April 28: Joe Sacco to speak to Prof Wenthe's class at AU

Professor Michael Wenthe writes in to tell us

Next Wednesday, April 28, at 2:10 P.M. in the atrium of the Battelle-Tompkins building here at American University, Joe Sacco will give a presentation and discussion of his work (notably _Footnotes in Gaza_) as the final event in my section of LIT 215: Writers in Print / in Person. Strictly speaking, this event will constitute the last class session for the course, so pride of place for the attendees will be my eighteen students (who discussed Sacco's work this past week), but we're holding it as an open, public event in in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Program here at AU and it will be generally advertised on campus.

Personally I've never heard Sacco speak, but I like his work. I'm sorry to miss this, but work is precluding my attendance.

Bill Day wins 2010 RFK cartooning award.

Boy, I'm a judge for the thing, and I still get scooped by Cavna. Anyway, congratulations to Bill Day for winning this year's RFK Journalism award for cartooning. Bill's work calling attention to the health problems of poor children was quite striking.

Here's what the Foundation put out:

Cartoon Winner: Series of cartoons, Bill Day, United Feature Syndicate: Cartoonist Bill Day sheds light on the continuing problem of infant mortality in America, especially among minority populations. His unusual special project creates clear and easily-readable cartoons, raising public awareness, partly through a grassroots movement that led to the introduction of legislation and policy improvements.

Nate Beeler wins this year’s Overseas Press Club award.

Nate Beeler has won this year’s Overseas Press Club award, according to this article. (OPC's server seems to have crashed.)

Congratulations, Nate!

Oh, and regarding today's cartoon, I think the tea-partiers are really ANTI-Federalists, since the Federalists including Hamilton, were in favor of more government, not less.

Tom the Dancing Bug, late of Wash Post, joins boing boing

Ruben Bolling sent a note in -

Starting today, the weekly comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug" by Ruben Bolling will appear on the popular website Boing Boing, at http://boingboing.net/.  

See http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/21/introducingtom.html#more

Some more details at www.tomthedancingbug.com

Marc Singer on teaching Chris Ware

Marc introduces his class to Jimmy Corrigan.

Finder to Dark Horse - another article

Dark Horse to Publish Carla Speed McNeil's ‘Finder'
The acclaimed self-published series will now be reprinted by Dark Horse
By Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly, 4/20/2010

Festival Imagé updated schedule

Pulled from the Festival Imagé website, here is updated information.

Booksigning tonight!
-Tuesday April 20 at AFDC, 6:30 pm:

Exhibition opening "Les Trois Ombres" by Cyril Pedrosa


Book signing by Antoine Dodé and Cyril Pedrosa

At the Alliance Française. The opening reception and book signing are free but reservations are mandatory. 202 234 79 11



-Wednesday April 21st at MICA, 7 pm:

Presentation: Laurence Arcadias

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students



At MICA/ free



-Thursday April 22nd at Letelier Theater, 7 pm

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students



At Letelier Theater 3251 Prospect Street, NW, Upper Courtyard, Washington DC/ free for MICA students and AF members - General admission $8



-Friday April 23rd at AFDC, 6:30 pm

Lecture by Pascal Fioretto: "Humor in comics"



At the Alliance Française/ free for MICA students and AF members - General admission $8



-Saturday April 24th at MICA:



-2 p.m., Room 140: MICA illustration faculty member Alain Corbel presents his Sequential Art students’ exhibition

-2 p.m., Room 110: MICA students' animation on display

-3 p.m., Room 140: Workshop with Cyril Pedrosa and MICA students on the narrative process

-4 p.m., Room 140: Professional forum with publishers Yvan Alagbé (Fremok/France), Jérôme Martineau (Carabas Revolution/France) and Calista Brill (First Second Books/US)

-6 p.m., Main Court: Closing party


At MICA/ free




-Sunday, April 25 at MICA
2-5 pm: Room 140: Closing of exhibition by MICA's Sequential Art class

At MICA/ free

Caroline Small reads Moore's Swamp Thing for the 1st time

Ahh, you can't go home again - but you can vicariously enjoy the thrill of Caroline Small's discovery of Swamp Thing via the good offices of her buddy Chris (who's leading her down the comics primrose path - it's no longer "I'm just here to see Craig Yoe to keep Chris company..."). Read their dialogue at Muck-Encrusted Mockery of a Roundtable: Liberty, Fecundity, Perversity

U of MD's Diamondback's editorial cartoon controversy

University of Maryland's Dimaondback's April 13 Editorial cartoon By Jenna Brager

The above cartoon is causing a controversy apparently - at least enough of one that the Diamondback's editor felt compelled to apologize - but with a twist:

What I do apologize for, however, is for failing the cartoonist. If you’ve been around the backlash from the cartoon, odds are you already know that the drawing of the armband made many readers interpret the cartoon as a connection between Israelis and Nazis — the imagery of the Israeli flag armband is often found in highly anti-Semitic propaganda.

