Arlington, VA: The Newseum, November 10, 2000--January 7, 2001.

"Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus." Arlington, VA: The Newseum, December, 2000.

Cartoons and Campaigns added political cartoons to Every Four Years, an exhibit on press coverage of the Presidential campaign. The cartoons, a mixture of originals and reproductions, totaled approximately 40 pieces of art. Included in the show were originals by Luckovich (who still uses tone shading), Breen, Conrad, Wilkinson, Horsey, Borgman, Peters, and reproductions by Marlette, Toles, Handelsman, Chip Beck, Morin, Higgins, Kal, Pett, Gorrell, Gerner, Telnaes, Bok, Benson, Herblock, and Szep. The show presented a snapshot of election cartoons, and was enjoyable in a casual sense, but did not add anything significant to the study of comic art.

Pins and Needles was a significantly better exhibit in terms of learning. Ten original cartoons with commentary by Pett were displayed, unfortunately in a hallway leading to a movie theater. Seven reproductions from the twenty cartoons that Pett submitted to win the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning were also included. Pett's commentary on his process of cartooning included exhibiting three drafts and the final cartoon. This was a minor, but interesting show.

"Yes, Virginia..." is the Newseum's annual show of Thomas Nast's Harper's Weekly engravings of Santa Claus. The exhibit included artwork from 1863, 1865, 1866, 1871, 1879, 1884, and 1885 and showed how Nast's artwork and concept of Santa progressed through a twenty-year period. According to Nast, by 1884 Santa was answering telephone requests. Since Santa Claus is so deeply embedded in American culture, an annual show devoted to the cartoonist who created him helps keep Nast's work alive.


The Art of John Cederquist: Reality of Illusion. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art's Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, March 31--August 20, 2000.

John Cederquist stretches the definition of comic art. He creates artistic wooden furniture. Cederquist is influenced by Popeye cartoons and he has copied two-dimensional furniture from the cartoons to produce three-dimensional pieces. Although this show, organized by the Oakland Museum of California, did not include any of his Popeye works among its thirteen pieces, the influence of cartoons could still be seen. "Tubular" (1990) appeared to be a bookcase made of shipping crates but had a Hokusai-style wave rolling out of the top. "Steamer Chest III" (1995) looked as though it was a coiled pipe, supported by stacked wood, with puffs of Crumb-like smoke emerging from each end of the pipe. Cederquist's titles were puns that helped define the piece -- words and pictures working together -- leading to the beginning of the definition of a cartoon. The exhibit provoked thought on what comic art really is.

Richard's Poor Almanack

It's still not online, but yesterday's Post cartoon by Richard Thompson was another finger puppet - this time of Smithsonian big-spending Secretary Lawrence Small. My collection grows by leaps and bounds!

Also, he did an awesome caricature of Stalin as a home-improvement contractor in today's Post Magazine, as well as the illo for Joel Achenbach's column where he declined to illustrate the phrase "A nightmare for your consideration: epidemics of genital shrinkage."

None of this is online, of course. I guess the Post doesn't pay for digital repro rights for illos.

Wrightson followup

Joel and I are a bit disappointed that nobody's commented on our posting of a 20-year old barely-seen interview - for those who didn't follow the wikipedia link in the first posting, here's another look at Wrightson's career.

Virgin Comics profile in today's Post

Haven't read it yet, but here's the story: "Deepak Chopra And a New Age Of Comic Books: Author Is in Venture to Create Made-for-Movies Superheroes" by David Segal, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, March 3, 2007; Page C01.

Actually I haven't read any of these Virgin Comics yet either. Anybody? Are they any good?

March 5 - What's Opera, Doc? showing

This is one of Chuck Jones' absolute best Bugs Bunny shorts.

At the Goethe-Institut Washington, 812 Seventh St. NW, Washington, DC. Further information: 202-289-1200 or www.goethe.de/washington.

Wagner in Hollywood Film Series

In conjunction with the Washington National Opera's performance of Die Walküre, part two of Wagner's Der Ring, we present Hollywood classics featuring his music.

Monday, March 5, 6:30 pm

Introduction by Michael Jeck, Programming Manager, Films, MhZ Networks; Programmer emeritus, American Film Institute

What’s Opera, Doc?
USA, 1957, 16mm, 7 min., color, Director: Chuck Jones

What's Opera, Doc? is a short animated cartoon directed by Chuck Jones in which Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny through a seven-minute operatic parody of Wagner's operas, particularly The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring der Nibelungen).

AND

The Scarlett Empress
USA, 1934, 35mm, 104 min., b/w, Director: Josef von Sternberg

Young Princess Sophia of Germany is taken to Russia to marry the half-wit Grand Duke Peter, son of the Empress. She dutifully produces a son of questionable fatherhood. After the old empress dies, Sophia engineers a coup d'etat, does away with Peter, and becomes Catherine the Great.

