Thursday, August 08, 2019

Hickman's Influences on House of X

By RM Rhodes

I haven’t read X-Men comics in at least a decade, if not longer. I would be hard-pressed to tell you if I’ve even read a single issue from this century, to be honest. But I do keep up with the news of X-Men the same way that I keep up with what my ex-wives are doing these days – I used to care a lot more, but I’m still curious. At the very least, I figure that I’ll hear about current developments on Jay and Miles Explain the X-Men at some point in the future.

I mention all of that to explain why I knew that it was a big deal that Jonathan Hickman was going to be writing the X-Men. And why I knew that in the new Hickman-written book, House of X, Moira MacTaggert was now a mutant who has lived several lives, reincarnating again and again to change things in her next life. That's an interesting plot twist.

And then I saw on Twitter that author Claire North was noting similarities between that plot and the plot of her 2014 book, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I did not see that coming.

I did find the interview that Jonathan Hickman did with The Beat back in 2016, where he mentions The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August as a book that he’s currently reading and currently enjoying.

No word as of yet whether anyone has pointed this out to Hickman or Marvel, or gotten a response if they did. But it’s certainly something worth noting. Because Claire North has certainly noted it.

More to follow, I'm sure.

__________________________________________________________

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 ex-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. 

Former local animator Danny Taylor obituary

Danny Gordon Taylor (formerly of Hyattsville) Dead: Oscar-Nominated VFX Artist Was 69 | Hollywood Reporter

8/7/2019 by Mike Barnes
"Raised in Tonawanda, New York, near Buffalo, Taylor worked for WDCA-TV 20 in Washington before launching Taylor Made Images in Hyattsville, Maryland. At his company from 1983-91, he did traditional animation and VFX work for clients including DuPont, PBS, Sam Raimi, the IRS and the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as a feature film, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990). ... "

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/danny-gordon-taylor-dead-oscar-nominated-vfx-artist-was-69-1230130

Thanks to Michael Cavna for the tip

Cavna on Tom Richmond's caricature of Mad

The story behind the fake Mad magazine and TV Guide covers in 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood'


NPR on the 90s comic book, at least the alternative version

With These Comics, Learn How to Laugh Like It's 1999 (Hint: Don't)

Hole in the Wall Books to close

After 40 Year Run, Hole in the Wall Books Closes Its Doors This Month

Tuesday, August 06, 2019

PR: Small Press Expo 2019 International Special Guests



For Immediate Release

Contact: Eden Miller

 
Small Press Expo Announces Danish Special Guests for 2019.
 
Bethesda, Maryland - Aug. 6 2019
 
Media Release - Small Press Expo is proud to announce Danish International Special Guests for SPX 2019. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, over 20 programming slots and additional hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics. Additional Special Guests will be announced soon.
 
SPX 2019 is honored to have the following creators as International Special Guests to this year's show:
Craig Frank
Craig Frank was born (1961) in St. Louis, Missouri. In his early years he had various jobs that helped form his character, among them, a gardener at a retired Nun convent, an asst. to an alcoholic carpenter, a trash collector in a ghetto north of St. Louis, a bellman in the Adolphus Hotel and a printer at a chemical infested T-Shirt Factory. He graduated from Columbia College with a Cum Laude in BFA. A multi-talented artist, Craig moved to Denmark in the late 80's and later joined the world of animation and directed his debut film Journey to Saturn, and created his debut Graphic Novel, JFK Secret Ops. 

Craig Frank has created the graphic novel COOL VALLEY, a coming of age story set in the 70's in a small town outside St.Louis. As one reader wrote: I read it without stopping and laughed many times; it kept me wanting more of both our pasts.
Emil Friis Ernst
Emil Friis Ernst (b. 1994) is a danish cartoonist, illustrator and comics teacher living and working in Viborg, Denmark. He has previously had journalistic comics work published on The Nib and exhibited at Erlangen International Comic Salon. 

He's into big robots and cinema from around the world. 

Emil's forthcoming books "Dr. Murder and the Island of Death" and "Reservat" (the latter written in collaboration with Dennis Gade Kofod) are equal parts spandex-clad pulp and dystopia, dealing with loss and longing in a world on the brink of destruction.
Halfdan Pisket
Halfdan Pisket's graphic novel debut, the highly acclaimed Cockroach Trilogy (2014-2016) has been applauded by the press and awarded numerous prizes.

"My father's story is similar to so many others, who travel away in an attempt to put the past behind them, but who eventually fall apart in the new country."

