Thursday, December 02, 2010

Cavna interviews Maureen Dowd comic book creator

Brenda Starr meets Batgirl: Artist gives MAUREEN DOWD her own bio-comic book (UPDATED)
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog December 2 2010.

He also got a few quotes including one by Stan Lee, on the passing of an Archie artist -

RIP, Archie Comics & Marvel artist John 'Jon' D'Agostino
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog December 1 2010

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat With Kevin Ward

Now online at the City Paper - Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat With Kevin Ward, by Mike Rhode on Dec. 2, 2010.

Brad Meltzer, former local comics writer, interviewed on his new tv show Decoded


Brad Meltzer, a former local comics writer, answered some of my questions on his new tv show Decoded. First, here's some information about him from the press release for the show.
 
Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Fate and six other novels. His first non-fiction work Heroes For My Son, a collection of historical heroes, recently hit the New York Times bestseller list. Meltzer is also author of the critically acclaimed comic books Identity Crisis and Justice League of America and is the first author to ever reach the #1 spot on both the New York Times and the Diamond comic book bestseller lists simultaneously. Meltzer's books have spent over eleven months on bestseller lists, and have been translated into over 25 languages.
  
Best-selling author Brad Meltzer loves a good mystery. A history enthusiast known for his immaculate research, he has studied and written about some of America's most revered institutions and documents. But sometimes he uncovers unverifiable stories that keep him awake at night. Is there another hidden message buried in the Statue of Liberty? What happened to the White House cornerstone that's been missing for two centuries?  Could it be true that John Wilkes Booth lived for 40 years after his presumed death under an assumed identity? 

In the new 10-part series BRAD MELTZER'S DECODED, premiering on Thursday, December 2 at 10 p.m. on HISTORY®, Meltzer scours secret clues, symbols and conspiracy theories to unravel some of society's most provocative enigmas. And the deeper he digs into the past, the more we learn about our future. 
 
Together with a team of experts – Buddy Levy, a professor and journalist who assumes there is always more than meets the eye; Christine McKinley, a mechanical engineer who believes only what she can prove; and Scott Rolle, a trial lawyer who is skeptical by nature – Meltzer hunts for answers to questions that have perplexed us for centuries yet have never been fully investigated.
 
The premiere episode rolls out with "The White House" as the team gets to the bottom – literally – of a mystery concerning the cornerstones of our democracy.  Laid by the ultra secretive Freemasons, this landmark piece of stone vanished. The search for the cornerstone has been on for over 200 years, everyone from Harry Truman to Barbara Bush have looked for it. Is it a coincidence…or is there a secret conspiracy tied to these stones and the buildings they were meant to support?
 
ComicsDC: Brad, to provide a figleaf of cover for this appearing on ComicsDC - you used to live in suburban Maryland, and you still write comics, correct?
 
Brad Meltzer: Of course.
 
 ComicsDC: How did the idea for the tv show come about?
 
Brad Meltzer: One of the heads of HISTORY read my novel The Book of Fate, which dealt with Freemasons and the secret codes that Thomas Jefferson used when he was President -- and then said, "We should do a show like this."  And y'know what that is?  That's dumb luck by me.
 
 ComicsDC: How did the topics get picked?
 
Brad Meltzer: I keep a book (now books) of every idea I've had over the years -- some stupid and dumb and not fleshed out -- and some that'll feed characters and comic books and anything else.  And there were just tons of historical details that I'd love to know the answers to, but just couldn't use in the books.  So really, I'm stealing from my future novels.
 
ComicsDC: How much research do you personally do or supervise?
 
Brad Meltzer: For the novels, I do all the research myself.  But for the show, HISTORY said, you give us the mysteries and we'll give you the research team to solve it.  The problem is, I still couldn't help myself and sometimes found myself digging as well.
 
ComicsDC: Which is your favorite show?
 
Brad Meltzer: Of Decoded?  I love this first one airing tonight -- about the first piece of the White House.  That was the very first idea I suggested, and it really set up a good model for the show.  Sure, we're not digging it up from below the White House -- but we do answer questions like, is it hollow?  And what's inside?  As for surprises, the John Wilkes Booth one is the one that kept me awake.
 
ComicsDC: Navy medical historian Jan Herman is a friend of mine - I've known him for 20 years - and he hasn't convinced me yet that Lincoln's murderer John Wilkes Booth may have escaped, as one of your shows examines. Did any of the shows change your mind about an historical 'truth'?
 