The Scarlett Empress’ soundtrack included part of Richard Wagner’s The Valkyrie (Die Walküre, 1856).

March 8 - Japanamerica author at JICC

I met Christopher Wanamaker, DC Anime Club President (202 262 2083) at the Shojo Manga exhibit, and he's passed along this press release. I think I'll attend as the book's been getting good press.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan presents: Roland Kelts
Author of: Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US
Thursday March 8th, 2007, 6:30 pm

In the past two decades Japanese culture has become as omnipresent in America as the West is in Japan. Why does Japanese culture speak to Americans today? Roland Kelts is the half-Japanese American author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US. He will examine the relationship between America and Japan and the influence they have on each other’s pop culture.
Mr. Kelts is also an editor of the literary journal A Public Space and a lecturer at The University of Tokyo. His articles, essays, and fiction have been published in Playboy, The Village Voice, Zoetrope: All-Story, Newsday, DoubleTake, Cosmopolitan, The Japan Times, Vogue Japan, Gunzo and Red Herring, among others. His essays on Japan appear in two recently published collections, Gamers and Kuhaku. He was the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in Writing and a winner of the Playboy Fiction Contest. He was a story consultant on the BBC's six-part series Japanorama, and he has just completed his first novel, Access, which will be published next year. He has lectured at New York University, Rutgers University, the Saint Ann's School and Philips Exeter Academy. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oberlin
College, and currently splits his time between New York and Tokyo.

Japan Information and Culture Center Auditorium
Reservations are required for this event: jiccrsvpwinter07@embjapan.org
Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan
Lafayette Center III 1155 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Farragut North and West Metro
202-238-6949
www.embjapan.org/jicc

March 28 - Stagger Lee signing at Big Planet

Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix, writer and artist of the new comic Stagger Lee will be at Big Planet Comics in Bethesda from 2-4 pm on Wednesday, March 28th. As the flyer says, wear a Stetson, get a gift. I have no idea what that means.

Big Planet is at 4908 Fairmont Ave, in the Woodmont Triangle, and the phone number is 301-654-6856.

On April 11th, Bryan Talbot will be there in the evening for his new book Alice in Sunderland. Anyone who's unfamiliar with Bryan's work should run out and buy Tale of One Bad Rat, his Beatrix Potter-influenced story, and then work up to the glorious new wave madness of Luther Arkwright.

Rob Ullman covers Washington City Paper

'Savage Love' cartoonist Rob Ullman also illustrates the cover and main article of the new City Paper.

Robert Graysmith Was a Cartoonist Until the Zodiac Case Drew Him In

I haven't read this yet - "A Killer Obsession: Robert Graysmith Was a Cartoonist Until the Zodiac Case Drew Him In" by William Booth, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, March 1, 2007; Page C01.

Missed Molly Crabapple in person, and this interview too

Somehow I missed this article by Darona Williams - "Sexy Sketchy: Molly Crabapple," Express (February 26, 2007) and thus her appearance in DC, but read the interview anyway.

Here's another interview as well - "Someone's Sketchy" by Adrian f. Zettlemoyer, Broken Frontier (February 26, 2007).

March 3 - Tug of War exhibit

Glenn Dixon interviewed Annie Adjchavanich, curator of the exhibit Tug of War at the Hemphill Fine Arts gallery. The exhibit includes animators like Glen Barr (pictured above) who's worked on Ren & Stimpy and Gary Baseman, who's worked for Disney and may be most familiar as the artist for the game Cranium. The gallery is at 1515 14th St, NW. The exhibit opens on Saturday from 6:30-8:30, and there's a signing (of something - the article doesn't specify) on Sunday at 3-5 pm. It's open through April 7th and the phone number is 202-234-5601. The press release is here.

The article can be read at the Express website by clicking on 'download print edition' and selecting March 1, and then going to page E2, or the 'On the Spot' column.

Anybody want to meet at the booksigning?

March 15 & 22 - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind anime showing

I got this press release today - Miyazaki is great!! This is at 21st & M St, NW.

The Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan

Presents:

As part of the 15th annual Environmental Film Festival

March 15th and 22nd, 6:00 pm

In the JICC Auditorium

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: One thousand years after the “Seven Days of Fire,” an event that destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth’s original ecosystem, scattered human settlements survive. They are isolated from one another by the “Sea of Corruption,” a lethally toxic jungle of fungus swarming with giant insects that come together to wage war. Nausicaa is a charming young princess of the peacefull Valley of the Wind who is humane and peace-loving but also a skillful fighter noted for her empathy toward animals and humans. The Valley of the Wind becomes threatened when two rival states, Pejite and Tolmekia, battle to possess the “God Warrior,” a lethal giant bioweapon, that has landed in the Valley, and the fighting escalates out of control. The story holds a deeper meaning beyond war, however. Even the insects seem to be working toward some secret harmony and the lethal fungal forest seems to have a vital role in Earth’s new dominant ecosystem. As she helps prisoners, villagers, enemies and mutant insects, Princess Nausicaa becomes a Joan of Arc figure- a warrior maiden inspired by a vision to defend all life against destruction. Directed, written and illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. Produced by Rick Dempsey and Isao Takahata. Original release, Japan 1984. 116 minutes In English Reccomended for children 10 years and older. Supported by the DC Anime Club.

