Caro on W the Whore

Caroline Small on W the Whore Makes Her Tracks - "Caro talks about the role of gender in Anke Feuchtenberger’s graphic novel."

Our Man Thompson's new website

Richard Thompson unveils his new website, a fine job courtesy of Chris Sparks...

...although he's getting away from being OUR Man Thompson, sob.

...although apparently I'm driving him to HeroesCon on June 4th - not that we've talked about it lately.

Religious opinion on South Park and Mohammad cartoons in Saturday Post

In the Saturday Washington Post Metro section, "Limits to Religious Liberty?" would be of interest, especially the commentary regarding cartoons of Mohammad and South Park, but I can't find it online. The link to the print edition of the paper sends you to the Saturday On Faith blog.

At the blog I was able to find a few relevant articles, although not most of the ones quoted in the physical paper.

Sally Quinn. 2010.
Divine Impulses: Tariq Ramadan says Comedy Central is 'scared' of the Muslim reaction to South Park, Washington Post Divine Impulses blog (May)

Without freedom of expression, there is no democracy
Ex-Hindu monk, professor
Ramdas Lamb
On Faith blog May 6, 2010

Imposed or self-imposed censorship?
Professor, University of Mississippi School of Law
Ronald Rychlak
Washington Post On Faith blog May 7, 2010;

Post launches cartoon contest - updated

America's Next Great Cartoonist Contest. Enter now. Chance to win a one-month stint in the Washington Post Style section. Work for the man for free. No purchase necessary.

Our Man Thompson, who got paid for his Post Style cartoon appearances, is one of the judges, as is Garry "Greatest cartoonist of the 4th quarter of the 20th century" Trudeau, the Post's Gene Weingarten the latest person to break onto their comics page, and Tom "that darn" Toles as well as Stephan Pastis and Jerry Scott. Cavna's blog post on it is here and be sure to read the comments about legal concerns being raised.

I'm feeling slightly less cranky as I update this, so I will say it's a good opportunity for someone to break out of the syndication pack.

Iron Man 2 videogame reviewed in Examiner

Not online, but the reviewer generally liked it except for flying motion sickness.

 

Pass the Dramamine

by Ryan Vogt

Washington Examiner May 10, 2010

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Jeffrey Thompson

Online at the City Paper, a Portait of the Artist as Comic Store Clerk -

 

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Jeffrey Thompson
Posted by Mike Rhode on May. 10, 2010

Comics on the Rack, Quick Picks for Comics Due 05-12-10

 

COMICS ON THE RACK

Quick Picks for Comics Due 05-12-10

By John Judy

 

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #631 by Zeb Wells, Chris Bachalo and Emma Rios.  The Lizard has the munchies and guess who's on the menu…

 

ASTONISHING X-MEN: XENOGENESIS #1 of 5 by Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews.  That nice Mister Ellis is writing the X-Men so who better to draw them than a guy who makes all the X-Women look like drugged out, anorexic hookers with bad saline implants?  Nuff said!

 

BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1 of 6 by Grant Morrison and Chris Sprouse.  The original caped crusader is duking his way back from the dawn of time!  Major epic-ness!

 

BIRDS OF PREY #1 by Gail Simone and Ed Benes.  Re-launching out of "Brightest Day" this one's got Oracle, Black Canary, Lady Blackhawk and the Huntress, plus Hawk and Dove thrown in for good measure.  Spandex never looked this good!

 

CAVEMEN IN SPACE SC written and drawn by Joey Weiser.  A pre-historic tribe has been hurled into the future against their will.  But enough about us…

 

DARK AVENGERS #16 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato.  Final issue!  Does the Sentry-Void leave anyone alive?  Gotta look!

 

DAYTRIPPER #6 of 10 by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.  The latest chapter in the lives and deaths of Bras.  Highly recommended.

 

EX MACHINA VOL.9: RING OUT THE OLD SC by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris and JP Leon.  Collecting issues #40-41 and SPECIAL #4 this one sets up the series finale featuring a Bad so Big even the Great Machine may finally break down.  Highly recommended.

 

FIRST WAVE #2 of 6 by Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales.  Crazy pulp action with the Spirit, Doc Savage, the Blackhawks and some crazy guy dressed like a bat!

 

FLASH #2 by Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul.  A lot has changed since Barry Allen died and came back, but he's catching up fast.  Recommended.

