Thursday, October 25, 2018
Cartoon from artleytoons
My cartoon, "No Light in That Pumpkin" addresses Trump and the caravan of immigrants; that group of folks who've been the targets of xenophobic lies ranging from their being killers and rapists to radical Islamic activists and funded by George Soros. —Steven G. Artley, artleytoons
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©2018 Steven G. Artley • artleytoons
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National Book Festival videos of cartoonists are online now
Kate DiCamillo & Harry Bliss: Book Fest 2018
SPEAKER: Harry Bliss, Kate DiCamillo
EVENT DATE: 2018/09/01
RUNNING TIME: 24 minutes
Graphic Novels: 2018 National Book Festival
https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=8470
SPEAKER: Patrick McDonnell, Pénélope Bagieu, Tillie Walden, Ed Piskor
EVENT DATE: 2018/09/01
RUNNING TIME: 87 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Patrick McDonnell discusses "The Mutts: Spring Diaries," Pénélope Bagieu presents "Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World," Tillie Walden presents "Spinning" and Ed Piskor discusses "X-Men: Grand Design" at the 2018 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Nov 6: Superheroes exhibit opens at American History museum
Superheroes
The museum's annual holiday celebration will feature a special display centered on superheroes.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Editorial Cartoon from artleytoons
My cartoon, "My Kind of Guy" suggests a possible source of belligerence that provokes violent attacks like we saw against our citizens today.
—Steven G. Artley, artleytoons
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©2018 Steven G. Artley • arteytoons
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Unity Day in some of The Post's comic strips
The Daily Cartoonist explains what's going on in Mutts, Zits, Denace the Menace, Hagar the Horrible, and Baby Blues.
Shauna Miller on Julie Doucet
Feminist Comic Artist Julie Doucet Is Back With A Re-Release Of "Dirty Plotte": BUST Interview
- Shauna Miller is a writer and editor in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, NYMag, and the Washington Post. Find her writing at Shaunajmiller.com. She's a co-founder of Girls Rock D.C., a weeklong rock camp for girls and gender nonconforming kids a.k.a. The Happiest Place on Earth.
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Martha Kennedy interview
Library of Congress curator talks early struggles of female artists
Krystal Ball & Buck Sexton
Rising with Krystal & Buck 10/11/2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Comic Riffs talks to editorial cartoonist Steve Kelley and about Rick McKee
Fort Worth Star-Telegram apologizes for 'Field Guide to Liberals' cartoon [McKee]
Editorial cartoon from artleytoons
My cartoon, That's No Lady... regarding Trump's rescinding protections of transgender rights
(click on image for larger view).
(click on image for larger view).
—Steven G. Artley, artleytoons
Tonight Oct 23: Ali Fitzgerald - Drawn to Berlin at Politics and Prose Union Market
Ali Fitzgerald - Drawn to Berlin: Comic Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe — at Politics and Prose at Union Market
Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Fitzgerald spent eight years in Berlin teaching her illustrating craft to centers asylum seekers from countries like Syria and Afghanistan – people who have often been targets of bigotry and hatred in both their native and adopted countries. Her powerful graphic memoir chronicles her experience with these extraordinary students, telling both their stories and her own. Fitzgerald, an artist who has exhibited extensively in Europe and the U.S., has had her comics regularly featured in The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and McSweeney's, and her book is a compassionate and intimate look at the empowering capacities of art, capturing the highs and lows of a decade in an ever-changing European metropolis.
Click here for more information.
Politics and Prose at Union Market 1270 5th Street NE Washington DC 20008
10/29: DC Zinefest, Come to Hallowzine, Now at Slash Run
Hallowzine is an annual event where some of our favorite zinesters, comedians, and storytellers tell and/or read spooky (and/or Spoopy) stories. Previous years have included everything from modern adaptions of Filipino folktales to a puppet version of the internet creepypasta "hook hand car door." Each hallowzine is emceed by a skeleton and a ghost who tells the most obvious ghost jokes imaginable.
