Small Press Expo To Be Held This Weekend, Saturday October 4 and Sunday, October 5, 2008

I'm interviewing Our Man Thompson at... 5 pm on Sunday! Well, that will be a quick session.

Small Press Expo To Be Held This Weekend, Saturday October 4 and Sunday, October 5, 2008

For Immediate Release
Contact: Warren Bernard

Phone: 301-537-4615

E-Mail: webernard@spxpo.com

Bethesda, Maryland; September 29, 2008 - The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, will be held this weekend, Saturday, October 4 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, October 5 noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Admission is $8 for a single day and $15 for both days.

In addition to a wide ranging series of panels and interviews, there will also be the presentation of the Ignatz Awards on Saturday night, October 4 at 9PM.

Information on the panels, interviews, directions and exhibitors can be found at http://www.spxpo.com.

This year, SPX is pleased to have the following special guests attending this year’s event:

Richard Thompson is a long time contributor to The New Yorker and a first time guest at Small Press Expo. Richard contributes a weekly political/social strip to The Washington Post called Richards Poor Almanac. Richard is also a contributor to The Atlantic Magazine, National Geographic and U.S. News and World Report and won the National Cartoonists Society's Magazine and Book Illustration Award. He is also a syndicated cartoonist, whose strip Cul De Sac is now in over 100 newspapers. Richard will be signing copies of Cul De Sac: No Exit, the first Cul De Sac collection at SPX.

Joost Swarte is best known to American audiences for his covers and illustrations for The New Yorker, along with his internationally recognized comic and poster work. He has extended his unique cartoon style into the world of industrial design by designing stained glass installations, sculptures and furniture, as well as the Toneelshuur Theater in Haarlem, The Netherlands. SPX is proud to host Mr. Swarte in one of his rare United States appearances.

Ben Katchor is making his first appearance at SPX. Mr. Katchor is known for his books “Julius Knippel, Real Estate Photographer”, “The Jew Of New York”, and “Beauty The Supply District”. He is a contributor of comics to both The New Yorker and the New York Times and has a regular strip that is printed in Metropolitan Magazine. Mr. Katchor has turned his talents to the stage, writing the libretto and creating the backgrounds for the plays “The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island” and “The Rosenbach Company”. Vist his web site at http://www.katchor.com

Bryan Lee O’Malley is the creator of the Scott Pilgrim (http://www.scottpilgrim.com) series of books issued by Oni Press. Scott Pilgrim was named Best Indy Comic of the Year by Entertainment Weekly and was recently optioned as a motion picture by Universal Studios. Bryan has been nominated for both the Eisner and Harvey Awards and is a past recipient of the Joe Schuster Award for Best Canadian Cartoonist and the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent. Bryan’s web site is http://www.radiomaru.com/.

Hope Larson is the creator of the recently released book, Chiggers, published by the Atheneum imprint of Simon & Schuster. She was the recipient of the 2006 Ignatz Award in the category Promising New Talent and the Eisner Award for Special Recognition in 2007. Her previous works include Gray Horses published by Oni Press and Salamander Dreams, her web comic subsequently published by Adhouse Books. Hope’s web site is
http://www.hopelarson.com/.

For further information on the artists or to request an interview, please contact Warren Bernard at mailto:webernard@spxpo.com.

SPX, a non-profit organization, brings together more than 300 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers and distributors each year. Graphic novels, political cartoon books and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. A series of panel discussions will also be held of interest to readers, academicians and creators of graphic novels and political cartoons.

SPX culminates with the presentation of the 12th Annual Ignatz Awards for outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning that will occur Saturday night, October 4. The Ignatz is the first Festival Prize in the US comic book industry, with winners chosen by balloting during the SPX.

As in previous years, all profits from the SPX will go to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), protecting the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, go to their website at
http://www.cbldf.org/.

Founded in 1994, SPX is North America's premier alternative comic-book and graphic novel festival. This annual event brings together comic creators, publishers and fans together to celebrate the art of visual storytelling.

