Emily Flake covers Washington City Paper

The December 29th issue of the City Paper has a cover and interior illustrations by Emily Flake. I think she's Baltimore based. The paper carries her strip, Lulu Eightball.

The Year According to Toles

The Post did run the annual compilation page in the Dec. 31 Outlook section. Unfortunately, I can't find it online so if you're reading this and aren't local, you'd better call a friend in the area before recycling day.

Judge Parker artist changes

Alan Gardner checked into the changing artists on the Judge Parker strip. Eduardo Baretto had taken over the strip in the spring, but lately different artists have been appearing. This isn't a strip I read reguarly, although I like Baretto's art - an Ecuadoran, he's worked on the Shadow for DC .A similar situation was happening with Prickly City, but Scott Stantis was known to have scheduled surgery and replacement cartoonists. Alan's story about Baretto can be read here - Chaos ensues, order restored in Judge Parker serial (UPDATED), Daily Cartoonist, Dec 29, 2006

Big Planet Comics New Year's Sale

The 3 stores have 20% off everything today, from noon to 5 pm.

Washington Post adds Pooch Cafe to replace Foxtrot

So I think Paul Gilligan has done a very rare thing - he's in 3 papers in one city. He appears to be running in the Washington Examiner again as of this week. Perhaps writing into ComicsDC is a luck generator (see his comment in my earlier post on the Examiner dropping comics).

NOTE TO COMICS READERS
Washington Post
Monday, January 1, 2007; Page C10


"Pooch Cafe" by Paul Gilligan debuts today on the comics pages, because Bill Amend, the creator of "FoxTrot," has chosen to discontinue daily publication of his strip. The Post will continue to publish "FoxTrot" each Sunday. Today, "Out of the Gene Pool" is not running today to allow room for this note, but it will be back tomorrow in its usual spot.

As always, we appreciate reader feedback. You can call our comics hotline at 202-334-4775, e-mail http://comics@washpost.com or write Comics Feedback, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071.

DC-based comics interviewer Chris Shields & cIndy Center

Chris Shields runs cIndy Center, a podcast that frequently deals with comics. DC-based Chris interviews cartoonists (as well as other types of artists) and releases the interviews as podcasts on a regular basis. You can subscribe to Chris's podcast through itunes or sign up at his website.

Recent interviews of cartoonists include Mark Millar, Fred Hembeck (a real favorite of mine), and Zak Smith (the artist who illustrated Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow sort of as a graphic novel).

2nd in a series of profiles on local comics bloggers.

Matt Diffee at Politics & Prose covered in Post

Although it happened a couple of weeks ago, Peter Carlson's coverage of Matt Diffee's booksigning for the Rejection Collection of New Yorker cartoons is in the paper today.

Also, the Travel section has an article on the Saul Steinberg exhibit in NYC and says the show will be in DC at American Art in the spring. And the Style Invitational Contest a few weeks ago was about comic strip writing and the winners are announced.

Finally, the Year in Editorial Cartoons in the last page of the Outlook section; presumably Toles' Year will be next week.

Jan 7 - Animation - Norman McLaren Restored

My buddy Rick Banning just called me with this film information from the National Gallery of Art.

Norman McLaren Restored
Premiere of new 35 mm prints
January 7 at 4:30 p.m.

Brilliant Scottish-born Canadian animator Norman McLaren (1914–1987) perfected many of the techniques that became the standard of animation art. Often imitated, McLaren's work during the 1930s and 1940s for the National Film Board of Canada and Britain's GPO film unit was legendary. Eleven of his classic short films — including Begone Dull Care (1949), Neighbours (1952), A Chairy Tale (1957), Pas de deux (1968), Synchromy (1971), Blinkity Blank (1955), and Hen Hop (1942) — have now been restored by the National Film Board of Canada to their original 35 mm format. Viewed in these spectacular new prints, McLaren's films demonstrate cinema's close affinity with painting and music — a concept that was one of this artist's main preoccupations. (total running time 85 mins.)

Local superhero novelist Pierce Askegren dies

The Post carried obituary for him today. I hadn't realized he lived in Northern Virginia in Annandale when I read Scoop's obituary last week.

Articles in today's papers

The Post carried Joseph Barbera's obituary of course. Not an AP article, but a competent, if not deep, obit written by Martin Weil. The hagiographic obits are somewhat amusing since it's not been long since Hanna-Barbera were accused, with some justification, of killing animation.

Suprisingly, both the Examiner and the Express slipped in articles. The Express had an AP article on Jerry Seinfeld's animated 'Bee Movie'. The Examiner had Brian Truitt's recommendations for comics as Christmas gifts. The Last Christmas (Image), Identity Crisis, Revelations, Young Avengers 1, and Pride of Baghdad if you're wondering. This is a very depressing list actually.

