As 'the heart' of MAD magazine, Nick Meglin influenced much of American comedy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/06/04/as-the-heart-of-mad-magazine-nick-meglin-influenced-much-of-american-comedy/
Monday, June 04, 2018
Comic Riffs on Mad's Nick Meglin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/06/04/as-the-heart-of-mad-magazine-nick-meglin-influenced-much-of-american-comedy/
Signed Bill Watterson book to be auctioned for Team Cul de Sac
From Chris Sparks:
Bill Watterson contributes a signed with a doodle in a hardcover of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes to Team Cul de Sac for our Heroescon Drink and Draw auction. A sketch from Bill is beyond very rare. We appreciate his continued support in helping us to raise money for the Michael J Fox Foundation for research in honor of our friend Richard Thompson. (Remember, you can donate at any time). Please visit our booth at Heroescon and come out to our drink and draw at the Westin ballroom on Friday night,the 15th of June. We will probably do remote bidding for those unable to attend in person
#heroescon #tea
Bill Watterson contributes a signed with a doodle in a hardcover of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes to Team Cul de Sac for our Heroescon Drink and Draw auction. A sketch from Bill is beyond very rare. We appreciate his continued support in helping us to raise money for the Michael J Fox Foundation for research in honor of our friend Richard Thompson. (Remember, you can donate at any time). Please visit our booth at Heroescon and come out to our drink and draw at the Westin ballroom on Friday night,the 15th of June. We will probably do remote bidding for those unable to attend in person
#heroescon #tea
34367930_1923734714367530_6313383083651366912_o.jpg
(64K)
mculdesac Sunday, June 03, 2018
David Apatoff remembers Mad's Nick Meglin
NICK MEGLIN (1935-2018)
by David Apatoff
Illustration Art blog June 2, 2018
http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2018/06/nick-meglin-1935-2018.htmlArnold Blumberg, Geppi's Entertainment Museum's first curator, remembers the museum
by Mike Rhode
Geppi's Entertainment Museum (GEM) in Baltimore closed for good earlier today. It was one of my favorite museums with an overwhelming amount of fantastic material on comics and cartoons and I'm sorry to see it go. The only positive thing is that Steve Geppi is donating a lot of the Museum (3,300 items I'm told) to the Library of Congress in the coming weeks.I've reached out to a few people to get their thoughts on the Museum. Dr. Arnold Blumberg was the first curator of the museum, and was very generous with his time over the years. As he has been this weekend, when he answered a few questions about the museum and his role in it.
I was proud to be Curator and part of the team that developed a one-of-a-kind display of 230 years of pop culture history, shedding light on the many ways we defined ourselves through the decades as a nation and as people. I think it's wonderful that so many media artifacts will now be available for public view. The collection will surely provide opportunities for future historians to examine the ways entertainment shaped and reflected the American experience
When were you curator?
I was Curator beginning in the summer of 2005, hand-picked by John Snyder, and worked on building the museum with the rest of the team for that next year until our opening on Sept. 2006. John was President of Geppi's Entertainment Museum when we started, and had already been running Diamond International Galleries before that and also Gemstone Publishing, which is where I was working as Editor when he tapped me to move over to the museum. I left in October 2010.
What did the work entail?
I was charged with being the intellectual custodian of the history behind all those amazing artifacts, coordinating educational and other programming in conjunction with other staff members, conducting tours and doing community and media outreach - lots of morning TV interviews! - writing most of the material on the walls and in various publications associated with the museum, and helping to care for and manage the collection alongside Registrar Andrew Hershberger. There were lots of other things in an average day, but that's the basic overview.
What was your favorite item or exhibit?
My favorite room was the museum within a museum - the comic book room, showcasing the history of that medium from periodicals and artwork stretching back centuries to the formal comics timeline of the 1930s to the present. One of my personal favorites was the Oscar Goldman action figure from the Six Million Dollar Man Kenner toy line in the 1970s room, mainly because it was one of the few things from that line that I never got myself.
Did you expect an outcome like this? It's a pretty munificent gift.
It's been years since I've been involved in the museum or in contact with anyone associated with it, so I have no particular insight into the reasons behind the museum's closure and the donation of the collection, but it's nice to know that all those items that give people so much joy and allow them to travel back into their own pasts will now be made available to view for free and at a facility that will respect their historical importance and preserve them for future generations.
