Spurgeon interviews Hellman

We've been seeing Danny Hellman's work regularly in the Post's Source section as well as in the City Paper. Here's a big interview with him by Tom Spurgeon. CR Sunday Interview: Danny Hellman. Comics Reporter (August 24 2008): http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_interview_danny_hellman/

I've got an e-copy of the Typhon book to review, but right now am reading and planning on reviewing Who Can Save Us Now? a book of superhero short stories.

Frankenstein, the illustrated novel (or one of them)

Here's a blog post that reproduces Lynn Ward's illustrations for Frankenstein. I've got this book - I inherited it from my grandfather - and it's awesome. Note the comments about Georgetown University Library's collection. They had a Ward exhibit about two years ago.

cIndy podcast news

Chris wrote in with some updates to his interview podcast site that I quote verbatim (to get to some of these, click the rotating images on the site):

1. http://www.cindycenter.com presents: Butterfly's Convention Adventure... you can see the promo picture in the right rail of the cindycenter.com site. The picture is from Jason Rodriguez's Coast-to-Coast report. On Jason's road trip he met-up with Butterfly.

Dean's photo essay of the SDCC is coming soon, IT IS GOING TO ROCK :-) It will be similar to the Roger Rabbit inspired MOCCA report he did last year.

2. I had an interview with local guy and Crazy Paper, Zuda and Chemistry Set writer Jim Dougan. He worked on www.desperadopublishing.com's NO FORMULA: STORIES FROM THE CHEMISTRY SET VOL. 1 Color / B&W, 120 pp. 6in x. 9in. Price: $16.99.

3. We have redesigned the site to better highlight the guests. You can see the coverflow is very similar to the latest version of itunes.

4. The cIndyCenter.com Podcast is proud to sponsor Dean Trippe's Butterfly SDCC adventure, please check-out Part 1 of the SDCC adventure @ http://www.cindycenter.com/SDCC_Dean_Trippe_Butterfly_report.htm
About the Dean Trippe - Dean Trippe is an alien robot ninja wizard (from the future). He is also a freelance comics creator who lives with his wife and son outside Nashville, TN. Dean is best known for his superhero parody webcomic, Butterfly, and as the founder and editor of Project: Rooftop. He is also a member of the all-ages webcomics collective Lunchbox Funnies. His publishers include Ad House Books, Image Comics, New Reliable Press and Oni Press. He is a former comic shop manager, a lifelong superhero fan, and has an actual degree in comics.

Marvel attempting manga... again

For their current effort, see "Superheroes to Be Recast for Japan," By GEORGE GUSTINES, New York Times August 25, 2008. This is by no means new though - both Spider-Man and the X-Men were produced in Japan and reprinted in America, and there was a Hulk series not seen in the US. There's a nice big book on Batman manga coming out from Chip Kidd soon. Marvel also took a shot at putting Spider-Man in India recently.

NY Times on Watchmen movie rights confusion

See "The Murky Side of Movie Rights," By MICHAEL CIEPLY, New York Times August 24, 2008.

Schiller, the comic book playwrite

Maybe not, but today's Post described the play Maria / Stuart's plot as "The arrival of a strange, supernatural visitor causes aspiring graphic novelist Stuart to question his family's buried past."

The Post's review from last week says, "Only Eli James, as neurotic comic book artist Stuart, comes from New York, and he's the lone man in the cast."

Comics, comics and comics in today's Post

I read the paper copy of Bob Thompson's long article on graphic novels this morning. It's enlivened by three strips by Thompson and Jonathan Bennett by the way. The article is an absolutely competent examination of what a 'graphic novel' is and isn't and why one might care. Thompson talked to the right people (Mouley, Tomine, distributors, publishers, Scott McCloud) and drew the standard conclusions that comics can be about just about anything. However, I know Thompson put a lot more research into this than shows in the article - he came to the talk last fall that PEN sponsored with Ware and Barry. He also went to the Shakespeare manga talk at the Folger. So give this article a read.