SWANN FELLOW TO LECTURE ON WINSOR MCCAY AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, JAN. 16

SWANN FELLOW TO LECTURE ON WINSOR MCCAY AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, JAN. 16

Swann Foundation Fellow Katherine Roeder will discuss the work of distinguished cartoonist Winsor McCay and its relationship to the mass culture of the early 20th century in a lecture next month at the Library of Congress.

Roeder will present her talk, titled “Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy and Mass Culture in the Work of Winsor McCay,” at noon on Tuesday, Jan. 16, in Dining Room A on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The illustrated presentation is based on Roeder’s research project, which has been supported by her fellowship from the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon. The Library of Congress administers the foundation. The lecture, sponsored by the foundation and the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division, is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

A pioneering master in newspaper comics and early animation, and a notable editorial cartoonist, McCay (1867-1934) first gained national notice for his detailed and fantastical comic strips that included “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” (1904-1911), “Little Sammy Sneeze” (1904-1906) and, arguably the best known and beloved of all, “Little Nemo in Slumberland” (1905-1914). “Little Nemo” was a weekly comic strip in which the title character repeatedly embarked on epic journeys to exciting, strange and sometimes frightening places, only to awaken in the last frame safe at home in his bed. McCay’s comic strips, in the Sunday editions of American newspapers, made an important contribution to the proliferation of fantastic imagery at the dawn of the 20th century.

McCay’s work centered on fantasy and longing, qualities that were key features of the burgeoning commercial environment. In her lecture, Roeder will make formal comparisons between McCay’s comic strips and the design of department stores, printed advertisements and amusement parks. McCay drew from a broad spectrum of visual sources to create a richly textured world that engaged viewers and excited their imaginations. His comic strips produced a dream world shaped by the visual language of modern urban experience.

Roeder is a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Delaware, where her area of focus is American art and culture. Her dissertation is titled, “Cultivating Dreamfulness: Fantasy, Longing and Commodity Culture in the Work of Winsor McCay.” In addition to being one of three Swann Fellows for 2006-2007, Roeder is a Smithsonian pre-doctoral fellow at the National Portrait Gallery for 2006-2007. Last year, she was a research fellow in American art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Roeder received a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and a master’s from the University of Maryland.

Roeder’s lecture is part of the Swann Foundation’s continuing activities to support the study, interpretation, preservation and appreciation of original works of humorous and satiric art by graphic artists from around the world. The Swann Foundation’s advisory board is composed of scholars, collectors, cartoonists and Library of Congress staff members.

The foundation customarily awards one fellowship annually, with a stipend of $15,000, to assist scholarly research and writing projects in the field of caricature and cartoon. Applications for the academic year 2007-2008 will be due on Feb. 15, 2007. More information about the fellowship is available through the Swann Foundation’s Web site: www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/swannhome.html or by e-mailing swann@loc.gov.

# # #
PR06-232
12/18/06
ISSN: 0731-3527

Post article on Palestinian political cartoonist

The Post ran a fairly atypical article today on Palistinian cartoonist Khalil Abu Arafeh that's well worth reading. See Subversive Palestinian Cartoons Reflect New Political Introspection by Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service, Sunday, December 17, 2006; Page A27

Cartoon America opening video on web

The Library of Congress has put some video of the November opening speeches. The video is poor, but just listen to the sound which is fine.

TITLE: Library of Congress Opens "Cartoon America" Exhibition
SPEAKER: Harry Katz, Jules Feiffer, Brian Walker, Ann Telnaes, Kevin Kallaugher, Art Wood
EVENT DATE: 11/01/2006
RUNNING TIME: 46 minutes


DESCRIPTION:

A host of well-known cartoonists and publishers were on hand at the Library of Congress to celebrate the opening of "Cartoon America: Highlights from the Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature," a exhibition featuring 100 masterworks of the nation's most renown cartoonists. It was also the occasion for the launching of a companion book titled "Cartoon America: Comic Art in the Library of Congress" which is published by Harry N. Abrams, in association with the Library of Congress. The book is edited by Harry Katz, former head curator of the Library's Prints and Photographs Division. Images of many cartoon drawings in the exhibition are included among the 275 full-color illustrations in the book, which also surveys the Library's other holdings of related art.

Speaker Biography: Harry Katz is former head curator of the Library's Prints and Photographs Division.

Speaker Biography: Jules Feiffer is an American syndicated comic-strip cartoonist and author. In 1986 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartooning in The Village Voice, and in 2004 was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. Feiffer's cartoons ran for 42 years in the The Village Voice and have been collected into 19 books. They have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and The Nation. He was commissioned in 1997 by The New York Times to create its first op-ed page comic strip which ran monthly until 2000. Feiffer has most recently written several award-winning children's books including "The Man in the Ceiling" and "A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears." Feiffer is an adjunct professor at Southampton College. Previously he taught at the Yale School of Drama and Northwestern University. He has been a senior fellow at the Columbia University National Arts Journalism Program. Feiffer is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He received the National Cartoonist Society Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 and the Creativity Foundation's 2006 Laureate.