After leaving the Museum, you put together your own publishing house?Yup, since 2012 we've put out a number of titles from ATB Publishing, and we just put out our first book on comics and superheroes, Storytelling Engines, this past May!
We'll be checking in with Arnold in the coming weeks to find out more about how he went from being a museum curator, to a college professor, to a book author and publisher...
National Lampoon Presents
by RM Rhodes
In early 2018, Netflix released A Futile and Stupid Gesture, a movie about Doug Kenney and the founding of National Lampoon. I mostly watched it because I knew that Matty Simmons, publisher of National Lampoon magazine, was the first publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. Matty Simmons had a fairly sizable role in the movie, but Heavy Metal was never mentioned.
In early 2018, Netflix released A Futile and Stupid Gesture, a movie about Doug Kenney and the founding of National Lampoon. I mostly watched it because I knew that Matty Simmons, publisher of National Lampoon magazine, was the first publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. Matty Simmons had a fairly sizable role in the movie, but Heavy Metal was never mentioned.
However, I come to the realization that the majority of the
comedy I absorbed during my formative years came out of National Lampoon or National
Lampoon-related properties. The movies – Animal House and Caddyshack
– really set the tone for my sense of humor. And everything else came from Saturday Night Live; many of the Not
Ready for Primetime Players had done work with National Lampoon spinoffs and most the writers came directly from National Lampoon’s talent pool.
Intrigued by this, I searched around for copies of some of the
standalone works that National Lampoon
had published over the years. One of the items that caught my eye was a
hardcover book published in 1977 called French
Comics (the Kind that Men Like). I found a used paperback copy in no time
flat and was amazed by what showed up.
The lurid “implied rape is funny” cover looks like something
straight out of Sex to Sexty, but the contents do not even remotely live up to the marketing. In fact, they skew
in a completely different direction.
Looking through the copyright credits in the back of the
book, it looks very much like members of the National Lampoon editorial team walked up to a newsstand in Paris
and bought the current issue of every alternative comics anthology they could
find: Pilote, Fluid Glacial, L’Echo des
Savanes, and several others. The only magazine they didn’t seem to pull
from was Metal Hurlant. (Of which,
more later.) At the time, the anthology was still the dominant publishing
format in Francophone comics (and it really hasn’t ever gone away).
The copy that I have is light on production values. The yellowing
paper is one-step-above-newsprint and there is neither a table of contents or
page numbers. The stories are just shoved together in no discernable order and
the contrast in art styles is more than occasionally jarring.
Given the timing (the first issue of Heavy Metal had a cover date of April 1977), National Lampoon’s French comics anthology feels very much like an
unacknowledged proof-of-concept version of what became Heavy Metal. After all, National Lampoon was the company that
published Heavy Metal until they were
split apart in 1992. Using National
Lampoon staffers on a pilot project doesn’t seem like much of a stretch – National Lampoon did a lot of media
spinoffs of every stripe, so this edition falls into the category of “other
stuff they did.”
But if you read the editorial from the first issue of Heavy
Metal, it’s not mentioned at all. The first editorial read as follows:
At 4AM on the nineteenth of December, 1974, under the mad
marksman’s eye of the archer in the sky, on the feast of Bishop Nicasius, who
prophesied the arrival of the barbarians who beheaded him, observed by whoknows
how many orbiting whatnots, a linkless foursome previously identified as
Druillet, Dionnet, Moebius, and Farkas were transformed into the Associated
Humanoids. Shortly thereafter, a magazine entitled Metal Hurlant materialized on newsstands. Metal Hurlant means “screaming metal” – whatever that means. It
was, and still is, issued by the Associated Humanoids. The magazine appears to
be the work of an alien intelligence, and it indeed it is.
It is French.
French is a difficult language to understand because of the
large number of English words in it. Thus, when the French say “science fiction,”
they are not, as you might think, referring to HG Wells or “Star Trek” or even
Jules Verne. “Science fiction” is a term which can sufficiently define Big
Macs, South America, Methodism, or a weird neighbor. Vogue Magazine, anything Belgian, and pop-top cans are certainly
science fiction. The Humanoid “Moebius,” writing in Metal Hurlant, describes how, while listening to a Johnny Cash
album, he realized that science fiction is a cathedral. Are beginning, dear
reader, to sufficiently misunderstand?