She hadn’t meant to make such a connection, and so a tiny part of a drawing sparked a plethora of letters, feedback and more than a hundred comments online. I knew the cartoon would spark debate, but where I failed in my job was not realizing the connotation of the armband. Instead of constructive conversation, all anyone wants to talk about now is how this comparison can be interpreted as hate speech. And so, I failed my cartoonist, who never intended to make that statement.

You can read the rest of his editorial here: From the editor: All apologies By Rob Gindes, April 18, 2010, but this looks like another tiresome tempest in a teapot to me, largely caused by a lack of drawing chops (sorry Ms. Brager).

Jim Dougan interviewed by Mark Ruffin

Washington D.C. comics writer Jim Dougan talks on well-received webcomic
DC Comic Books Examiner Mark Ruffin
April 19,2010

Another positive Kick-Ass review from a local woman critic

Kick-Ass Directed by Matthew Vaughn
A cultish super hero flick about misfits. And ass-kicking.
By Tricia Olszewski
Washington City Paper April 16, 2010

Baltimore Sun on French comics fest

MICA salutes French animation as an international force for artistic good
Students at French CGI school Supinfocom, and MICA, create animated shorts as personal art
By Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun April 15, 2010

Library of Congress to save the Tweet

This press release got picked up by some of the big papers like the Post and the Times, but why should we at ComicsDC care? Because a lot of comic book creators are Twitteratti - and Comic Book Resources put out a list of them this week. So now Washington will be a Mecca for those interested in what their favorite creator thought in 2010, in 140 characters or less. The historic ramifications are beyond imagining.

Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington DC   20540

April 15, 2010

Twitter Donates Entire Tweet Archive to Library of Congress

Twitter is donating its digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress.  Twitter is a leading social networking service that enables users to send and receive tweets, which consist of web messages of up to 140 characters. 

Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets per day from people around the world.  The Library will receive all public tweets—which number in the billions—from the 2006 inception of the service to the present. 

"The Twitter digital archive has extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.  "This information provides detailed evidence about how technology based social networks form and evolve over time.  The collection also documents a remarkable range of social trends.  Anyone who wants to understand how an ever-broadening public is using social media to engage in an ongoing debate regarding social and cultural issues will have need of this material."

Billington added: "The Library looks at this as an opportunity to add new kinds of information without subtracting from our responsibility to manage our overall collection.  Working with the Twitter archive will also help the Library extend its capability to provide stewardship for very large sets of born-digital materials."

In making the donation, Greg Pass, Twitter's vice president of engineering, said: "We are pleased and proud to make this collection available for the benefit of the American people.  I am very grateful that Dr. Billington and the Library recognize the value of this information.  It is something new, but it tells an amazing story that needs to be remembered."  Twitter's own take on the donation is posted on their blog http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/tweet-preservation.html.

A few highlights of the donated material include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://twitter.com/jack/status/20), President Obama's tweet about winning the election (http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676), and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964) and (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620).

The announcement came coincidentally on the same day the Library's own Twitter feed (@librarycongress) crossed 50,000 followers (April 14, 2010).

"I think Twitter will be one of the most informative resources available on modern day culture, including economic, social and political trends, as well as consumer behavior and social trends," said Margot Gerritsen, a professor with Stanford University's Department of Energy Resources Engineering and head of the Center of Excellence for Computational Approaches to Digital Stewardship, a partnership with the Library of Congress.

The archive follows in the Library's long tradition of gathering individuals' firsthand accounts of history, such as "man on the street" interviews after Pearl Harbor; the September 11, 2001, Documentary Project; the Veterans History Project (VHP); and StoryCorps.  While the Twitter archive will not be posted online, the Library envisions posting selected content around topics or themes, similar to existing VHP presentations.

The Library has been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites in 2000.  Today the Library holds more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office and websites of Members of Congress.  In addition, the Library leads the congressionally mandated National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program www.digitalpreservation.gov, which is pursuing a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library's rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.