Speaker Biography: Brian Walker is a professional cartoonist, a cartoon scholar and a founder and former director of the Museum of Cartoon Art (now the International Museum of Cartoon Art), where he worked from 1974 to 1992. In addition, he has contributed gags for the comic strips "Beetle Bailey" and "Hi and Lois" since 1984. Walker has written and edited more than a dozen books on cartoon art, as well as numerous exhibition catalogs and magazine articles. He has curated 65 cartoon exhibitions, including the retrospectives "The Sunday Funnies: 100 Years of Comics in American Life" at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Conn. and "100 Years of American Comics" at the Belgian Center for Comic Art in Brussels.

Speaker Biography: Born in Sweden, Ann Telnaes' editorial cartoons are syndicated with Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate/ New York Times Syndicate. Her work has appeared in such prestigious publications as The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Le Monde, Courrier International, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The New York Times, Austin American Statesman,The American Prospect and Ms magazine. Telnaes also contributes an exclusive weekly cartoon to Women's eNews, an online news service. Telnaes' work was shown in a solo exhibition at the Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in 2004. Her first book, "Humor's Edge," was published by Pomegranate Press and the Library of Congress in 2004. Her work has also been exhibited in Paris and Jerusalem.

Speaker Biography: Kevin Kallaugher is the editorial cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun and The Economist magazine of London. In March 1978, The Economist recruited him to become its first resident cartoonist in its 145-year history. Kevin spent the next ten years working in London as a cartoonist for such publications as The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, Today and The Mail on Sunday. Kallaugher returned to the U.S. in 1988 to join The Sun as its editorial cartoonist. His work for The Sun and The Economist has appeared in more than 100 papers worldwide. His cartoons are distributed worldwide by Cartoonist and Writer's Syndicate. He has won many awards for his work, including the 1999 Thomas Nast Award presented by the Overseas Press Club of America and the 1996 Grafica Internazionale Award at the International Festival of Satire in Pisa, Italy. He has published one collection of his Economist drawings titled "Drawn from the Economist" in 1988 and three collections of his Baltimore Sun cartoons: "KALtoons" (1992), "KAL Draws a Crowd" (1997) and "KAL Draws the Line (2000)." Kallaugher is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and has had his work on display in the Tate Gallery in London and The Library of Congress. He has had one man exhibitions in London, New York, Washington and Baltimore.

Speaker Biography: A resident of Washington, D.C., Art Wood collected the works of his leading American and European colleagues throughout his long career. His collection also includes works that he purchased, particularly in the areas of animation art and illustrators' drawings. The purchased portion of the collection under the agreement with the Library includes only those items that he bought to expand the collection. During his professional life, Wood worked diligently to establish a museum or gallery to preserve and showcase his collection. He achieved his goal in 1995 with the opening of the National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art in downtown Washington, D.C., but the gallery closed in 1997 due to a lack of sustained funding. Undeterred, Wood turned to the Library of Congress, where he had worked early in his career, to preserve and present his collection.

Dec 16 - Comics signing at Big Planet

Today's Express has a story by Darona Williams saying that Shannon O'Leary will be signing her comic anthology, Pet Noir at the Georgetown Big Planet (3145 Dumbarton St, NW) at 3:30 - the phone is 202-342-1961. The anthology is subtitled "An Illustrated Anthology of Strange but True Pet Crime Stories" which sounds depressing to me. Still, the article makes it look interesting, and I'll try to stop by.

Brian Ralph in Baltimore City Paper

It's under an hour away, but it seems farther than that. Anyway, here's the story, which Tom Spurgeon's Comics Reporter picked up first:

"Q+A | People - Brian Ralph" By Lee Gardner, Baltimore City Paper (December 13, 2006).

Derf!!!

Totally-cool cartoonist Derf did the cover and illustrations for the December 15th Washington City Paper. It's not online yet though. His "The City" strip regularly runs in the City Paper.

Last March, Derf (aka John Backderf) won the RFK Award for political cartoons, in a contest judged by local cartoonists and aficionados. In his March 21st Post chat, "Chatalogical Humor"
Gene Weingarten had the following to report:

"On Sunday, I was one of four judges for the Robert F. Kennedy Awards, in the category of political cartoons. (Two of the others were Richard Thompson and Nick Galifianakis, the ex-hubby who illustrates Hax's column.)

It was an odd experience. The RFK award goes to those who most effectively highlight the plight of the powerless and disenfranchised. We were looking at the best work of some of the best editorial cartoonists of our generation, and yet so much of their portfolios for 2005 didn't really fit the contest's criteria. Why?