Brad Meltzer: I hear you.  And I started the Booth show thinking the exact same thing.  But wait till you see Booth's family telling their side of the story.  It's like "Who is Donna Troy?"  Will mess you up good.
 
ComicsDC: Is the show going to continue? If so, do you know what other topics you'd like to look into?
 
Brad Meltzer: It depends if we get more viewers than my last try at television -- Jack & Bobby.  There, our ratings were 14.  Not a 14 share.  Fourteen people.  Total.
 
ComicsDC: Is it really possible to solve a mystery for a tv show?
 
Brad Meltzer: Especially with historical shows, the biggest barrier is simply that so much of the physical evidence is gone or unavailable.  When Lee Harvey Oswald was dead, theories started that it wasn't him in the grave.  So they dug him up and proved it was.  If you want to solve the Booth mystery, dig up the grave.  For now, the government still won't allow it.  But when you watch our Lewis episode, the ballistic evidence and the other details we find definitely add a huge piece to the puzzle.  
 
ComicsDC: Your next book is about secrets in a museum or archives - can you tell us anything about that?
 
Brad Meltzer: The Inner Circle comes out 1/11/11 and for that one, I got help with the research from a former President of the United States.  So I'm now gearing up that release.
 
ComicsDC: What is your favorite museum or archives? 
 
Brad Meltzer: The National Archives.  No question.  It's the attic of the US Government.  Library of Congress is a close second.
 
ComicsDC: And bringing it all back home, do you have any plans to write another comic book? How about adapting your existing works to graphic novels?
  
Brad Meltzer: Love to write more comics.  Without question, comics still have had the biggest influence on my writing.  More than film.  More than novels.  More than anything.  They're still the best.
 

PR: Brad Meltzer's Decoded premieres on the History Channel tonight at 10pm/9c

Former local comics writer new tv show, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, is on the History Channel tonight.
http://www.history.com/shows/brad-meltzers-decoded/videos/behind-the-scenes-brad-meltzers-decoded#brad-meltzers-decoded-preview

Ian Sattler's come a long way from Big Planet Comics

DC Comics promotes Eddie Berganza and Ian Sattler
December 1, 2010 by Kevin Melrose

Ian was a clerk at the Bethesda store, years ago.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Dec 14 LIVE cartoonist/illustrator Richard Thompson at Big Planet Comics

As Mad used to say - Accept no imitations!

On Tuesday, December 14 from 7-9 PM, cartoonist/illustrator Richard Thompson will sign his newest Cul de Sac collection, Shapes and Colors, at Big Planet Comics, 4908 Fairmont Ave, Bethesda, MD. 301-654-6856.

--

Joel Pollack

Big Planet Comics
Bethesda
4908 Fairmont Ave
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
301-654-6856


Nick Galifianakis pics

100_0856

Here's a few shots of Nick Galifianakis signing his new cartoon collection book. Buy it now... or the Newfie may visit. My City Paper interview with Nick is here.

100_0860

Matt Dembicki posts photos of Party Crashers exhibit

Right here.

I still haven't made it back to the exhibit.

Drew Sheneman, latest editorial cartoonist casualty, interviewed on Comic Riffs

Exit Interview: Buyout in hand, Star-Ledger cartoonist DREW SHENEMAN plans a career 'reinvention'
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs December 1, 2010
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2010/12/exit_interview_star-ledgers_dr.html

Weldon reviews 'Special Exits'

It's a nice, touching review -
 
Going Gentle Into That Good Night Goes Awry: The Graphic Memoir 'Special Exits'

by Glen Weldon

National Public Radio's Monkey See blog December 1, 2010

  http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/30/131699453/going-gentle-into-that-good-night-goes-awry-the-graphic-memoir-special-exits

Monday, November 29, 2010

Denys Wortman in DC (sort of)

James Sturm's been working on rediscovering Denys Wortman, an early 20th century cartoonist, and is doing a book on him with Drawn & Quarterly. A few articles have been appearing about the exhibit on Wortman that's in New York-

Cartoonist's Depression-Era NYC Drawings Featured in East Harlem Exhibit; The works of cartoonist Denys Wortman will be on display at the Museum of the City of New York through March 20.
By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer, November 19, 2010

Gotham Chronicle: Sharp Eye, and Pencil
By CAROL KINO
New York Times November 21, 2010