Our dark masters at DC Zinefest request a $7-10 sliding scale donation
Where: Slash Run 201 Upshur St NW, Washington, DC 20011
When: October 29, 2018 at 7 PM
If you'd like to read, sign up on our certainly cursed form--in blood if you've got it:
Hope to see you soon,
DC Zinefest Organizers
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Meet a Visiting Cartoonist: A Chat with Izar Lunaček of Slovenia
by Mike Rhode Early next month, DC will have the rare treat of two Slovenian cartoonists visiting to sign their graphic novel and open an exhibit of comic art at the Embassy of Slovenia (which was part of Yugoslavia when I was young). As Izar Lunaček noted on our blog last week:
The first days of November will see a double hit of Slovenian comics descend on Washington DC. On Thursday November 1st at 7PM, Nejc Juren and Izar Lunaček will swing by Big Planet Comics on U St., NW to talk about and sign their book Animal Noir, a comic thriller about a giraffe detective in a world of lion politicians and hippo mobsters that came out with IDW last year, and on the 2nd the same guys will open an exhibition on the vivid history of their own country's comics scene at the Slovenian embassy on California Street. Admission to both events is free and food and drinks might be served. Come on, come all, it'll be wonderfully fun!
He was also willing to answer a slight modification of our usual questions.
Funny and thoughtful are probably my two mainstays. I love comedy and I'm a trained philosopher, so that's probably the stem of that. Within those margins, however, I've done everything from anthropomorphic newspaper strips to socially critical detective novels to autobio and science stuff.
How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?
I love drawing by hand, still, the scratches of the crowquill pen and the smooth waves of the brush intoxicate me. That said, I have started coloring mostly on the computer because it simply reproduces so much better. Plus, I like the stark look of computer graphics used sparingly.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
At the very end of the seventies in Yugoslavia. I grew up reading great local and Italian comics (Marvel was a bit off-limits because ... Communism) that you can learn more about at the expo opening. When I was 12, however, my birthplace broke up into a buch of smaller states, accompanied by a bloody war. Lucky for us, Slovenia only got off with a 10-day skirmish and a couple dozen dead. It has, however, lost the entire huge, cosmopolitan Yugoslav comic market and that's something we're all still recovering from.
Where do you live now?
In Ljubljana, Slovenia's tiny capital. It's a beautiful little town with just over a quarter million folks, but all the perks of a capital, from well stocked bookshops to possible investors to great party venues. It has a river winding through downtown where you can sit and drink and sketch and chat, I love living there. The only downside is the minuscule market that can't really support comic creators - not even commercially-bent ones - hence my regular job-seeking trips to France and the US.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
I studied classical painting. Mainly because all of my favorite Slovenian cartoonists (TBC, Miki Muster, Magna Purga - you'll learn about them at the exhibit 😊) attended the same Ljubljana academy of fine arts. It's not really an "Art School;" it's more of the army crossed with apprenticeship; you had to be there the whole day, no excuses, from morning til night, and somebody was constantly shouting at you while the whole class stood still and didn't dare object too much. It's very classical, with obligatory attendance to daily session of drawing naked old bums posing for cheap and learning how to mix your own paint and stretch canvases and listening to lectures on art history. But it was great; together with my PhD in philosophy, it's given me a wonderful grab-bag of crafts and ideas to do comics with.
Who are your influences?
Apart from the local guys mentioned above, I read a lot of newspaper comics as a kid - Calvin and Hobbes, Pogo, Krazy Kat - and later moved on to more mature stuff by Alan Moore, but also Moebius and the madmen gathered around the Parisian mag Charlie Hebdo. I'm currently freshly charmed by French new wave comics with guys like Joann Sfar and Christophe Blain, but have also been discovering American gems I'd overlooked before - like Mignola. I guess an unlikely combo of whimsically loose and fatefully blocky art is what drives me at the moment.
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
Maybe I'd have gone to New York for a few years in my twenties which I always dreamed of, but was stopped by a bad relationship at home. It'd be fun to have gotten some isolated, unanchored, bridge-burned work done at that time. Other than that, everything's been pretty great.
What work are you best-known for?