BASH! Magazine #3 Now On Newsstands

I noticed the BASH! Magazine kiosks loaded with the October 2008 issue (#3) this morning at the Vienna and Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stops. It has a lovely Halloween orange tint, with an excerpt from Eamon Espey's content in the issue. Oh, and it has a full-page ad for SPX, which is cool (though I would've erred to include the writers and artists of BASH! who are attending the show in their list of attendees).

This month:

"One Person Each" by Theo Ellsworth
"Onion Head" by Bryan Stone
"Animal Stew: Taxidermy on Edge" by Matt Dembicki
"For Want of an Oomplip" by Morgan Pielli
"Something Happens" by Thomas K. Dye
"Tiny Sepuku" by Ken Cursoe (x2)
"Legs" by John Dimes
"Slow Wave" by Jesse Reklaw
"Slowpoke" by Jen Sorensen (x2)
"K Chronicles" by Keith Knight (x2)
"The First 9/11" by Dan Archer
"Limbs of the Megalith: The Sleeping or the Slain" by Eamon Espey

As in past issues, this is a mixture of the bizarre to the educational. Come see a bunch of these folks this weekend at the Small Press Expo!

Interview with honorary ComicsDCian Von Allen

See "VON ALLAN'S "road" TO LI'L KIDS," by Jennifer M. Contino, Comicon's the Pulse 09-26-2008.

Small Press Expo's Owly guitar

Jeff Alexander, one of the organizers of SPX, has organized a guitar painted by Andy Runton to be auctioned off for the Comic Book Legal Defense fund.

Very cool.

Baltimore Comic-Con - Wrightson interview and more

I still haven't gotten my pictures online, but news from the BCC is starting to appear. (By the way, if anyone's got an extra of the Tucci Sgt Rock, poster, I'd like to get a copy of that.)

Actually I never even saw Bernie Wrightson yesterday, but here's an interview with him - "Master in horror genre is home for Comic-Con," By Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun September 28, 2008...

...an early report on the Harvey Awards "Horror Comics Haunt the Harvey Awards!" by Joseph McCabe, FEARnet September 9/28/2008...

...some panel and Harvey Award reports from Comic Book Resources...

2008 Harvey Award Winners
Sun, September 28th, 2008 | By Jonathan Callan
This weekend saw the presentation of the 2008 Harvey Awards, hosted by Kyle Baker and kicked off with keynote speaker Brian Bendis. Brian K. Vaughan, Darwyn Cooke and "All Star Superman" took the top honors.

Baltimore: Cup of B Panel
Sat, September 27th, 2008 | By Jonathan Callan
At the Cup of Bendis panel at Baltimore Comic-Con Saturday morning, a number of announcements came down including Slott on “Mighty Avengers,” Spider-Woman series finally scheduled and more.

Baltimore: The Bendis/Kirkman Debate
Sat, September 27th, 2008 | By Jonathan Callan
If you were unimpressed by Friday night's debate, the one between Robert Kirkman and Brian Bendis about creator-owned work held today at Baltimore Comic-Con won't disappoint. We've got all the details.

Baltimore: Tucci Presents The Return of Sgt. Rock
Sat, September 27th, 2008 | By Richard Chapell
Billy Tucci brought along members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team to his panel Saturday morning to paint a picture of what World War II was like, which he’ll be depicting in “Sgt. Rock — The Lost Batallion.”

Baltimore: DC Nation Panel
Sat, September 27th, 2008 | By Richard Chapell
At today’s DC National Panel at the Baltimore Comic-Con, Dan DiDio brought Jimmy Palmiotti, Sterling Gates, James Robinson, Sean Mckeever and Ian Sattler to talk “Final Crisis” and update numerous other projects...

...and Newsarama has a bunch of stories including...

Baltimore Comic Con '08: The Kirkman - Bendis Panel
By Vaneta Rogers
Newsarama 2008-09-28

and not least, Richard and I spoke with Frank Cammusso who will also be at SPX. I was online with Frank years ago at SPX and enjoyed talking to him then and now - here's an interview on his new book...