Because editorial cartoonists tend to focus their criticism, and outrage, on the political and emotional issues that define their times. Alas, the plight of the underclasses and the disenfranchised tended to take a back seat to the grotesque mismanagement of our supposed war on terror. Not the cartoonists' fault, but a sign of the utter failure of our national policies, and the corruption of our national will."

Dave Astor picked up the story in May and noted the award ceremony was to be on May 25th. I wasn't invited, but presume it happened.

New Ann Telnaes book

One of my moles in the Library of Congress (hi, Martha!) emailed me to tell me about this book this morning, but Dave Astor already beat me to the story. Telnaes, trained as an animator, has a collection of Dick Cheney cartoons out through a print-on-demand publisher, but my mole tells me it's also available in DC bookstores Trover and Politics & Prose. I'll be definitely picking this one up. I wonder if this is the start of a trend for cartoonists?

Neal Gabler on Walt Disney

I attended Neal Gabler's talk about his biography of Walt Disney tonight at Politics and Prose. Gabler's an animated speaker, and blew his alloted time, but nobody except the staff cared because he was entertaining. He also is so animated that he didn't stay at the microphone, so there won't be a recording sold of this one. I took a few notes though.

Gabler began by stating that he was "not one of the people who worship at the alter of Walt Disney," but that he was interested in people who "shape the American conciousness particularly in popular culture. I call them architects of American conciousness."

"No one is neutral about Walt Disney. There is no middle ground with Walt Disney... The two great visual imaginations of the 20th century -- I think of Picasso and Walt Disney."

The book took seven years of work with open access to the Disney archives under archivist Dave Smith. "It was seven years of work because The Walt Disney Company finally did open the archives for me. There was no quid pro quo and I couldn't have accepted one." Apparently Howard Green, a PR vice president at Disney thought enough time had passed to have perspective...

The archives revealed that "Walt Disney, for better or worse was a packrat.. So when you go into the archives you will find things no one else would have retained." Gabler attributed this to Disney's sense of his own importance and destiny. Gabler said that he does research in chronological order to try to follow the story and maintain the suspense. While we all know Disney was a success, Disney didn't know he would be and reading his letters in order gives a better feel for his life.

Disney was a control-freak at his studio which he owned. He was the only one who issued memos on blue paper, so everyone knew what came from him. "Walt Disney's word is holy writ at the Walt Disney Co. Walt Disney was not a collaborative artist. He was a fellow who had a vision in his head and asked people to realize the visions."

Gabler related a few stories from the book, which has gotten gotten excellent reviews in the Washington Post and New York Timeswhich did two reviews a month apart. The Times also recommended the book as an Editor's Choice. And Reuters reviewed it and labelled it a 'literary triumph.'

At the end, in response to a question, in his opinion, the studio never completely recovered after the bitter 1941 strike, but "I think Pinnochio is the apex of animation. That opinion's not in the book so you've gotten something new tonight."

And for some reason Amazon France has an English 10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Neal Gabler.

HERBLOCK EXHIBITION EXTENDED THROUGH FEB. 3

The Library's public affairs office sent this out today.

HERBLOCK DISPLAY IN “AMERICAN TREASURES” EXTENDED THROUGH FEB. 3

“American Treasures” Exhibition To Close Feb. 5-21

“Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by Herblock,” currently on display in the “American Treasures of the Library of Congress” exhibition, will be extended through Feb. 3. The exhibition may be viewed free of charge from 10 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building at 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C.

“American Treasures of the Library of Congress” will close on Feb. 5 and reopen Feb. 22 with a featured display titled “A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony 1907–2007” to commemorate the centennial of the artists’ colony, located in Peterborough, N.H.

Also on display in “American Treasures” beginning Feb. 22 will be a selection of items drawn from the Library’s collections that feature William Shakespeare. The display will be part of a city-wide celebration of Shakespeare in Washington, to be held January through June 2007.

The “American Treasures” exhibition opened on May 1, 1997, as the centerpiece of a yearlong celebration marking the official reopening of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building during its 100th anniversary. Made possible by a grant from the Xerox Foundation, the exhibition features the rarest and most significant items from the Library’s collections relating to America’s past. For preservation considerations, some of the more fragile documents are displayed on a rotating basis.

The “American Treasures exhibition can be viewed online at www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures. “Enduring Outrage” can be viewed at www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/herblock-home.html.

For more information about the Shakespeare celebration, visit www.shakespeareinwashington.org.

Cartoon America in Publishers Weekly newsletter

Peter Sanderson described the exhibit for the newsletter PW Comics Week. On reading his article, I can't tell if he actually has seen the exhibit, but it's an acceptible overview of the show. I would quibble with phrase "The uniquely American art of the comic strip and the cartoon are on display..." since some of the pieces are by Europeans including Cruickshank and Kley, but the Library's curators set reviewers up for that with the title of the show.