The film will be introduced by Mr. Tom Vick, Tom Vick is the film programmer for the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution. His book, ASIAN CINEMA: A FIELD GUIDE will be published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2008.

Interview with Bernie Wrightson 3 (and last)

...continued from part 1 and part 2 and courtesy of Joel Pollack.

JP: What do you think of Bill Sienkiewicz?

BW: Bill runs hot and cold. I either really like his stuff, or it goes right by me. He does some things that make me very, very jealous. I wish that I could take some of those chances; I’m from an entirely different school of art. When you take chances like that, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t work, when he falls flat, I still have to admire him for taking the chance.

JP: He’s surpassed Neal Adams.

BW: Oh, god yeah. Neal really doesn’t have any surprises left. For me, Neal poured everything into the Superman – Muhammed Ali book. That is just one of my all-time favorite comics. Sometimes when I’m feeling really low and depressed, and it’s wintertime and the snow is up to the windowsills, I’ll pull that thing off the shelf and read it; it always brings me up again.

JP: This sounds like “true confessions.”

BW: Oh yeah, I love it, it’s really wonderful. Good storytelling, good drawing. Neal really poured his heart and soul into it, more than anything else he ever did. I think that Neal was a commercial artist, first, last, and always; and sort of dabbled in comics. He’s been more of an influence on comics in the 1980’s than anyone else.

JP: Of course, your work has been a strong influence in the eighties.

BW: Not nearly as much as Neal’s, and nothing like Jack Kirby. We’re talking about the giants of the industry. These are the guys who influenced the people who do the real bread-and-butter comic book stuff, which is, of course, the super heroes. Outside of these couple of graphic novels, I don’t do super heroes. The Spider-Man graphic novel is less of a Spider-Man story than it is a Berni Wrightson monster story with Spider-Man in it.

JP: Would you like to work with Alan Moore or Frank Miller?

BW: I’d like to work with Alan Moore. In fact, I’ve been toying with the idea of approaching DC Comics with a Swamp Thing graphic novel. If I could work with Alan Moore, and have total control over how it looks…

JP: Have you met Alan Moore?

BW: I only know him through his work, and this marvelously flattering thing he wrote for the third Swamp Thing reprint. It’s almost embarrassing for me, it’s so flattering. I felt so good when I read it. I’d really like to work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone in the field writing horror, who’s ever written horror, as well as Alan Moore. His stuff is genuinely creepy. I’ve gotten shivers from a number of his things that I’ve read. I can’t say that about anyone else.

JP: Any comments on DC or Marvel as publishers?

BW: DC and I had a falling-out for a while; it was more of a misunderstanding on everyone’s part. I’ll work for them again. I’d like to work with Julius Schwartz. Marvel is also a good publisher. They tend to want a little more control over their people. I’ve always been outside of that, because I’ve never been a mainstream artist for either company.

JP: Comments on Warren Publishing?

BW: I really admired Jim Warren. I walked into his office and said, “I want to work for you.” And he said, “Here’s my conditions: You work for me and I’ll give you back your originals. I own the printing rights, I’ll always own the printing rights, now and forever. You don’t have a thing to say about what happens to the printing rights. Forget about the rights, you don’t have any rights. On top of that, I’m going to pay you the best money you’ve ever made.” And it was true. He was paying me over $100 a page, which I wasn’t getting from any of the other companies. The money was there when I delivered the work. Maybe the best thing was I didn’t have to worry how the work was going to look when it was printed. They did it in black and white, and the printing was always good. Jim Warren was always fair to me. I wish the man well.

JP: How about Chris Zavisa (Land of Enchantment)?

BW: Never a problem with Chris. I think Chris is gearing up to getting out of the publishing business.

JP: I had heard that his last book (Twilight Eyes) was quite successful.

BW: I thought that it was great. It was very well written. The fellow who illustrated it is just marvelous. He’s still young and he could work a bit more; it’s fundamentally all there. He did some things that I was jealous of in that. The packaging was just beautiful; Chris is essentially a packager. He could take anyone’s work and make it look good. He’s a real stickler about reproduction.

JP: Is Berni Wrightson mellowing?

BW: Sure. Sure I am. I’ve got a beautiful home in the country, I’ve got two cars , got a dog, got a little boy, got a mortgage, I’ve got medical insurance, life insurance…

JP: Sounds like there are still a few more horror stories left in there.

BW: Yeah, I think so.

JP: A Wrightson anthology?

BW: I talk about it from time to time. I’d rather put the energy into one long, sustained story. This anthology stuff – too often you’ve got one really good story, and then several weak stories to fill it out. I think I’d rather work on one long, epic opus. I’ve already got 1 ½ graphic novels under my belt; the second one is coming along much more smoothly than the first one.