Over in the Book World, Douglas Wolk reviews four comic books too. Feiffer, Dash Shaw, Chaykin's American Flagg! and McCloud's Zot!

On the cover of the Source section, there's a lovely drawing by Ward Sutton on the demonization of DC by politicians.

Brad Meltzer blog post

Geoff Boucher has a nice little piece on ex-local guy Brad Meltzer and his new book at "Brad Meltzer and the 'The Book of Lies'." Brad will be in town signing this and his new DC Comic, which comes out this week, in September. Click on his name in the labels for information on the signings.

QUICK REVIEWS FOR COMICS DUE 08-27-08

QUICK REVIEWS FOR COMICS DUE 08-27-08
By John Judy

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN VOL.1 SC by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Collecting the first six issues of Morrison’s best work lately. A series of strong stand-alone stories that string together well and look great. Recommended for all ages.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #569 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. Norman Osborn and his Thunderbolts have broken into Spidey’s apartment! Bunk-check! Plus Venom.

AMERICA’S BEST COMICS PRIMER SC by Alan Moore and His Band of Yore. A bunch of first issues from back when Moore was still writing this stuff. Clever, entertaining, mostly pre-psychotic. Recommended for newbies to His Mooreness.

ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN VOL.1 SC by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard. Collecting issues #1-7 of this lycanthropian lollapalooza! Fun stuff but too violent for the little ones.

AVENGERS INITIATIVE #16 by Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli. The Skrull Kill Krew is back! How timely!

BLACK PANTHER #40 by Jason Aaron and Jefte Palo. Undefeated Wakanda versus the quite often defeated Skrulls. Great stuff from the creator of SCALPED. Recommended.

DAREDEVIL #110 by Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark. DD wraps up the mystery of the death-row inmate who wants to die. Yes, prison food is that bad.

DC UNIVERSE: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT #1 by Brad Meltzer and Adam Kubert. Every hero in the DCU prepares to die. They should never have killed Inigo’s dad….

EC ARCHIVES: TALES FROM THE CRYPT VOL.3 HC by The Best of The Best of The Best! Issues #13-18 with a forward by Robert Overstreet. Yeah, THAT Robert Overstreet! Save yourself around $11,000.00 in back issues and get this instead.

FINAL CRISIS: ROGUE’S REVENGE #2 of 3 by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins. In which Captain Cold and the boys realize how badly they have screwed themselves. Another example of a spin-off series being much better and easier to follow than the core title. Recommended.

FINAL CRISIS: SUPERMAN BEYOND #1 of 2 by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke. Will this be Good Focused Grant or Bad All-Over-the-Place Grant? Hint: This issue involves parallel Earths and comes with 3-D glasses included. “Mommy!” Gotta look!

GRAVEL #4 by Warren Ellis, Mike Wolfer and Oscar Jimenez. Warren Ellis has hidden all information on this comic in a site designed by the CIA, the Mossad, and Willy Wonka’s Oompa-Loompa Death Squad to keep any mention of its existence from pesky, prying fan-folk with their curious ways and desire to spend money on his products. I refer of course to the Avatar Press website. Ssshhh…. Mum’s the word…

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #18 by Duane Swierczynski, Travel Foreman and The Great Russ Heath. His fist may be iron but his ribs, face and ‘nads? Not so much. Featuring a dude getting his heart punched out by a kung-fu demon. Good times!

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #18 by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross and Dale Eaglesham. Okay, on the one hand this story is taking forever to tell. On the other hand we’re getting all these Alex Ross covers out of it and, golly, it’s like there’s a new super-hero’s great-grandchild introduced every few pages, so… Maybe it’ll really fly by in trade?

KICK-ASS #4 by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. If you need more graphic violence and sado-masochistic kink in your life than the current administration can provide, this one’s for you! Featuring a nine year-old girl with a sword. Not for kids.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #17 by Brian Michael Bendis and Khoi Pham. Skrulls! Fights!