 

HELLBOY IN MEXICO (OR A DRUNKEN BLUR) ONE-SHOT by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben.  Exactly what the title says.  In this one Big Red is killing vampires down south of the border.  Recommended.

 

HULK #22 by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness.  The "Fall of the Hulks" appears to be over and now "World War Hulks" (in which we are all Hulks) has begun.  So wasn't somebody back there supposed to fall?

 

INCREDIBLE HULK #609 by Greg Pak and Paul Pelletier.  Rumor has it that one of the two Red Hulks will have his/her true identity revealed this issue.  Of course rumor also has it that the President is a secret Nazi Muslim…

 

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #1 by Keith Giffen, Judd Winick and Aaron Lopresti.  Remember the funny JLA?  The one with Booster and Beetle and Fire and Ice and Captain Atom?  Well, something's trying to kill them now and it ain't just lousy sales…

 

KRAZY AND IGNATZ 1916-1918 SC by George Herriman.  Featuring 176 pages of "the best comic strip ever created."  Recommended.

 

MARVELS PROJECT #8 of 8 by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting.  Yet another final issue in which we see the cornerstone of the Marvel Universe knocked into place.  Tons of variant covers so it must be really great.  Recommended.

 

NEW AVENGERS FINALE #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Bryan Hitch.  An A-list creative team makes this book a must-read even as the title begs the question: "Wait, how can a Finale also be a first issue?"

 

PUNISHERMAX #7 by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon.  If you've ever wanted to read a MarvelMax Bullseye story written by someone who had any business writing it, your wait is over.  Recommended.

 

REPUGLICANS SC by Steve Tatham and Pete Von Sholly.  Picture 128 pages of Wacky Packages only instead of consumer products being savaged you get a serving of the icons of the American political far-right:  Sarah Palin as a vampire, Glenn Beck as a zombie and other caricatures that are far too kind.  Highly recommended.

 

SIEGE #4 of 4 by Brian Michael Bendis and Joe Quesada.  Big fight.  No, seriously.  Big.  Gotta look.

 

SUPERMAN: WAR OF THE SUPERMEN #2 of 4 by Sterling Gates, James Robinson and Eduardo Pansica.  The easiest way to explain the whole Earth vs. the Kryptonians story is this: Everyone involved except Superman is a major jerk.  Enjoy.

 

UNDERGROUND SC by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber.  A collection of all five issues of this fascinating and educational thriller set in a really deep cave.  Recommended.

 

UNWRITTEN #13 by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.  Tommy Taylor is back in London, getting closer than ever to finding his missing dad/author.  Recommended.

 

WOLVERINE #900 by Everybody Who Was Present at the Last Marvel Softball Game.  Five new stories, plus classic reprints.  Two snikts up!

 

www.johnjudy.net

Dan Clowes at Politics and Prose highlights

As requested by at least one reader, here's some notes from Clowes' appearance at Politics and Prose. Unfortunately the store's cd recorder failed so they're not offering the recording for sale - and this was one of the best cartoonist events I've seen.

Dan Kois of the Washington Post was the interviewer. The slide set was provided by Clowes and covered his career, which began with Wally Wood being his favorite cartoonist, discovering his story "Welcome to My World," and realizing that cartoonists were in fact real people. Although he wanted to work for MAD, his first published work was for Cracked. Fantagraphics and he agreed to do a comic book based on his character Lloyd Lewellyn - when he got bored with that, he began Eightball which let him run many of his graphic novels as serials. Eightball and Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron both came from lines in the odd movie Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! when the criminal women are at the gas station.

Clowes feels like the strangest job he ever got was for Coca-Cola's "OK" Beverage where the advertising company gave him carte blanche to design the can and he ended up having to see this drawing he did of a man based on Charles Manson on billboards.

Wilson, his new book, arose when he was waiting at his father's deathbed and began writing comic strips to keep his mind occupied. He and Kois concurred that reading the whole book at once was a bit much and laughingly settled on a suggested 1 strip per hour. The book is intended to look like a 1950s cartoon book such as VIP's Big George, where a viewer can clearly tell that this is both a comic collection book and Big George is a jerk.

During the questions, he recommended Tim Hensley's Wally Gropius several times. He said he was bored with 1990s animation until Persepolis came out and thought the best film in ten years was Fears of the Dark especially Richard Maguire's segment which he called on par with Hitchcock.

He's done with Eightball probably because comic books don't really make sense anymore when you have to sell them for $7-8. He's working on a screenplay - "I'm working on something I can't talk about."