JP: And yet, you’re putting more work in.

BW: Exactly. I think the graphic novel is my medium in the comic book business. I’m certainly got going to do the newsstand books again. The reproduction is too iffy, and it’s a little too ephemeral – a throwaway thing. Graphic novels are nice. The reproduction is good. I can color the originals, which I really like. You can stretch that as far as you want; you can take it to a full-scale painting if you want to. The best thing about it is, it has an almost indefinite shelf life. If there’s a demand, it’s reprinted. On a second printing, my percentage goes up. (On Hooky) I heard the advance orders are 60,000. The Death of Captain Marvel is still their champ. That did so incredibly well in the first year, that Starlin couldn’t even believe it. He was rolling in money.

JP: Yet he’s not working for Marvel anymore.

BW: He had a lot of problems with Marvel. There’s something strange going on at Marvel. They’re losing their best people. They’ve lost Starlin, they’ve lost John Byrne, they’ve lost Frank Miller.

JP: What does that leave for Marvel?

BW: It leaves the New Universe (Loud laughter)

JP: Tell us about your future projects.

BW: This is the first time in recent memory that I haven’t had anything looming on the horizon.

JP: Because of your commitment on the Thing-Hulk graphic novel?

BW: Right. Part of the problem I had with the Spider-Man graphic novel was a lot of other things kept getting in the way. I had to finish Cycle of the Werewolf; I stopped for a couple of months and work on Ghostbusters; I did some of The Stand drawings; I kept breaking away from the graphic novel. With the Thing-Hulk graphic novel, I haven’t had to do that. One thing that has come along – I’ve met three guys that are special effects makeup people. I’ve done some storyboards with these guys for a movie called My Demon Lover, a horror comedy. It’s a low-budget thing. They want good demons and monsters for practically no money, and we’re trying to come up with that.

JP: So movies are in your future?

BW: I hope so, yeah. It would be fun.

JP: You’re not going “Hollywood” on us?

BW: I wouldn’t go to Hollywood. I’ve never been there, but everybody I’ve ever known who’s been there has just kind of gone and never been seen again. We lived in Florida for a year; it got very depressing. There’s no change of season – everything is constant. I just kept thinking California is probably like this, this changelessness. I really couldn’t take it. I like having a really stinking hot summer, followed by a beautiful fall, and then, an extremely hard winter. I enjoy that. It’s kind of purging.

JP: Any other new projects?

BW: This is really amazing. I didn’t think about it until you mentioned it, but there’s just nothing in the works. I’m sure in the next three months, I’m going to be scrambling for something.

JP: Thank you, very much, Berni, for the interview.

BW: Just in time (for Cheers).

And there it ends, almost 21 years later.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 2

continued from part 1

JP: Why haven’t you continued to do the covers for The Roots of the Swamp Thing Series?

BW: Initially, because they wouldn’t let me do paintings, and how many times can you deal with those same situations, and make them different and interesting. It’s leftovers, and I really would rather not deal with leftovers.

JP: Yet on your cover for TROTST #1, you went well beyond anything you had done before.

BW: Yeah, I had fun, because they were letting me do something different. I could play with it and experiment; jump in and do something that didn’t have a black line around it and lots of fancy feathering. I could just use a big brush and have fun and play with color. Everything is a learning process. If you don’t learn, you don’t grow.

JP: You start repeating yourself.

BW: Which I’ve been doing a lot of in the last few years, I’d be the first to admit.

JP: There’s a balance between art and commerce.

BW: Yeah, well, I take things on for the money, because I do this for a living.

JP: You’ve been known to get over-committed before.

BW: Oh yeah. I try to help people out sometimes. Like Creepshow was more of a favor to Stephen King.

JP: It must have been a nice shot in the arm for your career?

BW: Not really. It was certainly not my best work. I think it was several cuts below. I really can’t bear to look at it any more. There were a lot of restrictions; we didn’t have a lot of time.

JP: Have you seen Chaykin’s Shadow?

BW: Very briefly – I’ve only seen one issue. I thought it was pretty entertaining, but it wasn’t the Shadow. I’m not as into it as Kaluta, or the real hardcore fans. I’m sort of indifferent, but still, Chaykin’s thing wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t think the character can be updated.



JP: How about Miller’s Dark Knight?

BW: I saw the second issue, the one with the wrinkled Batman on the cover. I enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. That was Batman. Batman with teeth. That’s a little bit more like what the character should be. I always thought that Batman fought all of these weird psychos, the Joker, the Penguin, and Batman himself is a psycho. Nobody’s ever really explored that in any depth, and Miller’s got a handle on that.

JP: What do you think of Moonshadow?