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: GOLDEN-AGE MARVEL COMICS VOL.3 HC by Various Creators. Collecting MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #9-12, featuring Electro (from THE TWELVE), the Angel, and the Sub Mariner duking it out with the Human Torch! All for a lot less than the $60,000.00 retail the back-issues would cost on E-Bay! Flame on, True Believer!

NEW AVENGERS #44 by Brian Michael Bendis and Billy Tan. Fights! Skrulls!

NEWUNIVERSAL: CONQUEROR by Simon Spurrier and Eric Nguyen. A new NEWUNIVERSAL title from a creator “hand-picked” by Warren Ellis to write all the NEWUNIVERSAL stuff he doesn’t want to!

NORTHLANDERS #9 by Brian Wood and Dean Ormston. An all-new story begins here as young Saxon boy encounters a Viking invasion. Oh dear, this is certainly NOT for kids. Still a great series. Recommended.

PREVIEWS by Marvel and Diamond Comics. For the forward-looking fan.

ROY ROGERS ARCHIVES VOL.1 HC by Various Talents. From Dark Horse, collecting Dell’s ROY ROGERS COMICS (FOUR COLOR) #38, 63, 86, 95 and 109. Whatever they’re smoking up at Dark Horse Comics I want a Hefty-Bag. These five comics would run you $7,000.00 at a convention, but for you: A Lot Less! “Yippee-ki-yay!”

RUNAWAYS 3 #1 by Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos. The kids are goin’ back to Cali and there are a bunch of space-baddies who hate Karolina Dean so much that they keep repeating her full name over and over and over. It would make me run away too, so I guess there’s a point.

SHE-HULK #32 by Peter David and Vincenzo Cucca. Skrulls fighting Skrulls in a big Skrull-fight!

SUPERMAN #679 by James Robinson and Renato Guedes. For some reason Superman is still having trouble with this Atlas clown. Maybe if someone gives him a shirt he’ll go away.

THUNDERBOLTS #123 by Christos Gage and Fernando Blanco. The post-Ellis era continues on this title and it ain’t half-bad. Skrulls!

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #125 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. No Skrulls, ultimate or otherwise, but there is Venom. He eats a horse.

WOLVERINE #68 by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. “Old Man Logan” says he’d rather die than pop those claws again. And yet….

www.johnjudy.net

Naval Academy to recruit via comic books

See the story about the The U.S. Naval Academy's coming comic book at "Academy aims to appeal to minorities: Superintendent unveils tailored recruiting tools," By Stephen Kiehl, Baltimore Sun reporter, August 22, 2008. And here I thought comics weren't for kids anymore.

That darn Toles

A letter in today's Post criticizes this cartoon for mocking McCain's "religious experiences." Umm. Ok.

Post on graphic novels

See "Drawing Power, By Bob Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, August 24, 2008; M01.

It begins

NEW YORK -- I've wandered into an alternative universe, and I'm trying to decide if I want to stay. The setting is the lovely, old-fashioned library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, in midtown Manhattan. The event is a gathering called "SPLAT! A Graphic Novel Symposium." I'm here because the organizers have promised to lay out, in the course of a single day, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Graphic Novels."

What I want to know is: How did this formerly ghettoized medium became one of the rare publishing categories that's actually expanding these days?

I've got a great idea for a better title - "Pow! Zap! Bam! Comics aren't for kids anymore!"

Pearls Before Felines?

Today's Pearls Before Swine may look oddly familiar - it's "in tribute to George Herriman (1880-1944)." Herriman created Krazy Kat for decades, and reprints are now being done by Fantagraphics.

http://members.comics.com/members/common/affiliateArchive.do?site=washpost&comic=pearls

Book review: European Comics in English Translation: A Descriptive Sourcebook.

I've submitted this to the International Journal of Comic Art for the Spring 2009 issue, but I think I've got a different audience here. If not, read it twice; it's short, it won't hurt too much.