Frank Cammuso on Knights of the Lunch Table
By Zack Smith
Newsarama 2008-09-24

Much shorter Harvey Pekar biography

In spite of the evidence piling up, this isn't really a blog devoted to Harvey Pekar. I did run across something to mention today though. I've got a 248 page book devoted to Harvey out now as you're well aware, but, quoting from SMITH Magazine, in "Short memoirs: Six little words can be revealing," By Doug Mason, Knoxville News Sentinel Sunday, September 28, 2008, Harvey pretty much summed up the whole thing: "Fight, work, persevere - gain slight notoriety."

CARTOONISTS JOIN FOR "HAPPY ACCIDENTS," A DISCUSSION OF CONTEMPORARY THEMES AND ISSUES IN GRAPHIC NOVELS AT GW'S GELMAN LIBRARY

Thanks to Herschel Kanter for sending this in! It looks like a follow-up to SPX.

CARTOONISTS JOIN FOR "HAPPY ACCIDENTS," A DISCUSSION OF CONTEMPORARY THEMES AND ISSUES IN GRAPHIC NOVELS AT GW'S GELMAN LIBRARY
OCT. 6, 2008

EVENT:

Cartoonists Jesse Reklaw (The Night of Your Life: A Slow Wave Production), Dash Shaw (Bottomless Belly Button), Trevor Alixopulos (Hot Breath of War), Ken Dahl (Welcome to the Dahl House: Alienation, Incarceration, and Inebri in the New American Rome), and Sarah Edward-Corbett (See-Saw) will join a reading and panel discussion titled "Happy Accidents," about contemporary themes and issues in graphic novels. This event is sponsored by The George Washington University's Melvin Gelman Library and the University Writing Program.

WHEN:

Monday, Oct. 6, 2008; 5 p.m.

WHERE:

The George Washington University
Gelman Library, Room 301
2130 H St., N.W., Washington, D.C.
Foggy Bottom - GWU Metro Station (Orange and Blue lines)

COST:

This event is free and open to the public. Photo I.D. is required to enter the building. Media wishing to attend should contact Nick Massella at (202) 994-3087 or massella@gwu.edu.

BACKGROUND:

Jesse Reklaw turns the dreams of strangers into clever four-panel comic strips in The Night of Your Life: A Slow Wave Production. This hardcover book collects five years of Reklaw's comic strip, Slow Wave, which appears in alternative weekly newspapers all over the country.

Twenty-five-year-old Dash Shaw's fourth graphic novel, Bottomless Belly Button, is a 720-page comedy-drama that follows the dysfunctional adventures of the Loony Family.

Trevor Alixopulos' Hot Breath of War takes seemingly unrelated episodes of life during wartime and entwines them into one experimental narrative. This subtle graphic novel explores love amidst conflict and the seduction of violence.

Ken Dahl documents alienation, incarceration, and inebriation in the new American Rome in Welcome to the Dahl House: Alienation, Incarceration, and Inebri in the New American Rome, a graphic novel anthology. Dahl is a 2006 Ignatz Award recipient and 2007 Center for Cartoon Studies Fellow.

Sara Edward-Corbett's comic strip See-Saw ran in the New York Press from 2003 - 2005. With her detail and affection for youthful insolence, she is a new contributor to Mome, the premier anthology of literary comics.

For additional information about the event, visit http://blogs.gelman.gwu.edu/blogs/news.

Washington Times on Jenny, an atypical military comic strip

See "Jenny's mission of mirth: Military spouse reaches out to her peers with comic strip," by Karen Goldberg Goff, Washington Times Sunday, September 28, 2008.

Julie Negron is the creator of "Jenny, the Military Spouse," which can be seen online at www.jennyspouse.com in addition to newspapers.

Post on anti-Semitic Iranian cartoon book

This was on the wires a couple of days ago, but the Post appears to have a reporter in Iran - as much as I bash them at times, it's a good paper. I read most of the foreign reporting, but rarely note the bylines. See "Young Iranians Release Book Caricaturing The Holocaust," By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post Foreign Service, Sunday, September 28, 2008; A23.