BW: Moonshadow I find pretty enjoyable. It tends to ramble a lot; it doesn’t hold my interest a whole lot. Maybe I prefer something with a little more punch. You either like fairy tales or you don’t, and I suppose I don’t. Can’t fault Jay’s art. Even in some of the stuff where he’s obviously rushed, he still pulls it off. He still has that assurance to bring it over.
JP: Kaluta and Lee’s Starstruck?

BW: I find it really fun to look at, as all of Michael’s stuff is; I find it difficult to read. Reading it is fun, and it is well written, but I don’t really think I understand it. I know a bit more than the guy on the street because I know Michael and Elaine, and we talk about it. I’ve seen the play. But even with that background, a lot of it is completely lost on me. I get the feeling, sometimes, that Michael doesn’t understand it. Anything that Michael works on is just wonderful.

to be continued in part 3

Images courtesy of the the Grand Comic Book Database.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 1

Well, I got slightly over a page of this typed in, and it was at a good stopping point, so here's the start of the interview courtesy of Joel.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson
Originally published in CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986)

BERNI WRIGHTSON INTERVIEW conducted by Joel Pollack on May 15, 1986.

JP: Do you have a distaste for barbarian subject matter?

BW: No, the real early stuff I did before ever being published was exclusively barbarian and horror. I did a lot of drawings of these big powerful guys with scars all over them. I did some samples for Conan when Marvel was going to do it, but they already had Barry Smith.

JP: They wanted a more gentlemanly Conan?

BW: I guess. Or someone they could push around more. Barry’ll love that. I might take another swing at it sometime.

JP: After Frazetta did the Conan covers, there’s not a lot left to say about it.

BW: There doesn’t seem to be any need for it. He was at his peak. I don’t think he ever got much better than that.


JP: What was the print run on A Look Back?

BW: I couldn’t really tell you. It turned into such a headache. Poor Chris (Zavisa) went through sheer hell. I just tuned it all out when it was happening. All I know is – it’s out of print; you can’t get it; there won’t be another printing.

JP: Any possibility of an abridged version?

BW: I have absolutely no plans. I really couldn’t be less interested. Please tell the fans I’m sorry, but I’d rather get on with the next project. If somebody came to me and wanted to take the project on and do all the legwork and worry about the reproduction and all of that, and just give me a pot of money, that would be fine. I’m not going to strain myself over that.

JP: What of your work showed up in Ghostbusters?

BW: I worked on the Wardogs and it’s hard to tell anymore. It looks like they kept my proportions for the dogs, and not much else. They originally came to me with drawings that other people had done and the dogs looked very much the way they looked in the movie. They said, “We don’t want this reptilian look, we want something that looks a little more like a dog. Put some fur on it and make it more wolf-like.” So, I worked on that, did a lot of drawings, and when the movie comes out they just changed it back to what they told me they didn’t want in the first place. Something of mind did come through: the faces, the facial expressions, mostly the proportions; high in the shoulders, low in the back. I also worked on the librarian sequence; I did a long sequence of her changing. She went through this long change; the way I saw it, it was to have lasted four seconds. They didn’t do it mostly because they didn’t have the budget for it. Ghostbusters was not really a big budget movie in the effects line. They were trying to save money in this. The only thing that survived is when she hushes the guide. That was in my storyboards.

JP: How many finished Frankenstein drawings did you do?

BW: The original idea was to do a hundred. I did somewhere between forty and a hundred; I’d put it about sixty. There are quite a few out there that are unfinished; a lot of those are versions of ones that did get finished. I really made myself crazy on that stuff.

...to be continued in part 2
and part 3.

Coming soon! Berni Wrightson interview from 1986

Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics loaned me his copy of the fanzine/APA CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986) which contained his "An Interview with Berni Wrightson." CFA-APA was limited to 50 copies per issue so not many people have seen this interview. Today he gave me permission ... NAY! encouraged me to transcribe it and post it here. So check back in a few days and hopefully I'll have it up.

Yesterday's Spider-Man comic was the last

Bill Radford of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that the Spider-Man comic that we were getting in the Examiner has finished:

"...a lack of advertising dollars has caused the company to cut Spider-Man adventures short. The last issue appears today... “We received untold numbers of e-mails from enthusiastic readers and were thrilled by the great response from the papers that carried it,” Laura Richards, a spokeswoman for News America Marketing, said via e-mail.

“Unfortunately, despite our most conscientious efforts to get advertisers as excited as we were, in the end we were simply unable to bring in the revenue needed to offset the cost.”

So no more wandering the neighborhood and raiding the neighbor's lawns on Saturday for me.

Former Library of Congress curator Harry Katz interviewed

The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an interview with Harry Katz who worked on the Cartoon America companion book to the Library's exhibit.

Oscar-nominated animated shorts showing in DC

My friend Doug called this morning to let me know that this year's 2006 Oscar-Nominated Shorts are showing in DC this weekend at the E Street Landmark Theatre. Christian Toto reviewed them for the Times. Also in the Times, Zadzooks visits the NY Toy Fair.