-and Allen Holtz put a nice early article online -

All N.Y. Poses For Wortman's Cartoons
Straphangers in the Subway and Flappers at Soda Fountains Are Unsuspecting
Models for New York World Artist Who Blends Comedy With Grim Reality in
"Metropolitan Movies" for N.Y. World
by John F. Roche (E&P, 3/23/29)

-tonight I was on the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art site and put in Wortman's name - and they have a collection of his papers (note the untranscribed interview)-

Wortman, Denys, b. 1887 d. 1958
Cartoonist
New York, N.Y., Mass.
Cartoonist, New York, New York. Born in Saugerties, New York, Wortman studied engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology and at Rutgers College. From 1906-1909, he studied at the Chase School of Art in New York City with Kenneth Hayes Miller and classmates George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and Rockwell Kent. Beginning as a landscape painter from the "Gloucester School," Wortman's career changed when his drawings of life as a sailor in World War I were published in the New York Tribune. From 1924-1954, his daily cartoons "Metropolitan Movies" and "Mopey Dick and the Duke" mirrored New York life in the New York World-Tribune.

Denys Wortman papers, 1887-1980
2.0 linear ft. (partially microfilmed on 1 reel)
Reel(s): 3014

Biographical material, letters, business records, notes, writings, art work, photographs, printed material; and an untranscribed interview.

REEL 3014: Thirty-five letters to Wortman from friends and colleagues (1910-1957), including Gifford Beal, James Cagney, Stuart Davis, Guy Pene Du Bois, Juliet and Pier Hamilton, Edward and Jo Hopper, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Herbert Satterlee, John Sloan, Austin Strong, Frank Sullivan, William Sulzer, Gluyas Williams, and Mahonri Young.

UNMICROFILMED: Biographical accounts and a certificate of marriage between Wortman and his first wife Aimée Kempe (1913); letters to Wortman (1911-1958) and to his second wife Hilda (1958-1980), some illustrated, from his mother, his brother Elbert, newspaper publishers, and colleagues including Peggy Bacon, Roy Baker, George G. Barnard, Gifford Beal, Ruth Benedict, Isabel Bishop, Charlton Bolles, Arthur Brown, E. Button, Stuart Campbell, Edward C. Caswell, Thomas Cole, Nathaniel Collier, Worth Colwell, Fred Cooper, Raymond M. Crosby, Benjamin Dale, Bob Davis, John Dawson, Ed De Cossey, Steven Dohanos, Max and Eliena Eastman, Pat Enright, W. D. Faulkner, Robert Fawcett, Max Fleischer, Juliana Force, Lora B. Fox, Fred Freeman, James Freeman, Alfred Frueh, Murray Harris, Jim Herbert, R. John Holmgren, Ellison Hoover, Will B. Johnstone, H. J. Kauffer, J. Graham Kaye, Clarence B. Kelland,Walter Klett, Gene Lockhart, Arthur Mann, Frank J. Marshall, Jim McKenna,Helen Miller, Gladys Mock, Feg Murray, Frank Netter, William Oberhardt, Lloyd Parsons, Audrey Parsons, Garrett and Florence Price, Raymond Prohaska, George Raab, Samuel Raab, Jack Ratcliff, Norman Rothschild, Harry Salpeter, Albert Sterner,
Jack Van Ryder, Leroy Ward, Mahonri Young, Carl Zigrosser, William Zorach, and Thomas Benton's wife Rita; legal material, including contracts with newspapers and publishers (1925-1938), client lists (1935-1954), and a lease (1924); financial records, including check stubs (1921-1922), an expense book (1923), and receipts (1923-1952); notes and writings, including membership lists for the Dexter Fellows Tent Circus Saints and Sinners Club of America and the Artists and Writers Golf Association; word puzzles and mathematical formulae; scripts "I Know What I Like" by Arthur William Brown and Phil Broughton and "Taxi,-Lady?" by William and Vivian Place, a notebook (1927), and a diary (1918) of Aimée Kempe Wortman; interviews, including a transcript of Wortman, Charles I. Stewart, and Johanna Harris discussing "Art Under a Democracy," and an untranscribed interview of Wortman conducted by Thomas Craven, ca. 1952; and art work, including 25 drawings and a a print by Wortman (undated and 1919), and drawings by Francis Hackett and William Zorach.