And lo, it came to pass that Metal Hurlant found its way even unto the New York offices of the National Lampoon, where the editors sit
around hoping to see something they can’t see through. After a series of
transatlantic phone calls resulting in the permanent hospitalization of the FBI
operative assigned to tapping our line, it was agreed that America should be
exposed to the contents of Metal Hurlant
for its own good. A series of high-level conferences concluded that Heavy Metal was the least comprehensible
title for the magazine, and it was thus adopted. Certain American artists
famous for their obscurity were relieved of their manuscripts, and now, as you
can see, Heavy Metal #1 has been
published.
And the rest is science fiction.
One wonders if the sub-par production values on the National Lampoon book prompted its
erasure from the official narrative or if the official narrative just didn’t
have room for the complication of this weird side project. Either way, as a
mostly unknown precursor artifact to what would eventually become Heavy Metal, it’s fascinating. It also
happens to be a cross-section of what some off-beat American humor writers in
New York City thought that American audiences would find interesting in
contemporary French alternative anthologies. Imagine if some French curators
walked through SPX and bought any number of random stories for translation and
reprint – the effect would be similarly eclectic.
I would not recommend the book to anyone but completists of Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, and/or people who like French comics translated
into English. If you really want to flip though it, let me know and I’ll let
you take a look at it. But – trust me on this – it’s more interesting in the
context of a collection of Heavy Metal.
__________________________________________________________
Why is this here? It's a long story. Mike Rhode first introduced himself to me when I first started vending at SPX. Over the years, we've talk to each other at Comic conventions around the DC area and never quite get around to sitting down for lunch.
When I moved to Arlington two years ago, I didn't realize that Mike lived within a mile of my building. Nor did I realize that he lived next door to my girlfriend's friend from college. We also discovered, by accident that we work two buildings away from each other, because we work in adjacent organizations. The world is a very small place, sometimes.
It really feels that way when I run into Mike at the local farmer's market. Naturally, that's when I pitch him article ideas. I'm reading the entire run of Heavy Metal in public (in blog format) because I happen to own the entire run of Heavy Metal. This means that I'm engaged in an ongoing study of the magazine. In addition, I have a diverse and idiosyncratic reading list that tends towards the weird corners of comics history. Sometimes one circumstance or another results in long articles that I don't really have anyplace to put. Mike has been gracious enough to let me publish them here.
In summary: this is an article about comics from someone in the DC area.
__________________________________________________________
Why is this here? It's a long story. Mike Rhode first introduced himself to me when I first started vending at SPX. Over the years, we've talk to each other at Comic conventions around the DC area and never quite get around to sitting down for lunch.
When I moved to Arlington two years ago, I didn't realize that Mike lived within a mile of my building. Nor did I realize that he lived next door to my girlfriend's friend from college. We also discovered, by accident that we work two buildings away from each other, because we work in adjacent organizations. The world is a very small place, sometimes.
It really feels that way when I run into Mike at the local farmer's market. Naturally, that's when I pitch him article ideas. I'm reading the entire run of Heavy Metal in public (in blog format) because I happen to own the entire run of Heavy Metal. This means that I'm engaged in an ongoing study of the magazine. In addition, I have a diverse and idiosyncratic reading list that tends towards the weird corners of comics history. Sometimes one circumstance or another results in long articles that I don't really have anyplace to put. Mike has been gracious enough to let me publish them here.
In summary: this is an article about comics from someone in the DC area.
Saturday, June 02, 2018
Long-time comics pro doesn't like Judge Parker writing
Ted White who's edited Heavy Metal and written comic books doesn't like the newish Judge Parker's writer:
'Judge Parker' has become incomprehensible [in print as Sally forth from 'Judge Parker']
Friday, June 01, 2018
City Paper reviews movie based on Gaiman short story
How to Talk to Girls at Parties Is a Stellar Space-Punk Love Story [in print as Punk-Drunk Love]
John Cameron Mitchell's new film might have the polished look and feel of a poseur film, but make no mistake, it's punk as fuck.
June 1, 2018. p. 20
online at https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/film-tv/blog/21007429/how-to-talk-to-girls-at-parties-reviewedThe Post reviews movie based on Gaiman short story
Punks, aliens and loud guitars: This sci-fi love story sounds weird, but it works [in print as Sometimes, chicks are from another planet].