Randall W. Scott. European Comics in English Translation: A Descriptive Sourcebook. McFarland & Company , 2002. 401 pages. $75.00. ISBN-10: 0786412054; ISBN-13: 978-0786412051.

Although the comic art form is almost four hundred years old – dating reasonably to the popularity of British satirical prints in 1729 – there has been very few scholarly bibliographical works available to the average researcher. American studies have been particularly slow to follow in the footsteps of the British who began cataloguing their prints as early as 1870. American comics bibliography took approximately a century to start after the first comic art ‘golden age,’ that of editorial cartoonists, but it is growing strongly now. Randy Scott is one of the key figures in the field, having worked to build Michigan State University’s Comic Art Collection for two decades.

In this book, Scott has provided an annotated bibliography for European albums that are available in a variety of stand-alone forms in English. The bibliography is arranged by creator and all of the books listed in it are available at the MSU library. Since he does not include serials, stories from Heavy Metal magazine, which has frequently published translated material in both single and multi-issues, is not included. Given the amount of material that has appeared in Heavy Metal and nowhere else, this is an unfortunate decision, although possibly the only practical one. In spite of this, Scott lists 543 albums, along with publication information, and more impressively, plot summaries for the albums. The plot summaries mean that the book’s index can be used to find items of particular interest, such as the randomly selected “cross dressing” which is linked to six citations. As with any work of this type, some points are arguable. The genre ‘funny animal’ probably would have been a helpful index term to link to books like Benoit Sokal’s Inspector Canardo. Although his stories belong to the genre of crime fiction and are not funny at all, Canardo is a duck.

Scott also included citations for reviews when he knew of them; an example can be seen in the listing for Mattotti’s Murmer which includes listings for two reviews from The Comics Journal. Most helpful of all may be his “Author/Translator Notes & Index” which gives brief biographical information as well as references to albums cited in the book, and source material that the biographical information was found in. An example of this is:

Madsen, Frank. Danish artist, writer, and translator, born in 1962. Annotated here are Kurt Dunder in Tirol (album 299), which he wrote, drew, and translated, and Sussi Bech’s Nofret: Kiya (album 27), which he translated. Source: DANISH (i.e. Danish Comics Today, Copenhagen, 1997), p. 104-105.

This type of additional biographical information can be very useful especially since Scott’s book covers the whole continent and is not segregated by country. The sole reason this reviewer would have for not recommending the book to anyone interested in learning about comics beyond America is the cost. The list price is far beyond what a paperback volume of this length should cost.

Cartoons and Cocktails event being advertised

This is from yesterday's Examiner. Note Nate Beeler's artwork - I guess he donated it for auction. He doesn't usually part with it, so this might be rare.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown play is in town?

I believe Charles SCHULZ actually wrote Peanuts however.

Meltzer signings

Here's the ad that was handed out at Big Planet Comics (where Brad used to shop) this week. I'm planning on going to the Politics and Prose one.

Zadzooks no more; Mr. Zad on Thor

See "Thor sets heavens on Earth" in the column which may no longer be "Zadzooks" but rather "Mr. Zad's comic critique" in the Washington Times Thursday, August 21, 2008.

On his blog, which is still Zadzooks, he posts Greg Bennett's weekly recommendations. The ones for August 10th are the most recent, and oddly enough, are Halo and Wolverine. It looks like Greg picked these for the writers, Jason Aaron and Brian Bendis.

Comics scholarship from Singer of Howard

Marc Singer's "Embodiments of the Real: The Counterlinguistic Turn in the Comic-Book Novel," Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 49 (3; Spring 2008): 273-289, just came out. Marc's teaching at Howard and ran SPX for a couple of years. The article deals with Lethem and Chabon for the most part. In mentioning it on the comix-scholar's email list, Marc said, "The article focuses on novels about comics (Chabon, Lethem, Moody, etc), but it also addresses some of the distinctive figurative possibilities of comics and it draws on the work of comics scholars like Don Ault, Scott Bukatman, and Richard Reynolds."

