Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Whoops - Jeff Kinney went to the U of Maryland and did a comic strip for them
Boy, have I missed linking to a lot of Diary of a Wimpy Kid articles as I didn't realize that Jeff Kinney did a comic strip for the University of Maryland's Diamondback (as did Frank "Liberty Meadows" Cho and Corey "Watch Your Head" Thomas). If there's any interest, let me know in the comments and I'll cull my Comics Research Bibliography holding file for links. In the meantime, see "Story of the weak: Jeff Kinney's 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' draws on relatable school experiences," by David Mehegan, Boston Globe Staff, April 7, 2008.
Owen, not Stephen, King on comics
In "The Kings of Fiction: Stephen, Tabitha and Owen Offer A Family-Style Look at the Literary Life," by Bob Thompson (who's lately been at a few comics events including the Folger), Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, April 7, 2008; C01, we find the following quotes about Owen King's interest in comic books.
At some point in his childhood, the 31-year-old King explains to his young listeners -- gathered this day as part of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program -- he was reading a Fantastic Four comic and the question of superhero sex occurred to him. "I was looking at Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman and I was thinking, well, how does this, you know, how do they do it?"
This draws a bit of nervous laughter.
"Dirty-minded as I am," he says the question never left him. And when the Fantastic Four movie came out, with Jessica Alba, "it was even more on my mind."
He goes on a bit after that to talk about how that idea became a short story about a superhero meerkat.
At some point in his childhood, the 31-year-old King explains to his young listeners -- gathered this day as part of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program -- he was reading a Fantastic Four comic and the question of superhero sex occurred to him. "I was looking at Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman and I was thinking, well, how does this, you know, how do they do it?"
This draws a bit of nervous laughter.
"Dirty-minded as I am," he says the question never left him. And when the Fantastic Four movie came out, with Jessica Alba, "it was even more on my mind."
He goes on a bit after that to talk about how that idea became a short story about a superhero meerkat.
Monday, April 07, 2008
David Hajdu photographs UPDATED
Quick post of photos from the talk at Politics and Prose, which you should be able to order on cd from them. It was interesting, especially when he talked about interviewing cartoonists affected at the time. Bruce Guthrie, the professional amateur photographer, put his pictures online too and they're much better than mine so you should check them out. Anybody looking for more information on the book, reviews, or interviews, should check out Gene Kannenberg's Comics Research page.
Shakespeare + Manga, Folger Shakespeare Library review
Shakespeare + Manga. Adam Sexton, Yali Lin and Marc Singer (moderator). Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, March 31, 2008, $12.
As part of their Words on Will lecture series, the Folger tilted towards the mini-movement of adapting Shakespeare into comics by having two adaptors speak. The publisher John Wiley hired Adam Sexton to adapt four of Shakespeare’s plays to comics form, theoretically in a manga style, a point to which I will return.
Writer Adam Sexton and artist Yali Lin, adaptors of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: The Manga Edition. Booksigning after lecture at Folger Shakespeare Library.
Sexton opened by reading his introduction to the Romeo and Juliet volume in which he noted that he sees a graphic novel as more visual than a theater play. His example is that the fairy Queen Mab or Ophelia’s death can be clearly depicted and not just described as one would find in the written play or most theater versions. Another point in favor of a graphic adaptation is that one can move at one’s own pace and linger over the reading.
Sexton noted that he had a fairly detailed plan to adapt Shakespeare. First he cut extraneous material. Then he shaped the words to resemble speech rather than poetry, closing line breaks when necessary. He punctuated and italicized for clarity, and highlighted puns and themes. His example, which he showed on a screen, came from the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, where he noted that Juliet consistently referred to death, while Romeo spoke of love. Juliet is the younger, but more mature character, so he needed to make sure the reader could see that. In the end, he had a script like a film script.