Also included are clippings (1903-1978), exhibition catalogs (1935-1953), programs (1938-1951), and printed material concerning The Players (1938) and the Society of Illustrators (1901-1939); photographs (1887-1956) of Wortman, his family, and colleagues, including Harry Beckhoff, Alexander Brook, Clarence Brown, Glenn O. Coleman, Fred Cooper, Thomas Craven, Rudy Dirks, Steven Dohanos, Max and Eliena Eastman, Duncan Ferguson, Stefan Hirsch, Will B. Johnstone, Frank Kidder, Richard Lahey, Robert Laurent, Joseph Lilly, Esther Merrill, Wallace Morgan, Willard Mullin, Garrett and Florence Price, Otto Soglow, Marguerite Zorach, and Thomas Hart Benton, sports cartoonist Feg Murray (3) with film celebrities Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, and Jean Harlow, works of art, stage productions by members of the Society of American Illustrators and a gathering at the Grand Central Galleries of modern artists including Peggy Bacon, Dorothy Varian, Max Weber, and William Zorach.

Location of Originals: Reel 3014: Originals returned to the lender, Hilda R. Wortman, after microfilming.

Material on reel 3014 lent from microfilming by Hilda Wortman, Wortman's widow. She donated the unmicrofilmed material 1979-1983. Craven interview tape donated 1981 by Denys Wortman Jr.

Greg McElhatton's Read About Comics recent reviews

Greg continues to crank through a variety of comics for review including CLAMP manga, old Marvel Fantastic Four reprints , French multicreator Donjon issues (drawn by a Spaniard in this case), Emitown a formerly online and now print diary comic, Charles Burns' take on Tintin.... for more just go check out Read About Comics.

Richard Thompson on his USN&WR days

Complete with a Bill Clinton caricature for old times sake - Your Old Caricature from USN&WR for Today, November 28, 2010

R.C. Harvey reviews 'Barney and Clyde'

R.C. Harvey reviews 'Barney and Clyde' at TCJ.com.

Carry the article to the end to see Rob Tornoe's take on Bucky the cat assailing Cul de Sac's Alice.

Comics Reporter interviews Rina Ayuyang, seen locally in Party Crashers exhibit

Spurgeon, Tom. 2010.
CR Sunday Interview: Rina Ayuyang.
Comics Reporter (November 28): http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_interview_rina_ayuyang/

New comics on THURSDAY this week

No, I don't know why.

Kalman at Library of Congress article

Proud to be an American: Maira Kalman's Twelve Visual Essays at the Library of Congress
By Fiona Zublin
Express November 29, 2010
http://www.expressnightout.com/content/2010/11/maira-kalman-12-visual-essays-library-congress.php

Nov 30: Maira Kalman at Library of Congress

 

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-254.html

 

November 9, 2010

Renowned Writer and Artist Maira Kalman to Discuss New Book, "And the Pursuit of Happiness"

Event Is First Co-Sponsored by Library of Congress and Hirshhorn Museum

Noted writer, illustrator and designer Maira Kalman's year-long investigation of democracy and how it works has resulted in her newest book, "And the Pursuit of Happiness" (Penguin, 2010), which is also the name of her popular blog at NYTimes.com.

Kalman will discuss and sign her book on Tuesday, Nov. 30, at noon in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond event, co-sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. The two institutions are planning additional co-sponsored programs.

"And the Pursuit of Happiness" combines words and pictures in an illustrated essay that is both probing and lighthearted. Beginning in 2008, Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a national tour that would take her from a town hall meeting in Newfane, Vt., to the inner chambers of the Supreme Court. She imagines making a home for herself in the center of the Lincoln Memorial, ponders Alexis de Tocqueville's America, witnesses the inner workings of a Bronx middle-school student council, takes a high-speed lesson in great American women in the National Portrait Gallery and considers the cost of war to the brave American service families of Fort Campbell, Ky.

Kalman is widely renowned for her contributions to The New York Times, The New Yorker and other major publications. Her book is also the subject of a discussion on Facebook. The new Books & Beyond Book Club is available at www.facebook.com/booksandbeyond/. Here readers can discuss books, the authors of which have appeared or will appear in this series. The site also offers links to webcasts of these events and asks readers to talk about what they have seen and heard.

Since its creation by Congress in 1977 to "stimulate public interest in books and reading," the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (www.Read.gov/cfb/) has become a major national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages, nationally and internationally. The center provides leadership for 52 affiliated state centers for the book (including the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and nonprofit reading-promotion partners and plays a key role in the Library's annual National Book Festival. It also oversees the Library's Read.gov website and administers the Library's Young Readers Center.

# # #

PR 10-254
11/09/10
ISSN 0731-3527

 

 


Sunday, November 28, 2010