Last free Spider-Man comic?

After a long search, I found today's Examiner to get what appears to be the last Spider-Man Collectible Series #24. There's a new, unsigned cover, and you can buy the complete set by downloading a mail-in form at http://www.smartsource.com.

Today's papers - Ghost Rider, Superman Returns videogame and Clifford Berryman

"Riding Solo" in the Washington City Paper (February 23, 2007) by Tricia Olszewski is a positive review of Ghost Rider by a woman, which surprises me somewhat for no good reason at all.

John Gaudiosi reviews the videogame for Superman Returns in "Superman's Kryptonite," Washington Post (February 23, 2007); WE44 and doesn't like it very much.

And the above drawing of Roosevelt as Shakespeare by Clifford Berryman will be in the "Shakespeare in American Life" exhibit opening March 8th at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is one of the great places in Washington.

See a slice of my collection

Al Rio will send you a postcard of his art for free, but asks you to send back a picture of you with the postcard. Since a.) I love comics ephemera, b.) collect cartoon philately and c.) don't consider myself particularly photogenic, I took this shot of the card with a slice of my collection that they've put up on their website.

I've got 2 postcards from ASIFA-Hollywood Animation's Archive project for the person who can name the most items in the picture. Both are caricatures of animators - Grim Natwick and Ub Iwerks.

China? Shojo manga? Shazam!

China Mieville at Politics & Prose bookstore, February 20, 2007


Scott Rosenberg, following up an interesting but off-topic interview with SF/fantasy writer China Mieville.... well he did put a comic he wrote and Liam Sharp illustrated in his last collection so we'll let him in... interviewed Jeff Smith for an article in today's Express. I haven't read the first issue of the comic yet - I'm waiting for the trade as the kids today say.

And in tomorrow's Post (you'll just have to wonder), Michael O'Sullivan has a review of the shojo manga exhibit. I met him at a New Year's Party (namedropping!), introducing myself because he was talking about the excellent Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit that was at the Hirschhorn Museum last year with another one across the street at the Sackler following close behind it. In tomorrow's review, I think he has this exactly right: Still, one of artist Masako Watanabe's drawings on view, from a comic created for readers (if that's the right word) in their 20s and 30s, features a graphic sex scene more reminiscent of shunga, the erotic variety of ukiyo-e, or traditional woodblock prints. Another image, from "Chumoncho," a comic by the same artist, depicts a murder-suicide by a lovesick courtesan. With its delicate spray of bright red blood frozen in midair, it's among the exhibition's most striking pictures.

These are by far the most striking images, and even though the both sex scene and the violence are quite explicit, they are mounted in the building's lobby where anyone can see them at any time. Go see the show before it closes to see what he meant.

Shojo Manga exhibit reviewed on web

Johanna Carlson's site Comics Worth Reading just ran a guest review by Ed Sizemore of the exhibit which is still here in DC for a few more weeks.

Today's Express, too late for usefulness

Today's Express had a wire article from the LA Times on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and a interview of China Mieville by comics fan (and ex-Examiner columnist) Scott Rosenburg. Mieville appeared tonight at Politics & Prose, and gave a fun talk about his new young adult novel Un Lun Dun. Tying him to comics, he did a strip with Liam Sharp in a collection of short stories.

The two newspaper bits should be available on their website.

Also, Flushed Away, last year's best animated film (Cars? get real - it was completely predictable) from Aardman Animation came out on DVD today. Best Buy is giving away plush singing slugs with their dvd. Can life get any better?

Herblock award to Jim Morin

Dave Astor reports that Miami Herald cartoonist Jim Morin has been awarded this year's Herblock award - named after the Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block and funded with his capital. Since he owned a lot of Post stock, that's apparently a lot of capital. The award will be given on April 4th, and oddly enough, they always have a non-cartoonist speaker who takes up the lion share of the time. It was Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor the last time I went - she was very interesting, but had no interest at all in cartoons. This year it's Tom Brokaw.

Michael Cavna editorial cartoon in Post

Infrequently, the Post runs editorial cartoons by Michael Cavna. Today's is on p. N7 and is "Oscar: The Year of the (Subliminal) Subtitle" in which Borat shows how foreign language films are actually subliminal Oscar propaganda.

Obligatory Richard Thompson mention

Richard's Cul de Sac in today's Washington Post Magazine is one of those self-referential strips that always amuses me. Petey is attempting to read the comics to his little sister who doesn't understand that each panel segues into the next. Petey prefaces reading the strips by saying, "They're 'comic strips' examples of a mighty yet dying art form." Et tu, Richard?

He also does the weekly illustration for Joel Achenbach's column a few pages later. I don't think either the strip or the illo is online.

Bernie Wrightson interviewed in Times

Joseph Szadkowski ran a short interview with horror and superhero comic book artist Bernie Wrightson in yesterday's Washington Times. Wrightson may be best known for co-creating Swamp Thing and illustrating Stephen King, but he's done a lot of comic work over the years.

Editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker

Alan Gardner picked up a story on editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker at his Daily Cartoonist blog. Harry Jaffee's written a good profile of Wuerker's gig at the new tabloid the Politico for the Washingtonian's website. Did this appear in print as well?

For whom the Toles bells

Ouch. Ok, I'll go back to normal headlines. Anyway, someone compiling the Saturday 'Free for All' letters page of the Post must either a.) have it in for editorial cartoonist Tom Toles or b.) think that carping letters about his cartoons make good reading.

I think they ran about the 3rd in a month today - a letter from Mr. Wayne Smith of Greenbelt, MD pointing out that the Jamestown settlers were not illegal immigrants, and that even if they were colonists, that was ok because they declared themselves to the "Indian authorities." Toles' cartoon was of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown - Celebrating the state's first illegal immigrants.

Right above it, they ran a letter by Ms. Pam Kincheloe in favor of Toles' cartoon about murderous diaper-wearing astronauts. So b. must be the right choice above.

Flugennock returns!

DC poster artist Mike Fluggenock has announced a new series of caricatures under the banner New Editorial Cartoon Series: "Your Jackass Slate For 2008!" As you can imagine, the pictures aren't pretty - so click on the link and look at them. It's up to you whether you poster the town with broadsheets though.



Boy, I just love his stuff and more of it's here.
Don't miss the New Day with the New Democrat Majority series either!

Post reviews Ghost

I could get into writing these headlines. The Post reviewed Ghost Rider today, which was not screened for critics - apparently that's always a bad sign.

See the Post headline writer enjoys writing them too - 'Ghost Rider': Hells, um, Devils By Stephen Hunter, Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page C01.

Hunter's main point is: "Ghost Rider" is a compelling image in search of a movie.
And he wraps up: Mainly the movie's about riding a bike at the speed of sound while your head is burning. They can do anything these days, which isn't quite the same as saying they should do anything these days.












The Washington Times ran their review yesterday -
'Ghost Rider' cheese: Too thin, too stale by Christian Toto, February 16, 2007.

Toto concludes:

Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson drapes the entire project with a layer of cheese, but it's never gooey enough to make "Ghost Rider" a guilty snack. And making Johnny groove to Carpenters' music to psych himself up for a stunt is as creepy as his flamed-out skull. "Ghost Rider" is no "Spider-Man." Heck, it's less interesting than either "Daredevil" or "Elektra," leaving the audience cursed for nearly two hours.

Big Planet of development

I stopped by Big Planet Comics in Bethesda as usual last week, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this evil sign (click on the photos to read it).

Woodmont Triangle was rezoned last year to permit more development and Joel's building was sold around the same time. So now, we see the sign for the proposed development - 118 condos.

Joel's still got a bit of time on his lease and is approaching this sanguinely. Me? I'm not ready for him to make another move - that'll be two in 20 years and I can't take that pace of change.

Ted Rall and Spider-Man both missing

This week's City Paper didn't have Ted Rall's comic in it. Instead the comic that had been appearing on page 3 moved back and a new amateurish comic appeared on page 3. Rall, in spite of his... abstract drawing style... is one of the hardest-hitting editorial cartoonists out there, and it would be a shame if he's not appearing in DC anymore.

In today's Washington Examiner, the weekly Spider-Man comic book was nowhere to be seen. My guess is that they were stopped by the winter storm. I hope we get a two-fer next weekend as this should have been the week with the new cover art.

2/17: Tobacco editorial cartoon exhibit presentation

The British medical journal, The Lancet reviewed the exhibit briefly, concluding "Although heavy handed at times, the exhibition powerfully illustrates the devil's bargain the US struck with the deadly weed and how difficult it has been to break the deal despite the devastating toll on public health."

I hear editorial cartoonist Bill Garner of the Washington Times will be stopping in as well.

“WHEN MORE DOCTORS SMOKED CAMELS: A CENTURY OF HEALTH CLAIMS IN CIGARETTE ADVERTISING”