The artist Yali Lin took up the narrative at this point, explaining how she converted this script to a comic. She was born in China, but has been in America since the mid-1990s and attended the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. She spoke briefly of her influences – Romiko Takahashi’s Ranma ½ (and showed a Romeo and Juliet scene from it) and especially Yukari Kawachi. She read the story and pictured it in her mind, then read it again and then began to draw it. She started with character designs which she showed to Sexton (and to the audience onscreen), who suggested that she make Juliet look a bit older, although as Lin noted, she was only fourteen in the play. Then she did what she called mini-thumbnails – sketches on the script next to the text for initial panel breakdowns. After this she does thumbnails which are still rough, but have the start of the dialogue and are the size of the finished paperback. Of the layout she noted, “Almost every page should have an establishing shot” so the reader knows where to focus. Her pencils are 11x14 inches on Bristol board. She then inks with both a pen nib and brushes, and said, “I really enjoy inking because it’s the easiest stage…”
After erasing her pencil marks, she scans in the artwork and then starts toning it digitally using Manga Studio for its tones, creating layers of them in Photoshop. The lettering is done last, using Illustrator. Long speech balloons were broken up in multiple bubbles to give a reader some relief. She worked act by act in the adaptation, finishing one and then moving onto the next one. As such, she thought her work on the first act, which took the longest, was the weakest.
At this point, moderator Marc Singer joined them on stage. He asked the two why they chose a manga style and Sexton replied, “We were told by the publisher.” Lin followed that by stating that, “Manga is expressionistic…” which let her use bleeds and irregular panels. It seems to this reviewer that the choice of ‘manga’ is a marketing one – of most forms of comic art, manga seems to be the highest selling at the moment. Even though a true manga adaptation of Shakespeare would probably run thousands of pages and for years, a pseudo-manga style could be created for an American audience.
Other points of interest emerged as the two continued to speak. Sexton said that the publisher asked him to maintain soliloquies. Lin said that as English is her second language at times she had problems understanding Shakespeare’s point, although Sexton disagreed with her and said she did usually have it right. Each book took about a year. Sexton’s biggest challenge was in the cutting – he thought Julius Caesar in particular would be a disaster as it’s a play about rhetoric in which characters try to persuade each other to do things. The two joined the project in different ways. Sexton got a call from a Wiley editor whom he had worked with before and who knew that he was a Shakespeare fan. A conversation with Matt Madden and Jessica Abel of SVA led to the five artists being selected.
Sexton noted that the publisher doesn’t quite know what to expect … “It’s hoped that these will be taken seriously enough to be used in the classroom, not replacing the original text, but perhaps in conjunction.” He said it was easier not to use the Classics Illustrated model of traditional Western comic books with added material and text boxes explaining what was happening, but to just use only Shakespeare’s actual words. “I think it’s more valuable consisting exclusively of Shakespeare’s language.”
The evening ended with an eight-year old girl’s observation that her teacher said she couldn’t read Julius Caesar at school because it was too violent. Sexton agreed with her that it was a violent play, but thought that her reading of it should be up to her parents. The little girl replied that she just decided to read it at home. The future of America looks brighter again, doesn't it?
As part of their Words on Will lecture series, the Folger tilted towards the mini-movement of adapting Shakespeare into comics by having two adaptors speak. The publisher John Wiley hired Adam Sexton to adapt four of Shakespeare’s plays to comics form, theoretically in a manga style, a point to which I will return.
Writer Adam Sexton and artist Yali Lin, adaptors of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: The Manga Edition. Booksigning after lecture at Folger Shakespeare Library.
Sexton opened by reading his introduction to the Romeo and Juliet volume in which he noted that he sees a graphic novel as more visual than a theater play. His example is that the fairy Queen Mab or Ophelia’s death can be clearly depicted and not just described as one would find in the written play or most theater versions. Another point in favor of a graphic adaptation is that one can move at one’s own pace and linger over the reading.
Sexton noted that he had a fairly detailed plan to adapt Shakespeare. First he cut extraneous material. Then he shaped the words to resemble speech rather than poetry, closing line breaks when necessary. He punctuated and italicized for clarity, and highlighted puns and themes. His example, which he showed on a screen, came from the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, where he noted that Juliet consistently referred to death, while Romeo spoke of love. Juliet is the younger, but more mature character, so he needed to make sure the reader could see that. In the end, he had a script like a film script.