# # #

PR 10-81
4/15/2010
ISSN 0731-3527

Carla McNeil's Finder to be published by Dark Horse

Comic Book Resources has the story of Finder moving from self-published to Dark Horse.

Zadzooks - barely about comics, but...

Zadzooks: Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series and The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy
Joseph Szadkowski
April 12, 2010

Meanwhile, Greg's got a few suggestions, only 1 of which I concur with - see if you can guess which it is!

Bennett's Best: S.H.I.E.L.D., Invincible Returns and Art In Time
By Greg Bennett, Special to Zadzooks April 12, 2010

Most laughable reason to disagree with Fiore's Pulitzer goes to...

...the Washington Examiner!

From April 18, 2010's "10 Lowlights of the Week" column:

#4 Puerile Pulitzer
Political cartoonist award goes to 'Tea Bag' jokester

The details: According to the Pulitzer committee, Mark Fiore "Set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary" with his animated cartoons on the Internet. Fiore is best known for a cartoon, "Learn to Speak Tea Bag" which has tea party protesters running around screaming "Nazi! - Socialist! Baby killer!" High standards, indeed.

On the next page, Nate Beeler picked his pro-Tea Party cartoon as his favorite of the week - can't agree with that call either, Nate.

Wuerker's Herblock award - Cavna makes his attendance tax-deductible

I'll have my own post up eventually, with photos from Joe Azar, but here's Michael's take on the evening -

Politico's MATT WUERKER accepts the Herblock Prize
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post's Comic Riffs blog April 16, 2010

He also talked to Steve Breen and Jen Sorenson about their recent awards -
Fischetti-winning Steve Breen: Awards 'mean more than ever' in tough times
By Michael Cavna, April 17, 2010

NPR's Weldon, on the other hand, does not like Kick-Ass

Glen Weldon's got some hard words for the comic book - Shiv and Let Shiv: Making Peace with 'Kick-Ass' (And Other Meditations). National Public Radio’s Monkey See blog (April 15 2010).

Comics on the Rack, Quick Picks for Comics Due 04-21-10

COMICS ON THE RACK

Quick Picks for Comics Due 04-21-10

By John Judy

 

100 % SC written and drawn by Paul Pope.  Collecting five issues of the cyber-punk life circa 2038!

 

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #628 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks.  So that's whatever happened to Captain Universe.  Too bad for the Juggernaut though.  Saying you got slapped by Captain Universe has got to be the worst…

 

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #2 by Scott Snyder, Stephen King and Rafael Albuquerque.  Skinner and Pearl rise to their occasions.  Recommended.

 

BENNY AND PENNY IN THE TOYBREAKER HC written and drawn by Geoffrey Hayes.  Cousin Bo seriously busts up B&P's toys every time he visits.  Cousin Bo is going to have to be dealt with.  Great for all ages.

 

BRAVE AND THE BOLD #33 by J. Michael Straczynski and Cliff Chiang.  Wonder Woman, Zatanna and Batgirl (the real one!) go out for a night on the town.  There may or may not be a story attached but who cares?  Highly recommended.

 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHO WON'T WIELD THE SHIELD #1 by Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction and Some Swell Artists.  Who won't it be?!  Sarah Palin?  The cute barista at Starbucks?  That dude with the really ill-advised tattoo?  Only Irving Forbush knows for sure!

 

CRISIS ON MULTIPLE EARTHS, VOL. 5 SC by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin, George Perez and Others.  Justice League/Society cross-overs from JLA#159, 160, 183, 184 and 185.  Big fights and gorgeous George Perez art!  Recommended.

 

CROSSED: FAMILY VALUES #1 of 6 by David Lapham and Javier Barreno.  Lapham takes up where Garth Ennis left off in a world where a virus drives everyone who gets it to extremes of madness, torture and mayhem.  It's like a big teabagger rally with no cops.  Absolutely not for kids.

 

DO ANYTHING, VOL. 1: THOUGHTS ON COMICS AND THINGS by Warren Ellis.  That nice Mr. Ellis writes about stuff while channeling the robot head of Jack Kirby.  It's cheap and it's from Avatar, so we're lucky to have heard of it at all.  Recommended.

 

DV8: GODS AND MONSTERS #1 of 8 by Brian Wood and Rebekah Isaacs.  "So, tell us about the time you and your super-friends were briefly gods in a pre-historic world."