If that sounds like it's of interest to you, hit the library for inter-library loan or convince your library to order the journal.

Read This Comic: The Return

Many years ago, one of the Internet mailing lists I joined was Comix@ - supposedly devoted to alternative comics, but actually anything was fair game. I made a lot of good friends on the list, and was sorry to see it eventually die - done in by message boards and websites. One of the conceits of the list was "Read this Comic" in which one recommended an obscure or odd title. Here's some that I wrote up years ago. Perhaps I'll start doing this again - but meanwhile anyone can play! Mail them to me and I'll post them.

And now, Read this Comic, circa 2000 - a bit dated (Lynda Barry and Ted Rall have both lost plenty of newspapers unfortunately), but still perhaps of interest:

--Xeric-winner Ellen Forney's collection of strips from Seattle newspapers "I was Seven in '75" (ISBN 0-9660258-8-1) recalls the horrors of the Seventies in ways that retro-fashion trends can only hint at. From her brother's swept back Farrah Fawcett hair, to her mother's nudist tennis game, to Forney's favorite rainbow-stiched pants, it's all here. Her autobiographical style is a pleasant stroll compared to much of the genre. Hopefully, she'll be able to break into to a larger syndicated market and compete with Lynda Barry and Ted Rall's mean streaks.

--The strangest comic that I've read by far this year is Life with Archie #129 (January 1973). Al Hartley wrote and drew the issue around the time he began producing Christian comics . Hartley's style is instantly recognizable for his amazing overuse of facial expressions and floating objects around heads like hearts, stars, sweatbeads, speed lines, etc. In many ways, it's a very appealing style. Archie and the gang are magically transported back to the 1890s in "Nostalgia Gets Ya!" There's no attempt at an explanation; when Archie asks for one, Betty says "Nothing's impossible, Arch! If you believe in miracles, they come true!"

The gang walks four miles to school (oddly enough, I thought sprawl was a post-WWII problem) and Archie discovers that "Mr. Weatherbee seems bigger to me!" Jughead notes, "He seems to have more confidence!" as Betty remarks, "Everyone seems to know what they're doing!" presumably including the janitor Swensen, shown in the background.

Later that evening Archie calls on Veronica for a date. Mr. Lodge spends the entire time with them and as Archie is leaving, Veronica apologizes. Archie responds, "I'll bet some girls wish their fathers would pay attention to them! You father's a busy man! I'm flattered that he took the time to keep me out of trouble!"

The weirdness continues and Dilton, (the brain of the group, for those who didn't grow up on Archie) is able to draw some conclusions. "No one calls a policeman a pig! And women are treated as more than equals! People take pride in their neighborhood!" Archie agrees, "There is something different about these people." Veronica sums it up, "Everybody's going in the same direction! They have unity! But where do you look for it?" And Betty provides the capper, "That's easy! You look up!" I must confess that, as a historian of sorts, I did find his longing for a mythical golden age in the 1890s rather tiresome. After all, this is the time period when Jacob Riis was producing his photographs of child labor, published in How the Other Half Lives. Hartley didn't work for Archie much longer after this comic came out, but while he was there he created some .... memorable work. Good luck finding this.

--Another 1 para RTC: Don Rosa's Life of Scrooge McDuck series (Uncle Scrooge 285-296) is a tour-de-force. Originally done for European publisher Egmont in 1991-1993, these were published in America by Gladstone in 1994-1995. In 12 stories, the self-admittedly-obsessed Rosa pulled a multitude of facts about Scrooge from Carl Bark's original classic stories and wove them into an entertaining story. He covered Scrooge's life from 1867-1947 including the Alaskan gold rush. Rosa frequently refers to his work as overly-detailed, but he's obviously lovingly studied Elder's early Mad art. Rosa's stories work on several levels so this can be enjoyed by children and their parents. The story was recently collected by Gladstone.