Washington Post June 1 2018, p. Weekend 24
Quick Review: Abridged Classics by John Atkinson
Canadian cartoonist John Atkinson's new book, Abridged Classics: Brief Summaries of Books You Were Supposed To Read But Probably Didn't (New York: Harper, 2018, $20) appeals to people that love books and comics. It requires a certain level of familiarity with the 'canon' of western literature though, because as the press release notes, "Whether providing a thumbnail sketch of the notoriously long read In Search of Lost Time ("Smell of cake reminds guy of stuff. Four thousand pages of stuff."), translating The Odyssey into an elevator pitch ("War veteran takes forever to get home, then kills everyone."), or boiling down a beloved classic like Peter Pan to its weird basics ("Some kids and a crocodile pester an amputee."), Abridged Classics finds the comedy in taking the shortest route through the literary canon." If Proust or Homer don't already ring a bell for you, the cartoon that goes along with the punchline probably won't help you out.
The press release goes on to note: This humorous collection abbreviates over a hundred works of literature from some of the world's most-revered authors, including William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, James Joyce, Plato, Ernest Hemingway, Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, and Herman Melville. This book will probably appeal to people that read the New Yorker for the cartoons, or enjoy Tom Gauld's reading-themed cartoons. Personally, I enjoyed it and recommended it to my wife.
Not From Brazil's Vanessa Bettencourt on the move
Not From Brazil's Vanessa Bettencourt is literally on the move as she and her husband leave Alexandria for the midwest as she mentions in her latest webcomic.
We wish them well.Thursday, May 31, 2018
Baltimore Sun on Geppi's Museum closure and transfer to Library of Congress
Geppi's Entertainment Museum to close as comic and art collection heads to Library of Congress
Baltimore Sun May 30 2018
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bs-fe-geppis-20180529-story.html
Jeffrey Thompson illustrations in a new fantasy novel
I was reading The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp, a fantasy novel about magicians and luck gods in New Orleans this week, and thinking something looked familiar about the interior illustrations.
It turns out that they're done by Jeffrey Thompson, of Baltimore. For many years, Jeff was the Wednesday staff at Big Planet Comics Bethesda and I've followed his illustration career for years. It was a good feeling to see these illustrations in a brand new book. I didn't photograph them all, but the Tarot Card concept is integral to the plot.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and I've seen it compared online to American Gods which seems reasonable. I'd recommend it.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and I've seen it compared online to American Gods which seems reasonable. I'd recommend it.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
JK Snyder III on his art for 8 Million Ways to Die
Go Behind the Scenes of IDW's Eight Million Ways to Die Adaptation (Preview)
New comic on Nepal from International Monetary Fund
Nepal: Into and Out of the Grey
A story about Nepal's journey to address money laundering – how it navigated the various obstacles it faced over the years to meet international standards on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.Script by Joe Procopio and Amit Khetarpaul
Art by Steve Conley and Rick Veitch of Eureka Comics
Scoop on Geppi donation; Geppi Entertainment Museum closing
Steve Geppi Makes Multi-Million Dollar Donation of Comics, Pop Culture Items to Library of Congress
Scoop May 30 2018
http://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home/4/1/73/1012?articleID=213163
From the article:
In light of these items moving to the Library of Congress in the coming weeks, GEM will be open to the public for the final time, from 10 AM to 6 PM on Sunday, June 3, 2018. Admission that day will be free of charge.
PR: Geppi Makes Multimillion Dollar Donation to Library of Congress
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Comic Riffs on Geppi donation to Library of Congress
Library of Congress acquires its largest donation of comic books ever
Library of Congress Receives Valuable Comic Book, Popular Art Collection from Steve Geppi
 |
| NEWS from the LIBRARY of CONGRESS |
May 30, 2018
Largest Donation of Comic Books in Library History Includes the
Original Storyboards for the Creation of Mickey Mouse
The Library of Congress announced today that collector and entrepreneur Stephen A. Geppi has donated to the nation's library more than 3,000 items from his phenomenal and vast personal collection of comic books and popular art, including the original storyboards that document the creation of Mickey Mouse. This multimillion-dollar gift includes comic books, original art, photos, posters, newspapers, buttons, pins, badges and related materials, and select items will be on display beginning this summer.