He doesn't use computers except to color - "Every line in every book is drawn by hand." Coloring is done in an architect's program, Vector, which is a pain, but gives perfect precision every time.

Is Wilson's monologue internal? "I'm not sure." The good thing about comics is that it doesn't matter. In a film, he'd look insane talking to himself, but comics lets you play around with what's actually happening.

Eightball 23, The Death Ray, will be reprinted as a book at some point - he's just had too much to do and the comic needed to sell out first, but now he's got too much new product coming out. The New York Times strip Mr. Wonderful in an expanded version will be out from Pantheon next February.

Francois Mouley approached him about doing New Yorker covers. He had been doing spot illos for the magazine, but that's a different department. He'd been asked years ago to do them, but hadn't figured out how to approach them. Noting that they're supposed to be wry proto-cartoons, he reflected, "If you actually make someone laugh, you've failed." Now he's got it down and can immediately think how to design one.

Did he enjoy collaborating on movies? "I did enjoy it. You can get very stuck in your own head drawing comics every day... I wouldn't want to do that [ie moviemaking] full time at all."

Were the NY Times strips edited? "They were very good except for certain words. I needed the guy to go to "Jesus" for his word" - after a letter, the NYT told him he couldn't use it anymore. "They wouldn't let me use the word 'schmuck.' He quoted their own columnist William Safire on the widespread acceptance of the word now, but they still wouldn't let him use it. (Incidentally, it appeared in the Arts section just this past week).

That's all the notes I took - I'm really sorry the recording failed. Clowes has been doing tons of interviews besides in DC, and I'm compiling them for my next bibliography - if there's any interest I can post links here.

Frank Cho interview

FRANK CHO: New Ultimates, Liberty Meadows & Zombie King
Newsarama May 6 2010

Artist Frank Cho talks with Newsarama about New Ultimates, Liberty Meadows and Zombie King at C2E2 2010 in Chicago.

Bill Laroque interview

David-Wasting-Paper's done a lot of cartoonist interviews - he's got one on a local cartoonist whom I've run into at local events, but don't really know - "Bill LaRocque - Cartoonist Survey #117," May 1, 2010. LaRoque's website is Blue Ridge Cartoons and his blog is Just Kidding.

Zadzooks on Iron Man comics

Zadzooks: Reviews of Iron Man vs. Whiplash and Viking comics
Viking violence with Finn and Egil
By Joseph Szadkowski

That darn Toles, now on MTV's Real World

Tom Toles appears on Real World XXIII: Washington DC, episode 12 which is online now. He's in the first segment, being nice to the would-be college political cartoonist.

Glen Weldon on zombies

Mike Allred's doing the art on this which makes it more interesting...

I, Zombie: A Jug of Wine, A Lobe of Brain, and Thou
by Glen Weldon
May 5, 2010

Brad Meltzer in town this week

The comic book writer is signing his new book, Heroes for My Son. I'll be going to the Bailey's Crossroad's one.

Bethesda, MD
Wednesday, May 12 — 7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
4801 Bethesda Avenue

Fairfax, VA
Thursday, May 13 — 7:30 pm
Borders – Bailey’s Crossing
5871 Crossroads Center Way

Prickly City is too prickly says letter

Another letter to the editor - Prickly City' is too political for the comics pages, Jonathan Bosch, Washington Post Saturday, May 8, 2010.

Senator Franken uses Toles' cartoon as visual aid

Franken uses a cartoon to explain complex financial dynamic. by Christina Wilkie, The Hill's The Washington Scene blog May 7, 2010.

And she gave this Youtube link to a film of his presentation as well.

Comics Riffs announces new cartoon project on Monday

Michael Cavna's got a tease for the Post project on his blog now.

Support the National Zoo by commissioning a comic book

Ryan Estrada will draw a custom comic book about your pet if you win this bid to raise money for the National Zoo. Bidding starts at $500, there are no bids yet, and the projected value is $1500. Think of how good you'll feel when you present your parakeet with the story of its life in comic form and bid early and often.

Actually, I was tempted but wiser heads (ie the wife) stepped in.

DCist reviews Iron Man 2

I didn't know DCist ran movie reviews, but here's Ian Buckwalter on Iron Man 2.

Cavna on Comedy Central Jesus cartoon

Comedy Central considers giving Jesus his own show [online title: Comedy Central considering cartoon series about Jesus], By Michael Cavna, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, May 7, 2010; C05.