The artist Yali Lin took up the narrative at this point, explaining how she converted this script to a comic. She was born in China, but has been in America since the mid-1990s and attended the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. She spoke briefly of her influences – Romiko Takahashi’s Ranma ½ (and showed a Romeo and Juliet scene from it) and especially Yukari Kawachi. She read the story and pictured it in her mind, then read it again and then began to draw it. She started with character designs which she showed to Sexton (and to the audience onscreen), who suggested that she make Juliet look a bit older, although as Lin noted, she was only fourteen in the play. Then she did what she called mini-thumbnails – sketches on the script next to the text for initial panel breakdowns. After this she does thumbnails which are still rough, but have the start of the dialogue and are the size of the finished paperback. Of the layout she noted, “Almost every page should have an establishing shot” so the reader knows where to focus. Her pencils are 11x14 inches on Bristol board. She then inks with both a pen nib and brushes, and said, “I really enjoy inking because it’s the easiest stage…”
After erasing her pencil marks, she scans in the artwork and then starts toning it digitally using Manga Studio for its tones, creating layers of them in Photoshop. The lettering is done last, using Illustrator. Long speech balloons were broken up in multiple bubbles to give a reader some relief. She worked act by act in the adaptation, finishing one and then moving onto the next one. As such, she thought her work on the first act, which took the longest, was the weakest.
At this point, moderator Marc Singer joined them on stage. He asked the two why they chose a manga style and Sexton replied, “We were told by the publisher.” Lin followed that by stating that, “Manga is expressionistic…” which let her use bleeds and irregular panels. It seems to this reviewer that the choice of ‘manga’ is a marketing one – of most forms of comic art, manga seems to be the highest selling at the moment. Even though a true manga adaptation of Shakespeare would probably run thousands of pages and for years, a pseudo-manga style could be created for an American audience.
Other points of interest emerged as the two continued to speak. Sexton said that the publisher asked him to maintain soliloquies. Lin said that as English is her second language at times she had problems understanding Shakespeare’s point, although Sexton disagreed with her and said she did usually have it right. Each book took about a year. Sexton’s biggest challenge was in the cutting – he thought Julius Caesar in particular would be a disaster as it’s a play about rhetoric in which characters try to persuade each other to do things. The two joined the project in different ways. Sexton got a call from a Wiley editor whom he had worked with before and who knew that he was a Shakespeare fan. A conversation with Matt Madden and Jessica Abel of SVA led to the five artists being selected.
Sexton noted that the publisher doesn’t quite know what to expect … “It’s hoped that these will be taken seriously enough to be used in the classroom, not replacing the original text, but perhaps in conjunction.” He said it was easier not to use the Classics Illustrated model of traditional Western comic books with added material and text boxes explaining what was happening, but to just use only Shakespeare’s actual words. “I think it’s more valuable consisting exclusively of Shakespeare’s language.”
The evening ended with an eight-year old girl’s observation that her teacher said she couldn’t read Julius Caesar at school because it was too violent. Sexton agreed with her that it was a violent play, but thought that her reading of it should be up to her parents. The little girl replied that she just decided to read it at home. The future of America looks brighter again, doesn't it?
Hajdu at Politics and Prose, in the Express and on the Express's website
David Hajdu is speaking on censorship and comic books tonight at 7 pm, but there's also an article about him in the Express and a different one with a longer interview online at "Not So Funny: David Hajdu on Comic Book Controversies," by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner, Express April 7, 2008
Guggenheim interview on Express website
See "Cursed to Write: TV & Comics Scribe Marc Guggenheim," by Scott Rosenberg, ReadExpress.com April 7, 2008.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Oglethorpe strip? Gibson Girl sketch? Wrightson Batman?
These and other questions were raised by some of my new acquisitions at the flea market. Here's some crummy pictures to illustrate the questions.
This is labelled "Oglethorpe" in pencil at the top of the strip. It's not one I've heard of, nor have I heard of the artist Jorge Mercer. A Google search didn't turn up anything for the strip or the artist, but I haven't checked my reference books yet. The gag is lame, but the art is interesting.