The Cockroach Trilogy is about the life of Pisket's father, an Armenian immigrant escaping opression and trying to make himself a new home in Denmark. It is a story about not belonging anywhere and about losing everything. The trilogy is heavy awarded and sold for publication in The Netherlands (SubQ), France (Présque Lune), Sweden (Kartago) and Mexico (La Cifra editorial). Recently the French edition of the last volume of the trilogy won Série de la Prix Angoulême in France.
Ida Rørholm Davidsen
Ida Rørholm Davidsen is a Danish illustrator educated at The Royal Danish Academy of Design in Copenhagen. Ida works independently with illustration, art and book projects, besides being part of the design collective and shop GunGun. Her drawing style is light and feminine, and mixes the analogue pen drawings with digital pastel colouring.  
 
Ida Rørholm Davidsen won the Ping prize (the official comic award in Denmark) for "Best young-adult comic" 2019. for her comic debut: Lonely journey.

Lonely journey is a a modern fairytale about the young girl Anna, her obsession with computer games, her loneliness and the every day struggle to fit in.
John Kenn Mortensen
John Kenn Mortensen says "It warms my heart when I am able to scare people or just give them the sense of having experienced a small adventure from something so simple as a drawing on a post-it note.
 
People will always be afraid of monsters. For some people spiders are monsters... just very small monsters.

There is this very fine moment right before you realize you are gonna be eaten by something you never thought existed. It is like when you get bad news and you think 'I never thought this was gonna happen to me.'"
Rune Ryberg
From dinosaur evading cats in a post apocalyptic world to pinball playing teenage lizards in the early nineties, Rune Ryberg (1979), turns his characters to life with his dynamic, color saturated, rough style. In 2014 he made his debut as a comic book artist with the award winning Gigant published by AdHouse Books.
Rikke Villadsen
Rikke Villadsen is a comic book artist living and working in Copenhagen. Since her 2011 debut, she has been defying artistic conventions and surprising readers with her stories' surreal twists. Her work questions gender as a social construct, embracing the complexity of being feminist and human. 

The Sea is Rikke Villadsen's English-language debut graphic novel, released January 2019 by Fantagraphics Books. The tale of a sailor lost at sea is full of evocative symbolism that doesn't just bubble beneath the surface of the water, but drenches the sailor—and reader—like a tidal wave.
Paw Krogsbæk Mathiasen
Paw Krogsbæk Mathiasen is the founder, editor and publisher of Danish publishing house Fahrenheit (established 1991), the Danish publisher of the works by Craig Thompson, Miles Hyman, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb and Charles Burns and Danish artist like Peter Snejbjerg and Rikke Villadsen among many.

Paw Mathiasen will take part in SPX searching for material to publish at the Danish market.
Pernille Arvedsen
Pernille Arvedsen is an editor at the Danish publishing house COBOLT
Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 650 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests.

The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show.

As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries. For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.smallpressexpo.com.
Small Press Expo
P.O. Box 5704
Bethesda, Maryland
20824
STAY CONNECTED
Small Press Expo | P.O. Box 5704, Bethesda, MD 20824




Silent Auction continues with signed Richard Thompson books at One More Page Books

They're not making any more of these, folks. I guarantee it.

Upcoming Events
The auction site is live! You have until 5 pm on August 18th to bid on the AMAZING items, experiences, and services donated by staff, authors, local businesses, customers and friends! We appreciate all of your continued support in response to the recent property tax increase from Arlington County.








703-300-9746

Monday through Saturday 10am to 8pm, Sundays 12 noon to 5pm
CONNECT WITH US


One More Page | 2200 N. Westmoreland Street, #101, Arlington, VA 22213





ICAF 1999 program booklet now online...


The International Comic Arts Festival was founded in DC by Guy Spielman of Georgetown University and Tristan Fonlladosa of the French Embassy in 1995, building on top of an earlier Georgetown University Manga Symposium. It's changed names several times and now is a traveling show. I met a lot of interesting people and made a lot of good friends when it was regularly held in the area. The schedule information contained in this booklet is already online, along with others, at http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org/past-icaf-programs.html but I like to present the object, as it were, even if the actualy object is now in a recycling bin.

I'll upload more of them as I recover my comic art vertical files from a basement flood earlier in July when Arlington, and my house, underwent flash floods throughout the county.

The files themselves, or in the case of material that got wet, reasonable facsimiles, will eventually reside at the OSU Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, hopefully.