The National Museum of Health and Medicine will host “When More Doctors Smoked Camels: A Century of Health Claims in Cigarette Advertising,” a free illustrated lecture and gallery talk presented by Alan Blum, M.D., on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 1 p.m., highlighting the exhibit “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” on display through April 1, 2007.
Week in and week out from the 1920s through the 1950s, tobacco companies used images of physicians and their implied endorsements to help sell cigarettes. Such advertisements appeared not only in most issues of Life, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, but also in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Through the years, cigarette advertising depicted doctors almost as often as movie stars and sports heroes,” said Blum, curator of the exhibit, and whose lecture will feature many such ads and vintage television commercials.
Although cigarette advertisements were banned from TV in 1971, their print counterparts did not completely disappear from medical journals until the 1980s.
“Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” is an exhibition of original newspaper editorial cartoons retracing the 40-year battle over the use and promotion of cigarettes since the publication of the landmark Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964. It also addresses complacency on the part of organized medicine, politicians, and the mass media in ending the tobacco pandemic.
The exhibit features 55 original cartoons by more than 50 nationally known American editorial cartoonists and is supplemented by smoking-related items, from the original newspaper headlines that inspired the cartoons to advertisements promoting the health benefits of lighting up.
In addition to the cartoons, several mini-exhibitions are on view, including the airline flight attendants’ battle to get Congress to pass the ban on smoking on commercial aircraft; a history of the Kent Micronite Filter, made from asbestos; the advertising of cigarettes in medical journals from the 1920s to the 1980s; and the selection of cigarette commercials and smoking scenes from TV and the movies. Two preserved lungs from the museum’s anatomical collection—one showing the ill effects of smoking and the other a healthy lung—highlight the exhibit.
The exhibit will be on display at the museum, which is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue and Elder Street, NW, Washington, D.C. For more information call (202) 782-2200 or visit www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum. Admission and parking are free.

The System of Comics - new book, and still off-topic

Another post with nothing to do with DC except that one of the translators has stayed in my basement. My friends Bart and Nick, although Canadians (that's a joke, son), undoubtedly did an excellent job on translating Groensteen's book, which apparently will be one of the major books on comics theory. Nick, being an archivist* like me, should have brought a lot to this partnership.
Click on the title to buy a copy now, or order it from Amazon for the free shipping.


The System of Comics
Thierry Groensteen
Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen

An authoritative exploration of how the comics achieve meaning, form, and function

This edition of Thierry Groensteen's The System of Comics makes available in English a groundbreaking work on comics by one of the medium's foremost scholars. In this book, originally published in France in 1999, Groensteen explains clearly the subtle, complex workings of the medium and its unique way of combining visual, verbal, spatial, and chronological expressions. The author explores the nineteenth-century pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer, contemporary Japanese creators, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, and modern American autobiographical comics.

The System of Comics uses examples from a wide variety of countries including the United States, England, Japan, France, and Argentina. It describes and analyzes the properties and functions of speech and thought balloons, panels, strips, and pages to examine methodically and insightfully the medium's fundamental processes.

From this, Groensteen develops his own coherent, overarching theory of comics, a "system" that both builds on existing studies of the "word and image" paradigm and adds innovative approaches of his own. Examining both meaning and appreciation, the book provides a wealth of ideas that will challenge the way scholars approach the study of comics. By emphasizing not simply "storytelling techniques" but also the qualities of the printed page and the reader's engagement, the book's approach is broadly applicable to all forms of interpreting this evolving art.

Thierry Groensteen is a comics scholar and translator in Brussels, Belgium. He is the author of La bande dessinée: Une littérature graphique and La construction de la cage, among other books. Bart Beaty is associate professor of communication and culture at the University of Calgary. Nick Nguyen is an archivist at Library and Archives Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario.

FEBRUARY, 192 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, introduction, index
Cloth, 1-57806-925-4
(978-1-57806-925-5)
For sale in the U.S. and its territories only

*Archivists are your jack-of-all-trades of the cultural world. ;^)

A couple of oddities from Tuesday's papers

In the Post, Starbucks has an ad on page A12 to "Draw Salty." Salty's a cartoon pirate head, like the old "if you can draw this" ads that ran in comics. There's 7 blank boxes to draw Salty in various art styles - minimalism, cubism, dada, abstract expressionism, post-impressionism, surrealism and baroque - but this doesn't appear to be a contest.

In the Examiner, a letter to the editor takes them to task for a Darryl Cagle editorial cartoon. The letter writer appears to completely miss the conceit of 'putting lipstick on a pig':


The Washington Examiner
Feb 13, 2007
http://www.examiner.com/a-562401~Letters__February_13__2007.html

WASHINGTON -
Cartoonist got it exactly backwards on Department of Defense budget

Re: “Whoa, I’m gonna need more lipstick” cartoon, Feb. 12

Daryl Cagle’s cartoon gave a factually false image of the defense budget as an ugly pig that is much larger than the “domestic budget.”

According to OMB figures, defense spending will be $439 billion in a total 2007 budget of $2.9 trillion, or 15 percent. Even if one adds the State Department and other international programs, and possible supplemental requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the total still comes to less than 20 percent of federal spending. That leaves 80 percent for “domestic” programs.

As a share of the economy, defense spending is at the lowest level since the 1930s. The massive cuts in the 1990s explain why our military is so overextended in what are actually very small wars by historical standards. A country as rich as ours should never be contemplating retreat in the face of insurgent thugs, but we are.

What is driving the increase in federal spending are “mandatory” entitlement programs which are about to consume half the budget. In Senate testimony last month, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that higher entitlement spending could cripple the economy.

Cagle should get his facts straight, assuming facts matter to his expression of “opinion.”

William R. Hawkins
Senior Fellow for National Security Studies
U.S. Business and Industry Council
Washington, D.C.