"The Story of His Life" looks like a Gibson Girl. It's signed G.F.T./08. Who? It's definitely a 1908 piece - the artwork is acid-burned by the mat, the cardboard backing is disintegrating...
Obviously a bit newer item than the others, I was ignoring this radio-controlled Batman motorcycle until Claire asked for it (that's my girl!). What's of interest about this is that a better look reveals that the Batman is completely modeled after Berni Wrightson's version as seen in The Cult below(picture from the GCD). That's got to be off the model sheet - why choose this version?
Comments, questions and especially answers are welcome!
This is labelled "Oglethorpe" in pencil at the top of the strip. It's not one I've heard of, nor have I heard of the artist Jorge Mercer. A Google search didn't turn up anything for the strip or the artist, but I haven't checked my reference books yet. The gag is lame, but the art is interesting.
"The Story of His Life" looks like a Gibson Girl. It's signed G.F.T./08. Who? It's definitely a 1908 piece - the artwork is acid-burned by the mat, the cardboard backing is disintegrating...
Obviously a bit newer item than the others, I was ignoring this radio-controlled Batman motorcycle until Claire asked for it (that's my girl!). What's of interest about this is that a better look reveals that the Batman is completely modeled after Berni Wrightson's version as seen in The Cult below(picture from the GCD). That's got to be off the model sheet - why choose this version?
Comments, questions and especially answers are welcome!
Two bookish things by me still available.
Film & TV Adaptations of Comics - 2007 edition by Rhode and Vogel is still available for order.149 pages long, it's a listing of the thousands of adaptations to film and television of hundreds of comic strips and books. Worldwide, it includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Senegal, India, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia among others. Cross-referenced by cartoonist and translated titles, it includes a bibliography and index.
You can buy it via Lulu.com for $12.99 (plus shipping) or $3.00 for a pdf download at http://www.lulu.com/content/1677433.
Also, theINTERPLANETARY JOURNAL OF COMIC ART: A Festschrift in Honor of John Lent is still available.
Editor's note - The first issue of the new InterPlanetary Journal of Comic Art (or IPJOCA as we call it around the virtual office) is now available. We are proud to invite you to the 43rd indispensable academic organ published by JOHN LENT MULTIMEDIA ENTERPRISES. All are personally hand-edited by our founder and publisher JOHN LENT, and we remind you that any suggestions of forced labor or involuntary servitude were completely dismissed in Temple University grad students v. JOHN LENT FAMILY CONGLOMERATE. This issue is slightly late, and we apologize for that. Editor JOHN LENT was traveling widely with stops on Pluto, Venus, Charon, Deimos and Phobos, Antarctica, Cyprus, Monte Carlo and the French Riviera, interviewing aging cartoonists and presenting learned discourses on the history of comic art. LENT's presentation on Pluto, "Which came first? The planet or the dog?" was particularly well-received and will appear in a future issue of IPJOCA. IPJOCA is a proud successor to the Colonial Journal of Comic Art, the Union Journal of Comic Art, the Confederate Journal of Comic Art, and the Imperial Journal of Comic Art, as well as the continuing flagship International Journal of Comic Art.
Actually, IPJOCA is a work of satire and parody, published on the occasion of John's seventieth birthday in 2006, give or take a few months. Since 1960, John has published, taught, and lectured widely on comic art, and since 1999 has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of the academic International Journal of Comic Art. In March of this year, John served on the Pulitzer Prize Nominating Juries in Journalism. John has published over 70 books and 800 articles on comic art, mass communication and Asian studies.
John's colleagues in the comic world have come together to create a tribute book, and presented it to him at the Popular Culture Association meeting in Boston. The fully-illustrated book features a front cover by cartoonist Nick Thorkelson, and a back cover by Ralph Steadman as well as 100 pages of witty articles.
To order your copy for $10, go to http://www.lulu.com/content/679026; to subscribe to the International Journal of Comic Art, go to
http://www.ijoca.com and follow the instructions.