SPX ad on YouTube

Fantagraphics has posted a 30-second video ad they liked on their blog. The ad is for SPX and is on YouTube. I'll be roaming around there on both days, and look much like the Simpsonized version to the right.

Corrected due to Fantagraphic's comment.

Post ombudsman on Oliphant cartoon

Here's the Post ombudsman on an Oliphant cartoon about Palin, with a ho-hum sort of defense of free speech as it applies to cartoonists on the web, which after all, isn't really the newspaper, but if it had been the newspaper, well, then by god, we wouldn't have run the cartoon because it criticizes beliefs in god of 750 likely non-subscribers to the Post... aw, just read the thing - "The Power of Political Cartoons," By Deborah Howell, Washington Post Sunday, September 28, 2008; B06.

Dan Wasserman, the Boston Globe's editorial cartoonist had a better response in "Pentecostals peeved at Palin cartoon" basically arguing that if you mix your politics and religion, then perhaps other people won't bother to separate them either.

Thompson and Ullman at Crafty Bastard's tomorrow

Crafty Bastards, the annual City Paper craft fair in Adams Morgan will have Rob Ullman in a booth, and Richard Thompson selling his book through Politics and Prose at 1 pm.

Back from Baltimore Comic-Con

Richard, the kids and I had a good trip to Baltimore. More notes and pics to come, but in the meantime, here's an interview about the Con that I just ran across. "This Weekend - Baltimore Comic-Con: Talking to Marc Nathan," By Matt Brady, Newsarama 2008-09-26. The Con continues tomorrow and is always fun - this year seemed rather crowded. If you go tomorrow, I'd specifically recommend visiting Arlingtonian Steve Conley and Frank Cammusso at the children's table, Ramona Fradon who's selling her Brenda Starr comic strips for $35 each (I've got 2 now), Don Rosa who has excellent Disney comics, my buddy Dean Haspiel who's got advance copies of The Alcoholic, the Top Shelf booth with Andy Runton's Owley, ... oh, there are too many people to mention.

Off to Baltimore Comic-Con

We're off to Baltimore Comic-Con - stop us and buy our books! We're each carrying copies to pawn off on willing victims.




(original photo by Marcus Hamilton, and it deserved better)

Zadzooks on Comic Book Tattoo

"ZADZOOKS: Comic Book Tattoo blends art and music," by Joseph Szadkowski, Washington Times Thursday, September 25, 2008.

Grant Morrison interview on Comic Riffs

"The Interview: Comic-Book Writer Grant Morrison," By Michael Cavna, Comic Riffs blog September 25, 2008.

Flugennock drawing for debate party ad

From yesterday's Onion.

October 23: Canadian animated films at National Archives

Bruce Guthrie sent this in today:

Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 7 p.m.
William G. McGowan Theater, National Archives, 9th and Constitution Ave, NW

A Salute to the National Film Board of Canada

This program, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in partnership with The Charles Guggenheim Center for the Documentary Film and the Foundation for the National Archives, celebrates more than 50 years of Oscar®-nominated and -winning short subjects produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Hosted by renowned animation critic and historian Charles Solomon, the program will feature several films, including Neighbours (1952), Christmas Cracker (1962), Bob’s Birthday (1993), and Ryan (2004). The program will be introduced by Academy President Sid Ganis. Joining us from the NFB will be Government Film Commissioner Tom Perlmutter and animation producer Marcy Page. Torill Kove, director of the 2006 Oscar®-winning animated short subject The Danish Poet, will also appear.

Brad Meltzer interview from yesterday

Christopher Porter of the Express wrote in to note that he did a short interview with Brad Meltzer that was in Thursday's Express, and he noted "I did a longer piece on Brad six years ago in the City Paper; the setting was Big Planet."

Meltzer will be at the Book Festival on the Mall tomorrow.

Sara Duke, who will also be at the Book Festival tomorrow as a Library of Congress escort, wrote in to note that the Library has a podcast with Brad online now.

Marvel bibliographer Rob Weiner interview

Rob Weiner, author of Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide to Comics, Prose Novels, Children's Books, Articles, Criticism and Reference Works, 1965-2005, answered some questions about his 400-page book and his future projects.