In Slovenia a whole generation grew up on my newspaper comics in the early 2000s and I still get patted on the back for that at parties. Internationally, I made a tiny splash with an intricate webcomic called Paradise Misplaced that was later published in book form both in Spain and the UK. And in the States, my one claim to fame is IDW's recent Animal Noir series I co-wrote with Nejc Juren, a fantastic Slovenian writer and good friend. We're trying to get more stuff published over here, but meanwhile, we always have our home public as a grateful if not always paying recipient.
How does one pronounce "Nejc?"
Nejc is pronounced Neyts (j is like y and c is like ts in Slovenian). It's short for Jernej so Jerry basically.
What was your comic strip about?
The newspaper comic was about two tiny animals, the inquisitive, species-unidentified Professor and his unwitting helper Hedge the hedgehog. They'd live at the edge of a human city, discover human artifacts and devise ingenious theories about them. Or put on a theater show for the other animals or talk about politics etc, etc: in short, philosophical mayhem infused with a whole lot of silliness.
What work are you most proud of?
I currently just love working on my biweekly blog for a Slovenian web-paper. I think I've broken new ground there like I haven't felt in a long time. And the five people who actually read comics in Slovenia all love it.
What would you like to do or work on in the future?I'd love to do some more ambitious stuff for France or the States, just to kick me into gear for a bit and get me to test my boundaries. Working on Animal Noir for IDW was really rewarding, so another project of that scope would be wonderful. My co-writer and I on that are currently working on a slice of life romantic dramedy set among the Ljubljana student population; that's fun and might get greenlit by a British publisher soon. While waiting, however, I just spew out pitches on everything from Greek monsters to killer Santas and cities populated entirely by birds and I'll jump into any one of them with gusto the moment I get a bite.
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
I walk around town, I chat to people and I sketch and doodle and play. Chasing the zing but not so hard to chase it away. But that's when I'm between projects. If I have a deadline, I usually just plow through it, goggles on, engine revving, and it usually works, more or less.
What do you think will be the future of your field?
My hope is for comics to get increasingly accepted by the general populace. I love the French way where everybody reads comics resulting in a wide range of genres from art to trash to non-fiction to mellow pop. That's my hope but I think it stands a chance too; telling stories in graphic, easily graspable form is very much a trend now and I'd be willing to bet it's a long-term one.What conventions do you attend?
I go to either Angouleme or St Malo, the two biggest French comic festivals, every year. Those are great for just seeing all these personal, passionate stories enabling their authors to survive on the sales. I went to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time last year to sign Animal Noir and it was a soul-sucking experience to see an entire art form get trampled by its own geeky spinoffs. This year, I'm planning to stay in the US long enough to attend the Comics Art Brooklyn festival and I'm guessing I'll leave with a much better aftertaste.
Have you visited DC before?
Once, a few years ago. It's where a girl lives who I've been pen-pals with since we were 13. I visited her and played with her kids and baked burgers with her hubby on the back lawn. I hope they'll have us over this year too.
If you've visited, what monument or museum do you like?I visited some strange sights during my first visit. I asked my hosts to take me to Baltimore and to the Chesapeake River and Cooke's Point in Maryland, because I'd been translating John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor novel into Slovenian and really wanted to visit the intricately described geography of the book I'd been living in for a year.
Can you tell us about your book talk at Big Planet Comics on U St?
On November 1st at 7PM me and Nejc will be signing Animal Noir, a hardboiled thriller starring a giraffe detective loose in a city of lion politicians and hippo mobsters. We'll be talking about making the series too, writing the stories and creating the complex world enabling a range of African animals to live in relative harmony. The book came out last year with IDW and the company's legendary founder, Ted Adams, to whom I'd pitched the idea at a Barcelona comic festival, served as the series' dedicated editor for its brief four issue run. The book wasn't a huge hit, though, so it wasn't renewed for a second series, but we're shopping around for someone to get it running again 'cause we just love it. It got some really nice reviews too so I guess we're not the only ones.
Who does what on Animal Noir and how do you divide up the work?
The basic idea (giraffe detective in a world of mafia hippo, exploited zebras and some ruling cats) was mine and Nejc infused it with lovely details on how the social system was sustained -- from periodic zebra riots, to hunt porn, and struggles between political fractions. We were world-building over coffees for months before getting to the stories, which were also a joint venture. Nejc took care of the narrative and emotional structure and I provided the surface texture, but we constantly edited each other's contribution. I then broke the story down by pages and Nejc would do dialogues on the go for the spread I'd be working on that day. Once I did the linework and colors, we'd go over it again several times to trim the tone and rhythm here and there. It was a wonderfully intertwined, fun enterprise where we climbed on each other like rungs, ending up higher than either one of us could reach on their own.