 

FIRESTAR #1 by Sean McKeever and Emma Rios.  It turns out Firestar has survived cancer.  I get the feeling this will be a Very Special Episode of Firestar…

 

GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS #5 of 9 by Ennis and Carlos Ezquerra.  "The Firefly and His Majesty" continues.  Tank fight with ratzis!  Recommended.

 

GREEN LANTERN #53 by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke.  So it's the morning after "Darkest Night."  Let's call it "Brightest Day" if you will.  You've suddenly got all these other-than-green colored Lanterns running around, at least three of whom you want nothing to do with.  In fact, you should probably be fighting them on account of them being mass murderers and all.  What do you do?  Recommended.

 

GREETINGS FROM CARTOONIA: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE OF THE LAND OF COMICS SC by Various Creators.  An international compilation of strips from twelve different creators, each inspired by different things from their country of choice.  Gotta look!  From Stripburger, distributed by Top Shelf.

 

GUILD #2 of 3 by Felicia Day and Jim Rugg.  Our cute protagonist finds herself getting more and more into her on-line role-playing game as her boyfriend's emotional neglect gets worse.  (No, I'm not crying.  It's just something in my eye…)

 

HELLBLAZER #266 by Peter Milligan and Simon Bisley.  The story of aging and wannabe punk rockers dedicated to raising the spirit of Sid Vicious is probably the best Constantine story Milligan has done so far.  And Biz is the perfect artist for it.  Highly recommended.

 

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #44 by James Robinson and Mark Bagley.  Okay, I don't know about you but I'm counting members of at least four different DC super-teams on this cover and not one of whom could be called proper JLA.  What gives, Robinson?

 

RASL, VOL. 2: FIRE OF SAINT GEORGE SC written and drawn by Jeff Smith.  The continuing adventures of Smith's universe-hopping scientist/art thief/debaucher can be found here.  Highly recommended.

 

SIEGE: SPIDER-MAN #1 by Brian Reed and Marco Santucci.  Spidey dukes it out with Venom.  For the title!

 

SIF #1 by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Ryan Stegman.  Thor's bride is in Loki-possession recovery and that requires chopping stuff up with her sword!  It's therapy, Norse goddess style!

 

SPIRIT #1 by Mark Schultz and Moritat.  Co-feature by Dennis O'Neil and Bill Sienkiewicz.  Re-launching the adventures of Will Eisner's legendary domino-masked punch-up artist, this one features an interesting twist:  A Spirit comic with a back-up story featuring "The Spirit!"  Because most of us don't care about the Spirit.  We only want it for the Spirit.

 

ULTIMATE COMICS: AVENGERS #6 by Mark Millar and Carlos Pacheco.  Ultimate Captain America and his little boy Ultimate Red Skull (yeah, I know…) go mano a mano in the conclusion of Millar's latest burst of summer movie ultra-violence.

 

UNDELETED SCENES SC written and drawn by Jeffrey Brown.  Top Shelf presents ten years worth of rare and previously uncollected works by indy humorist Brown.  Recommended.

 

X-FACTOR #204 by Peter David and Valentine DeLandro.  The team fights a reanimated dead guy named "Bolivar."  You kind of have to win this one if you ever want to show your face at the X-picnic again.

 

X-MEN LEGACY #235 by Mike Carey and Greg Land.  The X-gang is still chasing after Hope.  Once they get her they'll work on Change.

 

www.johnjudy.net

April 18: Capicon Comic convention

Sunday, April 18th, 2010
Capicons Comic Book and Pop Culture Con

Dunn Loring Vol. Fire Dept, Dunn Loring, Virginia

Special Guests:
Martin Grams, Jr, Author of The Green Hornet: A History of Radio, Motion Pictures, Comics and Television
http://www.martingrams.com

Dan Nokes, Artist/Publisher--21 Sandshark Studios
http://21sandshark.com/

Also featuring
Artist Tom Arvis, Sureshot Comics
http://www.arvtoon.com

FREE admission! Door prize drawings!

Open to the public from 10 am - 3 pm. Buy, sell & trade: Gold, Silver, Bronze Age comics; Indie & Modern comics, Publishers & Creators, TV & Movie Collectibles. Non-sport cards; Videos & DVDs; Anime; Manga; Horror/Sci-Fi; figures, toys; Star Wars & Star Trek memorabilia; original artwork, posters and other comic-related collectibles.

See you there!
Laura, Jeff & Ed,