How about some background? You're a librarian?

I have a BA in history and an MA in History from Texas Tech with a focus in American History and American Popular culture. While I was working on my MA in history, I was always in the library. People started asking me where things were as though I worked there. I thought I should probably get paid for doing that so I applied for a job and worked as a paraprofessional for a few years. Then I went and received my MS in Library Science at University of North Texas. I worked in a public library for 12 years and most recently took a position at Texas Tech as Humanities Librarian. I worked in the local music industry for about 10 years in Lubbock while going to college. I’ve always appreciated the “artsy” side of life so my position now is a real good fit.

Bibliography is kinda in my blood. I co-authored a bibliography on the Grateful Dead, I’ve published a filmographic essay on Johnny Cash, the Marvel Guide, and in my forthcoming book on Captain America, I co-authored Filmographic and Scholarly Bibliographic pieces. I don’t do just lists however; I have to read, or watch the piece and then annotate or critically judge it.

Why comic books?

Well, when I a little boy growing up in Michigan I remember certain images... I remember the image from Silver Surfer 1 and Tales of Suspense 39 (with the gray Iron Man)! I was mesmerized by those images. They stick with me today. I can’t say where I first saw them or how I started to read comics, but I remember those two covers specifically. I also remember I had a Batman bow tie that I was very proud to wear around at events. By the time I was around 10 or so I started actually collecting and reading comics. I was fascinated by characters like the Human Fly (I wish Marvel would do an Essential collection), 3-D Man (one of my ALL TIME favorites and one of the coolest characters Roy Thomas ever created), The Beast fascinated me (just his look), Nova the Human Rocket, Moon Knight, the Black Panther. It was these “secondary” characters that caught my eye more than the Big Guns (like Spidey / Thor / even Cap) at first. I was also fascinated by the Legion of Superheroes and those early adventures of Superboy. You know how a lot of people remember the "Death of Gwen Stacy" (which was a BIG BIG deal when it came out), for me it was the death of Chemical Boy. I cried and cried over that. (I loved Bouncing Boy also,) I have not read those 1970s Legion stories SINCE I was a kid. I would love to re-read them. I also went through a period of rediscovery when the first Tim Burton Batman movie came out and started collecting again, but then life / school / marriage got me busy again and I got out of the comic world for awhile.

It was in the late 1990s while working at the public library that I started to rekindle my love for comics through reading Graphic Novels. It occurred to me that perhaps we should try ordering some Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman books for the Public Library. I asked my library director about this and she said sure, let’s give it try. Well, that inspired ten years of collecting graphic novels for the Lubbock Public Library System. I helped build one of the best graphic novels collections in the country. There was some resistance to this as some people (on staff) did not want that sh**t in the library, but the director was always like “Do they circulate?” If they do, then let’s get more. Adults, kids, teens, all loved these books so we just kept buying more and more and built a great collection of over 4,000 items. At first, I tried reading EVERYTHING that I ordered or came in. This proved to be too daunting after awhile. There is a TON of stuff and more all the time being produced, so one has to pick their favorites and stick with them, occasionally reading something new and critically acclaimed of course.

Why Marvel?

I’ve always loved the Marvel characters. After reading Alex Ross’s Marvels I just became inspired. I realized that one could tell a story with Spider-Man that was equal to Shakespeare / Tolstoy etc. Although I had previously read The Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and the Crow, it just did not “hit” me until I read Marvels. The combination between the awesome art and the great storytelling just changed me (I was also highly impressed with DeFalco’s Spider-Girl). I thought wow, I should try to do something like the Grateful Dead bibliography with Marvel Graphic Novels and document and annotate them. Although some critics have pointed out that much of the info in my book is online, my book as “value added” material in that the annotations are fun to read and they provide at times a critical perspective to certain works. Frankly, I do document material that is not documented in quite the same way elsewhere, including online. Although Marvel Graphic Novels is a reference work, it is a fun book that anyone including fans, scholars, historians, librarians, should get something out of that they cannot get out of websites. For example did you know Marvel published a guide to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, or about all those weird children’s books they published in the 1980s? None of that is documented in all one place. Are there things I missed? Of course. Is the book perfect? No, of course not. I find mistakes all the time, but I hope that it provides a great service to the sequential art community as a whole.