The Stephen A. Geppi Collection of Comics and Graphic Arts has been on public display in Baltimore, Maryland, for the past decade and is a remarkable and comprehensive assemblage of popular art. It includes a wide range of rare comics and represents the best of the Golden (1938-1956), Silver (1956-1970) and Bronze (1970-1985) ages of comic books. The mint-condition collection is also noted for its racially and socially diverse content as well as the distinctive creative styles of each era.
The collection also includes motion picture posters and objects showcasing how music, comic book characters, cultural icons and politicians were popularized in the consumer marketplace. Among these are Beatles memorabilia, a collection of flicker rings popularizing comic book characters and political figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Outcault's The Yellow Kid printing blocks and the No. 2 Brownie camera model F from Eastman Kodak Company.
One signature item in the collection represents the birth of one of animation's most iconic characters. Six rare storyboards detail the story layout and action for Walt Disney's 1928 animated film, "Plane Crazy." It was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced, but the third to be released, after sound was added, in 1929. "Steamboat Willie" was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to be theatrically released, on Nov. 18, 1928, which marks its 90th anniversary this year.
"The Library of Congress is home to the nation's largest collection of comic books, cartoon art and related ephemera and we celebrate this generous donation to the American people that greatly enhances our existing holdings," said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. "The appeal of comic books is universal, and we are thrilled that this new addition to the collections will make them even more accessible to people worldwide."
"When I began collecting comic books as a young boy and then in earnest in 1972, I would have never dreamed that a major portion of my collection would find a home at the Library of Congress, alongside the papers of 23 presidents, the Gutenberg Bible and Thomas Jefferson's library," said Geppi. "This gift will help celebrate the history of comics and pop culture and their role in promoting literacy."
Geppi is the owner and CEO of Diamond Comic Distributors, based in Baltimore. A fan of comic books as a child, he later began seriously collecting them and turned his passion into a series of pop culture businesses. Over the years, Geppi amassed one of the largest individual collections of vintage comic books and pop culture artifacts in the world.
Geppi will continue to be an active collector and will be considering other donations to the Library of Congress in the future. "I view this newly established connection to the Library of Congress as the beginning of a long-term relationship," said Geppi.
The Library holds more than 140,000 issues of about 13,000 comic book titles, dating back to the 1930s. The collection includes many firsts and some of the most important comics in history, including the first comic book sold on newsstands; the first series featuring Batman and other iconic characters; and All Star Comics #8, which introduced fans to Wonder Woman. The Library also holds a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, which tells the origin story of Spider-Man, and the original artwork that Steve Ditko created for that issue. The Geppi Collection expands and enriches this strong foundation and fills gaps in specific issues.
The Serial and Government Publications Division maintains one of the most extensive newspaper collections in the world. It is exceptionally strong in United States newspapers, with 9,000 titles covering the past three centuries. With more than 25,000 non-U.S. titles, it is the largest collection of international newspapers in the world. Beyond its newspaper holdings, the division also has extensive collections of current periodicals (40,000 titles), comic books (13,000 titles) and government publications (1 million items). The collection of comic books is available for research use by scholars, collectors and other researchers in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. More information can be found at http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/
The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division holds more than 15 million photographs, drawings and prints from the 15th century to the present day. International in scope, these visual collections represent a rich array of human experience, knowledge, creativity and achievement, touching on almost every realm of endeavor—science, art, invention, government and political struggle, and the recording of history. More information can be found at loc.gov/rr/print/.
The Library of Congress is the world's largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States—and extensive materials from around the world—both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
# # #
PR 18-072
05/30/18
ISSN 0731-3527
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June 18: Juana Medina at Takoma Park Library
Juana Medina - Sweet Shapes — at Takoma Park Library (MD)
Monday, June 18, 2018 - 7 p.m.
The author of 1 Big Salad and ABC Pasta has concocted a new and delicious way to learn about shapes. As you walk through this sweet forest, you'll find crispy rice wolves, jelly bean butterflies, lemon tart goldfinches, and macaron owls. If you look hard enough, you'll even find a recipe for chocolate-covered strawberry foxes. Medina, a RISD graduate and Corcoran College of Art teacher, brings each page to life with joy and whimsy. Sweet Shapes will captivate the attention of the squirmiest young learner. Ages 0-5
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