Post covers Garfield minus Garfield
See Amy Orndorff's "When the Cat's Away, Neurosis Is on Display," Washington Post Sunday, April 6, 2008; N02. This one's been making the rounds for a couple of weeks on the internet, but I must confess that it doesn't do much for me.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Another slice out of my 15 minutes
While at the Civitan flea market today, scooping up comics and cartoon related material including an original Oglethorpe strip (never heard of it), a Gibson girl knockoff drawing from 1908 signed G.F.T./08, Mr. Punch's History of the Great War, Bendini's Philadelphia, Madman Bubblegum Cards, William Hamilton's Anti-Social Register Cartoons, etc, etc (pictures and information to follow), I was accosted by a camera crew. Actually they were really polite so accosted isn't the right word, but they noticed me buying some Star*Reach and Heavy Metal comics. They asked if I was happy and if so if I'd explain why I was buying them. Of course, I was happy even though my wife wasn't so I talked for a few minutes and put in a plug for Michigan State U's Comic Art Collection which gets material that I decide I actually can part with. It's supposed to air on this coming Friday.
Cue Bowie's Fame, please.
Cue Bowie's Fame, please.
April 16: Oliphant exhibit opens...
...at Stanford in Washington at 2661 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20008.
new International Journal of Comic Art is out!
602 pages! US$15.00! There's lots of manga, manwha and Rusty Witek's call to academic arms from the 2007 ICAF, "American Comics Criticism and the Problem of Dual Address." The website is out of date but the ordering information is still current.
Speaking of Thompson...
...today's Richard's Poor Almanack is a slashing, biting attack on the comics page, or at least the people who put them together. Theoretically you'll be able to see it on the Post site eventually, but right now that link goes to last week's. This link might work in a few days.
Where in the world is Richard Thompson?
According to his blog, he's foolishly venturing out to the Cherry Blossom festival today, so he may never been seen again and we'll just have to read rerun after rerun of Cul de Sac for the next forty years. He's been posting cherry blossom cartoons all week at his blog by the way. But the real reason we're mentioning him today is so that stalkers can track him down at the festival and have Petey drawn on their chests.
Ha, ha! as they say. No, the real reason is that he was interviewed by a Texas paper, a state which also has an Arlington in it. Coincidence? You decide.
Ha, ha! as they say. No, the real reason is that he was interviewed by a Texas paper, a state which also has an Arlington in it. Coincidence? You decide.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Geppi's Entertainment Museum reviewed
See "Travel Through Time — One Exhibit at a Time," by William Gatevackes, Broken Frontier April 02, 2008.
City Paper recommends seeing Hajdu on Monday
Again, I'll be there. And it's pronounced Hay-du.
Here's the article - "David Hajdu, Monday, April 7, at Politics and Prose," by Mark Athitakis, Washington City Paper April 4, 2008.
Here's the article - "David Hajdu, Monday, April 7, at Politics and Prose," by Mark Athitakis, Washington City Paper April 4, 2008.
Kliban on pot, not cats, or A Secret History of Comics post
This is from the well-known Cat cartoonist, the late B. Kliban.
It appeared in Apple Pie, January 1976.
It appeared in Apple Pie, January 1976.
Comics action in Cosmo 1957
Robert Day ad for Bell Telephone from Cosmopolitan, April 1957, in which they kindly define 'ubiquitous' for the reader.
Boy, public telephones certainly aren't 'ubiquitous' now, are they? In fact, this ad is incomprehensible to anyone under 20, isn't it?
Florida Cartoonists Poke Fun at Their State, p. 1, Cosmopolitan, April 1957. Featuring Lowell Hoppes and Charles E. Sharman.
Florida Cartoonists Poke Fun at Their State, p. 2, Cosmopolitan, April 1957. Featuring Martin Filchock and Bandell Linn.
OT: April 4: Illuminations exhibit opens
A friend at work is part of an art gallery co-op in Baltimore and the following card is from the latest show of works on paper. The opening is tonight.
April 13: Capital Associates comic book show
April 13: Capital Associates comic book show at the Dunn Loring, VA fire dept as usual, 10-3, $3.00. Pop Mhan guest stars again.
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