It took me six years to read and annotate all this material which is why it stops at 2005. Working full time, teaching, and trying to have a life is very difficult, but McFarland never gave up on me. I also have a second book, an edited collection on Captain America (my all time favorite character), coming out soon and that is in the can. Two more books are forthcoming as well. One is an edited collection looking at how Graphic Novels have affected libraries and archives and another documents Marvel on Film/Video.

Do you anticipate updating your Marvel book? Perhaps online for collectors of Marvel?

At this point no, I have no plans for that. I suppose in a few years I could do a sequel and update the book with all the items that have been published since then and perhaps have an annotated list of Marvel-related websites as well. There are some things I missed too that I could add. I wish someone actually associated with Marvel would see and appreciate this. That would be great. I know some reviews have lamented the fact that I stop at 2004-2005, and it just got published in 2008, but I just could not read and annotate everything. Much of the recent material is online (such as the Trade Paperback website and so forth), but again not all of it. Keep in mind too that it is also available as an e-book which you can download to your device. So I think this shows that reference books are not just dry and boring, but can provide something useful for the fan, scholar, professional, artist etc.

Can you talk more about the new books you've mentioned?

I have an edited collection on Captain America coming out soon. It is called Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero: Critical Essays which should be out soon. Cap is my favorite character and after they killed Steve Rogers, I wanted to do something to honor Cap. Since similar collections like Batman and Philosophy , Man from Krypton, and Unauthorized X-Men are all edited collections, I wanted to do the same for Cap. The difference is that scholarship in my book is all over the map, from fields as diverse as Geography, History, Cultural Studies, Psychology, etc. The scholarship is a little more intense in my book than in most books I’ve seen about particular characters. The book also has some well-known scholars in the field of comic book/sequential art studies including Jason Dimitter, Cord Scott, Mark McDermott, John Moser and Mike Dubose among others. They all have a previous publishing track record, but there are those getting published for the first time in the book as well. I hope that it won’t be so deep that regular Cap fans will be put off by the book and there is a wide variety of ideas (not all of which I agree with). But I hope it will provide a good solid example of the various ways in which one can produce sequential art scholarship. I have no idea how the critics are going to view the book. The only thing missing is a detailed look at the late forties Cap comics when he got rid of Bucky and had a girl sidekick and the “commie smasher” version. Apparently those three comics published in the 1950s are nowhere to be found. I hope they turn up someday as Marvel really needs to reprint those as Atlas Era Captain America Masterworks (along with that single issue of Captain America Weird Tales which did not have a Cap story. For historical and cultural value those books are priceless.

As a librarian and someone who help build a big collection of Graphic Novels when I worked at the public library, I want to give something back to the profession. So I am also in the coming year going to be working on a book of collected essays that shows with how libraries and archives have dealt with Graphic Novels in their collections. I think this would be a very good book for professionals in the library and archival fields to have and use. I even talk about Digital Comics and the changing of the industry as well. I mean it really has been only in the last 10 years that libraries have taken note of graphic novels as a way to get folks to read and not poo-pooed it. There have been libraries that have collected comics (such as Michigan State and Randall Scott for years), but they are the exception. I went through some growing pains with my library as well, with folks skeptical about having them in the collection. I think there is less and less of that because, just like the Internet, patrons demand graphic novels in their libraries. I mean graphic storytelling is as old as humanity! Nothing to be ashamed of in that. BTW your comics’ web bibliography is an amazing resource, as is your comic to film adaptations book! Speaking of which, I am also going to do a project documenting Marvel on Film and video etc., all in one place which will be pretty cool. And I am trying to finish and editing volume on Exploitation/Horror/Grindhouse/Arthouse cinema. I am working on with a PhD student at University of Texas and I have my regular job duties at the University, so I have my hands full for at least the next few years and beyond.

[9/26/08, 5:21 pm - copy edited after initial posting - MR]