Can you tell us about your history of Slovenian comics presentation?The day after presenting our book - on November 2nd at 7PM - I'll be opening an exhibition of the best of Slovenian comics at our country's embassy on California street 1210, just a stone's throw from Big Planet Comics on U St, NW. Over 30 oversize prints of pages from our local masters of the medium will be on display and I'll bring a bunch of original books too. Translations will be provided and I'll open the expo with a brief talk on the history of Slovenian comics to give some context. Ours is a small country but the comics medium has produced a handful of truly class A creators that are really worth getting acquainted with, I promise. Again, there might be food and wine, so ...
Do you have a website or blog?
I have this blog but it's in Slovenian. The best way to check out and follow my work right now, I think, is through Instagram, where I regularly post works in progress and finished stuff. My username is giraffedetective. Go figure.
Nexus - Comic Shopping in Reykjavik
by RM Rhodes
One of my great pleasures in life is visiting comic book stores in other countries when I am travelling. I recently went to Reykjavik and went out of my way to visit the local comic book store Nexus. Nexus is towards the outskirts of the city, away from the commercial city center. In fact, it's actually surrounded by apartment buildings and it comes across as a place where locals spend time.
Next door to the store proper are a couple of empty storefronts that are well-lit and filled with tables where people can come and sit and play board games, Magic, or RPGs. A bit of online research tells me that child and adolescent psychologist Soffía Elín Sigurðardóttir opened an outreach center of sorts called Nexus Noobs, where pretty much anyone under 25 can come twice a week to play games and so forth in a deliberately curated safe space.
The shop itself is more or less like a department store for geek and nerdy material. The article I linked to above describes Nexus as a "premiere hub for all things geek," which is very accurate. Comics take up one section, videos are in another, Funko Pops have an equally large section, and there are a variety of smaller sections packed into the back of the store. The fantasy and science fiction selection is excellent, and their Star Wars section had map books I'd never seen before, and I try to keep track of those when they come out.
There was a place to purchase paints and miniatures, along with brushes and other painting materials. There was a cosplay section. A section filled with board games. A section of RPG books. And a whole corner dedicated to Taschen books, LBQT materials, healthy sex ed books, and erotic material. And doormats by the front door. If there was some kind of pop culture thing that they did not have, I am fairly sure that they would be willing to order it for you.
They had everything in there, and the stuff they had was of higher quality than one would get from a comparable place in any random place in the States. If the price of importing is more or less the same, then it makes sense to bring over better quality material. There was some work in Icelandic, but the vast majority of the material in the store was in English. Not a lot of people speak Icelandic, but the vast majority of the population of Iceland can read English.
The comics on offer were very interesting. The usual amount of Marvel and DC was present, but there was strong lean towards the Image/Humanoids/Fantagraphics material as well. There were some shelves of manga, but indie graphic novels in the "we've moved past superheroes" mode are winning out. In contrast, the only European work present was the stuff printed in English for the American market. I vaguely recall a shop in Reykjavik that I visited during a previous visit that was more European-oriented, but that was early November 2016 and a lot of things happened that month.
The store itself was within easy walking distance of the Reykjavik city center (everything is within walking distance of the city center), but it has a very different vibe than the tourist shops that demand the attention of tourists. Earlier I mentioned that Nexus is a place that seemed to be more focused on the locals and I think that really is the target demographic. That's not to say that they are unfriendly to people they don't recognize - they were perfectly happy to take my cousin's money.
Having spent time in the overly touristy commercial city center of Reykjavik, I can absolutely understand why the locals would want a place that caters to their needs and interests. Most Americans don't really have any insight into how accessible their version of pop culture is to people whose first language is not English. Nexus was a good reminder that people in a marginalized language group will do whatever they have to in order to participate in the global pop culture conversation.
If I was living in Reykjavik and I needed a place to go to feel like I was not alone in my nerdcore tendencies, I would be at Nexus once a week, just to walk around and enjoy the feeling of being catered to.
__________________________________________________________
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.
One of my great pleasures in life is visiting comic book stores in other countries when I am travelling. I recently went to Reykjavik and went out of my way to visit the local comic book store Nexus. Nexus is towards the outskirts of the city, away from the commercial city center. In fact, it's actually surrounded by apartment buildings and it comes across as a place where locals spend time.
Next door to the store proper are a couple of empty storefronts that are well-lit and filled with tables where people can come and sit and play board games, Magic, or RPGs. A bit of online research tells me that child and adolescent psychologist Soffía Elín Sigurðardóttir opened an outreach center of sorts called Nexus Noobs, where pretty much anyone under 25 can come twice a week to play games and so forth in a deliberately curated safe space.
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| Not pictured: Darth Vader |
There was a place to purchase paints and miniatures, along with brushes and other painting materials. There was a cosplay section. A section filled with board games. A section of RPG books. And a whole corner dedicated to Taschen books, LBQT materials, healthy sex ed books, and erotic material. And doormats by the front door. If there was some kind of pop culture thing that they did not have, I am fairly sure that they would be willing to order it for you.
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| Register and main entrance - check out the giant corner of Funko on the right |
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| All the comics |
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| All the books (with concerned employee) |
Having spent time in the overly touristy commercial city center of Reykjavik, I can absolutely understand why the locals would want a place that caters to their needs and interests. Most Americans don't really have any insight into how accessible their version of pop culture is to people whose first language is not English. Nexus was a good reminder that people in a marginalized language group will do whatever they have to in order to participate in the global pop culture conversation.
If I was living in Reykjavik and I needed a place to go to feel like I was not alone in my nerdcore tendencies, I would be at Nexus once a week, just to walk around and enjoy the feeling of being catered to.
__________________________________________________________
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.
Friday, October 19, 2018
A 'lost' Newseum book and exhibit of New Yorker cartoons (in 2007)
Every once in a while, you run across something you've never seen. Such as this New Yorker-related book:
Fortunately, there's usually someone else to ask. In this case, I turned to Michael Maslin, New Yorker cartoonist and historian, and writer of the excellent Ink Spill blog.
I have stumped Michael before, notably with a book of New Yorker cartoons collected for a celebration of George Washington University's president Stephen Trachtenberg. He's got a copy of that now though...
To this one, he wrote back, "Wow, completely new to me! Great find!"
I complained from a bibliographic point of view about the book having a completely different second title page.
Michael cut back to the chase, noting the useful information, "Also of interest in the intro is that some of the cartoons were exhibited. So both the book and the exhibit were under my radar," and he continued, "This is exactly why the Spill was created (one of the main reasons anyway): to catch things like that. The stuff that tended to slip by, known only to the folks that were part of it," also summing up why ComicsDC exists as well.
Now I have to find a second copy for him, and a third for Michigan State's Comic Art Collection...
In unrelated news, at the same library sale, I found a copy of the only Gary Larson-signed Far Side book that I've ever seen:
Reader, I bought it.
Fortunately, there's usually someone else to ask. In this case, I turned to Michael Maslin, New Yorker cartoonist and historian, and writer of the excellent Ink Spill blog.
I have stumped Michael before, notably with a book of New Yorker cartoons collected for a celebration of George Washington University's president Stephen Trachtenberg. He's got a copy of that now though...
To this one, he wrote back, "Wow, completely new to me! Great find!"
I complained from a bibliographic point of view about the book having a completely different second title page.
Michael cut back to the chase, noting the useful information, "Also of interest in the intro is that some of the cartoons were exhibited. So both the book and the exhibit were under my radar," and he continued, "This is exactly why the Spill was created (one of the main reasons anyway): to catch things like that. The stuff that tended to slip by, known only to the folks that were part of it," also summing up why ComicsDC exists as well.
Now I have to find a second copy for him, and a third for Michigan State's Comic Art Collection...
In unrelated news, at the same library sale, I found a copy of the only Gary Larson-signed Far Side book that I've ever seen:
Reader, I bought it.
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